Julia the Dove (Grog, Familiar of Antonius Ex Bonisagus)

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Ad Astera per Aspera
1

Julia the Magical Dove, Familiar of Antonius Ex Bonisagus (Might 5, Vim)

(Designed as a Grog level summer magical character)

Background:
Julia is a dove that saw the light of day in a small grove in Umbria. When she was still a hacthling, her parents were concerned because she appeared quite
frail and became sick more often than not. Nevertheless, she still lived and as soon developped an almost otherworldy ability to prevents misfortunes, once saving her
siblings from the claws of a stray cat.
One day, as she was flying to Assisi to go visit some parentage, she met an interesting man and was captivated by his views about God, religion and the world. She
spent several hours listening to the mendicant friar preaching to merchants, townfolks, noble and clergyman alike. Her head filled with questions, she took the human
form, a young woman in her early twenties with light brown hair and gray eyes, and introduce herself as Julia to the friar, who was himself named Francis of Assisi.In
the following years, Julia visiting him often to discuss and learn more about God, moral philosophy and the Bible; he even taught herthe basics of reading and writing
so that she could one day ad the Bible by herself.

In 1218, Francis of Assisi boarded a ship to Egypt to try to convert the Sultan to Christianity.Julia, wanting to follow in the footstep of her mentor, flew there on
her own. One day, while she was resting under the shade of the lush leaves of a palm tree, hiding from the scorching heat, she was struck with a premonitions of an
impending catastrophe; a man with red eyes would be assaulted by an angry mob of locals near the pyramids, and many innocent people would die or be injured by the
magic of the strange man. Trying to prevent this from happening, she flew as quick as she could and after some time spotted and observed the man for a while. He didn't
not appear dangerous, although he seemed a bit lonely. As the man was leaving what appeared a camp of gypsies and headed to the place she had forseseen the incident
would occur. She flew at great speed dangerously close to the man'S head and landed ten paces before him on the sandy road. Every time he would step forward, Julia
would again fly towards the man all while tried to avoid his waving arms. Eventually, to her suprise, irrited the man swore in italian.
Not believing in her luck, she started a conversing with him in italian. The man, Antonius Ex Bonisagus, visibly happy to have someone with whom to chat in his native
tongue, and to be honest, some company at all, spent the remainging afternoon discuss with the Julia. After a few days, Julia quickly realized that although Antonius
wasn't a bad man, that he was following a dangerous path. She decided to stay with the magus and provide him with some spiritual guidance, like the mendicant friar had done for
her.

Characteristics (base): Int +2, Per +5, Pre +1, Com +1, Str -3, Sta +0, Dex +1, Qik +1
Characteristics (modified for size): Int +2, Per +1, Pre +1, Com +2, Str -13, Sta +0, Dex +1, Qik +6
Characteristics (human form): Int +2, Per +5, Pre +1, Com +1, Str -3, Sta +0, Dex +1, Qik +1

Size: -5

Personality Traits: Dove +3, Loyal (Antonius Ex Bonisagus +3), Peaceful +2, Curious +1, Kind +1

Virtues: Magical Animal (free), Premonitions, Second Sight, Wise One (Seer)
Flaws: Pious (minor), Fragile Constitution, Motion Sickness (Except for walking and flying)

Qualities:

-Minor Virtue: Unnafected by the Gift
-Minor Virtue: Student of the divine
-Minor Virtue: Clear-thinker
-Minor Virtue: Great Perception
-Minor Virtue: Great Perception
-Minor Virtue: Puissant Second Sight
-Improved Abilities
-Improved Abilities
-Personnal Power (Human form, 1 might point)
-Personnal Power x2 (Sight Beyond Sight, 1 might point)
-Gift of Speech

Inferiorities:

-Minor Flaw: Restricted Power (Sight Beyond Sight, Must Sing before using this power)
-Minor Flaw: Slow Power (Human Form)
-Reduced Might x5

Abilities:

-Athletics 3 (flying) 30
-Awareness 3 (predators) 30
-Brawl 2 (dodge) 15
-Music 3 (singing) 30
-Stealth 4 (hiding) 50
-Survival 3 (foraging) 30
-Folk Ken 2 (covenfolk) 15

-Theology 2 (Biblical Knowledge) 15
-Second Sight 5+2 (Ghosts) 70
-Divine Lore 2 (Saints) 15
-Premonitions 5 (Covenfolk) 70
-Charm 2 (Covenfolk) 15
-Etiquette 1 (Covenfolk) 5
-Intrigue 1 (Covenfolk) 5
-Guile 1 (hiding true identity) 5

-Artes Liberales 1 (logic) 5
-Italian 3 (Religious Terms) 30
-Bargain 1 (Food) 5
-Civil and Canon Law 1 (papal laws) 5
-Philosophae 2 (moral philosophy) 15

Languages acquired at binding

Dead Language: Aramaic 4 Academic Usages 51
Dead Language: Ancient Egyptian 4 Academic Usages 51
Dead Language: Latin 4 Hermetic Usages 50
Living Language: Arabic 3 North African Dialect 30
Living Language: Italian 5 Religious Vocabulary 75

2

I'm very interested in watching this thread, and Cheech also. I'll eventually be doing one, but haven't the faintest idea of how to do it.

3

Given the complexities of creating a magical animal character, could you please describe the method you used to come to this character?

4

Sure !

The general concept is based on the dove of virtue, p.41 of HoH: MC.
I distributed 7 points to all stats.

The abilities, virtues and flaws (none) are based on the Magpie (LoM p. 45) and slightly modified to account for the smaller size of the dove.

5 free qualities, rest comes from inferiorities

460XP spent in total (360 for summer character +100 from quatilies) (N.B. The abilities for the natural dove were paid from the 360 XP pool)

Stats :

Characteristics (base): Int +2, Per +5, Pre +1, Com +1, Str -3, Sta +0, Dex +1, Qik +1
Characteristics (modified for size): Int +2, Per +1, Pre +1, Com +2, Str -13, Sta +0, Dex +1, Qik +6
Characteristics (human form): Int +2, Per +5, Pre +1, Com +1, Str -3, Sta +0, Dex +1, Qik +1

5

okay, one slight detail- the dove is might 15, which means it gets 15, not 5 free virtue points.

6

I am not sure how you arrive at 15 might.

I designed it as a grog in a high power level saga, hence 5 might. I understand if you have reservation about the character, as it stands now as somewhere between a grog and a companion. The goal is for her to be like a wise woman in the covenant, somewhere in the background, and not to have her more involved in story than a grog would.

7

I was thinking this was a magical animal companion, but apparently it is not

8

Her background sounds like a biblical parable or something out of a hagiography. Very cool and in the vein of the game.

9

I was finally putting this into a character sheet and realized you had taken away all her might points- a might 0 entity is not magical, and you also list her migt as being 5, which it would not be if you took 5 levels of reduced might. Since this is being moved from grog to the familiar pool I am going to do a little bit of reworking, which I will post when I am done...

10

adjustments are as follows:
base might:15
final might:10

added qualities:
ritual powerx2+improved power: grant gentle gift- costs 5 might or 5 confidence (granting temporarily returns might to Julia when revoked)
vis mastery
no fatigue
improved confidence x2 (score=3, starting confidence=7)

11

One thing:

Her arabic total is 4 and she speaks ancient greek instead of ancient egyptian.

(didnt update the character after changing antonius seasonal advancement long ago.)

12

This confuses me. Is the "modified for size" line her stats as a dove? If so is Per supposed to go down and and Com supposed to go up?

O would like to present her stats as Dove and as Human for ease of gameplay.

13

In the version in my spreadsheet I have Per +5, Pre+1 and com+1 for both forms.

14

When you create a magical character, you have 7 points to spend, the same as with a regular character.

-The base characteristics are how I spent the 7 attributes points.
-The modified characteristics are for the size only (dove form if you prefer)
-The human form stats are the same as the base characteristics.