Kara -apprentice to Thyra

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: A Dirge for the Order
1

[size=150]Kara[/size]
Characteristics: Int +2, Per +1, Pre 0, Com 0, Str ‑1, Sta +2, Dex 0, Qik +1
Size: 0
Age: 15 (15), Height: 5'0'', Weight: 128 lbs, Gender: Female
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence: 1 (3)
Virtues and Flaws: The Gift, Book Learner (Book Quality: +3), Apt Student (Learning Bonus: +5), Flawless Magic (Spell Mastery Experience: Doubled), Hermetic Apprentice, Educated (50/50), Covenant Upbringing, Pessimistic, Proud, Twilight Prone
Combat:
Dodge: Init: +1, Attack ‑‑, Defense +1, Damage ‑‑
Fist: Init: +1, Attack +0, Defense +1, Damage ‑1
Kick: Init: +0, Attack +0, Defense +0, Damage +2
Soak: +2
Fatigue levels: OK, 0, ‑1, ‑3, ‑5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: ‑1 (1‑5), ‑3 (6‑10), ‑5 (11‑15), Incapacitated (16‑20), Dead (21+)
Abilities:
[tableborder][tr][th]Skill[/th][th]level[/th][th]specialty[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Slavic[/td][td]5[/td][td][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Latin[/td][td]4[/td][td]hermetic usage[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Code of Hermes[/td][td]2[/td][td]political intrigue[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Magic Theory[/td][td]2[/td][td]Rego[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Faerie Lore[/td][td]1[/td][td]fairies of Transylvania[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Dominion Lore[/td][td]1[/td][td]saints[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Leadership[/td][td]1[/td][td]inspiration[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Brawl[/td][td]1[/td][td]dodge[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Organization Lore: House Tremere[/td][td]2[/td][td]History[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Order of Hermes Lore[/td][td]2[/td][td]history[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Survival[/td][td]1[/td][td]Forests[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Intrigue[/td][td]2[/td][td]gossip[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Guile[/td][td]2[/td][td]lying to authority[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Folk Ken[/td][td]2[/td][td]magi[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Etiquette[/td][td]1[/td][td]faeries[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Charm[/td][td]2[/td][td]being witty[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Climb[/td][td]1[/td][td]Trees[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Concentration[/td][td]2[/td][td]reading[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Awareness[/td][td]2[/td][td]searching[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Artes Liberales[/td][td]2[/td][td]logic[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Philosophiae[/td][td]1[/td][td]ritual magic[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Athletics[/td][td]1[/td][td]running[/td][/tr][/tableborder]

Arts: Cr 0, In 1, Mu 0, Pe 0, Re 2, An 0, Aq 0, Au 0, Co 0, He 0, Ig 0, Im 0, Me 1, Te 0, Vi 2
Equipment:
Encumbrance: 0 (0)
Spells Known:
[tableborder][tr][th]Name[/th][th]CT[/th][th]Mastery[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Sense of Magical Power (InVi 2)[/td][td]+7[/td][td]quiet casting[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Sense the Nature of Vis (InVi 5)[/td][td]+7[/td][td]quiet casting[/td][/tr][/tableborder]

Kara is a product of the Tremere training program. When they find promising youths, they are collected and given an education and indoctrination. Kara has been in the system for 5 years and has just had her Arts opened in the past year. She is at times excited and scared for this new adventure. She misses other children her age. Being only able to have conversations with Thyra and the few others who speak Latin, she has been getting into mischief by sneaking around and exploring.

She is unsure about Thyra as a master and this trip to the north. She does not understand anything about the Gifted plague or why they left Transylvania.

[hr][/hr]
Kara was in the background for Thyra but I have been procrastinating in making her up.

2

How does she have Art scores that high after a only having her Arts opened for a year?

3

I'm also curious how Thyra got an apprentice that's trained and has her Arts already opened when the rest of us have/had to spend seasons doing that.

4

Mainly because i am trying to figure out how to make an apprentice with some ability. I will adjust

5

Part of the story. Tremere will often foster apprentices to other Tremere to get them different experience or to bring them into or sent out of Transylvania. In this case, Thyra is sent away from Transylvania as a contingency plan for the survival of the House. She is given an apprentice that she was not expecting or had even met.

6

I guess I thought that we had to pay seasons for whatever training our apprentices got, including having their Arts opened. Certainly Calpurnia spent seasons training her apprentice.

7

I think I mentioned if you wanted an apprentice at start of game you had to pay for it in some way. I'm currently away from a computer and unable to check. The price for such an apprentice as you've described to this point is that you cannot call upon any other assistance from the house until she gauntlets.

8

She would also be a bit further along in her apprenticeship if her scores stay as written.

9

The apprentice has scores in 13 of the 15 Arts. This doesn't make sense. She's had 13 seasons of study, with Source Qualities of 3 or 6? I suppose if an apprentice is only allowed to read very poor, damaged texts, this would be true. This doesn't work with the idea that she's only had her arts opened for a year. She has 48 XP on Arts, which represents two years of XP. Not only that, but she's got no Magical Theory, and I'd expect her to have some, because it's an Ability that can be taught to more than one student at a time. She also has seven spells, five of which have different Technique/Form combos, which means five more seasons of training. Kara is more developed than Maria is, and Maria is in year 8 of apprenticeship.

10

@thompsja. A lot of low art scores in older apprentices represent exposure experience, which is how this looks despite the initial statement of only having Arts opened a year ago. Also, a wise master will teach a spell in his best TeFo combo and the. Teach other spells I. Other TeFos until he hits the limit of spells he can tech in a season. It's the highest applicable lab total that's used to determine the total levels of spells that can be taught. It's a bit wonky, but it makes sense when you put it I. The context of Apprentices (the book) that the last 3 years of apprenticeship are probably focused on teaching spells and a lab total of ~50 is probably not unreasonable for most magi old enough to take an apprentice.

11

I was mistaken - teaching spells doesn't matter, assuming the mentor has a very good lab total. Moreover, you are free in teaching to parse out XP in whatever way you see fit. I still think that Kara should have at least Magic Theory 1.

12

A few observations about the numbers, which still don't add up to me as an apprentice one year into training.

  • Kara is guaranteed to be at least two years into apprenticeship, assuming that her previous parens didn't spend more than one season a year teaching her. That's one season to open the Arts, and one season teaching spells. But more is likely.
  • Kara has 48 points of Arts. Assuming she gained them by exposure, she would have spent 24 seasons gaining exposure. At three seasons year for exposure (she would have to be taught the other season each year), that's 8 years of exposure.
  • We could lower this by a little bit, assuming that she was taught Rego. That leaves 38 xp from exposure, or 19 seasons, which is just a little over 6 years of exposure.
  • That still leaves us a little bit low on teaching, though. I'm not sure what she was taught the other three years.
  • I could just make it work if Kara's parens had a crappy Com and no Teaching skill. Assuming her parens had a -3 Com and 0 Teaching (which seems incredibly low for a Tremere parens), then his SQ for teaching would be 6. Then he or she could have opened her Arts, taught Creo, Rego, Terram, and spells, with 30 points left over for exposure, which is just five years. So the only way the writeup works is if she's an apprentice just out of her fifth year. In fact, to fit this in, she'll actually have to say she practiced one of the Arts for a season (4 xp), since we've still got to fit in learning OOH Lore. But the numbers almost work.
  • A five year apprenticeship also almost works out for her other Abilities, since she has 175 points of Abilities (counting 50 for Educated), which is only 5 points above what a ten year old should have.
  • Things would get worse if Kara didn't have Educated. Then we'd have to fit in teaching her Latin, Artes Liberales, and Philosophiae, which seems to me at least five seasons of effort. But she spent one of her precious Virtue points to allow her to get Academic Abilities early. Since that's not a childhood Virtue and can't be swapped out for anything later on, we don't have to worry about how she learned her Academic Abilities.

So, the build works. It just works as an apprentice who's been studying for five years rather than one.

13

This comment made me think how I've always imagined that the childhood of an apprentice is not a very happy one. There they are stuck with the Gift and no Parma to mitigate it to those around them. They're doomed to always be that wierd kid that no one likes, or worse, the one that everyone picks on because they're unliked.

Kids are not nearly as mature as adults are. You can tell them that they should ignore their feelings, that it's not real but an effect of the Gift. But who really thinks they'll do that? They're kids; they'll follow their instincts and shun the Gifted kid. I just don't see most kids getting over the bad effects of the Gift.

Covenants talks about Familiarity overcoming the Loyalty penalties to grogs over time. But it takes 15 years to overcome the effects of one magus, which is an entire apprenticeship. And I've always figured that's just to tolerate the magus. I never imagined it was to be friendly with the magus.

So I'm left with a ten or fifteen year old apprentice feeling very alone as none of the children in the covenant want to play with them, or worse, are only playing with them because they're forced to. I just don't see a Gifted child having much in the way of friends. The only people they can talk to without the Gift getting in the way is magi, and magi are notoriously busy people.

As I said, I can't imagine most apprentices have very happy childhoods. The Gift totally screws them over in that respect.

14

Children with the Gift weren't going to have good childhoods...

15

I will cut down on the arts. I did not think of how much was going into the arts and spells. i will cut down to two spells and 30pt of arts. I can't believe I forgot magic theory. Kara is from the Oppidum of Scholomance (AtD pg 91) which would basically allow me to use the Educated or Arcane skills virtues.

16

If Arts have been opened within a year, she really shouldn't have more than 8 XP in Arts, in Vim, and other Arts that the master has used in lab seasons she assisted. Vim because of the season of opening Arts.

17

Kara is updated based on comments. Added 2 virtues and 2 flaws. reduced Arts to 8 points. reduced spells to 2. Added more skills