Legacy of the Phoenix

The book Carmen brought back from Alfheim appears to be Elaine of Flambeau's magnum opus, written just before she passed into Final Twilight. The inscription in the front of the book reads:

[i]To my filii,

I am so proud of you, for solving the final puzzle. This text is the last work I will ever produce before Twilight takes me; it is yours. Do not let my teachings be forgotten.

Elaine filia Delendar, Maga Flambeau
Vivat Lux Lumina[/i]

The book begins with a lab text for a spell entitled, "Phoenix Lance of Solar Fury." Following it is a high level Ignem summa (Level 24, Quality 12). Following that is a glossed and illuminated summa on the mastery of Phoenix Lance of Solar Fury (Level 5, Quality 15). The very end of the book has notes, seemingly on how to use one's Twilight experiences to transform oneself into a being of pure Magic, but these notes are incomprehensible; there must be some kind of mysteries needed to make sense of it.

If anyone is going to study this book, please let me know about it here. (I usually don't read the character advancement threads.)

Rodrigo would like to have a look :smiley:
What is described sounds very much like what he did sorta accidentally on-purpose (meaning he was indeed experimenting to discover how to transform into a magic being, but he did not expect it to happen so suddenly).

Depends on if/when it gets added to the Covenant library. When Vibria sees it, she will make room for it in her schedule. With her Affinity, she will be gaining a level (sometimes two) a season from studying it, and she was afraid her Ignem may have stalled a bit.

It would be up to the Council whether or not to treat "Rodrigo" as a councilmember or as a protected guest. If the council decides to allow him access to the covenant's library, though, he doesn't make a whole lot of sense out of that section of the book. She does seem to be discussing how to attune your Twilight experiences towards transformation into a being of pure magic, but she uses all kinds of jargon that doesn't make any sense. Might be some kind of Mystery, or some sort of Lore, that's needed to make more sense out of it.

It goes into the library in 1230, at the beginning of summer. So when Vibria gets out of the infirmary, the book is in the library.

The book is bound in some kind of hardened, boiled leather. When Vibria opens the book, she realizes the vellum by its smell-- instead of sheepskin, this book is written on pages made from membraneous dragonwing.

Vibria would like to study the book in Winter 1230-31, then. (All her Winter seasons are going to be earmarked for study and/or lab projects because cold.)

That makes sense. That is sorta what happened to him, but he doesn't know how he made it happen. He wasn't prepared for it. His notes (which Dimir Taar referred to in the coffee table book (the one on the walking nightstand)) concern investigations into the possibility of such a procedure. He wanted to know if it could be done and how.
Doesn't matter if he reads it. Someone could just tell him about it. He is a magic being, it is not in his nature to get around to doing anything. He is static and unchanging, aware of it yet at the same time completely oblivious to it.
But he will state he is jealous. Being a Valkyrie or an Enheirar would have been so much cooler. He didn't plan on actually being a genie or having a locus. He wonders what that is going to be like in a few hundred years.
He will also mention that his idea to change his locus is more of a theory than a plan. He knows it can be done, but it takes some serious magic that he doesn't know and that none of you have. But he knows where to find it.
And now he is off on another idea. Is it possible to transform from one sort of magical being into another? Is it possible to be de-magic-itized by stripped of might to exactly 0 and transformed back into a mundane being? Sorta like they did with Metron. Did that really work? And then is it possible to transform again?
He plans (and forgets) to research these ideas (that he forgets about) one day (which will be never). He spoke the idea, mortals heard it, now it is gone.
Carmen, however, is very tempted to study this. Being a Valkyrie would be f&%$*@g wicked awesome.
But it would be blasphemous. By both Jewish and Catholic standards. So best leave that for Vibria (that hussy that stole my egg) to study it.

Arachné catches the thought
This is an interesting question.

I've seen magical beings perish when deprived of their might. Yet, metron didn't die, although he's the only case I've heard of such a thing. Should I hasard a guess, I'd say the following: As far as I know, not only wasn't he kept his mundane body: Although that one was sustained by magic, he just lost the sustenance, and thus could fall back on it, whereas a ghost or dragon's existence is entirely powered by might. Perhaps more importantly, he wasn't transformed for that long, and the years couldn't catch up with him. Should he have changed 2 centuries ago, he might very well have dissipated on the spot.
Or maybe... Maybe this is just god's, or the devil's, will.
Anyway, better safe than sorry: undergoing further transformation and changing one's nature seems easier and safer to me.

The Ignem summa? There's nothing particularly special about that. It's just an Ignem summa :slight_smile:

Though the first time Lux belches up a gout of flame onto the book, she discovers that the entire text is completely fireproof.

Well, except for the fact that she can actually learn from it. At her level, that's kinda hard to come by.

(Looks to me like she hasn't yet maxed out "Riddles of Mars" which is higher Quality.)

Somehow I missed the Ignem books when I was making her planner. I'll pencil her in for some seasons of Ignem, between her spells and MT and Parma (for the Wizard's Lance).

what are we to do with the Phoenix? Does it take a few years to mature or should we run a side story?

Lux matures to full size within a couple months, say, a season.

There was a follow-up to the events in Asgard but they happened within a couple of months... Probably about the time that Lux is full-grown, but you'd wanted that put on hold.

yeah, we were stacking all the events in the same year. We gotta watch out for doing that this upcoming cycle.

If you want to spread it out, there could have been time dilation somewhere along the way, spitting Carmen out a year later than previously planned. That'd put the "ohshitlookitwhathappened" in a different year, without messing up the relativity of the timeframe.

you tossed Tales of Asgard and the egg hatching right on top of the adventure for Vulcanus. But don't worry. There are several glitches and mistakes I made. This was my first shot at the multi thread style, lessons have been learned and I have a plan to correct plausibility and loopholes.

So, who has the little firebrand bonded with, if anyone? (and I mean bonded in the mundane sense, not the hermetic familiar sense.)

Unless someone has other plans, poor Lux has been "cooling her heels" in the Eternal Flame, all on her li'l lonesome.

We can play out the story, I'd like that. Joust not in 1230. Toooooo much stuff goes down in 1230. The next cycle I am going to make sure things get broken up better. Maybe 1231? A year after Carmen returns and a year after Vulcanus breaks Vibria's heart. Good time for some bonding and girl and girl action.
That didn't come out the right way. I mean...