Lets design a Tribunal Fair

This is a good idea - fairs and markets historically had regulators to resolve disputes, so the Quaesitores just having someone there magi can go to is sensible. And giving the job to a junior Quaesitore (or even a senior apprentice, though they will not have Quaesitorial authority) is good training. I don't think they need to do pre-investigation though, and that's not the style of 5th ed Quaesitores. They simply need to be ready to resolve disputes as they arise.

Could the Tribunal host require accepting such resolution as a condition of selling at the fair?

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Easy to win that one. This isn't an argument, it's just contradiction.

Now I've had the chance to drop an old reference, to realistically comment.
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It's a quirky "booth", and I like the sting in the tail; of finding out the beliefs the person debating Erastrus didn't even realise they held.

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Looks good, are you going to add it to the collection?

I was waiting to see if anyone else had suggestions for improvement. I'll add as soon as I can.

The Hermetic Theater

Type: Entertainment

Description:

You approach a man and asks about the stage being prepared by a group of what seem to be itinerant artists. You are pretty sure it wasn't there this morning.

"You have never seen the Hermetic Theater? Melpomene of Bonisagus is the director. The woman over there, in the green dress. No, the other one, the blonde. She travels the Order with her theater going from Tribunal to Tribunal... but I thought she was going to Thebes this year! We got lucky!"

Background

Melpomene is a Trianomae with a passion for the history of the Order. As a kid she loved watching mystery plays. After her gauntlet she begun to roam the world, and got in love again with theater from several different places. Finally, a few decades ago, she started to write "mystery" plays to narrate the big events of the Order. Her masterpiece is "The Peregrinations of Trianoma", were she retells Trianoma's travels to meet the twelve founders. While not being exactly historically accurate (for example, Trianoma only manages to convince Tremere after defeating him in Certamen, which wouldn't exist for a few years when they first met), it is loved by the public.

The actors are mundane, but Melpomene sometimes invites magi for special participations, or to help with certain special effects outside of her capabilities. She uses CrIg for lighting, CrIm or CrHe for objects and props, and the occasional CrMe to remind an actor who forgot the next line. A multitude of mundane stage tricks is also used. It's usually free to watch the plays, but a few mundanes go around the audience selling salty food and drinks.

The plays reinforce themes like the lawlessness before the Order, the necessity of a strong Code, Bonisagus and Trianoma (sacred) roles in the foundation of the Order, etc. House Bonisagus likes her plays very much. Besides "Peregrinations" other plays include "Join or Die!", "The Temptations of the Devil" (about house Tytalus corruption), "Through Arcadia the Wanderer Goes" (where a mortal travels to the realm of the fairies and meets several figures from hermetic history) and "The Witty Jack" (a story about a clever Redcap who solves various problems with a few simple enchanted items and his cunning), the Magus and the Dragon (were a magus breaches several parts of the Code, messes up with a dragon and ends up being eaten alive. It's actually a very funny play). She is currently working on a play about whatever would get her in contact with your troupe (the Solomonic Order if there is someone from the East, the life of Guernicus if there is a Quesitor to inquire, the forbbiden love between a magus and a noblewoman if there is someone with noble blood, etc), and she would love some feedback on it.

Spell:

Creating the Stage of Hermes (CrHe 30)
R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind
The spell creates a fixed stage with trapdoors, cranes and machinery required for a play. The spell was developed through experimentation and has a minor flaw: there is always a slight mismatch in planks, beams and boards. This causes the construction to look a bit rustic, unprofessional even. The floor is squeaky, and the trapdoors sometimes get stuck. But Melpomene thinks it's better this way; the theater has personality.

(Base 3, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +2 size, +1 elaborate shape, +1 complexity)

Personalities
Melponeme: Prideful +1, Free-spirited +2, Moralistic +1.

Story Seeds

  1. The next play will begin soon, but the actress who plays Trianoma can't be found anywhere. Melpomene asks you to find her. Is she just burned out from rehearsing too much, or is something else at play?

  2. The next play will begin soon, but the actress who plays Trianoma can't be found anywhere. Melpomene asks you to replace her.

  3. There is the symbol of a mystery cult hidden in the background of a scene. What does this means? Who put it there? Is Melpomene related to the cult?

  4. A Flambeau didn't like the way the founder was represented (wrong hair color, wrong height, too wrathful, not wrathful enough... choose it). Melponeme refuses to apologize or make amends. Can you de-escalate the situation? If not, what is going to happen?

  5. The stage is ablaze!!! Was this really just a CrIg sponted spell that got out of control?

Suggestion
Anyone who watches a play can put adventure XP or exposure XP in OoH Lore in that season.

10 Likes

Forgive my lack of activity in this thread. All my brain power has been getting diverted to the Fan Grimoire Project that hasn't been used for my own game and so I haven't been able to design anything new. Might be a while but I'll get back to this and crank out some more events/vendors.

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I am new here, can I ask a question?

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Sure, Stuart, that's the purpose of the forum. Welcome, btw :slight_smile:

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It's Tribunal time again, and we traditionally have a fair, including magically produced mundane goods, various services, and exemplar books and magic or superior items.

It occurs to me that some or much of the fair is in pre-owned goods, including magic items.

So, what are commonly available magic items? They would probably be lesser enchantments, presumably, and probably the sorts of things any junior master can produce, but would be sold at a low vis price.

Lighting, obviously, from glowing stones to flameless lamps.

Fire starters, probably for covenfolk.

Whetstones.

Food preserving chests.

Suggestions?

Low level warding items or combat/defense wands with low penetration.

Items to assist in writing, scribing, and book care.

Charged items that are no longer needed.

Lab texts for unique spells would be expected as well.

Magic arms and armor, especially form a covenant entering winter that doesn't have enough grogs and too many old magic swords.

I like the idea that assorted low-level magic swords are commonly available on the discount rack.

2 Likes

Many obvious ones

  1. Jewelry with Aura of Ennobled Presence
  2. Invisibility cloaks.
  3. Wizard's Sidestep
  4. All of the items in Covenants of course.
  5. Blankets of healing sleep (+9 recovery bonus or the like)
  6. Cloaks with a CrIg effect for those who travel in cold climate.
  7. Magical lighter; mainly for redcaps of course.
  8. Clothing with Doublet of Impentrable Silk.
  9. Vis detectors, maybe a helmet to grant a vision effect.

While I love the bustling fair, the idea of a discount rack breaks the medieval feel for me :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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"L'Artisanat Hermétique", a pair of tractati of little interest for most mages, written in the local language (Langue d'Oï in this case), to allow educated grogs (with Art Liberales at 1 and local language at 4), to read by themselves and get better at handling the various magical items that could be used in the covenant.

Tractatus: 7 & 8 (just to reach Finesse 2 or to allow to improve for those already familiar).

With various illustrations, exercises and sold with a minor item Le Gant du Maître, a black board two feet wide and a wooden spoon and a pouch of white chalk powder.
Le Gant du Maître - The Professor's Glove (name with some irony): ReTe Base 3, move in a very unnatural way chalk, +1 touch, Ind, Inst =4, 50 uses/day +6, level 10 enchantment.

The grog is supposed to practice by controlling powdered chalk, and write or draw more and more complex patterns. He put a spoonful of chalk powder in the glove, focus on the letter or pattern he must draw, clap his hands, and the chalk float a few seconds before laying on a blackboard the pattern the grog is trying to recreate.

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Speaking of grogs, I start thinking about all the magic combat devices that change hands over the dice in the brewer's tent at edge of the fairground.

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Whicle it could be a sleazy:
"caaaam aaaannn, chainmail's only had one previous owners" (chainmail in question looks like it's been chewed up and spat out by a dragon.

It could also be damaged pile tractatus from a covenant that had a water mishap:
"yeah, they all got water logged, but if any of you is good at ReAn you could fix them"

That and magic items that the mage experiented on but came out too unsuited for the purpose:
"I had to experiment to get myy lab total to 42 in one season, and I got a completely unrelated ReAq effect. This is of no use to me, but vis went in and it can still do [thing] five times per day".

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Used items for sale was actually discussed in another thread (part of which lead to me creating this one). The ones that will end up as a junk/bulk sale are generally ones that can be produced for a pawn or two of vis and it numbers with a lab text, which fulfill common needs.

Light, heat, and fire items for example are all going to be fairly common. Small examples of each can be produced for little vis, cut cost since they don't require materials, and can be useful for expeditions. Speaking of expeditions, anything that can be produced cheap for them has the chance to show up. Protective garments, jars of fresh air (useful for going underground), Vis detection, and camping equipment.

Another common category would be things Redcaps are always interested in. They are the largest group in the Order, lack sufficient members who can enchant all they need, and might even buy things on spec to outfit new members. Magi enchanting things useful to them have a good market and there is the option that extras will be sold at fairs (ether extra produced by Magi or excess stock held by Redcaps). In addition to the above things you have Vis classing and movement, Gift detection (depending on your Saga), travel boosting items, defensive items, and storage items.

A good source for ideas is to look at posted Covenants and find cheap items that they have multiples of. Granted items that produce light will be the single most common item across all of them, but by looking you can find different varieties.

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I think you'd see a lot of damaged tractati, of weird but useful spell lab texts. The weird thing about selling all those low level enchantments is that oftentimes a Covenant will still use them years later. The covenant still needs light. The only reason they'd sell them is if they somehow found a 'better' light source they wanted to use regularly. Torchlit-lighting items being replaced by daylight, or variable lighting.

I think you might see a number of 1-3 uses per day items that has been upgraded to infinite as time goes on. Rego Craft wands with brief uses replaced by more usage.

The final thing you may see is... awkward experimental items!
"So when I was younger, I created this cloak that turns you into a large bat, but when you ended the spell you still pooped guano for a day. I've since replaced it with a new one."
"This tunic keeps you clean and dry all the time, but stops you from eating or drinking while it's worn."
"This bridle makes the horse wearing it gentle and calm despite the gift, but when the bridle comes off, all those anger and fear emotions come all at once."

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"Would that be the previous owner's blood?"

While it is possible to produce enchanted items that expire, I have never seen those rules used in a Saga (other than possible SG "special" items). So unless they were destroyed, nearly every enchanted item produced by the Order since its founding is still out there somewhere.

How many enchanted items does the average Magi produce during their lifetime? One, ten, a hundred, a thousand? We are not talking about just the grand enchanted items here. When a Magi enchants lights for their covenant, they are not going to just produce one for example. I would be willing to bet the total number of enchanted items is somewhere between 10 and 100 for the average Magus over their lifetime. The vast majority of those are going to be only a pawn or two of Vis items.
[In my Saga, just from the enchanted lamps we are over 30 items per Magi.]

How many Magi has the Order seen throughout their history? I have seen estimates from five thousand (highly unlikely) to twelve thousand (most likely) to over thirteen thousand (unlikely). Knock off the 1,200 currently living Magi to give you stuff produced by no longer around Magi.

So using the lower numbers, we are looking at 40,000 enchanted items produced in the history of the Order. Using the higher numbers, we are looking at 1,200,000 enchanted items. The actual number is most likely somewhere in the middle of that, say around 500,000.

How many Covenants have failed or died off in the history of the Order? 75~80% of the ones founded? That is probably on the low side (90%+) but tells us that most likely there is at least enough common enchanted items that have been produced to have four or five times as much as there are current Covenants. Current number is around 100, though varies from Saga to Saga. Even on the lower end that would be 400 enchanted items produced by no longer living Magi for every existing Covenant.

What about lost or destroyed items? This is getting into very YSMV but let us use 50% as a starting point. That would mean there is enough common Covenant enchanted items produced by dead Magi still in circulation to outfit every existing Covenant twice over. That isn't counting any items produced by still living Magi.

Using minimum numbers across the board for production (honestly way to low) and a high number for lost/destroyed of 80% still leaves you with 100 enchanted items per Covenant in use/circulation from dead Magi at a minimum. Likely that number should be 500~1,000 even with a higher 90% lost/destroyed.


The total number of enchanted items that exist in most Saga is way to low if you are looking at semi realistic numbers. I am not saying that is wrong, since play how you want to play. The biggest take away is if your players are looking for a simple/common enchanted item, there should be not shortage of possible sellers.

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I was thinking about this very issue, thanks for addressing.

Some magi probably never enchant an item, but there is also an entire House of crafting enchanters, so the production rate on minor items seems to favor a large number of items, and a growing accumulation of them.

Some of these are probably so standard that they are available in package deals.

"A dozen flameless candles? For you, special price, six pawns."