Liberius of Bonisagus

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: The Prestige of Thebes
1

Liberius of Bonisagus
Parens: Emygdius of Bonisagus (deceased)

Age: 23 (born 1197)
Size: 0
Gender: M
Confidence: 1 (3)

Characteristics:
Int 4
Per 2
Pre 0
Com 4
Str -2
Sta -1
Dex -2
Qik -1

Personality:
Curious +3, Cautious +2, Thorough +2

Virtues:
The Gift
Hermetic Magus
Puissant Magic Theory (free)
Adept Laboratory Student
Book Learner
Good Teacher
Great Intelligence
Great Communication
Inventive Genius
Affinity with Intellego
Puissant Intellego
Skilled Parens
Linguist (from HoH:TL)

Flaws:
Necessary Condition (reading)
Driven (major; to write a book that becomes famous)
Plagued by Supernatural Entity (ghost of his parens)
Difficult Spontaneous Magic

Abilities:
Native Language: German 5 (storytelling)
Area Lore: Rhine 1 (history) (5 xp)
Athletics 1 (running) (5 xp)
Awareness 3 (searching) (30 xp)
Stealth 1 (hiding) (5 xp)
Survival 2 (wilderness) (15 xp)
Brawl 1 (dodging) (5 xp)
Charm 1 (being witty) (5 xp)
Folk Ken 2 (magi) (15 xp)
Guile 1 (elaborate lies) (5 xp)
Latin 5 (Hermetic usage) (601.25=75 xp)
Classical Greek 4 (Hermetic usage) (401.25=50 xp)
Magic Theory 4 (enchanting items) (50 xp)
Artes Liberales 2 (grammar) (15 xp)
Parma Magica 1 (Mentem) (5 xp)
OOH Lore 1 (authors) (5 xp)
Philosophiae 1 (natural philosophy) (5 xp)
Area Lore: Greece 1 (history) (5 xp)
Magic Lore 1 (creatures) (5 xp)
Code of Hermes 1 (Tribunal procedures) (5 xp)
Concentration 1 (reading) (5)

Arts:
Creo 3 (6 xp)
Intellego 9+3 (30*1.5=45 xp)
Muto 1 (1 xp)
Perdo 0
Rego 5 (15 xp)
Animal 0
Aquam 3 (6 xp)
Auram 0
Corpus 0
Herbam 0
Ignem 3 (6 xp)
Imaginem 0
Mentem 5 (15 xp)
Terram 5 (15 xp)
Vim 3 (6 xp)

Wizard's sigil: The colour blue.
Warping: None yet

Spells:
Comfort of the Drenched Traveler (Perdo Aquam 5)
Cloak of the Duck's Feathers (Rego Aquam 5)
Lamp Without Flame (Creo Ignem 10)
The Call to Slumber (Rego Mentem 10)
Thougts Within Babble (Intellego Mentem 25)
The Crystal Dart (Muto Terram 10)
The Unseen Porter (Rego Terram 10)
Piercing the Faerie Veil (Intellego Vim 20)
Piercing the Magical Veil (Intellego Vim 20) (as Piercing the Faerie Veil, for magical regiones)
Aegis of the Hearth (Rego Vim 20)
Gather the Essence of the Beast (Rego Vim 15)

Combat: Fist/dodge: Init -1, Atk -1, Dfn 0, Dam -2
Soak: -1

Background:
The child who would become Liberius was intelligent but frail. His parents were repulsed by his Gift, and were relieved when a strange old man offered to take the child to an environment where he would be more comfortable.

Liberius's master, Emygdius of Bonisagus, was brilliant but erratic, and would sometimes neglect his apprentice for seasons at a time. Liberius spent these seasons in the covenant library, becoming fascinated by the magical world described in the covenant's books. The library contained a few books in Greek as well as books in Latin, so Liberius taught himself Greek in order to read them. While not in the library, he would entertain the covenfolk by re-telling stories he had read in the books, and by the end of his apprenticeship he was an accomplished storyteller.

Liberius approaches magic as something to understand rather than something to do, and during his apprenticeship he focused on the art of Intellego in order to better learn about the world. He made it his life's mission to write a book that would become famous throughout the Order of Hermes. He is still undecided what that book should be about: one of the Arts, or Magic Theory, or perhaps even an enchanted item in the form of a book, which is magically filled with whatever knowledge the reader desires. He knows he is not experienced enough to begin writing his book yet, although in a sense he has already begun, since he thinks of his entire magical career as research for his eventual great work.

Liberius's focus on learning from books led to a flaw in his spellcasting process, which his master did not notice until it was too late to be corrected. Liberius cannot cast a spell without reading words of power from a book or scroll. It's not that he can't remember the words, it's that the act of reading is an essential part of his spellcasting process. He carries with him at all times a large scroll containing the words of power which he needs to cast all his spells and which he can combine to cast spontaneous magic. Given time and writing materials, Liberius could recreate the scroll from memory, but without it he is entirely unable to cast spells. The need to hurriedly combine written words when casting spontaneous magic also means that doing so is always an effort for him. He has recently had the idea to partially get around his restriction by creating enchanted items (for example, a magical torch so that he always has light to read by), but he has not made any yet.

In the last year of Liberius's apprenticeship, Emygdius died in a laboratory accident. One of the other magi of the covenant finished Liberius's apprenticeship and administered his gauntlet. Emygdius had not finished with his apprentice, however, and on the day of Liberius's gauntlet he returned as a magical ghost to deliver another session of tuition. Emygdius continues to return at sporadic intervals to teach his apprentice new lessons, but death has rendered him even more eccentric than he was in life, so both his lessons and his teaching methods have become bizarre and possibly dangerous.

During his time in his home covenant library, Liberius became fascinated by tales of ancient Greece and its lost magical secrets. Now that he's passed his gauntlet, he has headed to the Thebes tribunal in the hope of discovering ancient magical secrets (and write a book about them).

2

Good draft. :smiley: A few comments to help develop him.

  • Puissant Magic Theory as his House virtue.
  • Necessary Condition is quite severe. Makes it almost impossible for him to cast spells quickly (including in combat) or in adverse environments, as he must take out the appropriate scroll to cast a spell. This is worse then the casting tools of a Verditius. That will be fun to see. Certainly, fast casting will be impossible.
  • The way his background reads, he appears to have spent almost all his apprenticeship in the library, not interacting with anyone. Surprised that in such condition he would have developped as such a great communicator (Great Com + Good Teacher). Perhaps the background simply gives an incomplete view of that time period. He might possibly had some help from one of the covenant's mundanes, who took him under his wing while his master was so occupied? That way he would have met and interacted with more people, and been taught the more social skills of communication, allowing him to become what he is now.
3

Well obviously. :slight_smile: I just forgot to write it down because it was free.

What I'd meant was that he has a single scroll containing the key words of all his spells, so he wouldn't need to hunt for a different scroll every time he casts a spell. I've changed the text to clarify that. I imagine that if he's going into a situation where he needs to cast spells quickly, he'll already have the scroll ready in his hand. He's never going to be a fast caster, though - my concept was for a magus who is better at learning spells than he is at casting them. I considered giving him Slow Caster to represent the time it would take to read the words, but I thought it would be too frustrating for a play-by-post game where the next combat round might not be for several real-world days. I also intend for him to eventually acquire some magic items that would be useful in combat, e.g. a wand with some kind of offensive spell.

Good point. I've added a bit about him entertaining the covenfolk by re-telling stories he'd read in the books.

4

Updated with skill points, spells and other details. Will wait to see if anyone objects before copying him to the Magi thread.

5

If I haven't already mentioned it, this is approved.

6

I'm curious on how this is going to work when you start to acquire new spells as the saga progresses. All of the characters combined have a rather wide range of spells that we start with, and while not entirely common, there are times where spells are going to be "shared" between Magi. Not to mention that, at some point, you'll invent new ones and acquire others from a wide variety of means. So eventually that list of spell keywords is going to be rather lengthy.

What I'm trying to say is: At some point, the number of keywords you have is going to exceed the amount that can be listed on a single piece of parchment, requiring you to have to carry around more than one sheet. Parchment isn't heavy, but when rolled into scrolls it can get a bit unwieldy (I have yet to meet a Mage in any game for any system that folds paper). More than 1 scroll means you are going to have to do some searching whenever you want to cast a spell, no matter when that happens to be. This could slow you down in combat, causing you to take (at the SG's discretion) more than a single combat round to cast a spell because you are, essentially, googling for a keyword. Or, to put it in terms for the game, you are looking up the keywords on multiple scrolls to find the right ones you need.

I don't have an issue with the flaw, I'm just pointing out that, at some point, this may become a rather serious detriment.

EDIT: As soon as I posted this, I had another thought on this. You could, at some point, have so many keywords that you end up binding a book out of the parchment pages, complete with an index/table of contents, and leave yourself several pages of blank parchment with which to add to the book. Could be an interesting story if that book becomes lost or stolen...

7

As written the restriction does not say anything about what he is reading, he could carry pamphlets around with him and whip one out and read it when casting. His page of keywords wouldn't have to expand if he casts using the same keywords. Remember that according to the core book, when you learn a spell from another magus you are actually reinventing it with their assistance (or with their lab notes), so it will tend to conform to your own limitations and capabilities.

8

This is no different than a Verditius magus with his casting tools.

9

Well, I'm mostly new at this, so they were just thoughts I had the stemmed from Arthur's original post on the subject. Ignore them if they aren't correct!

:slight_smile:

10

To avoid future headaches I've reworded it slightly, so he no longer has to add his individual spells to the scroll, it just has a set of key words he uses for all his spells. I got the idea from the Ex Miscellanea example magus from the core book, who has to be touching stone and so carries around a piece of stone.