When you get the virtue second sight the first level is free, meaning level 3 would cost 25 not 30 xp...
Also does "French" mean Franco-Provencal or Langues d'Oil?
Understood on Second Sight. Let's just keep the xp there for advancing it to the next level in the future.
On French, I'm not entirely sure. I suspect Franco-Provencal, though given his studies in Paris, perhaps I need to add both?
That might be a good idea though he could pursue the actual studies with latin.
Langues d'oil are the languages described as French in the Normandy book, Occitan in the Normandy book covers south western France, which is where most of the Cathar's history and Monsegur are located. Franco-Provencal appears to be from the Alps bordering modern day France and Italy.
I think given that background, it probably makes sense for him to work it up like this:
Native Language: French (Occitan) 5
Replace Living Language: Italian with
Living Language: French (Langues d'oil) to 4
He grows up near Montsegur, learns a lot of Latin early in grammar school, then off to Paris where he picks up the local flavor fairly quickly as a linguist.
One minor detail- enemies church was required for Cathars living in southern France in 1220. By 1290 it might be more appropriate to have a dark secret than the church as an enemy, given the fact that the inquisition has not yet dragged you off for kindling.
Ahh, that's a good detail. Can that be taken as a Major flaw?
It can only be taken as a major flaw.
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Do you need me to repost these details from my spreadsheet or are you capturing the adjustments for the character sheet you'll post above in this topic?
I can manage, just going slowly.
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It also occurs to me that a perfectus should also be have the non-combatant flaw, though depending on the vow that could be equally valid...
I was thinking the vow was related to chastity and carnal desires.
The thing is that from what records exist the Cathars only seemed to believe that carnal desires were a problem if they had the possibility of producing children, which if you are castrated they cannot. On the other hand raising a hand in violence, even in self defense, wa a cardinal sin for the Cathars.
Ahh. Do you have a good online resource that goes deeper into the Cathar theology and practices?
So we could swap out Vow for Non-Combatant. That would make sense more sense given the above.
Cathars are tricky to pin down- there are numerous conflicting sources and at one point I found a translated transcript from an inquisitor who questioned a woman who was secretly a Cathar- she had been instructed to only have sex with her husband and her (Cathar) priest to ensure nobody else would turn her in, and she confessed to a sin of lust because she had sex with her husband 9and the priest) but felt that these were equal in wrongness. There are also comments that they felt having children was wrong because it dragged souls into a corrupted world, and that accordingly they felt that sex which was non procreative (gay, oral, etc) was more justified morally. There is also the troubador legend of the fisher king who might have been based on legends of a castrated perfectus, supposedly protecting the holy grail (which may have been metaphorical) and would only reveal his information to someone who asked the right question.
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So what you're saying is Luc should take the Relic Virtue? 
No... you are not the fisher king
A friend of mine wrote his phd thesis on an inquisitor's treatment of catharism, and he said it's sometimes hard to tell to what degree there was a unified movement and to what degree they interpreted a bunch of different local variations of faith under this moniker. In our game, of course, we have a fairly unified movement, so all of this is beside the point.
LOL
I ran across some references to the possible connection between the Cathars and the Templar Knights when I was looking at the Cathar castles. They speculated that some Cathars escaped with a treasure. I suppose that's all part of the same legend.
It's certainly interesting stuff.
@Seon You're probably right. Historians likes to label and organize things, so it makes sense that variations on a theme brought together under a term like Cathar. Though there was enough commonality to mount a defense of sorts during the crusade against them.
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My assumption here is that Catharism fragmented over time fairly rapidly under the weight of persecution. It's hard to get together to discuss the finer points of your theology when you are getting burned to death whenever you are discovered.
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