How do you get a (Gifted) Hedge Wizard group be a coherent threat?
Say I have a coven of Scandinavian Seithr witches taking on a Hermetic mage.Thanks to the Gift penalty, I would expect expect that mutual mistrust would send individual witches (starting with the weaker ones) to attack independently.
What I need is for them to attack in a co-ordinated fashion to be a convincing threat..
So how would I get them to ignore their own Gift penalties?
Would it be too unbalancing if I said this magical group knows how to make charms that can protect one specific Witch A from against the Gift penalties of one specific Witch B? Each of the coven members has one such charm for each other coven member. The charms are non-transferable and both Gifted witches need to be present at the crafting of each Charm.
Your Coven of Seithr Witches might also have access to cultic Fertility Magic and a version of Fertility Ritual (AM p.56f), and then have daughters born into the Coven all receive the Gift and the (ArMDE p.114) Minor General Virtue Unaffected by The Gift.
How would you need the Coven to be balanced, and with what?
I was suggesting adding a mechanism to game-play and was asking if anyone could see if the new mechanism would prove unbalancing to the rest of game-play.
I keep forgetting about Unaffected by the Gift. I will have to follow that up.
And you didn't yet say, how the Coven got it and at what price. This would determine strongly. how it affects further development of your game world and game play.
The other option would be to one of the witches to have Gentle Gift and Unaffected by the Gift and serve as the contact between the others, similar to Soqortan council, if you want a somewhat recent threat that will not have too much impact in the future.
The most mundane explanation is acclimation, the same was the grogs in a covenant become acclimated to the Gift of individual magi they serve. Next most obvious would be to coordinate through intermediaries from a distance, possibly through writing. Then they can all attack at dawn from separate locations.
What’s interesting is that Rival Magic explicitly says that the very witches you’re speaking of aren’t fully aware of The Gift:
The rarity of The Gift, and the relative youth of the organization, mean that Raudskinna’s members have not yet fully understood the threat The Gift poses.
Rival Magic, p. 107
Though obviously, your group may have made that leap - honestly, understanding the full scope of The Gift, and thus the benefit of Parma Magica, would be an invaluable social leap. Indeed, knowing that it’s a thing might be enough for the group to make choices to resist it, intentionally choosing to be patient with each other. 50 xp towards Active Listening.
They might also be able to communicate via Familiars, or even through Fetches (and the various Norse equivalents thereof). What would be VERY fun is if they became aware of the Redcap Network and realized that it wouldn’t actually be that hard to recreate it themselves, for their own purposes. Especially if their variant are all taught Flight.
I do also think that witches aren’t necessarily going to WANT to do a “We attack head on at dawn” strategy - Folk Witches don’t really have a lot of very immediate offensive magics (though of course you could give them some) where most mages DO. Which means there has to be a Strategist who can mastermind everyone else, and while you might not LIKE them (that darn ol’ gift!) if their plan makes sense you might be willing to put that aside long enough to get your marching orders, and then you don’t have to see them until you’re delivering an Arcane Connection.
I do think that having written letters is fun - it’s something for the players to discover one of, and then start pulling on the threads, discovering a bigger and bigger conspiracy.
The leader could have the Gentle Gift (or even not be gifted himself) and Unaffected by the Gift, and he would be coordinating in person with each gifted person without each of them being in contact with the other, except through indirect means (written message, magical mirrors of communication if they have the resources).
One of the member of the cabal has the virtue “Unaffected by the Gift” and has a script to initiate the other members - this seems quite plausible. Since it is a cabal of hedge witch, being member of an hedge mystery cult is conceivable, thus there is a cult lore pre-existent, and if one can initiate the Unaffected by the Gift, they have a way of collaborating. It will make this script quite a threat for the Order, what if if other gifted group would use similar method ?
One thing I will say for a lot of rival/hedge mages that they have on the order (if the goal is just “Make them a viable threat”) is numbers. OoH mages are limited to “How many gifted children can we kidnap, and then wait fifteen years to train” whereas a lot of folk witches (etc) can initiate a bunch of unGifted peasants into four different supernatural abilities in a year, then let them practice for a few years while you’re initiating some more witches. If a small, dedicated coven started an aggressive recruitment scheme with a high amount of group control, and didn’t try to do anything to raise attention to yourself, you could easily assemble 20-30 witches (of middling efficacy) in a decade. And while any given magus can handle a witch, “suddenly a squadron” is a real problem for a Spring Covenant.
Interesting, I hadn’t considered the Raudskinna. I may have to review the plot elements.
Essentially I was working on what could be a Damhain-Allaidh resurgence story-line. My idea is that when the Spider realised that he was in danger of losing against Pralix while reaching the time he needs to change bodies, he decided to hide away some of his elite forces to await his return. This included a coven of Strathclyde witches cursed to serve him and pass the same curse to their apprentices. He sent this coven across the North Sea for safekeeping and partly to investigate certain premonitions about Vikings. Then the spider failed to re-incarnate and call back his forces, so the coven kept on following his last orders, building their numbers and absorbing native knowledge.
When the last living member of the coven who had received direct orders from Damhain-Allaidh died and the curse of obedience/servitude makes itself known, demanding the younger witches serve their dark lord. The younger witches work out a way around the curse, by finding a likely person who can demonstrate at least one of the Spiders supernatural abilities, be-spell and enthrall him so that he is very compliant, then have him speak the pass-phrases that identify him as Damhain-Allaidh. This works for several generations, until the coven comes under the influence of the Muspelli.
I figured that the Gift acclimatisation charms was something discovered by Damhain-Allaidh group of hedge-wizards and spread amongst his elite forces.