Major saga story hooks

thread to discuss what do we want as major story hooks.

For me, the focus is twofold

  1. MUNDANE POLITICS
    The count of namur wants the covenant out and take posession of the castle.
    The archishop of Liege will have his sights on the "heretics" living at the covenant so he can advance his career by destroying us.
    bravant and Luxembourg have a long feuding history, and we are just in their frontier. Claiming neutrality and that we are an imperial posession might not be enough.

  2. COVENANT DEVELOPMENT
    See how a covenant of hedge magicians develops. A few of your characters might not even live at the covenant. he covenant has a doble focus, its academic design, with the library, and its immediate proximity to the Ardennes. I think this is an area to explore as well.

  3. ECONOMICS
    The covena twill run on a deficit soon as well, since the influx of new magi makes for a god story thar will need to be adressed. I am not an acountant type of gamer, so if someone wants to run the numbers be my guest. I will fudge some numbers to make rough numbers available, but not extremely detailed. from moment 1 I tell you there will be a deficit of around 15 pounds for regular expenses before we take into account setting up labs at above -1 for all the new arrivals. The creators of the covenant will have better labs already up.

  4. WORLD ENDING EVENTS. OR NOT
    the Triamore book has a few world ending events that need to be addressed by the players or the universe collapses. That is something that we will avoid, but we can decide on big events none the less, and even to keep some of the Triamore ones around if you like them. Feel free to voice your favourites 8and most detested) ideas here.

  5. HERMETIC MAGIC?
    Only if you fancy it I will think on exploration adventures to see what happened to the original order of Hermes and if it can be recreated or not. This is a lot of work, so the late is unlikely unless you realy push for it, but exploring the cause of its disapearence might interest you. If not we will go in other directions.

For me Mundane Politcs, Covenant Development , and Econimics are all intertwined. The best way to fend off the political enemies of the covenant is to develop both the covenant and the economic situation of its charter.The biggest advantage of joining a covenant is the fact that once you are supported by it you would have 4 free seasons a year instead of the standard 2, so it's really in the best interests of the characters to make sure it thrives.

I don't think the characters would live long enough or be strong enough to participate in World Ending Events, but given the choices in Dies Irae I'd probably go with the plague.

Restoration of Hermetic Magic would be a saga-defining thing, though searching for its remnants and integrating them into our individual traditions has merits (especially Talisman creation and Longevity Rituals).

An option I'd like to have is for the various traditions represented in Triamore to research a partial magic theory by merging the hedge magic theories of our respective traditions together, developing a breakthrough.Opening the Gift ritual for the next generation of magi.

I'm assuming there are custom Triamore threats, not Dies Irae stuff? I'm into all of the above, really. But I don't think we need to add Dies Irae stuff. Though I don't object if people want to.

No. Triamore-specific stuff. One of them is a coven of powerful Tremere vampire archmagi in our doorstep for example. :stuck_out_tongue:

Interesting.. in the aftermath of the Schism war the surviving Tremere turned to Vampires after all? Though I think most Ars players hate that plot element (I don't mind it though).

I absolutely detest that 3e holdover, but if the rest of the troupe is okay with it then I will go with the flow.

No vampires, do not worry :wink: I am sure we can think of more terrorífic and cooler stuff

I wholeheartedly agree. Unless addressed together, there can't be success in any of them.

Quite!

There may be some work to do before the covenant can support all magi all year, though.

This is likely to define the saga on the onset: getting organized, getting any patent road blocks removed (perhaps just assuring that the peasants stay, the vis and silver are collected steadily and the present economy runs sustainably), assessing the legal and political situation of Triamore (the Emperor, Gaumont, the archbishop of Liège, ...) and the forests close by (robbers, faeries, rogue sorcerors, vis, ...). Is there something urgent to take care of now?

Only afterwards the life as a privileged covenant member may begin. Perhaps.

:rofl:

Ancient Magic, p.11 ( Story Hook: The Language of Innocence insert)

Frederick II you are mensch!

The part of the story hook about Frederick II is based upon a slander by Fra Salimbene of Parma in his Cronica:

" [Salimbene] goes on to enumerate several specimens of the Emperor's "curiosities" or "excesses," though for sheer weariness he will not tell them all. Frederick cut off a notary's thumb who had spelt his name Fredericus instead of Fridericus . Like Psammetichus in Herodotus, he made linguistic experiments on the vile bodies of hapless infants, "bidding foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the chidren, but in no wise to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which had been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments."

If you find me a historian who believes that, please name him to me: I have a bridge in London to sell to him for a very good price. :laughing:

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Europe's slander is Mythic Europe's story hooks! :grin:

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The enfeoffment of Bois de Haillot specifically excempts Triamore from most duties and taxes except agricultural. That means if we are to improve the covenant's economic situation it has to be through Trade or Craft.

Deleting this because I am getting ahead of myself in planning stuff :stuck_out_tongue: We will discuss this in due time :slight_smile: