I have been looking into the witches of Catalonia. There are a lot of references to them. More thank remembered. In a lot of cases there are references to aquelarres and hailstorms (great name for a metal band, btw) as well as flying around. Bad weather seems to be their main feature along with flying and quelarres. So, tempestaria witches.
On the other hand the diverse character concepts I am juggling for the witch do not need a major witch virtue most of the time, so I will create a non Gifted witch. I am deciding if he will be a younger son of a noble (a bastard?) or a church man in minor orders. I am having problems keeping myself away from fighter characters. Long traditions die hard xD
I am sure he knows and is just being smarmy
I have not seen that character sheet in years! I think I left off with him being frozen in the Ice Cavern, best for his own protection and ours.
That Marcellus was Xavi's first character. The second Marcellus is Arthur's character. The character with the flame brother cult was the second or third character Xavi made for this game. I forget the name. I remember he had a confrontation with Roberto over hedge wizards and sahirs. Roberto's position was that all members of the Order of Hermes, regardless of affiliation are under his protection, even sahirs; and all hedge wizards not of the Order, even if christian, had to join or die.
The two made peace, Xavi heped us defeat the Scion of the Salt Wyrm, then Xavi got wrapped up in political activism and had to take a hiatus. I can respect that, I went through something similar with the crisis in the US.
One thing to realize with him is that Dream Magic is that the Order does not like it( TMR pg 112) and it is illegal to learn Dream magic. There is a mystery cult that does it but the Criamon is outside that hence the Dark Secret.
The exact wording, in the context of the Mystery Cult that does this, is (TMR, p.112):
Learning the magics is not illegal; only a magus practicing them on his sodales in the Order, or using them to interfere with mundanes. But the practice is definitely discouraged.
The scrying part could certainly be a possible explanation
Yes, I guess it is the scrying bit. Interfering with mundanes how? Now getting info is illegal? That does not make much sense to me. Most established covenants IMS tend to have a network of informants that act as an early warning system for trouble. Getting to know what happens around your home turf is the basic thing to do here... Mundanes are not protected against scrying afaik unless that causes you to peer into hermetic Magi's stuff. I. That case yes, it is a breach of the code. But if you use it to gain info knt he court of Bob the knight and he has no hermetic interlocutors except yourself, I see no issue here. You need to be careful, but that goes for everything that magi do.
As I haven't read that section of TMR in details, I don't know the exact rationale about that. However, playing with the dreams of others (influence them, drive them mad, etc.) can be a form of blatant magic. When you start doing that to important mundanes, they and theirs start looking for wizards/faeries/demons to blame (and they aren't particular about which). Bad business all around.
The dream witches, as they were more commonly known by non-members, are feared and hated perhaps more than any other Hermetic group.
There were members of the original cult that were trying to influence other more predominate magi via their dreams. Those Magi were Marched. If you read the section Structure of the Volshebnii Mechtateli, you will see what the Order thinks of people with Dream magic. What the Criamon are doing is outside the "beautiful dreams" of the reformed cult.
Int +2 Str -1
Per +2 Sta +0
Pre +2 Dex +0
Com +0 Qik -1
MYTHIC HERBALISM
Animal ken [incomprehensible]
Magic Sensitivity [No Defenses]
Entrancement [Delet. Circumst]
Student of Magic Realm.
Clerk - Exorcist
CURIOUS
No magic defenses (sensit.)
Incomprehensible (An. Ken)
Deleterious Circumst. (Divine aura 4+)
Mentor (S) either his family or the monastery
Reckless.
Joan is the bastard son of a baron from the county of BesalĂș. He has been trained in the monastery of Camprodon to learn his letters in order to be a good healer and (church) advisor for his noble branch. The only issue with that idea is that the community of monks is somewhat less hardcore Benedictine than they seem to show, and as well as being a community of healers that ora et labora they are also a community of wise men, that have introduced the young man into their arcane tradition.
Most of the monks are not Gifted, but a pair of them are. A few of them are also nightwalkers that battle the infernal witches of the area every spring solstice to determine how good the harvest will be. They see this as part of their job towards God and their community.
Being very curious and not overly religious, the young Joan has devoured as much knowledge as he has been offered. He has been specially keen on learning about the magical world, and has delved in astronomy and astrology as well as searched for the hidden proprieties of natural items. His driving curiousity marks him as a great external agent for the monastic community and the abbot is using him a such.
Right now he lives between his family lands near BesalĂș and the monastery. Being in minor orders and a trusted friend of the heir he has quite a bit of latitude on what he can do. He is not a very accomplished herbalist, but he is useful to his family as a court magician, and to the monks as an agent both in court and abroad.
Recently the monks have been receiving reports that mention communities of magicians in the mountains and an Order of them. The abbot is concerned and has decided to send Joan to investigate.
Note: I plan to initiate Flight (and warped magic) after finishing the character
Warning: I realized a little late that I was, well, late. So this post may be a waste of time.
FWIW, I took "Tainted with Evil" for arachne with a similar goal in mind (although I was aiming more for "sinister" and less for "brooding")
IIRC, a Social Handicap could work, too.
I see what you mean, but see no easy way out. You're asking for a minor version of a minor virtue, so I'd be tempted to argue for it to be free, yet it is not worthless.
So perhaps the solution is to broaden it, but I'm not satisfied by my ideas at the moment (they revolve around ideas to make the animal unaffected by the gift)
My Ars-Fu is dusty
Remember that Destruction alone is a Major Focus.
So IMO, you need to lessen this to make it a minor, not broaden it.
Hum...
Elemental Destruction is a first step, but it's too broad, and I don't want to add another adjective.
Natural Disasters?
Or if your character is based upon being a Rock, what about a focus in Moving Stone? that'd let you do plenty of destructive things while being also useful.
Sorry, I'm in a hurry, can't spend too much time on this
IIRC, yes for Magic thing. Take Magic Thing Blood: Rock or something, and take Gift of the Berserker's Fortiitude as a power.
Or, isn't there a Body of Stone, or Skin of Stone (I don't remember) power in RoP: M?
Sorry, I don't feel like I've been much help
FWIW, the focus seems OK to me.
Wait, I'm 21 days late???
Oh, I may end up scrapping this email entirely
About the broadness, good question.
At its base, the focus should affect wild animals, or transforming into one.
So, I'd say that transforming into part of one feels ok, so long as it's a MuCo(An) spell and your body parts change.
FWIW, seems ok, although I'd drop the "holding part". This is no different from being next to a door Obliterated.
Wearing, OTOH, makes sense, but I'm always wary about applying Immersion rules to spells. I'd probably drop it.
Oh, thanks Marko! Hope I'm not replying for nothing, then!
Ah, great! It reassures me that we think alike
Personnal Power is a Minor Virtue, as Lesser Power.
So I'd allow you to take a it as part of your Magic Blood instead of Lesser Power.
Now, IIRC, 1 fatigue "buys" 5 might cost. 25 levels of effect.
So, what you could do, is design a "Skin of Stone" effect that costs 5 might. You can take 1 fatigue.
I'd keep the duration at Diameter, which is enough for most fights.
Oh, Essential Trait: Tough is pretty nice, too, I like it!
So, posting this, since this is too long already, hope this'll be useful.
IMO, this is a focus in Voice, Sight or AC range under another name, so no. It is also bland.
Hum...
Yes, "Throwing Stuff", in short
Moving Stuff is close to a focus in Rego. I'd say it's probably a Major Focus.
OTOH, "Throwing things", considered as Momentary, rapid movement, rego spells, seems OK as a minor.
I may remember wrongly, but I believe it's 1 fatigue per 5 might cost, rounded up
And everyone hears Arachne shout "YES WE DO!!!!"
She is a welcome entry point for any new mage that would be interested in this: it is safe to assume she asked Lucas, grogs and maybe Eva to make discreet inquiries.
Yes, Eva is there for this kind of things.
At first sight, this should be T: Part.
Otherwise, looks OK.
No Magical Air or Blatant Gift - I want him to be not a (mundane) people person but not completely anti people either
The power ended up costing 1 fatigue, thatâs fair enough, I kept it at D:Sun to avoid it ending in the middle of a long fight. Although that might be a deliberate design choice, so i might still change it.
The Focus I want to be useful in the long run, for natural disaster spells like earthquake, tidal waves etc.
But I also need some oomp right now.
My current phrasing is â violent elemental manipulationâ so the limit is to only violent, never gentle, and only elemental forms.
As of now it only affects âShattering the Sword in Seven Sharp Shardsâ because of the explosive flinging of shards. It doesnât affect a single of his spells of destruction, which is all he has.
Shattering the Sword in Seven Sharp Shards in its latest design in unaffected by whether a person touches the object, it use flings shards at targets within a pace. It ended at T:Part so it can explode a part of a stone floor or ship deck.
Rend then Wyrmâs Scales is designed exactly as Blunt the Viperâs Fangs - and neither is Part. Should it? Perhaps, but Iâm not retroengineering all core book spells. For principal purposes it should be Part, but then the Base might be lowered in order to not nerf it by raising end level.
Don't ask me how legacy spells don't fit into the rules
Yeah, I'm not a fan of "3+ words foci", esthetically speaking, but I believe it works
I've been thinking about the "can train animals to bear his gift" thing, notably while at the dentist :D.
I don't see an easy way to make it work, because, either it is underpowered (if it applies to the character) of it is overpowered (if it applies to the animals).
A big factor is how fast you want this to happen.
IIRC, someone take about 15 years to be accustomed to one's gift, but it varies widely, depending on time spend together, things like this.
If, say, the woad spends a lot of time with his horse, taking care of it, and has a high Training ability, I could see that being lowered drastically.
Rule of thumb: Consider training as teaching (so the less animals you train, the more effective you are). Basic time is 15 years, lowered to 7.5 at training 10 (1/2), 5 at training 15 (1/3)... Halve the time if spending lots of money so they have the best accomodations. You get the idea. I can probably whip up something more precise if you're interested.
If you want it to be faster, the best I've come up is this:
Lesser Power based on the lvl 10 Learned Magician guideline to give a minor supernatural virtue (unaffected by the gift).
Touch range, sun duration. That makes it juuust lvl 25, with a cost of one fatigue level (easily regained).
When taking care of an animal, which is exhausting, the woad naturally uses this so the animal gets unaffected by the gift for one day. Mechanically speaking, this is the closest I've come to what you described.
As an upgrade (which compensates for its lack of effectiveness compared to "inofensive to animals"), this allows him to "soothe" horses that other magi may use, but only on an individual basis. Useful, but far from game-breaking.
=> You're not "blanket" inofensive to animals, but you can "reassure" any animal into ignoring any gift for a day.
Are you referring to the section in A&A on animal trainers (pp. 119 and 120)? I see how that talks about how to train animals to follow a master's command. But it does not address training animals to get accustomed to the Gift. It does set forth how to train an animal to do a task and notes that once an animal is trained, a roll is required for commanding the beast. The roll in question is:
Presence + Animal Handling + stress die vs. variable Ease Factor.
I would assume that if a Gifted person wanted to issue a command to a trained animal, the Gift would impose the standard penalty to the roll. Furthermore, I also assume that the animal would still be spooked by the person with the Gift quite aside from any commands being given. I observe that when describing the effects of the Gift, the core rules (p. 76) state:
Animals also react badly to people with The Gift. In their case, the reaction tends to be a combination of fear and hostility, with much more hostility if the magus has the Blatant Gift. Gifted characters cannot ride horses without magical aid, as the horse tries to throw them off as quickly as possible. Similarly, they can never train dogs to recognize them as friends.
(Emphasis added.)
Granted, A&A came out after the core rules. But the core rules specifically state that Gifted characters (presumably those without a Gentle Gift) cannot ride a horse or train a dog to recognize them as a friend. I'd question whether the rules provided in A&A for animal trainers could be used to bypass the core ArM concept that a (non-gentle) Gift causes people and animals to react poorly to a magus.
I've also reviewed what it says about humans getting acclimated to the Gift in Grogs (p. 56), and I've looked in LoM at the descriptions of horses (pp. 55-57) and mounted combat (pp. 126-129). The former doesn't appear to apply well to animals, and the latter doesn't speak of the Gift at all.
My own thought is that a person can become acclimated to a specific individual with the Gift (Grogs p. 56) because they are intelligent and can use that intelligence to overcome the feelings that the Gift engenders, at least with respect to an individual magus. But I'd question whether a horse or a dog could overcome that feeling. I'm open to the possibility, but I can't imagine it would take any less than the 15 years that it takes for a person to overcome the penalty of the Gift for a specific individual. I would be shocked if such could be accomplished in seasons based on the rules in A&A.
odd, I can recall reading - months ag0- where a magus training an animal (including the penalty for the gift) would then acclimate that animal to their particular Gift. but I can't seem to find it now in either book...
