Thanks for the offer - I love the podcast and the work you do for it, so that means a lot - I'll definitely take you up on that if I do get enough good ideas put out.
2.The Feathers of Legends
Lvl 4 Animal OR Lvl 4 Magical Lore -
This is a collection of 13 sets of specimens and notes relating to rare birds. Its creator, Ferrorum of house Merinita, is continuing to expand the collection.
This collection is being assembled by Ferrorum of Merinita, a maga who has a reputation as an eccentric with a fascination for birds. Ferrorum is a keen Falconer in her spare time and has been known to spend years at a time away from her covenant tracking rare or mythical birds, hunting down reported sightings of her quarry and then sitting in a conjured up bivouac for days, watching and waiting for whatever rare bird she is researching to cross her line of sight, which begins the long process of following and observing the creature.
She has just returned from a long trip to the forests of deepest Russia where she has been tracking and detailing the life and habits of the Alkonost, a mythical bird with the head of a beautiful woman whose eggs are rolled into the sea to hatch, and which cause storms when they do.
This collection consists of feathers from various rare magical and mundane birds, along with other collected items relating to the birds such as samples of droppings, sketches of foot markings etc. Ferrorum has also made detailed notes on the different habits of each creature as she observed them, has researched their mythic histories and stories relating to the creatures and has attempted to sketch herself, or has commissioned from someone else, a picture of each bird. She displays these alongside the feathers
Studying this Realia for a season allows a character to increase their animal art, or their magical lore. it will also grant the character enough insight to ‘know’, for the purposes of Creo magic, any of the following mundane birds or birds from Myth and Folklore
Mythic : Alkonost, Caladrius, Cinnamon bird, Cockatrice, Hercynia, Phoenix, Roc, Turul
Mundane : Cuckoo, Goshawk, Lammergeyer, Merlin, Ortolan
Bonus Story Hooks -
Ferrorum is a member of the Irencillia covenant, and as such has a faerie caricature in the covenant. During the times Ferrorum is away from the covenant this caricature will take on ownership and custody of the collection.
Several Magi, who focus on the art of animal, have sent their apprentices to view this collection and to learn from Ferrorum, who has often forgotten she agreed to this and so these apprentices have instead been instructed by her Faerie counterpart without anyone actually realising this is happening. None of these apprentices have realised that this is not the actual Maga. Several stories can be made from this fact, for example;
a) There are now several recently gauntleted magi who have heard from the great explorer herself how she tracked down and bested these terrible creatures (perhaps including one or all of the player characters). What happens when this reclusive Maga comes back to hermetic society, only for several newly gauntlet magi to accuse her of being an imposter at the next tribunal meeting! Can the characters work out what has happened, or will the young Magi who know the 'real' Ferrorum begin thinking of different conspiracies as to why everyone else in the tribunal seems to recognise and accept this imposter!
b)The adulation and belief of these young apprentices has bolstered the strength of the Faerie caricature. Does the strength of her Faerie counterpart actually equate to the standing of Ferrorum in the covenant - on her return does she find she now has several duties and responsibilities she did not before, which have gone untended for years in her absence, and she asks the PCs to either help get her out of these responsibilities, or to help her put her house back in order?
c) The ascendancy of her Faerie counterpart in the power hierarchy of the caricatures may be viewed by the current primus as demonstrating she has gained a lot of power without his noticing it, indicating, so he thinks, that she is planning to try and take the primacy herself! Worried by this he asks the player characters to find out if she is making some kind of plan to usurp him, or perhaps he asks them to simply clip her wings!
e) The Faerie counterpart has told increasingly tall tales about the different birds in the collection and how it obtained the feathers and other items- what happens when a particularly gullible Magus who 'knows' from talking to the Caricature Ferrorum that a Hercynia actually has a wingspan of 20 feet and can breath blue fire that burns water, attempts to conjure one up?