Go ahead and make them for later- it is always easier to incorporate finished companions rather than pause a game to make a character to be incorporated.
Any magi looking for a specific type of companion?
An explorer/animal trainer. Someone who would be looking for exotic creatures (not just creatures of Might) on her behalf.
I wouldn't mind a venditore or forge-companion. I suspect the former would be more companion-like and the latter would be more a grog.
From what I've gathered, I'm not sure that "old" Argentius was using a venditore all that much in the last decade, but I could see a possibility where Argentius tries to reconnect with a Venditore or where the offspring of a former venditore inherits the role or information about the role and comes seeking to fill the shoes of the previous venditore. Or I can see Argentius on the lookout. The older Argentius was clearly aligned to hunting for the lost rings of Verditius but I'm not sure the current one will continue down that path.
Here is the basics on Venditore:
Venditore: "Verditius magi also have venditores, or “selling agents,” men and women who interact with the mundane world to distribute the items enchanted by the magus. Each magus has a single venditor, someone he trusts implicitly with his creations and who will wrangle the best price for the devices. These agents are typically the flotsam and jetsam of the noble and merchant classes, people who have been excluded from the regular stations of medieval life for reasons of their past or personality. They live in the Verditius magus’s household, enjoying his prosperity and avoiding his wrath when a deal falls through. Since a given venditor only negotiates the sale of one item per year, he spends much of his time sifting buyers’ interests and traveling far and wide to find the most lucrative deal for his employer. Venditores who illegally sell more items then the imposed Tribunal limit are much busier, and more careful. Verditius magi do not need a venditores for interactions with other magi, although one is often used if distance and travel time are problematic." (HoH: MC p 114)
Given the divergence between Argentius' previous life and his current plans I would expect either of these characters to be new blood, not past associates. They might be related to old (possibly even retired) companions of the old Argentius or associates of any of the magi's old companions for that matter.
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Yes, there is definitely old and new magus divergence here.
I don't know what sort of companions he would have had, back in his elder days; most likely someone to help him find ancient temples and classical pieces of sculpture, artwork, and architecture for him to dissect. In his current incarnation, he will probably need someone with developed social skills to fix the problems his random attention and spastic mind would cause... or a rich eccentric patron.
Should we do the summer 1289 advancement now?
Argentius is really heads-down the autumn season and isn't planning any particular adventuring pursuits.
I believe the casting of the Vigil and Aegis are planned for beginning of Winter, but would leave the Winter season open to study, crafting, adventure, etc.
Just trying to get a sense of when/where we ought to be planning in the storyline.
I actually have a fair chunk of summer advancement finished, though one person may be facing a potential for adventure in the summer if they travel to the oasis to study amidst the dunes...
aside from such diversions the covenant is fairly isolated, you can expect in a few years if you haven't made contact with anyone in the order that they will send someone to find out what has happened, especially since your records indicate only two other covenants in the tribunal, which could make your disappearance an issue beyond the usual concerns and opportunities.
I'm not opposed to having a story while studying my arts, but my preference would be not to delay the game for everyone and to keep such stories for later on. As such, I'm thinking on alternative options.
Have you got any adventures planned for next year or two?
What I have is a situation that you are in where I expect to craft stories in response to how you decide to handle the overarching dilemma as well as secondary stories that might arise simply from trying to rebuild your abilities, such as he probable story from exploring the dunes while reading about muto. There are some obvious milestones (such as tribunal meetings) and some less obvious events that will occur if you do nothing, but which you might also forestall and deal with mor effectively by being proactive. I do not intend to railroad the group into a single story.
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Sounds good, Silveroak.
I wonder if it wouldn't help if we all put out there an initial 8 season plan that focuses on both individual milestone and goals as well as what we think we'll be doing for the covenant as a whole.
Argentius is feeling like he needs to pour himself into a few years of intense study to advance his arts to a place where he can start to establish/re-establish his forge and efforts. He's fully on board with jumping in to help the covenant but he was trained as a forge-focused artificer rather than an adventuring magus, and his plan post-gauntlet was to bury himself in study to establish a broader base of his arts and studies.
That said, he's also trying to understand how to re-establish or build new a network beyond the covenant to lay the groundwork (again?) that will be needed for his work as a ring maker.
As a player, I'm having a great time with this story and group. I'm happy to speed along or slow down for any kind of storytelling, adventures, etc. One of the reasons I'm working on a companion concept is to have someone that is less forge-bound that Argentius to interact with you all.
go ahead and make the 8 season plans, and when something happens any future season's plans can be altered.
The 8 season plan seems like a good idea. I'll see to getting one done.
I've put a first draft in the spreadsheet of a study plan. I did it out 9 seasons to ake it a round year of planning. (Winter 1289 to Winter 1291)
I don't know Google docs so I didn't get the study cells set up. Looks like the pick list needs to be copied into future seasons. I just wrote mine in but can update that later once someone adjusts it.
I'm not entirely sure what our responsibility is to the covenant. Is it one season a year focused on covenant enhancing work?
Would it be possible to have links to our library / lab texts in the Libram Campaignus thread? I was trying to figure out what I need to do for the Wizard Vigil lab text, and realized I'm only half-aware of what is available.
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Would any of the other magi be ok if Okeannetis uses two pawns of Animal vis to enchant the Familiar Bond? I want to grant my Familiar the ability to speak even in his animal form.
Argentius wouldn't object but he might raise the question of how we handle our communal vis sources and future requests like this.
No concern on using 2 pawns but Bartomeus raises a good point.
- I extended the spreadsheet. Now everyone should be able to make long-term plans. I tried to copy Argentius' and Okeannetis' plans into the new version, but the players should check that I didn't screw up.
Note that I didn't currently include in the spreadsheet the lab texts and books in someone's possession (Aetherius has some, I think), since we haven't agreed what to do with those. Lares would argue for including everything into the common library. If others agree, then it might be easiest to add every text into the spreadsheet. This can be easily done by adding them into the "Library" cells in column A of the spreadsheet, after everything else. This should copy it automatically to the seasonal tables.
- I also added Lares' long- term seasonal advancement plans to the spreadsheet. In XP terms, he intends to first learn the maximum level of moon-duration Maintaining the Demanding Spell that his old self invented (level 45, from lab text), then Endurance of The Berserkers (@silveroak, would he happen to have a lab text for that?), then to brush up on his Parma for adventuring purposes, then to increase his Forms to help with spontaneous casting. This is all a very preliminary broad-strokes plan that he expects to alter as needed - he may need to work towards a higher-level Parma, for instance, if it turns out the lower-level one isn't sufficient in the long run.
In narrative terms, there are a few things that might spawn adventures for Lares.
The most pressing issue is that of his former wife. He will frequently attempt to approach her and ask his family about her, trying to see if there is anything he could do to make her trust him - he is not trying to win her heart or anything like that, but just to get her to accept the facts of her situation and then to negotiate with her to find a compromise that protects the covenant but allows her to live in a way that would be acceptable to her. His current view is, however, that she is too wary of him to accomplish this, so he will take it very slowly and just try to get her used to the Gift and to build a basic level of rapport. He will not use any magic on her unless she tries to run away. If she does run away, he will use the lock of hair he has as an arcane connection to locate and return her - his first priority is the security of the covenant, but he nonetheless makes every effort to be nice to her. If the arcane connection grows weak (in a few years), he will covertly secure another lock of her hair.
Second, Lares may wish to accompany his son Winitran to the oasis to check it out firsthand. He will not do this before the Aegis is up, but the Winter or Spring after that (pleasant traveling weather) might be possible.
Third, he will want to make sure we are able to gather all of the vis sources. If we don't have the requisite knowledge for some of them, he would investigate, but only after the Aegis is up. This he would probably only undertake after learning the Maintaining spell spell in the Winter.
Fourth, he will want to ensure that the covenfolk are happy and there are no conflicts between the magi. He will be willing to do work himself if there is anything they need done.
My basic idea is that Lares is more of a hands-on guy, and after getting the Aegis up (too high of a priority to endanger by adventuring) he will do what needs to be done for the covenant rather than prioritizing his studies.
One possible companion for Lares might be his former wife, if someone is interested and if Silveroak is fine with it. Seems like an interesting situation to me.
Should we play out to the discussion about sharing resources, i.e. vis and texts? Lares would probably argue that everything should be shared, and that yearly personal vis expenditure per magus should be set a few pawns below the yield of the vis sources so that there is enough for common purposes. Maybe only play it out if someone has radically different plans? Maybe include it in the charter addendum?