It doesn't speak well enough to get much information (and Lares isn't exactly fully literate yet either) but you get the impression it was cargo on a trade caravan, and presumably escaped.
What season are we on now? Is it time for the trip to Europe yet?
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Sorry, had some family stuff and got stuck mid advancement.
Also waiting on a response from Whaler on his character thread.
In Fall both Lares and Argentius indicate they are learning Vigil from the lab text- but there is only one lab text. Who is doing something else? (do we want a certamen thread to decide?)
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Certamen... That would actually be kind of fun. I have never actually seen that play out.
We agreed to have the lab text copied by the scribes way back when - was this succesfull? If not, we'll just have to drop one caster. Edit: It would have to be Argentius in that case, I suppose, since Lares is casting the Aegis.
I think you couldn't be dropped from learning the Vigil. My reading is that the person doing the main spell / ritual must be in the group of magi which knows the Vigil / communion. That being said, yeah, we wanted to have this copied. I can't recall being told if it was copied or not copied.
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Okay, assuming one scribe who is still proficient in magic theory (ability 1 suffies) and has an ability of 5 in scribe they would be able to make 12 copies in a season, but they would not be organized enough to actually do this until summer, when Okeannetis is using the only copy so it cannot be copied.
Well darn. I would think that if we had known we didn't have a couple copies we would have likely revised our summer/fall plans. I think I had assumed we had resolved the copies issue.
I'm happy to adjust the fall plan and let the scribe do their work.
But that means we don't case the Aegis until when? Beginning of Spring 1290?
Assuming everything else goes to plan, yes.
It's easily fixed, though. If we can't have copying until the Summer but we can have several copies and not just two, then copying happens in the summer and Okeannetis reads the Parma book during that time, since no one else was borrowing it. Then Okeannetism, Argentius and Lares all learn it during the Fall. The Aegis is cast on time. And I can always offer a few of the extra copies to other covenants through the redcaps when we resume contact.
Part of the issue here is that this is essentially fixing the problem by retconning what is already done.
Then I recommend we have the scribe work in Autumn 1289 to make the copies. Then we study them in Winter with intention to cast at either the end of the season or beginning of Spring 1290.
If that's the path we go down, then Argentius will study the Magic Theory 6:Q:16 Summa in Autumn.
I would prefer to solve it by retconning, since it was just a communication lapse, but I'm fine with other means.
Studying in the Winter, as Bartomeus suggests, would mean we would go that season without the Aegis. Alternatively, Argentius wouldn't participate in the first casting. That means we have a weaker penetration on the first Aegis throughout the year, but at least have an aegis.
The math is as follows:
4 casters (Lares, Argentius, Zarkut, Okeannetis): Level 30/4=7,5.
3 casters (sans Argentius): 30/3=10
Assuming Lares doesn't get xp in the meantime, his casting total is 32 (3 sta + 10 vim + 10 rego + 5 aura +2 artes + 2 philo = 32), so with 4 casters we might get to 30 penetration, with 3 probably not, but still over 20, which is decent for a covenant of newbies. Overall, the difference is only 2,5 points, so no biggie.
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I would prefer to solve it by retconning, which in this case I don't think has any significant impact. Either way, I'm not in favor of a lapsing aegis, and prefer a weaker one if our original plan doesn't work to waiting an entire season without an aegis.
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The problem in more detail is thus:
- you have a disorganized and not entirely supportive covenfolk.
- despite this you did not check to see if your instructions had been or could be carried out, and acted on the assumption that they had been in the timeframe you had hoped for
- when you realized that those actions had caused a problem after the fact you want to go back and change them
This is a case where "if we had realized" and "we weren't informed" was part of the situation and setting and how you chose to deal with it, not simply a slip up. There are lots of times people and companies wish they could just go back and change their actions to better fit their plans, but that isn't how things work.
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I understand and appreciate the situation. It invites more "story" which I'm a fan of.
Isn't it possible to cast the weaker Aegis in Winter (sans Argentius) and then recast it at the beginning of Spring with more of us? I get that it may be have a duration of a year but can't it be re-cast or cancelled and cast again?
It can, but it will cost full vis each time. In fact there is nothing that says you can't have overlapping aegis.
The only thing which would be at issue is trying to 'downcast' aegis in the first place- in essence you wouldn't so much have a weaker aegis as the same aegis with weaker penetration.
I can work with what you propose now that I understand how you see things.
It sounds like this is our course of action. Does this mean that Argentius is studying the lab text in Winter?
If so, I'll do the MT summa in Autumn. Once confirmed, I'll update the spreadsheet.
Yes, let's do it like that. So just a weaker penetration on the Aegis for a year and hope for the best.
Plasmatoris is already studying the Vigil in Winter, so maybe after that?