OOC Covenant building

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Curse of the Rhine Gorge
#1

You'll get some founding gift from each Rhine tribunal covenant - negotation and side deals may improve these.

For Durenmar: You automatically get an Aegis casting tablet or lab notes (you can choose any level up to 50, but there are vis costs to be paid) and one season that you personally get to spend int he Great Library each and keep what you copy all rights included - ideally we can copy one or two of the best summae and trade from there. If you can send substitutes will we a matter of bargaining. The gift from Durenamr is incredibly valuable because copies from it can be traded for other good books later.

You may want to contact the other covenants to coordinate the gifts you get. That requires letter writing or travelling.

#2

Problem is that we will need a scribe to get anything good for a summa. The formula is 6+scribe in levels for summas. None of us will be higher than an 8 at best. I'm wiling to travel to Fengheld and perhaps Irencilla.

#3

But if two or three of you cooperate, the result will be much better. Like 3 People for that lvl 18 summa.
And YES, learning how to scribe for a season from a pro will gain you each 15xp or a Prfession scribe (useful specialty) 2.

#4

Do we have that option now? Or is this part of the negotiations with the other Covenants?

#5

Are we expecting to be in the Great Library right away? Or can we postpone our season of access?

#6

I'm GUESSING that we can postpone it.

We need to try and figure out what we will need before we approach the other Covenants. I know we will need Foresters so we have some income. We need to think of another form of income. We need to pick up the Magic items at Trier ( which is time sensitive). We need craftsmen to build in/around the Covenant. We need spells for finding vis sources. We need to decide if we want to go with a Wizard's Tower or build.

#7

Arturous has no intention of doing the scribing himself- it is a waste of time, which would be better used in the pursuit of study or advancing the goals of the new covenant. If this is a contentious point for Murion, he will suggest that she put a hard limit on what can be copied from her library (say 1 summae + 2 tractus) or less time for a more experienced scribe (3 season of a specialist with profession: scribe 2 should be the same as the 4 combined seasons of the Magi).

If an agreement can’t be reached then I would rather take it IC as Arturous will consider it petty, hindering the Magi without good reason, and might reconsider signing the contract.

Regarding covenant planning – I am all for a big magical tower. Can’t get any more impressive then that! Even better if we can find a slightly modified version of the spell in the library – just 1 additional magnitude will increase the tower size tenfold.

#8

Why don't you negotiate with Murion?

edit: again: between us, wehave the chance to copy two of the libraries finest books. Murion's offer is incredibly generous as these books can then be traded for dozens of others.

#9

i agree it is very generous but our skill levels in scribe plus our numbers will limit us to 1 big book. If it takes 3 of us to get that summa 18 and there are 4 of us total... Perhaps there is a rare Tractatus that we can get also. there does not seem to be a level limit on tractati.

#10

I might be wrong about ritual spells but...
The biggest problem with Wizard Tower is not the vis but the casting. Even the base is 35. I think we need Wizard Communion to add everyone in and then we need 70 combined levels of WC to do that.

#11

Yes, that would be a problem. I don't think we can manage by ourselves, even at the base level. So I was thinking we would pay someone else to do the casting - probably with some extra vis once we find a source. We can definitely delay that decision and start out with some temp structures

#12

Casting tablet?

#13

That would allow us to cast the spell without learning it but all other things still apply. I do not have the level to do it by myself and We would need Wizard's Communion for everyone else to help.

#14

Another option would be to go down rather than up. Honorus is closer to being able to make something like Calebais than a Wizards Tower.

#15

Hildegard has got Creo 18 terram 0. Assuming an Aura of 2 and sta 2 that is 22. She can do it with a casting tablet.
Alternatively, looking at her MT (creo) of 5+1=6. She'd need a year to learn this spell (2 seasons of studying terram from a Q15 source, one season to learn the spell from a lab text and one season to master it - which resloves the 7% chance of botching that comes with using a casting tablet).

#16

You would still need to roll a 1 plus a 5 or more. You are better taking the 4 seasons to get Te 7 which would take your roll to 31. Spend confidence points and you are there.

honorus is only 1 behind her. On a casting tablet, would we use the writer's ArtL and Phil for the Ritual spell? That may help

#17

I don’t have access to the rules right now, but I thought that even if you can’t exactly reach the casting score required you can still cast the ritual and simply suffer fatigue.
Anyways – if we take a casting tablet, then any capable mage in the tribunal can cast the spell in exchange for payment (and it is not like it would hurt their lab activities – just a quick casting). Maybe we can reach an agreement with Murion to borrow it, as we would have no use for it after the casting.

I would also like to make a short stop at Dankamar on the way to Westerwald and see what are the conditions under which they will recognize the new covenant. It is better to find it out before hand and not leave things to chance.

#18

We do not have to do everything right now. I say we talk to the other Covenants to find out the gifts. It lets us plan better. I plan on wintering in Fengheld so i'll talk to them and the other that is near. We can send letters to most of the other ones. Unless we must do it now which would be not very nice.

#19

Talking to the other covenants about gifts, while we haven’t even established our covenant, seems a bit presumptuous to me. It is better we find out what kind of services they expect of us! (Although we can leave that to the politicking just before the tribunal meeting itself)

I am in favor to travel to Fengheld and see what kind of support they can give in establishing the covenant itself.
How much time do we have before the next tribunal, Jean? If the time is short, we might need to split as I believe a visit to Dankmar is a must.
We should also set up least one temp structure in the forest, to lay our claim in the region.

#20

I assume it is two seasons to tribunal, the second of which can be used to pre-Tribunal intrigue at Durenmar. So you have one season, either to spend at Durenmar, or to travel, left.

Also add 8xp from the Kaub chapter.