I've now posted a couple of extra letters. Essentially, he's talking to the Tremere (via Boustaphan), Magvillus and attempting to get the Redcaps to deliver a letter to Tasia. This last requires her to be settled somewhere on the Redcap routes for a while, so is by no means a given, but he reckons it's worth a try.
The one problem with spring is that it's when Poseidon is at his most powerful--hence the increase in the aura during that season. Summer might be more appropriate for a mother who already has children--and would make 1219 more feasible.
Scott
Okay - do you want to advance her to Summer 1229, then?
Have you had any more thoughts on how far you want the rest of the characters to advance?
Two years sounds good to me--so through Summer 1230? I don't think we'll need any new players in order to play out the lab story, and so we can do that while we're taking on new people. It might even give them something to do, while they're going through character creation, in the way of playing secondary characters.
I'll update the chronology and the maps as soon as I'm able, but both are hard work. I intend to do them before I update my own characters.
Scott
I've just added an update to the chronology, covering the bulk of the faerie regio story. I'll get to the Tasia drama as soon as I can.
Scott
I've added a tally of Gregorius' vis status to his character sheet as follows:
Vis
Current stock: 2 pawns Rego, 1 pawn Imaginem, 4 pawns Mentem
Income:
Vis Grant 1226: 1 pawn Rego
Vis Grant 1227: 1 pawn Rego, 1 pawn Imaginem
Adventure Spring 1228: 4 pawns Mentem
Shout if you think I've got anything wrong - I'm working off this post https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/seasonal-activities-and-advancement/6214/134 . I think we hadn't got up to our full vis income, which is why he's getting so little vis per year.
We're actually still missing 2 pawns of vis income from the covenant build points. There are a couple of ways I can see to get this:
- Have them mentioned in the notes Stephen is planning to translate this Autumn
- Send Niketas out dowsing for Vis (and assume that this is all there is remaining for him to find in the area)
Those ideas have merit.
BTW, I still have to work out what happened to the efforts to arrange vis trades.
Scott
He's going to need a total of 11 pawns of Rego and/or Mentem vis to bind Alcimus (it would normally be 8, but he has Waster of Vis). The rabbit helped, but more Mentem is definitely needed, so he is still going to be trying to trade. (He has considered trying to kill the covenant's ghosts for vis, but that feels like the sort of thing likely to have unwanted and potentially serious side-effects).
OK, I'll get to that some time this week. I updated the chronology last night, and I'm about to add the last bit for Spring 1228, maybe Summer too if I have enough time.
Scott
Details....sigh I used to know all this stuff.
OK, the 1230 date must have reflected the influence of malign magic: if there was a tribunal in 1205, the next few would have been in 1212, 1219, and 1226, placing the next one in 1233--well into the future.
Scott
I'd prefer there not to have been a tribunal in 1226, as it raises the question of why we didn't go to it.
There was this reference in the first post of the saga
..which is internally inconsistent.
Yeah, apparently I can't do arithmetic. Did I mention that I'm a professional data scientist?
Lord, what a mess.
So, we have the following:
- Continuity with Purification through Fire suggests tribunals in 1226 and 1233. However, that places a tribunal in a year we already experienced, in which we didn't attend or even remark upon a tribunal. Oops. In theory, the tribunal could have been held in Winter 1226, that is, the season before the covenant's foundation, but that wouldn't allow at all for the cat-herding entailed by a tribunal-wide coordinated effort.
- ArM5 canon and the story text you quoted give us 1228. But that creates basically the same problem as 1226, unless we want to rush off to the tribunal in Autumn. That would slow things down a bit, but we could try to do it quickly, and it might be a fun way to introduce new players/characters.
- I'm pretty sure the 1227 reference is essentially a typo, and we can disregard it.
I think that Autumn 1228 is probably the best of the flawed options. Or might we suggest something else?
Scott
I'd thought teacher, but I can't remember why now.
We'd need a patron in time for tribunal, which means that if we go for 1228 (which as you say does have the advantage of being consistent with the standard ArM 5 continuity) it'll have to be someone other than Halia, as I don't see trying to appoint a gorgon working out well.
I was a professor, yes. 
I changed careers a few years ago.
Do we need a patron just to show up? We might not be officially recognized as a covenant yet, but I'm not sure that matters much. I mean, the tribunal did found us, and not very long ago at that, so it's not like we're trying to barge in.
Scott
Not as such, but it does stop us being eligible for a degree of citizenship - you have to be resident at an establised Theban covenant to qualify. Gregorius might manage to get round this by taking up temporary membership at Gigas (it's something the covenant is stated as doing, and our charter doesn't have an exclusivity clause); however, TSE does state resident at rather than merely "a member of", which is problematic.
Announcing to the world that we're not actually a properly recognised covenant may have its downsides as well, as it means we have a lot fewer rights (although the Theban tribunal tends to be relatively civil about these things).
The alternative would be to put in a temporary patron now, and possibly replace them down the line. I don't think we have any candidates Viola's particularly going to like, though.
I'm not sure if it goes against a story you have in mind for the future, however having NC as a starting covenant, and going through the trial of gaining this sort of special magical patron is really interesting. in the meta-game I think it is one of the special aspects of the tribunal which I've not seen before. Just a quick thought.
I can't imagine that this is an unusual situation for a new covenant.
Scott
My impression is that "is there a suitable patron", or at least "can we find a suitable patron in preparation" is probably usually a significant consideration in deciding to found a covenant in Thebes, whereas we're more approaching it from a "we've founded a (proto-)covenant - now we need to get a patron" angle.
There is one covenant that had a sort of similar problem in TSE - Moero's Garden got forced out on Constantinople, and needed to find a patron for their new site (as the previous patron remained at the old covenant, and the patron has to be reside within the covenant). They got round the problem by summoning and binding a ghost - it's not a great solution, because the ghost is weak and resentful of its binding.
Fair enough. I think though that Nova Castra's status as a covenant sponsored by the tribunal will lead to some forbearance on the part of the other covenants. After all, we weren't founded in the normal way: we were ordered to go to a particular spot, as opposed to siting the covenant at the location of a suitable patron. The other covenants will I think understand that we'll have to spend time finding a patron who's suitable--and I suspect that imitating Moero's Garden would do us more harm than good, since it would risk turning a measure in extremis into a precedent that makes the patron rule effectively meaningless.
I'm not fully clear - when you're talking about the other covenants being understanding, are you meaning they'll recognise us as a covenant anyway, despite us not meeting the requirements (which I'm not convinced will be the case, given the patron is a peripheral code requirement and not just a social convention), or just that it won't make everybody hate us?
Do we really want to wait another seven years before being eligible for citizenship?