MTKnife: Another question - what are our vis sources like? I know you said earlier than Theodoric was able to tell Gregorius about some IC, but that you needed time to work them out. I'm happy to wait for descriptions of the source until you have ideas, but an idea of what the breakdown we get by art is would be useful.
I'm having the nasty feeling Gregorius is going to have to deal with preventing Alcimus acclimating...
Well, so far nothing that Alcimus might want to eat. Let me get back to you later in the week: I've got two exams to grade, and job applications to get out.
Rereading the rules, it doesn't actually matter what type of vis it is, although quantity is likely to be an issue - he'd need 5 pawns, which is half of the entire covenant's vis supply. Hmm.
His Might is 10, which means that he needs to be always within a level 2 aura, spend half his time within a level 7 aura, or pay frequent visits to a level 10 aura. The covenant site itself is level 5, so that would clearly do if he was always going to be within it. There are a couple of problems here, though:
He's just spent a season travelling, the majority of it presumably in no aura, so the first year he definitely isn't going to meet the "always in" criterion.
He's a wolf (and has the independant familiar flaw). He's not going to want to spend all of his time couped up in the covenant. He'll probably spend a lot of his time either out and about with Gregorius, when Gregorius is exploring, or off on his own, probably in the local wood. I've been assuming that has an aura of 1 in general; if it's actually higher there may be less of a problem in subsequent years.
I've been assuming the Tremere usually deal with this problem by having Moon duration spells to cast on the non-familiar members of the packs (which nicely gives the wolves a dependency on the Tremere). Unfortunately Gregorius doesn't have an appropriate spell, and would struggle to manage a high enough level spell with sufficient penetration (especially given it would probably need to be an Animal spell).
In the long run, binding him as a familiar is definitely the plan, and would solve the problem. That's a bit of a way off, though, for two reasons:
Due to his Waster of Vis flaw, he's going to need to use 11 pawns to bind him, implying an effective Magic Theory of 6 to use the vis. It's currently 3. I can speed it up a bit by going to 5 with an appropriate speciality (almost certainly "familiars"), but that's still 45xp to gain, and I don't think there's any way round it.
He needs a Rego Mentem lab total of 40. At the moment it's 17 + Aura, possibly -3 (his Creative Block doesn't specifically state it impedes familiar bonds, but given it's clearly the inverse of Inventive Genius, and I'd usually expect that to apply to familiar, it's probably fair to assume Creative Block does). By a strict reading of the rules, a lab assistant could help here; however, whilst I don't think there's a rule against it, having someone else involved in binding your familiar feels wrong.
As an additional constraint, in three years time, Alcimus is going to start aging.
In short, Gregorius needs to gain rather more xp rather more rapidly than is going to be in any way feasible, especially given his need to fulfil his duties to his House and covenant as well.
Sorry about my silence--it's a very tough time at work, with my having to submit a portfolio for a fourth-year review. Ever sent an email with 26 attachments?
Remember that we have a Vast Aura, which means that it's at least a 1 anywhere he might want to go hunting, and it's actually a 2 all the way down at the river.
Though the action so far counts as a season for play purposes, only a couple of weeks were spent traveling from Constantinople, though I don't recall whether/where Gregorius traveled from before that.
Yeah, and that part makes for an interesting story.
My vague idea in my head is that after his gauntlet, Gregorius travelled from his home covenant of Apuseni (Transylvanian tribunal) to the Theban Tremere House covenant Gigas, to meet the local Tremere, and then went on to Constantinople. He'll probably have picked up an arcane connection to the vicinity of Gigas when he was there (although, obviously, not to anything directly militarily sensitive).
Gigas is described as consisting of "a hunting lodge in a small expanse of forest that has a weak magic aura", so the aura is probably only about 1 or 2. (It also has at least one other Tremere white wolf).
Is there a large enough level 2 aura (in appropriate surroundings) for Alcimus to use it as a hunting grounds without further difficulty? (Obviously the reasonably frequent trips to the level 5 aura may help a bit). If so, that probably just leaves the first year as a problem (barring later story events).
There's no point in making things too easy for my character, right?
That would not be my interpretation. For example, let's say you're inventing a healing spell. You could take exposure of +1 in Creo and +1 in Corpus while getting +1 in Magic Theory from correspondence. The correspondence is supposed to be associated with the season's work, but I don't think it indicates the experience needs to be in the same Ability/Art.
I am attempting to catch up on forum stuff. Please accept my apologies for the disappearance. I should have let people know that I wasn't going to be online, but the emotional experience of the last few months was such that I wasn't really aware of how badly I was failing to maintain my online responsibilities. I see that we have several seasons of advancement for me to catch up on and will try to take care of that before Wednesday.
I'm not sure why I suggested casting those spells every day. I meant to ask about, for example, casting The Lamp of Significance on specially prepared rings like we were talking about -- forged metal, cups, etc.
In retrospect, trying to give Patrick's Outdoor lab out in the grazing fields the Magical Heating from open flames all over the place has some obvious hazards....
I was quoting existing guidelines to explain where my ideas for potential new mastery abilities were coming from. Given the emphasis players have on mastering rituals, it seems strange that so few mastery abilities are useful for them.
Can we come up with something that makes mastery useful for the spells in question, without being overpowered?
BTW, after a delightful weekend turned into the three-day variety by a spell of projectile vomiting, I'm trying hard to catch up on my grading. I promise to get a plan in place for Viola within a week.
Let me get back to you later in the week: I've got two exams to grade, and job applications to get out.