I'm off. Have a good time in my absence!
But don't burn down Anvers, if you please. 
Last tribunal of the Rhine was 1207.
In any case Quercus and Boniface have been peregrinatores for a while, so he might have met the other magi in another point in the tribunal. He is just messing his geography roll 
At Fengheld pre-1203 is more likely then I think for Japik.
Next tribunal will be in 1214 then where we should present ourselves as new magi and possibly try to get support for our new covenant.
I think we have a fairly good idea of the kind of resources that Arthur is willing to give us ATM, so we might be able to define the resources in rough terms. 
We need some more books, the Vim summa would be nice.
We also could use more raw vis. Creo or Vim if we want to be able to cast Aeagis early on.
More lab equipment of course. So far we only have two labs.
Do we need more mundane servants? I think we can hire some rather easily on Heligoland with the help of our current grogs and servants. Wits are you making a servant grog as well?
As pointed out by halancar when I made the same suggestion, given our current resources and how much time we are likely to be able to be in the lab, 2 labs are plenty. We can easily set up more labs later on. A -1 lab (what I have) is easy and fairly cheap to come by according to Arthur. For studying vis, reading books and doing stuff you do not need a lab. We need a lab to extract vis, transfer vis (very easy though, so in the 10 spare days we can do that), invent spells and create items. It is unlikely that more than 2 of us will be doing this kind of stuff during the first seasons. In fact I think Arthur will make us struggle to get a single one of us doing lab work while the others deal with the fires all around us! :mrgreen:
So, I would not put extra labs high in the needs of the covenant. Not now, at least. Yes in 1 or 2 years, though.
After my "Triamore experience" I am scared to think about the cost of books.
Yes true. I also think Books will be the hardest to get in this saga. Maybe I should have asked for that instead of the lab equipment when I had my chance 
Yeah, I think I'll be focusing all my shots on whatever books I can get, and if we don't have enough vis for the aegis, then that must be priority. I'll try to get a servant posted tonight, though, so I doubt I'll be able to think about the resource things much yet. But we don't need to know that with any precision quite yet, do we, so I'll try to propose something at some point during the weekend.
If you want a better book, make sure you put something in on how you acquired it. Stealing, illegally copying it, or from loot, for example. That will constitute a hook for a story. Note that my idea of a "better" book in this saga is still fairly low.
Ok, here's my idea of how Prochorus acquired the books: After his apprenticeship, Oculus proposed him a deal. They had lost ships without trace, and proposed that they outfit Prochorus a lab on a ship that joins their more important convoys so that he may help protect them. In exchange for this, while onboard, Prochorus is allowed to copy some of the less awesome texts the convoys are transporting. If someone or something attacks the convoy and he helps them overcome it, Prochorus gets a summa copied as a reward. Win-win, because Oculus don't care what happens to Prochorus since he can't join them as a member anyway, and Prochorus needs some assets and use rights to a lab. If he beats whatever is nabbing their ships, Oculus wins; if he dies, it didn't cost too much extra for them. As it happens, the convoy was attacked by pirates (but not of the Waddenzee kind). Prochorus mind-controlled their captain in scaup-form, sent them into disarray, and they were summarily dispatched. So he got the reward.
Sound reasonable? This also puts Prochorus back at Oculus for the rendez-vous with Japik despite having a year or so from his apprenticeship.
I'm not sure how much I get - I don't know how the ships and stuff translate into books. Is two 10-ish tractati and a 10/10-ish summa in line if I don't get anything else? If not, how about one 10-ish tractatus, one 10/10-ish summa and two pawns of vim vis?
Since they are grogs, anyone feel free to use Fresse or Alice and write their reactions if you want to
I guess that's the same for all grogs or at least those I have listed under Japik's grogs, so all crew members included. It's usually more fun to interact with them when someone else control them.
So prohorus is bringing some books. Cool. Well, our library still sucks, but a little bit less
I started the trend, using Alruna. Hope I did a good job there.
I'm back. 
That can work, with a few modifications.
Oculus would not have outfitted the ship with a lab -- too time-consuming and costly. And unnecessary for the copyting of texts. You presence on-board caused many problems with the crew (Difficult Underlings), causing regular desertions because of the "warlock" travelling on their ship. The captain complained, repeatedly, to the covenant. This lasted for about two seasons, during which Prochorus was able to copy one summa and one tractatus.
Prochorus successfully dealt with the pirates, causing their ship to flounder after hitting a rock as he mind-controlled the captain and made some of the crew fall asleep instead of adjusting the rigging. But some may have gotten away, and no link to Waddenzee was discovered (something that Oculus suspects and wanted to prove). So they were less than fully satisfied by the deal. They tried to haggle on the amount of vis to be paid to him, but finally gave up on that. They simply want him gone from Lubeck.
Prochorus was not very happy either, for he soon realize that scribing at sea, in a pitching ship, was not conductive to making quality copies of books. Even though he was trying to be careful in his copying, the copies he made suffer from a penalty to their Quality as if he had been working quickly.
They didn't outfit a ship for Prochorus, he was simply travelling on one of their ship as needed. He was provided a cabin as well as copying supplies.
So he ends up with 2 pawns of Vim vis, one summa and one tractatus. Perhaps a few levels as lab texts, if you'd like. I'm assuming that the summa will be on Vim, but if you'd like it to be on something else, let me know. Same thing for the tractatus. I'll let you know Level and Quality once you've decided on the subject(s).
You also received 2 xp of exposure for those 2 seasons of scribing, assumedly on Profession: Scribe, although something appropriate to living on a ship may also work. Although the crew kept away from you as much as they could and the captain asked you to remain in your cabin. It was certainly an unpleasant experience.
Before deciding on the arts of the books: what happened to xavi's plans of having us all learn the communion? We don't seem to have the lab text on the list. I guess I could get the lab text and a vim summa if needed - does that make sense?
I think the general idea was that few of the magi would be able to learn Ritual Communion at the required level for now, so that they'd probably have to improve their skill in Muto and Vim first. Thus the Vim summa.
The tractatus is basically a bonus. It might be on Vim also, or on a different subject altogether. Might be another Art, an Ability or spell mastery.
I don't have a problem adding a lab text for Ritual Communion on top of that, so you still get the tractatus.
At the request of halancar and Bearlord we ditched the idea of "communion for all" for the reasons that Arthur exposes. So for the time being we will be relying in Quercus to cast the aegis on his own. Casting total is 2(sta)+10+5(ReVi)+5(AL&Phil) +aura+D10=22+aura+D10. Assuming an aura of 5 (27), we will have a penetration on the range of 12-13, more or less. It would be usful to have Ritual Communion, but we can try to get them later. So far we have no spell texts, for example. 
If you can have it all, great
I am done, and I would say that the others are done as well Without further info we basically got a general idea of the available resources and get to know each other a little bit. We cannot plan much further without Bernhard
If everybody is OK, I will post the following in the thread to wrap it up:
As the night grows long and the rush of the project starts to pass the magi and their companions start to note the rigors of the travel to Antwerp. Despite being the first one to arrive, Quercus and his companions seem the most tired, none the least Alice, that has been working hard all evening.
I would say the same. The magi has got a first impression and some initial knowledge of each other. Just for the record, I haven't seen it in any of your background's, but has any of you had any contact with Waddenzee that you would have revealed to Japik?
eright. I know we forgot to answer part of your message 
Quercus has only visited Wadenzee once. He did not like it since its indivisualistic and predatory attitude is at odds with his collaborative attitude towards other members of the Order.