No the end result is the same. He takes his 30 early life latin experience and exchanges it with his mythic herbalism experience and his profession apothecary experience. He'll have 50 latin when he leaves apprenticeship (as recommended), and he will have 75 latin by year 1234. Plus it totally removes his latin experience during childhood. Still not seeing the problem.
Any characters with mystery cults are very hard to do in Metacreator unless you are good at editing the files. Otherwise I would be asking for the character files.
I am working on contracts. One for the Oppidum in general and shorter ones for each person.
The contract for the Oppidum will be what is expected of members of the Oppidum of Héviz and what you will get in return. Individual contracts will be a lot of boiler plate plus individual things for people.
Do not get worked up. It is going to take a little while to get up to speed. If all the characters were done I would not be ready to start for at least another week.
All the fiddly bits of Eve are DONE! Sort of. But they are ready to be examined by everyone else now. Oh and I need to pick out spells.
I feel like it seems I'm springing rules on people who do not have the Tribunal book. I will make more of an effort in the next several days to get more of the policies of the Tribunal posted.
I wouldn't say that. To be honest, I have the book, but hadn't had any time to look it until the last week or so, even though I'm playing a Tremere apprentice in another saga, and had joined this one. I think most of what is in Against the Dark is an extension of what is in Houses of Hermes: True Lineages. If you deal with the Tremere, they want something from you. If they let you live in the Tribunal, they want a fair bit. They will pay well for it, but any plusses you bring to the equation will not be tolerated if you step outside of some reasonable and (based on what is in HoH:TL) predictable guidelines.
My view of Tremere is also heavily shaded by Paul Briscoe's De Domo Tremeris. And I think he says it in that work that House Tremere doesn't like mystery cults, that they are antithetical to the House's goal of sharing magical knowledge (widely, within the House, at least).
The Tribunal is highly regulated. Everyone must understand that. I wanted to be clear that this is not the Tribunal to poke the bear unless the Praeco gives you the stick and tells you to poke it.
My understanding, from reading AtD is this is mostly true but they allow people to have their fun as long as they play ball. That means sharing knowledge and time. The cult that Eve proposes is dangerous. I'm willing to let it go to see what stories we get out of it but this is really not the best Tribunal to do it. Thebes would have been much better.
Remember that it is everyone's responsibility to know what your covenant mates are doing.
Eve doesn't want the cult common knowledge because people tend to get all pissy about Gnosticism. If they don't get annoyed and are tolerant she'll gladly help with any initiation they want. The only real danger from the Philo of Rome is that they might actually work, really well. (At least that is my impression of the whole Cult.)
As someone stated it is a pyramid scheme with lots of pyramids. Eve has moved herself to a new pyramid with her on top and now needs more people to base it up.
The Tremere HATE magus who think of themselves as gods. That is the purpose of the Philo of Rome in the long run.
I do need to go over the Philo of Rome again while looking at your character.
I did have a question about "mustering out" with the vis that could have been used during character generation, or some fraction thereof.
Ophelia spent 19 for her LR, and could have used 72 over her career. I'll also point out that build points for vis are pretty cheap, so regardless of which way you go, it's not going to have a huge impact.
I would rather people use the 75 build points for their own vis so I would say it goes away as gifts, bribes, lost bets and bad investments.
And purple dye, purple ink, purple silk, purple parchment ! Those are very sound investments, I tell you !
Well, I can envision her using it to boost spells, too.
Maybe I should consider losing 10 xp and mustering out with a kicka$$ LR...
It doesn't seem to be a pyramid scheme. More like a any standard company with employees. A pyramid scheme works by having the main benefits come from recruiting multiple people. The people on the bottom get crap. And due to the way exponential growth works most people get crap. Its a complicated scam.
Here is a basic pyramid scheme: Joining takes 5$ payed to your recruiter. Then you can recruit more people. If you can recruit two people you've made 5$. But here is the problem: Most people won't make any money. If everyone recruits two people you run out of new recruits pretty quickly. Most people just ended up paying 5$.
Not the case here. The key difference is, you get payment for helping do productive work. Now, that's a bit cold and harsh to put a religious group, but not the point. Eve has a fairly decent array of initiations she can perform. Eve initiates you in them. This is more equivalent to a standard business: People do work for Eve and get payed 5$. Eve makes a profit of 5$ for every worker she gets. After 100 workers Eve is 500$ richer and each worker is 5$ richer. Or Eve could use her new powers to help other people ascend. So everyone profits 500$.
See the difference? In a pyramid scheme the bottom gets screwed. In Eve's plans and the goal of any trade all people party to the trade profit.
True.
Ostensibly pyramid schemes dangle some small benefit to the people at the bottom to entice them to join. That's what Eve's initiations are. An enticement to join. One or two who started with you early on might get the real secrets, and they splinter off, hopefully not taking any of your followers with them. But, eventually, people won't progress any further in your organization, as your ambition is to keep all of your followers as followers, and use them to power a ritual that transforms you into a god, and your followers are your worshipers. Not everyone can be a god.
Why can't everyone be a god? Aspects call aspects. Aspects generate vis. It becomes a big self-worshiping loop. Even if that won't work out initiations are not small enticements. A personal vis source? Or maybe Eve gives you Book Learner, or Unaging. Those are major enticements, not minor enticements. Especially when the cost ultimately boils down to: "I need to to spend a season learning this ritual and cast it a few times".
Aspects have no need to call upon each other; they mingle and intermix wherever they actually reside in the Aether or Hall of Heroes, or whatever it is.
If your congregation is too busy pursuing their own immortality, they are far too busy for you to be summoned regularly. If you're only goal is apotheosis, and not what happens afterwards, then Eve has no concerns. Of course, some people might by tricked into this, as a method for removing rivals from the cult. Sure, I'll help you ascend, and then I'll take over the congregation, and then I will have ultimate power! Muhahahaha
They could certainly use the mutual power gain.
Why wouldn't you call upon the aspect who already knows all the spells to ascend, Can initiate you into the rites, assist you in the lab and cast the accession spell on you? It doesn't take long to do. Plus she can distribute her summoning text to the Order at large.
Could they? Or would they fight each other, as the Greek gods were known to do? (I know that the Sundered Eagle has the Greek Gods as Faeries, but still.) The path to power for Daimons is being summoned, as I recall. it's explicitly stated in the virtue: Ascendancy to the Hall of Heroes. Also, there's the issue of ascending, and might and learning that needs to be overcome.
Because those spells are only for the individual who ascended. Each of the spells must be invented personally by each aspirant to the Hall of Heroes.
I suppose it is possible that the ascended magus could be useful in the process later on, allowing an Aspect to be bound as a Familiar, but that would just provide assistance in the lab, much like any Gifted Worshiper could.
Related to the ritual, is the final might that is desired, and that requires a ritual of twice the level, so if you want a might 10, fine a 20th level ritual is pretty easy, but if you want Might 50, better bring your A-game in celebrants and magical power...