Meanwhile, back on the boat, Pyrrhus gathers the men together on deck. “Listen up, men. We’re relocating, making a permanent settlement. But it’s not anywhere most of have lived before.”
Everyone starts grumbling, except Onassis, a tall thin man with strong dark hair, and a fair complexion, unusual for people from the Tribunal. He asks, “Where are we going Pyrrhus?”
“Well,” the three others are discussing this a bit too loudly talking over Pyrrhus. He waits a few moments, and when they realize they are talking and Pyrrhus isn’t and is looking at them sternly, “Miles, Ambrose, Hector, may I have your attention?” Each of them nods, and Pyrrhus continues, “We’re going to Transylvania.” At that, everyone starts talking at once, with almost everyone expressing the opinion that it’s a bad idea.
“If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to leave, and become a soldier of fortune, join a crusade. Whatever you would like to do is your choice. You all know that since the Tribunal, even though Ophelia was justified in her actions, some don’t believe that’s the case. It didn’t help that magic and spells she submitted to were supposed to show the truth when instead it showed her lying. And there is no work for us anymore. We are done with the Theban Tribunal. We are done with it because it seems it is done with us.”
At that everyone quiets down. “But we don’t speak the language!” Hector says with half a heart, even though he’s the newest and youngest, he’s been aware of all the talk and he’s noticed that they haven’t been as busy as their stories suggested.
Pyrrhus looks at him sternly, “You’re smart, you’ll learn it. We’ll all learn it. Maybe Onassis can teach what he knows, or we hire a scholar. Ophelia will provide the necessary coin for that.” Pyrrhus looks up at the tower of Polyiagos, where Ophelia is discussing things with one of the Tremere she was to be meeting. “That’s not everything. Ophelia be joining a covenant. I expect we will have to integrate with an existing turb. Tremere respect soldiers, indeed, they consider themselves to be soldiers.” Turning back to the men, “You may have to work with other magi or magae, though. I’m sure Ophelia will do her best to keep us together, but she may not have a lot of freedom with regards to that. Then again she might. We are a cohesive squad. We can work well together, the 5 of us, but with her, it’s so much better. And without us, she’s vulnerable. She knows this. But, I’m sure she’ll begin focusing on different things, considering she is settling in one location. Some of you may not know the Order very well, but most magi live in covenants and study all the time. Ophelia is different. She studied only rarely, getting a lab wherever one was available, and learning the spells she has. I suspect this will be changing.”
Then quietly, to himself, “Like everything else.” He takes a deep breath, “I’ve been asked to find a replacement, to transition myself to a less active and more advisory role. Regardless, someone new will be added to Ophelia’s Immortals, prepare yourselves.” He looks really long and hard at Onassis, as if trying to tell him that he’s the one.
One of Ophelia's problems is that she isn't fluent in Latin. Her spells are in Greek, none are in Latin. She should have some difficulty with recognizing Latin spells (determining the effect) until she achieves fluency in Latin and at least invents or learns some spells from a lab text.
Also, those unfamiliar with Greek, should have trouble recognizing her spells, based on the words. I think the gestures for the techniques and forms are largely the same, or have some similarities. I'm not sure how this should work exactly, but I think there should be something needs to be discussed with regards to this issue.
Diotima may have some or all of her spells in Greek, too...
Diotima's spells were invented in Greek, yes. Not that she was living in the Theban Tribunal at the time, but she and her parens were both from there originally, and she is secretive about them so using Greek makes perfect sense.
Here's the relevant quote from Sundered Eagle:
But there is a problem: the rules on p.83 make working the Form out automatic if the caster is a Hermetic magus and is using words and gestures that the other maga can hear and see. The roll only applies if the second maga cannot hear and see the caster - in which case the language in which he is casting seems irrelevant. So, how do you apply a penalty to something that is automatic, and why should the language matter if the spectator is not hearing it anyway ?
Might best guess would be, since the Ease Factor is 15 - magnitude when the spectator cannot hear and see, to make it 10 - magnitude if he can hear and see and has the wrong language, and 5 - magnitude if he can hear and see and knows the language but not well enough.
Thanks, I forgot to look in Sundered Eagle, for what I was wanting. But now that I was reminded of it, I remember why I don't like it, and why I kind of HR'ed it in Bibracte.
10 -magnitude instead of 15-magnitude is going the opposite way, making it easier. It's Per+Awareness vs 15 - magnitude. Sundered Eagle suggests making it an effective 25 - magnitude. Which means a Latin magus casting a Ball of Abysmal Flame against Ophelia, who isn't fluent in Latin, would be Per+Awareness+die vs 25-7. On average, she's not going to recognize that spell. Presume they are using gestures, too, Sundered Eagle's position completely ignores this. It's better than Obfuscated Casting Mastery (even in RAW), since it just adds the mastery score to the EF, which is normally 15-magnitude +Mastery. In this saga, the number added to the difficulty is probably of times one takes obfuscated mastery, though, not the overall ability score. Not knowing the language of the caster, could be seen as being worse than the magus just shouting out a word (which would be necessary for a Voice range spell to get to the target).
I suggest maybe an obfuscation based on the difference of required fluency and language score. It changes the modification to at most a +4 to the EF. In Ophelia's case this becomes Per+Awareness+die vs 15-magnitude + (Required Latin 4 - Ophelia's Latin 3).
What do we think of this adjustment?
15-magnitude is when the second magus already can't hear the casting mage, otherwise it is automatic. That's where my problem lies, Sundered Eagle suggests adding a penalty to something that is normally automatic !
That's why I went with making the Ease factor easier, because it's somewhere between automatic success and not hearing (and seeing) the caster at all.
For what's it worth, Exotic casting (from HoH:S, ex Misc section) forces the spectator to make an Ease 15 Per+Awareness roll without subtracting the magnitude. And it too has got to be more difficult than having the right theory but the wrong language. So Ease 15 really should be the outside limit.
Ok, I see where you're coming from now.
Duh.
I think something more comprehensive needs to happen here. What happens if the gestures are subtle; page 83 says use the formula, but that would also apply if no gestures are used. So, the difference between subtle and no gestures is...nothing. If it's a sight spell, and using a quiet or no voice, again, there's no difference. It should probably scale.
Probably start at EF 6
Subtle gestures: +3
No gestures: +6
Quiet Voice: +3
No voice: +6
This makes it a max difficulty 18 - magnitude, if no gestures or voice are used. I think that's reasonable. And then if there is no knowledge of the language of the speaker, it's equal to No Voice, but if you start learning the language, it's like my proposal, of 4-Effective language ability score.
The Tribunal will provide a Latin teacher for her and her men if they are willing.
They are all willing. Ophelia has a Latin score of 3. I can explain that as her method of trying to be prepared for opposing magi.
But, that only addresses a small issue, really. What do you, or does anyone else think about the adjustment to the EF for determining the Form of the effect?
This is what I was thinking. not knowing the language is akin to No Voice. How should the penalty be adjusted for somewhat knowing the language? Having a 1 in Greek should be better than having a zero.
Oh it is better. It's as if it's quiet, because the modifier is at most a 3 (4-1) and at best a 1, as in Ophelia's case. The adjustment, instead of +6 is 4 (the necessary level to be fluent for Hermetic purposes) - actual knowledge. Although if someone is using a quiet voice, it should be 3 + (4-Language ability score). The quiet voice and a score of 1 in a language is going to be equal to no knowledge of the language. I can see that, too.
Do you want me to stat out the horses? I was going to let Ophelia's have Unaffected by the Gift. A rare prize among horses...
No. I would think that some parts of House Flambeau would try to breed horses with this trait. Kind of a Flambeau bonus.
That, or just have a Gifted trainer work with the horses until they mostly get over it. I do seem to recall fluff saying such horses are very prized and likely very expensive (in fact I think HoH:TL mentions the Tremere giving up on horses themselves), but a Flambeau of Ophelia's stature would have one if anyone does.
She's not far from having The Wizard's Mount, so this horse could be towards the end of his useful life. And it could force her to find a lab text and learn the spell.
The Gifted trainer is certainly possible, but breeding might be an easier/cheaper alternative. People need to be exposed to a Gifted person for ~15 years to become used to it. There's a reason why Hector doesn't say much to Ophelia, and she deals mostly with Pyrrhus and Onassis. How long would it be for a horse to become used to the Gift? I'd say it's a rather long time..
We have a grog that can train animals with Animal and Auram Might.
Well, as soon as Ophelia captures a flock of hippogriffs, she'll contact Lupul!
She needs at least 6.
A gaggle of Griffins?
Tweaked Ophelia to give her Gather the Essence of the Beast. This was a fairly important spell to the concept, that she and her grogs hunt down magical creatures and then harvest the vis. Given her low Rego Vis CS, pulling off a spontaneous spell is likely, even less likely with Chaotic Magic.
I killed her Herbam score as a result. Yikes!
Edit: here's the quick link back to her page. I believe she's correct on the wiki, at least without her grimoire and need to fix formatting there, too.
220, 221, whatever it takes.