For development, progress and sheet etc.
Early life:
Pentelli (then Kostadin) grew up in a fishing village on the shore of a Byzantine theme that would later become part of the Bulgarian Empire. His home village was small, peaceful, and utterly unremarkable.
Equally unremarkable was the Milanese slave raid, which killed his father and captured him and his sister. While technically encouraged not to capture Christians, the Milanese had long argued that Greek orthodox were not real Catholics, so they fell upon the village in the night, killing many of the adults and seizing the women and children for sale back in the slave markets of Milan.
Here Penteli was separated from his sister when she was sold to be a house servant for a noble family and he was somewhat unusually sold to a marble quarry in Carrara. It was slightly unusual to sell a young slave for such labour, and Penteli is unsure to this day it might have had some sort of ulterior motive that he has never quite figured out or just a gift-borne dislike that sent him to this harsh and less profitable life.
The life of a marble quarrying slave was... unpleasant. The work was hard and dangerous and the recompense literally nonexistent. He worked hard in the quarry and learned how to work stones and also how much people hated him, not realizing it was his gift driving all the other workers to abuse him as much as they did. Grueling work was augmented by the lash, and he quickly learned that his life and place was a miserable one.
Luckily for him, one of the Verdi merchants who was buying the fine marble for the Verditious had been told to look out for particularly hated and miserable wretches, and brought Pentelli to the covenant's attention. Dispatching his Pater, they found that the young stonemason was indeed gifted and hastily purchaced him from his quarry.
Apprenticeship:
The fifteen years of apprenticeship were a ray of hope for Penteli. His master was noticeably strange and given to flights of imaginative fancy that he would then spend a year turning into an enchanted wonder. At his feet, Penteli was taught to be a magician, a craftsman, and more importantly to his pater, a wonderworker.
His master was of the opinion that the purpose of the Verditious was to make wonders that the order and the world could not help but be enchanted by. He was a very showy Verditious, wanting to make pieces that would catch the imagination of those who saw them. This was in part his hubris speaking as it drove him to steadily push the boundaries of the art of enchantment, which he believed was the height of human achievement.
Pentelli was in heaven. While his new surroundings were strange, to say the least, and the magi intimidating, anything would be better than being a gifted slave amongst the ungifted. The place of relative honour and comfort he was given in exchange for hard work was amazing to him and he took on a hero-worship of his pater that the rest of the covenant found faintly amusing. He worked hard to be a crafter and a magician. To be like his Pater.
Unfortunately for him, some of this over-eagerness rubbed off on him and he learned magic as a product of craftsmanship and found the general inability of his house to cast without tools amplified in him and found it difficult to manifest magic spontaneously. However, he found the interweaving of magic and craftsmanship endlessly fascinating, probably in part because the people he was surrounded with were almost religiously obsessed with the same ideas.
Verdi is a strange place to be an apprentice. The masterworks of great heroes of the Verditious are all around and it shows what the house is really capable of. He became ambitious and following his Paters footsteps started to dream of what his magic could achieve. This kept the stars in Pentelli's eyes and made him ignore or forgive all the slights, injustices, and hardships of an apprentice's life.
During this time he started to build a plan and a frankly unsound theology. He reasoned that all these good gifts, powers, and enchantments from these people who had saved him from slavery must be a divine gift. The people of the world were cruel and suffered because of satan's touch on the earth. Therefore the magic of the Order was a gift from God to help balance this out. Something that was given to humans, rather than having to seek divine intervention. Therefore magic was at least a little holy and magi had a duty to go and improve the lot of their fellow man. A holy duty to do so. He knew from an Arabic Verditious text he had studied that the Muslim holy men were as divinely protected as Christian ones, and it had been a Christian who enslaved him and a Christian who owned and abused him. So he decided that God was with whoever believed in him and showed their acts through good works. That satan had taken power in all of the churches and faiths.
When he told this idea to someone else, he was soundly beaten for dangerous heresy. Somehow this percussive persuasion didn't convince him, and he still quietly believes this terrible heresy.
During his time as a later apprentice, he fell in love with one of the daughters of one of the forge companions, a woman called Maria. To his enormous surprise, he eventually found the feeling was requited, with her seeing the kindness and fire to improve the world he held. While he would hide the relationship during the apprenticeship, his first post gauntlet act was to propose to her, something which her father accepted, reasoning that a Magi would be a beneficial marriage for his family.
Virtues and flaws intended:
Deficient technique: Perdo :Major hermetic flaw. Due to being raised since he was rescued to be a creator, he has a mental block on the art of destroying things.
Higher purpose: minor personality flaw: Pentelli believes it is his duty to serve mankind as a whole by bringing wonders into the world that will work for the betterment of the general welfare.
Soft-hearted: Minor personality flaw: Pentelli has suffered and been reprieved from it. He does not want others to suffer and will help out where he can and cannot bear to hurt people needlessly.
Dependant: Major story flaw: Pentelli has a wife who he loves dearly. She is a mundane covenfolk, with no particular ability to deal with danger.
Spontaneous casting tools: Minor hermetic flaw: Pentelli has managed to learn spontaneous magic, but it is still an act of craft for him, so he has a set of tools he uses for his spontaneous magic.
Slow caster: Minor Hermetic flaw: Since his magic requires acts of small craftsmanship, Pentelli casts slowly.
Virtues:
Major magical focus (stone) : Major Hermetic: Pentelli has worked with stone his whole life. It has shaped him as he has shaped it and now it is part of his magic.
Puissant terram: Minor hermetic: As the stonework has ruled his life, he has gained an affinity for it.
Puissant craft (stone mason): Minor virtue: His childhood having been consumed by learning stonemasonry at the end of a whip and then as a promise of power, the craft has become a big part of who he is.
Puissant magic theory: Minor virtue: His driving passion for the magic that rescued him from a life of misery means he studies and learns magic theory as well as he can.
Inventive genius: Minor hermetic virtue: Pentelli has been driven to invent wonders.
Method caster: Minor hermetic: He might be slow, but that gives him time to get his thoughts together and put a really good spell out.
Looks good. Guessing you are still indecisive about your last 2 points of virtues?
Yes! I know what would be mechanically sensible (some more xp related minor virtues) but I am shopping for something characterful
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any ideas, as an aside?
Because otherwise I am looking at two from
skilled pearens
book learner
good teacher
affinity for magic theory
affinity for terram
affinity rego
Or really triple down on the stone mage and get the potent magic:stone as a major virtue and lose one minor other virtue
Affinity for Craft (Stonemason)
Enduring Constitution
Puissant Philosophiae
Eye of Hephaestus (C&G p.71) could be fun for finding the weakest walls of buildings and so on.
| Characteristics | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | +3 | |||||
| Perception | -2 | |||||
| Strength | +2 | |||||
| Stamina | +1 | |||||
| Presence | -1 | |||||
| Communication | +2 | |||||
| Dexterity | +1 | |||||
| Quickness | -2 |
| Skills | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greek (peasant) | 5 | |||||||||
| Swim (sea) | 1 | |||||||||
| Charm (traders) | 1 | |||||||||
| Awareness (sight) | 1 | |||||||||
| Athletics (climbing) | 1 | |||||||||
| Folk ken (craftsmen) | 2 | |||||||||
| Survival (mountain) | 1 | |||||||||
| Brawl (headbutts) | 1 | |||||||||
| Craft (mason)(enchanting) | 5+2 | |||||||||
| Italian (technical) | 3 | |||||||||
| Guile (avoiding punishment) | 2 | |||||||||
| Magic theory (enchantment) | 5+2 | |||||||||
| Latin (magical) | 4 | |||||||||
| Arts Liberales (geometry) | 2 | |||||||||
| Philosophae (verdi runes) | 2 | |||||||||
| Finesse (terram) | 2 | |||||||||
| Verditious lore (initiation) | 1 | |||||||||
| OoH Lore (buyers) | 1 | |||||||||
| Magic lore (elementals) | 1 | |||||||||
| Parma magica (terram) | 1 | |||||||||
| Area lore (italy)(marble sites) | 1 | |||||||||
| Concentration | 1 |
| Magical Arts | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exp | Technique | Score | ||||||||||||
| Creo | 3 | |||||||||||||
| Intellego | 1 | |||||||||||||
| Muto | 3 | |||||||||||||
| Perdo | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Rego | 8 | |||||||||||||
| Exp | Form | Score | ||||||||||||
| Animal | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Aquam | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Auram | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Corpus | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Herbam | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Ignem | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Imaginem | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Mentem | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Terram | 8+3 | |||||||||||||
| Vim | 5 |
Spells:
Eyes of the cat (MuAn 5)
Step sideways (reCo 15)
Lamp without flame (CrIg 10)
The obedient fire (reIg 20)
Call to slumber (ReMe 10)
Wall of protecting stone (CrTe 25)
Supple iron and solid rope (MuTe10)
Object of increased size (MuTe 15)
Disarm the warrior (ReTe 10)
Unseen porter (ReTe 10)
Hands of the antiquitarian (ReTe 15)
Gather the essence of the beast (ReVi 15)
Maintain the demanding spell (Revi 20)
Virtues and flaws:
Virtues:
Major magical focus (stone) : Major Hermetic
Puissant terram: Minor hermetic:
Puissant craft (stone mason): Minor virtue:
Puissant magic theory: Minor virtue:
Inventive genius: Minor hermetic virtue:
Method caster: Minor hermetic:
Skilled paerens: Minor hermetic
Minor potent magic: Marble
Deficient technique: Perdo :Major hermetic flaw.
Higher purpose: minor personality flaw:
Soft-hearted: Minor personality flaw:
Dependant: Major story flaw: Pentelli has a wife
Spontaneous casting tools: Minor hermetic flaw:
Slow caster: Minor Hermetic flaw:
Personality traits:
Soft hearted +3 (from the flaw)
Brave +2
Optimistic +2
Methodical +2
Looks good. Few thoughts:
Cult lore (verdi) should be Verditius Lore with another specialization.
I am not sure what Folk lore (sea stories) is? An area lore? Profession: Storyteller?
What age is he would be good so we can double check the math.
So you ditched the idea of him being from another tribunal?
I will make the changes.
Folk ken should be having a specialty of craftsmen. I misremembered what it was
He is currently 28 having been found as a 13 year old.
I ditched the idea of him coming from another tribunal because some research showed that the best place to mine marble and also to have been enslaved is in Italy.
changed some early life things
Oh missed this one the first time.
Area lore should be changed to Area Lore: Italy and have a specialization.
Am debating making my character also join the Mathematikoi, but not advance to the higher levels, just the basic numerology.
If I do, it might also be good for your character, since after learning the deeper secrets, you're supposed to have at least one cult member in your Covenant, if I had read it correctly. And Numerology is also good for divination.
Somehow I missed this. If the mathematikoi are willing to have someone who is already in a mystery house, then that would be great for my character, as I eventually do wat to get into the terrible point sink which is hermetic architecture 
2 Likes
Edited my spells and personality in
Spells:
Eyes of the cat (MuAn 5)
Step sideways (reCo 15)
Lamp without flame (CrIg 10)
The obedient fire (reIg 20)
Call to slumber (ReMe 10)
Wall of protecting stone (CrTe 25)
Supple iron and solid rope (MuTe10)
Object of increased size (MuTe 15)
Disarm the warrior (ReTe 10)
Unseen porter (ReTe 10)
Hands of the antiquitarian (ReTe 15)
Gather the essence of the beast (ReVi 15)
Maintain the demanding spell (Revi 20)
Have you given any thought to casting tools? And any idea for his sigil?