Pytheas ex Tytalus

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: The Price of Freedom
18

All right, here's what I envision for the resources and the journey from Fudarus to Heligoland.

First, when he left Fudarus Pytheas did not leave empty-handed: his mentor had put together a small pack with a few 'essentials' for the journey. Nobody was so gauche as to say, or even think too hard, that this was a reward for betraying his parens and switching sides in such a spectacular fashion, of course.

This is the part where I get a generous allotment of silver and possibly a text or two, to be determined. From his apprenticeship Pytheas should also have a copy of the Analects of Tytalus (HoH insert p.74 and all along the chapter on Tytalus for snippets of the book), and a copy of the Book of Instruction unless he decided to burn it and scatter its ashes over the ocean...

The Analects of Tytalus, collated by Hariste
Summa on House Tytalus Lore, Level 4, Quality 11
Summa on Philosophiae, Level 3, Quality 11
Tractatus on Order of Hermes Lore, Quality 8
The Book of Instruction by Tytalus ('has absolutely no instructional value')

Second, when he left Fudarus Pytheas decided to head North and East along the coasts of Brittany, Normandy, Picardy and Flanders, buying passage on a series of coastal merchant ships. He made a point of going ashore at a few points of interest and even explore a few interesting bays, among them:

  • the Domen of Kerguntuil, which stands on an island and was once the site of a Diedne covenant (Northern Brittany)
  • the general area where the regio in which Branugurix stood is located, but he did not try to find the entrance (Branugurix was the Domus Magna of House Diedne, in Norther Brittany near the border with Normandy).
  • the isle of Jersey where the covenant of Aedes Salii once stood (Flambeau/Tremere covenant founded to coordinate actions during the Schism War, abandoned afterwards)
  • The site of the covenant of destroyed covenant of Pagus
  • he stopped for the night at the quaesitorial covenant of Confluensis.
  • he also stopped for a couple of nights at the Mercer House of Dragon's Rest (a possible place to hook up with our redcap. There's a Mercere Portal there.)
  • the site of the abandoned covenant of Infelicitas (founded by Rancrax ex Tytalus, abandoned at his death)
  • he again stopped for a night at the covenant of Spider's Palace (Quercus would love it, there was once a thousand year old oak spirit there).
    Each time Pythaeus made only a token effort exploring the land (or not at all in the case of active covenants) but spent a few hours swimming in nearby waters.

(Note: basically every covenant along the coast from Fudarus to the border with the Rhine Tribunal, according to L&L)

Basically one or more seasons of adventures along the coast, to gather resources, including

Attacked by pirates
Pytheas was traveling on a ship along the Brittany coast when it was attacked by pirates: a large rowing boat filled with armed men, several times more than enough to take over the small merchant ship he was traveling on. Or it would have been, had he not been on board (and the captain who had only been persuaded by a very fat purse of silver was suddenly very glad his greed had gotten the better of him). Pytheas had reason to bless his parens' insistence that he learn on good offensive spell and learn it well, as he blasted the ship and its occupant with torrents of water, sending half the pirates overboard and eventually capsizing the boat. One of the pirates shouted out, promising to serve Pytheas forever if he would just save him, for he could not swim. Pytheas did so and acquired a loyal grog, and a large rowing boat (missing most of its oars).
Acquired: a shield grog, a large rowing boat.

The stopover at existing covenants are also a good excuse to turn some of the silver from Fudarus into lab equipment, possibly ordered ahead.

[hr][/hr]

The goal here is to make sure Pytheas brings his 'fair share' of wealth to the covenant. If this setup works it would give Pytheas

  • some silver.
  • possibly a text or two if it is appropriate; maybe a few lab texts for useful spells ?
  • a copy of the Analects of Tytalus, which is a decent starter book on Philosophiae if nothing else.
  • a large rowing boat (which he arranges to be towed by his merchant ships)
  • an ex-pirate shield grog
  • possibly some lab equipment (it costs 5 Mythic Pounds to outfit a basic laboratory) - this is merely converting silver from above into equipment in a storied fashion.
  • whatever the ST judges appropriate for a season of adventure that incidentally produced a large rowing boat and a shield grog.
  • I still need to recruit a servant somewhere; not a problem, I just haven't figured out the servant yet.

I still feel this is low for starting a covenant, so unless the troupe feels otherwise I'll travel more slowly and add as many seasons of adventure as it takes. If I happen to find vis, my stopovers at covenants would give me an opportunity to trade it.

19

Brace yourself... :wink:

Does he know yet that he is headed for Helgeland? He wouldn't. At best, he would have been directed to a port town/city where all the magi are to gather.

How did Bernhard approach him? Does he know the other magi? Have they corresponded beforehand?

You got your ten pieces of silver, Judas. Ok, let's make that 10 pounds of silver instead.

I've always found that the sourcebooks are overly generous in terms of level and quality, and even more when combining multiple subjects. Seemes to me that the stats you quote ewould result in a book sevral hundreds of pages long. So, as I do not feel bound by the dictates of the sourcebooks outside of the core book, here are the stats of the Analects in this saga:

  • Summa on House Tytalus Lore (L3Q8)
  • Tractatus on Philosophiae (Q8)
  • Tractatus on Order of Hermes Lore (Q6)

How did he know about all of these sites, particularly those of defunct covenants? He has no score in Order of Hermes Lore, nor does the Area Lore that he has (Ushant) cover this area.

What was the purpose of this exploration? What did you, the player, and him, the character, try to achieve by it?

Note that the magus has neither the Gentle Gift, nor any significant social ability. Negociating with ship captains will have been very difficult, perhaps even impossible. And it would have cost him a bundle. Perhaps even all of the money he received from his mentor, so he would have almost nothing left by the time he linked up with the others. Some of the ship captain might also have ended up being pirates themselves if he shows that he has a lot of money with him.

I'm not convinced the encounter with pirates would have turned that way. Your single offensive spell is D:Mom and not strong enough to capsize a boat that size. And chances are that the merchant captain would have thrown you overboard afterwards even if by some chance it did.

Pirates usually attack with overwhelming force. A rowing boat has little chance of catching up with a sail-driven ship.

Finally, I have mentioned before that each magus gets a shield grog assigned to him at some point (usually late) during his apprenticeship, as a standard procedure. This allows the grog to get used to the Gift the apprentice. So you would already have a shield grog by the time you leave Fudarus. The servant is optional, but might be a slave you rescue in a modified version of the pirate attack. (You could get captured instead, and escape with your grog and the servant.)

The list will evolve as you adjust the story above. One option is to have your mentor arrange for more resources for you, or point you towards a place where you can earn those (or additional) resources in various ways. That could be the link to a story-like period of time, but on the other hand would probably involve something shady to help you gather more resources in a shorter time.

But do not forget the biggest resources of all that you bring to the covenant. The magus himself. Even without anything else, that brings a lot to a shared-resources situation. So don't worry about your magus "not bringing enough" or "not bringing as much as the others". That will quickly balance out. Even if you were to bring only a sailing boat, that would be a significant contribution to a resources-poor new covenant.

20

Okay, let's get a bead on the most important part first, then I can see about maybe having some additional resources. I'm answering your answers below, but here's the outline:

Pytheas leaves Fudarus because he is heartily sick of the infighting there. He wants to challenge himself against the sea, not against his fellow Tytalus. He could have gone South, he goes North instead, for not particular reason.
Pytheas' spectacular change of allegiance is bound to have become gossip in the Tribunal. Plus, he stops along the way at several covenants, and makes no secret of what he is doing. That gives Bernhard a chance to catch up with him and invite him to join the new covenant. Bernhard probably was planning to do so anyway, but got caught by surprise when Pytheas left Fudarus immediately after his Gauntlet.
He has the Blatant Gift, no social skill worth mentioning, and is Driven to stop and swim around whenever he sees something out of the ordinary. Thus the journey itself can only be represented by a season of adventure (quite possibly played in character). Well, unless it takes two. Or three.
Once Bernhard catches up, Pytheas stops fooling around and sails for Heligoland, in a ship he buys if he hasn't acquired one through adventure.

[hr][/hr]

Now for specific points

He doesn't know yet, he's just going exploring. Bernhard will contact him somewhere along the way. Maybe at Dragon's Rest ?

Objection, your honor. The proper term is filius carus ("beloved son"). That is Tytalus-speak for "ungrateful back-stabbing apprentice".

No objection to the stats, but that particular book is the collated wisdom of Tytalus as related by every Tytalus magus who knew him. It might well be hundreds of pages long.

You got me there. Unless magic lore can be stretched to cover the knowledge of where magic auras lie ? Or he might have gotten a map from his Mentor (which would count as a tractatus on the appropriate Tribunal) ? Also he does not need to know all of them when he leaves, only enough to get him to the first occupied covenant where he can ask for directions to the next one.
If that doesn't work, then he simply follows the coast and stops whenever the mood strikes him to explore a place for a few days.

Pytheas is Driven to explore the Ocean Floor. He's starting on his life obsession. Oh, if you ask Pytheas he'll say that he is practicing his spells and his skills, acquiring valuable experience, looking for areas of interests (magical auras underwater) and hoping to maybe find some unattended vis lying around. But really he's just following his Essential Nature.
As player I'm trying to pick up a few resources (vis, riches from a shipwreck, maybe something one of the destroyed covenant threw in the ocean rather than have falling into the conqueror's hands) so I don't come to the new covenant empty handed.

All of which sounds like wonderful stories and adventures in the making, and is another reason why it's going to take him several seasons to make a trip that should last 7 days (C&G p.89).

Let's not get carried away. 1 pound of silver buys a couple of magi and a half dozen grogs two weeks of travel with a merchant (C&G p.85). So the standard price for Ushant to Bruges for one person comes at 1/16 of a pound, call it a silver penny because the larger party got a group price. Asking for 120 times that price isn't gouging, it's outright piracy ! (okay, so he needs to buy food for the whole time too, and leave a small hospitality gift at the covenants he visits).

Okay, first I was thinking of a small sailing ship, with a crew of four or five (sailing ships have small crews). The kind of ship that stops at every village and does some trading instead of just carrying cargo from port A to port B. A large rowing boat can carry 20 if they are packed tightly, with maybe eight rowing, so that's overwhelming force (actually a viking longboat carried up to 50 or more, but that's no longer a boat). And over short distances, a rowing boat most certainly can catch a medieval sailing ship, particularly if the wind is not cooperating that day. What I'm envisioning is a group of local pirates waiting on the coast until a likely ship passes by, then rowing out to seize it, a common form of piracy in the Middle Ages (Pirates of the Caribbean this isn't).
Now as for the spell, it is the one I've mastered for multicasting, and it should work well enough to throw a pirate overboard. At Voice Range I should have a few rounds to play 'dunk the pirate'. I'll grant you that capsizing the ship is unlikely from the spell, as I had forgotten that the water disappears momentarily. Could we say the pirates did it themselves in the general confusion of trying to not get knocked overboard ?

Actually I was trying to work out a backstory for the one shield grog I was assigned as standard. Which apparently was the wrong thing to do, or at least the wrong time in Pytheas' life to put it in.

There you go, that's why I was visiting all those abandoned covenants !

[hr][/hr]

Note: I added a short paragraph to Pytheas' character sheet, explaining that he has chose the challenge the sea and is trying to distance himself from the feud between Primi (although his formal allegiance is registered for Harpax).

21

He leaves because he is sick of the infighting, but he just poured additional oil on the fire by betraying his pater's position in the conflict? That seems a bit contradictory. It might make more sense to say that he had failed to understand all the repercussions and personal consequences that would come with the betrayal...

By the time the saga starts, the conflict has been going on for over a decade. Most the the Tribunal is sick and tired of it, and no longer pay attention. Any splash you action may have generated will be of very limited scope outside of your House.

What is it that Bernhard would have heard of Pytheas that would drive him to seek him out? Perhaps a base on good relationship between Bernhard and your mentor? We need a hook of some kind.

As I mentioned, you cannot sail to Helgeland on your own, because Bernhard will only reveal your destination once you're on your way, and after each of you has signed the contract regarding the vis source. He probably directed all of the magi to gather in the city of Anvers (Antwerp).

But yes, if Pytheas wanders along the way and swims around, he will certainly meet trouble of some sort. My problem is in believing that he would survive the trouble he would find, for he is a single magus, far from optimized for survival and/or combat, with a single shield grog. His mix of flaws tell me that if he gets into trouble, he will be quickly over his head.

Another issue is that if he just "swims around" to make his way over to Anvers, then he cannot bring much resources with him. So if he starts out of Fudarus with a good part of the resources he brings, then he needs to transport them. That limits the ways he can travel. We need to find a plausble scenario for that.

I think you're trying too many things in the short period of time available to your magus before the saga starts. So let's concentrate on only a few actions, which will make things more believable. Here a potential roadmap around which you could work.

Pytheas leaves Fudarus with only a few things: the Analects, the Book of Instruction, a bit of silver and his shield grog. His mentor directs him to the ruins of a dead (unnamed) covenant that literally fell into the sea during the Schism War. Exploration occurs, you retreive some stuff (silver, vis, perhaps some other equipment such as an minorly enchanted boat).

But you get into trouble because another magus has claimed the site for his covenant. You can't remain in Normandy nor keep most of what you reteived. You contact a redcap to peddle off some of the things you found. The redcap is Bernhard. Listening to your rants about established covenants, he offers you an opportunity to perhaps form a new covenant. He directs you to Anvers, where you meet the others.

How does that sound to you?

22

Don't forget that according to the backstory, Pytheas' mentor has already helped him in the past. Pytheas owed him, which is why he declared for Harpax; not because he believes he's the right Primus (actually, no Tytalus cares about which one is 'right', they don't want to waste a perfectly good quarrel with stupid leaglities). He didn't do it to help along the dispute, he did it as a favor to Adanos. He certainly wouldn't want to stay in Fudarus after he has made a personal enemy of his parens, but this is still a Tytalus enmity we are speaking of here. No one is going to resort to violence.

Well, I don't know that much about Bernhard, but he would probably have heard that Pytheas is adventurous (a rare quality in a calcified Order), likes the sea (important for a covenant on a small island). If we need more, a relation with Adanos Lutorum ex Tytalus, Pytheas' mentor, is certainly possible.

Right, sailing to Anvers then once Bernhard does catch up to make his offer.

That bad ? I could design my servant grog to be good at social skills to help with the humans. Other than that, would it help if Pytheas and grogs traveled in a small boat of their own ? That would limit interactions with humans a lot (sending the servant to buy supplies from time to time), and the sea itself should be safe enough, sea-monster-wise, because there are fishermen plying their trade all along the coast.

I never intended him to swim any distance. He just stops in a place that catches his eye, makes camp, then spends a few hours/days swimming nearby. THen he starts on his journey again.

Now it's my turn to have trouble believing the series of events. If a magus from Normandy has claimed a site, Adanos is bound to know and wouldn't direct Pytheas there. After all, claiming a site must be done at a Tribunal, it's not something the other magi would miss...
But we could amend that to say that Pytheas and the other magus arrive at the site around the same time, perhaps from opposite sides. They start exploring, pick up things, leave the heavier items to take away later, then meet in the center. They can't agree on how to share the bounty, and the other magus calls for a certamen to resolve the issue. Pytheas loses (big surprise) and must leave with only what he had already put in his bag. Pytheas decides to peddle off some of what he found (he just doesn't have the skill to investigate a magic item, for instance), and contact a redcap (Bernhard).

23

Cool, I just wanted it explained.

With a magus with the Blatant Gift, a grog with good social skills is a good idea, regardless of other considerations. :laughing:

A small boat right off the departure from Fudarus might be a good idea. If you give your grog (and/or your servant) skills at sailing, you'd kill two birds in one stone.

Why do you think your mentor asked you to do it, instead of doing it himself? :smiling_imp: You owe him favours, that was one. He was searching for a specific artifact, which you got for him. He manipulated you into taking the heat for this. You still owe him more favours, but he'll leave you alone for a little while because of this. With your non-existant Order of Hermes Lore, you didn't realize the site was claimed.

Certamen and all might still have happened, or the magus just pressed his claim ex post facto, to get you to relinquish those items you obtained. But by getting rid of them quickly (through Bernhard, a contact your mentor gave you for this purpose), you got around the strict wording of the certamen results (or Quaesitor ruling).

You keep saying that it was Bernhard who caught up with you to make the offer. But it is in fact the reverse; you linked up with him to get rid of your loot (some of it may have been used to purchase some resources) and he reacted to your disgust at the legalistic deck being stacked in favour of established covenants. That's when he proposed a deal to you. You had to get out of the Normandy Tribunal anyway, so it suited you to move to the Rhine and poke the establishement in the eye over there.

Is that more plausible to you?

24

Hmm, all right. Let me try to reweave the story from the top, as it's getting a bit frayed with all those patches, then you can tell me if I'm still missing things.

Pytheas was born (under the name of Gwenaël) on the island of Ushant, the same island that houses Fudarus, Domus Magna of House Tytalus, to a family of fishermen. He quickly became the talk of the village (and not in a good way) for his habit of holding conversations with, he claimed, a blue fish living in a tidal pool, which no one else could see. This was in fact the spirit Peska, an elemental spirit of water.
Pytheas was apprenticed at seven to Kybella ex Tytalus, a close friend of Buliste and a leading member of the Titanoi, a theurgist cult within House Tytalus. Given his Blatant Gift, fostering him out for his general education was not an option, and Kybella resolved herself to having to teach everything to her apprentice herself. Being an apprentice caught in the middle of a Tytalus feud of such proportion was harrowing, but Pytheas was very occasionally able to work the supporters of Buliste against those of Harpax, and get his own way in small things. In this he was helped by Adanos Lutorum ex Tytalus, a stauch supporter of Harpax and who bears the blood of an earth spirit. Merging together the hints dropped by Peska and Adanos with the teaching on elemental spirits from Kybella he acquired quite an affinity for Elemental Magic.
After successfully passing his Gauntlet, Pytheas reversed his purple cloak (Buliste's color), revealing the green (Harpax') lining he had secretly sewn there for the occasion. He then knelt to Harpax and thanked him for accepting him into the House. While the two Primi were insulting each other he walked off and left the island. This incidentally nicely shelved the plans Kybella had made for her apprentice to join the Titanoi, which held little interest for Pytheas.

Pytheas' departure had been planned with the help of his mentor Adanos, who well understood that Pytheas would not want to stay in the same covenant as his parens after such a public insult (although the insult itself was very much in the Tytalus tradition). Adanos gave him some coins and gems worth 10 Mythic Pounds of silver (no one want to lug around 10 pounds of metal if he can help it), as well as an open boat, about 20 feet in length, with two pairs or oars and a removable mast bearing one sail. He also asked Pytheas, as a favor, to stop at a former covenant that sunk underwater and retrieve an artifact for him, telling him to keep anything else he found there. Pytheas left Ushant on that boat, together with a shield grog (a reformed pirate) and a servant (the son of a fisherman), both skilled at sailing and rowing.

The closest thing I could find to Pytheas' boat, although his wasn't built in Norway :slight_smile:

Pytheas and his grogs traveled up the coast of Brittany in a leisurely fashion, sailing or rowing by day, stopping by night or whenever the fancy took Pytheas, avoiding villages except to buy supplies. In time they arrived at the covenant mentioned by Adanos. Pytheas spent a few days exploring the underwater site, and found the artifact mentioned by his mentor, as well as what looked to be a couple of minor magic items, some valuable objects (silverware, glassware, a mirror, ...) and some vis. But Adanos had carefully neglected to mention that the site was claimed by another covenant, and Pytheas found himself having to flee hurriedly and leave the Tribunal. He contacted a redcap Adanos had mentioned as amenable to skirting the letter of the law, Bernhard, to arrange the delivery of the artifact back to Ushant and to find a buyer for the other two minor magic items (Pytheas only knew they where magical, not what they might do or how to use them, and he did not have the skill to find out).

Bernhard, who clearly had some history with Adanos and probably heard of Pytheas from him, took the opportunity to invite Pytheas to join in the founding of the new covenant. Pytheas agreed and made his way to the meeting point at Anvers/Antwerp.

25

Perfect!

Now, what kind of resources does that entail for Pytheas at the time of his joining the others?

26

Here's what I have so far

10 Mythic Pounds of silver (or their equivalent in portable wealth).
One 20 foot boat, with sail and two pair of oars.
Two grogs, one fighter and one servant.
The Analects of Tytalus (summa on House Tytalus Lore L3 Q8, tractatus on Philosophiae Q8; tractatus on Order of Hermes Lore Q6).
The Book of Instructions (no educational value whatsoever)

That's what he left the Ushant with. Should be added the proceeds of his exploration of the sunken covenant. I'm sinking more silver (probably not coin, but silverware or other valuable objects), and maybe some vis: Aquam vis found on site, or the proceeds of the sale of some mystery magic items -although the rules on magic investigation don't make mystery magic item attractive for the buyer: you lose at least one season of investigation which you could have used to extract vis...)

27

Although the right InVi spells can at least give you an idea of how powerful a magical item might be -- based on how much vis is cooked into it. But indeed, the best guess is probably to try and peddle this to a Verditius through the redcap network. But you don't get much value if you sell it as an unknown. One option would be to pay someone to investigate it first, another would be to try and keep for a time when you can investigate it (unlikely). Perhaps you can get a copy of a vain book or a tractatus. Or otherwise a few pawns of vis.

In short, let me know what you think you'd get out of the adventure, from a loot point of view (or what you purchased with it). You also get 10 xp for that season.

28

How about 5 Mythic Pounds of silver and one pawn each of Aquam, Auram, Ignem and Terram vis ?

29

Works for me.

30

Updated the first post with all the resources and the full history.

31

Have you decided where the 10 xp will go?

32

Right, I knew I was forgetting something. Hmm, let's go for a little of everything:

1 xp in Athletics, 1 xp in Hunt (that's for fishing), 1 xp in Profession: Sailor, 5 xp in Swim, 1 xp in Muto, 1 xp in Aquam (which will trigger one xp each in Auram, Ignem and Terram with Elemental Magic).

33

Emphasis mine.

Story experience is not study. Study is from books, raw vis or a teacher.

34

You're right. I was going by memory and my experience of the Affinity virtues, which applies to everything from exposure from studying. No free experience then.

35

I can't locate Pytheas' age on his character sheet...

36

No personality traits either, from what I can see.

If you're wondering, it is simply because I'm putting together a summary of the magi for my own use, so that I don't miss anything important when preparing stories or making secret rolls.

37

Pytheas is 22.

As for his Personality traits, he is overconfident and driven to explore the oceans (both tied to flaws). Maybe I should see about adding another one or two... but I'm not sure they would register after the first two.