If I tell you now will you promise to still read my thread?
LOL. I am an Ars addict, so I am likely to read it anyway. But I can wait. If the waiting brings cool results 
Oh! I KNOW!!! You just made a major fire dragon (Might 75+) into your familiar!! All makes sense now!! 
No? A fire elemental, then? :mrgreen: Did you make your talisman able to draw power directly from Mount Etna so it shots jets of mundane lava? Jets from the Sun as an alternative? You turn the enemy equipment into wood so it burns better? Turn the equipment into fire? A tunic turned into fire might be funny to see in action (in a fantasy game).
Getting on a hype all of my own here :mrgreen:
Xavi
Great 
now I'll have to redo the entire character so he can shoot jets of mundane lava, thanks a lot! He already turns enemy equipment into fire look at Transformation of Fire on page 113. You know that there's no way that what I've written will live up to too much hype don't you?
Got me there. Been a while since I read the characters in that book 
It is always good to see magi evolve (even if I hate doing it myself). I found the original book specially useful because of this way of giving you people to interact that changed over time without having to devote days to it myself (as a SG) sao I appreciate it a lot.
Cheers,
Xavi
Ranulf's sixty-first year out of apprenticeship is the last year he has his old apprentice to work with. It's a year for getting one last bit of juice out of the apprentice. Ranulf is going to spend a season of both his and his apprentice's time getting the last bit of payment together to commission a worthwhile longevity ritual. Ranulf and his apprentice will both assist in the creation of the ritual the second season. Ranulf's int + magic theory is 12, his apprentice's is undefined but I'd say it's at least 5. Ranulf is going to pay someone else to get the ritual done I think fair estimates for the sort of magus who he can win the services of are int + magic theory 11, + 3 aura, +3 lab and a technique + form total of 40. That's a bit less accomplished, in ageing than Ranuf is in ignem even outside of his focus area, but I think that someone that good at longevity rituals is good enough to earn whatever price Ranulf can afford. This gives a lab total of 74 (76 with an extra two pawns of vis) which provides a bonus of 15 (or 16 with extra vis) to aging rolls. That bonus coupled with a bonus from a bronze cord and good living conditions should keep Ranulf from ageing until most of the way through his second century (an occasional high ageing roll might send him back to reapply the ritual but a more formidable ritual won't need to be reinvented in the time frame that we're looking at.) I see Ranulf teaching during the third season and perhaps after a fairly large party spending his last season learning Unraveling the Fabric of Terram at level 40 from lab notes (he's just had an apprentice for 15 years and he's likely to have used him or her for making laboratory notes for trade). Unraveling the Fabric of Terram is a spell that he needs because his spell Transformation of Fire is duration sun. It's all well and good to change an object or part of an object into a flame, but it sucks to have to wait until sunset to change it back.
After the last apprentice year I see him taking a few years to learn what he needs for his next set of plans. Six years will give 180 experience points:
rego from 10 to 13 for 36 xp
vim from 18 to 20 for 39 xp
leadership to 2 for 10 xp
penetration to 5 for 25 xp
concentration to 5 for 25 xp
that leaves 45 xp for ignem which due to his affinity garners 68 xp raising his ignem score to 28 (3)
During these six years he's storing up vis, keeping a sharp ear out for any possible familiars, and communicating with his fellow flambeau to see if there's someone willing to cooperate on creating some enchanted rings .
At some point in his sixth year of study Ranulf hears of a regio inhabited by salamanders and spends a season in that regio finding a magical animal that he has a bond with.
I had originally looked at the Bjornaer section of HoH:Mystery Cults to see what sort of temperament would be appropriate. At this point Ranulf personality traits are Inquisitive +2, Brave+2, and loquacious -1. While melancholic critters might have been more appropriate for younger Ranulf, Phlegmatic aspect critters fit the Ranulf+60 personality best (deep thinkers finding affection difficult ) . Yet most of the phlegmatic creatures were aquatic and aquatic creatures didn't seem right. So I went to RoP:Magic to see if there was already something appropriate there. There was a salamander joy! It was a creature that automatically put out any fire it came in contact with, that wasn't right 
. There was a fire drake woo hoo!, The fire drake desperately wants to be seen as fearsome. Ranulf's voting signal is a source of shame for him because it seems too violent. The fire drake presented was entirely wrong . I played with the idea of a very similar fire drake with a less incompatible personality, but it seemed to me that if one of Ranulf's themes is all of the things that you can do with ignem that aren't about violence, then giving him a dragon familiar is not the right way to go even if you rework the dragon's personality. I then reread the salamander of virtue entry and saw "Magi use it (the term salamander)as a kind of blanket term for various beings associated with the form of ignem".
So I created a salamander of my own and posted it on this board for critique here Double check my salamander A big thank you for all who helped me out .
Ranulf spends one season binding his familiar, he immediately spends a second season extracting vis to allow Artesano to study magic theory without a penalty to his study score from his magic might.
Two things here that seem a little off to me:
• The magical monster flaw from the creation of Artesano, Should I not have used a flaw that became inapplicable now that he's a familiar rather than a creature that exists outside of the social order? On the other hand it's an NPC's NPC familiar is magical monster still appropriate?
• The specialization for magic theory, do you think that's appropriate or cheesy?
THe specialization in magic theory is quite common in real games... why not use it.
Yeah, its one of those that you CAN argue is "a bit on the edge", but isnt really bad. I agree its plenty good enough.
Huh? Please run that by me again, will 'ya? Or point me to the relevant pages in RoP:Magic if that's where it's at. Is that the trick to avoid being penalized by familiar's might when wanting it to learn Magic Theory?
Well, if this is the creature's main experience with magic theory, it seems like an apporpriate choice.
I thought that teaching the familiar would be the way to go but really Ranulf is bound to have a better book available and Artisano is literate. Another option was to have Artisano gain the Improved abilities quality but that seemed exceptionally twinky and less believable.
The relevant section in RoP: Magic is page 52 left hand column third paragraph. At this point Ranulf has a creo vim lab total of 52 so he produces 11 pawns per season.
I know that the advancement rules on page 32 say Ranulf can use 40 pawns per year (MT*5), but it didn't feel appropriate to apply this "enchanting vis" to reducing the learning penalty for Artisano.
Sounds like a good development.
Issues about Artesano
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Typos. You call it Artisano (title name), Artesano (most cases) and even Artosano (Assumption of the fiery mantle). I would run a query to correct the typo
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Typos 2. In Assumption of the fiery mantle there is a "speck" that should be "speak", I guess
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I would suggest another specialization in latin: Latin (dated) since he learned it from 4th century monks!! Would be more characterful and make him less one-dimensional. Think about how a salamander talking in Shakesperean English would sound to you. :mrgreen:
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I am cool with the MT specialization. Never seen it IMS, but if you are a helper sounds like a normal thing.
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Can familiars study from vis? I wasn't aware of that. Our familiars only get XP from exposure, instruction and reading books when they learn to read. We always thought you needed The Gift (something magical creatures do not have) in order to study from vis.
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Can Artesano throw himself at stuff when under Assumption of the fiery mantle? If so, how much damage does he do? Does he set things on fire by simple contact when in this form? Can he manipulate himself using his other powers when in this form?
Cheers,
Xavi
I made all of these changes
He's not studying from vis, he's consuming it to reduce his learning penalty so he gain experience from reading books on MT.
I put down his heat with reference to the table on page 181 of the core book. I didn't elaborate on his use of other powers on himself when he's in the fire form (beyond mentioning that he does it). I think that common sense and the spell guidelines should be the SG's guide here. If he changes himself into fire he should be targetable by either animal or ignem in much the same manner as a human transformed into an animal by a hermetic spell is vulnerable to animal as well as corpus, and mentem per HoH: Mystery Cults.
Thanks for your feedback.
What? When did the RAW standard change to 1/5 instead of 1/10? Or does Ranulf have something that improves Vis extraction?
For familiars, I used teaching, exposure and practice aswel.
With the bonding, they gave up their immortalities in exchange of the possibility of evolving.
If this was not the case, no magical being would agree to become your familiar.
Just a question....
In your sagas, all creatures with might are immortal? Certainly not IMS. Just checking
Xavi
No that was just an early morning brain malfunction. Six pawns is the proper amount.
IMS yes if they don't have flaws against it, but rare are those who have (some familiars, not all).
They can be killed because they are not invincible, and they can regrowth themselves (especially demons, faeries and angels) if you let the vis. For magical beings it's more complicated.
And metagame reason: a familiar is described in core rulebook to evolve while being with the magus. It say nothing about vis which is a ROP M rule.
One of Ranulf's themes was don't do with one spell what you can do with two spells of much lower level. With this in mind I'm thinking of ways for Ranulf and Artisano to work together with regard to Crafter of Ignem and Master of Ignem.
One thing that I could see Artisano doing is sitting on Ranulf's staff and casting a target group version of Boreal flames on a multi cast PoF. Sadly this wouldn't be wise as the resultant spells would have a penetration of -2.
Is it possible to counter spell a counter spell? Naturally this would be poor sportsmanship in a Dimicatio but I can imagine someone trying to counterspell an ignem spell of Ranulf. Could Artisano counter this counter if ignem was an appropriate form to do it? I'd think so.
Artisano could pull off discourse of glowing tongues so he could communicate with Ranulf.
Boreal Flames?
Boreal flames is a spell invented by Ranulf to face creatures that are resistant to fire. It is in MoH.
Does converting the POFs into boreal POFs cause them to have the penetration of the Boreal Flames spell? From your comment it seems so, but could it be argued that the BF effect just affects the flames (needs to penetrate th MR of the POFs, that is nonexistant) but that you are hit by the full POF penetration? Late night, so I might be way off the mark here.
Cheers,
Xavi