I am currently putting together ideas for a saga i want to run in the new year, an autumn covenant with a single old magus and the players has a young magi new to the covenant. To add character to the old magi and the covenant, i was hoping to include some oddities - which include a possible Realia.
Now my question. Would magi acutally consider them valuable for study, as Q6 Tractatus are considered poor books within the order - surely something that takes significantly more effort to accquire but is only as good as the worst Tractata wouldnt be considered a sensible thing - more along the lines of crazy or ecenteric? Even being able to study mulitple seasons from it doesnt seem to make it worth it, as Q6 Tractata are very easy to obtain?
I know that they offer some great flavor to characters/covenants, and would make a nice medium term goal for a character, but for all that effort, the final piece just doesnt seem to be good enough?
The part that's overlooked in your question is that the realia might contain some very specific bit of knowledge that cannot be acquired elsewhere.
Yes, mechanically, it may only be functionally a Tractatus for Terram and Corpus, Quality 6, but in the game, it's a fractured sword blade fashioned by Roman necromancers and bears additional secrets regarding their methods and tools. In the process of researching it, the magus not only increases his magical knowledge, but garners information salient to the extension of the storyline.
That information might not be available anywhere else, and so the object/book/whatever regains its original purpose-- an information resource, and not just an experience point chit to be exchanged for the ability to spontaneously cast a slightly higher level effect or manufacture a better item in the lab.
We use realia on a regular basis in our game, researching them in the laboratory like anything else.
I agree that narratively, they are a great addition to the game (Covenants being one of my favourite supplments)....but still, even with the cool narratives, my players (and me) would look to gain something tanganable - your concept of the Q6 relic/heirloom sword isnt quite how i read the Realia - i thought it would take 64 significant pieces to gain a Q of 6? I also didnt realise that they could cover more than 1 Art?
Within our saga, books tend to cover more than just one topic-- the way a book on Renaissance religious art is probably useful to an artist, a theologian and a historian; although it is probably more or less useful to each, depending on their specialities. Likewise journal by a Flambeau entitled "The Siege of Meggido" might be a tractatus on Ignem, Terram and Levant Lore. You'd pick which topic to focus on and gain the experience for it.
The qualities of the particular topic can vary, but that's how we do it. It gives books more utility and reflects how one might read the same book multiple times and yet still learn something different from it each time.
One of my players is an freelance surgeon (not affiliated to any university) and studies from corpse. It leads to interesting problems: how to get them? how to hide them? how to get rid of them? how to make sure nobody notice his fraudulent activities?
I trids to handle that experience source as a realia but collections must be HUGE to give some valuable xp. It might be correct for bugs or stones, definitely not for greater objects.
I think the other point to make is that you get realia as treasures from stories. If you go on some great quest and, while doing it, on the way you find a really well described bit of propwork for the story, then there's a good chance that if you take that home as a souviner you can use it as the capstone of a realia collection and backfill under it.
