Sieges ingame, with mundanes and magi

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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Greeting Sodales,

About Sieges and Warfare, I saw anothe post, but It was much more focusend on weapons and siegecrafts and magic wars instead of normal wars with some magi on one or both sides. First of all would you consider helping in a Crusade or something similar as a magi would be considered a Crime, even if it is known that the character is a magi? I mean non catholic people are not considered humans in most cases, so I think that unless it has dire consequences for any other magus o covenant i suppose there would be no problems with them going, participating and being known as wizards. If you do think I am wrong I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.

The players in my campaign have chosen to be part of a Crusade, and I would like to know what kind of interesting situations would you try to put them in. I know that each war could lead to different places. My players were part of the Provence tribunal, before the cathar crusade. They were part of a covenant in the Languedoc, they were part of a covenant whose signature was that they are Terram specialists and builded a very high tower made of a single rock block with quite old magi as senior magi in the covenant. When the crusade was declared they fleed the covenant to create a new one in Crete, but their adventures have move them to their old covenant when it is under siege and they have decided to be part of the defence. I was not planning it to happen this way, but it has so now I am a bit frightened about this scenario. My players do know much more than me about warfare and they read, watch and hear much more vids, podcasts and so on about the topic. I was thinking of including some situations and some steps that each side takes, and actually playing one or two sieges.

I was thinking to play some situations, like how do magi act when their enemies try to initially get into the tower to take the riches, what defenses they do develop. To let them now after that their enemies first of all used some mercenaries to try to get in, and in the case their defenses are proven great a magus in the enemy side try to use rego corpus spells to make them move again and try to destroy traps or cause more damage. Or how they react in the case their enemies are tired of waiting and not being able to take the tower and they decide to use catapult attacks to destroy it to the roots.

Could you help me think of some event ideas that could happen in this situation? I will try to think some of them my self and let you know of them. It could be nice, if this thread could be used to add some scenes in warfare adventures.

Many thanks

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Yes, it is interfering with mundanes. I can't say where, but I have in mind that the rule is that magi can take part in crusades, so long as they are not using their magic (too obviously). I do not have a source on this and it might be just something from our games or it could be from a book...

That is a too broad generalisation, especially considering that the Order has a number of non Catholics (Theban Tribunal) and non Christians (hermetic sahirs in Andalusia). These are exactly the people who might bring a case of mundane interference.

Then this is self defence and evreything goes. This is their chance to throw sight+group damage spells willy-nilly. We had our covenant under siege from Baltic crusaders (Riga Sword Brothers, IRL real dickheads) in our game and it was great fun, as the "self defence" part let us use everything at full power for maximum destruction.

Now whatever happens, they can bring a hermetic case against the enemy wizard (assuming that they live long enough).

I wrote a siege scenario, but the players are expected to be on the besieging side.

What defending magi can do: keep repairing the rock, with Mu/Re Te the catapults will fire everything they can but the walls will be repaired within minutes, ie much faster than they can fire.

The magi can definitely use ReTe to grab the catapult shots mid air and return them to senders or to the catapult crew's friends.

Are the magi constrained to their Tower? because if they are, they are limited in what they can do, probably just throwing sight level spells at enemies who might arrive. Giving grogs night visions at night would be helpful (eyes of the cat) to keep guard. Can they do something for food/water? This might come into question if the siege goes down to a logistics stand off.

If they can fly/teleport out, then there is next to no limit to their mischief. Without knowing what the PC PC-magi have for spells, it is hard to give a full answer...

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First thing they should do is send a message to the most significant Quaesitor they can find, advisor the Quaesitor a magi is breaking their oath.

After that, it really depends on the resources available. And one of the key resources is magic. It makes the entire siege dynamic different.

Does the enemy mage have "End of the Mighty Castle"?

What do the defenders have?
Do they have the capability to cast "Veil of invisibility"? If so, they wander the army camp at night and decimate it, with a preference of killing squad leaders. Good luck having that army attack in the morning.

Do they have an idea this is coming? Have they had a season or more to be creative about defence?

A sight range arc of fiery ribbons is going to be terrifying.
A sight range multi-casted crest of the Earth Wave is going to greatly affect the besieging army.
These are just a few ways a magi can completely ruin an army's day.

There seems a fair bit of history in the campaign, so I imagine the magi have some top end spells, so what I am mentioning, I assume may well be available to them.

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Please understand, we cannot answer this question fully, because there is no single answer.
How so? Every tribunal decision is political in that it is attained via voting.
What's legal if you're popular might well be illegal if you're unpopular.
What might merit a slap on the wrist for the popular, could lead to a much more severe penalty for the less politically astute.

The best we can do, is provide our own interpretations, preferably with references to what part of the Code of Hermes something violates (as @Jank has done, below), or how tradition has twisted the meaning of some part of the Code or other (Exempli Gratia: the prohibition about molesting the Fey).
Self defence? If you're unpopular enough, you might be found liable even so - perhaps the evidence was weak or "well, you'd clearly provoked that assault yourself" (eg, see far too many historical cases of rape).
This is how and why Tribunals have their own peripheral Code, their own odd decisions.

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As @Jank has said, there is no end to what determined Magi can accomplish in a Crusade. Are your PC's going to participate in the 5th Crusade? Wikipedia is not a bad place to start. If you're having a hard time finding the right books that answer the right questions, PM me and I'll see if I can't help.

If you have Players who love history - this is great, have them do some legwork for you and point you to summaries or send you key write ups of castles etc.

What your PCs can accomplish depends on:

(1) The Levant Tribunal Peripheral Code: (Note, there is a 4e book that has a "peace" but is not Canon. You do not need to use this, you are the SG after all!) Recall the Code of hermes states along the lines of "I will not interfere with Mundanes lest I bring ruin to my sodales."

So the key thing about the local interpretation is what "ruin" is. Remember in the Code of Hermes, in order to file a claim, SOMEONE has to claim damages! (That person can absolutely be Quaesitor who suspects something!)

(2) The level of enforcement and observations from Quaesitors watching the Crusade Seiges et al happen. If they can see the code being broken in real time, your players are in trouble.

(3) How obvious or subtle the help is. The less obvious the harder a time anyone (Sahirs of Solomon) or members of the Order will have to catch the PC's.

The help can be almost anything. Enchant soldier's armor so that it grants extra soak, reducing losses of soldiers. Subtly compromise enemy gates or walls with PeHe or PeTe spells.

Also, naturally, I have to plug my own Actual Play Campaign of the 1st Crusade that I'm happy for people to mine for material. Ars Magica 5th Edition: 1st Crusade - Actual Play Campaign

Long story short, the PC relied on using summoned spirits to accomplish a fair amount of shenanigans early on with subtle spells. Later, bigger spells relied on no witnesses surviving, and then the lone Quaesitor died... Giving the remaining Magi a much freer hand on what they did. Eventually, through legal loopholes, the PC had the Sahirs declared enemies of the Order and to be killed on sight. (Though this has yet to be confirmed by a Regional or Grand Tribunal.)

I also recommend Michael Fulton's Seige Warfare during the Crusades.

One tip I might add is using Mythic Game Master's GM emulator a try. Basically, you assign a narrative probability to an event i.e. "Not Likely" then roll a d100 to get a "Hard Yes" "Yes" "No" or "Hard No". So you can say "Are the quaesitors paying attention to this crusade?" Well, "Very Likely" is about right, so you make a roll on that. I then use this and make in game justifications for the roll.

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First of all many thanks to everyone. I will try my best to answer every single question and trying to explain everything with the higher level of detail I am capable of, my mother language is not the English, as you probably already noticed.

We are playing the albigensian Crusade. We did start our saga playing as magi in Mistridge, we started the campaign as junior magis joning the Covenant presented in the 3e AM as postgauntlet magi. It was a political maneuver, they developed a good relationship with the former magi in the Covenant. At the end the Papal envoy to end with the catharism by different events in the saga we played was hosted in the magi covenant for their great despair, and after his death and for the shake of the relationship of Order of Hermes and the Church the order has approved the Crusade and send Magi to it. I know this may be like a very open Order of Hermes, lets say it is something like this in my playthrough.

When this was decided, also was decided that some magus of the Mistridge covenant who where blamed for everything where forced to stay in the Covenant so the Church could be calmed as they took revenge of every enemy of them. I decided that the older magi in the covenant decided ti stay and the player characters decided to leave and to start with a new covenant from "scratch" they took the library with them.

They stablished in Crete in the laberynth and have been since then working to make the labyrinth their new house and covenant. The magi at Mistridge not only are allowed to fight, but are spected too, Church needs to be convinced that the evil doers are dealt with. Some of the players can teleport by the spell that lets you teleport having an AC of the place, do not remember the spell in the Core Rulebook in English. They sometimes did go to Mistrige to solve some issues in France, in one of those teleports a player character discovered Mistridge is now being besieged by the Crusaders, and even though he went put of the Covenant, he feels he owes it to the magi who stayed.

This plater went back to the new covenant informed the others in the Covenant and they agreed that they should help. So they have decided to take part in the siege in the defensive site. So first of all both sides have wizards in their lines and both sides do have an Aegis of the Earth casted. The magi at Mistridge did have time to prepare what they wanted to, and they have Vis to prepare many things, they also have silver, a lot of it.

The tower is like the stone tower making spell vut like 3 or 4 times biggger. There was a Flambeu player in the covenant but left the saga. He was the best with area spells.

Most of them have a good Terram level, in Mistridge module of the 3e it is explained that they all are really good at Terram and they have a very good summae. I gave them a 15-17 Terram summae. 2 of them have a spell to launch catapult rocks as formulaic spell, not MR as the rock is propelled by magic and falls by the gravity. Also 1 of them has spell that opens the floor people drop in it, and if you concentrate in the spell it is closed in 2 turns doing +10 at the fall and +25 at the moment the earth closes.

The players are a Tremere Necromancer that has more healing than Necromancer spells, he has around 23 or something in corpus around 16 in Mentem Terram 14 or so and techniques around 12-15. He has not many area spells good for a fight. He also can teleport.

A bonisagus generalist, has rego and vim and Terram as his highest arts around 14 or so. He has painful magic (fatigue after casting spells) can teleport too and started creating magic items to be able to cast more spells, but he has created more utility items than ofensive items, he has nearly nothing area wise.

A Mentem specialist Jerbiton. Everything is single target, he has Intellego and Mentem as his highest. Intellego around 15 Mentem around 23, tue rest of Te are around 11 or so. He has some Imaginem too, but no spells.

A Bjornaer very specialised in magic for his beast a wolf. He hasn't gotten to deep in misteries yet. His highest art is Animal 23 or so too, then his Te are all around 12 or so, he has nearly no spells that are anything but animal and common ones. They are mature, but not that mature, they are around 43 yo or so.

About your ideas I am oppened to let you say whatever you think I do read all and I will tell you if something does not fit in my saga and why, or I will take the ideas I feel can be better placed.

Thanks for the topics you shared I will devour both of them now.

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Despite how it is depicted in films, siegecraft was predominantly a matter of massive construction projects under fire and with a time limit due to the limited availability of food.
Search Results for “fortifications” – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.blog)
That being said magic can drastically alter the process of a siege, by felling walls that would otherwise need to be overtaken by a mole (dirt ramp), by feeding troops well in excess of what normal forage and supply would allow, by healing injured soldiers quickly, or even by undertaking months worth of construction in minutes.

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No, but I might well play a magus who would ... and I might play a magus who would because the tribunal is ok with that, or one who would in spite of it being against the code. This is mainly a question of finding a theme suiting the troupe.

The main reason I think crusading is a bad idea is that crusading is a massive project with a lot of people, and it is hard to make a story with interesting characters in mass combat.

It may be worth looking into 3ed Iberia, to look at how Reconquista stories were intended. The idea, back when, was that magi would take part on both sides of the Reconquista. Obsolete as canon, it cannot entirely be taken at face value, but it is the same lore we build on, so good ideas are likely.

The actual story you suggest is less controversial. As others say, it is self-defence, and few would object. The big question is how do you make the battle interesting. Mundane siege against an Hermetic covenant is a massacre, and it is hardly worth playing. Hedge wizards should not normally make much difference. Hermetic magi among the attackers would make it a clear violation of the Code, and the political aftermath is more interesting than the siege itself. The attackers could have Infernal or Divine support, or even both, and I must admit that I am not sufficiently familiar with the Divine realm to see how that would play out. I can imagine Deluder demons offering Divine support to the defenders, especially if mundane troops have managed to disturb the renewal of the Aegis.

If you have a conventional combat in mind, I think you have found the wrong game. Hermetic magic has the potential to break any system for mundane combat ...

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Many thanks for your answer. I was thinking more in some problems / or issues which magi may help with. Like siege engines are being built, do magi do sonething.

Rocks are being launched and the top floor is crushing anything is done?

The attackers do try to take it by force a night, do players do sonething but cast some area spells.

And so on, bot each fight but some scenes in what something different happens and if players act or no, and how.

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Yes, I understand, but unless the opposition is supernatural, this strikes me as trivial and hence boring.

However, Hermetic magic is designed to let players think out of the box. Hence you should not try to railroad them into helping with specific tasks. They have the power to take on tasks that nobody else anticipated. Invisibility, ReHe craft magic, PeTe demolition, ReTe boulder throwing, morale breaking CrIm, ReMe mind control, give so many possibilities to cripple mundane opposition. The challenge, I think, is to come up with the surprises and twists to such approaches; maybe a strategically placed grog with second sight, or an officer with true faith, or whatever fits your saga.

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