From that dictionary, b/ventador is vanner is winnowing. Which could have a symbolic meaning of separating good from bad.
That's the obvious compromise, and I have already said why compromising is a bad idea.
A regio is also an extra rules complication, which you probably do not want to introduce at the start of a starter set.
IIRC a premise agreed very early was low power. A regio is one step up in power. Having the covenant in a mundane environment gives easy access to a lot of low-power stories which they cannot ignore. A regio effectively removes the covenant from the hooks, and while the party may still follow up on them, they lose much of the bearing on the covenants life and future.
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The very first thing I wrote in this thread was:
Looking at the core rulebook (p. 71), it describes the baseline covenant as
(emphasis mine.)
Basing the covenant in the family seat of an active member of the nobility isn't anything like a "stereotypical introduction to Ars Magica".
So. The original Bentalone was a fortified set of buildings, away from constant contact with mundanes. It doesn't act as a garrison base to command a road or a set of territory. Nobles can't see the point of putting a castle where Bentalone was.
Let's move on.
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The original Bentalone also existed for a hundred years. Things change quite a bit over that time-span. What was isolated when the covenant was established may not have been anymore when the covenant was destroyed. After all, the crusading army attacked it because it thought it was a Cathar stronghold early in the crusade, so it was clearly not that isolated.
Which leads me to ask: Why are you so set about making this Bentalone reborn, if you are not going to use the constraints that come with it? If you want a more cliche spring covenant, why not just say that it is being established from scratch by the two sponsoring covenants, simply due to population growth of having several apprentices gauntleting close together? That way, you can set it up anywhere you like.
In any case, if you want it somewhere more isolated than Montalet castle, just tell me where you want it. Or at least what the parameters for that location are. Because I proposed Montalet castle based on the parameters of what the Bentalone blurp gave me -- a castle that was destroyed by the crusading army early on. If you want a different set of parameters, please be clear on what those are, and how close to historically accurate the location should be.
Edit: Just to be clear, I am neither angry nor frustrated about this. I'd just rather not spend time researching the wrong location.
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The problem is having a covenant in the same place as a significant lord's seat of power. Given that the lord of Montalet, Saint-Ambroix, Potellieres, Banassac, and Alais owns the castle, and the castle is named for that family, it's reasonable to assume that the site is important to that family. That means a lot of mundane attention at the site.
Regardless of what may have happened previously, that makes the site a bad one for founding a new covenant.
The Montlet castle site was an interesting idea, but we're tying ourselves in knots trying to make it work. Something has to give. Easiest is to drop the idea of the covenant being on Castle Montalet. Alternatives are to rewrite the history of the Berard de Montalet family (a lot of effort to write all that revised background), or drop the idea of this being a typical saga (the whole reason for starting this project in the first place).
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What about having the magi of Coenobium send a group of magi to the for centuries deserted Barbegal? Saracens raiding the Arelat are a thing of the past now: instead it is a lively place, and a Mercer House is also there on the Roman road.
Perhaps the experiments of the Verditius once on that site can provide starting adventures for the Troupe. So they get used to the area adventuring.
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Barbegal could work!
My main reason for suggesting Bentalone was that its destruction was only 13 years ago, so we can have characters who are survivors of that attack. I always prefer to make events, factions and the like have a person that embodies them to some extent.
What do others think?
A Verditius mage smith, Hermetic descendent of a Barbegal Verditius, has found some old lab texts useful for her - but these apparently need the old water mill installation of Barbegal ...
Trip hammers driven by water mills were indeed used by monasteries from the 12th century on again.
we are tying ourselves in knots trying to make it work with your implicit assumptions. @Arthur just asked you to make those assumptions explicit. All you have given us so far is the canon description of a typical covenant as «somewhat» removed from mundane society, but that «somewhat» leaves so much wiggle room that we still know nothing.
There is a lot of back and forth, I think it would be good if there was a decision mechanism, even if it just boils down to @neilnjae just saying "this is my choice", because otherwise with such decentralised decision making we are getting nowhere fast:109 posts in we don't even have a location and now we might be back to the drawing board on the only thing that had seemed decided so far, the Covenant name.
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The decentralised decision structure has nothing going for it. Most of us who contribute to indecision will never contribute to the actual starter set, because either, we take no interest in the concept finally decided, or, by the time a decision is actually reached, real life has intervened.
I trust Neil will start making decisions when he is back from whatever he said he would be doing this month. The next thing that is needed is to identify the people who actually want to contribute to the chosen concept and move the discussion into a smaller forum.
This is sealioning. loke, if you can't make your contributions constructive and well-meaning, don't contribute at all.
Sorry if I did not make myself clear. The constructive suggestion was to make assumptions explicit.
We have seen fragments of your implicit assumptions, but they still need some clarification and elaboration before we can make constructive contributions to the actual setting.
In that case, let's stick with my previous suggestion of the covenant's backstory and move on. I'll write up the mechanical side of the covenant in the few days.
Characters
Who wants to write up a character or two? Note that we're only using the core book for characters.
Ideally, each character should have some notes on how to play them (what they're good and bad at, etc.). They should also have some goals (personal or imposed missions) that they can achieve or make substantial progress towards in a few sessions of play.
My ideas so far are:
Magi
- Darkwing's contributed a bird / auram specialist Bjornaer. (Probably from Coenobium)
- I'll write up a Flambeau mage, was an apprentice at Bentalone I, faidit taken in by Ostal des Exiles
- Something Jerbiton-like from Coenobium
- Some other mage from Ostal des Exiles
Mundanes
(could be companions or grogs, depending on whether they feed into interesting stories)
- Faidit man-at-arms / knight, possibly a cousin of Arnault Berard
- Troubadour/Trobairitz, supported by the covenant, wanders around gathering intelligence and gossip from the area (nb, don't use the Virtue from Faith and Flame; pehaps Clerk or Privileged Upbrining would work?)
- Ex-miner from Bentalone, some experience with dealing with the dwarf faeries in the mine, was living in the village near the covenant
- Covenfolk from Bentalone, taken in by Coenobium, now custos of Bentalone II, but by seniority rather than compentence; more interested in personal gain and getting favours from Coenobium than making a success of Bentalone
I've written up an outline of the covenant in the Google Document for this saga. I've not yet specified all the points spent for the resources, or detailed all the enchanted items.
But, hooks and boons are:
- Beholden (major): both Coenobium and Ostal des Exiles are fundamentally in control of the covenant.
- Poverty (minor): the covenant has little to go around.
- Contested resource (minor): dwarfs in the mine.
- Rival (minor): Bellaquin still has issues with Bentalone and will soon take action against it.
- Aura (minor): covenant has Aura 4.
- Buildings (minor × 2): a defensive tower and gatehouse, stables and storerooms. The site doesn't get "Fortifications" as the walls are damaged and neglected.
- Hidden resources (minor, × 2): 500 build points of hidden resources. 25 pawns of vis per year from the mine (125 points), library from Bentalone, enchanted items in the mining area. Details TBC.
- Supported (minor, bespoke): the covenants of Coenobium and Ostal des Exiles both want Bentalone to succeed. They will exchange books or loan minor enchanted items to Bentalone, in exchange for small favours.
Any thoughts?
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I'd keep it much simpler.
Hooks:
- Beholden (minor): The Coenibium and Ostal des Exiles provided much of the resources to establish the covenant, so they have a say in its decisions
- Poverty (minor): The covenant has yet to develop more than the minimum income sources
- Contested Resource (minor): Some creatures in the mine (trying to find something more original and in line with local legends than "dwarves")
Boons:
- Buildings (minor x2) Both a defensible tower and a gatehouse, but no fortifications
- Hidden Resources (minor): There are some things that remain from the original covenant that haven't been found
Some comments on your selections:
- I don't think a new troupe would be happy with a major version of Beholden -- having (essentially) the storyteller be in control of the covenant feels too much like railroading. I think the minor version is sufficient to guide them.
- Having a rival covenant right off the bat feels too much like re-threading of Mistridge to me. And Bellaquin is so far away that it is hard to understand why they would feel that strongly about the new covenant.
- A stronger aura isn't needed to entice the magi to set up there. And the region is so rife with mundanes that strong auras are usually in inconvenient places. Plus, a crusading army passed through and destroyed the covenant -- not something that would help a magical aura.
- Supported is not really needed, since they already have a relationship with the sponsoring covenants. And if they have to make deals to have access to those tings, then they are paying for them and this does not really requires a Boon. Let the players negociate the deals (though the other covenants might offer such).
I agree with @Arthur that the write-up should be simpler, and also more concrete, but I'll be concrete about that. However, the elaboration is important guidelines for the story design, and some of what @Arthur suggests to remove, should become apparent in the stories included in the box.
It will be helpful, also to the players, to have a concrete statement of the agreements made when the covenant was established. The players ought to have some idea about the sponsors' motivation. Blanket obligations, as if it were Norman vassalage, is potential a source of contention with players, and managing expectations is important.
Interestingly, the hooks direct four stories, from poverty, contested resource, hidden resources, and rival. That is not too few, and one should make sure that one wants to develop all of them in the stories.
One should ask if it is a good idea to have both contested resources and poverty, deriving from the same challenge essentially. If both are taken, one should take care to develop separate storylines. Otherwise, the principle of simplicity suggests to cut one of them.
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Thanks for the comments, very useful.
Beholden, major or minor, and Supported: I had a justification all written out why my version was better. But I then realised that it's not more typical. So we'll go with "Beholden (minor)". There may be a comment that making the connection closer could be fun, if the group wants to take the story that way.
But let's go with Arthur's suggestions.
As for "dwarf": I think that'll be enough to get on with. A quick search doesn't reveal much about Languedoc folklore, apart from dragons and Mary Magdelene.