Stephanos Hephaistoi, Venditor of Vulcanus (development)

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Light of Andorra
1

Stephanos Hephaistoi

Statistics

Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre +2, Com +2, Str +1, Sta +1, Dex 0, Qui 0
Size: 0
Age: 28
Height: 5’11
Weight: 180#
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0
Confidence: 1(3)

Faerie Sympathy: Iron 2

Virtues:

Venditor (50 xp)
Affinity: Bargain
Eye of Hephaestus
Faerie Blood (Faerie God: Hephaistos)
Faerie Legacy
Improved Characteristics
Privileged Upbringing
Social Contacts (Merchants)
Venus' Blessing

Flaws:

Black Sheep
Driven (Major)
Lesser Malediction (Ability Block: Crafts)
Reckless

Personality Traits and Reputation

Gregarious +3
Impatient +1
Energetic +1

Reputation:

Disgrace of the Hephaistoi Family: -2

Combat:

Long Sword: Initiative +2, Attack +10, Defense +7, Damage +7
Partial Heavy Leather Armor: Soak: +3
Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)

Abilities:

Area Lore: Greece (Geography) 3
Area Lore: Arabia (Geography) 2
Artes Liberales (Arithmetic) 3 [Latin, Greek, Arabic scripts]
Athletics (Running) 2
Awareness (Alertness) 4
Bargain (Silk) 5
Brawl (Punches) 2
Carouse (Staying Sober) 2
Charm (Being Witty) 4
Chirurgy (Binding Wounds) 1
Dead Language: Latin (Hermetic Usage) 2
Etiquette (Nobility) 3
Folk Ken (Nobles) 2
Single Weapon (Long Sword) 4
Guile (Fast Talk) 3
Hunt (Tracking) 1
Living Language: Romaic Greek (Native) 5
Living Language: Mediterranean Lingua Franca (Western, Eastern) 4
Living Language: Arabic (Trading) 3
Living Language: German (Bavarian) 2
Order of Hermes Lore (Verditius) 1
Ride (Speed) 3
Survival (Forest) 1

2

So, here is my first draft of Stephanos, Vulcanus' venditor. I have a few questions/comments/hope for help from the group...

  1. I want to spend one more year to gain experience to buy a "wondrous item" as discussed in Craft and Guild from his father. Should I buy it like a lesser enchanted item?

  2. Faerie Sympathies can be raised by experience just like any other ability, but with a limit of one's Faerie Warping score (or in Stephanos' case, 2+ the warping score due to Faerie Blood and Faerie Legacy). As part of Faerie Blood and Faerie Legacy he gets "2 points to spend on appropriate Sympathy Traits." Do those 2 points act much like Puissant points in that they add to the total after XP is spent? Specifically, would buying the next point of his Iron sympathy cost 5 xp since it's the first "bought" point or 30 xp?

  3. I obviously still have 2 points of flaws and virtues to throw on but I couldn't think of anything else to add. Recommendations are welcome.

  4. I'm "purchasing" Venditor with 50xp as a "story virtue" representing that he only recently became Vulcanus' venditor. Because the virtue gives me 50xp towards skills, is basically a wash. I know at one point there was discussion that some thought the virtue was a bit underpowered; are there still any thoughts regarding that?

  5. My knowledge of Greek is non-existent. For his family name I'm looking for something that means "of Hephaistos", "child of Hephaistos" or something along those lines. Any thoughts?

  6. Finally, my thought for his family is that they are competitors of the Verditius in Greece and thus neither like the other too much. Having a member of the family as Vulcanus' venditor might piss them off a bit. Not sure how to show that, or if Ryu would rather that not be the case.

3

He should probably speak some German - Vulc would be doing business with German traders. Also, they can't communicate if their only shared language is Latin (2) :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Oops! I had added German as a language but the change didn't make it from spreadsheet to word document before the cut and paste. Now updated. It's only 3 with the specialty for speaking with Vulcanus, but its a start. My thought is he actually learned it from Vulcanus, or maybe Bernhard.

Are you okay with the Verditius not liking his family and vice/versa?

5

Verditius don't like Valdarians either, so there's no possible way that could bother Vulc :slight_smile:

6

Venditor is a Major Virtue. If it's gained "in play", so to speak, and thus be 0 points, then that would bring your Virtues points down to 8, and thus balance with the number of Flaw points you have.

Also, it looks like you've spent 8 points in Characteristics, so you have two more to spend. And it looks like you're over on experience spent. I'm getting 525, when he should have 490.

One more thing! Silk? Really?:stuck_out_tongue:

Although, it looks like Fédora will have little cause for complaint if she does wind up in a marriage with him.

7

No, I think it's 10 points - his Faerie Blood adds to Craft, not Presence, right?

8

Could be...and if so, that would be right. I have no idea what flavour Faerie blood he has, though, so I just went with vanilla Sidhe blood.

That sounds so much more ghoulish than I intended :smiley:

9

I prefer caramel drizzled on my sidhe.

10

Yep. What meant was I can still pick up 2 more points of flaws and then balance those out with virtues.

The characteristics are correct, his Faerie Blood doesn't give him any attributes. As for skills, the points should total 595 according to my spreadsheet. I had actually underspent by 15 due to another transcription error. The breakdown is:

60 pts from Early Childhood (the normal 45 plus 2 free points [15 xp) of Area Lore)
460 pts from Later Life (23 years * 20)
25 pts from Affinity: Bargain (I spent 50 xp which gives me 25 xp more towards the skill)
50 pts from Privileged Upbringing
= 595

Yeah, there was no point in taking weapons or armor since his Iron sympathy will cover that (sympathies replace specializations when appropriate). So, I figured he traded regularly in Damascus for Damascene Steel and it would make sense for him to also pick up silk to trade back in Greece.

11

Faerie Sympathy with Iron adds to your Bargain when you're trading in iron goods? I did not know that.

12

My interpretation is yes, although it's probably good to get a read on this from the troupe, as it might alter the character a bit.

The book says:

They go on to give various examples, to include one using the Iron sympathy to add to the Single Weapon Ability when fighting with an iron weapon. So, my reading was that the sympathy would add to using Bargain for iron items. Obviously the biggest advantage would be toward Crafts, although his flaw ensures that will not be the case.

It's also important to note that whenever I use the sympathy trait in this way, I have to roll a stress die and a botch results in Faerie Warping Points.

13

It adds to every roll involving the object: Awareness rolls to notice them, Guile/Bargain rolls when you're talking about them, Craft rolls when you're making them, applicable Weapon rolls or Athletics rolls to use them, Lore rolls on tales regarding them...

14

Hunh. That's a little more...all-encompassing than I would have expected, and more than my re-reading of the section of Realms of Power: Faerie (p. 102-103) seems to indicate. I may be wrong, but my interpretation would be that the ability in question has to be directly related to the Sympathy, and not tangentially.

15

Well, I guess it depends on what you define as "directly related". To me, using the Bargain skill to purchase or sell an iron item is pretty directly related as well as using Awareness to notice an iron item that's obscured in a pile (or using Awareness combined with the Eye of Hephaestus virtue to notice if an iron item is magical). If what you mean is you have to be touching it or affecting it directly somehow, it definitely makes the Hephaistos sympathy of Volcanoes fairly useless...

16

Well, it seems to me that it's just used "in place" of the sympathy.

So, if trying to check for volcanoes around you, roll Awareness (volcanoes). If you want to recall something about pompei, roll Appropriate Lore (Volcanoes).

Now, does an Iron sympathy allow you to roll Bargain (Iron) to sell swords? Maybe, maybe not.
It can be defended, but then, this lessens, say, a Faerie Affinity with Swords. I think it does apply, but I could be wrong.
OTOH, An Awareness (Iron) roll seems perfectly legit to me.

What is the Eye of Hephaestus?

17

So does anyone else have any thoughts/opinions on how the Faerie Sympathy will work? It's pretty vital to the character concept and I was working on the assumption that it would work with the Bargain skill. If not, I'll need to go back to the drawing board a bit. Or switch to my other concept.

18

I do not have that book. But from following the discussion, I would go for the more liberal definition that covers working with, weilding, inspecting, and doing whatever with the substance in question.

19

Okay, I have a couple of questions from before that never got answered...

  1. I want to spend one more year to gain experience to buy a "wondrous item" as discussed in Craft and Guild from his father. Should I buy it like a lesser enchanted item?

  2. Faerie Sympathies can be raised by experience just like any other ability, but with a limit of one's Faerie Warping score (or in Stephanos' case, 2+ the warping score due to Faerie Blood and Faerie Legacy). As part of Faerie Blood and Faerie Legacy he gets "2 points to spend on appropriate Sympathy Traits." Do those 2 points act much like Puissant points in that they add to the total after XP is spent? Specifically, would buying the next point of his Iron sympathy cost 5 xp since it's the first "bought" point or 30 xp since he got 2 "free" points?

  3. I know at one point there was discussion that some thought the virtue was a bit underpowered; are there still any thoughts regarding that?

  4. My thought for his family is that they are competitors of the Verditius in Greece and thus neither like the other too much. Having a member of the family as Vulcanus' venditor might piss them off a bit. Is there any sort of flaw that would represent an enmity of House Verditius towards his family (and thus to him)? And would it be okay to have that along with the Black Sheep story flaw?

20

Vulcanus isn't a Verditius, he's Valdarian, who are also rivals of the Verdi. There's only like 5-6 living Valdarians anyhow, and as far as I know they're mostly in the Rhine and the Iberian peninsula.

That said, being on the wrong side of Verdi could well be why Stephanos ends up working for Vulcanus-- if the venditor's family is blackballed by Verditius he might not have been able to find any other job besides working for Vulc :slight_smile: