Table talk (Bibracte)

I would think that Korvin knows of all of them. It's certainly a reasonable assumption, given how few of them there are. As a rule, though, they tend to spread themselves throughout the Tribunals and develop relationships with magi of other Houses, and also develop relationships with Redcaps.

Yeah, for Albion I've decided Attravere knows them all, too. They should have either met all the others, or at least know each other by reputation and have had some correspondence at some point.

If you could either point me to the thread in Albion or whip me off a PM with the names and Tribunals they are in It would help.

I still would like to get Renaud set up as a companion character just because he has a story tied to him that would help move the Mercere House story along as well.

https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/auras-and-their-bonuses/6847/1

It's a hairbrained idea I had. Not necessarily thinking of it for this saga.

I would like to see someone and play Renaud if they are interested, but I would like to tone him down a bit and not make him a Mythic Companion.

These are the Mercere I have for Albion. Feel free to use them or not as you wish.

Aquitania (Provencal): * Dorea. Middle aged Castillian. Apprenticeship in Alps. Animal expert, specializes in enchantments for mounts.

Britannia (Stonehenge): * Attravere. Young Italian magus, transport focus. Mercurian.

Caledonia (Loch Leglean): * Vincentius. Mature Scottish magus; one-handed due to a skirmish in the Levant, after which he was relocated to his native Caledonia. (Cannot write.) Martial magus, magical generalist, makes excellent arms and armour. Mutantis, Mercurian.

Carpathia (Transylvania): * Viator. English, son of a magical Mercere. Resides at Coeris. Magical generalist, inventive genius, Mercurian.

Gallia Transalpina (Normandy): * Korvin. Lecher, longevity specialist.

Germania (Rhine): * Boris. Old Russian. Terram expert, makes superb defensive items. Resides at Fengheld. * Augusta, old plump German woman, studies generalized but known to be good with Herbam, tends to make clothing enchanted to be as protective as armour. Mercurian, resides at Durenmar.

Graecia (Thebes): * Hypatia. Old Greek maga, very politically minded, seeks to move the House's base of operations to Thebes. Magic is generalized with some particular talent towards Animal. Mercurian. * Lykos. Young Greek magus, studious demeanor, with a focus on offensive magics; Redcap father, Flambeau maga mother. Deaf due to an Incantation of Lightning gone wrong, tends to yell as a result, Mutantis.

Helvetia (Alps): * Jareth. Middle aged, Russian. Imaginem expert, specializes in defensive items. Faerie blood. Mutantis.

Hibernia (Eireann): * Silvana. Middle aged, Prussian. Intellego specialist, makes navigational equipment and sensory devices, restores texts. Mercer House in Dublin.

Hispania (Iberia): * Azura. Young Jewish maga, magic focus: transport. Mercurian.

Iudaea (Levant): Unrepresented.

Roma (Rome): * Alessandro. Very old, grandfatherly Italian. Parens of a few of the current magical Merceres. Corpus expert, makes LRs -18. Mercurian.

Sarmatia (Novgorod): Beatriz. Middle aged, motherly Romanian maga. Educated by a Bolognese scholar; skilled with mundane healing arts, herbalist. Magic focussed on healing, good cook, Mercurian.

Thanks! I will add the other two I named for the Iberia tribunal.

Any want want to tackle a "secure" communication device/method? I've been thinking of a few.

Alessandro was really convinced by House Tremere to join Viator at Coeris.

This wasn't meant to come across as paranoia, so much as defensive-mindedness. Just as Alexei was initially focused on creating a turb and rebuilding walls and other defenses, Viscaria is focused on creating strong fortified positions. So, in order to successfully "handwave" the swiss cheese holes in the regio, we'll need to establish the holes as "dealt with" in the same manner that the crumbling wall has been "dealt with."

tangent: has the crumbling wall been dealt with?

Now, dealing with that those regio boundaries can come up in a variety of ways --

  • bricking them shut
  • building fortifications around them
  • designating certain boundaries as escape hatches, complete with hidden caches of equipment, etc
  • if our turb knows them well, then we can integrate their existence into our defensive strategy.
  • other strategies which incorporate magic

There's a reason why her familiar is a giant spider. She wants to apply a spider-like defensive strategy to her home base. Right now, she feels like she's in a rabbit warren, only no one knows where all the tunnels go to.

(I'm really surprised that she and Alexei haven't discussed this IC yet)

Perhaps paranoia was an extreme word and phrasing it as an over-abundance of caution would be a better word.

Also, I need to know, and so does Peregrine, if you explicitly called for Wilhelm to come along on this excursion. He's on the mundane side of the regio off in a cottage an hour or so from the covenant's manor house, so extra effort is necessary to call upon him. It's entirely reasonable for Viscaria to think that guy who I built a hut for might be helpful, even if he isn't a mountaineer, so that's why I'm reminding you. Peregrine originally volunteered him, but I reminded him that Wilhelm stays away from the covenant, by and large, so doesn't hear about these things.

No, the crumbling wall has not been dealt with in a comprehensive manner. Alexei wanted to rebuild it, but he has no engineering skills to bring to the project. He wanted to hire someone straight off, but it was the first season, and funds were short because of the construction of other necessary buildings to house magi coming in. And it's more than just a crumbled wall, many of the stones were taken to be used in area homes as the wall fell into disrepair. There are also temporal politics to be concerned about if that wall is fully reconstructed. It covers the top of Mont Beuvray which is just over 3/4 square miles in area.

If I may, unless Visciaria's part of the covenant, she should be concerned purely about personal security measures now, and focused on doing the job she was ostensibly hired for, preparing the grounds for Tribunal.

I've been wrestling with this for a while now...

Were there texts for teaching Greek and or, even Latin back in the day? Having had some foreign language instruction, getting it from a book seems incredibly difficult, and a teacher is needed at the very beginning. Until one can learn from reading , which in Ars is ability level of 4, I don't think one can progress in the language without instruction. I'm looking for some of your ideas on this. I should've answered this myself long ago. Well, I think I did. I'm saying my position. You guys feel free to ratify or overturn it. :smiley:

I was looking for a teacher. We do not have a base to learn a new alphabet without teaching. We could use it to recruit a grog teacher. I was just trying to get a teacher from one source.

I guess I should have qualified that up front. They can probably find a scholar, but they may not be the best place to ask, as I understand the Order (troupe feel free to shout me down, Arya, don't shout too loud, I know how you feel about House Mercere :smiley:). They're the can do House, they can find and sell anything, they're just not the best at this particular task. So when you sent the letter I was thinking Insatella would respond with a book. Redcaps deliver messages and things and are involved in commerce. She's going to think, oh, I have the perfect book in mind, or she's going to hand it off to a subordinate to find you a book, because it's easier to transport and acquire. Sometimes my mind is 5 steps ahead of what I write, this time it was more like 10.

Jessica Fox knows Greek. She's quite good with her tongue, and would be happy to spend a little time with some.... one on one teaching.

Oy vey.

Understood. Perhaps we should ask Duremar. They would be better at finding a teacher.

Yes, I wanted Wilhelm along (if only because he's a companion, and companions ought to go adventuring).

Since the timeline in the original chapter got murky very quickly, here is my proposal:

Viscaria and Isen stumble out of the portal, and run into Wilhelm, who was building his new hut. Viscaria, seeing Wilhelm to be familiar with wizardry, casts "Comprehend the Peasant's Speech" (Base 5: Understand meaning behind noise, +1 Concentration, Personal/Ind = 10, In 14 + Me 6 + handwaved math /2 = > 10), finds out that not only has Wilhelm worked with the local magi before, but that he still hasn't been paid for services rendered.

So, Viscaria conjures a new domicile for him (75 minutes worth of work), and then invites him to join us the next morning.

That, sir, is a damn fine point.

Don't worry, I won't make a habit of it.

Isen would have similar concerns.

I'm not much interested à priori by running stories about these, but he'd want it to be dealt with.

Note that, in a few seasons, Viscaria and/or Isen could rebuild the wall easily :smiley:

I tend to disagree somewhat.
My last year in High School, I had an average of 3,5/20 in english. And I was cheating, or it'd have been worse.
Then, I began to read comics, with a dictionnary by my side. For almost every word. It was awful, but I loved comics.
And then, it got better, and rather quickly.
So it must also depend on the language, and the method used.

Still, you began with some exposure to the language and then found something to push you to learn more. If you hadn't had any exposure to English, I'm sure learning English would have been much harder. My high school German teacher liked to joke that English was primarily German vocabulary put into French syntax. I'm sure that isn't quite true, but has some basis in truth. My point is that you had something to draw on to learn English, you weren't starting from scratch. Additionally, English and French have common alphabets. Greek and Latin do not. So I think a scholar is necessary, especially considering the paradigm. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the characters aren't exactly immersed in Greek culture, so the deck is stacked against them. I'm thinking a tutor is necessary.