Yeah, exercising some degree of control over it, is what I really needed to make it more reasonable. Or, penetrating, either way I could err on the side of the character.
She had used up a fair bit of might by my calculation. She was originally 40 might when entering the Aegis. Pinchas got her when she was low. And then Alexei recharged her. That's when things got really interesting, and Jardis's motives started to diverge from Jareth's. Again, spending 10 pawns of vis to save the staff, that's an interesting story twist. It's now an RP problem between two players, which I really like to see.
I'm OK with the results and OK with JL's interpretation on MR for this. I disagree, but reasonable people can disagree, and the results of losing the staff would have made for some really interesting stories after, no doubt. That being said, I'd just as soon avoid those stories and not lose the staff . I'm really starting to realize how much he depends on that item for effectiveness.
Well, like I said, I would've allowed an easy recovery if that's what the player desired. Alexei jumps to his staff, recovers it when she's not around. Added a few clues for Alexei to give to Korvin, perhaps. If there was an interest in a more protracted story, like I said, I would have run it as a B story, in a separate thread.
Just remember, player<>character. Give me a little rope to do things to the characters, and when it gets to a good inflection point, we can stop and assess where we want to go. I'm always thinking about story, trying to keep it interesting and exciting for the players, as well as the characters!
How do we want ACs to work in this saga? Cumhachd knows that Tranquillina has an AC to her. Let's say she wants to destroy it, from a distance. Possible or not? I'm leaning towards it being possible, otherwise the guidelines for destroying an AC don't make a whole lot of sense. Keep in mind, she has to know the AC exists, not just assume or presume, she needs to be aware of it somehow.
Physically destroying it, like burning it should work. From there, a spell of Perdo and usually Corpus should do it IMO. But as you said, you'd need to know that it exists, you can't target what you can't perceive. So first an InCo to find it, and then the PeCo both at AC range most likely. This is where the rules for MR over a possession (as we were discussing above) can add some complications, assuming it's physically held by another magus at the time of the casting of either of those spells.
Then there's the legal questions, if you cast InCo to find it, did you scry on another magus, if you destroy an AC to yourself that another possesses, did you deprive that magus of power? I wouldn't settle those answers here in a thread, it would be much more interesting to hash it out in Tribunal.
Hmm. Well, certainly if Cumhachd is touching the drool-rag that's an AC to her, then she could use the PeVi guidelines to make it not an AC. (I guess it would be a Level 35 PeVi spell - Base 30, +1 Touch - to make the fixed AC into an Hours AC. Which is probably good enough - Tranquillina would have to start fixing it again right away, or lose it.) It wouldn't have to be R: Touch of course - any range would work with the appropriate spell - but she would have to know the specific item she's targetting. And I don't believe that Cumhachd herself is an AC to any item which is an Arcane Connection to her, so I wouldn't say she could locate it that way. (Obviously, all these comments would apply to Tranquillina wanting to kill any AC that Cumhachd has to her, etc.)
Murkier still is the idea of any spell like "find all ACs to me" or "target all ACs to person X in this room". I don't see any mention of such spells in the InVi guidelines, nor in the Guernicus chapter of HoH:TL. It's not crazy to think such spells might exist, but I don't know what their paramters would be.
From a story perspective, I think it should be nontrivial to destroy an AC, at least if you don't have possession of it. Nontrivial might still mean easy, to a prepared specialist; but it seems to me like one should have to have particular knowledge of specific ACs to start PeVi-ing them.
Another possibility is to destroy the item itself, rather than its Arcane Connectionness. For example, if Cumhachd successfully cast a PeCo spell on the drool-rag, I imagine that would kill its function as an AC as well....
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The scrying charge might be an issue. If someone wants to push it, that's situational. As far as depriving another magus of power, by destroying an AC to oneself, I have a hard time believing any Tribunal would find that an unreasonable action...
Keep in mind, that while it's not a part from the whole kind of question, and I'm not saying ACs are exactly bidirectional...
And the next paragraph...
I think it's reasonable for Cumhachd to be closely associated to her saliva. So maybe ACs are bidirectional, but they require knowledge and detection?
Mind you, Cumhachd knows and doesn't care, and even let Tranquilina know that she knows about the AC. No, she's more suspicious about the one Tranquillina might hold for Loys. She suspects it exists, but doesn't know what it is, so she is interested in finding it... Yes, scrying...sue her.
Even though I think the Tribunal would agree with you based on their emotional response to the idea, I'd love to be an IC advocate in that Tribunal case Using an AC I have to another maga is almost surely illegal, but simply possessing one? I don't see it as a violation of the Code. And if I fixed the AC, then destroying it is like stealing vis from me.... I'd argue: if it's okay to destroy that lock of hair you let someone else have, based on some notion of self-defense ... then what's to stop people from selling enchanted items to other magi and then destroying them, on the same self-defense charge?
Kind of hard to say. As long as it requires knowledge and detection, it's nontrivial enough in my book. I'm not sure about "all of my saliva anywhere" type spells. But "a specific AC to me that I know about, from my saliva" ... maybe she could cast that at AC Range, using herself as the AC to the drool-rag ... that's not ridiculous.
So ... would a living tree be an AC to every pine cone that fell from it (again assuming knowledge and detection), for a time? A cow's carcass to every hamburger made from it? A loom to every garment made from it?
Yeah, sue her, exactly
So, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Tranquillina originally took the lock of hair from Loys with his full knowledge, perhaps even telling him it's so she can contact him at a distance. (She's certainly cast CrIm spells to project her voice to his location in this way.) She wasn't really in sneaky mode at the time, I wouldn't think. That would mean Loys would know the AC was specifically a lock of hair, and would tell Cumhachd (probably it would come up).
In a bit of a religious frame of mind today. My Mom is in town and today we decided to go visit my dad's grave. He died in 2011 (and this game was well underway at that time!), last year we went to his grave on the anniversary. Now, I'm terrible with directions, I can get lost going home and I've been that way my entire life. So last year we started the task of trying to find my dad's grave. My brothers knew the general section and stuff and so we got out and started looking. They had a ten minute head start, I got out of my car and headed towards them, stopped, looked down and there he was. Like a magnet.
So this year not as many of us could make it, just my Mom one of my brothers and his kids. We decide to go and I got there early. I have no idea even what section he's in, just a vague memory that his marker was near the corner of an intersection not too far from (one of) the entrance. I pull over at one intersection that looks a bit like it and get out and walk around. Just looking around a bit and I'm about to say 'This is ridiculous there's no way I'm going to...' and there he was.
So I think that qualifies as two miracles after his death right? Might have a saint in the family!
Do we want to put the letters in their own thread, one to a post (basically copying each post to its own post in rpol), or one wiki page that has all the letters from here on it?
Basically, what I'm doing is just cut&pasting the posts from each thread and putting each thread on a wiki page (like the one for the Spanish Rose rp thread).
Someday, when I (or whoever) gets ambitious, we can go through and edit it to make it more of a narrative style. That would be my preference, anyway - makes for better reading.
The Adventure Log would be a good place for the narrative version, I think. That's where I put the Preludes summary, of the threads that took place before the covenant founding in 1220.
My only...concerns (for lack of a better word) is that it posts in order of the summary being written (there may be a way to tweak the post date, but I'm not sure), and there doesn't seem to be an index on the Adventure Log page. Although we can put a chronology index on the wiki main page or somewhere.
. I'm really starting to realize how much he depends on that item for effectiveness.
I'd argue: if it's okay to destroy that lock of hair you let someone else have, based on some notion of self-defense ... then what's to stop people from selling enchanted items to other magi and then destroying them, on the same self-defense charge?