Hi everyone,
I got a tip from a friendly archmagus that you might welcome another player to this campaign. I'm looking for a pbp saga and am certainly eager to join an active one. Of course, this proposed addition is coming a mere six posts after:
But you all can decide whether you have room for one more!
I'm not sure what questions you might have of me, so I'll stop here for now. Let me know what you think, and thanks!
Greg
Sorry, just got back from holiday and am in a bit of a silly mood.
Have you any magus/companion concepts yet?
Just because someone said we have a good team doesn't mean we can't add another player.
Our saga's magi are:
Korvin, played by jebrick, a [strike]corpus[/strike] Creo specialist Mercere
Alexei, played by qcipher, a gently gifted Flambeau of the school of Ramius.
Isen, played by The Fixer, an Ice magus, school of Apramor Flambeau
Fiona, played by Peregrine_Bjornaer, a specialist in transformation ex Misc.
Viscaria, played by amul, a Verditius silversmith.
Marcus, who is more of an NPC played by me to lend some artillery.
Jacques played by jebrick, a junior Flambeau who was originally an ex Misc.
We've had a pretty slow summer, I'm hoping we pick up speed after Labor Day.
And Jacques was originally an NPC (from The Lion and the Lily) who was brought into the covenant* and became semi-PC'd, which is why Jebrick has two magi and nobody else does.
Yellow. - No, bluuuuuuuuueeeee...!
Here's a description of a maga idea I put together recently, and statted out (post-Gauntlet at least), but have never used.
Eskil began her non-mundane life apprenticed to a Verditius maga at a young age. At first, her keen eye and quick understanding of Hermetic magic pleased her mater, and she steadily progressed. However, early in her apprenticeship, a laboratory experiment gone severely awry begat considerable changes to her life - magically, physically, and psychologically.
She found herself innately attuned to magic: her lessons in Hermetic theory seemed almost obvious to her, and her spells were more durable than usual and more under her control. She even found herself able to perceive magical places and effects with little more difficulty than checking the weather. However, she grew extremely apprehensive about vis, disinclined to use or even touch any item containing it. She also became physically frail and easily susceptible to bruises and maladies, which prodded her to start focussing her studies on Corpus.
Her mater grew furious with her increasing reluctance to participate in enchanting and other laboratory work that involved vis, and her apprenticeship devolved into an impasse. Eventually, a Bonisagus magus at a nearby covenant stepped in to claim Eskil and complete her instruction. Unfortunately, her original master remains convinced that Eskil never earned her Hermetic oath (as her eventual Gauntlet involved creating an original spell rather than an enchanted item).
When granted full membership in her new House, Eskil made the poor choice of declaring herself a maga Bonisagi, dedicating the bulk of her research to spells that affect the human body and mind. Despite her undeniable knowledge of Magic Theory and her spell-creating abilities, her disposition would have been much better suited to the Trianomae path, smoothing out tensions and keeping balance within the Order. Yet she always finds herself back in her laboratory, driven by her ex-mater's goads (and ultimately her own self-doubt) that she has not yet demonstrated her worth as a maga.
Magi of House Boinisagus don't choose their lineage, it is inherited from their parens. So if she is Bonisagi her parens is Bonisagi. With that out of the way, I have absolutely no problem if she went from Verditius to a Trianomae and then a Bonisagi. This is a path that matches what I've done with Ra'am scholae Bonisagus an NPC in this saga. My only concern with being Verditius is that she has to take the virtue Verditius Magic. You can choose whichever House Virtue you want to be 0 point cost, Puissant Magic Theory or Verditius Magic but she has to have both. She'll never be able to pass Berditius Magic onto her apprentices, as she can't learn House Cult Lore (no one will teach her) and it is for precisely this reason apprentices are never taught cult lore.
Another prominent NPC in the saga is a Trianomae, Ra'am's mater, after a fashion. I have multiple vectors for introducing this character concept into the saga easily. Also, she may have heard that one of Ra'am's gifted daughters had been apprenticed here and hope to poach the apprentice from the non-Bonisagus magus. This can't happen, which you can know as a player, but the character has no idea of why. Ra'am was a Magister in Artibus and I is expected that he has taught his daughters all the Latin necessary already, which is a huge benefit to any magus who takes the daughter as an apprentice. Sadly, he has taken one of his daughters, but the other one was taken by Korvin of Mercere...and your character might think she is doing him a favor in keeping an illegitimate Mercer from popping up. Of course, this too, would be an error. Ra'am and Korvin are both satisfied that the blood of Mercere runs in his family, the genealogy has been traced and proven to Korvins satisfaction.
Just throwing out some clarifications and some possible ideas and character motivations on why she would come to Mons Electi.
Good point. Are you suggesting that originally she was co-opted by a Trianomae, but then re-assigned to a Bonisagi? Or that she finished her apprenticeship under the Trianomae but somehow rejected that lineage?
Also a good point! It would make for an interesting Bonisagus maga to have Verditius Magic - although mechanically it wouldn't do her any good, due to all her vis-related Flaws that will (for practical purposes) keep her from enchanting items. Maybe I'd prefer to change the back story so that the ex-mater is from House Tytalus instead of Verditius. (Then the tormenting might even be "nobly" motivated, in the Tytalus sense, rather than out of spite: "I can still forge that iron will into Eskil from afar!") How does that sound?
If I understand correctly, you're suggesting that Eskil knows about Ra'am (who is located where?) and his Gifted daughters, and believes that she could acquire one of them as an apprentice if she joins Mons Electi? It is certainly true that training an apprentice would be something Eskil would be motivated to do, to prove herself.
I don't know a lot about Mons Electi yet, but I gather that it is a political hot-bed due to its position relative to multiple Tribunals ... Eskil could also be attracted to that aspect of the covenant. In either case, are we envisioning that she simply arrives one day on the Mons Electi doorstep and makes her case for (probationary) membership?
I think what he's saying is that if your parens is a Bonisagi, then you will be Bonisagi; likewise, if your parens is Trianomae, then you will be Trianomae. And, as I understand it, a Bonisagus will only poach from another Bonisagus if there's an extremely good reason (e.g. she's so Twilight-riddled that she doesn't even know what colour the sky is anymore, so she wouldn't be the least bit effective in teaching her apprentice). It sounds likely to me that Eskil would have been claimed by a Bonisagi rather than a Trianomae, especially if her new mater noticed how attuned she was magic.
Phoenix Covenant is in Iberia, and was the setting where a lot of us met here.
I'm not suggesting anything about how you want her back story to be. My hope is to give you enough information to craft a compelling backstory that fits within the saga. Since I have done a fair bit with House Bonisagus as far as NPCs, I'm hoping to give you some details that you can use and fits with your character concept. It would be...odd for a Trianomae to reject their lineage, and so there would be some great shame to play through. You can decide all the elements of her back story as long as they can fit into the saga framework and established canon for how the Houses work. The Tytalus instead of a Verditius as her first master might make a better fit.
Ra'am is at The Covenant of the Phoenix, in Iberia. His mater, the Trianomae who is self-confident and capable enough to have taken the diminutive Tria as her name, is in Normandy at Le Maison d'Levrier (Le Maison for short, a non-canon covenant). Tria was Tenens Occultorum when she took Ra'am as an apprentice in 1195. Your character could have been co-opted by a Trianomae, and it might have even been Tria. It could be her thing to claim apprentices and then sell them to other Bonisagus later, when they become...inconvenient. Since I want PCs to be roughly 30 years PG, rolling back 30 years from 1223 gets to 1193, which is just a few years before she took Ra'am as an apprentice (she took him from a Jerbiton in 1195). So this raises a bit of a conflict with her established timeline, but nothing so bad as I can't handle it. Tria was nominally located in Stonehenge at the time, Tenens for Hibernia, Loch Leglean and Stonehenge.
It is quite likely that Ra'am has garnered some element of notoriety. There are a few Magister in Artibus who are also Magi, but not that many. There are two Bonisagus who are like this, in this saga, both NPCs who were PCs of mine for a short time. Ra'am was married and started a family while he was an apprentice. Prospero, Ra'am's parens, has bragged about Ra'am among other Bonisagus that his apprentice will become the greatest Magic Theoreticist of the Order, after Bonisagus himself. It was an open secret (at some point within the last 7-9 years) that Ra'am's daughters were Gifted. Few magi wanted to take the chance to snatch a daughter and take her as an apprentice, and then it was only other Bonisagus who considered it. Eskil may have kept tabs on what's going on (especially if she has any Intrigue) and learned that Ra'am sold his youngest daughter, Abigail, to Korvin of Mercere, residing at Mons Electi in Normandy sometime in 1222.
It is a political heavy saga. It is relatively close to the Rhine, Greater Alps and even the Provencal Tribunals. Further, there is the Lotharingian Tribunal issue that is weighing heavily on the local Tribunal in 1227 (which I haven't started threads for, yet) and will be prominent and decided in 1228 at Grand Tribunal.
She could come, expecting to take Abigail from Korvin, but find reasons to stay. Is Eskil interested in research at all? Korvin is a Creo specialist (I wrote his specialty incorrectly above) and a Corpus specialist to balance that could help both in their research. Korvin is currently beginning research into making Longevity Rituals as effective for mundanes as it is for Magi or others with supernatural powers. I think we can find reasons to get you to Mons Electi, but what will keep Eskil around? Is she for the Lotharingian Tribunal? Against it? How does Mons Electi fall into her plans. The magi of Mons Electi are divided on how the issue will be resolved, but I get the sense that it is lean towards creating it, because those who have said that they are against it aren't very adamant, while those who are for it seem to be more...committed to the issue.
Maybe the best way to implement the Bonisagi-vs.-Trianomae idea is that she is in fact a Trianomae, but keeps diverting herself with lab seasons to try to gain the respect of the Bonisagi (and "all the others" who don't consider her a real maga). In other words, she makes choices that aren't always optimal for her actual role as a Trianomae.
Being a Hermetic offspring of Tria seems like a neat idea to me. Timeline-wise, if she passed her Gauntlet in 1193, she could have been with the Tytalus maga (Cumhachd ex Tytalus, let's call her, if we want a Stonehenge-y name) from 1178-1188 say and Tria from 1188-1193 - doesn't seem to mess with the Ra'am timeline, at least, but of course I don't know what else there is. It also provides a reason why Eskil would know so much about Ra'am and his daughters. I think the idea to snatch one of Ra'am's daughters as an apprentice is exactly the sort of idea a tormenting Tytalus ex-mater would plant in Eskil's suggestible mind....
Eskil could certainly be convinced to be interested in research - again out of her self-doubt and shame at not being a serious Bonisagi - although Longevity Rituals aren't a particular interest for her (she's Unaging).
Looking at Korvin's character sheet, it's not clear to me how much better Eskil would be at Corpus than Korvin himself, unless I stretched her stats farther than I'd planned to towards being a Corpus specialist. (In fact, a quick calculation tells me that at age 55, 30 years post-Gauntlet, Eskil will have a total of 1455 (XP+spell levels) to allocate, while Korvin adds up to about 1800 not counting Mastered Spells. Of course this could be a consequence of developing a character through play, or maybe just at a wealthy covenant - nothing wrong with either - but it highlights how it might be hard for Eskil to surpass him in his secondary specialty.)
This character build is an interesting exercise: mechanically it started with the idea to see how many vis-related Flaws one could pack into a character, and then it built around the apprentice back-story (rather than trying to min-max things). So while I like what the character is, it's less clear what she can actually do, at least much better than random magi. Here is the list of Virtues and Flaws I've come up with:
The Gift, Hermetic Magus, Puissant Magic Theory (free); Flawless Magic; Affinity with Magic Theory, Affinity with Corpus, Enduring Magic, Harnessed Magic, Magic Sensitivity, Side Effect (can sense vis momentarily), Unaging; Tormenting [ex-]Master, Waster of Vis; Deleterious Circumstances (touching or bearing vis), Fear (of vis), Fragile Constitution, Unimaginative Learner.
She does have the nice ability to play with longer-lasting Diameter and Sun spells that she can cancel on a moment's notice; maybe that makes her a nice supporting cast member in some situations. Other than that ... where's her badassness in actual (magical) play? Of course she can play a political role as well as anyone, that's not a problem.
As a player, I would definitely be for the Lotharingian Tribunal. Eskil herself would (and should) be more open-minded to both sides of the argument; she would prefer the option that made the Order more stable and the involved covenants more satisfied. (Certainly Cumhachd would be goading her towards creating the new Tribunal.) Either way, I think she would be sincerely interesting in sticking around and trying to help make the decision process as amicable as possible.
Just be prepared for your character to be surprised when she attempts to poach Abigail from Korvin. This won't work out to your character's satisfaction.
Go ahead and post your character sheet in a thread. Korvin may be advanced through 1227, so he has several years of Mons Electi development, development she'll have access to almost right away, so the differences won't be as vast. I'll bring your character in in 1223.
I'm going to ask that you pick something besides Harnessed Magic. It's from Mutantes, and I'm not sure it's appropriate for someone not of House Mercere, I'm going to invite troupe input here, but my inclination is no, so I need a consensus from all the other players to say it's ok. And if she is Tria's disciplia then she will be Trianomae, and must have Puissant Intrigue. Your build is more Bonisagi than Trianomae, and if you need to build her so that she satisfies the demands that Tria would place on her. This is the downside of having Tria as her master, I'm going to be pickier, but even then a Trianomae must have Puissant Intrigue as the House virtue, although you can still pick Puissant MT and Affinity MT, but to me both doesn't make as much sense.
The Loharingian issue has implications for Mons Electi. Do they stay in Normandy? Do they leave for Lotharingian or another Tribunal?
Remember that Korvin has two affinities that boost his Creo and Corpus so it looks like more XPs earned than spent. And the Korvin sheet on OP is up to 1228.1 With your affinity to Corpus you could easily be over 20 by the time you are 55. But your character will have to be a member of Tractatus Digest to move up once you get a skill above 20. Perhaps sponsor some great writing communicators to publish the little know facts about Corpus once a year.
I would allow Harnessed as a mastered spell effect but not a virtue for non-Mercere.
I'd say he shouldn't have that kind of magic, but if anyone else could it would possibly be a Bonisagus. There would need to be a good story/reason behind it, but otherwise no.
I would like to add how would the character get along with other Magi wearing vis. I know Korvin and Alexei have vis on them most of the time. The character would sense that and be agitated. It would also cripple her for making enchantments.
It would appear that there won't be consensus on Harnessed magic as an allowable virtue. If you want to pick up Harnessed mastery, we will probably need to do some sort of story where she convinces a Mercere to teach it to her and there is some agreement that she doesn't share it with anyone else. And of course you do not want to make House Mercere your enemy.
First of all, thanks to everyone for their comments on this character concept! I went ahead and created a character thread for Eskil where discussion about her build can continue. A few points I can answer here:
Fair enough (and thank you for being clear about it). I'm willing to let Eskil fail, all in good fun.
Both good points. I did catch the Affinities, but the 4- or 5-year difference is huge in this context.
Also fair enough. (Although in my slight defense, it is in the core rulebook. But back-story-wise, it's an extraneous complication at best.)
I think I'll also let this idea go. Eskil would have to be taught a Harnessed Magic spell mastery ability separately for each spell, which seems like a huge contortion in her back story. It would have been fun and conceptually apt, but the character can do without it.
Same thing here.
Having the masteries is fine IMO, but I like to try to keep House Virtues that way.
Bringing this over here.
This is not in my edition of the MRB (just checked my PDF of the MRB), nor is it in the errata (just checked this, as well). This may be a grog only thing... My copy of Grogs is at home.
Page 65 of Grogs (first sentence under "Characteristics") says: "Every character has 7 points to spend on buying positive Characteristics, and can take up to 7 negative points to gain an equal number of additional points for positive Characteristics (ArM5, page 30)."
However, the page cited from the main rulebook merely says, "You start with seven points to spend." It says nothing about an upper limit on points gained via negative characteristics.
Possible errata?
Yeah, since I remembered the Grogs bit but not the MRB, I assumed it was my alzheimer at work. So I checked when at home, and just checked both errata to be sure. No mention of it in either.
On a tangeant: Well, we've got GotF, LatL, tMRE, RM, RoP:tM... But how are we gonna abbreviate Grogs? G? 