[Table Talk] Build Your Covenant!

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Loch Caillte (Lost Lake)
91

(That part we could help you with- we give you a much bigger library, and you pull about ten score pts out, randomly and/or selectively, that are "damaged" somehow, not fit for study until they are repaired/recopied/whatever. Arts, Abilities, Tracts, Summae, Lab Texts- dealer's choice. That will take some new, specifically crafted spells, perhaps some a new specialist, and money and time, and there we go.

(We currently have an "excellent" library in that it covers a wide variety of subjects- but it covers only a very few in any real depth.)

A small vis source or two as yet to be found (perhaps with a mini-adventure to do so), would take up 50-100 more or so.

And additional enchantments built into the labs or covenant itself, perhaps forgotten or unknown by Dierdre and Mab, or known but with a lost activation trigger, could be more. (Iirc, we started suggesting items for the covenant, and quickly ran thru our self-allotted points.)

Or whatever. But we could work with you- you give us some parameters, and we'll crunch the numbers to fill in the blank.)

92

Apologies to all on the delay on this, BTW. Got hung up on an unexpected family issue yesterday.

CH and Krys: You should have the final scenarios to you by Monday morning.

Others: proposed covnenant build will be presented on Monday eveing or sometime on Tuesday.

Again, many apologies.

-K!

93

Cool- no rush, we'll stay busy.

On other fronts, there are a couple items that we are close to finishing, so we can move on freely. Each only requires a couple votes of "aye", or suggested alternatives, and we'll make them finalized.

[color=blue]Lab Texts

If you recall, 250 points had been set aside for "no brainer" picks, things that any covenant in our position simply would be assumed to have picked up at some point, and that there is no really good excuse why they didn't...

(edited, redundant to table, 3 posts below)

...

(2nd topic- Covenant Magic Items- to be discussed after we resolve this one! Iirc, we burned thru our self-allotment of points for that aspect, or certainly ran out before we had filled our rough wishlist. We may get a bit of a reprieve in the form of "Unknown Resources", but we'll have to see what we have first, and then what we might.)

94

Those sound pretty good. In all honesty wouldn't it be a good idea to have a few other casting tablets? Spells that are good (but powerful) or spells that are nice but not needed too often (once a year like the Aegis) would be good ideas, as well as the healing spells. Someone wouldn't have to learn the spell, just have a remotely high enough spell casting total. As for learning from a tablet, I don't think you can, but I'd give a bonus to learn it as if you knew a similar spell, so it would make it a bit easier.

95

(My thoughts exactly. (And with Wizard's Communion, those high-level spells all become within reach.)

The only reason to learn "yearly rituals" like Aegis is that it cuts back on the Botch Dice, if one rolls a 0, which is once every 10 years or so. Meh - volunteers?*

(* Actually, that is, imo, exactly the sort of thing that would count for a "season of duty" toward the Covenant!)

As for Casting Tablets, we could have both Lab Texts and CT's for some likely spells. Expensive, but we could cut back on some others, or whatever.

Does anyone (with Covenants?) have a definitive answer whether or not we can learn/study a spell from a Casting Tablet?)

96

[color=blue][size=167]Lab Texts[/size]
(1000/1000 pts, + ~500 SG texts)

Listed by Form, then (generally) by Magnitude.

[size=150][b][color=darkred] Form[/b][/size] [size=150][b][color=darkred] Lab Texts[/b][/size] [size=150][b][color=darkred] Casting Tablets[/b][/size]
Animal ReAn 5 Binding the Mundane Codex (1) MuAn 15 Doublet of Impenetrable Silk ReAn 15 Circle of Beast Warding ReAn 20 Ward against the Beasts of Legend CrAn 20 [b](R)[/b] Soothe pains of the Beast CrAn 35 The Wizard's Mount - Aquam InAq 5 Touch of the Pearls MuAq 20 Lungs of the Fish ReAq 25 Ward vs Fae of the Water InAq 30 [b](R)[/b] Voice of the Sea (2) InAq 30 [b](R)[/b] Enchantment of the Scrying Pool Aurum InAu 15 True Sight of the Air InAu 20 Sailor’s Foretaste of the Morrow CrAu 20 Aeolus' Blessing (3) CrAu 25 Clouds of Rain and Thunder - Corpus CrCo 10 Bind Wound PeC0 15 Dust to Dust InCo 20 Sight of the True Form InCo 20 The Inexorable Search ReCo 20 The Mighty Fling of the Menacing Knight (4) CrCo 20 Purification of the Festering Wound CrCo 20 [b](R)[/b] Gentle Touch of the Purifed Body CrCo 25 [b](R)[/b] Restoration of the Defiled Body ReCo 35 Leap of Homecoming CrCo 30 [b](R)[/b] Surgeon's Healing Touch (1 Serious Wd.) CrCo 40 [b](R)[/b] Incantation of the Body made whole (all damage) CrCo 30 [b](R)[/b] Cheating the Reaper CrCo 40 [b](R)[/b] The Gift of Another Day (5) Herbem ReHe 20 Ward Against Persistent Archers (6) ReHe 25 Ward vs Fae of the Wood InHe 25 Architect's Eye (7) - Ignem CrIg 10 Lamp without Flame CrIg 10 Heat of the Searing Forge PeIg 10 Apprentice's Friend (8) ReIg 25 Ward Against Heat and Flames - Imagonem InMe 20 Discern Images of Truth and Falsehood - Mentem ReMe 20 Ring of Warding against Spirits - Terrem MuTe 10 The Crystal Dart ReTe 20 The Spell of Wrought Metal (9) ReTe 25 The Phantom Blacksmith (10) CrTe 25 Wall of Protecting Stone CrTe 35 [b](R)[/b] Conjuring The Mystic Tower Vim InVi 20 Piercing the Magic Veil InVi 20 Piercing the Faerie Veil MuVi 20 Wizard's Boost (Corpus) MuVi 20 Wizard's Reach (Ignem) ReVi 20 Aegis of the Hearth ReVi 20 Circular Ward Against Demons MuVi 20 Wizard's Communion ReVi 25 Maintain the Demanding Spell MuVi 30 Wizard's Boost (Target) ReVi 30 [b](R)[/b] Aegis of the Hearth ReVi 30 [b](R)[/b] Aegis of the Hearth
[i]Misc. Items[/i] Healing wand - CrCo 20 Purification of the Festering wound (Note A)

Weather Feather - InAu 20
Sailor's Foretaste of the Morrow (Note B)

The Rod of Inspiration - ReCo 30 (Note C))

-
Totals 49 Texts 7 Texts

Notes:

  1. Binds up to 1000 bi-fold pages into a book.
  2. As Voice of the Lake, but Boundary, and thus any body of water is acceptable, no matter the size.
  3. (Base 2 = Wind, +2 Voice, +1 Unnatural, +2 Sun, +1 Adjustable. Creates a good wind, but only in the general area. Adjustable with Concentration.
  4. (Base 15, +1 Touch) Throws an individual away from you, with little concern about where the target lands, or how far he goes (up to 15 paces), with little regard to what might be in the way. Torsten made several clubs and maces with this enchantment on them, activated on a solid hit.
  5. (Base, +1 Touch) Resolves a Terminal Aging Crisis.
  6. (Base 4, +1 Touch, +1 Diam, +2 Group) Protects the Target and up to 9 allies from a single wooden attack every round for 2 minutes time.
  7. (Base 4 (learn all mundane properties), +2 Voice, +2 Structure, +1 Complex) Familiarize yourself with the layout of a wooden structure, such as a ship or building (but only the wooden parts, if mixed), and the state of repair of such. Includes secret passages and other such, but not fine detail such as small secret compartments.
  8. Base 4, +2 Voice. "Extinguishes a fire, cooling the ashes to merely warm."
  9. (Touch, Mom, Group) Transforms raw metal from a furnace into bars of wrought and finished product as if worked in a forge. This requires an Int+Finesse of 9.
  10. (Touch, Mom, Group) Transforms raw metal into a crafted item, requiring a Per+Finesse roll of +3 for what a mundane blacksmith would require.

Item Notes:
A) 1 use per day, Duration Moon
"The target gains +9 to recover rolls..." (see p 129)
(The item may be lying around somewhere right now, as it's a pretty handy thing to have.)
Shape: wand. Material: Ivory (+5 to Healing)

B) Use 1x/day
Know precisely what tomorrow's weather will be, and general idea for the next week.
Shape: Feather w/ Hazel handle. Material: Hazel (+3 Divination) + Swift pinfeather

C) R: Touch D: Sun T: Individual
Base 10, +1 Touch, +2 Sun total 25, +3 (6 uses)
Shape: Riding Crop. Material: Boar Leather (+3 stubborness, ignore pain)

This device is often invested into items of correction and coercion; a rod, whip, even a leather glove (BUT this text is for only the riding crop!) It is typically actived by a hard whack onto the target's face or back (not enough to cause a wound). Once struck the target will feel invigorated, angry even, and immune to the effects of pain and fatigue for the rest of the day (like Endurance of the Berzerker).

This lab text would allow the creation of a rod or suitable item to have 6 charges (lab text/ 5).

97

Looks solid to me.

98

Looks good to me too.

99

Great stuff.

Quick update from my end: Not my week. Internet was down last night. Will send library scenarios to Steve and CH tonight with voting tomorrow.

-K!

100

OK, great - that's 4 Player votes in favour - if no one objects, I'll add in the SG texts, and make it into one big Table of Lab Texts.

Krys- is it becoming near time for a new Sticky thread, one with all the Covenant Info?

Btw- Here's a suggestion that has worked in other PbP games- we create an account called "Scribe", or something, that we share the password for. Anything that will be continually updated can posted by "Scribe", and we all can log in and change that as we need to, or the Scribe duty can be passed from one Player to another. Either we each have a different area, perhaps for a year by year "Saga Log" that each mage can add to or not, or various accounting posts - for instance, if we spend 7 Terram vis for a tower, that should be deducted and noted for the Stores. (We can work out a way so 2 players don't double-post.)

The Vis stocks, libraries, and so on, all will change over time- if we don't have to rely on one person, those posts will be easier to update. Just a thought.

101

Yes, I'll get a "This is Lough Caillte" thread stickied sometime real soon probably this morning.

And I'll think about the "Scribe" or "Chronicler", or perhaps "The Bard" account with a shared password, etc.

102

Steve had a bout of overtime at work today (and all during the week), and the numbers for vis will be late. :frowning:

Steve

103

Many thanks to Kurt, who spent the time to create a spreadsheet with all the info on it. I've done some tweaking, but the totals should have remained the same...

Vis Stocks(175 points):
15 Creo
15 Intellego
15 Muto
15 Perdo
15 Rego
10 Animal
10 Aquam
10 Auram
10 Corpus
10 Herbam
10 Ignem
5 Imagonem
5 Mentem
10 Terram
20 Vim

Vis Sources (does not include extracting vim from the Aura):
4 - Herbam, Muto, or Creo (5 Trees in a magic regione drop thier petals on the night before midsummer - can be used either as Herbam, Creo, or Muto vis (one type only). However, the grove has other uses...)
4 - Terram (Slags and Dross from the smelting operation at the mine contain a small amount of terram vis, which has to be concentrated; this yields 4 pawns of terram vis)
4 - Corpus (???)
4 - Ignem (the clinkers from the local forges)
4 - Creo (Light falling onto a certain place (the altar of the church), on a certain day(easter sunday) crystallizes into a perfect crystal; The good fathers have always presented it to the covenant, in return for access to the mundane portion of the covenant's library)
3 - Perdo (Brackish water found in a pool near the barrows on Samhain)
3 - Herbam (Every so often, in the spring, a flower appearing to be made of pure gold blooms; It is worth a pawn of vis. Golden Acorns from a certain Oak tree are another, again, only a pawn. And last, one of the lily's in the covenant pond blossoms a particularly brilliant shade of blue. Again, worth one pawn)
3 - Intellego (perfectly clear crystals found in the fast running stream below Lough Caillte
3 - Animal (from a red fish found in the lake)
3 - Imaginem (Faerie Mushrooms, found in the wood)

And there we go.

104

Quick thing about the Vis sources; we don't have a source for Vim except through extraction. Vim is going to be important for the Aegis, and incredibly important for creating items (yes I'm being a touch selfish). As it stands we'll run out pretty quick.

For the Corpus I've used 'man' like mushrooms for different stories, as well as the suggestion in the Covenants book which had a hot spring that if you put a towel over it for shade, and people bathed in it regularly, the towel could have Corpus extracted each season.

Funny story about the mushrooms. The first real Ars game I ran was in Stonehenge, and when the PCs were searching for Vis they found that mushroom, just outside a tiny house, with a roof made of the soles of shoes. A little gnome came out and he agreed to trade the mushroom for the wizard's shoes. The wizard thought he'd be clever and tried making a spontaneous set of shoes that he saw right through. The gnome got mad and demanded everyone's shoes then, and so the wizard gave them their shoes and got the mushroom. The next morning the Covenant (which was so new most were sleeping outside, the wizards created a house through magic) woke to see the Grogs fighting amongst each other, and when the wizards tried to figure out what was wrong, discovered that the Grogs were all accusing each other of stealing their shoes. EVERYONE's shoes were gone, including the wizards. Stories from that point on often involved finding new shoes, as well as the Grogs getting to pick who of them got to wear the few shoes they managed to acquire.

105

Well, the Creo vis source could be made into a could be either/or source, of Creo or Vim; You choose which when you use it - this includes using a spell to transfer it to another container, or divide it up amongst several.

I actually like either/or vis sources.

And remember, I've got the "Hidden Resources" thing running in the background, too. Want vis sources? Write some up! Otherwise...

Go monster hunting! Trade/bargain/negotiate/steal! Etc.

Steve

106

Re: the vim source.

Personally, I think finding a new vim source would make for a fun adventure. As it stands, if we get 3 magi farming 1season each for the covenant as thier annual duty, then we can acumulate something like 9 to 12 pawns per annum. Our Aegis requres 6 (if I am remembering correctly) so that should be enough to cover until we do find that new vim source.

As for group project, sketch/write up a three or more vis sources for Steve and his hidden resources project. Write thos sources in a fashion that might lead to stories for players other than yourself. Steve, you cull though our submissions for the ones you want to run and then no one will know what hidden resources are out there until the are discovered.

Thoughts?

107

Or, if we (the Players) are going to jump in on minor adventures right away, Steve can give us a feel for what sort of "total possible loot" we can give away for a poor/average/exceptional effort/success, and we can run our own vis-finding adventures for Rhiannon and others while our main SG is running the main adventure with some other (and/or same) magi/characters. So long as it is not potentially lethal (at least for "main characters"!), the time-line doesn't need to be maintained perfectly.

35 vis coming in yearly? Cool. But only 4 Terram right now- even with more than a dozen in stores, that limits our magical Towers to one (or 2 that are non-standard smaller?)

Suggestion-

4 - Corpus - Covenant crypts, slow "salts" that drip and form stalactites, and these can be harvested. (Or something similar in a graveyard? Toadstools? Weeds? Some fruit-berring bush/tree that grows in the graveyard? Apple tree?)

We have no Vim source? No Rego? No Mentem? These (in that order?) seem like problems we should correct IC asap. (Whom has the covenant traded with for the Vim vis in years past?)

(Also- [color=blue]Consolidated Lab Texts Table )

108

:laughing: :laughing:

Found this on the 'net, as an example of how we don't want to occur as we build our tower(s).


[i] Life will be a lot simpler if your defenses aren't so obvious to mundane eyes. An illusion to make your castle look ruined and abandoned would do, but that'll need a few more rooks of Vis.[/i]

Peasant One: Oy, Cedric, there be a brand-new ruined castle in that there valley, there do.

Peasant Two: 'baint so, you 'as to 'av a proper castle before it be ruined, and weren't never a castle there afore.

Peasant One: Oi'm telling yer, it's there, I saw it with me own eyes Oi did.

Peasant Two: Mebbe we never noticed it afore, which is kind of funny seeing as how we'm been living here since before the conquest. Still, dressed stone could be useful, loike. Let's get the lads to go dismantle a bit for the new church.

Peasant One: Oi tried to go see what I could pinch and Oi couldn't get near it without coming all over queer loike.

Peasant Two: Aarh... must be witchcraft then.... fetch the pitchforks and torches lads, we'm got a mob to raise.
109

Yes, indeed, CH. A new ruined castle would be something the locals would talk about.

Someone needs to (a) explore the Hermetic Architecture Mysteries, and (b) make a major or hermetic breakthrough inside those Mysteries in order to create regios.

Hm. I wonder who might maybe possibly be interested in doing that?

-K!

110

Or we can create a castle in a big hole, then use a permanent imagonem effect to move the outside view to the windows. Whenever you look out of a window you will see fields and skies.

No-one will realise the castle is there unless they actually go above it, which only magi will be able to do.