Though RoP-Faeries comes out soon, I am sure a lot of ideas can bbe extrapolated from RoP-Magic. I have it ordered 
!
Well, this isn't a faerie animal, so the first book will be fine, but I plan to buy both. 
Scott
JFYI, expectation of this book is the reason I placed a Giant and a Dragon as Monster Hooks for our covenant. I wanna test these rules out. It is shipping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jarkman showed me a spell that then inspired me to go and do some reading.
(Form) Jar of Solomon
R: Voice, D: Ring, T: Ind, Re Aq/Au/Ig/Te Level 35
These spells, one for each elemental Form, allow a Hermetic Sahir to imprison a Jinn within a common object such as a lamp, earthenware jar, gemstone or metal ring as appropriate, imitating a lost non-Hermetic ability of the tradition passes down from the magic of Solomon. The spell does not compel the imprisoned Jinn to serve willingly however and in many cases angers the bound Jinn, resulting in a +6 to the Ease Factor needed to successfully strike a bargain with the spirit using the Sihr Ability. The Jinn may still be commanded with Hermetic magic normally.
Sahir who imprison Jinn regularly are likely to gain a negative Reputation with Jinn as a Slaver, the score of which subtracts from all their rolls to bargain with Jinn. If the caster botches the spellcasting roll, they may be imprisoned within the object instead of the targeted Jinn at the Storyguide's discretion.
(Base 15 (control a spirit in an unnatural manner), +2 Voice, +2 Ring)
I remembered seeing something like this from 4th edition. But the interesting thing is that it made me go and brush up on my 5th edition spirit magic reading. Namely this one.
VOICES FROM HOLLOW SPACES
R: Voice, D: Ring, T: Ind, Level 35
This spell binds ghosts to objects or places.
Traditional sites include mirrors, skulls and graves. It does
not compel trapped ghosts to serve willingly, but members
of House Tremere threaten or bribe their ghosts into
compliance.
(Base 15, +2 Voice, +2 Ring)
Now this appears to be based on the lvl 15 mentem guideline for 'summon a ghost'. Interestingly enough the new multi-form / realm guidelines for spirit summoning in mysteries also place summoning at lvl 15, so you could just as well use that guideline to build the spell at the same level.
How would you guys feel about vim form realm aligned version, like the other summoning / spirit spells from mysteries? It would be a lvl 35 spell that could keep contained/bound a spirit of one realm into the ring or into an object etc.
How would you guys feel about putting another magnitude onto the binding to keep the bound spirit from being able to use it's powers without orders/permission? As is it can throw it's powers from within the binding unless there is another compulsion/effect used to keep it in line. Unless I am mistaken?
This also raises the prospect of making a the traditional arcane connection range summoning spell at a ring duration. ( lvl 15 / +4 Arc. / +2 Ring / Ind. ) For a total of 45. 50 if you add the magnitude for the 'containment' effect.Not much worse than the regular 40, and now you have the spirit in 'ye olde summoning circle'. Thoughts?
Vortigern et al. I moving the Spirits/Summoning discussion to a separate thread here to make it easier to follow - the current development thread is getting a bit complicated with subthreads and I don't want to dominate it:
https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/development-summoning-and-spirits/3021/1
I'll post replies to Vortigern's questions there.
Please feel welcome to contribute regardless of it's location!
Cheers,
Lachie
I don't know to be honest but it makes sense. I can't recall reading anything to that effect - let's throw it to a poll on the main forum, eh and see if Erik or one of the other RoP:tI authors chimes in?
- Lachie
OK, here are character sheets for Viola's two shield grogs, Edward, whom she brought with her to Haunted Springs (her old covenant) from Centrum in Leicester (her pater's covenant), and Astrid, a local Goth girl in Crimea who was a member of a band of bandits operating out of the woods that became the covenant's grounds--they provided most of the original grogs.
Neither Edward nor Astrid has taken a Longevity potion up to this point, as they've been engaged busily in childbearing, with the fifth child, Theodoric, born last year (they've been putting off asking for Longevity rituals because they wanted a boy, and the first four children [I actually rolled this randomly] were girls: Kristino, Zoe, Amilo, and Eirene). They need to make aging rolls for winter of 1220. Also, how would Viola go about obtaining Longevity rituals for them?
Unless I miscounted, Edward accumulated 289 XP's over 15 years (not counting the half year in which they started play, which would have been an additional 24 XP's each, if you assume the first half of the year was Exposure), and Astrid accumulated 281 (Edward had a couple of seasons of Practicing a language, which gives 8 XP's instead of the usual 4). That averages out to about 19 XP's a year. We were giving the grogs about 20 a year, right?
Anyway, here are the character sheets and advancement logs. I've also made a few corrections to Viola's, already posted in the Character Sheets thread.
Edward, 1204: home.comcast.net/~scottd.orr/Edward1204.htm
Edward, 1220: home.comcast.net/~scottd.orr/Edward1220.htm
Edward's Advancement: home.comcast.net/~scottd.orr/Adv ... Edward.htm
Astrid, 1204: home.comcast.net/~scottd.orr/Astrid1204.htm
Astrid, 1220: home.comcast.net/~scottd.orr/Astrid1220.htm
Astrid's Advancement: home.comcast.net/~scottd.orr/Adv ... Astrid.htm
Scott
For Winter, Carmen studies "Sight from the Shroud’s Shadow" (Intéllego Summa: L14 Q8 ), gaining 8 xp's. I noted the results on her character sheet.
What else has everyone donw with the winter season, and have you noted the results on your character sheets yet?
Scott,
I like the Grogs
Personal friends of Viola I presume? I can see them being much closer to her than anyone else. I don't mind the Grogs having story flaws at all. I actually like that. Is everyone else cool with it?
As I recall, those got added when the grogs were retrofitted from ArM4--they were the things that would disrupt the characters the least. I had forgotten they violated rules .
Scott
That's why I am not too keen on the new V&F rules, 
. Grogs should be allowed some story flaws. They are not main characters, true, but they can e interesting characters with vital stories with deep meaning. Grogs are not meat shields. They are people.
I am fine with the stats as they stand.
OK, thanks. And yes, they're fairly close to Viola, but you'd think shield grogs would be....
These both look interesting and tie in well to your character!
Mechanically i think they're both OK on a brief look through.
My minor comments would be:
-
both characters only speak Latin in common with the magi, they have limited ability to communicate with the rest of the covenfolk. This actually works quite well given Viola's recent arrival and helps explain their close association with her.
-
I don't think from a meta perspective that it's useful for Edward to know 5-6 languages and have Linguist as we already have a Redcap translator companion. Perhaps Puissant Folk Ken would work?
-
Medieval pregnancy was a dangerous affair (check out Art & Academe for some suggestions) and Astrid seems to have coped very well and led an adventurous active life well into her 2nd trimester of each of her five pregnancies. It's not a big deal in some ways (if you used the basic character generation method, this wouldn't even been noticed).
-
I have no trouble with either of these grogs having the Dependent Story Flaw as it fits very well with their concept as a married couple in service to Viola, although it does make them less available in many ways. Since you're using Detailed Character creation for the grogs though, I thought I'd mention it, particularly as not once during the 15 years do the 5 kids have any impact on either parent's development despite term both having the Dependent Flaw.
PS The Crimea and the Cuman Steppe is indeed a fascinating area - I almost set a Saga there but couldn't realise it due to RL issues at the time. I still have a lot of background material I collected on it.
Cheers,
Lachie
Yes--it would obviously be silly for them to know the local language already. Edward will learn it quickly, while Astrid might never know it well.
Viola picked Edward precisely for his communication abilities, including the ability to learn new languages quickly. It's central to the character, and too late to change him now, 10 real years later (or something like that). Mind you, so far most of his languages aren't terribly useful in this area of the world, and he can't read or write.
Anyone living in Gothia (that is, the southwestern Crimean Mountains) would know at least some Gothic and Greek, and (in the area the old covenant was located) at least some Slavic (there was apparently at least some Rus settlement in the area, and some of the grogs were Rus). If a person were dealing with townsfolk along the southeastern Crimean coast after the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Italian (or, as it was referred to at the time, "Latin") would also be useful, and there were also Alans and Cumans nearby. In other words, Edward picked up all those languages (all the ones he knows other than English and Latin) on the Crimean Peninsula. I think probably most ArM characters are given an unrealistically small number of languages for anyone who lives in a city or travels a good bit--in the early modern period, for example, a Jew in a place like Warsaw would probably know Yiddish, Polish, German, and Russian at least (as well as Hebrew, of course--and we're talking just the languages a person would naturally pick up as a child, without going to any real effort), and I read that a port in Georgia (on the eastern Black Sea) at one point had 30 or so languages spoken in its marketplace. ArM players, though, tend to maximixe the use of their XP's rather than the realism of their characters, and the fact that we moderns (especially Americans) see learning more than one language as "hard" contributes (though in all honesty, modern languages have much, much larger vocabularies than their medieval counterparts).
Anyway, I don't see why having multiple characters good with languages is a problem.
One of the magae trained as a midwife and actually left the covenant to live in town (no, I didn't make this part up--someone in the old saga really did play such a character). If you've read Art & Academe, you'll notice that even spontaneous magic can be very useful in childbirth. Of course, even without magical aid, having five children was typical, not unusual: yes, childbirth was dangerous by modern standards, but the vast majority of women survived it (it was dangerous in that the number of women dying was x in 100, rather than x in 10,000), several times. What's unusual is that all five children survived infancy--but then, it's a covenant, and a covenant with two magae specializing in healing magic at that.
Adventuring while pregmant was probably not terribly common in real life, but then, neither was adventuring while not pregnant. However, the idea that pregnant women should rest rather than work is a modern one (it dates to the 19th century, as I recall, and it's recently been discarded by physicians who've looked at studies on the subject).
You didn't read very closely. You'll note that after Katrino is born, Astrid never goes on a lengthy trip again: all of the journeys on which she accompanies Viola are either within Crimea (she skips the ones elsewhere along the coast of the Black Sea) or involve Arcadian Travel (and she also skips the two-season trip to England for a mystery initiation).
In addition, for the years in which she has children, Astrid's Exposure seasons are for Profession (Housework)--not exactly her favorite Ability--with a specialization in children.
Edward, of course, isn't really affected, but this is the Middle Ages we're talking about, and gender roles were what they were. I'm sure having children did come up in some way for him, but it's not like I plotted out each adventure I made up for the advancement log.
Anyway, I don't know how you could avoid listing the children as Dependents. You can call it a Story Flaw or not, but the fact of the matter is that these particular grogs have children. It's not like they bought corresponding Virtues with those -5 points, since the Dependents were gained in (imagined) play.
As for the other Story Flaw, Animal Companion, I honestly forgot about it while constructing the advancement logs, but it seems like the kind of Story Flaw that would contribute to larger stories rather than generating unique ones.
I actually picked Gothia because there's almost no documentation of it for the period, which gave me a free hand for doing things without violating historical accuracy.
Scott
On the subject of language....
One way that ArM4 was arguably superior is that players picked up languages by Exposure, without having to sacrifice seasons in which they could be getting XP's for something else. It really is kind of unrealistic in a lot of cases, I think, that magi never learn any languages other than their native ones and Latin.
Scott
Yes and I think it's great that you want them designed this way to make them interesting for the story - it seems to fit Astrid's character more than the Magical Animal Companion in any case.
They're great grogs.
Cheers,
Lachie
One of my professors assigned Ascherson in grad school (it was a history course on nationalism in Eastern Europe--nationalism in Eastern Europe is my specialty), and that's where I got the idea of using Gothia. I actually was entranced by the idea of a fortress-city in a remote and secluded location, figuring it was a great place for a covenant, but in practice we couldn't locate the covenant there because the fortifications wouldn't have been allowed under the rules for a Spring covenant (I should have just pitched the rules in favor of atmosphere 
)--at any rate, it wasn't very realistic because it was an occupied city at the time. (Mind you, the one book I found on Gothia, from the 1930's I think, presented evidence that convinced me that the Goth capital of Theodoro was separate from Dory, and not located where the Russian archeologists today say it was located.)
King I've never read--I don't suppose it has anything on Gothia?
I actually meant that males didn't do much adventuring, either.
I actually assumed that, at least for short periods, Astrid's children were taken care of by the other grogs. That obviously wasn't realistic for the average peasant, but Viola needed her abilities, and was willing to use the covenant's resources that way.
Thanks.
Scott
Perhaps worth a House Rule, except that everyone has already spent a whole lot of time and effort on their characters.
Maybe for the next Saga then... 
Cheers,
Lachie
BTW do we have a written out convenant charter?
I tend to be rather interested in such things myself.