I'm on board with the idea of a bunker. Vara could obviously get in on anything to the North. I could totally whip something up for anything to the South. Maybe finally make a Sahir! 
The only Sahirs I recommend are Hermetic House Ex-Miscellanea Sahirs from Iberia. If you are not in the Order, then you get the ultimatum. Join or Die. Or you just get killed. Same for the north. Hermetics, not hedgies.
But these ideas do make interesting story potential. For NPC's in stories we run. Not as player characters.
Hmm... could be a Hermetic Sahir trying to regain and integrate the Solomonic Arts. Telling a Sahir to join or die sounds like it has story potential. And by story potential I mean the first Sahir who gets recruited will recruit the rest. I cannot see how that would end poorly. 
If you want to create exotic wizards that are not part of the covenant and see how you can work that character into one or more stories, I say go for it. I want to expand on this concept even. The term NPC, for a non-player character. What if instead we thought in terms of NCC, a non-covenant character. An NPC is a term reserved for characters that only exist for the stories you want to tell. Mooks and monsters and philosophical zombie magi and grogs. All the characters we create in detail and roleplay are PC's. CPC for covenant player character or NCC for a non covenant character that is, in all other regards, a player character.
That's a neat way of looking at things. I like it.
Arachné was thinking about africa for 3 reasons:
- No Order of Odin! And the order of suleiman is in the levant, too. Trying to build a bunker in a land dominated by your ennemies doesn't appeal to her
- No hermetic presence: Hermetics are already watching the north. No one is watching the south, this is terra incognita
- I have the Africa book, and it is great.
But as I said, this was wishful thinking should I be ready to gm such a thing. Which ain't the case now.
Right, I've started bringing Bernat up to date. But I didn't get very far before I hit a big swathe of unfilled time - which I can probably fill easily enough, but possibly not very profitably.
Assuming Bernat is not out on Adventure, and that there are no books in the library he wants to read (he's studied Almogavar's Reflection for Stealth and Thrown, and not much else seems relevant), his only options appear to be being trained or taught, or practice. And practice is a measly 4XP (unless he spends a season on Area Lore: Andorra, which he might well). Are those actually my only options?
I've found the teachers, so that's something. If training, where can I find who's available and knows what?
Draganna and Marius are actually fairly busy during this time training the new scribes... Marius can take extra people in his classes (we have 30 total recuits, he can teach a class of 45)
summer 1236 he is teaching Latin (SQ:20 max level:5),
winter and summer 1237 also teaching Latin as above
autumn 1236 and spring and autumn 1237 Draganna has a "free" season where she is supposed to instruct
1238 both teachers are free for each of their respective season- at least from teaching children.
in 1239 Marius is teaching teaching for 2 season, Draganna for 1 each year- both have plenty of room in their 'classes' as the current class size is 20, and Draganna can teach a second subject each year.
I do not see any indication that anyone has claimed free slots on the magi planner.
Given that the Rilcheaux agent recruiting threads are moving exceptionally slowly and may have ground to a halt, might I be allowed to simply have a fixed allowance for skip years of agency points to assign- either something simple like 12 pts per year or something bsed on abilities like leadership+com each year?
If it's going too slowly for you then exit your character, and find another way.
I wasn't even intending to run the thread at speed. Not its purpose.
Adding your companion slowed what I wanted to do with Lucas, but better you understand and make your own choice.
I was asking to try and move things along, not trying to step on toes...
All good, I'm getting overwhelmed at work and doing most of my posts to/from work. Just wanted to be clear that I can't go much faster than a post every day or so at present.
When we get there I'm hoping your character will visit the monastery and see what's up.
That's what I suggested last time, I think it'll be both easier and less frustrating for you.
Only, due to the RAW's difficulty of winning an agent, I'd make that a lot slower. Your abilities only come into play when determining if you can impress and agent. I'd consider that a given, for simplicity's sake.
But it is then, if and only if you've had an adventure in which you also had the opportunity to impress/cajole/whatever the person, that you can put xp towards an agent, as many points as the adventure yielded. Per RAW, this means 05 to 10xp for an entire season of "work". And it can still take several stories just to win a single agent.
=> Even in the faster IRL sagas, unless a player totally steals the light from the game by having everything be about him, winning an agent is quite likely to be sloooow.
=> I'd give 05 automatic xp per year and be done with it. This is still liable to be faster than IRL recruitment, especially in a fast-time saga.
Okay, so I'm starting work On Acutus' original research and my first result has me perplexed.
After adding the simple die to his lab total, the spell he's inventing takes him two seasons. In season one he rolls a Discovery! Awesome, exactly what I need, first try. In his second season, I apply his risk modifier the same way* and roll a Complete Failure 
So, does that mean that he just fails to complete the spell, and thus completely ignores the Discovery result (which seems a bit lame)? Or, if you roll a Discovery, do you just ignore every result after that? Or, did he somehow discover something without successfully creating the spell (which seems odd)?
*Note, Acutus has a +1 risk modifier. In this case I rolled a 10 exactly (a 1 and then a 5) and thus chose not to apply the +1. I think that is allowed since HoH:TL says "yo do not have to use the whole modifier."
Umm, nevermind. It looks like the errata takes care of this. Here's the way I understand what the errata says:
- I have a risk modifier of +1
- I roll on the Extraordinary Results Table as normal (ie. adding my risk modifier) getting an 11 (rolls of 1 and 5 +1 for the risk modifier), Modified Effect.
- In addition to this Modified Effect, I may add or subtract all or part of my risk modifier (+1) in order to ALSO get a Discovery roll. Because I rolled an 11, I can subtract all of my risk modifier (1), resulting in a 10 which is Discovery.
- For my second season I roll and get a 9 (rolls of 1 and 8 +1 for the risk modifier), Special or Story Event. I could actually add the +1 again to get another Discovery, but that's moot since I already got Discovery.
So, in this instance, I got a Discovery for purposes of Original Research, as well as a Modified Effect (which I now need to roll) and a Special or Story Event.
I'm still not clear what would happen if someone with at least a +2 risk modifier rolled a Complete Failure. Per the rules errata, they would have a Complete Failure, but could ALSO add their risk modifier to it and get a Discovery.
I would imagine that, in the extreme example, "Discovery" and "Failure" results combined would mean that your project fails, but you understand why and gain some insight from the failure.
The way it is written it says you add or subtract the risk modifier for original research, and do not have to use the whole result, and do not get to add the risk modifier to your actual lab total, but it does have to be applied the same way in every season...
Yeah, sound logical.
Has the Vis from Fleur's garden (faerie vis, 1 muto, 1 corpus per year) been incorporated into the covenant resources, does that need to be done, or should it go to Fleur instead?
I have known nothing about that. Why is there vis in her garden? How did it get there?
And, AFAIK, there is no official record of resources. At least none that I have made. I made a preliminary draft of some revised covenant data, which has not yet been made official. Someone may have done a copy-paste of that over to the wiki. Which is fine for now. I do not foresee any major changes.
But when I get around to it, official covenant information will be posted here