Let me look when I get home in a minute--are you talking about negative personality traits? Essential Qualities are supposed to be basically Personality Traits, I thought.
I haven't noticed a lot of mistakes in the animal designs, though I know they don't agree with your intrepretation of Gigantic.
Scott
I am also thinking that the essential trait of "Cat" might cover these, as the score (+3) is exactly the same.
I need careful consideration, and I will be redisigning Noscur along these lines (Noscur is the familiar of Carles of Jerbiton, and is known as the Black Cat of Barcelona).
And yeah, I mean Negative Personality traits (or positive traits with negative effect, such as +6 Territorial, which is actually a Major Essential Flaw of sorts).
Also, though we may disagree about how Size should be applied, you must admit that it is inconsistent in the rules. Also, some powers are really poorly designed. The Black Dog for example, uses levels of Greater Power to purchase 65 xp in penetration. That is a huge waste of Quality points, a Major Quality plus 15 levels left over from another Major Quality. I can apply those 15 levels to lowering the might cost, take Arcane Lore as a Minor Quality (for 50xp), and grabb the other 15xp from regular xp.
I think that Gigantic and Miniature in particular were designed solely to provide rules for character creation (that is, for exactly how big a gigantic beast should be), not for play balance--I can see some minor advantages to being really really big relative to other animals of the species (I'm sure it's great for impressing the ladies of the species), but not enough to be worth a Major Quality, you're right.
And yes, it's cheaper to buy Penetration with Improved Abilities (unless you just have a few points left over with nothing else useful to spend them on). I was actually trying to figure out the other day if Improved Abilities is not supposed to be spent on Penetration or Finesse, since normally a character would require a Virtue to have access to those two Abilities, but, as you just pointed out, you can just buy Arcane Lore as well.
Scott
I think you should be able to, but other people on the boards disagree. ButArcane Lore is worth 50xp anyway, same as Improved Abilities, and as it is categorized a a General Virtue it can be taken as a Quality. Thus, it will allow you to spend further XP on Arcane Abilities as needed (and face it, every Intelligent Magic creature should have some knowledge of Magic Lore).
Bleh, I need to edit the Cat to reflect that--that's gonna screw things up a bit, since I upped her Finesse to 4 in my most recent draft.
Scott
The cat could be ignorant too.
But given the age you set for her and how long she has been around magi, yeah, she should logically have Magic Lore. Take Finesse down from 4 to a 3, which gives you 20xp. Take Magic Lore of at least 1, and perhaps a score in Andorra area Lore of 2 (or make it smaller, just Arans, which includes the area of our covenant).
I already gave her Magic Lore, but figured for Area Lore I'd only give her the covenant; I'm not sure how much further she'd have ranged.
Scott
OK, I just looked it up, and once you have Arcane Lore, you can take Arcane Abilities during character creation--so the 50 XP's that come with it are just the minimum, and you can allocate XP's out of the general pool (in practice, Improved Abilities) after that.
Scott
OK....I've just paged through RoP: Magic, and you're right, it's a mess, possibly a worse mess than you thought. Let's go in page order:
First, all characters get an Essential Trait describing their true forms, usually at +3 (pg. 36, under "Finishing Touches"), in this case "Cat. A lot of the example characters in the book are missing this (like dragons, and all the humans I checked). Oops.
Second, the description of Essential Virtue (pg. 43) says that Essential Traits either a) add to Characteristic rolls in certain situations or b) a Personality Trait that can't be affected by magic. The latter is actually not a half bad Virtue, but the former is lame. (I mean, +3 to a limited set of rolls? Please. And the +6 for a Major Virtue is even more absurd.)
Third, check out the "Essential Traits" section on pg. 54. Enjoy the clear and simple rules in the second paragraph. Summary: essential traits that modify Characteristics don't add directly to Characteristics, but rather you use the greater of the two if they're both positive, the lesser if they're both negative/detrimental, or otherwise the sum of the two. Note that that directly contradicts the description of Essential Virtue on pg. 43.
Fourth, also, we learn here that, that any Essential Trait is an absolute defense against magic that would change it, an advantage which, at least implicitly, extends to traits that modify Characteristics. This, incidentally, is what distinguishes Essential Traits from mundane animal Qualities.
Fifth, if an Essential Trait modifies a characteristic, it's officially called a Character Trait--but none of the example characters has a listing for "Character Traits". I would assume someone just forgot to relabel them, but on a quick skim, all the Essential Traits I could find dealt with personality, not with activities for which bonuses might be added.
Sixth, in the last paragraph of that section, note that for a magical character, any Personality Flaw gives a corresponding Essential Trait. Some of the Essential Traits in the Magic Animals section seem to come from this source (e.g., "Protective +3" for the White Stag's Higher Purpose, "protect the wood"), but there are many examples where it's not obvious is this is where a trait came from or not.
Seventh, you will note though, in the middle of the page, that Beasts of Virtue are required to take both an Essential Virtue and a Personality Flaw. As you noted, Mark, some of the example Beast of Virtue have this required Virtue, and some don't have it listed, but do have Essential Personality Traits listed, implying unlisted Essential Virtues, and the first two I looked at seemed to have these unlisted Virtues balanced by Flaws, as you also noted. Indeed, it looks like the Essential Virtues that are listed are those that are (but aren't labeled as) Character Traits--that is, those that add bonuses to certain activites.
So, the rules seem for the most part to have been put into practice with the example characters, but a) some are missing their automatic Essential trait, b) there are two, contradictory rules for Essential Traits, and c) there's a lack of documentation of the Essential Virtues of some Beasts of Virtue--it appears to happen when they're Personality Traits rather than Character Traits.
Finally, eighth, note the "Finishing Touches" section on pg. 56, which says explicitly that Beasts of Virtue get bonuses from Qualities that mundane members of their species have. I would assume this applies to all magic animals, and the "Cat Character Template" on pg. 70 seems to confirm that (though, confusingly, it handles Magic Qualities in non-bolded parenthetical right underneath the bolded section on mundane Qualities--but see the note on XP's below that for another parenthetical that's unrelated to the bolded section above it); the "Bird of Nephelococcygia Character Guide" (pg. 68), though, doesn't list any mundane Qualities--but then, these aren't magical examples of a species of mundane birds.
So...I think I'm safe (esp. given the explicit note in the "Cats" section) in giving my cat those two bonuses.
The mess with the contradictory Essential Traits rules doesn't affect her, but we'd probably better sort that out, since at least two of the familiars are Beasts of Virtue. In fact, I screwed that up for Constantine, not giving him an Essential Virtue (jeez, these rules are too complicated, and really should all be in one place!), but on the other hand he doesn't necessarily have to be a Beast of Virtue. Apparently Beasts of Virtue "are well suited to being familiars," but the text never says why. In fact, the text doesn't actually say a thing, at least explicitly, about how Beasts of Virtue are different from other magical versions of mundane species, or provide really any guidance whatsoever for the latter animals, other than the single example of cats. I kind of get the idea that most magical animals will either be Beasts of Virtue, or else the result of some sort of witting or unwitting human intervention, in which case maybe Constantine should be a Butterfly of Virtue after all.
Scott
Hmm...no, that doesn't work, either--it screws up the mental traits. Int should definitely end up the same after the transformation. Pre is the hardest problem, because animal Pre and human Pre mean two different things (see Mystery Cults, pg. 38). Bleh.
You might do it this way:
Int: doesn't change.
Pre: subtract the default for the species from the character's Pre, and add that number to the default for the new species.
Everything else: take the average, after modifying as Str and Qik for Size.
What this does is to allow the new form to be influenced by both the default Characteristics of the old form and the ways in which the particular character's Characteristics differ from the defaults, except for Int, which shouldn't change at all, and Pre, which is implicitly linked to Size, and thus suffers from the same problem you get if you take an average of Str or Qik (that is, you're in effect averaging the Sizes of the two forms).
Another possibility, though, for everything except Int, is to do the same thing as I'm suggesting for Pre (this would automatically account for the Size mods to Str and Qik). That has the advantage of making the new Characteristics depend more on the ways in which the particular character differs from the species defaults, and the disadvantage that the species defaults no longer influence the new Characteristics.
Oh...also note that the defaults for animals are minimums, which rather complicates things (and also makes some Bjornaer have at least one Characteristic that's worse than every single other member of their heartbeast species). I guess that makes sense if you're using the Magic Animal rules mostly to create Beasts of Virtue, which are by definition above average, but it seems silly for other animals. The upshot, in any case, is that using the second method above, a shapechanging animal would always have Characteristics that were the default or better for the new form, meaning, for example, human Characteristics all 0 or positive. Maybe we should use the default as guidelines and let animals take lower? Or even just let them take Characteristics the normal way, and then add the defaults to the purchased stats? (Either would also obviate the need for so many purchases of Improved Characteristics.)
Which one of the two options you favor depends on whether you think it's more "realistic" for an average cat, changed into human form, to be more dextrous and alert than an average human. I'd lean toward the latter, though.
What does everyone else think?
Scott
Designing Familiars
[color=white]……..The following is a guideline for creating a magic animal character for your familiar. These are optional, and are not required of new or existing Familiar Characters. This is simply the range that, based on the comments some of you have made, the troupe feels is a comfortable rage of power versus independence.
[color=white]……..Note that these are just guidelines, not House-Rules or absolute limitations.
Season & Might: When designing a magical animal for your familiar, the standard average is a Summer Character with a base Might score of 20. As characters to be role-played, magical animals may be freely designed with Intelligence by spending Characteristic points as normal. The player has control of the Familiar, but may choose to share role-playing with other players at times. The Familiar is to played as an individual character with their own goals and interests, not as a puppet of their magus.
[color=white]……..Control can be exchanged for greater potential, or greater control can be retained by limiting potential. Benchmarks are as follow (note, these are guidelines, not Virtues & Flaws, nor are they required. They are just suggestions.
Limited Potential: Spring, Might 10; player has full control of Familiar, which may be kept as a background character.
Subdued Potential: Summer, Might 15; player has full control of Familiar, which must be fully developed as an individual, but still a minor character.
Standard Average: Summer, Might 20; player has full control of Familiar, which must be fully developed as an individual major character. Role-playing might be shared with other players, and the Minor Negative Quality of Independent is recommended.
Improved Potential: Autumn, Might 25; player has control of design and development of the familiar. Role-playing and major life decisions should be shared with other players, and the Minor Negative Quality of Independent should be taken.
Greater Potential: Winter, Might 35+; player suggests ideas for the Familiar, but the rest should be determined by the Storyguide.
Virtues & Flaws:
Existing Virtues & Flaws:
[color=white]……..Some magi have visions of the animal that is to be their familiar, some research a beast they feel suits their nature, then they go out and quest for the creature. Sometimes an animal met by chance encounter on an entirely different quest is destined to be the magus’ familiar.
[color=white]……..But these are situations best played or written out. Since this is a saga of mature magi, the advanced development process forces one to gloss over some of this detail when creating a mature magus with a Familiar. At the very least, you should how you met your familiar &/or how long it took you to find them (taking from one season to one year). Note how long they have been your Familiar, being mindful of how your Arts developed over the years. If you are at your maximum possible Lab Total, then you either only recently bonded or recently retempered the bond. If the Bond is somewhat lower than your current total, you probably forged the bond a long time ago and could take advantage of retempering soon.
[color=white]……..Some players may choose to simplify the process by choosing an existing Virtue or Flaw to clarify the relationship. Choosing any of the following needs only a simple explanation of how the animal came into the life of the magus, and does not require any time or effort in locating them. This may also presume that the Bond was forged whenever the magus was able, but the two may have had a longstanding familiar-like relationship before then.
[color=white]……..Of the existing Virtues & Flaws, the Story Flaws of Animal Companion and Magical Animal Companion indicate that the Familiar should have more independence, taking actions on their own that create stories for the magus. The Virtues of Magical Mount and Magical Warder are of benefit in that they provide a powerful being as a potential familiar.
Animal Companion/Magical Animal Companion: (Minor Story Flaw)
[color=white]……..An Animal Companion is suitable for a Familiar if it is also supernatural in any way, possessing an appropriate Virtue or Flaw. Otherwise, a mere mundane animal won’t do. Still, an Animal Companion has Cunning instead of Intelligence, but upon becoming a Familiar they gain an Intelligence of -3 (if they had a positive Cunning, then subtract three from that score to determine Intelligence).
[color=white]……..A Magical Animal Companion has a Might score and Season according to the guidelines above. Many Magical Animals have Cunning, but as Characters they may freely have Intelligence and spend Characteristic points as normal.
[color=white]……..In either case, this indicates that the animal likely had a relationship with the magus for a long time before becoming a Familiar. This relationship needs to be explained, but whatever it may be, this is still supposed to be a Story Flaw for the magus. Therefore, the familiar must choose a Major or Minor Personality or Story Flaw that reflects this relationship, having the appropriate effect on the life of the magus.
Magical Mount (Magical Pet): (Minor General Virtue)
[color=white]……..This is basically the same thing as taking Magical Animal Companion as a Virtue instead of a Flaw. Thus, no secret story flaw is required for the familiar. The animal has a Cunning score equal to the Intelligence of the magus, or an Intelligence score at least three points lower than the magus. Since this is a Virtue, the Familiar should have a slightly higher Might score.
Magical Warder: (Minor General Virtue)
[color=white]……..The Familiar is the dominant, protective, or parental partner of the bond. Design and control of the familiar is as determined by the storyguide. The familiar always acts in the magus’ bests interest (as any familiar would).It is just that the familiar thinks it knows what’s best for the magus better than he does, and feels compel to play the role of mentor. The Familiar may have a very high might score, but will be able to provide some benefit to help facilitate forging the bond (such as a temporary la total bonus).
Magical Blood: (Minor Supernatural Virtue)
[color=white]……..The advantages of an animal with Magic Blood are described above. The main advantages are that the Bond Level will be lower (and thus the Bond Potential higher), any combination of Arts can be used, and all Lab Totals have a +3 bonus.
New Virtues & Flaws:
Free Virtues:
Hermetic Familiar: (Free Familiar Virtue)
[color=white]……..For Familiars, this is the equivalent of the Social Status of Hermetic Magus, and usually replaces any previous Social Status that the Familiar had. This carries with it due rights in Hermetic society and acknowledgment of status by other familiars. The Familiar shares in part the prestige and/or infamy of their magus, possessing a Reputation of Familiar of (name of magus), at a score equal to half (round down) the highest Hermetic Reputation of the magus.
Beast of Virtue: (Free Familiar Virtue)
[color=white]……..The Familiar is a Beast of Virtue, which carries some prestige amongst other familiars and their magi. The Familiar has the Hermetic reputation, (type of beast) of Virtue, beginning at a score of 2. In addition, the Beast of Virtue receives one free Essential Virtue to represent its nature. Though magical, Beasts of Virtue are Susceptible to Depravation, included as part of this Virtue.
Chimera: (Free Familiar Virtue)
[color=white]……..The Chimera combine the natural qualities of two or more animals; such as a Griffon (Lion & Eagle), Pegasus (Eagle & Horse), the Sea-Horse (Horse and Fish), and others. The animal has an unnatural appearance and is obviously magical. The Chimera must purchase the required abilities and essential traits of two different species. To assist with this, the Chimera receives two free Minor Essential Virtues and fifty additional experience points for Abilities. A Chimera is Susceptible to Depravation, included as part of this Virtue.
Mythic Beast: (Free Familiar Virtue)
[color=white]……..The Familiar is a Magical Animal created from scratch. The beast may be designed with up to three additional points of Virtues & Flaws.
Minor Virtues:
Receptive to Magic: (Minor Familiar Virtue)
[color=white]……..The Familiar is naturally receptive to Hermetic Magic, and it is easier to forge and enchant the Bond than normal. Any combination of Arts can be used, and there is a +6 bonus to all Lab Totals involving the Familiar.
Minor Flaws:
Unreceptive to Magic: (Minor Familiar Flaw)
[color=white]……..The familiar has a strong magical nature that isn’t receptive to change. Subtract 3 from any relevant Lab Totals.
Warped Animal: (Minor Familiar Flaw)
[color=white]…….. Amongst Familiars, this is the equivalent social stigma as the Hedge Wizard Flaw is to magi, carrying a negative Reputation of 3. The Familiar has a Warping score of at least 1, though magi who choose Warped Animals as Familiars prefer those that have at least a Warping Score of 5 so that they have some sort of inherent Magical Virtue (see ArM5, page 168). Only magi with few other choices would pick a Warped Animal for a Familiar, but there are a few incidental benefits. The creature does not have a Might Score adding to the required Bond Level, and the magus may add their combined Warping Scores to the Bond Lab Total.
Major Flaws:
Monstrous Beast: (Major Familiar Flaw)
[color=white]……..A Monstrous Beast has a Monstrous Appearance, due to some disturbing features and/or its great size (add up to +2 to the beasts Natural Size). The Familiar retains the Magical Monster Social Status outside of the covenant.
OK, the post I've repeated most of below refered to another post which, somehow, I seem never to have posted. That has to be confusing to everybody else. Therefore, let me start from the beginning.
The Bjornaer chapter of Mystery Cults includes a system for converting the Characteristics of a human shapeshifter into the characteristics of her animal form: when the character's original Characteristic and the default for the animal in question are different, you use the greater of the two if they're both positive, the lesser if they're both negative, or otherwise the sum of the two. That's kind of an inelegant kludge, but it works reasonably well.
However, it breaks when an animal shifts into another animal form, or into human form. It's particularly obvious for human form: since the default for a human is 0 in all Characteristics, the human form will have exactly the same Characteristics as the animal form. It's actually not much better for switching from one animal to another with very different Characteristics, especially if there's a big difference in Size--try it with a couple of examples and you'll see what I mean.
At a minimum, you should probably remove the Size adjustments to Str and Qik before figuring the new stats (this rule wasn't around when Mystery Cults was written), then add them back in afterwards. That doesn't fix all of the problems, though.
Pre, incidentally, is the hardest problem, because animal Pre and human Pre mean two different things (see Mystery Cults, pg. 38).
You might do it this way:
Int: doesn't change.
Pre: subtract the default for the species from the character's Pre, and add that number to the default for the new species.
Everything else: take the average, after modifying Str and Qik for Size.
What this does is to allow the new form to be influenced by both the default Characteristics of the old form and the ways in which the particular character's Characteristics differ from the defaults, except for Int, which shouldn't change at all, and Pre, which is implicitly linked to Size, and thus suffers from the same problem you get if you take an average of Str or Qik (that is, you're in effect averaging the Sizes of the two forms).
Another possibility, though, for everything except Int, is to do the same thing as I'm suggesting for Pre (this would automatically account for the Size mods to Str and Qik). That has the advantage of making the new Characteristics depend more on the ways in which the particular character differs from the species defaults, and the disadvantage that the species defaults no longer influence the new Characteristics.
Oh...also note that RoP: Magic makes the defaults for animals are minimums, at least if you're using character guides (see the section thereon in the "Characters"; sometimes, in RoP: Magic, it's hard to tell if a rule is intended for general usage, or one specific type of character)), which rather complicates things (and also makes some Bjornaer have at least one Characteristic that's worse than every single other member of their heartbeast species). I guess that makes sense if you're using the Magic Animal rules mostly to create Beasts of Virtue, which are by definition above average, but it seems silly for other animals. The upshot, in any case, is that using the second method above, a shapechanging animal would always have Characteristics that were the default or better for the new form, meaning, for example, human Characteristics all 0 or positive. Maybe we should use the default as guidelines and let animals take lower? Or even just let them take Characteristics the normal way, and then add the defaults to the purchased stats? (Either would also obviate the need for so many purchases of Improved Characteristics.)
Which one of the two options you favor depends on whether you think it's more "realistic" for an average cat, changed into human form, to be more dextrous and alert than an average human. I'd lean toward the latter, though.
What does everyone else think?
Scott
I need to meditate upon the question 8)
OK, some more observations about Charcteristics for shapechangers....
Animals' stats seem to be affected by both Size and (for lack of a better term) "animalness".
Str and Qik are clearly adjusted for Size, as specified in the RAW.
Com, Sta, and Dex clearly depend on "animalness". Com (avg. -3.7) is never positive, presumably because animals are mute, and Sta (avg. 2.9) and Dex (avg 1.2) are almost never negative, presumably because animals are naturally more hardy and agile than humans.
Pre seems to be affected both by Size (smaller animals are less important) and by "animalness" (animals aren't important in general). I estimated a regression model for the 10 animals listed in the Book of Mundane beasts, with the following result: Pre = .48 * Size - 1.8.
Even Qik seems to be affected by "animalness": once you take out the modifiers for Size, the average for the 10 animals is 2.3.
Only Per (avg. 0.6), and Str after adjusting for Size (avg 0.5), seem unaffected by "animalness" (yes, they're a bit higher on average, but not so significantly so).
What does all of this mean, other than that I'm a complete geek? It means that unless you want to adjust all the stats except Int, it's hard to set up a straightforward system that produces reasonable results when going from animal to human form, or vice versa (though the "animalness" problems don't exist for going from animal to animal form). If you did want to adjust, the adjustment (rounded off) to produce a set of "base Characteristics" for each character would be:
Int: no change
Per: no change
Pre: - (Size/2) + 2
Com: + 4
Str: - 2 * Size
Sta: - 3
Dex: - 1
Qik: + Size - 2
Of course, you'd have adjust the defaults of the new form similarly, and then reverse the adjustments after applying the base Characteristics to the new form, though for moving from animal to animal form, you could ignore the adjustments to Com, Sta, and Dex, and the -2 to Qik, since they apply equally to both forms (and in fact, the final changes to Pre, Str, and Qik would be based on the difference between the animals' two Sizes). For example, a cat would look like this in human form (these would also be its base stats):
Per: +1
Pre: +2 (-2 -[-3/2] + 2)
Com: 0 (-4 + 4)
Str: -1 (-7 - 2*[-3])
Sta: -3 (0 - 3)
Dex: +2 (+3 - 1)
Qik: -1 (+4 + [-3] - 2)
Thus, cats are perceptive, pretty (or at least striking), and dexterous, but a little weak and slow for their size, and not very hardy at all, for animals. (The low Qik does trouble me a bit, given that the English language includes the phrase "cat-like reflexes", but maybe it's just small size, not inherent quickness 
.) Interestingly, if you bought those stats with points, they'd cost -1 total--pretty close to neutral.
That may well be entirely too complex, though. I'm still not sure what to do.
Scott
I've been catching up on this thread.
I'd say that all Magic Animals and Beasts of Virtue possess the inherent Qualities of their respective species, free of charge. They don't map out to regular Virtues, and it can be said to equate to the fact that humans have their own, automatic qualities, such as Bipedal, Full Hands, Articulate Speech, Tool Users, and Dominant Species (literally, since the Dominion supposedly favours them).
Figuring out attributes is more of a pain. The original rules for shapechangers added 1/2 the postive or negate attributes of a human's base Characteristics to those of an animal template. So, for instance, a human with Str +2 who became a Lion with Str +6 base would have Str +7 (+6, + 1/2 of +2).
Would these all be at the Companion level, or would some (probably Might 10 and 15) be at the Grog level? It matters for picking Virtues and Flaws (and even Magic Qualities and Inferiorities for that matter, since a Grog can't take Major ones).
Scott
It is familiar level. Familiars are not companions or grogs.
Set your limits to what you think is fair. But at the same time, please do not be surprisedif someone else sets their limits of fairness somewhere else.
Well if we're specifying Might and season, why not number of V/F's? For that level of character, 3 V/F's seems sufficient, though I think it might be OK to allow some Major Virtues or Flaws. Also, one of your Familiar Virtues, Mythic Beast, allows three extra points of V/F's--if there's no baseline for V/F's, that doesn't mean anything.
Scott
Take +/-10, or more. Whatever you think is fair. It isn't me that sets the limits, it is you. The only limitations are the ones you and your fellow players impose on yourselves and each other.
So I was in the middle of trying to update my old character when we went on hiatus. Even at the time I had trouble remembering his goals, and I had to go back and adjust so, so much. I decided I'm in favor of starting anew but filling roughly the same role. Mark liked the quick sketch I sent him:
Here are the Abilities/Arts/Spells at the end of apprenticeship. I think I may have a little error, though. If I recall correctly, we play with a house rule for Affinities in this saga, right? That would be that you can have fractional experience and so you don't round? If so, I'm half a point short in PM and only have an extra half of a point in Perdo. I could steal a point from Vim and put it in PM if needed.
Artes Liberales (Ceremonial Magic) 1
Athletics (Running) 1
Awareness (Alertness) 3
Brawl (Dodging) 1
Concentration (Spell Concentration) 1
Finesse (Certamen) 1
Folk Ken (Magi) 1
Leadership (Laboratory) 1
Living Language: Icelandic () 5
Living Language: Latin (Classical Latin) 4
Magic Theory (Inventing Spells) 4
Organization Lore: Order of Hermes (House Flambeau) 1
Parma Magica (Certamen) 1+2
Penetration (Ignem) 1
Philosophiae (Ceremonial Magic) 1
Stealth (While Invisible) 1
Swim (Staying Afloat) 1
Creo 6
Intellego 0
Muto 0
Perdo 7+3 (w/1 xp extra)
Rego 0
Animal 0
Aquam 0
Auram 0
Corpus 0
Herbam 0
Ignem 8
Imaginem 1
Mentem 0
Terram 0
Vim 5
R: Sight, T: Group (+2 Magnitudes) version of Winter’s Icy Touch [PeIg35]
R: Sight version of Wizard’s Icy Grip [PeIg35]
R: Personal variant of Veil of Invisibility without shadow [Pe(Cr)Im(Ig)15]
Unseen Arm [ReTe5]
R: Sight, T: Individual version of Wind of Mundane Silence (30+die)/2 [PeVi25]
5 levels left
The only PeIg familiar I noted was a salamander. But I think it would be boring if every School of Boreas Flambeau and several from other schools all had salamanders. In looking for something different I thought of a puffin. How does this look for a basic puffin off of which to build a magical animal?
Atlantic Puffin
Size -4
Bird base: Cun -1, Per +2, Pre -1, Com -2
+7 pts: Str +1, Sta +2, Com to -1, Qik +1
Size adjustment: -8 Str, +4 Qik
Final result: Cun -1, Per +2, Str -7, Sta +2, Pre -1, Com -1, Qik +5
Amphibious, Fast Flyer, Hardy, Thick Fur
Athletics 3, Awareness 4, Brawl 2, Survival 5, Swim 5
Chris