Table Talk - Development

[Orvich]

Hello, everyone! I'm going to be trying to roll up a character to join you folk and your characters! I have no experience actually playing through Ars Magica, though I've read through many of the core books (repeatedly) and done a lot of theorycrafting. I also have a fair amount of experience in (non PbP) tabletop gaming and roleplaying, so I hopefully won't be a total drag!

Right now I'm looking at a Merinita concept. What I've got so far is that I'm from (both raised and apprenticed at) the covenant of Oleron (The Lion and the Lily, page 70), a prominent covenant on the border of the Normandy and Provencial tribunals. It's not terribly far from Andorra, I promise! The covenant is inside of a faerie regio, and has a lot of faerie mojo going on. Importantly, the regio is ruled by a Faerie Queen, and the covenant is lead by her champion, a magus consort. There is a ritual by which anyone may contest the current champion for supremacy, with the punishment for failure being a neigh-unresistable geas, decided by the Queen. My character foolishly made an attempt with no real chance of success (for reasons to be unveiled/exposited later), and consequently failed and was saddled with the punishment. In completing his task, he was sent out of the regio/covenant on a difficult quest, ultimately leading him to Andorra and the covenant there.

As I said earlier, I'm going for Merinita. I'm still trying to get a good mental image of what he's good at so that I can more smoothly go through chargen and have a coherent character, but I have Strong Faerie Blood (probably Sidhe or Godblood), Faerie Raised Magic, Faerie and Covenant Upbringing, and Plagued by Faerie definitely on my list of features.

I want my companion character to be a faerie of appropriate power, as created using the rules for companion faeries in RoP-Faerie. Do you all think that's advisable? The idea is that this companion is why he's 'Plagued by Faeries'. While he does help out, as a companion, his reason for sticking with my character (at least for now) is to ensure beyond the scope of the geas that the assigned quest is being completed or worked on.

As for focal arts, I'm tending to look towards Aquam/Terram. Any advice on that matter? I know that some arts are more restrictive than others. I don't think that Auram, Ignem, or Animal are particularly appropriate for this character, but besides that I'm still up in the air!

[callen]

As a general rule it's good to make a companion who does not stick with your magus. The idea then is it's likely you can use one of the two most of the time. If they always stick together, then you're using two or none, neither of which is ideal.

[Marko_Markoko]

As you are a new player, I suggest starting with a new young magus. We can incorporate a Companion as we go along. I suggest the Common Sense Virtue, justifying your character following any advice we give you (you may not have had it when you were an apprentice, but you have it now).
Follow normal character creation rules from the core book. There is no rolling involved . The House Rules allow for a slight boost. We will look at your character and suggest/make adjustments.
Welcome to Andorra Orvich, hope you survive the experience!

[Peregrine_Bjornaer]

@callen

As a general rule it's good to make a companion who does not stick with your magus. The idea then is it's likely you can use one of the two most of the time. If they always stick together, then you're using two or none, neither of which is ideal.

Perhaps someone who doesn't have a Companion yet could create Orvich's faerie companion? That way, he gets his Jiminy Cricket, and an older hand gets to play and maybe give Orvich's mage a slight nudge or a good swift kick in the pants, as needed?

[Marko_Markoko]

@Peregrine_Bjornaer

@callen

As a general rule it's good to make a companion who does not stick with your magus. The idea then is it's likely you can use one of the two most of the time. If they always stick together, then you're using two or none, neither of which is ideal.

Perhaps someone who doesn't have a Companion yet could create Orvich's faerie companion? That way, he gets his Jiminy Cricket, and an older hand gets to play and maybe give Orvich's mage a slight nudge or a good swift kick in the pants, as needed?

I like this idea
That or someone can trade off companions, or even run an extra for this specific purpose.
Any volunteeers?

[Ovarwa]

@callen

Since I'm working on details for a crafter with a lot of Faerie involved, I figured I should double-check on Faerie Sympathies. We agreed that the one limit that even experience from 1's be limited by Warping Score solves the problems, right? Well, that and the decision that Spell Mastery doesn't have normal specialties also limits the grossness there.

adding new specialties on the fly is too good, even by our standards, yes.

[The_Fixer]

@callen

Since I'm working on details for a crafter with a lot of Faerie involved, I figured I should double-check on Faerie Sympathies. We agreed that the one limit that even experience from 1's be limited by Warping Score solves the problems, right? Well, that and the decision that Spell Mastery doesn't have normal specialties also limits the grossness there.

That, and that seasonnal activities are treated by a single roll, not a bazillion

@Orvich

I want my companion character to be a faerie of appropriate power, as created using the rules for companion faeries in RoP-Faerie. Do you all think that's advisable? The idea is that this companion is why he's 'Plagued by Faeries'. While he does help out, as a companion, his reason for sticking with my character (at least for now) is to ensure beyond the scope of the geas that the assigned quest is being completed or worked on.

Not advisable, no: These rules are not very well designed, IMO, and may lead to brain haemorrage.
Also, a companion, that helps your character, does seem a lot more like a Faerie Friend (minor flaw) than Plagued by Faerie to me.

@Peregrine_Bjornaer

Perhaps someone who doesn't have a Companion yet could create Orvich's faerie companion? That way, he gets his Jiminy Cricket, and an older hand gets to play and maybe give Orvich's mage a slight nudge or a good swift kick in the pants, as needed?

Great idea.

[callen]

@The Fixer

@Peregrine_Bjornaer

Perhaps someone who doesn't have a Companion yet could create Orvich's faerie companion? That way, he gets his Jiminy Cricket, and an older hand gets to play and maybe give Orvich's mage a slight nudge or a good swift kick in the pants, as needed?

Great idea.

I saw this idea and agree it's a good one. A concept popped into my head, too. It would mean dropping the other concept I was working on, but it could work very well overall since it would provide a tie-in inherently. I came up with a very workable raison d'etre, a role that both suits such a faerie and matches what Orvich wants from such a faerie. Since some of the concept should be secret from Orvich, I'll mention the specifics to Mark privately first.

[Marko_Markoko]

Cool

[callen]

I realized a quick solution to the changes I'd missed in the character guidelines. I can add one extra year to Guillaume. That provides 3 seasons to drop for initations. Then I just use one season for lab work or a little study. That's a relatively trivial change to enact and makes everything line up well.

[Marko_Markoko]

Make whatever fine tuning adjustments needed. trivial bs can be fixed on the fly as we go, so no worries.

[callen]

@Marko Markoko

Cool

Since this seems like it will help bring things together and Mark is "cool" with it, here's where I'm starting. It looks like adjusting the character creation rules for a faerie companion will take minimal effort (faerie creation doesn't use the faerie's age/seasons for good reasons). This should line everything up for the idea I ran by Mark, which should fit what Orvich had planned fairly well.

Faerie Might 5

Int 0, Per +1, Str -1, Sta 0, Pre +1, Com +3, Dex 0, Qik 0

Faerie Sight [1]
Faerie Speech [1]
Good Teacher [1]
Highly Cognizant [1]
Humanoid Faerie [1]
Muse [1]
Personal Power [1] ← Mu(Re)Im15 [Base 3, +2 Sun, +1 constant, +1 requisite] @ 0 cost
[tab][/tab]This is Aura of Ennobled Presence at R: Personal with a Rego requisite to shift between versions, so it could change to Aura of Beguiling Appearance or Aura of Childlike Innocence, for example.
Pretentious [1]
Second Sight [1]
Venus’s Blessing [1]

Passes for Human [0]
Faerie Trainer [0]

Lecherous [-1]
Meddler [-3]
Oath of Fealty (Faerie Queen) [-3]
Optimistic [-1]
Small Frame [-1]
Traditional Ward (Folk Charms) [-1]

[callen]

I finished Guillaume, outside of looking up a couple page references for a few little things. But I figured that was good enough to post him as finished. And I thought I could use images from my Google Docs account, but apparently it changes the file names every few days so the images fail to load relatively quickly.

[Marko_Markoko]

Most excellent. Give me a few, and I'll start writing you in.

[callen]

@callen

Since this seems like it will help bring things together and Mark is "cool" with it, here's where I'm starting. It looks like adjusting the character creation rules for a faerie companion will take minimal effort (faerie creation doesn't use the faerie's age/seasons for good reasons). This should line everything up for the idea I ran by Mark, which should fit what Orvich had planned fairly well.

Hmmm... Despite having a good idea (especially a good handle on the faerie's role), I can't seem to get things to work out as I want unless I go in a direction I feel is really abusive. I think the problem is that the concept is still too general and needs to be more specific, but I'm not sure in which way to go.

Meanwhile I feel like I have a really good handle on the crafter idea I'd been working on.

Maybe Mark can do something he likes with an NPC with the concept I presented for the faerie?

[Peregrine_Bjornaer]

@callen

And I thought I could use images from my Google Docs account, but apparently it changes the file names every few days so the images fail to load relatively quickly.

Maybe Photobucket, Picture Trail, or Flickr?

[Marko_Markoko]

I would't worry about it. Have not heard from Orvich in a week. But if he does play, gen up the companion and just play it as an NPC. For yourself, gen up your own companion or find a partner to trade with.

[Orvich]

Sorry, I've been adjusting to a drastically new schedule this week, and it's taking a lot out of me. After this weekend, I should be in a much better place to be doing... anything.

I've settled a few blank spots in the conception of this character that I had, and will be posting up a development thread here shortly. I think I've decided on a Herbam/Mentem magus build.

EDIT: The sketch I had in mind for a Faerie companion was a non-corporeal one (With powers to become corporeal as he desires), so that he (or she) could drop in and bother my character at random, with little warning or alarm from other people. They would then use their powers of corporeality to cause problems, dobby style (dropping cakes on people's heads, or drastically worse), even using a guide-esque power to directly cause problems by manipulating mundanes. When not harassing me, they'd be off on their own agenda, or that of the queen.

However, if you have an idea for a good story, that's totally okay too!

[Marko_Markoko]

Start a new thread. Call it "(name of chatacter) development"

[Orvich]

Yep.. That was the plan!

EDIT: I'll have that up tomorrow, had too many other things to do today!