Start up a topic for your magus (with that magus name as title). Make three postings in that topic. The first is your magus when right out of apprenticeship, the second is for the seven years and the third is for your magus after the seven years.
For the main characters I have stolen a few ideas from Matters of the Heart and they are summerised in this few points.
• 7 years out apprenticeship.
• Seasons spent mostly freely but 1 season for each point of story or personality flaw will be spent on a story.
• For these stories you write a few points on what the point of the story was and get 5xp and perhaps some small reward that is suitable. For example one story could lead to that you find an animal suitable to become your familari.
• The rest of the seasons are spent on lab work or used to study a art or abilites at 10xp.
• We follow the material published for Ars Magica 5th edition.
• Your family matters, make sure that your magus family is a something that affects him or her.
• Your parens matters, make sure that your magus parens matter in his life.
• Reputation will affect social skills
• I will try to remember to enforce the gifts social effects
• I will not play the “write a charter” saga. I am thinking of an anarchy covenant… If anyone has a good charter we can use then we could grab it.
The storys that your magus suffer from after gauntlet (that is one per point of personallity or story flaw) are subject to these rules.
• Must have some written information about them. What happened? Why did it happened? And so on…
• The story gives 5xp and a reward.
• A reward could be a confidence point, a few pawns of vis, access to a book that gives you 5 extra xp the next season, a point of insight into hedge magic, initiation to a mystery cult, a new familari,
A good number of people has been asking me to join and now I wish to see who is still here. If you have not then please write a short sentence or two in the development forum to tell the world that you are here and what kind of magus you wish to have.
I'm here. Was waiting on feedback re: suitability of magus, but am further on developing him anyway. Writing this on the fly as off out for the day, but will have a concrete post tomorrow, if the Guernican Hoplite idea is a goer for the story.
Here, and working on my Verditius Lab Rat; due to his Lab Ratness I'm keen also to develop the Venditore, to ensure I have someone playable for 'in the field'.
Hey y'all, two quick things! First off, the simple one. Personal Vis source, could you take it multiple times? I personally don't see why ( IE having more source ) but I just wanted to run it by the group before I did anything. I ask because, well as you're about to see here in a moment, my redcap will be needing a LOT of vis to make his dreams of using Mercere Portals to create a trading empire a reality.
Second, Mercere Portals. Here's the math on these things: First of all, it's an invested device, so you have to spend the vis to unlock it. 4 ( Hard Stone ) x 5 ( Huge ) = 20. Then the effect has to be built into it is a level 65 ReTe effect and then you have to move them into place and perform a ceremony akin to Hermes Portal ( ReTe 75 ). Did I mention that you have to build two portals? So that's 20 Vis to open the item, 7 for the actual effect and another 15 depending on how you read the write up ( IE whether you have to use Vis for the Ceremony ) for a grand total of 42 Vis. Oh yeah, but you have to do all of this, twice, so it's 84! Even under the best of circumstances ( where the Ceremony doesn't cost Vis ) you're still blowing 54.
My big issue with it is that you have to build two portals, each as an invested device. I personally think that the portals should only count as one item in terms of creation, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm totally biased. Secondly, the way I interpret the "perform a ceremony akin to Hermes Portal" is that you go through roughly the same motions, minus the vis cost, as you have already built the items.
Is not Hermes portal just a ritual spell that is cast on a huge portal of stone? Shouldn’t the price be 11pawns to cover the vis cost and perhaps an additional 22pawns per portal to pay for the one who cast the spell. Total 33 per gate, so total 66 pawns. Then you just have to sign a deal with Maga Jacintha Ex Verditius so that you pay back those 66 pawns with 10% interest. It will just be a nice story hook.
One of the perks of being House Mercere? Interest Free Loans from your house! Also, most if not all Mercere Portals are made by Magi inside house Mercere. There might be a Verditius or two who know how to make them, but they've probably sworn to secrecy...
Yup, Hermes Portal is the Mercurian Ritual, Mercere Portal is the one from HoH: TL. Hit the nail right on the head there mate. But my problem still remains, you need 20 pawns invested in the item and another 7 to instil the effect, for a total of 27 Pawns. But then you need two portals, so the price just became 54. Couple that with paying the Magi who makes it and if you're using the model of Cost x 2... You'd go broke so fast that it wasn't even funny.
One option is that since knowledge of how to create the portals is basically restricted to House Mercere ( and maybe a Verditius or two ) that they are willing to work close to at cost, or perhaps for favors? Either that or the price of items should only take into account the instilled effect, not the total Vis required for its opening.
True, a Verditius with a Lab Text and maybe a focus in Stone of some kind and Elder Runes could probably pull this off as a lesser device. I'll talk to Max and see if such a person exists, because if they do, I'm sure they're busy with contracts from the House and suitably rewarded for their time...
Max, two cents? If such a person does exist, I'll probably have a few of my stories / flaws reflect it.
I just posted my proposed character, Caspian ex Verditius, to the forum. Caspian is a swashbuckling magus who suffers from the very unfortunate "minor" hermetic flaw of weak enchanter. This halves all enchanting lab totals, which is utterly crippling for a Verditius... or is it? It should be interesting to see how far he can go maneuvering around this critical flaw. In the short term he can pick up cash opening items for enchantment on the cheap. There seems to be a loophole in the Primus' regulation of item prices with regard to opened but not-yet-enchanted items.
Once a large enough lab is built, he will whip up a light-warship in a single season thanks to the house mystery and become a privateer. His short term magical goal is to initiate Items of Quality. Mindful of strengths and weaknesses, I see Caspian as equal parts merchant-adventurer and handicapped magi. His inspirational qualities and self-confidence are modeled on modern day paraplegics who drive themselves to run marathons or compete in grueling extreme sports. ( Given the prevalence of peg-legs, severed hands, gouged eyes, and missing ears among pirates, I'm thinking that as a medium term goal Caspian might develop a line of prosthetic limbs and replacement body parts. These would be items of quality imbued with relatively low level rego or muto effects. This might require original research in order to be a low enough level for Caspian to enchant.)
Caspian would be interested in supporting GIJOO's Redcap (does he have a name) with his trading empire. Mercere Portal's are well and good, but you still need swift ships to run blockades and deliver bulk goods the last few miles to their destination.
I have been quite busy now for some time but I will start to pull things together. This weekend I will summarise what you wish to get out of this saga and write a few things. Make sure that you write down information about you character so we can start. For now we are a bit vague on the location of the covenant but it might be possible that we start with a first story that does not demand a location. Please write if there is anything else you wish to add to the suggestion threads before I put my boot down and decide things.
If you have not been given any feedback then I must say that I don’t have the time to review most things and are hoping that you as a gamer group can decide on what you want for this saga. If no one objects then go a head and write your character.
Yeah, I still haven't advanced my character or written stories about my 5 pts of story/personality flaws (I hate writing things cold for a start, middle and end story, I am not really a story writer but rather I write interaction and plot as character interacts with things, role play as opposed to authoring)
3 pts: Envied beauty (3 stories here I guess)
1 pt: Greedy
1 pt: Covenant Upbringing
No comments yet about my character. I still have to pick my third shape and a fourth shape. I think the third one will be a ferret or other small animal that is easily missed (maybe shape that matches the master's familiar) and then a fourth in advancement that can fight.
You don’t need to write anything flashy. For example one story could jus be that you spent some time in the Atlas Mountains hunting for vis. Meet a old vicked spirit summon who tried to claim you as his wife then had a romantic encounter with a cult of heroes prodigy, thus causing a feud between them. Luckily you escaped with you life and freedom, 5xp in area lore Atlas Mountains, 2pawns of Terram vis and a mental note to never visit the east part of the Atlas Mountains again.
The stories does not need to have any connection with your flaws, they could have but need not as those stories may come down the road.
So Max and I were talking and the Cult of Heroes / Stat Boosting Rituals came up. We agreed that there was no reason that I couldn't start play having 'purchased' a few of these rituals for my Redcap. That said he had these questions and I just wanted to run it by y'all to see what the group thought.
He's a Mythic Redcap and as such a member of the Cult of Heroes, these kind of rituals are exactly what they do. So I'd imagine that there would a number of Magi who could cast these Rituals.
If he wants to avoid warping, yes. If he doesn't care about warping, then no. As stated before, it's the Cult of Heroes.
Vis and perhaps some of his stories due to flaws? As long as no extra work beyond casting the ritual is required I see no reason that paying for Ritual and doing a few seasons worth of favors wouldn't be enough.
As a player, those stat building rituals leave a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like them. Getting a mage to cast them should be a lot of effort rather than "I belong to the cult of heroes in my house and so there should be someone willing to take the risk and cast them." It should be culmanation of a lot of work and effort. These are not low level spells but minimum of 40th level rituals (this means lab total 40 of they learned them from a book or higher if they invented it).
Then again, I am not a big fan of all these initiations that let people just get a bunch of new merits as well if they perform a quest or the fact you can take vis and go into the magic realm for a season and get new virtues as well. I don't like the school of thought of "All my negative characteristics are now 0 and my positives are now 5." A 5 intelligence should mean something and that you really gave up something to get it at creation. Characters wish they were smarter, better communicative, stronger, more enduring, quicker, etc..... but permanently doing it is one of the guidelines that I wish had never ever made it into 5th edition. Since it has, I would want finding someone to cast it or inventing it to be a real story or culmination of study (perhaps with help in the lab) to develop it rather than just an entry in backstory.
I also do not want it to have to be a power contest that for our characters to be comparible, it is who wrote in the most ability boost, virtue getting stories. There is a give and take, if you take one merit, you get something, vs something else.
This also brings up the issue of having had a personal vis source merit for the 7 years of creation. Chracter creation specifically says how much vis you have during character creation for advanced mages (beyond apprenticeship). This amount assumes that you use it for boosting spells, certamen, lab activities and such and was gained from saving personal vis sources, quests, convenant dividents, payments for goods or whatever. Thus starting with any vis in your personal stocks should be from the 5-7 stories and boosts, not from virtues (the virtues will pay off during the course of the game)
The ASG, Max, has already stated that we all get five pawns per post gauntlet year to do with what we will ( whether spend on rituals, buy things, or stockpile ) regardless. Personal Vis Source adds to that for our Mythic Redcap friend here. So the chargen rules you are stating here have been explicitly altered already in this regard, for this game, before you joined.
Personally I think your attitude of 'balance' in regards to attributes is... misplaced. Perhaps a lingering effect of playing some 'other' game. In the grand scheme of things in Ars Magica a few points on an attribute has rather little mechanical benefit to the character. In fact I was discussing this off-line with a friend not so long ago. Our discussion basically ammounted to this. Sure the guy with a five presence and a six charm skill can make most ladies' panties melt with a glance. Given, no argument there. And a not anywhere near so personable mentem magus who expends the effort can still take the same girl away from him and turn her into a quiveringly eager to please, obsessively dependent on making him happy for her emotional state, kinky slave with one spell.
Attributes don't matter so much. And the guidelines for the rituals that govern raising them are already on the high side which makes the rituals somewhat expensive. When you compare what you can get for the same vis as doing attribute raises... it's expensive for less return. Unless you just really want higher attributes. You have to really want it for the cost/reward ratio to start to look appealing, which is why most people don't end up doing it.
Now your personal gaming philosophy may differ ( and it obviously does ) but without a group vote to change the RAW or some such, I'm perfectly fine with those rituals and with our Redcap friend here purchasing them with his vis.
