Thalassa Ex Miscellanea

"θάλασσα καὶ πῦρ καὶ γυνή, κακὰ τρία!" ("Sea and fire and woman, three evils!")

Through dedicated study of the Lost Magic of Atlantis, a small sect of Greek hedge wizards have learned how to transform themselves into Atlanteans. Thalassa's new natural shape is that of a towheaded mermaid with golden eyes and a jewelled blue tail; when among mundanes, she typically disguises herself as a middle aged Greek woman.

Due to the nature of her transition, she must remain within a mile of the sea and cannot leave a strong magical aura for very long. In consideration of these limitations, she has taken up residence on the isle of Sa Dragonera, and has been seeking assistance in establishing a covenant there.

Essential Trait: Atlantean (+3 to Presence and Communication rolls when dealing with denizens of the sea)

Int +2 Per +1
Str -3 Sta +2
Pre +2 Com +2
Dex 0 Qik 0

Free choices: The Gift, Hermetic Maga, Transformed Human, Atlantean Magic, True Friend: Pelagios; Necessary Condition: Touching Water
Virtues: Major Magical Focus: The Sea, Puissant/Affinity Aquam, Ways of the Sea, Affinity with Rego, Skilled Parens
Flaws: Anchored to the Sea, Driven: Restore Atlantis, Limited Magic Resistance: Terram, Unnatural Magic

Magical Qualities/Inferiorities: Improved Might x2, Personal Power, Voice of the Ocean; Bound to Magic, Environmental Magic Condition: When more than a mile away from ocean.
Power: Human Shape (1 pt)

Awareness 2
Code of Hermes 1
Concentration 1
Folk Ken 1
Latin 4
Magic Lore 2
Magic Theory 5 (Rego)
Order of Hermes Lore 1
Parma Magica 3
Penetration 3
Speak Greek 5
Swim 3

Creo 9, Intellego 0, Muto 5, Perdo 4, Rego 14 (70/105)
Animal 4, Aquam 16+3 (94/141), Auram 10, Corpus 8, Herbam 0
Ignem 0, Imaginem 5, Mentem 0, Terram 0, Vim 4

Spells Known:
Decree of the Atlantean, ReAn10 (Base 2, +3 Water-way, +1 Conc)
Break the Oncoming Wave, ReAq10
Drawn to Atlantis (as Pull of the Watery Grave, at Water-Way range), ReAq35
Sea Squall (Clouds of Rain and Thunder, Dur: Diam; must be cast at sea), CrAu25
Tower of Whirling Water (Duration: Storm), ReAq35
Kiss of the Mermaid (Allows the target to breathe water. Base 2, Range: Touch, Dur: Sun), MuCo5
Leap of the Homecoming, ReCo35
Murmur of the Deep, InIm10 (Base 1, +3 Water-way, +2 Sun)
Aura of Ennobled Presence, MuIm10
Unravelling the Fabric of Corpus, PeVi10

1st Cycle: Thalassa takes up residence within Atlantis and focuses on her studies.
Year 1: +40 Rego
Year 2: +40 Aquam
Year 3: +10 Parma, +30 Auram
Year 4: +15 Parma, +5 Order of Hermes Lore, +5 Magic Lore, +5 Code of Hermes, +10 Penetration
Year 5: +15 Creo, +15 Mentem, +10 Magic Lore
Year 6: +25 Magic Theory, +5 Folk Ken, one wasted season
Year 7: +21 Auram, +9 Creo, Binds Familiar
Year 8: Opens necklace for enchantment, attunes as talisman, 2x seasons enchanting conc-dur "Sea Squall" with talisman maintaining concentration
Year 9: +15 Corpus, +15 Penetration, one season spent learning "Leap of the Homecoming"

Thalassa's talisman is a necklace, crafted mundanely by Caduceus of Verditius. The central pendant is a crystal sphere with a hollow center, filled with water from Atlantis; a pair of opals and a pair of sapphires flank the central pendant on either side.

Pelagios, the Bull Shark
(forthcoming)

We need to come to an agreement about where Atlantis is, and their relation to the Tritons. I'll hand you Atlantis and I will take Tritons. I have always imagined Atlantis as being in the Atlantic Ocean, hence the name. But maybe the Mediterranean if that is what you imagine. Atlanteans are definitely Magic Realm beings. Tritons, on the other hand, being descendants and subjects of Triton son of Poseidon, might well be Faeries. Incognizant of course, unconsciously mimicking human society and fascinated by mortal sailors. But I do not own RoP-Faeries, so none of that makes sense to me. I do have RoP-Magic, so it is easier for me to design stats using that and let someone else label them all pretenses or whatever.

As for RoP-Magic, if we are going with the approach of a Transformed Human after all, there are some important considerations. As a Magic Human, you have a Monstrous Appearance to begin with. The webbed fingers & toes ain't the half of it. You have Gentle Air (instead of Gentle Gift). Maybe you want Natural Appearance instead? Webbed fingers and toes isn't monstrous enough, just a quirk. Monstrous would be visible gills, a fin on your heal, a fishtail instead of legs, big fish eyes, stuff like that.
Speaking of Gifted, when you transformed, the Free Virtue of The Gift became the Major Quality of Gifted. That is going to bump you down a bit.

Blue skin is pretty monstrous, I thought. I do prefer Gentle Air, though, as "Natural Appearance" is nothing a low level MuCo can't manage, but there's no amount of magic that ever makes up for The Gift.

Did not think The Gift had to be a Quality - because as a Quality it can be lost due to acclimation. While that's not an issue with a Might of 0, I thought the Quality was intended for inherently magical creatures wanting the benefits of The Gift, rather than for Transformed humans.

As I said before, I'm really not comfortable with the Gifted Magic Human with MM 0.

You have no penalty to XP (the big drawback of magical beings)
You begin chargen with the equivalent of multiple major hermetic virtues, and more virtues than any other character
You are immune to aging
You are immune to warping
You can directly and easily translate XP into new qualities and powers.

Your only vulnerability is that, should you somehow face an hermetic magus (since they’re the only ones with PeVi equivalent) that guesses you’re a magical creature and manages to pierce your parma with the right PeVi spell, you lose these (since I doubt very much a GM would do you the “no MM = death” treatment).

I’ve already shown you how you can keep almost all of the virtues and concept while avoiding these. I’d be much more comfortable that way.

Don't want to pile on, but I agree with all of this.

The whole point of this character is to play with the Transformed Human virtue and form an opinion on it.

Consider for a moment that this is a saga in which the average magus age is 50. If you want to overrule it (...keeping in mind that it is RAW) frankly, I have no interest in running the chapterhouse.

Then don't.

I thought the idea of the chapterhouse was to decrease the power level? So the magi will be younger on average, no?

Xavi

I am sorry Ryu, but this is a troupe style game and I have to side with the majority. Perhaps you could go with Magic Blood and a pre-game initiation or two? Or maybe we could make Transformation one of your early goals? Won't make you wait that long, just doing it in play rather than CharGen would maybe make others feel more at ease.
Really, it is all about the troupe.
Not running chapterhouse stories would affect mainly just me, not the other players so much. It is because I want to play Roberto as a Player, flex his full muscle without me worrying about overshadowing PC's with an NPC.
Tell you what Ryu, if you compromise, I will share with you my very personal (and very embarrassing) story of some crazy shit that went down at the club I work at just this past weekend. You will like it, you will be mad at me and laugh at me and want to advise me.

This is a specific mechanic that I want to explore precisely BECAUSE it's RAW and precisely BECAUSE I'm not sure if it balances. "Does this work?" is a question I want to answer before I start my FTF saga in the new year. Running the chapterhouse was something I didn't really want to do, but was worth it to me to get the chance to retroactively playtest a RAW mechanic. I was willing to come up with content to get to playtest, but we are talking about a significant investment of time and creative energy-- which is not worth the effort, if it doesn't serve the original purpose.

I know I'm new and really have no real input on this, but I would like to know what book this subject is covered in so I can read up on it please?

It is from Realms of Power-Magic

The answer is "No, it doesn't balance". I pointed out that you are applying certain things wrong, and several other players have stated they are uncomfortable with it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
And this saga is not for playtesting mechanics. It is for playing the actual game.

I am okay if you do not want to run the chapter house. I will take care of it, and maybe someone else might help out (and you can chip in when you feel better). I hope you will still want to play in it though.

I haven't had any character ideas in a long while. This was one I made for another forum saga, with the arts tweaked to be Atlantean rather than Apromorian.

another issue is that you have Transformed Human listed as a Free Virtue, when it is a Major Virtue. You also took a Major Flaw as a Free choice, so that balances. But it ups your balance limit, which is imbalancing.
I say run with the character idea, just save the Transformation part for events in play. It will make a big difference to a lot of people.

Overruling a virtue from RoP:M is one thing... overruling the entirety of Ex Misc as a valid tradition, though, that's going way overboard.

I caught it now. D'oh!!
You got me there. But an entire tradition of transformed beings is, in my opinion, overboard.
I would put Ways of the Sea as the Tradition Virtue, and Transformed Being put off as something gained from initiation.

Is there any way to achieve compromise? Keep in mind that I let almost anything slide, I am mostly concerned with satisfying the greater needs of the troupe.

I don't have any character concepts I want to play for the sake of playing them. I wanted to play this one to test a mechanic before I run my tabletop game in a few months.

The "needs of the troupe" overruling RAW due to balance concerns seems particularly ludicrous in a saga with no cap on age. Guillaume, Arachne, Roberto and Carmen are all far overpowered compared to all of the other magi. A 28-year-old maga who's immune to warping is paltry in comparison.

How is Guillaume overpowered?

Lurker here, my opinion carries no weight. Immunity to Aging and Warping sound really damn cool. Indeed they should be the goal of just about any magi. But guess what? That doesn't really matter. First and foremost: The game won't last long enough for it to matter almost certainly. Okay it might save you from some Twilights, but that's it. More to the point any dedicated PC magi can find a better route to immortality. Mystery Cult and get the Goetic Arts. Ablation+Binding? No warping, no aging, and oh look an infernal might score. Mystery Cult and get Becoming. Or my personal favorite Unaging+Death Prophecy+Cautious Sorc+Flawless Magic+Decent Golden Cord.

IMO, the only real issue is the having a swarm of flaws. Blood hell 26 points of them? Back to lurking. :slight_smile:

There's another Guillaume. :smiley:

I wonder if people are forgetting about Acclimation, and that it could be possible for this character to lose the Magic Human virtue and revert to a standard human. What's the Aura strength at Mallorca? Make it a 5, and she has to do something else if she leaves the aura at all, to maintain her nature. A character who can never leave an area is limited in stories, which is the point of this secondary character, as I understand it. Make it less, and she needs some sort of thing outlined below...
Being immune to warping AND aging does come at a price. The character can't leave the aura without having to have something done to her, magic cast at her, probably some sort of specialized CrVi ritual that someone needs to perform on her as the cost of her leaving the aura...