1. An unforeseen (astronomy? who cares!) solar eclipse occurs and terminates effects with Sun duration (why not), including Parma. It also triggers devices with "constant" effect, which will therefore fail that night as they are typically only designed with 2 uses per day. Hopefully, nobody relied on them for anything critical, like lab bonuses or flying castles. Smart magi may realize what happened, but they only have until sunset to solve the problem. Can they do it?
2. Following rumors of fantastic riches and wondrous magic, a small party of highly skilled and talented "adventurers" break into the dungeon ... err, I mean, the Covenant.
Go ahead, post yours.
edit -- numbering as instructed by Grand Master Yair.
A prophet has foretold the PCs uncovering a secret/breaking a spell/defeating the dragon. A redcap arrives with a letter he has received months or years ago to be delivered upon this achievment, containing remarkable details on the event and proclaiming a dreadful prophecy that the PCs must try to navigate.
A demon is discovered meddling in a magus' lab. He is dispatched, but has it managed to taint the magus' magic?
Someone leaves notes in the magus' lab, aiding his work (add to Lab Total). Who was it, why did it choose to aid his research, and most importantly - how did it get in?
Raw vis that has long been used by the covenant is discovered to be Infernally tainted. When was it tainted, and are the old magics relying on it reliable?
10.
All Magi in your Covenant have the Major Story Flaw : [color=blue]Dark Secret.
It turns out that you all have the Major Hermetic Virtue : [color=blue]Diedne Magic!
When you check other Covenants , you find out that every magus/maga has this Virtue.
It seems that a recently cast ritual has broken The Limit of Time.
House Tremere is in an uproar , as every single one of them also has Diedne Magic as well.
There will be a new Schism War if the culprits are not found and the effects of the ritual negated.
A character or npc is suspected of being a heretic. A group of witch hammers think he is an infernalist as well, and have decided to flush him out of the covenant, so they start stirring up trouble with the local clergy.
All of the vis is being drained, a pawn or two a week. Whatever form it is in is just 'vis-free' when magi go to the vis stores. What is causing it?
13.
One of the magi in your covenant has been regularly writing letters to the Pope.
Somehow , one or two of them have actually been read by the pontiff.
The author has written about the life of the covenant and the simple christian folk in the nearby village.
Impressed with the honest nature of these missives ,
he is sending a papal envoy to visit.
The first the other magi in your covenant know about this ,
is when a redcap delivers the message with an official papal seal.
18.
Unbeknowst to you , your father had contracted an arranged marriage for you when you were in infancy.
Your Bride and her considerable entourage have just arrived , expecting the contract to be honoured.
Have an apprentice with an obsession for food and fury get worked up over a discussion of the ownership of a large "pretzel" at a fair, knock over some stalls trying to strangulate a young lord and gaining the covenant a lifetime enemy.
Have some apprentices accidently (negligence) set free some of the magi's ingridients (the living kind).
Have someone in the family of a character getting married - send the characters to a great weeklong festivities. Have supicious things start to happen - someone surely not wanting the wedding to be fulfilled... Plus there is the bonus that the guests gets presents from the bride and groom!
Have a neigbouring lord be a lycantrope who beseeges the wise men of the covenant help him defeat this monsters - especially since it recently went bold enough to steal away his own daughter. Let them in the end realise that the lycantrope is the very lord himself. Worse, out of superstition he has by night, in his beastly guise, repeatedly raped her in the expactation that he could in due time kill her and eat her unborn childs heart to lift the curse (to him she was the paragon of innocense). In daytime he knows nothing of this. If she carries the "child" to her term, then what will she give birth to and if taken to the covenant what will this "child" grow into?
Have a wealthy merchant contact them to retrieve his daughter kidnapped by pirates, fred but now missing again - and what if she is actually madly in love with the pirates leader and has gone looking for him? He, having the curse of venus, on the other hand is rather fed up with the girl.
Civil war brings worldly matters to the covenant...
A whole story entirely in the Twilight.. only one main char but the others as the caracters "encounters"
A grog story about what happens in the kitchen at the covenant when prominent magi of the Order visits and a grand feast has to be made. Especially if one of the young maids madly in love with one of the young magi trips in the kitchen, due to all the fuss and stress, and accidently get all her "love herbs" mixed into the soup served to the mighty magi...
While on a sea voyage the players are caught in a storm that tosses them onto an island in a regio inhabited by a tribe of savage primitives who gods are very much real, and territorial.
A magus who has no particular gift in Laboratory work is surprised to learn that he has won an award for his amazing magical device...that he's never heard of. Perhaps the next surprise will be a Wizard War declared by the actual owner, thinking the magus stole his Lab Notes.
The animals around the covenant suddenly turn savage, cows trampling farmers, dogs killing children, birds scratching everybody outside. Can the magi find the cause before they're all forced to become vegetarians?
A powerful wizard from Africa arrives in a local city and begins to use his powers indiscriminately, including summoning his jinn. Can the PCs convince him to follow the ways of the Order, or do they dare to insist "join or die"?
31.
A scathing satire has been composed about your covenant.
You gain a level 08+ Bad Reputation of a humourous nature (to everyone else).
Villagers and covenfolk start leaving because of the embarassment this is causing.
32. Belphegor has taken an interest in your covenant.
Covenant in a desirable location is secretly aiding a mundane lord. Seek to aid another rival lord and take the covenant and all its spoils or try to blackmail that Covenant.
Your covenant becomes a protector of Venetian shipping in the area against pirates and rival interests. How do you stay within the code or secretive enough to avoid being discovered for violating the code?
Local churchmen or better yet bishop, knowing covenant is a home of magi, appeals to covenant to destroy/stop a rapacious lord. Earn a friend of the church and violate the code?
Much needed Lab glassware is long over due from the distant glassworks. Lab Quality begins to fall, but is it worth investigating? Could the shipment have been stolen, bought by a rival, richer, covenant, or has the weather been bad on the supply route?
The Covenant's well runs dry. Unless a second source is ready at hand, this could get very serious quickly.
Birds slowly begin to gather around a local mundane's hut. They can only be chased away for a short time before they return. Is the newly born baby within the cause?
Camp Ball Fever! The grogs have began to spend a lot of time practicing and playing Camp Ball (a game, similar to Rugby or Soccer) against a nearby covenant or town. Do they begin to shirk their duties? Are game-related injuries stretching the watches thin? Will the Magi take pride in the grog's performance?
A large egg is found washed up on the shore near the covenant, what will hatch from it? Where did it come from?
41 - Your covenant's resident Flambeau has been tapped to host the Flambeau Gathering, since the Magus who was supposed to has either incinerated himself or is in the middle of a very long twilight episode. The first you know of this is when the Redcap delivers the message, with most of the House behind him.
42 - Even more fun than a Grog adventure - Children of the Covenfolk explore their mysterious home.
43 - A personal belonging is discovered missing from nearly every magus (and some companions) in the covenant. The fun really begins the next morning, when everyone wakes up, and finds themselves tranformed. Who or what is responsible, and how does one undo the damage caused,
44.
A large number of very pregnant women arrive at the covenant.
All of them are single and accompanied by angry relatives.
They all claim that "YOU" are the father of their child.
Any magics used to determine the father , all have the same result ,
that "You" are indeed the father of all these children.
Even if you have taken a longevity potion , the results are still the same.
Claims of innocence on your part cannot be proved ,
as you were "working" in your Lab (alone)
when the various encounters occurred.
45 A secret passage is accidentaly found under your covenent leading to unknown rooms, who know what is in these forgoten parts?
46 you recently found a magic item for some reason... some days after some of your grogs are blodily slaughter, is this little thing realy responsible of all this blod?
47 Your magus receives mail from correspondants who seem to have no idea where he lives or what his interests are. A mistaken identity, but on gauntlet your magus chose the same name as an archmage living in a different tribunal. The redcaps occaisonally get mixed up and bring the wrong post to the wrong person. The archmage is not amused especially when his property is being diverted to a young whippersnapper.
48 An investigation by a select committee of hermetic magi wish to perform an experiment on the viability of the covenant, as they have done for many covenants before. Hiring actors, both witting and unwitting, they set of scenarios (any and all of the above) increasing in difficulty just to see how the magi will cope. A constant barrage of interuptions and harassement hits the covenant at least one different type per month, as soon as one problem is solved another begins. If the magi of the covenant discover what is really occuring then the impressed committee pass them. They reward the covenant with gifts and swear them to secrecy. It emerges that every other covenant experiences this within 20 years of founding.
Everything is absolutely normal.
No incursions or harassment by Demons or Fae.
Worldly and Divine Powers have no special interest in anyone.
Everything that should be happening , is happening in a routine run-of-the-mill way.
There is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary , either good , bad or indifferent going on.
Minor accidents still happen , so there is no special blessing to take note of.
The only extraordinary thing is how very ordinary it all is.
...but include Kabbalists who explain that deep numerological correspondences require them to bestow fantastic gifts on you, hedge wizards dispensing surprisingly inexpensive potions to improve your potency in certain areas, and lawyers representing the Byzantine imperial family asking for your assistance in retrieving the state treasure hidden since the Fourth Crusade.
