The Covenant of Caepernum: Dionora of Merinita

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I've got a bit of a plan together that involves several combat and utility spells involving water for the first period then acquiring Animae magic using it to develop a suite of spells that create different water faeries with a broad spectrum of capabilities. I originally struggled for quite a while with the idea of a character with flexible formulaic magic and a several virtues to grant more spell parameters. With more parameters they could get more use out of their flexible spells. Despite the presence of Atlantean magic, I still couldn't make it work with aquam to my satisfaction.

I considered Ice for a focus or something more thematic, yet part of my goal is to detail a mess of aquam spells because the art is the least developed in the published material, a very vanilla focus will push me towards more generally applicable creations. I grabbed a whole pile of aquam focused virtues (and some creo stuff), I don't have a strong vision of how they'll work together.

Dionora [strike]Gascon[/strike] was born and raised near the Mediterranean coast of Iberia near the border of the Muslim and Christian controlled lands. Her family were both sailors and dock workers. When she was 11 her family and home town were damaged in a very significant way by powerful Jinn. I'm going to need more time to craft this in to a story that's compelling (you guys are moving faster than me) but the outcome I have for it is, [strike]Gascon[/strike] Dionora hates these specific powerful Jinn, the Jinn have it in for [strike]Gascon[/strike] Dionora, [strike]Gascon[/strike] Dionora becomes a hermetic apprentice in a powerful covenant.

[strike]Gascon[/strike] Dionora passes her gauntlet and because she's full of hate and recklessness she immediately headed to the lands where she thinks the jinn hail from (she could be wrong or right).

While he was born in a christian town and has generally positive thoughts regarding the concept of the growth of "Christendom" through crusading, She also grew up exposed to the Islamic culture in Iberia and doesn't bear them any special animus (he saves that for the Jinn that hurt him in as yet undefined ways).

One new spell which I figure would be common enough within the order to justify it having been learned from others. It's push of the gentle wave with a size modifier, I made it a current rather than a wave because it's less clearly ok and it made more sense to me.

2

Ah, it seems that I have found just the thread to come seeking answers about Jinns and the guidelines that affect them. I am quite interested in developing spells for them, but checking the references I have found a ton of questions. I suppose that you will approach them from Aquam while I will do from Vim. We will talk.

I am curious about the name election. Not the kind of name that I expected from a Catalonian (the border at that time is pretty north). Sounds more like French to me. Nowadays the derivative, "Gastón", is a relatively common surname in Spain, so perhaps it was a common name in the day, I don't really know.

It is a chosen (hermetic) name in any case, but I was curious about the why did you choose it.

3

We'll be encountering these rules simultaneously. I've had more experience with the rules from RoP: Magic. I looked at making faeries when I was considering doing one of the RoP: Faerie Irish bards, but as I never really followed up on those ideas I never really got in to the nitty gritty of faerie creation. I've looked over the Cradle and Crescent stuff several times but not yet hammered anything down with mechanics myself. I once tried to make a sahir suleman version of Gwydion of Verditious - a character whose powers were all about growing plants to accomplish other tasks, but quickly found that there was no way for those magicians to do that sort of stuff apart from just finding the correct Jinn to do it for them so I never followed up on that either.

This time I'm walking in to the project with the specific plan of creating 4-10 faeries. A much different attitude than when the job comes as an unexpected surprise that lies between you and your goal.

I googled medieval iberian names and found it here: behindthename.com/submit/na ... al-spanish

I'm afraid that I just looked through the list and chose the one that most said reckless emotionally wounded faerie water mage to me.

4

I don't think Gastón / Gaston / Gastone have any connection to Gascon, which comes from Latin origins. You might note the Gascon language, within Occitan. The Aranese dialect of Gascon is spoken in Catalonia. Also, Gascon has a strong connection to Basque, though it is within Occitan. I'm far from an expert on this, though.

5

Gascon means "from Gascony", a region in the southwestern of France. But nowadays it is not used (or at least I have never heard it and I am Spanish). Gastón is a relatively common surname in Spain (not like super common, but I have heard it) and, although it can have also the Germanic origin (meaning "foreigner"), Wikipedia said that it also was an evolution of the word "Gascon".

Anyway, the thing that it sounded more French than Iberian to me, but taken into account that it is a hermetic name, and from a Merinita no less, I was just asking about the election process out of curiosity. Nothing more.

6

I think it's supposed to have an accent on the "ó" in Spanish, to put the emphasis on the second syllable, but then again I'm French :stuck_out_tongue:

The Spanish Wikipedia puts "Gascón" as a variant of "Gastón" here and that's the way it's written in the Apellido section here

7

I always assumed that it was the Latin version. Anyway, accent did not appear in the Spanish till XIV or XV century. Hell, what is spoken in that age is not exactly "Spanish" yet.

8

Ah yes, I forget how far back we are. Thanks

9

Ironically considering tall of the attention to the name Gascon, I've just gender flipped the character because five men and two women is a great deal more believable to me than six and one.

10

Hi!

Something minor:

Dionora at Gauntlet is missing the Faerie Magic skill.

(back to lurking mode)

11

That's not a mistake. the benefits of faerie magic are
*Faerie magic allows her to make charms that can be used as sympathetic connections. But she doesn't yet have the skills to make these charms and she can already make normal sympathetic connections without faerie magic (although it's harder and slower).
*Faerie magic would boost the amount of vis that she can use in the lab significantly. There is a drawback of having faerie magic as well. Faerie magic adds botch dice when doing faerie stuff. these are a sort of kinder gentler botch dice but they're still a huge drawback.

Page 88 of Mystery cults says:

the emphasis is mine. She can't use Faerie magic for everything, if Dionora wants to learn or create normal hermetic magic she'll need normal hermetic magic theory. Also note that Faerie magic, when used, is substituted for normal magic theory not added to it. She can use all of the faerie magic spell parameters and gain the full bonuses for faerie auras with only her house virtue and no score in the ability.

Looking ahead to Arcadian travel and to Animae magic I don't see any advantage to using faerie magic for them either.

I don't see her ever getting the Faerie magic ability unless she picks up symbolic magic from the folk magic mysteries (which is not in my plans). It's sinking xp into an almost completely redundant skill that grants you extra botch dice. I realize that this is an out of character opinion, but it strikes me as unlikely that the Merinita would be so oblivious to the nature of their abilities as to not be aware of their drawbacks and limitations.

12

Hi,

Hmm. I don't remember the extra botch dice!

Anyway,

Ken

13

From HoH: Mystery Cults p. 88

14

Hi,

Huh. Clearly true, though I'm still not remembering. What are 'these conditions'?

Anyway,

Ken

15

Ahh. I was under the impression the Virtue conferred the skill at level 1, but I do not see it anywhere, even in the Errata, I had thought this had been changed when HoH:MC expanded Faerie Magic’s Scope, but apparently not. It confers the capability of learning the skill without granting it. How odd.

16

Yup, it's an oddball. I'd been hoping they would issue an erratum to the core book to grant that first level when RoP:F came out. That would make it consistent with all the many other ones. But, no, it never happened.

17

Darn, when reading that part I had assumed that you would only get extra botch dice when actually using the benefit of the ability...
The "in these conditions" has a slight ambiguity, right after the two beneficial options, so I'm still not entirely sure, are you?

In any case, it's still practical to get it at lvl 0 for 1 xp to make Charms, even if it's a bit silly :confused:

18

i was planning on telling everyone what "these conditions" meant when I wrote the post, but when I tried to do that I realized that I couldn't clearly figure out what it meant.

19

I have just read it. It is true that it seems not to be clear but I think that it reffers to the 2 previous sentences:

When you decide to substitute Faerie Magic for Magic Theory, and when you add Faerie Magic to calculate the maximum pawns of vis usable per season.

That last limit is a very compelling reason to get some Faerie Magic, because the need to get as much Magic Theory as decades of age in order to create your Longevity Ritual seems to me very taxing.

20

I think it's clearer what is referred to if you focus on the paragraph the bullet points are included in, specifically the part I'm quoting and more specifically the underlined part within it:

"This," being singular, meat there is one thing represented by those three additional effects in the bullet points. That one thing referred to is "integrating the principles of charms into their laboratory activities." So that's the only time you add those botch dice.

Faerie Magic can also reduce botch dice, and the Ability is not needed for this. Specifically, if you're working your normally Magic magic in a Faerie Aura/Regio, since your magic is now fully aligned with Faerie you don't get the extra botch dice.