The Eagle has landed

[Yan]

@Mark Shirley

Basically, wing it. Unless you maintain a database containing the names, ages, and events that occurred to all magi in your tribunal (not that anyone could ever be as anal to do something like that. ahem )

In case anyone ever needs it, I'm currently working on a spreadsheet with just that sort of info, including all the magi specified in the book and a few extra from my troupe's covenant. There are a few things that are different from canon (mainly Boustaphan and Krum's ages, IIRC, as two of the players chose them to be their parens), but it's not a lot.

As I started working on fleshing out the 60 magi or so that I needed for a grand total of 107 (totally arbitrary), I came up against the issue of hermetic age. Has there been any sort of demographics discussion in the boards before, debating the average age of magi in any given Tribunal, age distribution and so on?

The only difficulty is sorting out who has served where before the saga starts. There are 16 archai; I assumed that 14 of the archai from the last tribunal are still around, 12 from the tribunal before that; 9 from the one before that, and 6 from the one before that. You can assign magi based on their age; so those last 6 must be at least 5 tribunals from apprenticeship. These were randomly chosen from those who are known to be old enough, plus the unnamed magi. Once chosen, the minimum age of the magus is noted on the cards of the unnamed magi.

I found this a useful exercise, since it built up the tribunal for me - I had an idea of the age profile in various covenants. It was a bit of work, but not a great deal more than setting up a saga in the first place and deciding on the covenants and their membership. Updating was easy; at each tribunal, just add cards for newly gauntleted magi, and remove the cards of those who have passed on or been ostracised. And the cards will prove a useful reference since you can write notes on them regarding your characters' interactions with them. When you need to know the outcome of a vote you can easily divide the pile into Ayes, Nays, and Neutrals. If you use debate rules to sway the voting, you can shift from one pile to another.

As I started my own version of it, I came to think that I don't understand the reasoning for assuming only 14 of the archai from the last Tribunal are still around. Isn't 7 years a relatively short period for 2 magi to have died/disappeared/moved? Also, since there is an average of 12 gifted children presented at Tribunal, shouldn't there also be an average of 12 newly gauntlet magi each Tribunal (with some small deduction from death)? If we have about 10 new magi every Tribunal, the population would explode very quickly, I think, unless you consider a very high mortality rate for magi in Thebes, say, 1 every year.

I'm sorry if I sound antagonistic or anything, I'm just trying to figure things out and prepare my next game as best as I can

[ezzelino]

@Yan

As I started working on fleshing out the 60 magi or so that I needed for a grand total of 107 (totally arbitrary), I came up against the issue of hermetic age. Has there been any sort of demographics discussion in the boards before, debating the average age of magi in any given Tribunal, age distribution and so on?

There was a discussion in other threads, with different points of view expressed. In the end, the thesis (which was not the one I originally espoused) which seems to have more canon support is the following.

The "average" hermetic life expectancy is 120 years (post gauntlet). There are, obviously, magi that survive longer than this, as well as magi who are lost much earlier. The Order is not really growing (much); the number of apprentices that are gauntleted over a sufficiently long period of time is close to the number of elder magi who are lost, meaning that there's an apprentice in training every 8 (=120/15) magi or so (this is the figure from the Guernicus chapter of HoH:TL that more strongly suggests population stability).

Thus, with 107 magi at the tribunal, I would assume, as a function of hermetic age:
0-10: 10 magi
10-20: 10 magi
20-30: 9 magi
30-40: 9 magi
40-50: 9 magi
50-60: 8 magi
60-70: 8 magi
70-80: 7 magi
80-90: 7 magi
90-100: 6 magi
100-110: 6 magi
110-120: 5 magi
120-130: 4 magi
130-140: 3 magi
140-150: 3 magi
150-160: 2 magi
160-170: 1 magus

[Aurulentus]

@Yan

In case anyone ever needs it, I'm currently working on a spreadsheet with just that sort of info, including all the magi specified in the book and a few extra from my troupe's covenant. There are a few things that are different from canon (mainly Boustaphan and Krum's ages, IIRC, as two of the players chose them to be their parens), but it's not a lot.

I'd be very interested! My saga also plays in Thebes, and has most of the magi of the book and a couple of my own (and a completely own covenant). Just to keep my players on their toes

[Tellus]

@Yan

In case anyone ever needs it, I'm currently working on a spreadsheet with just that sort of info, including all the magi specified in the book and a few extra from my troupe's covenant. There are a few things that are different from canon (mainly Boustaphan and Krum's ages, IIRC, as two of the players chose them to be their parens), but it's not a lot.

That sounds like it could be useful!
I'd like a copy please.

[Yan]

Thanks Ezzelino!

Aurulentus and Tellus, please send me your email via PM and I'll direct the spreadsheet to you once it's finished (some 20 more magi to be added).

[ExarKun]

Interested too, ill PM you my mail adress

[Yan]

Sure thing.

Just to let people know it's taking a little longer than I had anticipated as I try to organize parens/filii and the age of all the magi.

[Tellus]

no worries!

er... I did send you my addy, right?

[Yan]

Done! The people who asked for it and PMed me their email should be getting an email in a few moments!