Non Christian will not always equate to being pro-muslim.
Agreed. I can see why you read It that way. In fact there was a conflict beetween those Bjoarner faction in official storyline about how to react to to the threat of Divine Aura "destroying" the Bjoarner domus magna and I extrapolated from here.
Bjorner wildists probably don't feel they have a horse in this race.
Same reason as above.
It also occurs to me that neither the Order of Suleiman nor the Order of Hermes have religious requirements, and that both have been seeking apprentices during the time that the Latins have occupied the Levant. While I expect each would have drawn primarily from their own, respective, communities, at the same time potential apprentices are rare enough that neither would have remained exclusively within their own "boundries", meaning that both are probably of mixed religious composition now. Of course the OoS is also politically connected, while the OoH is not. It occurs to me that this could be a source of common ground for them in fact- where the OoS is allowed to offer services to western secular powers as local Vizir while the OoH will enshrine in it's peripheral code that participating in future crusades is considered mundane interference within the Levant. Certainly refugees from the Theban Tribunal would be on board with such a ruling, but what do the players think?
My apologies, I'm not quite understanding what you mean here, when you write about a common ground.
I do acknowledge your previous part, there are no religious requirements and this makes very likely that OoS and OoH are mixed from a religious point of view.
I'd say they both draw from the same pool and compete for the resource, with the advantage for the OoS that they don't strictly need Gifted apprentices (AFAIK, feel free to correct me, I'm quite new).
Back to your question, I could easily envision that position by the Levantine Magi of the Order. The Crusades have already lost momentum, I don't think the Tribunal would support them directly to the point of subverting the ingrained mentality of "No interference with the mundanes".
That would require a more cohesive approach from all the order, and the reality is that, as most of the crusaders do, the Magi that come with the Crusades don't plan to stay long in the places reclaimed.
I see more likely that the Levantine Hermetic residents will side for neutrality. The refugees from Thebes will definetely support the ruling for Mundane Interference, since they've found themselves just a few years past at the wrong end of a Crusade.
On the other hand, if the Levant tribunal makes it clear that magi coming over to aid the crusades will be Marched, that provides a powerful disincentive for other magi to travel to the levant to join the crusades.
If this is the case, who will then come to the Levant ?
My main question is, does the Levant need Crusading Magi ?
Who is going to benefit and in what way ?
With the Crusaders comes the Dominion. The same can be said from the Islamic side, of course.
On the plus side, anyone interested in trying to learn about new forms of magic. Anyone who is concerned about the expanding temporal power of the Catholic Church but doesn't want to head to the wilderness.
On the other side of this, access to temporal authorities for the OoS may be less appealing- after all the Latin temporal authorities are the crusaders, or their immediate descendants. And while the OoS are allowed to be court mages unlike the OoH, they are not allowed to weild temporal power themselves, which OoH can, so maybe this truce would not work out so well after all, especially if this creates a stronger connection in the OoS between the OoH and the crusades.
Perhaps a situation where they are talking about peace, in part because of concerns about Gheingas Khan...
So onward to covenants, I believe I am going to require that all covenants in the Levant take the Felicitous tribunal boon, since the tribunal is more focused on providing for the common defense than in fighting over resources, but each covenant must also take a hook of either the hedge tradition major external relations hook or rival if hostilities have escalated. Forbiden boons and hooks will include Centralized kingdom, ruined covenant, heretics, and missing expedition. Not because covenants aren't ruined or expeditions haven't gone missing but simply because there really isn't anything mysterious about it and surviving resources would be non-existant.
So beyond these tribunal wide limitations, what are people thinking of for covenants?
I would like to play in a medium strength covenant, possibly at the edge of the Dead Sea? Salt and Asphalt tar would be main exports, relatively few vis sources of course, perhaps initially established as a staging point to explore the Dead Sea for religious artifacts? Probably already known to the people in Jerusalem to some degree. Possibly also established as the sign of a loose truce between the OoS and OoH.
I have looked at a couple of sites. In the far south-east of the Crusader kingdoms, places like Krak de Montreal on the river Jordan or Aqaba allow access to trade routes to the Red Sea - and therefore to east Africa and Arabia with ease, and past the Red Sea to Persia. As they are on the frontier, there have been castles built.
Another good option I think would be in the Principality of Antioch, putting you close to the mediterranean but also close to the roads leading to Damascus and to the fertile crescent.
Now, what you want your covenant to look like to outsiders is probably a bigger question - do you want a big castle, to look like the scholars living with a tame nobleman? A fortification with many knights, to look like an order of knights? Or do you want to look less threatening and resemble a merchant business trading to crusaders, or maybe a small hospital offering aid to pilgrims.
What about Petra, as possible site for a covenant ?
remember that multiple covenants can be played simultaneously.
For this tribunal I'm placing the following stats:
Spring covenant is 300 build points, max of 50 points in labs, 50 points in specialists, 100 points in books, 25 points in money stocks, and 20 points in vi stocks
Summer covenant is 600 points, with a max of 100 points in specialists
Autumn covenants are 1200 points, a limit of 100 points in vis sources and 200 points in specialist
There are no winter covenants in the tribunal- covenants which rest on their laurels in this environment do not last long.
Worth noting that while there were churches in Petra, the area had been abandoned since 600 AD aside from some nearby fortifications erected during the first crusade, so all divine aura in the area will be depleted. meanwhile the area was occupied by pagan Arabs for several centuries prior to being Christianized, so there are likely some strong auras and potentially regio in the area. At the same time the OoS tends to congregate in cities, with some individual hermits (generally ungently Gifted) will live in wilderness areas, so at most there would be one prior or current occupant.
It would appear that Krak de Montreal is occupied by Muslim Kurds in 1228.
Aqaba is in ruins, but well located, and probably has strong remnants of divine aura as there have been multiple mosques built in the area and used from 650 to 1116, meaning the divine aura would decay to zero by 1582. However the Muslim city was built outside the walls of an older pagan city captured by Muslims in 650 which had existed since 4000 BC, and had been prosperous since 735 BC, which again means there could be some major magical auras or regio just outside the remaining divine aura the divine aura at this point would be at level 2 throughout the old city boundaries.
The principality of Antioch of course covers a huge amount of land, and too many possibilities to detail in brief.
Considering the theme of the saga I'd rather have a covenant that's not too secluded. I like the idea of the proximity of trade routes. I also like the Idea of the hospital because.
I'd also prefer a medium strength covenant.
Aqaba seems promising.
Aqaba is along a trade route, but it is also way outside of the crusader kingdoms and the mass of Hermetic covenants (such as it is), and deep in Arab lands, south of Petra. To play what the book considers a medium strength covenant it would need to be either summer or autumn. Given the location I would suggest Summer, where what was a small outpost has managed to get itself past the founding pains and established in teh region, but has not yet developed a strong political reputation, indeed it would probably have the hook of unsafe and the boon of ungoverned, or possibly a major hook of war zone, depending on whether we want to assume that the troops marching between Egypt and Damascus would get close enough to involve the covenant.. At the time of the story it is not actively used as a trade route, and what remains of the community (displaced from both original sites) is a simple fishing village.
Could a covenant in the vicinity of Baniyas in The principality of Antioche be interesting ? It's close to Margat and has Phoenician and Greek roots. It's also at the edge of the county of Tripoli.
Looks nice. There's a Latin Rite archbishop living in the nearby Margat fortress, and it's bound to be a future place of clashes between Muslims and Crusaders, at the end of the XIII century.
I don't know if anybody wants to play with military knights, but if we did Montfort Castle (wiki entry)
was an admin site for the Teutonic Knights who wanted to move out of Acre, and in 1228 they get large donations from the Church to finance fortifying it - the new castle becomes the headquarters of the Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land in 1229. I was checking out different castles in the area when I came across this fact, and as we're starting after the Grand Tribunal of 1228 there's the possibility of us taking an alternate history view where magi with deep pockets or political conections within the church try to influence the Teutonic Knights.
The idea of a hospital is also good - allows the chance to use all those pilgrimage/hospitality related virtues from Covenants to make an interesting covenant.
Near Antioch you could arguably be both in a War Zone and on a Tribunal border as the area is both contested between little Armenia and Tripoli as well as being arguable for either the Theban or Levant tribunal. Which definitely fits the role of "interesting".
Are you still interested in pursuing Aqaba as well?
Another interesting place could be the Sidon Sea Castle. It's in Muslim territory from 1187, and it will be reconquered by the crusaders 100 years later.
Sure like in the "May you live in interesting times" expression...
Right now I'm not settled on anything I'm just considering options.