The Loch Legan questions and answers

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

As some of you may now know, i’m actually running my first saga in the Loch Legan tribunal. I started it with a mage just out of the gauntlet(a Merinita) who, on the request of his master, venture into Loch Legan to re-open an old covenant. The magus and a bunch of grog set the covenant, explore it and after some sessions of adventures, two new magus just join the covenant. (So the strongest magi are now two years past gauntlet).

I did get the Lion of the North book from 3ed. But while I do my best to adapt the statistics and information, i’ve got the impression that my best if often far from good. So I got a couple of questions and I just want to concentrate them here.

First off, if any of you are actually playing in the Loch Legan tribunal I would appreciate your take on the tribunal. Do you use the Gruagachan, lord goulis, Brude deathless or even the terrible Damhan-allaidh? How does politics is handled?

Second i need your advice on the highland giants. I intend to use them as a special story hooks/seeds and i’ve recently try to build one but they seem rather powerful when using the 3Ed. statistics. (I’m not shure how to convert 3 to 5Ed stats). Maybe i’ll put my first giants statistics here so you can help mw out but i just want to know your impression and suggestion first.

As usual, many thanks in advance.

-Bellysarius

2

I'm SG:ing a Loch Leglean campaign; however, it's a very slow speed saga and hasn't made it past the first year yet.
Basically the only thing I've used so far out of LotN is the two covenants of Horsingas and Crun Clach. My players have taken up abode on an island and found ample vis supplies there; Crun Clach, who knew of some of these and have been relying on Merceres bringing them vis previously, made demands on the covenant. Then Horsingas stepped in and offered better terms, protection and materiel for promises of future political support, decrying the heavy-handedness of Crun Clach. Now the players are caught between these two powerful covenants.
For inspiration I use LotN, but also old maps and historical info from Wikipedia.

3

Hya there!

We are set in Brittany, but since Damhan Allaidh features prominently in our saga, I and the beta SG have developed the whole tribunal of Loch Leglean. We also had an abortive saga in that tribunal, so I might help.

  1. LOTN
    Amazing book, specially from a highlands point of view. however, the characteristics and abilities of the characters at the back of the book tend to be badly calculated. Some of the characters are even illegal (like the shapeshifter that cannot cast his spells because he has no Corpus score). use them for inspiration, but I would recommend not using them as they are, but only to inspire you at what kind of characters might be found there.

  2. CHARACTERS
    Lord Goullis was never a character I liked, and I do not plan or planned to use it. A seneschal of the realm can be a pain in the ass without the need for him to be an infernal dude.

Gruagachan are cool, so yes, I planned to use them. If you are interested in more up to date approaches to them, you might be interested in the Land of Fire and Ice (the Iceland supplement) of ArM4. There you find information on trollsons, that are quite similar to the gruagachan in design. they are ArM4 characters, so their stats translate much better to ArM5.

Brude, yes, but not as a main character. He is the Big Bad grandpa of the gruagachan, so he should not be around most of the time. Idem with caitlin or other ultra-powerful characters.

  1. COVENANTS/HERMETIC POLITICS
    We had 6 political divisions that split the covenants. We use the 3 featured covenants as the leaders of the parties:

A- Isolationist/interventionist.
The pact of cun clach is quite new (1189 IIRC) and not everybody is happy with it. Some magi want to be left alone and centre in their interests and stuff, while others enjoy the powerbreaking and making of kings. Some covenants and magi actively support the nobility in their struggles, while others frown on it. Remember that the pact only talks about kings, but says nothing about earl-helping. In general, the more continental covenants (vanilla covenants) prefer isolationist approaches, while highland or anti-Norman covenants tend to favour interventionism. This also creates a reaction in some pro-Norman covenants, that turns them interventionist, etc etc.

B- Scots/Normans/Saxons
This is the second big division. During the 11th and 12th centuries feudalism was introduced to Scotland. Coupled with the destruction of house Diedne at the start of the 11th century and the invasion of the Normans in 1066 have caused the tribunal to be a burning keg.

The Gaels that remain (non Diedne supporters of the Diednes) resent the helpers of the Tremere and Flambeaus; The native Scots (both gaelic and pictish in origin) resent the advent of the southerners (Scots and Normans) that did bring other social structures with them.

The Saxons hate the Normans, that came later and displaced them from the southern realms of Britain, and now menace them in their last refuge.

The Normans think all the above are a bunch of barbaric creatures worth only to clean their horse stalls… with their tongues.

No group is strong enough on its own, and alliances shift depending on the issue under discussion. The official covenants would be

  • Horsingas: Saxon interventionist
  • Cun Clach Norman isolationist
  • Mac Gruagach: Scot interventionist

There are also the other options present (Norman interventionist, saxon isolationist, scot isolationist) for diverse covenants, with a total of around 12-17 covenants at any given moment in the tribunal. Makes for interesting hermetic politics. Going for a middle path is difficult, since you are likely to step on the toes of at least one major covenant if not 2 or more :wink:

I will try to make a list of the covenants tomorrow. Disclaimer: most are blatantly stolen from sagas on the internet, since we have already enough stuff in our hands. Kudos to the real creators of the covenants.

  1. GIANTS
    Giants should be a match for a powerful magus, specially if they are magical ones. I would use them as they are described there. Players tend top forget that you cannot always win by brute force. Giants are a good way to show them just that :wink:

Giants that are better suited for ArM5 coversion can be found in several ArM4 supplements, including the mentioned Land of Fire and Ice.

Hope that helps,

Xavi

1 Like
4

Xavi, many thanks on your answer. I especially agree with you on the lord goulis topic. I'm still not 100% shure to what to do about Damhan-allaidh even if i especially like the idea of is vitals just lost somewere in the tribunal.

For the Gruagashan, i guess i'll try to adapt them for now and i'll wait a little longer for the Societas book wich is coming up with a section on the Ex miscallena (that can include some shapechifter right?).

5

As promest, i’ll just post here the statistics of a regular giant in LOTN. I’ve already try to adapt one to 5Ed but I kind of ended up using the tools for beast creation in the Bjornaer section in HOH:MC and the statistics of the dragon in ARM5 core rulebook.

As Xavi said, the idea of an almost invincible opponant as it’s reward in itself, the magi are off balance for a moment (can you imagine companions and grog) especially that in my saga, I’ve devise a crafty and shadowy Titalus mage far in the north of the tribunal that use two giants as is bodyguard/grog. I’ve just decided that a large portion of the up north section of the Loch Leglean is populated by giants tribes.

Enough of this, here come the 3ed giant.

Famhair Laidir – Non-Magical higland Giant
Magic resistance: 30
Size:+7
Characteristics: int –3(dense), Per +6(keen nose), Str +35(huge), Sta +40(supernatural), Pre –6(impressively huge), Com 0, Dex –1(ungainly), Qik –1(slow reactions)
Virtues and flaws: External soul +4
Personality traits: Easily confused +4
Magical Abilities
Shapeshift(control) 15, Magic sensitivity (distance) 13, Faerie Sensitivity (Unseelie) 10, Weather sense (storms) 12, Second sight (magic) 12

Confidence:1
Combat Total
1st Atk Parry Dam
Boulder totals: rate 1/round +4 - +70
Club totals: +5 +12 - +50

Dodge defense: -6
Fatigue: +40
Soak:+64
Encumbrance:0

Body levels : Ok, 0/0/0/0/ -1/-1/-1, -3/-3, -6, Incapacitated
Fatigue Levels: Ok, 0/0/0/0, -1/-1/-1, -3/-3, -6, Unconscious

Abilities
Club attack(sweep) 3, Smell(food)5, Throw rock(distance) 1

Weapon and armor: Hide(protection 10), Skin(protection 8), Tree-trunk club

Vis: 12 pawn of corporem vis in body, four animal in hides.

Somewere in the text it’s written that a hit by a thrown boulder is an instant kill for a human size target (I can live with that… not them) and that hit missing by 3 or less should do a grazing blow of “only” + 15 damage. It’s also written than an opponent of size +3 or smaller cannot hope to stop any attack by a giant (while parrying).

Any toughts? Comments?

6

Contents Page
WHO WERE THE PICTS?
Got the above link from the Berklist.
The section on stones does not seem to have any pictures , though i did not check all the links.
Maybe it will have some use for you.

7

They should be powerful. They're giants, not the neighborhood bully.

A true Giant, in the sense of the ancient race, is descended of the gods themselves- nothing to trifle with, nor something that a group of farmers with cudgels are going to fend off.

However, being "of the gods", in most stories they have rather obscure motivations. They are often quite happy to do their giant stuff, activities that can be quite incomprehensible to humans (walk about, toss boulders, grind bones to flour, whatever), and ignore humanity as a human would an ant colony (or see them as a food source, depending).

So the local myths might acknowledge them (or not), but counsel to never do anything that might provoke them, or even call attention to the locals. Any mage who does risk such (or is seen as thinking about it!) might be very unpopular, even if their actions brought no real consequences.

8

Throwing in the stats of Stellatus (page 194) for comparison.

When designing Mundane Beasts in HoH:MC (page 39)

9

Ravenscroft, many thanks for the link. The read on the Picti is a good one (in an inspiring way). I'm not shure yet what to think on the stats of the dragon compare to the stats of the Giant and i'm not exactly shure of your idea on the Giant statistics as they are.

On the other hand, i like the idea brought up by chuchulainshound of the giants tha descend from the god. Perhaps the Tribunal could have a special ruling preventing to provoke giants just as the Order as a rule against the provocation of powerfull demon... (in two session i've got a tribunal coming up). I also know that in Lion of the north, the giants were suspected in the past to have participated in the destruction of a covenant and that they participated in the war opposing the Spider to Pralix.

Thanks, i'll come back with some developments.

-Bellysarius

10

Without having done an extensive comparison with other creatures ,
i would think the Strength score for the Dragon is too low and that of the Giant too high.
Same for the Stamina and Soak of the Giant looking too high.
The description of Stellatus is also missing a Protection rating , which i assume a dragon would have for its scales.

11

In LOTN there is a peripheral clause to leave the giants alone. It was created after a covenant was destroyed by giants, since the magi had been hunting giants for sport. How they achieved to "hunt a giant for sport" in the first place puzzles me, but the ruling is there.

Cheers,

Xavi

1 Like
12

Same way you hunt mammoth , stampede them until they run off a cliff.

13

Here is a link to a 4th ed. Scottish covenant, if it can help (presumably more for the fluff than the rules): darmont.free.fr/arm/?page=arm-loch&lang=eng

1 Like
14

I just remembered this.... I do not have my books here, but IIRC there are the stats of a giant in TMRE. It is a daimopn, but shouldn't be diofficult to translate into a living being.

Xavi

15

Just for those of you (and it was more than just Xavi) who expressed a dislike of this character; Lord de Soulis (I'm not sure why his name was changed in LotN) is mentioned in several folk tales of the Scottish Borders. Basically, the section in LotN capitulates his myth pretty well; he'd sold his soul to the Devil, had a demonic familiar called Robyn Redcap, and rode out at night to murder / kidnap wayfarers. He was brought down in the C13 by either Thomas of Erceldoune or Michael Scot (Frederick Barbarossa's court magician), depending on the story.

Lord de Soulis was a historical figure as well - Hermitage castle was his home (I've never come across it called 'Monksend'), and it is a truly creepy place. Everytime I've been there, it has been raining (but then this is the Scottish Borders :slight_smile:, and the castle is the most evil pile of bricks I have laid eyes on, set in the "Bloodiest Valley in Britain". This was why I made it an example of a tainted aura in RoP:tI.

see: mysteriousbritain.co.uk/majo ... itage.html

Mark

1 Like
16

That's pretty inspiring! :slight_smile: Have to bring my troupe down there sometime (after 1240, I guess...)

17

Aha. Good to know. What I found is that it did not matrch well with the rest of the contents of the book. It might have been a cool character, but in LOTN it simply felt out of place. So, no space to be used. Being a historical figure I understand it being included, but it sounded odd in the middle of LOTN since it did not keep with the general feeling of the book.

Cheers,

Xavi

18

Same thing here...

I didn't intent to use him, as he seem to contrast too much with the general mood of the tribunal setting. But now, with the explanation, it seem better.

My saga is seated in 1140 (were now in 1142) just after the battle of standard, so i guess my magi will wait a bit before crossing goulis (or soulis)

-Bellysarius

19

Same thing here...

I didn't intent to use him, as he seem to contrast too much with the general mood of the tribunal setting. But now, with the explanation, it seem better.

My saga is seated in 1140 (were now in 1142) just after the battle of standard, so i guess my magi will wait a bit before crossing goulis (or soulis)

-Bellysarius