Miniata Sophia follows the Path of Walking Backwards.
Edited: Essentially a double post...
Probably the most important question, for a project like this one.
From HoH:TL Page 115 - Large Tremere House covenants are found in the Tribunals of Transylvania, Iberia, Rome, Stonehenge, and Thebes. Small House covenants are found in five of the other Tribunals.
So where in the Rome Tribunal do we put the Tremere covenant and what is their objective? Part of me wants to put it in the Marches, where the back and forth of ownership (Lomabardy league to Papal Estates to Fredrick II...) would both allow and reflect Tremere involvement. The Criamon clutch could go either in Lombardy or in the Kingdom of Sicilly...
You mean that apart from Venice, there should be another Tremere Covenant.
My understanding is that what is canonically in Venice is a chapter house, which means an actual covenant would presumably be elsewhere.
What constitutes large? Rome has to have a spot for the Exarch, it is canon that Rome has its own exarch, although exarchates can be reorganized at the whim of the Prima Tremeris. Canon doesn't mention this happening, yet.
I've imagined what resources a Tremere Exarch has at is disposal... So my definition of a "large Tremere House covenant" follows from what I imagine the Exarch has at his disposal.
I imagine that a large Tremere Covenant probably looks like an oppidum in Transylvania, Tremere magi with an Aedile of another House. The Aedile probably has the ear of the Prima, and goes to her, instead of the Praeco and Chief Quaesitor as in Transylvania. My guess is that there probably aren't more than a half dozen Tremere (including the Exarch), and that the true size of the covenant is more that it provides significant assistance to Tremere magi residing in or traveling through the Tribunal, or other duties that support some other mission. It could be a location where mundane specialists are trained, something that is important to the House (to form a House covenant), but not so important that it is brought into Transylvania, or it is otherwise impracticable to do so. Several of the other Tremere are probably aides-de-camp of one sort or another to the Exarch, each providing a season of service to the House by serving him in his mission, and then having the nominal 3 seasons of freedom to pursue advancement. The other Tremere might be on a particular assignment that is best completed at the covenant, much like an oppidum in Trannsylvania.
That makes sense, do you see this in the marches encouraging instability to increase their own autonomy or as part of the Lombard League with their own estates held free and clear?
Two things to mention. My knowledge of the area is thinner than a Wikipedia article. I'm not sure it matters. Or more accurately, is beyond the scope of a tribunal book to determine. Present the options and detail possible obstacles.
That being the case, when reading Ars Magic tribunal books I never really get a sense that the authors are taking a strong position on what has happened In Hermetic politics and how it affects future politics going forward or the current state of mundane politics. The tribunal books present a snapshot of history at the time and describe the motivations of Hermetic personae. It's from there that sagas decide whether House Tremere is the cause of or the prevention of what we consider to be historical events in the area. If there are magi who favor a mundane political faction over another, I think they always get a rival, at least described within their text.
The Marches, or the Dutchy, depending on who had control at a given time, consisted of a large swath of Italy that were the mirror reflection of the Papal estates on the Eastern Coast. Orriginally these were under the control of the Lombard League, but were given to the Pope in 1201 as a sort of political peace offering, and has had a Papal appointee for governor since 1213. The Lombardy League is situated in north eastern Italy and is a collective of small kingdoms which formed an alliance to oppose the rising power of foreigners in Italy, which means Fredrick II and his ancestors. Right now the Pope sides with Fredrick II, despite the gift of the dutchy/marches from the Lombardy league, but that will come to an end in 1227 when illness causes Fredrick II to call off his participation in a crusade for the second time and he gets excommunicated twice (and twice later on). The dutch of Spoleto has been continuously divided, merged and redivided over the past millenea, and obviously the Pope has had little chance to truly consolidate his power there in what is now called the March of Ancona (and will have little time before Fredrick II takes power by assumption when he invades the Lomabardy league in 1237.
Given that canonically Fredrick II is supported by the Augustinian brotherhood, who are not bound by the oath, I think that would count as sufficient opposition for Tremere in any position which might oppose Fredrick II. They may even become the first group to become aware of the Augustinian Brotherhood.
...or not. Events in Mythic Europe will not follow real history. In this case, there's a simple spell that can fix Frederick.
...or not, because events in Mythic Europe don't follow real history.
Even if it doesn't, knowing the real history is a good starting place.
Besides, realistically when have events in Mythic Europe ever diverged from the real world in any meaningful fashion that didn't get rewritten when the next edition moved everything down the road a few years? Certainly this is true in individual saga but in terms of sourcebooks, its good to know the history.
My general sense of the Tribunal books is that history in Mythic Europe has unfolded as it did in the real world, but that there was sufficient room for troupes for assign Hermetic events as causing events in the past. Certainly events in the future are wide open.
And again, some source material does spell out how things did unfold in the real world as a tool or guideline for the storyteller. For example, one might decide that while Fredrick II invaded the Lombardy League in 1237 in the real world, uncovering a plot by the Augustinian brotherhood might pull the order into the war on the side of the Pope and drastically reduce the effect that Fredrick II has on history.
They manage the actual trading, moving vis and items. I was thinking more in the line of managing the finding of customers in other tribunals and the "marketing" of available services from this tribunal. Because it's easy to set up shop in your own tribunal every 7 years and keep in touch with customers and what they might need from you, like a fair, but it's much harder to do so when you can't attend a "fair" with all of them, because you're attending your own tribunal and because they are spread all over the rest of the tribunals.
The Tremere Theban covenant of Gigas is said to be a large House Covenant, and it has around six magi.
I was reluctant to go above 4, because there are only so many Tremere magi, canonically. There are 92 magi Tremeris, 41 of whom are in Traynsylvania. The remaining 51 are spread out among the other 12 Tribunals (which is 4 each on average, with a couple of remaining). In canon, Normandy has at least two, but it's suggested to be more since, Rotgiers is said to hold the sigils of younger magi. As you say Gigas has 6 assigned to it. The more magi you define to be somewhere the less magi are available for other Tribunals. So, I suggested 4, because I felt it could be large enough, and because 2 magi are already at a chapter house in Venice, so there are at least 6 Tremere magi in the Roman Tribunal. So, because Greece and Roman Tribunals (and probably the Rhine, since Tremere are said to have a strong presence there, too) have so many Tremere magi, other Tribunals have to have fewer.
What I offered was a suggestion based on what I remember reading across several books. I hadn't done an exhaustive study of canon identifying how many named Tremere exist in each Tribunal, or counted the times it was mentioned how many Tremere were in a Tribunal.
Your point makes a lot of sense.
I just wanted to give a canon reference to work from. I didn't mean to propose there should be six magi (though now that I re-read it, it was kind of implied in my post).
I wasn't thinking you were saying that it needed to be six, I just felt that there needs to be some explanation behind what I suggested.
Writing something like a Tribunal sourcebook is very much different than writing up an outline for a saga. In a saga you can decide that certain aspects of the Order don't work the way they are described in the books. You can say that there are really 120 Tremere magi, for example, or as I've done say that there are about 18 Mercere magi, instead of 12. Or a lot of things don't matter in the saga, say if no one plays a Tremere, they become background perhaps they move some big pieces off-screen, but they don't have day-to-day impact on the game, and needing to know how many Tremere are in a Tribunal isn't as important.
A sourcebook has to be aware of a lot of canon, and write to it. I disagree with Timothy Ferguson who has said canon is for authors (only). I think it's necessary for story guides, too, because it provides a solid foundation for building a saga. But it is absolutely imperative that whatever is done here can be tied to other parts of canon, which is why finding out that there is a large Tremere covenant in Rome is important. Once that is determined, you have to determine what large means. Is it large in magi, resources, or both? I suggested, based on the number of Tremre magi already defined to be elsewhere, in canon, that it should be large in resources, but not necessarily personnel.
I also shaded my understanding of what large is based on my understanding of House Tremere, generally. I tend to model House Tremere on Starship Troopers' Mobile Infantry (the book, not the movie). There is a strong esprit de corps, they do more with less, goldbricking just doesn't happen, to name just a few things. Tremere should want to perform services to their house (players may grumble), but characters should generally be happy to do it, despite the inconvenience, because whenever they perform services for their House they make it stronger. And with that in mind, it makes some sense that the large House covenant in Rome is basically the exarch and his aides-de-camp. So, the questions that are left hanging from all this follow. What are the Tremere planning with all of the resources at the Roman Exarch's disposal. How is the Exarch going to execute the plans that the Prima has for those resources? Are they planning an expedition in force to North Africa, to discover the fate of some lost covenants, and waiting for personnel arrive to take the stockpiled materiel?