The Spider chargen

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Light of Andorra
1

TRAPS AND TRICKS

  • Crafted item: A single thread, which, when broken, casts a Parma-Breaking spell on the one breaking it.
  • Crafted item: A single thread, which, when broken, casts a PeCo spell on the one breaking it.
  • Crafted item: A single thread, which, when broken, fills the room with fire.
  • Crafted item: A single thread, which, when broken, casts a spell that activates another magical item.
  • A ring version of The Patient Spell that holds another spell. The Patient Spell may be dispelled by another effect, thus releasing the held spell.

CRAFTED ITEMS

  • An enchanted cadre of wood, on which one can pin a carpet. The cadre can fly at great speeds (Black Company style flying carpet)
  • [urlhttp://forum.atlas-games.com/viewtopic.php?p=155658#p155658]A little spider[/url] that can detect magic
  • A cloak of invisibility that harbors web-like patterns
  • A wooden bracelet that grants Second Sight.

Apprenticed at Laguna Sententia (Amul, if you’re reading me…).
Born and raised in toulouse, to a family of servants to a wealthy merchant.
Didn't get along well with the other childs. Got into fights when she couldn't hide.
Was bought by her master, and brought to laguna sententia.
Her master was a little stingy but not a bad guy. She hated him do to his gift, though. He didn't raise his parma over her as he wanted her both to understand the gift's effects and to grow used to his gift.
There, she had a best friend in the servants, Isabelle, a girl only one year younger that, being too rebellious and outspoken, was shunned by the elder maids and was happy to befriend Helène, as a creepy maybe friend was best that no friend at all, especially when she could do magic tricks. When she was older, though (say, 14), she realized she had feelings for Isabelle. She opened up, but the feelings were not reciprocal. They managed to stay friends, however.

Helène, Arachne, the Spider, rustic maga
Covenant: Andorra
Characteristics: Int +2, Per +1, Pre 0, Com -1, Str -2, Sta +1, Dex +2, Qik +2
Size: 0
Age: 24 (24), Height: 168 cm, Weight: 55 kg, Gender: Female
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence: 1 (3)

Virtues: Affinity with Perdo, Affinity with Rego, Book Learner (Book Quality: +3), Craft Magic*, Flawless Magic (Study Totals: Doubled for spell mastery), The Gift, Hermetic Magus, Minor Magical Focus (Dispelling Magic), Puissant Woodworking, Puissant Finesse, Spell Foci*
Flaws: Diabolic Past [Note: Joined a Mystery cult that promised great power, but found out it was diabolic and fled], Driven (Become the greatest trap creator in the world. (surpass hermanus)), Hedge Wizard, Lesser Malediction (Longevity rituals have no effect on appearance), Reclusive, Warped Magic [Side Effect: Nails become black and grow like sharp claws. For higher magnitudes, dark vein-like streams grow on the arms, even going as far as the face and torso for mag 40-50 spells, the whole body for Rituals. This lasts 1 minute per magnitude, 2 for rituals.], Weak Spontaneous Magic*

Personality Traits: Analytical +3, Brave +1, Cautious +3, Enjoys complex plans +1
Reputations: Hedge Wizard 3
Combat:
Dodge: Init: +2, Attack --, Defense +4, Damage --
Fist: Init: +2, Attack +4, Defense +4, Damage -2
Kick: Init: +1, Attack +4, Defense +3, Damage +1
Soak: +1
Fatigue levels: OK, 0, -1, -3, -5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: -1 (1-5), -3 (6-10), -5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)

Abilities: Area Lore: Provence 2 (geography), Area Lore: Andorra 1 (history), Area Lore: Toulouse 1 (geography), Artes Liberales 1 (cermonial magic), Awareness 2 (Determining effect), Brawl 2 (Dagger), Code of Hermes 1 (mundane relations), Concentration 1 (spell concentration), Covenant Lore: Laguna Sententia 1 (personalities), Finesse 2+2 (Craft Magic), Folk Ken 1 (magi), Guile 1 (elaborate lies), Infernal Lore 2 (demons), Intrigue 2 (plotting), Latin 4 (hermetic usage), Leadership 1 (laboratory work), Magic Lore 1 (magical traditions), Magic Theory 3 (enchanting items), Occitan 5 (Catalan), Order of Hermes Lore 2 (personalities), Parma Magica 1 (Mentem), Penetration 2 (Vim), Philosophiae 1 (ceremonial magic), Scribe 1 (copy lab text), Stealth 2 (hide), Woodworking 2+2 (Spiders)

Arts: Cr 2, In 5, Mu 0, Pe 6, Re 10, An 3, Aq 0, Au 0, Co 3, He 3, Ig 0, Im 4, Me 3, Te 3, Vi 8
Equipment:
Encumbrance: 0 (0)

Corpus Spells

  • Eyes of the Cat (MuCo(An) 5) +5, Mastery 1 (quiet casting)
  • Eyes of the Hawk (MuCo 5) +5, Mastery 1 (quiet casting). HP p87, with Touch range: The target gains the eyes of a hawk, which allows him to clearly see for vast distances
  • Wizard's Leap (ReCo(AnHeTe) 15) +15, Mastery 1 (fast casting)

Imaginem Spells

  • Through the Eyes of the Spider (InIm 15) +11, Mastery 1 (tethered casting). Use one sense at a distance: This allows the maga to see as if she was located at the Touched object
    location
  • Wizard's Sidestep (ReIm 10) +16, Mastery 1 (quiet casting)

Herbam Spells

  • Animate the Wooden Spider (ReHe 10) +15, Mastery 1 (imperturbable casting). Based on LoH p112, "Animate Mannequin". This allows the control of a wood spider

Mentem Spells

  • The Call to Slumber (ReMe 10) +15, Mastery 1 (magic resistance)

Terram Spells

  • Invisible Sling of Vilano (ReTe 10) +15, Mastery 1 (multiple casting)
  • Unseen Arm (ReTe 5) +15, Mastery 1 (quiet casting)

Vim Spells

  • Break the Shield (PeVi 10) +22, Mastery 1 (magic resistance). HP p85: Dispel effects of a specific type with a level less than the level + 3 magnitudes of the Vim spell + a stress die => Dispells any Parma Magica whose score is less than (25+stress die)/5
  • Demon's Eternal Oblivion (PeVi 5) +16, Mastery 1 (multiple casting)
  • The Invisible Eye Revealed (InVi 10) +15, Mastery 1 (quiet casting)
  • Maintaining the Demanding Spell (ReVi 20) +20, Mastery 1 (Fast casting)
  • Opening the Intangible Tunnel (ReVi 10) +20, Mastery 1 (Magic Resistance)
  • Unravelling the Fabric of Vim (PeVi 10) +22, Mastery 1 (fast casting)

EDIT: Added a placeholder for Crafter items and Traps and Tricks

2

Hmmm... Interesting. I've been pondering a companion with Spinnen blood, though I'd have to think carefully about the background to explain a Spinnen outside of the one covenant. A weaver companion could work well with a weaver maga.

3

What about the webs, the wall-crawling? Swinging from building to building? The proportional strenght of a spider?
:laughing:

How about a Minor Focus in Spiders? Conjure and control them, mutate them to giant size. Venom spells?
What else fits the theme?
Become a master of Intrigue! Sit in the web of your plots and plans.
what else?...
Extra Arms?

4

We could all work together with Wizard's Communion!

I love the Mechanicals, though they are pretty rebellious and not well-regarded by other magi. Or maybe the Haruspexes? They are more closely integrated with the Order, and fit the spying from afar theme, if you like being able to spy on magi through less direct means. For making animate servants, nothing beats House Merinita's Animae Magic. That requires a strong Muto or Creo, though, and you are already looking at Rego, Intellego, and Perdo... Or Verditius? A Follower of Himinis the Mad would support someone who makes traps. Though she does sound very Merinita to me, I must say. Maybe that's just the Halloween feeling in the air.

Don't we also have a Criamon magus who is really focused on using Intangible Tunnel? We are starting to sound like a base for Hermetic secret agents! :slight_smile:

5

Actually, I realized a little while ago that excellent control of animals like spiders can result in one of the best spy networks in a city. No one realizes the spies are there, even when they see the spies. Combining InAn and ReAn can make for incredible spying potential.

6

:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:
I really-really like Erik's comment about Hermetic secret agents. That would be cool. Operating out of a remote mountain base in a tiny unnoticed country, with operations all accross Mythic Europe!
8)

7

All our Redcaps dress in black! :slight_smile:

8

The Black Caps! A secred squad sponsored by a shadowy council of archmagi, whose duty is to do what needs to be done. Quietly and efficiently 8)

9

~waves~ Focused on scrying, possibly through Tunnel-like effects, yes.

10

A question Reading spell foci, I was quite surprised by this line:
"Rustic magi usually carry many small tools and arcane objects that can be used as spell foci to boost their spontaneous spells in this way, and that are often required for formulaic spells they have invented or learned from other Rusticani. However, these spell foci help them overcome the effect of the Dominion and the difficulties they have with spontaneous magic, and as such they almost always use them whenever they can."

I mean, they have weak spontaneous Magic, which means they can't divide by 2, only by 5, which means that even a Form/Shape bonus of 05 will only add 1 to their totals... And they need a Stat+Te+Form+Aura of 25 to spont a lvl 05 spell. So this makes very little difference, and not much sense.
How can this help them overcome their difficulties with spont magic or the Dominion? I mean, I won't even bother with it!!

But then, I noticed that a spell focus "allows him to add a bonus to his Casting Total". And Arm p 81 says that, for non-fatiguing sponts, Casting total = Casting Score/5.
So am I right in thinking that, when sponting, Spell Foci are added after division? This would make quite a lot of sense given the text, but I just want to be sure.

I've thought about it, but it ain't useful at all for her purposes. The spider motive is mostly a nickname she's acquired and like (like batman having no bat powers). Not so much related to her powers than to her way of acting.
How to put it? She's more Madame Web than Spider-man :wink:

I'm currently trying to find a name for a Major Version of the focus.
As a minor, it is under PeVi, a specific subset, everything's fine. But I'd like her, given time, to expand her focus a little, to a Major version that would incorporate the PeVi "reduce casting totals" bit, as well as the of ReVi "Suppress Magic" one.
IMO, this is well under the purview of a major focus and there's a sense of unity (being anti-magic), I just need a proper name.

And yeah, agree on Intrigue :smiley: I want her to have agents. I love agents :smiley:

I don't want her to be a spy or a scryer per se. This is just so that, say, she can send and control a spider.

I'm currently leaning toward wood servants: She crafts little spiders, and animate them. At first, she'll control them directly (using ReHe base 3 "Manipulate items made of plant products", just like Hermanus in LoH), but, in time, she'll do like Severin's Carved Assassin in TOME and give them some autonomy (ReHe base 10 "Make a plant or thing made of plant products move with purpose and intelligence, without requiring your constant control").

And with Craft Magic, she can make these into Charged Items :smiley: So, fr exemple, she can use Craft Magic to put create some Touch range charged spiders, and then control them to go somewhere and deliver the spell.

Ah, yes, I had forgotten Animae Magic, gonna look into it, thanks for the tip! :smiley:

Yes, me too, especially as I'm really, really, developing into that direction :smiley:

A-WE-SOME.

11

I am pretty sure that's what was intended, yes. Otherwise it is a pretty useless Virtue. :slight_smile:

12

Looked into Animae Magic when I went back at home, and I concurr, it is great, but is has one great drawback: It creates characters, and, potentially, characters with powers.
Which is something I want to avoid, both from a managment POV, but also because, like the summoners of supernatural critters, this is very hard to balance and can easily lead to abuse, with a character commanding critters with powers he doesn't have (See Ludovico here for an exemple of this).

OTOH, if going the craft magic route, at best, even with semi-autonomous spiders (using ReHe base 10), these won't be intelligent servants (which is very important), and (also very important) any "power" they will have (as charged items) will be temporary, and directly depend on her arts.

Which leads me to another problem. Potentially, she could have done a lot of crafted items over the years. Sure, she'd have used some, but some would still be around, and she'd still have the lab texts for this.
I am thus searching for a way to do this "right", especially as I love this "batman" side of the character: She doesn't spont a CrMe communication spell, she uses her SpiderCommunicator (so to speak).
I'm currently leaning towards having her lose all her lab texts due to some cataclism or attack (this explains why she doesn't have lab texts for a lot of charged items), and escaping with only a few of her treasure troves of charged items.
How many? Will have to try. I'm thinking of having one item per year (charges based on lab total at the time, assuming a lab text), mostly "trapped lair" items (I LOVE this aspect of the character) instead of "adventure" ones, so this becomes mostly background fluff, but I'll lessen this is this is too much or if I lack cool ideas. Hum... Ideally, she'd have used most of her offensive spiders when facing that cataclysm... This leads somewhere, I think. Her last mission went badly. She worked in tandem with 2 other magi, in a small covenant. They were killed on a mission, and she was faced to flee to her sanctum, to her place of greatest strength, defeating the ennemy there, at the cost of most of her belongings.

I also have one last virtue to take at chargen, I keep having a cool idea and keep forgetting it.

13

Don't presume you made any items, unless you actually spent time in the lab making items :laughing:
Keep the lab texts you generate. Just be transparant and show us your lab work.

14

So, first, I've put up the as-it-is for now charsheet at gauntlet in my first post. This may change, I'm not satisfied. And there's that last virtue I keep forgetting.

Second, marko. The problem is that she's a Rustic Maga (from HoH: S p131): They suck big time at spontaneous magic, but can very quickly prepare charged items: Instead of reacting on the fly to threats, they prepare and have a lot of "gadgets"*.
She must have created a horde of these. This is what these guys do. They're gadgeeters, compared to verditius Iron Men.

So I want to at least lose the lab texts to these to keep only the lab texts of enchantments that actually cost her seasons*
And then, there's the question of what did happen to her previous "gadgets". My preference would probably be for her to have a few usable ones (say, about 10), with the others being things that color play, but don't actually enter it, such as traps/alarms in her lab (although, now that I think more about it, the fact that these are charged items make that really difficult, save if I manage to create traps that activate them**). But even if she has nothing, I need a reason for it :wink: Like, why does batman still has the batmobile and batwing, but not his belt.

  • Actually, now that I think about it, I think the text is a little ambiguous. I'll have to check at home, but if it is, I think it is best to rule that these do no produce/benefit from lab texts. This both solves that problem, and drastically reduces the number of items she can produce :smiley: She must still have had some items left, but much less, and it them makes sense that these would have all been used/destroyed in that final confrontation.
    ** Like, I am sure I can manage to do something with both charged items and circle spells...
15

When I first read your post, my first thought was "Hmm, I don't think Rustani produce lab texts when they use Craft Magic to make items in less than a season." So I would certainly support that interpretation if the text is ambiguous. :slight_smile:

16

Yes, though this can also be temporary (and without Vis) instead of permanent. So it need not create characters.

17

I looked it up. I would think they do not produce Lab Texts, because it is done as if you were casting a spell or using an ability.
As for left over trinkets, I suggest you use your bp as a guideline. For items you mase (but not in the lab), the cost is 1bp per (levels + charges divided by 5).
Reasonable?
If not, I trust your discretion to come up with a good guideline.

18

How about if the Apocalyptic Confrontation included the same bad guys that Lucas and Pythos have taken as Enemies? Some kind of Mercere sub--cult that opposes the Mercurian tradition, one of whom got so up in Pythos's face that he declared Wizard War on him and then blasted him straight into Twilight. Those guys.

19

Looked at it yesterday, and it is, in that it begins by saying this works just like normal charged items creations, but then says that it works as crafting a spell.
So I'm going to work (and play!) under these assumptions: It doesn't produce, nor can it use, lab texts. Much, much better IMO.

Yes, but don't bother.
I just saw that you had rules for charged items too, and I'm perfectly fine using these (In fact, I think it is way better, as it gives me no special options compared to other characters, which makes it more right IMO). So I can still have some [strike]bat[/strike] spider gadgets, with the rest having been used up/destroyed in that final confrontation :smiley:

A-freakin-wesome. Consider me sold!

Her covenant-team could even have been hired by Pythos for that mission. It went ugly, and she barely survived. Now, she wants to rebuild and get payback. in fact, this quite tempts me to take Ennemies, too :laughing: Hum... Could these be related to her Diabolic Past? Maybe that Mercere Subcult are part of a Diabolic Mystery cult? That was also related to the Shadow Flambeau?

20

It could be that the infernalists from whom your character is descended are the 1200s equivalent of gypsy Redcaps (Goliards) at Barcelona, and perhaps one or two of them were part of that infernal tradition that tends to spring up around those irreverent satirist sorts? But House Mercere tries to keep that really quiet, because if magi were to learn that some Redcaps are diabolists, it would lead to a purge of their whole House, the same as what happened to Tytalus and Diedne. So they have to be really, really careful when investigating such things, working with Quaesitors that they know they can trust implicitly to keep damaging information from getting out...