Cool, I have an idea for the lab season. But I want to run it by you first:
Covenants discusses magic items crafted with the intention of going in labs (p121). With a level 30 effect that doesn't mimic a particular lab Virtue, it suggests that having it give +1 to a lab Characteristic together with +1 to a specialty is appropriate. I'm thinking of a specimen holder cabinet thingy, enchanted with a CrCo effect that preserves the bones/blood/etc. stored in it; it could grant -1 to Upkeep and +1 to Corpus. On the other hand, Tranquillina wouldn't want anything in her lab that added to its Warping score. How do you feel about these mechanics? (It would certainly be a reasonable thing for her to have had in her former lab at Burnham.)
What made me think of this in the first place is that I can see Tranquillina's lab, after a couple of seasons of Refinement, easily getting up to Upkeep +4 (10 pounds of silver per year rather than the 1.5 or 3 from an Upkeep +1 or +2 lab) including a +2 uptick to Upkeep from her Specimens. This enchantment would be a way to help keep costs down. But, if Mons Electi doesn't care about spending 10 pounds per year on one maga's lab, then I can smile and think of a different use of the season....
Well, that's not possible, because it would be an invested device and require two seasons, I think... Can you pull it off with a lesser device? Need to design the full item effect out.
Pedestal of Perpetual Preservation: indefinitely preserves a corpse that has been set upon it.
CrCo base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, Ind; changing Sun to constant effect adds 4 levels = level 9
Cabinets to Sustain Specimens: indefinitely preserves pieces of corpses that have been placed within it (up to ten corpses' worth).
CrCo base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +2 Group; changing Sun to constant effect adds 4 levels = level 19
If a maga had a CrCo Lab Total of 2*(9+19) = 56, she could create both as lesser enchantments in a single season.
And since a wise man suggested that specialist magi are more fun to play, let's check out Tranquillina's CrCo Lab Total:
Cr 6 + Co 27 + Int 3 + Magic Theory (Corpus) 9 + aura 3 + materials bonuses (amber, honey, sulfur) 9 - Vis Allergy 1 = 56.
This coincidence assumes that Puissant Magic Theory's +2 applies to the cap on shape/materials bonuses; if not, it's reduced to 54 - but we haven't taken into account any specializations Tranquillina might have had in her Burnham lab, nor her spell The Resolute Mind of the Tireless Researcher, which can add +3 to a season's Lab Total.
If this all works, the question then is what bonus can it provide to the lab's statistics. Covenants suggests that 20 levels of effects can improve a characteristic by 1 (say Upkeep -1, for the preserved specimens) and 10 levels can improve a specialization by 1 (say Creo +1, since there's always a perfectly preserved corpse around). At least that's the proposal....
No bonus for the previous lab. Remember, the premise for starting players is that their wings have been clipped, so to speak.
I'm inclined to have that spell inflict the point of warping on the first season, with the second season being a freebie. I'll check the numbers tomorrow.
I didn't follow what this meant ... probably your next post will clear it up for me.
Going back to:
Okay, let's start by finding out what Tranquillina knows about the events of 1222. She'll make three Order of Hermes Lore rolls (Int 3 + OoHL 1 + simple die) to see:
What does she know about the attack on Castra Solis in 1222, and the death of Garus? OoHL total: 3+1+8 = 12
What does she know about the attack on Harco in that same year? OoHL total: 3+1+4 = 8
What does she know about Mons Electi in general? Does she know that they were attacked in 1222? on the same day as the other attacks? Does she know that Apollodorus is dead? OoHL total: 3+1+3 = 7
I'm assuming that Tranquillina knows about Apollodorus's 1215 letter advertising the formation of Mons Electi, since it will probably be a crucial piece of the story as to why she approaches them in 1223ish. She certainly has reasons to leave [strike]Burnham[/strike]Nigrasaxa: the recent Final Twilight of her pater Maximianus, which opened the door for more goading from her ex-mater Cumhachd (who probably planted a passive-aggressive seed, something like "oh it's so nice that you've ended up as the senior maga at a covenant; you'll be able to enjoy leadership through no virtue of your own ...") that, as usual, makes Tranquillina see her accomplishments as worthless and want to prove herself in another way. I'm less sure yet of the reasons for approaching Mons Electi, so I'm hoping the above information will help me work that out.
So, to prevent abuse, you get the Warping the first season that this is used in a year. You can get an additional season of activity with the +3 bonus with only the ill-effect of 3 extra botch dice. Note that's +3 botch dice (yikes!)
She knows that there is a new Prima of Flambeau is Ariel, whom she has met on occasion when she's visited Maximianus at Nigrasaxa a time or two. Ariel is a bit young, in your opinion, but this isn't unusual for Flambeau to bring in young blood. She doesn't know the particulars of Garus's death. Probably some fiery lab accident, knowing the Flambeau.
The attack on Harco is not news of the Order.
We will say she does not know of the attacks on Mons Electi, nor would she know that Apollodorus is dead. She knows Tria thought well of him, and had suggested you when he initially founded the covenant, but you probably had some covenant service you had to resolve that prevented the immediate relocation.
Maximianus is not yet in Final Twilight, he is on the verge...
There's a separate Warping issue that I want to double-check on, though, before committing her to that (past) course of action: the Warping characteristic that a laboratory possesses (or hopefully doesn't, as the case may be).
Reading this carefully, I don't think that the proposed enchantments affect "the whole of the lab", so hopefully these items won't increase the lab's Warping characteristic. If you agree, and you also agree with the effect level/Lab Total calculations and the proposed lab benefits, then we've settled her character build! I'll assume it's okay unless I hear otherwise.
I'll propose a list for the 75 covenant build points as well. About half of it concerns her Mons Electi lab, which would have the following Virtues and Flaws:
Superior Construction, Superior Equipment, Superior Tools (all Free Virtues - thanks Apollodorus!)
Lesser Feature (a corpse displayed like a statue on the enchanted pedestal), Opulent, Specimens - all Minor Virtues, all stuff she could have transported from Nigrasaxa.
Lesser Focus (the corpse statue), Missing Equipment (can't extract vis or bind a familiar) - both Minor Flaws
That fits in a Size +1 lab, and the virtues cost 30 build points. She'll also spend 8 build points on an enchanted item, Flambeau's Furnace (made by Thamik ex Verditius at Nigrasaxa) - an iron stove enchanted to be able to glow red-hot (CrIg base 5, +1 Conc, +5 levels item maintains conc, +5 levels 24 uses per day = level 20) - which will add the Magical (Superior) Heating Virtue to her lab. Gotta stay healthy....
Finally a few books for the covenant library:
Authority and Humility, by Deuderach ex Tremere - a summa on Mentem, Level 17, Quality 9 - 26 build points
Twist of the Tongue (PeCo 30) - a lab text by Maximianus - 6 build points
Strings of the Unwilling Marionette (ReCo 25) - a lab text by Maximianus - 5 build points
All noted (hang in there Maximianus! ). I imagine Tranquillina will end up unknowingly sending a letter to Apollodorus (perhaps even the can-I-come-down-there-now letter) after his death. I'll muse upon the covenant service particulars.
Here's some potential confusion to straighten out. First, I have Tranquillina at Nigrasaxa from 1201 to 1223 (I said Burnham in a message above, sorry for the mistake). I'm basing what I "know" of that covenant off the free mini-saga, even though it was for ArM4. And one of the covenant's characters therein is a certain Ariel ex Flambeau! (In fact I had even postulated that Ariel was a filia of Scintilla, a member of Burnham according to LotN.) So: is this the same Ariel who's now Flambeau prima? Or (probably more likely) should the Ariel from the Nigrasaxa mini-saga be deleted because she already has a place in this saga?
Once we do one or two more letters, I would be interested to see how the characters react to Tranquillina showing up to join... Kinda outa the blue... I don't have an interesting way to introduce her, and she has some built in bona fides.
A last comment about the character, and this is a you can take it under advisement type of thing...
I think it's entirely reasonable that characters 30 years PG would have Wizard's Communion at the minimum level to be effective (15th) and add some juice to the annual Aegis ritual. Of course, not knowing this could be a reason you were held back at your previous covenants...that you weren't enough of a team player there... I'm going to mention the same thing on Winslow's character.
It's true that Tranquillina is the sort of person who would try to avoid botch-prone vis parties based on some unstable remnant of another magical tradition :mrgreen: Game-wise, if it's important to her new covenant-mates, she can always learn it at Mons Electi.
Out of curiosity, why is level 15 "the minimum level to be effective"?
Per the MuVi errata, to do a Wizard's Communion for a ritual requires a Sun duration effect, requiring 2 magnitudes of the spell to be devoted to the duration, so the minimum effective level for ritual use is 15th level.
There are tomes on spell mastery for the Aegis... For some reason, I don't think anyone has bothered to investigate them, yet...
Oh, and there are two spells that have a big overlap... Seven League Stride and The Leap of Homecoming while SLS allows you to transport yourself to someplace you can see, it also has a finesse spell which can botch. I'm not sure that there's a huge call for having both...
Aha. Now I'm thinking what I meant was Wizard's Leap, not Seven League Stride. For not getting smote in combat.
And since that would free up 15 spell levels, and we were just talking about Wizard's Communion ... why don't we trade SLS for the WL/WC combo. Sound good?
On a related note: since I'm turning Pierre Legris from a bought specialist into a companion character, that seems to free up 5 covenant build points ... what shall we do with them?
It's not clear to me which virtues you're paying for with BPs, or how you expect that mechanic t work. I'm pretty sure you're still going to have to spend seasons to install those virtues in the lab, unless your lab comes with you somehow (Ambulatory Lab, etc):
Immediate
Superior Construction (Free Structure Virtue): Aesthetics +1, Safety +1
Superior Equipment (Free Outfittings Virtue): General Quality +1, Safety +1, Vis Extraction +1
Superior Tools (Free Outfittings Virtue): Safety +1, Items +1
Magical Heating (Free Supernatural Virtue; functions as Superior Heating): Aesthetics +1, Health +1, Ignem +1
Season 1
Lesser Feature: Corpse Statue (Minor Structure Virtue): Aesthetics +1, Corpus +2 (includes +1 from the enchantment)
Lesser Focus: Corpse Statue (Minor Structure Flaw): General Quality -1, Corpus +2
Season 2
Missing Equipment (Minor Outfittings Flaw): Upkeep -1; no Familiar, no Vis Extraction
Opulent (Minor Outfittings Virtue): Aesthetics +2, Health +1, Teaching +1, Upkeep +1
Season 3
Specimens (Minor Outfittings Virtue): Aesthetics +1, Corpus +1 (Upkeep not increased due to the enchantment)
Also, note that in 1225, Viscaria intends to make a device which provides the entire covenant with Magic Lighting and Heating.
As for your 5 free build points....how about a 1-pawn portable vis source? We don't have any Perdo, Animal, Ignem, Imaginem or Terram at all. I'm not exactly clear on the RP for those covenant build points. Where do they come from in game?
I'm inclined to agree with amul here. I had another player who engineered a lab of complex design, and I handwaved some of the stuff, but ultimately that player dropped out of the saga, so it became moot...
So, if you want all this stuff, it could be at your old lab, and you have to contract for someone to transport this to your new home.
Keep in mind, unlike Rego Corpus transport spells, I am enforcing requisites on Ambulatory Laboratory, AND it is also an incorrect level in Covenants, and has been corrected to level 50 in the errata. Yeah, I know the transport of the lab and the person is inconsistent...but I don't want labs flying all across Mythic Europe. People...sure no problem.
). I imagine Tranquillina will end up unknowingly sending a letter to Apollodorus (perhaps even the can-I-come-down-there-now letter) after his death. I'll muse upon the covenant service particulars.
