Ungoverned Boon for a Covenant

So my group is looking at starting a new game. There is considerable interest in a covenant using the Ungoverned boon.

The problem is that we are not sure where it actually applies in 1220, the standard starting time. We are looking at the Thebes Tribunal.

Any suggestions are helpful. :smiley:

1 Like

In "Through the Aegis", The Northern Seas covenant is ungoverned, because there is no law enforcement at sea.

The covenant of Aegea, which is an underwater sanctuary, certainly has no need to follow any mundane law. The flotilla of Favonius would surely be ungoverned in the same way The Northern Seas is.

On land - you'd either need a small island or you'd need to be somewhere remote enough mundane forces don't want to govern you. If you're in an area that's chaotic and keeps nominally changing hands but your covenant is a force that keeps the peace locally, Autocephalous is probably a better fit.

A small, little-visited island might work.

A remote minor valley, too, particularly if there's limited access - one goat-path into the valley, with a tiny village of inbred idiots.

The location may be nominally claimed, possibly by more than one power, but might be considered of so little worth that there's no point pushing the claim.

How small is a "small" island?

Depends on where the island is located, really. You could have an island the size of Texas, provided it's remote enough and/or undiscovered by mundanes.

Unlikely in the Thebes tribunal, which after all has been home to sailors for more than 25 centuries by 1220 AD.
Or it could be in a regio I suppose.

Mythic Locations page 21-33 a vanilla location for an ungovernement boon covenant in Theban Tribunal. (the boons and hooks for a covenant in this anatolian region are taken p 31)

Fantastic suggestion, I have that book but haven't read it in years. Now I just need to adapt it a bit to the covenant that I've already developed with my group. ;D

Very roughly an islet of 1 square mile seems the threshold between inhabited and uninhabitated today in the eastern Mediterrenean. There are several thousand islets smaller than that and which could still support a covenant with just a little magic e.g. to ensure access to freshwater, and that nobody would really care about unless the magi make their presence well known.

1 Like

That's still exceptionally useful to know. :wink:

Back to Mythic Locations, I've decided not to use Bear Island - but will use it later for some adventures. I'm going with the "make up your own island" option rather than use something directly from history or myth.