Verditius Primus challenge

Hi all,
been reading for a while but this is my first time posting.
In the saga I am currently playing in, I am a Verditius with primogeniture lineage.
Stouritis (canon primus at this time) has caused a split in the house with his insistence that the domus magna be his home covenant (ignasia).

being of the primus lieage, I am in theory in line, but there are people between me and him, how many I have yet to check with the SG.
I am thinking of raising support within my house for my cause, and also bringing in some of the other craft magic types (rusticani for example) to the house to raise my renown.
I am also opposed to the creation of a precedent such as 'kill the primus, become primus'.
there are already another group of verdi at verdi opposing Stouritis, but the majority of the order hasn't noticed this yet. (in my opinion because when you want to buy an item, at least with my group, you send a message to Verdi the covenant, not to a specific verdi. unless of course you kbow a verdi who does exactly what you want.)
so, any ideas/suggestions?

I've never really given the matter much thought, but could you perhaps use a system akin to House Renown (HoH: TL and, I believe, HoH: S) to reflect a character's relative standing within the house?

As far as I know, house leadership is not even a formal title in the OoH. A leader is only powerful as long as people follow what he says. If you challenge that decisory power, you challenge him. Not need to even be more pwoerful magically or beat him down in a magical contest. As long as the people do what you say instead of what he says, you have beaten him.

so it looks like a political campaign to me more than a magical one. Getting the Big Ones (the ones that carry weight in the house) uin your side is the way to go.

Cheers,
Xavi

There is tacit recognition of the primi, in that they make up the Grand Tribunal.

Agreed, it seems to be left to each house to determine how they are lead.

mark

Also in that you have to be a member of a House to be a member of the Order (HoH: TL p. 49, box).
The Primus has the power to expel a magus from "his" House.
This has to be a position somehow sanctioned by the Order.

I'd suggest hubris as house reknown, ...

muhawahawahabu!

That would make sense, my actual reputations are a little... unfortunate.
OoH/sexual inventor/1
theban tribunal/hero of constantinople/1
nobles/artificer/1
dunwich/wizard/1

my hubris is +3.

what do people think of the idea of getting rusticani to join verditius?

Eh? Sexual inventor? What did you invent? (I fear the answer...)

Xavi

If it was painful I understand there's a market for it among Iberian Magi.

Our covenant was asked to give a keynote speech, so we turned up...
at which point our bonisagus gets stage fright, the ex misc nature maga wanders off to talk to the hedgerows, and our other ex misc depresses everyone by being doomed.
we had a covenant reputation from the previous occupants for being all about sex, so I played up to it.
I have also invented various muto corpus effects in rings that grant +1 presence for the purposes of sexual attraction.

oh yes, our redcap delivers mail as and when, but typically a few years late. he has lustful +7.

Sounds like an... alluring... saga.

I don't really remember the details from HoHMC, but my impression is that Verditius magi would look down on Rustinaci (spelling?) magi as practitioners of lesser crafting techniques that don't stand up to the glorious Verditius mysteries. Perhaps, however, if you Integrated some of their magic into a new Verditius Mystery, that would garner you support from people keen to learn the new crafting secrets. I'd suggest stressing the "secularizing" the virtue from its hedge-magic and pagan-religious overtones, echoing the great work done by Veriditius and his apprentices when the House was forced formed.

Another option to garner support is to rid the Order of practitioners that have mastered the mystery of the Automata; it was once a Verditius mystery, and returning to this state - by making magi holding it join the House or have, ehm, fatalities - would be an impressive feat. Depending on your SG's cooperation, this may be achievable. Frankly, though, the Automata virtues just aren't worth much if I remember correctly.

Finally, as regards to claiming the position of Primus - well, that's something that you need to work out with your SG. Personally, I would favor using a House Acclaim system, to make progress (of you and your opposition) clear. The acclaim struggle will end in a Verditius Contest, where hopefully you will win due to adventure-related advantages (the use of some Mystery, enchanting an artifact handed down by Wayland Smith, or so on), and will then need to win a debate and/or combat to convince virtually everyone in the House to accept your title. Sprinkle with back-room political deals, literal backstabbing, and high-fantasy tales of enchantment to taste. And all of that will take years, probably a few Contest cycles - in other words, it would consume much if not all of the saga. But that's just my preference - it sounds like your saga has its own tastes, and you should just find a fun way to proceed.

Thanks folks, some useful ideas in there.
The main problem with the verdi primacy would be that I will have to get anyone between me and stouritis to back down, which in itself will be quite hard, we're Verdi after all! :slight_smile:

The theory behind getting the rusticani is that they could learn our methodsas well as their own, giving them much more flexibility, and creating a new confraternity within the house.
plus such a coup would get me more support by removing outside competition, as well as adding to a loyal verditius core. (which so far consists of me and my apprentices).

For the item contest, I know what I intend to bring. :slight_smile:
I have created a spell that makes a complex of buildings on a single boundary sized base. This complex is 10 times the size generated by Conjuring the Mystic Tower.
I will then use another ritual to transform the whole to metal (probably bronze over steel, as I like bronze for most work not involving armour.).
The whole will then be enchanted using Mythic Architecture.
at this point the flying invisble city of bronze festooned with armaments and an aegis can be brought into play. That should be reasonably impressive.
Janus, currently playing Smith Wesson, a verditius telekinetic specialist and armourer.

Plan B would be to throuw your weight behind another potential candidate, one above you in the rankings. And work to make him the next house. Make sure you have strong leverage on him by the time he becomes primus, though! Power behind the throne and all that.

Is your magus a specialist in throwing small metal pebbles at high speed? :laughing:

Xavi

Actually, yes!
Technically he's a sst in firing vast quantities of metal sling shot, with a sideline in moving buildings on top of targets.
( the finesse rules don't work quite as I thought they did when making the character originally.
ReTe 40 sight/mom/ind
propel a metal object of up to one individual at a target doing +5 damage.
aimed, +24 bonus.
(base as per WtIS, extra for metal, extra for sight, +4 for finesse)
actually works like this...
same level, rdt etc...
propel a metal object of up to 10000 individuals at a target, doing +5 damage, plus damage commensurate with the amount of metal striking the area. ie +21 for having a building land on you.
aimed, +0 to hit, with up to +24 depending upon how many individuals worth of object is being fired.)
if you drop the metal add, you can shunt 100,000 individuals about at sight range.

I also make IoQ quills, plate armour, shields and weapons.
J.

Hi folks,
Sorry for the threadomancy, but I thought people might be interested in an update...

So far we've establishe that Stouritis (current Primus) has not actually said the oath that makes him Primus.
His prime apprentice is my parens, and I'm my parens prime apprentice.
As House Verditius runs like an elected hereditary leadership (at least in our saga), I'm currently 3rd in line.

After a bit of politicking, Stouritis is likely to get denied the Primacy, dropping it to the next in line, my parens.

I've built a rather nice little lab complex, which I'm planning on taking to Verdi for the contest,
(lab complex: 1x library (treat as a 5,000 sqft lab specialised in texts), 5x 10,000 sqft laboratories, each with a studio, plus defences, ancilary buildings and (thanks to my apprentice) undead servants/grogs. All covered under a single sanctum marker. The whole being a flying disc with some minor CrAu cloud generating devices to hie it from sight while travelling.)

My actual entry for the contest is going to be one of two devices, either
1/ an automated book copying table (whch writes the copies onto metal sheets rather than vellum, safer in the event of a lab explosion.)
or
2/ an amulet that provides a continuous level 1 magic aura to an individual. (via Hermetic Architecture)
[ I need to check this one with my SG though to see if its viable. ]

I'm also planning on releasing an initiation script for Hermetic Architecture.

I haven't managed to get the Rusticani to join, mostly because I haven't managed to find any yet.
I'm also planning on making a Touch version of the device from the "Chuck Norris List" thread to improve my reputation further.

Any thoughts?
Janus.
--currently playing Smith Wesson ex Veditius

The amulet would catapult you to the primus-ship. Or secure you your position as heir for sure.

In the Rhine tribunal there is an entry in Occuluys Septentrionalis saying that they ahve 3 items for verditius himself. The stones create a Room magic aura of level 3. Since they are in a city these are one of the biggest assets in their covenant. As mentioned in the text CURRENT HERMETIC MAGIC CANNOT DO THAT even if Verditius regarded those as a trifle (he created a few of them as a low activity seasonal project).

What you are proposing is just the first step in recovering this ability (you just need a higher aura generation and a Room target instead of individual target), so you can revolutionize the Verdi meeting.

Cheers,
Xavi