Vibria of Flambeau (development)

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

Current Year: 1246 (Winter)
Age: 40
Apparent Age: 39
Size: 0
Confidence: 1(3)
Decrepitude: 0
Warping: 0(3)
Birth Name: Elena
Year Born: 1206
Gender: Female
Race/Nationality: Catalan
Place of Origin: Calbinyà, Urgell, Catalonia
Religion: Christian
Title/Profession: Maga
Height: 5'10" (178 cm)
Weight: 157 lbs. (71 kg)
Hair: Chestnut
Eyes: Green
Handedness: Right
Wizard's Sigil: shimmering, as of heat waves, surrounding Vibria as she casts the spell.
Voting Sigil: A hand-sized obsidian dragon's talon, with what look to be wavy lines in the surface when the light hits it just right.
Parens: Archmaga Fulminara of Flambeau
Covenant of Apprenticeship: Plateau, Iberian Tribunal (a Reconquista covenant)
Husband: Jaksic (m. December 1237)
Children: Artur (b. Winter 1239), Maria (b. Autumn 1241)

Characteristics
Intelligence: +1
Perception: 0
Strength: +1
Stamina: +2
Presence: +1
Communication: 0
Dexterity: 0
Quickness: +1

Virtues
The Gift
Hermetic Magus (social status, free)
Puissant Ignem (House Virtue, free)
Affinity with Ignem
Greater Immunity: Fire (major)
Keen Vision
Mythic Blood (major)
Minor Magical Focus: Fire-casting* (from Mythic Blood, free)
Sharp Ears
Tough
True Friend (familiar, Felix)

  • Fire-casting is the creation and/or control of flames. In effect, this is a subset of CrIg and ReIg; spells that destroy flames do not fall under the Focus.

Flaws
Avaricious (hereditary Minor Personality, from Mythic Blood)
Chaotic Magic (Hermetic, major)
Envied Beauty (Story, major)
Environmental Sensitivity: Extreme Cold (General; RoP: M, p. 48)
Judged Unfairly (Personality)
Warped Senses: Sensitive to Cold (Personality; RoP: M, p. 50)
Weird Magic (Hermetic)

Abilities
Area Lore: Andorra (treasure troves) 1
Area Lore: Calbinyà (home area; legends) 2
Area Lore: Mythic Europe (Tremere) 1
Area Lore: Rhine Tribunal (geography) 1
Area Lore: Transylvania Tribunal (politics) 2
Artes Liberales (geometry) 1
Awareness (spotting things of value) 3
Bargain (treasure) 4
Brawl (punches) 5
Charm (other women) 2
Chirurgy (burns) 2
Code of Hermes (apprentices) 2
Dragon Form 1
Etiquette 2
Faerie Lore (faerie dragons) 1
Finesse (Ignem) 2
Folk Ken (turb) 1
Guile (convincing someone that she needs something) 2
Latin (dragons) 4
Leadership (soldiers) 2
Magic Lore (dragons) 5
Magic Theory (Ignem) 4
Occitan (Catalan/native; legends) 5
Order of Hermes Lore (history) 1
Parma Magica (Corpus) 2
Penetration (Ignem) 1
Philosophiae (natural philosophy) 1
Scribe (transcribing legends and oral history) 1
Single Weapon (short sword) 4
Soldier (teamwork)
Survival (mountains) 1
Teaching (apprentices) 2

Personality Traits:
Avaricious +2

Reputations:

Wound Levels: Light (1-5), Medium (6-10), Heavy (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)

Armour Worn: Arma Draco (Protection +18, Load 6)

Soak: +23 (Sta 2 + Protection 18 + Tough 3)

Weapons
Dodge: Init -1, Atk –, Dfn +6, Dmg –
Fist: Init -1, Atk +5, Dfn +6, Dmg +1
Kick: Init -2, Atk +5, Dfn +5, Dmg +4
Short sword: Init +0, Atk +14, Dfn +13, Dmg +6
Short sword w/shield: Init +0, Atk +14, Dfn +17, Dmg +6
Dragon Sword: Init +0, Atk +18, Dfn +17, Dmg +6
Dragon Sword w/shield: Init +0, Atk +18, Dfn +21, Dmg +6
Long sword: Init +1, Atk +10, Dfn +11, Dmg +7
Shield (Heater): Init +0, Atk +0, Dfn +3, Dmg +0
Dragon's Breath: Init +1, Atk +3, Dfn +1, Dmg +20≥; Range: 5

Equipment
Arma Draco* ( Load: 6)
Shield, Heater* (Load: 2)
Short Sword* or Dragon Sword (Load: 1)
Draconian Helm*
Elegant gown
Light green dress robe, decorated with white star-like flowers (myrtle), with darker green grass-like embroidery along the lower hems.
Wizardly robes
A bunch of teeth from two heads of a seven-headed dragon.
Two draconite stones from two heads of a seven-headed dragon
Ring of Light (The effect is Creo Ignem, base 5 ("Create light as bright as direct sunlight on a clear day"), R: Personal, D: Concentration +1, T: Individual. The Enchantment Level is 13: Effect level of 10, usable 6 times a day (+3). It has a side-effect that it feels like it's on fire of Intensity +5 when used.)
Ruby necklace
Diamond tiara
Longbow
Longsword of ancient design, a work of art and bejeweled with precious stones in gold fittings.
Diadem
Silk choker
Ornate silver mirror
Gold ring
Pennant, bearing Gules, within a dragon of two heads per pale Or and Sable, a Flambeau hourglass sable.
Silvery-blue gloves of an unknown fur
Exotic cloth bathrobe of Arabic (Syrian) design
Chess set
Cloak of red feathers

Vis: Ignem* (5 pawns; pieces of magic-dragon-with-forearms lungs)
Vis: Ignem* (3 pawns that she carries; chambers of an unidentified drake's heart)
Vis: Ignem (11 pawns in her Sanctum; glowing lumps of coal)
Vis: Imaginem (3 pawns; Dragon's faerie vis, in the form of flowers of fabulous color)
Vis: Perdo* (2 pawns; Infernal sabre-toothed wyvern fangs)
Vis: Vim* (4 pawns; vertebrae of an unidentified wyrm )

(Items marked * are normally carried on her person)

Total Load: 9
Burden: 3
Encumbrance: 2

Magical Arts
Creo: 11
Intellego: 5
Muto: 9
Perdo: 5
Rego: 5
Animal: 10
Aquam: 5
Auram: 5
Corpus: 9
Herbam: 5
Ignem: 14+3
Imaginem: 5
Mentem: 6
Terram: 5
Vim: 6

Spells
Ashes of the Living Fire (PeIg 15)
CT: +24; Penetration: +9; R/D/T: Voice/Momentary/Touch

Aura of Fire* (Cr(Re)Ig 15)
CT: +29; Penetration: +14; R/D/T: Touch/Diameter/Individual. Does +5 damage

Blade of the Virulent Flame* (CrIg 15)
CT: +41 ; Penetration: +26 ; R/D/T: Touch/Diameter/Individual. Doubles the weapon's Damage score or adds +5, whichever is greater.

Cloak of the Red Feathers (MuCo(An) 30
CT: +20 ; Penetration: 10 ; R/D/T: Personal/Sun/Individual

Counting the Dragon's Hoard (InTe 15)
CT: +12 ; Penetration: -3 ; R/D/T: Touch/Momentary/Group

Heat of the Searing Forge (CrIg 10)
CT: +30 ; Penetration: +20 ; R/D/T: Voice/Momentary/Individual

Invisible Sling of Vilano (ReTe 10)
CT: +12 ; Penetration: +2 ; R/D/T: Touch/Momentary/Individual. +5 Damage, Range Increment of 20 paces.

Lamp Without Flame (CrIg 10)
CT: +30 ; Penetration: +20 ; R/D/T: Touch/Concentration/Individual

The Obedient Fire (ReIg 20)
CT: +24 ; Penetration: +4 ; R/D/T: Voice/Concentration/Individual

Palm of Flame* (CrIg 5)
CT: +41 ; Penetration: +36 ; R/D/T: Touch/Concentration/Individual

Pilum of Fire* (CrIg 20)
CT: +41 ; Penetration: +21 ; R/D/T: Voice/Momentary/Individual

Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh (InCo 10)
CT: +16 ; Penetration: +6 ; R/D/T: Touch/Momentary/Individual

Robes Proof Against the Cold (CrIg 10)
CT: +30 ; Penetration: +20 ; R/D/T: Touch/Sun/Individual

Scales of the Magical Weight (InVi 5)
CT: +13 ; Penetration: +8 ; R/D/T: Touch/Momentary/Individual

Sword of the Avenger* (Cr(Re)Ig 20)
CT: +41 ; Penetration: +21 ; R/D/T: Touch/Concentration/Individual

Tremulous Vault of the Torch's Flames (ReIg 5)
CT: +24 ; Penetration: +19 ; R/D/T: Voice/Momentary/Individual

(Spells marked * fall under her Minor Magical Focus)

2

The girl stood on her tiptoes and looked out the window toward the northwest, trying to find one particular mountain in the range that she called home. She didn't know which mountain it was, but she just knew that she would know it if she saw it.

"Elena," her mother called from the doorway. "Why aren't you in bed yet?"

"I'm looking for where we came from, Mare. But I don't see it!"

Ermengarde sighed. "Your father and I, and our parents, we were all born and raised here in Calbinyà, this is where we're from."

"That's not what I mean, Mare. I want to know where great-great-whatever-grandfather lives!" She looked out the window, hoping against hope that somehow, one of the myriad peaks that scratched the night sky would speak to her, whispering "Here I am, Elena...come to me!"

"I told you this would happen!" Elena's father yelled from behind his wife. "You go filling that child's head with fairy tales, that nonsense about her ancestor being a dragon, and she'll run away to go find him." Guillem pushed his way past Ermengarde to look down at Elena. "Not that it would be that big of a loss. Maybe when she's gone, we'll waste less time trying to find where she's hiding instead of doing her chores, or tracking down the animals she's run off."

Ermengarde placed her hand on Guillem's shoulder. "Don't talk like that, love. She's still our daughter, our oldest child."

Guillem shrugged off Ermengarde's touch. "And she can be replaced. The boys do more work in a day than that girl does in a week. I'll wager that another night in the woodshed will teach her a little more responsibility."

Elena's mother opened her mouth to protest, then closed it without saying a word. She knew better than to cross her husband, especially when he was right.

She stood aside as Guillem grabbed Elena by the ear and half-dragged her through the house, out the door and to the woodshed. He shoved her roughly inside and slammed the door behind her, slipping a thick twig through the latch before headed back inside without a further word.

Elena spent the next while trying to fashion something sleepable out of the logs that almost filled the shed, and was almost asleep when she heard a noise outside that jolted her wide awake again. She winced as she sat up, her hand moving to her throat. She started to rub her throat just so as she strained her ears to listen. How did I do it before? she thought. Whether it was safe for her to do it never crossed her mind – she had learned long ago that fire had no effect on her. Her clothes, however, was another story.

The sound stopped for a moment, then started again. It sounds like footsteps, she thought, getting closer. Then the door swung open. The silhouette of a slight woman blocked the moonlight.

Elena took a deep breath.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," the woman said. "I seriously doubt that your dragon's breath could harm me. All you would succeed in doing is destroying all the firewood your family's worked so hard all autumn to gather, and then they'd be quite upset with you. More so than they already are, anyway."

Elena stared at the woman wordlessly. How did she know? she wondered.

"Are they true?" the woman asked.

"Are...are what true?"

"The stories I've heard. That you believe yourself to be descended from Sigmundo. That you can lay with your head in a campfire without harm. That you can spit fire."

Elena nodded, too scared to do anything else.

The woman whispered something Elena didn't recognize, and the girl thought she heard something that she couldn't put her finger on.

The woman nodded and reached for Elena.

Elena started to scream, but when the woman's fingers brushed the girl's sleeve, she stopped and wondered why she had been so afraid.

"You don't belong here, Elena," the woman said. "You should come with me, where you can unleash the talents you have. And, perhaps, even meet a dragon or three."

The woman turned quickly as the cottage door slammed open, and Guillem came running out, followed quickly by Ermengarde.

"You!" Guillem yelled. "Get away from my daughter!"

The woman said something as she pointed at Guillem. The man found himself suddenly floating several feet in the air. He had never been so scared in his life.

The woman glanced at Ermengarde, who stopped dead in her tracks.

"I'm not here to hurt anybody, sir," the woman said. "I simply have an offer to make, regarding your daughter.

"She does not belong here. I think you realize that. If you will let me take her as my apprentice, I will pay you well. One year-old lamb a year, for five years, to be delivered each year on the first of June. Do we have a bargain?"

"No!" Ermengarde shouted. "You can't have my daughter!"

"Shut up, woman!" Guillem yelled at his wife, his water pooling on the ground beneath him. "Take her," he said to the stranger. "Take her and be gone, she's been more trouble than she's worth her whole life. Just don't try to bring her back when you see for yourself how useless she is!"

The woman smiled as she turned to Elena, ignoring Guillem as he floated back down to the ground. He grabbed Ermengarde and dragged her into the cottage as fast as he could, slamming the door behind him.

"There's nothing you need to get from your former home, is there," she said, her tone making it a statement rather than a question.

Elena shook her head. "Who are you?" she asked as she followed the woman, who had started to walk up the road without making sure Elena would follow.

"My name is Fulminara. For the next fifteen years or so, you will call me Domina.

3

Love the story! I have to say though, both controlling and creating flames seems too broad for a minor focus to me. "Creating flames" is kind of the textbook Flambeau minor focus, being slightly smaller in scope than a single Technique and Form, and adding control in there feels like a little too much to me. :slight_smile:

4

Thank you.

Mythic Blood comes with "a Minor Magical Focus in an area related to your legendary ancestor." Seeing as how she's descended from a Dragon, something fire-related seemed the most obvious.

My reasoning for going the way I did: Minor Magical Focus is "particularly attuned to some narrow field" and "should be slightly narrower than a single Technique and Form combination." Examples given include self-transformation and healing. "Fire-casting," as I see it, is more restrictive than CrIg because it is limited to flames. It has no affect on light, heat, or cold. She can't use CrIg to make a rock red-hot with this Focus, or to create light of any intensity (unless it's the light naturally cast by flames). Adding Rego to affect flames only serves, in my opinion, to move the focus back toward being "slightly narrower" rather than significantly weaker than Creo Ignem as a whole.

But I'm willing to entertain ideas if the consensus is (or the SG feels) that the Minor Magical Focus is too broad or inappropriate.

5

Great story! But how come it is always the dad that's the bad guy?
:slight_smile:
Do you mean Creo or Rego Ignem fire effects? Or effects that are Creo and Rego? If the first, then it is too broad. If the second, then okay.

6

Dunno...it just always is. "Vibria...I am your father." Although it might be interesting if it was the mother that was the bad guy ("How in the hell could I have given birth to someone as useless and lazy as you?") with the father stepping in.

I had envisioned Creo or Rego Ignem, being able to create or control flames. Creo and Rego, on the other hand, seems a little too restrictive, I think, in that it would only apply to flames that she creates and can move around or make do unusual things; she only has one spell that's Cr(Re)Ig: Aura of Fire.

How about fire-casting being CrIg, limited to flames or fire that she creates? (And, if so, would that apply in some way to her dragon's breath power?)

If not, I'm open to suggestions.

7

Well, I was at first going to say that the mother spends 9 months learning to love the child before she even meets her, but then I remembered that this is the middle ages....

I have no idea if you'll find this tangent as interesting as I do.

There's an old episode of Hardcore History (which, I'm irritated to discover, he's charging people for) called Suffer the Children, where Dan makes the point that medieval child-rearing habits would be considered abusive by modern psychologists.

After he explores that for a long bit (which I found very interesting), he points out that, given the infant mortality rate in the middle ages, they HAD to have a very different relationship to their children. Mothers don't spend the 9 months of pregnancy learning to love their unborn child. Families don't even want to name a child until the kid's proven he's going to last through the winters. Fostering, nursemaids, the system of wards and apprenticeships, all that came about because it's easier to helplessly watch somebody else's kid die than your own.

Anyway, the point to all of that is that from the modern view of child-rearing, it's easier to imagine the father not loving a Gifted child, because we assume the mother made efforts to love the child before she was exposed to the Gift. But from the medieval paradigm, it could just as easily be the mother who is incredulous that this nightmare of a child survived when her first stillborn baby hadn't, while the father is just grateful to finally have a child at all.

8

Erased pointless crap. Then just now, when I should be sleeping, I thought of a cool idea. Which you do not have to use at all :smiley:
Papa was a dragon. Dragon blooded anyway. That's what his dad claimed. Thed he' get drumk and beat the crap outta him. Paps gets a lotta work out of those boys because he beats it outta them. You, he spared you because you are a girl. But no tough love means no love.
Something odd about momma too. Not sure what.

9

"You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

10

That actually works pretty good, along with switching her parents' roles. Think I'll go with that.

11

Is Vibria at the covenant in Andorra when the saga begins? Or is she coming there from somewhere else? I'm trying to think of ways we could tie her more closely to the other characters. I don't suppose she belongs to the Cult of Mercury, or lives at Doissetep, or is pagan?

12

I will allow characters to have arrived the previous season (fall 1229), or when the curtain rises for the opening chapter (or in that chapter). No need to back calculate, just absorb it in the abstract.

13

It's possible that she was apprenticed at Doissetep - I'm not married to the whole "apprenticed in Iberia" thing, I just wanted her to be close to the Pyrenees (close enough to see them on the horizon, anyway). And since it looks like Doissetep is in the Pyrenees, that could work. Don't see her being Cult of Mercury atm. And she could have been invited and already arrived at Andorra by Carmen, I suppose.

14

Fall 1229, right?

If so, Guillaume would certainly know Vibria. He was away for a span, but for much less than an apprenticeship.

15

Yes yes, you passed my test and i edited to correct
:slight_smile:

16

Hrm...possibly a Greek God connection? We've got Hermes, Autocylus and Apollo showing a hand in already. We need some Goddesses in here. Artemis, maybe? Though that doesn't really suggest how she connects to the other characters.

Doisstep is a good beginning to a connection but we should expand it out a bit more for each character. How did she and Guillaume interact? Vibria is probably pretty hot-headed and battle-hungry. Guillaume, by contrast, has seen War and been marked by Him.

17

I'll do some thinking about that. Sounds interesting.

Vibria isn't so much motivated by a love of battle or broiling people who get on her bad side as she is more mercenary in nature. She's Greedy, motivated by money, by vis, by bright shiny, stuff like that. Things that she can possess and call her own. Her trove, as it were.

18

What is Envied Beauty again? Is that a other women don't like her because she's so beautiful sort of thing?

19

Pretty much.

I think the combination of Envied Beauty and Judged Unfairly should be...interesting.

20

Do you picture Vibria as also feeling the same envy about others? Like, she hears about a beautiful maiden held to be the fairest in the land, does she want to go smite her to prove her dominance? Sort of the Queen in Snow White phenomena? (Dragons do like to capture fair maidens, after all...) Juno also fits this MO, I think. I'm trying to figure out what sorts of things would make her want to leave her laaair.