Viscaria Verditii

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Phoenix - Rise from the A
1

Changes made since JeanMichelle last commented on my changes.
Questions, comments, and flavor comments in this color.
Most recent edit: Added random 0-point skills, layout adjustments.

Viscaria Lychnis fillius Norbert Gunthar ex Verditus
Note: In European courts, the presentation of a flowering lychnis viscaria stem is an invitation to dance.

General concept: Having spent her life as the puppet & guinea pig of others, Viscaria is nigh-psychotically obsessed with freedom, safety and security.

[table][tr][td]Virtues
The Gift, Hermetic Magus. Verditus Magic (Casting Tools - carved stones)
Affinity with Craft/Glass, Terram
Pussiant Craft/Glass Terram
Hermetic Alchemy,
Minor Philosophic Alchemy
Strong Fae Blood - Dwarf
Start aging at 50 (apparent age = 70% of age)
Fae eyes - Second Sight, see in darkness. Gem colored eyes
Dwarf Blood - +1 to any craft total
Imbued With Spirit of Terram,
from RoP:Magic, use fatigue levels in place of terram vis
Freak out small Terram Spirits, piss off large ones[/td]
[td]Flaws
Dwarf, general-3 (Size -2, Str -1, Sta -1)
Confraternity Member, Samos, story -1 (TMRE, pg 126)
Faerie Upbringing, personality-1
Susceptible to Divine Power, hermetic -1
Difficult Longevity Ritual, hermetic -3
Spontaneous Casting Tools, hermetic -1[/td][/tr][/table]

[table][tr][td]Characteristics
Int +3
Per0
Pre +1
Com +2
Stri[/i] -1
Stai[/i] 0
Dex -1
Qik -2[/td]
[td]Personality Traits
Cynical +3
Hedonistic +1
Altruistic +2
Brave -2
_
_
_
_[/td][td]Age: 30
Apparent Age: 21
Size: -2
Confidence: 1
Voting Sigil: A flowering viscaria stem made of glass, with several captured flies in it
Casting Sigil: Viscaria / sticky catchfly symbolic affects
Afflictions: None
Warping: 0.2[/td][/tr][/table]

[table][tr][td]General Abilities
Bargain 1 (for souls)
Carouse 3 (gambling)
Charm 2 (covenfolk)
Craft / Stone 1 +1 (fae style)
Craft / Glassblower** 5 +3 (fae style)
Folk Ken 1 (body language)
Guile 2 (blame displacement)
Language, Occitan 5 (poetry)
Language, Latin 4 (written)
Prof: Scribe 2 (correspondence)
Prof: Architect 1 (secret spaces)
Teaching 1 (Latin)[/td]
[td]Academic Abilities
Artes Liberales 1 (mathematics)
Philosophiae 4 (Verditius)

Arcane Abilities
Magic Theory 5 (enchantment)
Faerie Lore 2 (beasties)
Parma Magica 1 (terram)

Supernatural and Hermetic Abilities
Crystal Dart Mastery 1 (fast-cast)
Baroque Hut Mastery 1 (quiet)
Second Sight 2 (faeries)[/td]
[td]Zero Point Skills
Concentration 0 (spell)
Leadership 0 (labwork)
Music 0 (stringed instruments)
Verditus Cult Lore 0 (members)
Samos Cult Lore 0 (members)
Finesse 0 (rego)
Penetration 0 (terram)
Code of Hermes 0 (covenant laws)
Order of Hermes Lore 0 (potential pen pals)[/td][/tr][/table]

Arts
[table][tr][td]Creo[/td][td]4[/td]
[td]Intellego[/td][td]4[/td]
[td]Muto[/td][td]4[/td]
[td]Perdo[/td][td]4[/td]
[td]Rego[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Animal[/td][td]3[/td]
[td]Auram[/td][td]1[/td]
[td]Aquam[/td][td]0[/td]
[td]Corpus[/td][td]4[/td]
[td]Herbam[/td][td]3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Ignem[/td][td]1[/td]
[td]Imaginem[/td][td]0[/td]
[td]Mentem[/td][td]4[/td]
[td]Terram**[/td][td]8(1xp) (+3)[/td]
[td]Vim[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][/table]

Spells:
The Crystal Dart
MuTe 10 (Rego) Voice, Mom, Ind
Always hits, +10 Damage
Mastery 1: fast cast

Hands of the Grasping Earth
ReTe 15 (Muto) Voice, Diam, Part
Strength stress 15 to escape

Burrowfingers (Based on Pit of the Grasping Earth)
PeTe 20Voice, Mom, Part
Creates a 700(?) cubic foot space in earth or stone, starting at a point of origin that can be sensed by the caster within voice range. Default opening is a cube, but this can be modified with finesse rolls.
It does not affect noble metals or gems. Base 3, +2 Voice, +1 Part, +1 Size, +1 Stone

The Baroque Peasant Hut
Creo Terram 25
Touch, Mom, Individual, Ritual
Similar to Conjure The Wizards Tower, only the resultant structure is a single story, 3-room long-house, with a basement. While the exterior is a single block of stone with only minimal design elements (gargoyles in the corner, etc), the interior returns to Viscaria’s usual style of artifice. The trapdoor to the basement is hidden. The basement contains an empty cistern, a secret room and 2 hidden alcoves. The alcove hidden next to the cistern is extremely useful for keeping food cold, thanks to the water and stone. You can actually design the chambers within, using Prof:Architect before starting the ritual, but this is Viscaria’s default layout.
Base 3, +1 Touch, +3 Elaborate Design, +2 size
(Conjures the Wizard’s Tower is 80ft tall, plus 20 feet underground. This structure is 25 ft from top to bottom, hence +2 Size instead of +4)

Watching Ward
ReVim 10, Touch, Special, Ind/Ritual

Store The Essence
ReVim 15 (Terram) Touch, Mom, Ind
As the Gather The Essence of the Beast spell, only transferring the vis to a suitably prepared receptacle, and applies to all types of vis, not just corpses.

Doublet of Impenetrable Silk
MuAn 15 Touch, Sun, Ind (adds +3 soak to cloth, +? to leather)

Command the Living Stone
ReTe 25 Voice, Conc, Ind
(as Living Fire, RoPMagic 133)
Penetration > Might to control earth spirits
Base 5, +2 Voice, +1 Conc, +1 affects Stone

Equipment
A dress befitting a 10-year-old girl, with wide sleeve openings
One set of Thick leather smithing clothes
A circular glass pendant on a fine silver chain, bearing the OoH and Verditus symbols
A bag (are backpacks anachronistic?) full of crystal objects and other ceremonial tools
Cold Iron eating knife.
Spell Casting Tools and Spontaneous Casting Tools, short finger-thick cylinders of varying quality glass, with symbols embedded in a second color inside them. These are stored in ammo-belt-like leather bracers underneath her voluminous sleeves.
Spare bag of casting tools, made of stone

A chest containing: Glass blowing tools, stone mason tools, wax tablets, several stylus, his lab texts (still ciphered), writing equipment, (architectural) drawing equipment, etc

Short Biography:

Born to a clan of dwarven craftsmen, taught the secret smithing of sand into baubles.
Won in a bet by a Verditus mage, who abused her as part slave, part guinea pig for several years (hence the Imbued With Terram) before realizing she was Gifted and took her on as an apprentice. This did not stop her pater from his cruel treatment and physical abuse.

Her faerie upbringing makes Viscaria inherently Hedonistic, unused to thinking about long term benefits. While she is often moved to acts of Altruism, she Cynically believes that no good deed goes unpunished in the human realm, and that all generosity will ultimately be betrayed or usurped by the power-hungry. Still victimized by her treatment at the hands of her parens, she is not very Brave.

Detailed Biography
Blue indicates material which might affect the campaign setting in one way or another.

Viscaria, born Camellia, was conceived as part of a compact made by a Merinita wizard and Orbhammer Founderson, a craftdwarf of some repute in (faerie lands near our setting). The maga spent four seasons among the kindly ones, conceiving and birthing the child without stepping foot into the mundane world. Shortly after this, the Merinita committed some (unknown to Viscaria) act which forfeited her end of the bargain and she was exiled from the clan hall without her child. Viscaria never learned her mother's name, for the dwarves only referred to her by the most derogatory of epithets.

She played diligently and worked joyously, learning the strange crafts of ice-metal and the ecstatic dances of her court for the first 12 years of her life. Then came Norbert Gunter Verditii, with his cunning tongue and hex'ed dice. Norbert won the child, a gifted ice-metalsmith, in accordance with ancient fae gambling traditions. Norbert dragged the child back to his sanctum in Laguna Sententia and locked her in a warding circle. Her life, once full of song and dance, became a dark timeless agony, as Norbert ripped into her flesh and soul for secrets only known to him. Her only diet was food laced with the vis of Terram. Her only comfort was the small pile of papers she first used as pillow and bedsheet.

She taught herself to read, write and count with these tear-stained discussions of Gothic Architecture. Three years after her imprisonment, she knew enough to scrawl a plea for rescue on one page of her pillow, written with her own blood. Out the window and into the hands of another Magus of Laguna Sententia, who realized the child was Gifted, and forced Norbert Gunter to take her as an apprentice.

The next 15 years of her life may not have included warding circles and vis-laced food, but they were hardly the reprieve from misery she had hoped for. Norbert Gunter took her tutelage seriously, but still treated her as a barely human creature, unworthy of respect or empathy. The single ray of compassion in her life was her one-time rescuer, whose rare visits were filled with mathematical games and tales of an ancient sage named Pythagoras. He always announced his return to Laguna Sententia by sending her a single stem of Viscaria, and at her gauntlet, she snubbed her pater by taking that flower as her name within the Order, rather than the name Norbert had chosen for her.

For her gauntlet, Viscaria created The Sunberry Chandelier, a green glass sylph-tree with colored berries which emit sunlight on command. No doubt, she suspects, the masterpiece is growing dust in some unused corner of Norbert Gunter's lab, and he will never see the message hidden inside just for him, only visible when the spell is active -- the wounded sylph imprisoned inside the tree, screaming to get out.

Future Plans:
Mechanically : Hermetic Architecture, and its ability to create/manipulate auras and regiones. Also interested in the Stone Guardians Of Triamore spell, or something similar. Also wants to bind lots of odd Terram Elementals to her will: Glass Elementals, Ruby Spirits, etc.

RP-wise: Viscaria wants to create a covenant and sanctum where she feels safe. As she relaxes into a sense of security and an understanding of her own power, she grows curious as to the nature of those protections -- auras, covenants, regiones, etc.

You can see the exact char-gen expenditures by era here. Craft:Glass gets +2 from Pussiant Ability, +1 from Dwarf-Blooded.

I have a really hard time imagining a Dwarf Blooded, dwarf-statured woman. Maybe that'll be the whole fun of it.

Please be sure to quote whatever you're commenting/replying to, since I intend to edit this entry so that it is always the current sheet.

2

Heya Amul

I've noticed we've both done short females with an interest in Terram. I'm happy to change my character if you'd like.

Richard

3

So she doesn't use iron tools? Or does she wear gloves?

Abilities:
Second sight can only be taught to people initiated into the mystery.
You haven't picked a native language. Is it the one of the covenant region? That is Occitan (French-2, see L&L, p. 143)

I am afraid this is the case. There might be mud golems (like in the computer games Gothic2).

Oh, I was joking, but why not?

Hope I caught it all.

4

I haven't really thought through all the repercussions, so much as I laughed maniacally and wrote it in before I could second guess myself. The key here, for me at least, is that she has no actual reason to be scared of Cold Iron, barring some deep seated genetic legacy, so it doesn't really matter. However, when I wrote it, I was imagining that she fears being attacked with cold iron. I can find something else.

I thought mysteries were for hermetic virtues, whereas supernatural ones were governed by the section in the main rules book under "Teaching Supernatural Abilities." I guess I'm not surprised that TMRE overwrites the rules. Can I start with the appropriate initiation script? My main idea was to teach it to our guard grogs.

~looks hopeful~ Does this mean there are also Glass Elementals and Gem Elementals? Can I take them as familiars? ~bounces like a little dwarf-blooded girl bouncing on something bouncy~

Oh, I was joking, but why not?

Hope I caught it all.
[/quote]
Oh, I got that you were joking.

Occitan, check!

The question about how Watching Wards work will become moot in a second, since I need to take 5 magnitude from it and will move the rest into another spell of another type.

I need to re-read the entire combat section, apparently. I'll probably post a little rules introduction bit in its own forum title later, as a rules walkthrough in a few days.

5

Why shouldn't there be gem elementals?

Watching wards work without triggers, too (I think, and I doubt anyone has an interest in contradicting me). They are rituals: Abuse is unlikely.

I need to reread supernatural ability teaching. If it doesn't totally derail the system, I might allow it.
Where are the rules?

6

Driving and away from my books, so I can't give an exact page number. It's in the section on Advancement, with the stuff on teaching, apprenticeships, etc. It has its own section heading. Can't miss it.

7

DRIVING and posting?!

Ah, found it. Rules say it is for Gifted characters only. Anyway, most magi I've seen have teaching (single student). Hermetic magi need a teaching source total of at least 20 (if that is the only supernatural ability).

8

As for your elemental - I posted on the other thread (Ars Magica) - and got replies from all kinds of people who are good at these things (including an author of RoP:M).

Here are three possibilities. Choose one for our saga:

  1. There are only earth elementals (no diamond elementals) in Mystic Europe and your spell works against them and nothing else. There may be other terram creatures though (stone giants etc) - but they'd be unaffected.
  2. These spells work against all creatures of the magic realm that are based on Terram. But to affect terram creatures made from higher forms of terram (like diamond golems) - you need a spell with extra magnitude(s). The higher magnitude spell also works against lower forms of terram - but seperate spells are better when it comes to penetration.
  3. You do not take the spell at all.
9

Hey, I was only typing while at red lights.

I've always tried to avoid "standard" specialties like Teach(Single Student). It doesn't add depth to the character. From what I understand, we can re-allocate our skill specialities every time we increase the skill, so I'm assuming I should pick something right now that is appropriate to her character background rather than her goals?

The other options that strike me as obvious are Teach (craft:glass). I need to look up the actual section on mystagogues and initiating into mysteries. I'm assuming the Teach skill has little to do with them....hrm....given her nigh-indentured-servitude, it's possible that it is some other covenant-centric skill....maybe Teach (Latin) or Philosophiae?

Edit: Or maybe I'll just move it over to an appropriate Area Lore...

May I punt this question to the House Rules thread, and let the other players weigh in? I feel like this might be a bigger choice than just aimed at me. Never having seen your GMing style, I'd personally go for option 2.

10

Nod. Your explanation for chosing specialties is commendable.

You are bringing that element into the story. So we choose option 2. No need for lengthy debates. I'll put it into house rules.

11

Switched Teaching to Latin.

Replaced Fear(Cold Iron) with Susceptible To Divine. Still faerie themed, but less problematic.

Added a few page references and 0-point skills I'll need/want.

12

Done?

13

Functionally, yes, I am done tweaking the character. I reserve the right to add or modify 0-point skills and their specialities ad nauseam, but that's really just random note taking on my part, and has no in-game mechanical significance.

I still need to write a more detailed biography, which will be a little easier now that I know we're in Provencal (which I've been to, by the way). Do you wish to tell me the name of the covenant I was raised in, or give my cruel Verditus pater a name? Or shall I just make them up myself? I have not yet discovered the name of my Merinita (biological) mother, and there are some other blanks in his biography that might get woven into the story at some later date.

I also don't know enough about the nature of Faeries in your game to write that part. Are there winter and summer courts? To which does my dwarven clan belong? In the campaigns that I designed for ArM (which were never run), the Faerie Realms were heavily influenced by Emma Bull's War of the Oaks and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. The default ArM world seems to treat faeries in a far less nuanced manner.

14

Minor change - Native language specialization went from "rhyming" to "poetry" to more accurately reflect the era. Also, I can't decide what instrument she should learn to play someday.

Finally wrote out the detailed character biography. The only real surprise to me was that her Parens isn't her link to the Fraternity of Samos, it is some other magus from Laguna Sententia. Viscaria probably has a crush on him.

15

nods

16

Oh....I suppose her Pater was the one that taught her Alchemy. Given that it is a "common mystery," there is no obvious Cult to teach her Major Philosophic Alchemy. Or is it the other way around, and both the Fraternity of Samos and the Verditus might have somebody who'll teach it to her?

17

Time'll tell.

18

So, between Viscaria's Susceptibility to Divine and Cygna's Susceptibility to Infernal...in any battle between Good and Evil, we're screwed :stuck_out_tongue:

19

At least we'll be able to tell which side is which. O:)

20

I wonder, since you have that spell to control earth elementals, wouldn't it be better to trade another of your spells for one which would allow you to summon or create them?
Although I don't have my books, so this may be too difficult.