What happens to dying covenants?

[Xavi]

And if the parents ar enot available either, you are likely to have a hell of a race to get hold of the rsources, and maybe some certamens and/or wizard wars there. As well as politics, of course. Cool stuff 8)

Cheers,

Xavi

[Henricus]

Politics, probably including Certamem and wizard war.

[Livemike]

@LuciusT

One of the NPC covenants in my saga is an old winter covenant and one of my planned plot points is that this covenant will eventually fail as the last of the magi die, pass into Twilight or otherwise vanish.

Now, I am wondering how other sagas might handle two elements of this.

First, the vanished magi will naturally leave behind fun things like vis, magic items and texts. Who gets the stuff? Do filli have inheretance rights to their paren's property?

Second, and somewhat more importantly, what happens to the covenfolk of this failed covenant? Figure that this place has been around long enough that many of the covenfolk were born and raised there, probably for multiple generations. What happens to them?

When the Redcap turns up and the covenfolk tell him that the Masters are all dead/gone/turned into statues in a tragic basilisk accidents. He tells the rest of the order. Any covenant looking for extra staff sends a letter to any surviving scribe detailing their needs. People willing to work with Magi who aren't escaped criminals, heretics or crazy aren't all that common. They could end up in the strange position for medieval peasants of actually being able to choose an employer. Of course if they stay their long enough someone will turn up trying to snaffle some high-aura real estate*. Probably a bunch who don't want to wait around being dogsbodies to the senior mages at their old covenant. Since most Magi have no personnel management skills they'll be delighted with the prospect of taking over a domestic staff. Frosty Breathe of the Spoken Lie can establish the customary conditions of employment.

• How rare are the various aura levels? I mean can you pick up a level three whenever you want or is there a land rush whenever someone finds a new one? If you do find a aura high enough for a covenant do you get some sort of right to use it, a spotter's fee or something to encourage people to look for them?

[Livemike]

@Xavi

That would work only until they had to renew the magi in their covenant (nobody is gonna believe your magi are 300 years old) but for quite a few decades that can work

Cheers,

Xavi

But once the PC(s) figure it out, all they have to do is promise to keep stuhm and PRESTO! They have a whole new covenant to loot. Just claim that one of their number has been accepted as a new member and the charade can keep going for decades more, hell after a while it's not even a charade.

[Vetrenius_ex_Verditu (Vetrenius ex Verditus)]

In ourt saga two died out convents play an important role:
1.) The players' convent was overrun by dark fay several years ago. Most belongings were destroyed, some remained and were discovered by the players. None has shown up to clame these findings as only one of the former magi had an apprentice and he now presides the new convent. However, since one of the old magi was a Tremer, trouble might present itself in future...
2. ) The other convent is Rethra which died out several decades ago and is now investigated by the payers' characters. Rethra became a typical winter convent two centuries ago when internal strive and encroachment by the dominion left it unable to reach decisions. By that time the mages were no longer intersted in their sodales' fates and did not meet one another regularely. They still took apprentices who were to inherit their stuff but one afetr another passed on without leaving an heir. This remained unnoticed by the others. Finally the last magus entered Final Twilight. Most of their belongings remained where they were left, some crumbled to dust, others lost their power...
In the beginning the Convent was very involved in day to day affaires of the mundanes and posing as their high priests. But some time in the distant past they ordered mundanes to see after these tasks to avoid being distracted bei either their followers or nosy Quaesitores. When the last mage parished, this brotherhood continued to follow the old ways as they did not imidiately notice the absence of their masters. Live continued very much the same but lacking the back up of magi the number of followers dwindled and the cult almost completely vanished save a single priest who never saw a magus and thought of them as being spirits sent to the followers by their god.
Redcaps seldomly traveld there, as during all times the magi were very uninterested in the rest of the world and did not participate regularely in hermetic life. Being located in an area known for werewolf activity did not encourage red caps to travell there either. House Mercere just recently recently remembered the convent when some knights of the Brotherhood of the Sword conquered and destroyed the temple of Rethra, which was the convent's grounds on the mundane levels.

So yes, I think convents can just perish and their grogs keep on living unchanged until they eventually die out or become absorbed by the population surrounding the former convent's lands.