Which Houses are being used?

Consider this an adjunct to the Favourite Houses poll :slight_smile:

Look at your saga -- how many magi do you have and what Houses are represented?

In mine I have four magi -- 1 Bjornaer, 1 Merinita, 1 Jerbiton, and Verditus.

How about your sagas?

I'd be interested to see the results of this wider view of the Order of Hermes. :wink:

Ex Misc, Flambeau, Bjorn, Merinita (the girl in our group :stuck_out_tongue:), Criamon, and a Jerbiton.

Though that might change when they finish their character sheets... however, maybe not. :wink:

Sphynx

I don't believe that player covenants should neccissarily be representitive of the order as a whole.

We've got five magi in our saga
Gurnecus (intellego focused theretician/ scholer)
Merinita (Muto focused faerie blooded shapeshifter)
Merecre (gentle gifted quet magic animal focused)
Flambeau (Perdo focused Flexible formulaic spells, lots of spell masteries)
Criamon (vim focused)

The Nurockrah Saga:

2 Bjornaer (master, gauntleted apprentice)
2 Flambeau (master, gauntleted apprentice)
3 Bonisagi (archmage, master, archmage's 'apprentice')
1 Tremere (currently in House Mercere)
2 Mercere (A senior redcap, and his gauntleted apprentice)
2+ Tytalus (one has a specialty in Rego. The other is his gauntleting apprentice, who has ifrit problems) (Who knows how many more are skulking about in the shadows, plotting intrigue...)
2 Jerbiton (Mentem Specialist/Vampire Hunter and a Mage-Smith linea ex Carolinus)
2 Merinita (One Quendalonite, one true Merinita)
1 Ex. Misc. (A Shaman)
1 Verditius (an Alchemist trained in the hermetic arts, builder of automatons)

We've had a Criamon at one point (Vim specialist), and a Quasitore (Intellego specialist) at another.

Yes, things are lively at Nurockrah, though in reality, 1/3rd of those above are at the covenant at any give time...

Steve

We have five regular PC magi:

1 bjornaer - "I'll find Anagrah and take back my heartbeast from him"
1 criamon - "I think you're missing my point... again"
1 jerbiton - "And who are you to call me arrogant? Peasant!"
1 merinita - "I'm sure we can all just sort it out"
1 tremere - "Tell me, for I will know the truth from you"

And currently three occasional guest bjornaer characters when nothing but the beast will do.

We've had several houses in our Polotsk campaign which started almost 4 years ago with 4th and changed to 5th around new year.
The Characters:
Miloslav Yanovich - Criamon alchemist (Deceased)
Ishmael - Flambeau, Ignem specialist (Deceased)
Piotr Khuskov (AKA Little Piotr, AKA the Rat) - Merinita, Muto specialist (Rat oriented)
Timofey Chernigovez - Ex Miscellanea elementalist, Terram specialist. (My character)
Piotr Mirez (AKA Big Piotr) - Bjornaer, Heartbeast: Bear
Gregarius Gnosticus - Tremere, Gentle Gifted, tradesman
Artoma - Verditius, Weaponsmith (no longer played, NPC)
Umbrosius - Ex Miscellanea, generalist (Deceased)
Stanislav - Jerbiton, Healer

I agree that PC covenats are going to be atypical.

But for the poll:

In my last campaign we had:
A Bonisagus (who was partially trained by Criamon), A Bjornaer and a Tremere (who was planning on jumping ship and become Jerbiton); at points we also had Ex Misc, Guernicus, Criamon, Mercere and Jerbiton.

In the one prior we had:
Criamon, Tytlus, Verditious, and Bjornaer in the core, and at points also had Merenita, four Bonisagi (though two left early in the game), an Ex Misc and one Tremere (I think).

Our current covenant includes a Bonisagus, a Bjornaer and a Tremere.

The last saga I ran included, over the entire run: a Bonisagus, a Jerbiton, a Bjornaer, a Merinita, a Flambeau, 2 Tytalus (one the son of the other), a Diedne (the saga was set pre-Schism), a Hedge Wizard and a Verditius.

Since the point has been brought up twice, why do people believe that covenants in sagas are atypical? Why would they not be representative of the Order as a whole? Are game-covenants and Order-covenants different in your sagas and, if so, how?

I don't think saga covenants are much different than order covenants generally speaking. The exceptions are in specialized covenants and single house covenants. The order has covenants which are specialized, for instance research covenants which contain mostly Bonisagi magi. The order also has several single house covenants, most Domo Magni (is this correct latin plural?) have almost entirely members of the respective house. I'm under the impression that sagas where all players are from the same house are very few in number.

In the campaign I play in
1 Quasitor(Guernicus)
1 Quasitor(Tremere)
3 Bjornear
1 Flambeau
1 Jerbiton
1 Mercere
1 Tremere
1 Ex Miscallanea
1 Merinita
1 Bonisagius
Many of the above are dead or dropped out
In my PBEM Campaign
2 Jerbiton
1 Ex Miscallanea
1 Bjorenar
2Bonisagius
2 Verditius
1 Flambeau

I think that any collection of magi in a player covenant is controlled by what the players want to play.

The order as a whole is controlled by the needs of the setting.

Mythic Europe is not a setting full of PC covenants it is a setting full of NPC covenants.

Choosing to put NPC covenants in a saga that contain populations that are based upon what other people are playing in their games rather than populations that are based upon the published material seems like a choice that will force the poor storyguides to do more work than they need to.

The PC's are the protagonists of the story. The rest of the order doesn't get to be cool in that particular way. There's no compelling reason to make the populations of their houses breakdown the same.

Is the population of a covenant representative of the population of the Order of Hermes as a whole? No, I say. Consider Gifted Merceres: there are about a dozen of them in all of Mythic Europe, and if someone in your troupe wants to play one, one of them belongs in your covenant. There can't be one in every covenant, though, and just looking through this sampling, we've accounted for about half of them already. :slight_smile:

Screw what's published... :stuck_out_tongue: Seriously Angus, I'm with you on this one. I think it's much cooler to base a world where covenants mirror other player groups you know, and if every Covenenat has a Gifted Mercere, then so be it. I use the Published Settings as examples only, especially since I play super-fantasy with covenants being played more like a Base of Operations, and The Order of Hermes being more like the infamous Wizard's Towers from a Dragonlance Novel.

Anyhows, hope you use my Covenant in your game Angus. :wink:

Sphynx

I guess I'd take back the NPC covenants don't look like PC covenants statement.

Maybe.

It seemed to me that it would be most likely to have covenants made up of lineages, and thus be largely all the same House. Flipping through Guardians of the Forest again it showed me lots of different ways covenants could come together, so I might not stand by that any more.

Hmmm.... I don't easily see why anyone should feel the need to have any one particular covenant be representable of the population of ther Order as a whole. With so relativly small population as the Order of Hermes represents, it is rather more unlikely that any one covenant would be very close to an average. How many covenants has 2,7 ex Misc, 0,8 Tremere, 0,3 Mercere, 1,3 Bonisagus, 2,2 Bjornaer and so on?(the numbers are just extreemly aproximate examples, and doesn't represent any claim or opinion of canon)
But if your saga developes to be an extreeme distance away from the average, say there are 4 Mercere in the covenant, I can see that you might want to make an explanation for how this is so, but that should not be difficult, and should be just the sort of thing to make your saga unike and interesting.

I think this may be the point some others were eluding to. The canon history of Ars suggests that covenants are often House aligned. Given this, it would be more common to find a covenant with 4 Mercere rather than just one. Player character covenants are the exception to the rule filled with mixed houses and ecentric characters.

In my game, I try to suggest that because we are a covenant of mixed houses and ecentric magi that is what seperates us from the average covenant. We are the player characters after, the saga is about us. Rather than feel obligated to point out how our covenant is average, I try to point out how we are exceptional. It's that sort of thing that makes us the heros and villians of the stories we tell.

Chuck

This was news to me, although i'm not foreign to the consept of "house aligned covenants". Tremere (acording to HoH TL) seem to have largely been organized in this way. But they made a decision to mix more sometime in the last couple of centures (Lazy mans Parma) And Domus Magnae are naturally single house covenants, aren't they?
The consept with "house aligned covenants" is rather interesting though, and can make good oponents in a saga. That Merinita covenant, we don't trust them, they're flaky and untrustworthy and has way to close ties to the faeries. And that Tytalus covenant over there, don't get me started, just don't get their attention!

That should work fine, and seem like an interesting premise for a saga.

In our saga, I at least, often assume that npc covenants are dominated by one - four of it's members, which largely determine it's policy. This may be a totally faulty assumtion, but it's sort of an easy one to make. If it appears that a covenant is much more fragmented, multifaceted or harder to understand than this, it's like throwing a red flag. It might peak our interest, what is it with theese guys anyway? We all have a need to make sense of our enviroment, and I assume, so do charaters and magi.

For our last short-lived Covenant:
Ex Misc. : Gentle Gift , Creo Specialist (Extreme min/max).
Ex Misc. : Gentle Gift , Generalist with Rego leanings
Jerbiton : Gentle Gift , Terram Specialist
Tytalus : Standard Gift , Perdo Specialist

8 Ex Misc
4 Jerbiton
4 Merinita
3 Criamon (one was a Quaesitor too)
3 Tytalus
2 Bjornaer
2 Flambeau
2 Mercere
2 Verditius
1 Bonisagus
1 Tremere

EDIT : Stats for all my sagas instead of just one.