Who's in the "Seal Team" of the Order?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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In the entire Order, who are the most dangerous specialisits (or "Masters of Stealth & Death")?
I need the most likely and interesting candidates from all corners.
In my campaign, the dark faeries captured Durenmar - and the characters have now two years later found a "sneak" way into the hidden regio where it now is, and are looking to conduct a stealth mission with limited slots (and time). They're presenting this at the Grand Tribunal for official sanction, (and unless they make a mess of the debate, a crack team will be put together).

Very high Faerie aura is expected, possibly a hostile Aegis (characters are dealing with it). Stealth is critical. Use of not only combat (vs Animal-based enemies, faeries and possibly undead draugr), but knowledge and use of Faerie Lore, Vim, Imaginem and anti-glamour may also be needed.
Note: Very few Merinita would consider joining (which is one of the problems, as they'd be much less disadvantaged with Faerie Magic and knowledge) - but one or two of the less conforming could.

So give me your nominees for the team if you have them! Mainly from Ars canon - but I'll take a good/fun non-canon or two as well). Ideally I'm looking for one from each Tribunal (to get the "Order comes together" effect. This will be a late 1229 or 1230 expedition.

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Someone from the Path of Strife from House Criamon. Basically they get to be violent, and to add their Enigmatic wisdom as a bonus to their primary weapon score. They also tend to be good with Vim.

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The Merinita one would be the absolute double agent. The magi is part of a mystery cult who are annoyed at the change of direction of the house from Nature focused to fae. The mystery cult is full of anti-fae stuff.

The magi has a Fae's Eternal Oblivion mastered to level 5 for fast cast, multi cast and penetration; Anti glamour gear or second sight at a high level; A high parma; Arcane connections to greater Fae; Fae-fighting focused items.This magi has been waiting for this show down for ever.

They've been hiding in plain sight. They can operate in Fae Regio's perfectly as they have the Merinita House Mystery. They are a respected member of the Merinita house.

A possible story element is this Magi's help would be conditional on getting assistance to expose Quendalon as a fae, not a magi, and that Merinita need to be returned to their roots.

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The Tremere have the "Cold Iron Vexillation" that specialise in "settling disputes with faeries" - see pg 122 of HoH:TL for more details, but I don't think there are any statted out members anywhere, just a note that "each member of this vexillation has faerie blood, is a competent soldier, and a skilled diplomat".

More generally, "Seal Team" says to me "core of Tremere with specialists from other Houses who have relevant skills and are willing to work usefully with the Tremere".

For a mission like this you probably also want a significant magic item loadout, as those won't have the same botch dice problem that casting in a strong foreign regio will have for anyone without an attunement to Faerie auras (whilst Faerie Magic is the main source of alignment for this, there's also Dark Magic from Faith and Flame). Alternatively / supplementing this, pre-cast spells - for example, create your own undead horde or wolf packs and bring them in with you. There's room for some characters to be significant in supplying the mission without actually going in.

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You beat me to it! But for this kind of "Avengers assemble" moment where representatives from a variety of Houses are what's wanted for meta reasons, I think the Tremere representative would be the Epicurean, the anonymous/communal identity spearhead of the Cold Iron Vexillation.

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You're going to need an additional group of determined, powerful magi to handle, one way or another, the Tytali you turn away. Because you can't take them all.

The Guardians of the Rhine only has one Tytalus written up. I assume because the authors were too cowed to include the Dweller.

If you think House Tytalus would believe this a Big Deal, you could have the Prima and the Primus both put send a champion, or Porphyrion - mentioned in the Normandy book as a possible third contender - puts himself forward.

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SEAL Team? That's Tremere. Definitely Tremere. Nobody else makes teams like that.

Not any Tremere, obviously, but I am sure they have a SEAL team somewhere.

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The Bjornaer member has an actual seal Heartbeast…

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Ballack of Tytalus very famously and successfully laid siege to Praesis in the Hybernian Tribunal - a siege is sorta the opposite of a sneak attack, but I could see him volunteering as a way to get ahead of his mountain of debts, and maybe make a rep for himself as the City Taker. He's also been in Ireland for a minute which might justify him having some Faerie Lore. He's also a right bastard, which might make him a spicy character to add to the team (very fun to roleplay for the right player.) He also has a built in companion, Oscar von Harz, a giant wielding a DEEPLY evil spear.

I also feel like if they make a mess of things, you could have a fun pivot to "Well, now we have to recruit a crackshot (and/or crackpot) team from OUTSIDE the order" so, some Muspelli, Goetics, Folk Witches, etc.

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Who's in the "Seal Team" of the Order?

from Imgflip Meme Generator

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I've sat down now with my books and started writing a fairly lengthy post with suggestions, but it struck me - @OriginalMadman to what extent would you say you're looking for the "Ars Magica Avengers" - magi who have relevant qualifications, but in particular showcase the unified strength of the Order, the diversity of its members, include iconic NPCs etc? Versus who would "actually" be sent, which would likely be a question with a lot of political dimensions even in a crisis of this magnitude?

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Many years ago, either in 4th Ed or perhaps the GotF book I recall reading about a mage with a stupidly high PM (8 is the number that comes to mind) is hired to disarm the Sancta of Magi that Tribunal has determined/ declared dead/final Twilight.
Would hebe useful?

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Sebastian of House Tytalus from the Greater Alps, in Sanctuary of Ice for the 4th edition. He sent a letter of introduction to my players in case they wanted to hire him to break into anything in their reclaimed-from-Winter covenant but they didn't need his services.

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Could you elaborate on the Vim part?

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I don't think the Order is quite capable (not in my saga at least) to put together the ideal "Avengers", but it will be a team built on politics and concessions (with good roleplay ops ofc). The self-important primi will want to make it look like unified strength, but isn't really.

I think the suggestions so far has been great, and a couple I hadn't thought about. I'll need to shortly figure the Orders shortlist (either canon NPCs, or some I make) - as well as figure the political maneuvering at the Grand Tribunal (and outside).

The characters will have some control of who gets picked (but not complete, as they're still "junior" in the Order). There will definitely be a Quaesitor or two, and some hoplites (mainly got those covered).

I can add that the saga 135 sessions in, has had less than a single handful of fights (but they have been in a couple of major skirmishes with the faeries). None of the characters, while actually very capable, are optimized for combat. One is even a pacifist - but he can heal, motivate and defend + bestow Enigma's Gift, even though he's not a Criamon. He's actually a Merinita converted from Jerbiton, IKR - long and crazy arc, but interesting. He made the switch to Merinita under Prima Handri's guidance - so is basically considered a filius.

I can also mention that the Tytalus character (Mentem and Vim specialist) was apprenticed to Prima Buliste (as a tormenting master) and she'll surely both deride and bully him on this as much as she can. Harpax may try to use him against Buliste. He's also the required Vim and portals master, who's found the mystic path to Durenmar, and will have to guide people and open the closed regiones.

The Tremere character (also Mentem specialist) is filius to Janus, spymaster of Tremere, and reasonably in trust - but not really (there's always internal scheming) and very capable (unbeknownst he's dabbled in forbidden Diedne secrets, including bone-biting and spontaneous techniques - ofc these can't be used too overtly).

The fourth and last character is a capable Verditius, who's decent at Perdo, Terram and Vim. His items will solve several problems (burrowing, visibility, negative aura and aegis-dampening).

As a separate campaign track (think similar to Dies Irae), the characters are convinced House Criamon is a huge conspiracy and will definitely try to avoid having any of them involved (which can likely fail). They've encountered Brighde (unpleasantly so) before, and she might be an interesting "pick" with multiple implications.

Archmagus Urgen ex Bjornaer is also a not entirely unlikely candidate, and known entity for them. But uncertain if he'd appreciate being on such a team (but he likes a fight).

Epicurean is a likely direct fit (or at least prominent in the process).

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Durenmar has fallen! Where the order started. It's spiritual heart. To me, this is a crisis, that only the Diedne Schism surpasses. Anyone wanting in, I'd be thinking would be allowed.

There's be some vetting. I suggest have every single magi drop their parma one after the other and have to answer some questions under "Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie".

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Came here to say “Sebastian.”

I actually wrote him up for my HBO Ars Magica campaign. So you may find this useful.

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At least in my saga, this will never happen - the distrust and scheming will be at an all time high. Dropping Parma to other magi is incredibly rare in normal times (remember the Gift - unless Gentle - causes immediate distrust which may hit like an all too familiar hammer as soon as Parma is dropped).

For sure it is a major crisis, but it's more seen as brought on by Durenmar's own folly. After all, the Code warns agains aggravating the faeries. While a tragedy that needs to be rectified, few magi are convinced the faeries are a real threat beyond.

Additionally, in my saga - at the spring equinox just before the Grand Tribunal, some sort of magical shockwave or backlash was felt all over Mythic Europe. Nobody knows for sure what happened, but it seems to have changed some fundamentals of Magic, including how Duration:Moon works (characters already managed to sort out a fix - damn lucky dice!) and some Rego effects (I took the opportunity to blatantly "fix" teleportations, such as Leap of Homecoming, spells that ruins way too much fun).
At least the characters have some hints and are convinced that Criamon cast some large ritual to breach the moonsphere, but thats dynamite they're reluctant to bring forth in unknown territory. Nevertheless, these uncertainties on what's going on takes the edge of the Durenmar crisis.

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I refreshed on Ballack (p. 47 and more in Contested Isle), and he'd be a very interesting addition. Good suggestion. He'd need to be quite desperate to leave Praesis unguarded under the circumstances though. Since my saga is mainly set in Rhine and he's from there, it could be an interesting backdrop to some other latent things. It'd be quite fun to have him even from the characters covenant - before they came to it (doable), and the terrible spear being the real version of the now semi-fake artifact spear they do have haha... (hopefully the bastards aren't reading this).

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I'm picturing a bunch of insanely powerful mages, all close to both final twilight and their 2 century, squabbling about who gets to use their mass destruction spell first. Because it's a mass destruction spell, and the order normally gets cranky when you use it.

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