[OOC] Designing the Characters

Role-playing games Saga of Voluntas
#21

As a bit of a meta question - I was planning on my character being more focused on lost magic than on hedge magic - are you going to be ok with a magus that uses the covenant as a home base but does some world traveling? Or will that be a pain? Either because of the separation from the group or because of the extra game stuff being dragged in? Still at the early planning stages so can go in other directions.

Also, to let everyone know, I have an idea for a German expat alewife who brought a bunch of recipes for hopped beer to England (it’s basically just been invented in the last 100 years) who could be either a companion or a grog; and who might provide a secondary income source for the covenant.

#22

I think you need to think about how your character travels.

Now with enough wealth you can use the network of Mercere Portals. It’s probably possible to get anywhere the Order has reached in at most three jumps. But to get to the remote places of lost magic you will have to go beyond that which will take seasons of time.

And the further you travel the more time you do not spend in the Lab.

I don’t see this as a problem as long as we can keep the focus flowing between the players so each mage gets a time focussed on their particular obsession.

(How far were you thinking of travelling? There’s a fair bit of published stuff focussed on the pre-Abrahamic magics of the Middle East. There’s a lot of stuff about Arabia and Africa: but that isn’t exactly ‘lost’ more ‘belonging to other people’. There’s material about the extreme fringes of the ancient Greek world too.)

#23

Magical travel - Invisible + Flying, Leap of Homecoming, etc. Also, he will look for stuff closer to home before he ventures outward. Do you want me to build in ancient magics he’s heard a little about that he’s interested in, or do you prefer to originate that kind of thing?

#24

Two things for you to consider:

If you choose to travel by magical means exclusively then you are going to have difficulty taking any support (Companions, Grogs, Magi who don’t have your abilities) with you.

In remote places you would have to recruit new followers and then abandon them. Finding people who will associate with a wizard may be difficult far from home. (And your sodales in other lands may not want to lend your their friends and employees.)

I’m not going to object to running solo adventures for you but it would be more dangerous.

Also, consider how many languages you need: some forms of research will need the (Dead Language) skill just to start finding things out.

#25

Noted. Maybe we’ll make a flying ship or something, if other players want to get involved. (It’s not as hard as it sounds.)

Do you want to break into individual character threads if questions come up during character creation, or do you prefer to keep it all in one?

#26

For general pre-game discussion, let’s chatter here generally.

Once you’ve actually got a character you want to present create a new thread with the following title format:

{CHARACTER] The History of ;INSERT NAME HERE]

I was looking at the idea of a flying carpet for a while today before I remembered I had players to do the hard work for me.

Three separate enchanted items that work together. The Carpet which flies in response to voice commands (Rego Animal for a wool carpet). For a little more effort and cost you could have it be intelligent and fly without concentration being needed.

The seating and cargo: Wicker chairs and baskets enchanted to keep their contents safely in place while the carpet is in flights (Rego Corporem? as you’re affecting the human bodies?)

The navigational device that shows the Earth beneath and your position relative to starting point and maybe destiny. (Intelligo Terram)

#27

The decanter endlessly full of fine brandy… what do you mean we don’t have brandy? I AM FALLEN AMONG BARBARIANS.

#28

Try a goblet of mead, Magister or perhaps some more medicinal metheglin to settle your humours.

#29

I will be away at the UK GRAND TRIBUNAL convention this weekend, hopefully picking up tips and inspiration.

If you are not yet happy to discuss your Magus,might I suggest talking about your Companions while the cat’s away?

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#30

I am having alternate ideas to a Pralician; I was thinking about a Rusticiani, and wondering about a rules interpretation that seriously affects the way they work, to wit, whether they have to choose a craft and use their magic with that craft only, or whether it can work with any craft they learn.

Also, are you ok with delving into Mysteries, or wanting to keep things more vanilla?

#31

I hope you had a good weekend at the convention.

I have started working my way through character creation and have logged the concept as I work through virtues, flaws and abilities and arts.

Hope this is what is intended - do let me know if I have misfired!

#32

I’m fine with whatever you are happy with. I assume the idea is to have your character tied in with the ‘bowyer, archer and fletcher’ that Julia of Jerbiton had contact with in a previous generation?

It looks to me as though the intent is for a Rusticani to have the ability to craft magic only with ‘a particular craft’ so I’m afraid your magus would not be a Renaissance Man and skilled in many things. Please feel free to ask on the Atlas Games forum for confirmation or refutation.

I’m fine with the idea of exploring the Mysteries but I don’t want them at character creation but rather as a thing the PCs have to search out during game play.

#33

Yes, that’s fine and I’ve already commented on the start of your Jerbiton character.

Everyone, please feel free to start with the character creation process wherever you feel best suits you.

Worry about stats and abilities first or Flaws and Virtues or as DJCT has done with the character’s social origins and where they were apprenticed.

#34

Your interpretation is common, though not universal, which is why I asked, but I won’t argue. Craft skills are very wonky, I’m fine with having just one, but the “coverage” of individual skills is weird and inconsistent between books (so in need of SG interpretation). Just keeping to the relevant questions: Can a Craft Woodcarver make bows and arrows and cudgels (basically anything wooden)? Can a Craft Weaponsmith make any kind of weapon, from swords to bows to crossbows to arrows?

I definitely wasn’t intending to start with any mystery stuff, just for character goals.

To be honest, I missed the connection with Julia, but sounds like something I might use, maybe my character’s parens. Where is that written?

#35

Thanks - my flaws and virtues are inherent in the story - I think I will mark up the text to indicate them!

#36

A Woodcarver can carve anything from wood that doesn’t require a separate Craft. Crafting an arrow requires Fletcher. Crafting a bow requires Bowyer. You’re not forbidden from having other craft skills as a Rusticanus. But only one of them is your magical focus.

(As a matter of curiosity, if you want to be a Crafting Magus why a Rusticanus rather than a Verditius? A Verditius doesn’t have a restriction on the number of Crafts he may use, as far as I can recall, though he would tend to specialise.)

And the reference to Julia is on p130 of HoH:S concerning Voluntas’ dealings with one Robert Wood, who dwelt in the forests near the covenant. See also the village at what is now called (but wasn’t then) ‘Robin Hood’s Bay’.

#37

Reason is just to do something different than what I usually do. (My usual characters are either Pralician or Verditius.) I’m still indecisive whether to go ahead as Pralician or do something else. I will decide in the next couple of days and start a thread.

#38

I’ve settled on building a Verditius.

I have a question about Puissant Ability. The way the virtue reads, when applying to abilities like Craft or Living Language; it could add to all instances of the ability (ie multiple languages, or multiple crafts), or just one. I’ve seen it done the former way as a house rule; but looking at the text of the virtue, that could be a vanilla interpretation, too. How do you interpret it?

#39

Glad to hear your decision: I look forward to your first mad project. (Read GIRL GENIUS for inspiration.)

I’m going to say that I like vanilla and for two reasons.
Firstly, that it’s only a minor Virtue and you can specifically take it multiple times.
Secondly, if it did cover every single Craft in one then no Veriditius would ever be created without it and I can find no such character in any of the official publications I looked in. Quod erat demonstrandum.

#40

I’ve been hooked on Girl Genius from the very beginning :smiley:

This is a grandiose fellow who’s good at Rego Terram and has a good finesse, he probably made a new tower :wink: (Or more than one, actually).