Quite a niche game, but the build-your-own magic system is a cool thing to play around with

Quite a niche game, but the build-your-own magic system is a cool thing to play around with.

If you have played it, care to share any noteworthy magical highjinks?
Also, interesting and novel ideas of using Mentem (Mind) magic for making enchanted items.

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Been working on setting up a game with some friends. Two of the players are kinda averse to highly magical characters, so we are planning to have them be the mundane support of the circle. For all the stuff most mages are crap at. As in, everything but magic.

Haven't played, sadly, since my group prefers lighter games. I've got another group that might be interested, though, so maybe in the near future.

For enchanted items in Mentem, an invested item with several Voice-range effects for easy hypnotism (one to make them forget something, one to make them trust you, and so on) would be a fun combo. It's also perfect for subtle curses on items: give someone an invested item with a cool effect, but it also has a trust-boosting effect that it slips in while their Parma's down. Maybe even full-on mind control if you're good enough.

I know there's a book that has an item that produces a mental lab, probably in Covenants, but I don't published material counts as novel.

Are they absolutely certain about this? There's a reason the book suggests everyone has a magus and a companion. If they're sure, they could use a Mythic Companion template (1 free minor Virtue, then twice as many points of Virtues for Flaws).

Either way, have fun.

Yeah, that was the direction I was going for. Multilayered artifacts, that have an obvious use, but also subtly influence people.

I am also planning to develop pairs of earrings that could be used like a walkie-talkie. Would be quite an undertaking, as it would need intellego imaginem/mentem (to capture speech/words in thought), rego mentem (to transfer them to the other earring) and creo mentem/imaginem to either play it back or directly speak into the thoughts. The individual components should be low level spells, but it depends on what the GM thinks of the combination.

One of the players is pretty adamant in playing a mundane character. I will be trying to deck him out in useful magic items soon to give him a bit more even ground.
The other player is still undecided. I tried to pitch him a redcap as a compromise. The advantages of full magus-ship(except parma), with a training more focused on practical skills.

If you're doing direct mind-to-mind, you wouldn't need the Imaginem, just an Intelligo at touch range and a Creo at Arcane Connection range. If you're only doing it a few words at a time (which would mean unlimited use, so extra levels there), it should be relatively cheap.

If he insists on being mundane, I recommend finding him some non-Hermetic items. Having him find a single endless-duration Parmula (from the True Lineages book, gives the wearer a magic resistance, but normally stops working after a year). It also gives the other players an obvious research project, and works to draw him into Hermetic politics even as a mundane.

Thanks, I will check that out. And ask the GM about which books he would like to allow. We are still waiting on some more concrete information about what we are going to run.

So far, I am planning to play a magus of house Verditius, whose ancestry has some dwarven blood a few generations up.
He is on pretty good terms with his dwarven great-greatuncle, as much as you can be on good terms with a faerie, and learned smithing from him.

Now, of course, everyone expects him to be a fantastic Terram practitioner and use his combined Verditius and Dwarven heritage to create the typical impenetrable armours and legendary weapons.
But, as a young mage, he is still a rebellious little cunt, and wants to walk his own path. So, he turned to mentem magic instead of the obvious terram.

The game plan is basically to have the players be very green mages fresh out of the apprenticeship and gauntlet. And they basically get "volunteered" by the order to man a research outpost near some magical anomaly, that has been inactive for decades, so noone wants to watch over it.

Sounds like a fun concept, both character and game. Do you know anything about the anomaly to begin with, or is "just" a weird aura that the Order feels like they should watch?

We don't know anything yet. Probably just a weird magical aura. Maybe an entrance to a faerie realm, that has been closed for as long as anyone can remember. Unimportant enough, that no one with real work to do wants to be stuck there. But just in case someone needs to be there.

I am by far the most enthusiastic among our group, trying to make it happen, while the rest all want to play, but do not show very much initiative. And it does not help, that the mother of our GM is getting cancer treatments at the moment.
I hope we can manage a session 0 in the next 2 weeks.

As a Verditius mage, who cannot use formulaic magic without some kind of magical utensil, I am planning to use keys with various engravings and inscriptions. And casting will look like me unlocking an invisible door to cast spells. A key ring or chain should still be rather inconspicuous, compared to a bandolier of magic wands. And as an added bonus keys and locks should give great shape bonuses for enchanting mentem magic.

The only issue I see, is getting mentem vis for the enchanting. From the examples in the rulebook, mentem seems to be a bit harder to acquire than most other vims. Magical beasts carrying it are rarer or more elusive.

Neat idea for the casting tools. If you're worried about vis, you could get Personal Vis Source (core) or Imbued with the Spirit of Mentem (Realms of Power), or bargain with the other players for first access to technique-based vis.

If everyone else is a bit low on initiative, I suggest coming up with a good long-term project that you can pull people into. Underwater base, original research, start a cult, whatever. Something anyone could help with, regardless of specialization. That also should help the GM, since they can give you a plot hook they know you'll like, and have some idea where you're going.

The system wants you to never be a mage, and they just want you to be the companions. When I read that, I lost interest for the game. I don't want to spend 50-75% of the game watching the wizard jerk off in the library... instead of BEING the wizard.

I've always wanted to run/play this game but the system intimidates my players too much. Anytime I try to find a group online it comes with all the failings of most online groups (complete with perverts and proselytizing neopagans).

This and Pendragon are the two dream games of mine I'll never get to play.

>proselytizing neopagans
That's kinda surprising to me. Why wouldn't they get assblasted about the whole
>the LORD is the most powerful being in existence, no power can overturn Him, and His power can overturn all others
deal? or do they just argue with the GM that the Divine should use the Faerie aura interactions (or should the pagan gods use the Dominion)?

They'd usually argue with everyone at the table that the divine realm is overpowered, not realizing that's the point.

It's amazing (not really) how well not reading/understanding the book correlates to being a shitty player. Doesn't even matter what you're running.

Best of luck finding a good group, eventually.

Thanks. I'm slowly trying to convince my group to do it someday.

I ran a game briefly. Unfortunately, the group fell apart because of some stuff that happened between the players. There was that time with the bees, though. An experiment to produce some enchanted bees that would produce vis-containing honey succeeded. Unfortunately, the bees made Perdo vis, and this had a side-effect of the bees' venom causing people's flesh to melt when they got stung. This was causing some serious distress to the farmers near Killarney, so the PCs had to break out the Animal magic to calm down the melty aggro bees. Sadly, the plot hook that it was leading to never got to go anywhere. The plan was to have the bees be a product of a Welsh wizard who was part of the Augustan Brotherhood, and was REALLY enthusiastic about animations. His work was going to show up every now and then, as would a bunch of other wizards', to create an sense of everybody knowing everybody else and emphasise how small the Gifted community is. And, of course, to provide an opportunity to get the PCs involved a political conspiracy to restore the Roman province of Britannia, if they were interested. And given that current rulers of that province's territory were currently trying to take over Ireland, that plan could have consequences closer to home.

>Magic Africanized bees
Jesus Christ, how horrifying.

I got the idea from here:
objectdreams.tumblr.com/post/159834937359/beekeeping-manual-written-using-a-predictive-text

The part right below liquefying sounds a lot like a Faerie. If I'm able to pull a group together, I might use that for a plot hook.

In a game now. Totally don't understand the spell construction levels (I'm not a numbers guy) but I love how freeform the magic is!

I'm currently playing a Jerbiton who's a hypersocial folk healer with Gentle Gift. Lots of Creo and Terram in particular; tends to throw dirt at things.

The cool part thematically with her has been that most wizards don't really have a choice with their Gift, but really, she could walk away at any time and have a reasonably normal life. She's got to balance her extrovert nature with her magical gifts, and that's not trivial. I think I'm channeling why I left grad school after the MA to some extent, to be honest.

Also, we're playing in northern Greece in the Theban tribunal, which is new and different for me. The GM's a medieval Near East buff, like, he's lived over there for studies and everything, so it's been super cool to explore on a cultural level. My studies were mostly on Indochina so this is worlds away from both that and the western European pastiche most fantasy games draw on.

bump

Has anyone ever tried or considered running the game in a fantasy setting instead of historic medieval Europe?

OP here after a good night's sleep. Our GM was online for a few hours last night, and we could clear up some basics. Among others I could get my character greenlit and set some details for the backstory.


The gist is basically, that according to the Realms of Power: Faerie supplement dwarves are fantastic craftsmen, especially smiths, but can not into innovation. They basically never picked up any of the cutting edge metallurgy, that is becoming all the rage in medieval europe (like steel). But instead they have some of their own tricks. Working mythical metals. The usual Mithril, Adamantium stuff.

But those secrets they never, ever share with human outsiders. My great-granduncle made the mistake of promising me to show me one or two neat little tricks. But he stressed, that "if I laid my eyes on those secrets, I would never be able to leave the dwarven realms, or it would be the last they ever saw".

And thus my character, in true dick-mage fashion, learned from him while only keeping one of his eyes opened, then afterwards stabbing it out and leaving. Forcing the faeries to let him go on a shitty phrasing technicality.

The blame fell on my uncle, so he got exiled himself. We still have contact, but the relationship has been quite cold since then. But since my character went into his 15 year mage apprenticeship without sharing any of those secrets, relations have warmed up a little bit again. It helps that he has dwarf blood and is not complete outsider.

Yeah, for me it's the masquerade element I'd like to get rid of. I kind of want to use a Europe that knows about the mages, by and large. That's not a fantasy setting per se, but it'd be different enough that it might as well be.

Magical killer bees are such a dick-move. The size modificators alone are a nightmare.

Makes me want to get at least a handful of points in the animal magic, just in case.

At least the chapters on Mythic Europe in the 5th edition are pretty open about magic in daily life.

>In Mythic Europe, the supernatural is a part
of the lives of most peasants. Minor magical creatures and faeries visit villages, or live in the crop
fields, or watch over the pigs foraging in the local
woods.

And the existence of the Order of Hermes and people buying small magical trinkets from them is also an open secret. Not everyone may know of it, but noone is actively trying to hide its existence.

Of course it depends on the GM and how he handles his game.

The system does not coerce you to mainly have adventures using your companions. Laboratory and library work usually gets done through a timeskip between seasons or even years.

Hell, my last mage's companion was a monk, who got outcast by his order because he harbored sympathies towards the magi. So, my mage went on the adventures and exciting quests, while the monk had to stay in the library and copy my research texts.

As a last bump, I want to thank everyone who contributed to this shortlived discussion. I know that this is not a very popular game, and that D&D and W40k rule wide swaths of this board with an iron fist. But I am still happy to have gotten some idea exchange.

Wizard on, spacecowboys.

I have mixed feelings about the troupe aspect. The mage/companion duo makes a bit of sense to keep the players interacting with each other, though. I just don't see a point in trying to keep the mages as cloistered as possible. Let's go out and do stuff, damn.