From Ars Magica

Revision as of 21:49, 18 March 2006

Important Notice

While I'm happy with how our first experiment in wiki posting is proceeding, for plot reasons, I would like all players to refrain from posting on behalf of the NPCs for a little while, for plot reasons.

Editing Notes

Sub-headings

The headings are fairly arbritrary; feel free to change, add, or remove them. They are there to make it easier for us to read and edit the story, however at the moment, it rather appears that it assigns certain parts of the story to certain characters. Anyone can post anywhere.

Setting Notes

The Inn is a two storey timber frame structure built over a stone basement. The ground floor rooms have low ceilings supported by sturdy wooden beams. There is no fire in the hearth. There are two serving girls, one of whom is called "Roan", the other "Lucia".

The ground floor has two main living rooms for the patrons to use, though on this day, only one of the two is in use.

As it is the Sabbath, there are fewer people on the road, and most of those taking supper are enjoying a day long break in their journey down Watling street, and beyond. Please note, the Sabbath is a Saturday, not Sunday, and the issue of whether or not it is still a day of rest at this time isn't something I've managed to find a conclusive statement on, one way or the other. For the time being, I'm assuming that Saturday is a day of rest, and Sunday is a day when special services are held.

Mealtimes: Once the guests are sat at the empty table, the serving maids will sprinkle it with strewing herbs, and then bring out bowls of water for the characters to wash their hands, after which they will bring platters of food. Guests will be expected to provide their own cups and knife. Forks exist, but are considered vulgar. Neighbours may share cups if they choose.

Errata

If you amend the text so something below no longer applies, then please delete it from the list, or move it into the 'Old Errata' section, below. Please use sub-headings.

Unresolved Issues

Old Errata

Period Clothing

Not that it matters, but I don't think that bodices were much in use (if at all) in the 13th century, they're a later period innovation. Essay on 13th century clothing - JBforMarcus.

Ah, ta! Bodice is one of the words in the list of 13th Century terms from the Brother Cadfael books I posted on this wiki recently, so I simply assumed... :) This has been corrected.

Inn Period?

As, for that matter, are this sort of inn - but for game purposes they are very useful. --OldNick 06:28, 13 March 2006 (PST)

From the research I carried out, this sort of Inn can be found in major towns, and this particular inn is based off of a late 13th/early 14th century ruin near the south coast of England. Out in the sticks, an inn would be a fairly small, one storey affair, with just one room for drinking and the like, and no real accommodation, or food. While the latter is more realistic, it presents certain logistical problems that the gift complicates significantly. As the inn lies on such a heavily-travelled, and well-known road, and in a manor that has just had a fair bit of money splashed upon it by the king, I decided to push my luck a bit by upgrading it, er, slightly. :)

I was wondering about that, but they are soooooo useful as a plot device. Let's just assume that the Innkeeper is ahead of his time when it comes to stuff like that - heck, why else would the balif and his men make it a hang out?--Rencheple 07:25, 13 March 2006 (PST)

The Bailiff wouldn't (?) normally frequent the inn, but today for some reason, he needs to be around people. Maybe he is simply joining his men for a bit of revelry because they find it hard to let their hair down at the manor?

Continuity : Arrival Times

There is a six hour period between Marcus' arrival and Bedo's in which the seven of us (counting mundanes but not animals ( :-) )) have to wait. At what point do the last two paragraphs of Eirlys' section and the Preparations section take place? --Rencheple 04:35, 14 March 2006 (PST)

Talking of time... Bedo arrives near dusk, Longinus Shortly after dusk and then Eirlys A bit before sundown. If I'm reading this correctly, Eirlys arrives hot on the heels of Bedo, with Longinus not so long after - possibly while she is upstairs? Could we get a clarification please, or something? Ta. --Perikles 06:46, 14 March 2006 (PST)

Good point - I'd read that as Eirlys arriving first of the three, then Bedo, then Longinus. Do we swap the descriptions, or the order? --OldNick 06:54, 14 March 2006 (PST)

If we change the order of the posts, then we'll have to adjust some of the NPCs actions. If the players don't object, I'd recommend that we change the character's order or arrival and have Eirlys arrive just after dark. --Rencheple 13:30, 14 March 2006 (PST)

Yes, the Eirlys post should be moved/altered so that it we need to do the least alteration overall to maintain continuity. I like this suggestion. --James\\^Talk 16:31, 14 March 2006 (PST)

The entrance of Eirlys being before or after Longinus might be quite important. I get the impression already that Longinus and Eirlys are going to have a somewhat ... abrasive relationship. It won't be helped if the first time they meet he starts telling her off - which is a likely event if he should be there and she makes an entrance matching her current exploits.

Otherwise, I'm happy for the entrances to be in any order. I only put Longinus' entrance after dusk because that made it easier to resolve the timing issues at that stage. He'd not be impressed at his own lateness I think. ;-) - Corbon

Discussion

Current Discussion

Llewys

As Alicia, and her abilities, grew in part out of the seed that we'd originally planted for Llewys, I'm going to re-image the lad and post him to the NPC section sometime soon, possibly even adjusting his age a bit down - we'll see. James has given me a little bit of leeway reagrding him, and we've both expressed an interest in seeing him growth within the covenant. Please feel free to use him within the confines of the rules for NPCs in your posts. I imagine he'd be particularly fond of Aloysius. --Rencheple 19:17, 15 March 2006 (PST)

Parma Ritual

Nice little reminder about the parma ritual from the actions of Mnemosyne. However, I had assumed that as long as the Magi are not in 'public' with mundanes, that as the old internal clocks go off an each feels their parma go down there would be a collective 'break' for a couple of minutes.I had sort of envisaged the magi feeling the parma go down with the sun, and at that stage being together in the second room, apart from Eirlys I believe, would have quietly drawn apart from each other and cautiously followed through the ritual while careful watching each other.I can live with having this view changed, but I think that the line of when to have to state 'parma is being raised' and when it is automatically assumed to be being raised must be drawn somewhere. While I don't wish to relegate the importance of the ritual entirely, I don't really want to have to constantly remember it the way a magus does. I don't have the reminders or threats to keep my instincts honed.... Corbon

I agree. I don't really want to have Mnemosyne forget something which should be second nature to her and just is not to me either. In this case, I thought it was quite amusing though and what with all the excitement and the talk which spanned the time from day to night, she might have forgotten about it without something to remind her. No one else has mentioned parma so far, so I wrote the post the way I did. I'd imagine that Longinus and Eirlys who both arrived after sunset would have already put their parma back up before arriving at the inn - which just left the rest of us being forgetful. However, I guess this is me deciding things for Phaedrus, Bedo and Ambrosius by forcing them to have made the slip as Mnemosyne through taking the ommision of anyone talking about it to mean that it didn't happen. This could be equated to me saying that as no one actually mentioned drinking, then the whole time we have been in the inn, no one has drunk - which is plainly ridiculous. On the other hand, no one has mentioned casting any spells and it seems fair to assume that no one has. Blah... Anyway, if people want, I can rewrite my portion of the scene - though that will mean that pretty much anything after Mnemosyne's opening greeting and departute may have to be rewritten by anyone who has posted after - which is one reason I am not a fan of the retroactive rewrite and prefer to live with my mistakes. However, if people feel that I'm infringing on their character sovereignty or am arsing up the post, then I'll rewrite.--Perikles 06:41, 16 March 2006 (PST)

That said, I too would like to assume that in future at least, unless there is some reason why the magi would not do this, they automatically refresh their parma whenever it goes down and they are able.--Perikles 06:41, 16 March 2006 (PST)

As a general guideline, I'd request that we try to avoid rewriting things like this once done - in this ccase there have been minor reactions already, even if just noting absense from the room, and even the choice not to react can be affected if changes are made later. Changing actions once other people have posted is always going to be a nuisance. In a face-to-face game changing your mind about actions later can be a real pain, and in this environment the nuisance factor is always going to be an order of magnitude greater.

That said, this is one of those scenes that we're going to micro-manage, probably more than most others, so writing up actions like that in it is a good idea. Later, when we're up-and-running I would have thought that we could agree that such things happen, except when it's either going to have a major effect on play, such as if we're watching a fairy rite as the sun sets, or standing before the local Bishop explaining a spate of baby-cooking, or when someone is making a deliberate point by not taking an action. --OldNick\\^Talk 07:20, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Old Discussion

Formatting Latin

Any chance we can agree to put all Latin, and only Latin, in italics, so as to differentiate to the reader? --Rencheple 14:09, 13 March 2006 (PST)

There are <m>lots</m> <m>of</m> <m>ways</m> to format text on a standard mediawiki, so it is just a case of a bit of experimentation, to find a way that hasn't been disabled by the host. :D

There is a lot of other formatting I'd like to put on this page, for instance, I'd like to add page margins via an invisible table so that it isn't super-wide on large monitors, but haven't so far, because lack of code makes it easy for anyone to edit, and I don't want to discourage anyone from editing. :P You are free to put any formatting, tags, etc. that you like on the page. --Ars Magica 18:06, 13 March 2006 (PST)

Could not whoever uses a super wide screen get to decide that for themselves? Adjusting the window width or some setting in the browser should have the same effect, and give the reader the choice. --Samuel 05:09, 14 March 2006 (PST)

I'll be using italics for latin myself - as long as I actually remember - though I'll try to make it clear which language I am speaking anyway. --Perikles 06:46, 14 March 2006 (PST)

How do I colour text?

Any idea how to color the text of a given post? I was thinking that it might be nice if I could make my additions all a maroon or navy blue...--Rencheple 18:21, 13 March 2006 (PST)

HTML font tags using the color attribute work, as shown here - take a look at the source ;-) --OldNick 06:04, 14 March 2006 (PST).

...or better still, thinking about it, the non-deprecated SPAN tag This is red text. Check the source --OldNick 06:07, 14 March 2006 (PST)

Colour Code

 This is the code referred to above:
 
 <font color=red> RED TEXT </font> shows  RED TEXT 
 <span style="color:red"> RED TEXT </span> shows  RED TEXT 

There is now a link to a colour chart with 140 colour names that can be used with the above commands in the OOC Editing Quick Reference table.

--James\\^Talk 16:31, 14 March 2006 (PST)

Make mine a double.

You know, maybe I should give Eirlys a Blatant Gift. It's just too much fun to be creepy and mess with people :) --Eirlys 14:48, 13 March 2006 (PST)

Nooooooo! Trust me, Eirlys doesn't need any more friends... You've already got the locals wondering where your pitchfork is. Thankfully, Eirlys is a Muto-Corporum bunny*, so rather than fretting for her longevity, I merely have to fret for the NPCs around her. :P --Ars Magica 17:50, 13 March 2006 (PST)
_{*her speciality, her groovy thing, etc.}

Heresay and Rumour

The Noah Webster Appreciation Society

Don't you Brits know how to spell Rumor? :-) Sheesh! You'd think you spell everything that way, lke Color or Catalog! --Rencheple 20:31, 14 March 2006 (PST)

James: "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against an English language teacher when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

James: [James stops suddenly, and falls dead to the right]

--James\\^Talk 21:49, 14 March 2006 (PST)

Conflict is good.

Regarding the anonymous post and James' explanation of it: I decided to play up Eirlys' prankster personality in our initial post to give a bit more color toward characterisation. If playing a mischievious unseelie type causes an issue with other players, whether for in-character reasons or OOC, I'd rather create a different character which would make a better addition to the covenant as a whole than cause problems with other players. Please feel free to just let me know if anyone feels there's a character conflict-- Eirlys can be stuffed in the box to be played for a later game if anyone objects to her. --Eirlys 23:24, 14 March 2006 (PST)

While Longinus will have issues, I actually would prefer some character conflict. As long as people don't take it personally it adds spice. And its not like half a dozen or more random strange people are likely to all get on together without issues is it? Please keep Eirlys, and feel free to play a love/hate, or hate/hate relationship with Longinus. Just don't take any of his complaints or comments personally. - Corbon

I have observed in other games that the inter-character relationships in PBEMs that have been most entertaining for the players involved, are one's where the characters, but not the players, have been at one another's throats. :D

If you agree out of character to have your characters utterly detest one another, and then run with it, I think the results could be amusing for everyone. --James\\^Talk 07:38, 15 March 2006 (PST)

I personally would like to see more of Eirlys's sense of humor (or is that humour?) I vote, keep her in the game. --Rencheple 08:19, 15 March 2006 (PST)

Perikles: I believe a gauntleted Hermetic maga, particularly one with Second Sight, would know the difference between a demon and a satyr. Also, Eirlys' dress goes just down to foot level; one hoof was very obvious when the innkeeper came to the door because she was arguing with Aloysius, and when you put your hands on your hips you tend to shift your body weight onto one foot or the other, so I figured one foot would be sticking out.

Ahh, the nature of demons is deception. If one wants you to think it is a Satyr, you'll think it is a Satyr, unless it really drops the ball. --Corbon 02:05, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Actually, Second Sight has nothing to do with this issue. Second Sight allows you to see invisible things or illusory things. Useful for seeing ghosts, peering into regios or penetrating a illusory disguise. It does not confer any knowledge about anything. Knowing about Satyr's would be under Faerie Lore, of which Mnemosyne has no XP in it and hence, knows nothing about - except perhaps the same usual rubbish a peasant might, much of which might be total rubbish. There were no Merinita at her previous Covenant and her parens was rather a stickler for the letter of the law. Do not molest the fae - which he saw as best doing by avoiding them whenever possible.--Perikles 06:17, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Because it allows the character to see through illusions, but also see regios (areas tied to a realm), I believe it would also give the information of what type of magic they're looking at. It doesn't explicitly indicate that, however, so perhaps this is a misassumption on my part. IMO, a person with second sight would probably see Eirlys almost always has a Muto Imaginem effect on her, and recognize it as faerie magic. Nothing too drastic-- she's just not quite as charismatic as she appears. --Eirlys 14:16, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Hmm... I haven't seen anything which implies this, where did you read this? I've been a bit erratic with the recent books and my old ones are all in storage. On the other topic, if you have a muto imaginem spell up on you, then there IS a chance that Mnemosyne - and the other magi present who have second sight too - could see through it. Could you let James know what it is, if he doesn't already know, so he can make rolls and inform us if we see anything odd. Of course, if we don't see anything odd, I don't expect to be informed :P Thanks.--Perikles 21:28, 16 March 2006 (PST)

It's a sponted "Aura of Ennobled Presence" with target: personal. --Eirlys 23:02, 16 March 2006 (PST)

You need to tell me precisely where you state that you were attempting to cast that spell. --James\\^Talk 13:26, 18 March 2006 (PST)

Hmm, looking at the spell, she can actually spont it at personal range with moon duration with no aura, assuming no botch. I didn't realize how easy a spell it was. So, rather than the "glamour" being a daily habit, it'd be a monthly habit. This is supposed to be something just for flavour, so if you'd like it can be something with no impact on social interactions, but merely something to make her look more pretty than she really is. It seemed like a very fey thing to do. --Eirlys 13:49, 18 March 2006 (PST)

Incidently... If you have the power to stick illusions on yourself, why not disguise your feet in the first place? --Perikles 21:28, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Because she doesn't feel there's anything wrong with her legs. She'll wear long skirts to avoid freaking people out, but she's not going to change what she is unless there's damn good reason to. Meeting magi for the first time would be a bad time to MuIm her legs to look normal -- what raises more suspicion, a satyr, or a creature using illusion to hide goat-legs? --Eirlys 23:02, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Location, location, location. In a populated, christian area the Satyr. Cloven feet = demon is a near universal instinct in my Mythic Europe, the presence of satyrs notwithstanding. Go to the middle of a known faerie forest, or a strongly pagan area and that instinct might just be modified a little.

A creature using an illusion to cover up cloven feet in a public place is just being sensible. If it really was a demon, magic couldn't see through the illusion anyway. I guess this might be one of the areas the house has been lax in educating... ;-)

I thought that was Hermetic magic, at least the description of the limit is in the "Hermetic magic" chapter and explicitely talks about Intelego and Hermetic. --Samuel^<Talk> 16:08, 17 March 2006 (PST)

And not get lynched or staked is something I personaally would consider a damn good reason. --Corbon 00:29, 17 March 2006 (PST)

Eirlys was brought up in a faerie regio and only left the regio in order to enter the relative seclusion of a covenant based apprenticeship, and has a flaw that represents her lack of 'common sense' regarding the outside world. I don't feel the way her character is acting is at odds with her background, or the setting. Besides which, her actions have already been acted upon, and it is too late to amend them. --James\\^Talk 13:26, 18 March 2006 (PST)

As for the skirts, I might have made the wrong assumptions here. From your post at the time I posted there was a section where the polecat berates Eirlys for not wearing the longer dress - from which I presumed that what she was wearing was not floor length as longer than floor length would result in trouble walking. This was also before the change to that section was made when the polecat advises Eirlys to adjust her skirts - which came after I posted Mnemosyne's reaction. Finally, as my fiance habitually wears floor length skirts and I can still her footwear pretty much whenever she walks, and there had been a great deal of attention directed to Eirlys' hooves already and as the innkeeper spotted them, I did not think that it was unreasonable for Mnemosyne to do the same. Perhaps this was a mistake.--Perikles 06:17, 16 March 2006 (PST)

It depends on the cut of skirt. I have one A-line skirt which is just barely above the ground for me (not by choice, but I have a weird build for someone as short as I am so this happens a lot with clothes). My feet stick out pretty much only when I'm leaning my weight on one leg; if I'm standing straight up, you don't see them, since the folds of the skirt go over it. There's another skirt, I'm not even sure what it's called, but if you stretched it out and laid it flat it would look like someone took two O shaped pieces of cloth, incised each O, then sewed their cut ends together. i.e. if I stretched it out while I was wearing it and wrapped it all around my legs, it would wrap around me quite a few times. That skirt is the same length on me as the other, but it's nearly impossible to see the pretty red shoes I wear with it unless I pick up my skirts when I'm walking up stairs. I figure when Eirlys is specifically trying to hide her feet from mundies, she's probably wearing a skirt not too different from the second one, but there's no way I'd walk even three blocks in that thing, so she's probably travelling in something more like the first. Aloysius probably should have told her that she should have worn the *fuller* skirt, but I hadn't really picked it apart at that point :) Actually, his words are probably a.o.k.- I wouldn't expect him to differentiate between fullness and length, because he doesn't care too much about clothes, except to laugh at her for wearing them :) --Eirlys 11:14, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Define foot level? Are we talking floor, ankle, or somewhere in-between? Did Eirlys arrive by carriage, horse, or on foot? I know that sounds trivial, but if you arrived on foot, your dress, if lower than your ankles, is going to look a right state. Mediaeval people did not know how to repair roman roads effectively, and certainly couldn't build one - that's why they had such a dramatic effect on the development of the country. I'm presuming that she didn't ride side-saddle, as I can't quite work out how that would work, given her anatomy. If we assume that she arrived by cart (and Wurt took her donkey/mule/pony and cart into the stable-yard after she entered), then that neatly solves the problem of her attire being unsuited to travel, part of the logistics of moving people and stuff to the covenant site, and why she didn't cause alarm amongst other travellers on the road to Church Stretton. What do you think?

There is also the small matter of the sound of her walking about on a cobbled floor, which would naturally draw attention to her feet. I have two goats as pets, so I've a fair idea of what it would sound like. Another fact is that Eirlys's walking movement, and the mere fact that parts of her legs bend forwards will mean that any person who observes her walking will know, instinctively, that there is something wrong with the way she walks.

One of the hardest challenges an animator can undertake, is to create a 'walk cycle' animation, where the character is effectively walking on a treadmill at a certain speed. The reason that it is so hard, is that unless your animation skills are really, bloody good, anyone can tell that it is wrong. People are experts on normal human movement, they watch humans move around all day long, and even working with motion-capture data is no guarantee that you'll be able to fool the viewer sufficiently that it won't break their sense of immersion. --James\\^Talk 19:02, 15 March 2006 (PST)

It would be just below floor length-- when she's not travelling, she'd normally wear full, thick wool skirts when she needs to hide among mundanes, but I figured those wouldn't be very conducive to travel-- even their very odd travel. In my head, I'd pictured them travelling most of the way through Faerie (because ain't no way she'd get on a ship, and she's coming from Scotland). Walk to tree, climb tree, jump off branch, land in regio. Visit with the locals there, some food and such, maybe do a few favors before leaving since it's rude to just hop right into someone's regio and be off without a how-do-you-do. Walk a little ways, smell a certain flower, fall asleep, wake up and turn three times widdershins with eyes closed, open eyes and you're in different regio, visit with *those* locals... that sort of thing. Omnes viae Arcadiam ducunt, and all that :) Probably ends up taking three times as long (or more) than travelling by conventional means, but it's what she's comfortable with. Most of the "travelling" she'd have been doing wouldn't have been actual road-travel so her clothes wouldn't be very beat up at all-- they're doing more faerie-partying than walking. The closest place they could emerge would probably be close enough that it wouldn't be too difficult to Muto Animal some poor deer into an oxen, and procure a small cart to ride the rest of the way.

Also, I guess this is a bit off topic, but I feel the need to remind everyone that Eirlys appears very, very young. (I'm trying to account for faerie longevity and such.) I figure she looks like she's about 14. Most Hermetic magi would probably think from looking at her, that there's no way she's anywhere near old enough for her gauntlet. --Eirlys 23:32, 15 March 2006 (PST)

 :-) Longinus just figured caution is best. She announced herself as a magus, has unusual eyes (hints at very least of fae blood) and a magical talking animal companion. At this stage she's more clearly a maga than the Kestral with a silent human companion. ;-) --Corbon 02:05, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Glad you pointed out her appearance actually - I was visualising her as much older looking. It's a useful thing to bear in mind during character interaction at the beginning at least, for preconceptions etc...--Perikles 06:29, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Also, regarding "thinking about which of her spells would stand the best chance of melting the demoness' mind" -- any grounded apprentice, and certainly a gauntleted mage, would know that Mentem does not affect demons; that would be Vim. --Eirlys 12:50, 15 March 2006 (PST)

Perikles is clearly talking about the effect, rather than the arts required to achieve the effect; had he somehow specified during the course of his post that he was specifically considering spells that employed Vim, it would, to my mind, have looked rather odd. I hope all this is useful for you. --James\\^Talk 19:02, 15 March 2006 (PST)

Actually, the fact that most mentem is less than effective against demons helps to explain exactly why Mnemosyne felt so panicked. No parma up and no spells which are likely to prove remotely useful. There are other reasons why Mnemosyne is rather nervous about demons - apart from the obvious - but she is really quite convinced that demons are the ultimate in bad news and having one walk in the door put her in a panic. Of course, once she realises she will no doubt be rather embaressed and very glad that she did not say anything or do anything sillier than abruptly race off too the privy. She is really not going to set about attacking Eirlys or trying to do her in in any way - unless Eirlys does something momumentally stupid - and personally I thought this was a rather comic scene as a young maga became panicked by something she totally misread.--Perikles 06:29, 16 March 2006 (PST)

I mentioned it because I thought it would be pretty funny if Mnem to try sponting some Rego Vim anti-demon spell on her and have it completely fizzle. Not sure if casting a spell on a target of the wrong type would appear any differently than a spell being deflected by Parma, but if we could tell the difference, it could be comical. :) "Rego Vim!" *fizzle* "Oh no, now we're REALLY screwed!" --Eirlys 11:14, 16 March 2006 (PST)

*grin* Yes, that could have been amusing. Sadly, Mnemosyne is fully aware of the kind of spontanious Rego Vim she would be able to knock out and that it probably would not be able to get through the magical might of a demonic chicken. Also, the she was not totally convinced that Eirlys was a demon - after all she was expecting another magus, but made a leap from hooves to demon as oposed to hooves to faerie - otherwise she would probably have screamed "Demon!" and hoped someone else happened to be skilled in creating large pointy bits of wood, banishing spells, firey death or some other amusing such spell.--Perikles 21:23, 16 March 2006 (PST)

I read Mnemosynes reaction as The Gift affecting her since she had no parma to protect her and probably is rather unused to that situation. --Samuel 13:46, 16 March 2006 (PST)

Won't your covenant be very lonely without covenfolk? --James\\^Talk 13:26, 18 March 2006 (PST)

Setting: The mundane versus the fantastic

• JB here - I do have an issue, but it's not with Eirlys per se ... rather it's with basic assumptions about the setting and game play. So a new heading below. Oh, and I'll log in.

I have no issue with ANY kind of character OOC and anything IC will have to surface by itself. Personally, I quite like Merinita and faerie stuff, but wanted a change this time, otherwise I'd probably be walking down a blatant gift, strong faeire blood road myself, cowering under a massive cloak and avoiding churches like they were... well churches. OOC I don't care if a character is demon tainted, a murderer or a heathen moor. However, if the character is OBVIOUSLY a major problem from the word go, there is a very strong chance that they will not end up being invited to join the Covenant. Anything that surfaces AFTER we have set the Covenant up is a totally different matter and we are lumped with it. It would be a GREAT shame for anyone to put in a lot of work into character creation and background and then have to slate it.--Perikles 06:29, 15 March 2006 (PST)

I have elaborated a portion of what has been said here privately to Sally, but one of the things I mentioned, which is generally applicable to all players, is that if you drop your mage, you won't be assigned a replacement mage - rather, you'll join the apprentice queue behind Cedric, and be assigned a single companion to play of entirely your own devising. --James\\^Talk 07:38, 15 March 2006 (PST)

I understand, though it would be a simple matter to change her heritage to sidhe blood (i.e. normal looking) and give her a gentle gift if she's going to cause problems. --Eirlys 10:55, 15 March 2006 (PST)

Then people will look at Eiryls and see a Sidhe fae, rather than a Satyr fae. It is more likely then that the locals will consider you a faerie rather than a daemon, but that merely means that the village priest will bring bells and iron, rather than little crackers without cheese and a big cross... :P People with strong faerie blood are readily identifiable as being faeries. You can choose her heritage, but you can't hide it without magic or great fuss. Eirlys is good with Muto Corporum, so this is an option for her (now, or in the near future.)

There is no problem with Eirlys being a Satyr - she just needs to make a bit of effort to hide her true nature when visiting the sorts of places where fae are beaten with iron in order to drive satan's vile corruption from their bodies, that she be able to recieve the grace of god when, presumably because of being beaten a lot with iron, she dies.

It will be another 200 years before the Malleus Maleficarum is published, but given the existence of such enlightened thought(TM :P) in mediaeval times, you can understand why the church takes a dim view of the fae. --James\\^Talk 19:33, 15 March 2006 (PST)

I agree. There is no problem, and plenty of good, with Eirlys being a blatantly Satyr Fae. She does however, have a responsibility to the game continuum to at least keep her wilder aspects under control and, particularly, relatively hidden from mundanes, at least until she is well established as a covenant member. Or she won't be. Anything that openly damages the chances of getting the 'group' established in the local area is not conducive to group membership. If Longinus had been in the position of the inkeeper, witnessing the hooves, talking animal, baby eating talk etc, he would not only refuse to accept any form of joint membership with Eirlys, but would actively attempt to have her marched for endangering the Order. As it is, he doesn't know anything yet except her opening words, and a good thing too ;-). If she is an established covenant member doing wilder things then reactions will be subtley (but not entirely) different than a complete stranger, so please, go a little easy for a start or we'll all miss out on more fun later. nb: this is according to my view of Mythic Europe which I have seen no contradiction to so far. If my view is out of line, James please stamp on it. Corbon

Basic Assumptions About Setting

JB again, as promised. Although Marcus will be locking horns with Eirlys regularly and immediately, I suspect, we can deal with it in game - that's fine. As Corbin says, as long as we remember that it's Marcus and Eirlys clashing not their respective players.

However, my concern is that we may be working with different assumptions about the game world and setting. Or rather, we all certainly are, which isn't a huge problem unless they are widely divergent. Eirlys' entrance worries me, because it implies a substantially different view of the world than mine, and if that's the correct one, I need to recalibrate. The idea that a satyr shows up, an obvious satyr, talking to a polecat who talks back, and that the innkeeper, inn staff and patrons just put up with it with almost nary a murmer doesn't fit with my perception and understanding of Mythic Europe - which admittedly may look more like Medieval Europe than many people's. I would expect that people would be fleeing in terror, probably to the Church, raising the hue and cry, and if this is Eirlys' typical approach (joking about eating babies?) that she would already have been killed by mob several times over long before reaching this point. From the Mythic standpoint, such behaviour also seems to me to be clear violation of the Oath - endangering the Order through her actions and so on.

I'm willing to believe that I may be the outlier here, but as I say, if that's the case I'll need to recalibrate my expectations and play style.

My apologies; it had been my understanding that the southern regiones of the British Isles were steeped in fey superstition, all the way up to and throughout the 19th century. Should that not be the case then I'm quite willing to modify her to be more "normal," though I do wish something had been mentioned earlier. I'd chosen an unseelie type because I'd been rather bored of all the ArM games I've played where everyone and their sister is sidhe-blooded. I can't help but eyeroll at the "ooo look what a pretty pretty princess I am" mentality, so I thought it would be fun to play a fey which was more like the actual superstitions of the times. I've a very Gaiman-esque view of how such creatures would be viewed by mundanes (Smoke & Mirrors, Stardust, to a lesser extent some of the flavor-shorts in American Gods) and if that view doesn't really fit into this instance of Mythic Europe, Eirlys could be a sidhe instead. I mean, I've always wanted to be a Pretty Pretty Princess, because then I could have a pony. I always wanted a pony. --Eirlys 10:55, 15 March 2006 (PST)

It's a very fair point and one I have quite a lot of sympathy with. Had the game been set in a distant land (The Levant perhaps) I'd probably take the 'foreign country is weird' Shakesperian approach ('Fair Illyria' is really strange - except that everyone behaves like Englishmen there), blink once, and ignore the apparent oddity. When I first read Eirlys' arrival I did think "is this going too far?" but by the time I was thinking about commenting, the baby-eating had been toned down, and we were down to the issue of the locals reaction to a satyr.

At that level, I've got much less of a problem with the way it was written, and with my reaction to Mythic Europe as against Medieval Europe. We know that at the moment, the innkeeper has 'accepted' seeing what he saw without butchering the strange demonic creture with cloven hooves - who knows what he may do, or who he may talk to when she's not looking.

So yes - I'll probably be having to do a similar bit of recalibration too - but its not one that worries me as long as it doesn't go much further when dealing with the mundane world. --OldNick 05:59, 15 March 2006 (PST)

Frankly, the basic settings of the world and the way that the NPCs react are in the hands of the GM. I think we'll all be getting a feel for things as the campaign gets under way and I'm sure James can fill us in with any basic questions that WE don't actually know, but our characters really should. After all, we don't live in the Middle Ages and we aren't exepcted to be experts.--Perikles 06:35, 15 March 2006 (PST)

From what I've read, the majority of the players seem to share my view of the setting, so I'm really not worried. Providing the rule about not posting the results of significant actions is observed, you should be able to learn a lot simply from the way the setting responds to your actions. Right, let's get back to posting, shall we? --James\\^Talk 07:38, 15 March 2006 (PST)

I would really like that "view of the setting" expanded on a bitt. Like how many people in a willage have seen magic, fae or other supernatural things? Would for example snapping your fingers to light a candle be remarked about as "oh he's skilled" or "Help demons"? I would expect something in between but rather close to "Oh, he knows that skill." Thus the problem w. magic and mundanes is to not spread fear/anger/Jealousy rather than hiding that it exist. --Samuel 15:02, 15 March 2006 (PST)