Hooks and Boons Wish List

From Ars Magica

Revision as of 22:12, 13 February 2006

This is the Hooks and Boons discussion list.

• Please write down which hooks and boons you would like the covenant to have.

Hooks and Boons

From the email, I think these are the ones that people agreed about. --Samuel 19:49, 10 February 2006 (PST)

Hooks

• Regio (Major or minor?)
• Protector (Minor) How ever we got the ground to build on whoever granted it to us had a problem with "Wierd stuff" in the area that we should protect the surounding willages from.
• Roads (Major and Minor)

Boons

• Aura *2 minor boons
• Hiden resources

I have left out Beholden, since if Lily gets aproved _my_ hook for beholden disapears and some others did not like the thought.

Could someone describe the hooks/boons from Covenants:

• Healthy Feature - It's +1 on aging rolls, and provides the Healthy location on ArM5 page 170 - can be taken up to three times. (tot +3 for first, +5 for three?)
• Minor Fortification Hook - Outbuildings. Bedo asked for it, I do not know what it means...
• Vivid environment - Sounds interesting (after a few hidden resources) should go well with Healthy Feature which I realy want us to have.
• Ruined Covenant (Major hook) - Sounds interesting, we could place it in a Major Regio to get some really involved stories. But for it to qualify as a _major_ hook there has to be something special about it...
• Whatever could represent "hidden" sources of wealth, especially wealth that our suroundings benefit from. (A toll-both is just glorified robbery.)

If we get some hidden resources, could we please spend one or two pawns of Vis income on making sure _all_ our summae have good quality and lvl? ;-) Someone mentioned buying Summae for Vis, are there any established prices? (The characters should know...)

Eirlys/Sally

Current Hooks/Boons wish list

Hooks

• Mutable (minor, site): The covenant grounds are susceptible to change based on the inhabitants; "the covenant incarnates their passions as guides and mentors, or beautiful songs can change the time of day, the color of cloth, and the attractiveness of the singer." (p10, Covenants)
  
• Road (minor, site): The covenant is near a major road travelled by Redcaps and mundanes alike.
  
• Mercer House (major, residents): We have a building dedicated for Redcaps' use, and offer generous hospitality to travelling Redcaps.
  
• School (major, residents): There's a learning institution on the covenant grounds. "The younger sons of many rich farmers and lesser lords congregate at the covenant to be taught letters and something of philosophy... [which] prepares them for later, university study and marks them as gentry." (p19, Covenants) Gives us a good place to troll for apprentices, and gives the Gentle-Gifters ample opportunity to interact with the mundies. Besides, everyone loves having smart people around.
  
• Ruined Covenant (major, surroundings): "The covenant is near the site of a powerful covenant, which has fallen into ruin. The younger covenant controls some of the previous covenant's resources, but has not discovered them all, nor explored the central site of its predecessor" (p24). This could be the source of the hidden resources so many of us are looking for, and add some adventure and excitement in the mix too. The ruined covenant could easily be within a neighboring regio. I'd like to see this in lieu of Hidden Resources, as it can still yield resources in the future, but is more interesting, I think.
  
• Faerie Court (minor, surroundings): There's a faerie ring from which unseelie emerge during autumn and winter. They may be interfering with the local lord's hunting, on a magical faerie hunt.
  

Boons

• Magic aura of 5 (two minor boons). I'm a big fan of a faerie aura, but that's only good for me, for everyone else that'd be amusing at best and annoying at worst.
  
• Regio (site, major): The covenant can only be entered by those who know how to navigate the regio. I'm a big fan of this being a faerie regio, but I don't think we can have a magical aura in a faerie regio, so, magical regio is probably closer to being something we can all agree on.
  
• Exceptional book (major, external relations): "The covenant has, legally and legitimately, gained possession of a copy of the finest summa ever written on one Art. This book is an excellent addition to the library, of course, but it is also a powerful diplomatic tool and source of prestige. If you select this Boon, you need not pay Build Points for the book. The book's (level + quality) = 35, with a maximum quality of 25 and a maximum art level of 20" (p20). I see this as being the #1 awesome boon we could take, as this (combined with a good scribe!) gives us the bargaining power we'd need to flesh out the rest of the library. I'd suggest that we shoot for this boon and consider spending fewer build points on summae, as we can make adventures out of wheeling and dealing to whore our exceptional book out for copies of other stuff. One art summa per mage plus what we could negotiate for with the book from this boon, would be the makings for one damn fine library, indeed. Vim would likely be too common to be of much bargaining power; Mentem would be of particular interest to Quaesitores, who would be most likely to come up with good trades we want; Corpus, Terram, and Ignem are popular, and would also be likely to make us popular. I'd be a fan of Muto or Animal, personally, but Corpus, Mentem, or Ignem would be best.
  
• Vivid environment (minor, site): The covenant is on land which is exceptionally beautiful and pleasant.
  
• Wealth (major, resources): Perhaps this might even be faerie-related; air-spirit sheep made from clouds, which can be fleeced for a material which, once woven properly, is as warm as wool but light as silk.
  

Ambrosius/Tim

Current Hooks/Boons wish list

Hooks

• Regio [Major]
• Road [Minor] I'd like to see an intersection of a major and a minor road
• Urban [Minor] This choice would be in lieu of Road
• Monster [Major]

Boons

• Buildings [Minor] Tower with appropriate outlying buildings
• Wealth [Minor] Personally, I'd like to see this manifest as an iron mine
• Hidden Resources [Minor]

I prefer road to urban, and there are two very interesting roads nearby. Monster is a great hook. :D --Admin 05:41, 11 February 2006 (PST)

Bedo/Nick

Current Hooks/Boons wish list

• Fortification - Free Choice - Manor House. Conventional for area, without going to the level of threat / local involvement implied by a castle

Hooks

• Minor Site Hook - Road (mundane)
• Minor Fortification Hook - Outbuildings.
• Minor Residents Hook - Gender Imbalance (rough count 24:6 at the moment)
• Minor External Relations Hook - Centralised Kingdom (reflecting English situation)

Boons

• Minor Site Boon - Aura x 2 - As stated, benefit of power
• Minor Residents Boon- Missile Weapons (Bowmen)
• Minor External Relations Boon - Local Ally

I like your choices, but need to see a definition for "Bowmen", "Gender Imbalance", and "Centralised Kingdom" - especially "Bowmen". I am especially keen on 'Local Ally', have a good idea for how the bowmen boon can benefit the covenant and grow with it, and the "Kingdom" hook sounds like something that will keep Marcus amused. :D --Admin 05:38, 11 February 2006 (PST)

Marcus/Jeff

Current Hooks/Boons wish list

Ideally, Marcus (and Jeff) would like a Covenant with some reasonable mundane connections. Here are two ideas which sort of reflect my thinking.

1) A Priory established by the Abbey at Shrewsbury. A Priory is a satellite establishment of a larger institution. This would come about if there was some immediate need to have some force of magi at the site and would have to be at the behest of either the Abbot of shrewsbury or possibly the prior at the Priory. This would get us in bed with the Church, which I think provides some interesting complications, although YMMV. This would work nicely with a regio, since the magi would live mostly in the regio while the covenfolk and monks lived outside, and in some cases might not even be aware of the presence of the magi. So, one complete possibility here is that the priory is established near some magical threat (Major Road, Ruined Covenant, etc.) and the Abbot, who does not believe that magi are evil, decides to install them there since they are best suited to protecting his monks. The monks themselves would be innocent of knowledge of the magi would live near/with/in the regio but not be part of the priory itself.

2) A more mundane set up. Several companions have links to various nobility and one, Lily, specifically mentions giving land to the covenant in her background. Given that, the follow-through is much like option 1, only without the need for a specific threat and instead a need for some sort of fuedal contract. "Giving us land" isn't really a fuedal concept, I would suggest that if this option is pursued that we are instead given a charter like a town, which probably means our true nature is known to the granting noble, or that we impersonate monks or hermits and the land is "given to the Church."

Be warned! Marcus is built to interact with the world, so most of my boons and hooks will reflect that. Bearing in mind some of the comments on the mailing list, I will not say that we should have Mercer House, School and so on. Instead, I will suggest that some of those could be built in game as we move along. If there is a threat, then we could find ourselves in the fuedal hierarchy, perhaps through Lily or another intermediary, and actually serving as fuedal overlord of the area.

I don't have Covenants, but those of you who do can probably see where I'm going with this and figure out other good ones.

Hooks

• Protector - Priory, village or both.
• Beholden - to the Abbot, the noble, or both.
• Road - either minor or major, or both
• Urban - as an alternative or adjunct to Road.
• Ruined Covenant - this could also be the source of the problems that force the Church or the Nobility to call us in.

Boons

• Aura of 5 - why not if we can afford it?
• Buildings or fortifications - depending on the rationale of how we get started this might fit. If we are protecting an existing priory or being made Lords of a village, then buildings might come with the job.
• Hidden Resources is always fun
• Regio - I sort of like the idea of hiding the magic side of thing in a regio in the middle of either the village or the priory. In fact, the idea that the Priory was founded on the ruins of a covenant where the mundane ruins are now in the dominion, but the magical ruins are in a regio on top of the same space kind of sings to me.

Longinus/Corbon

Current Hooks/Boons wish list

• Beholden, minor hook
• Politics, minor or major (or both) hook
• Protector, minor hook

Phaedrus/Samuel

Current Hooks/Boons wish list

Hooks

• A Magical regio to explore.
• Beholden. Preferably minor and towards someone/thing local.
• A faerie road. (For Eirlys to handle.)
• Protector. The local willages has been bothered by faeries and other "wierd stuff".

Boons

• High non-warping aura, minor boon(s)
• Could we get a bonus to aging rolls to help us keep our specialists?
• Wealth? I would prefere to have this in a "Hiden resource" type of way, fighting for money does not seem very interesting as a major part of the saga. A bunch of stories to establish ways to get good suplies (and expanding them when needed) and the like could be interesting.

Mnemosyne/Perikles

Current Hooks/Boons wish list

• Boons: A good, high magical aura (though not enough to cause Warping).
• Boon: Building (a tower or great hall or something)
• Boon: Hidden Resources (Maybe a store of magic items, a secret vis source or even some books, - possibly hidden in the regio or somewhere)
• Boon: Regio (Yay... who doesn't like having their own pocket realm? Alteratively we could make this a hook and make it part of the story to uncover it, perhaps tying in with the hidden resources)

• Hook: Contested Resources (maybe a new vis source or some cash resource).
• Hook: Politics (minor one, as the major one is going to be VERY difficult to hide from the Quaesitores... namely Mnemosyne).

List of all Hooks and Boons in Covenants

• This is the list that Nick kindly typed out on the forum. I suggest that anything you would like a proper description of be put in bold writing, so that the people with a copy of Covenants can add one if they like.

Boons & Hooks

Site

Major Site Boons:
Aura, Conscious space, Fantastic environment, Immunity, Natural Fortress, Regio, Time Dilation or Contraction

Minor Site Boons:
Aura, Difficult Access, Healthy Feature, Hostile Environment, Immunity, Mystical Portal, Regio, Seclusion, Unnatural Law, Vast Aura, Vivid Environment

Major Site Hooks:
Constantly Mobile, Highly Mutable, Magical Disaster, Missing Aura, Monster, Road, Regio, Urban

Minor Site Hooks:
Corrupt Area, Cursed, Evil Custom, Erratically Mobile, Faerie Aura, Flickering Aura, Haunted, Mutable, Poorly Defensible, Regio with Unexpected Entries, Regio, Resident Nuisance, Road, Warping to a Pattern, Weak Aura, Uncontrolled Portal, Unhealthy Environment, Urban

Fortifications

Free Choices:

• Island
• Manor House
• Castle (Major Hook)
• Ringwork (req Castle)
• Small Tower

Major Fortification Boons (alternatives to default Castle):
Curtain Walls and Mural Towers, Magical Fortress, Superior Engineering

Minor Fortification Boons:
Artillery, Bedrock, Edifices, Important Buildings, Shell Keep (req Castle), Tower Keep (req Castle), Vast & Labyrinthine, Writ of Crenellation

Minor Fortification Hooks:
Crumbling, Outbuildings, Wooden

Resources

Major Resources Boon:
Wealth How does this differ from the Minor boon in the basic rules?

Minor Resources Boons:
Hidden Resources, Right,
Secondary Income how does this compare to Wealth?
Vis Grant, Wealth

Major Resources Hooks:
Indebted, Indiscreet Resource, Natural Disaster, Poverty

Minor Resources Hooks:
Contested Resource, Dwindling Resource, Flawed Resource, Illusory Resources, Indebted, Indiscreet Resource, Natural Disaster, Poverty, Regional Produce, Vis Salary

Residents

Residents Free Choices:

• Hunters or Sailors
• Peasants

Major Residents Boons:
Heavy Cavalry, Magical (Soldiers) req Soldiers, Tame Nobleman

Minor Residents Boons:
Cavalry, Crossbowmen, Criminals, Famous Resident, Inhuman Residents, Literate Covenfolk, Local Language, Loyal Covenfolk, Missile Weapons, Strong Community, Useful Curse, Veteran Fighters

Major Residents Hooks:
Chapter House, Diabolic Corruption, Divided Loyalty, Fractured Council, Mercer House, Rebellious Covenfolk, School, Superiors

Minor Residents Hooks:
Alienable Land, Dark Secret, Distorted Covenfolk, Dumping Ground, Fosterage, Gender Imbalance, Guild, House Church, Incompetent Covenfolk, Indigenes, Inhuman Covenfolk, Infants, Possession Victim, Refugee, Rights and Customs, Seed of Madness, Spies, Suffrage, Superiors

External Relations

Major External Relations Boons:
Autocephalous, Dedicated Covenant, Exceptional Book, Favours Owed, Hedge Tradition, Prestige, Powerful Ally

Minor External Relations Boons:
Benefice, Felicitous Tribunal, Informants, Local Ally, Prestige, Promised Favours, Ungoverned

Major External Relations Hooks:
Beholden, Centre of Excellence, Ceremonies, Hedge Tradition, Hermetic Services, Mundane Politics, Rival, Tribunal Border, War Zone

Minor External Relations Hooks:
Ancestral Error, Centralized Kingdom, Church Territories, Favours, Hangout, Hermetic Politics, House Covenant, Infamous, Itinerants, Missing Founder, Public Vis Source, Rival, Slavery, Undemocratic Tribunal, Unsafe, Unsubtle Predecessor

Surroundings

Major Surroundings Boons Defensive Environment, Tithing Miracles, Mystical Allies

Minor Surroundings Boons: Chase, Hidden Ways, Minority

Major Surroundings Hooks:
City, Demonic Interest, Enclosed, Faerie Landlord, Meddlesome Saint, Monster, Pagans, Pilgrimage Site, Ruined Covenant, Seat of Power

Minor Surroundings Hooks: :
Death Prophecies, Deathbed Visitor, Faerie Court, Fated Feat, Fallen Temple, Festival, Ford, Guardians, Heretics, Hermit, Legendary Site, Massacre Site, Missing Expedition Monastery, Monster, Protector, Roman Ruins, Sanctuary, Site of Weakness, Ungarrisoned Castle