Meridia Porter

A pretty decent one, too - no touchie!

Mia agrees with you.

Anja Rebekka Schultze wrote:Ok so we are going with her being a witness giving testimony then? And where she and Temptest from the same Chantry? Or is it that they just know one another?

I’m perfectly happy with this. I think backgrounds and what they do have a lot of crossover so they’d fit well as friends at least but chantry mates would really work.

I’m happy to just take the path of least resistance to not create too much work.

Ok I will write the intro tomorrow then with the new thread. We usually try to keep thread to 30 pages so I will start a new one tomorrow. Today I am a bit tired since it is late and I just got done with a session of D&D.

I'll keep an eye out! No rush though. (I see the thread now!)

I've updated Meridia's rotes to suit her new character. Obviously let me know if any are out of place or weird or just wrong.

Looks good. As with Tragedy take two more freebie points for flashing out details. Both because I like to reward detailed characters and to let them catch up a bit with the older characters who have been gathering exp for a while.

Oooh thanks, I'll throw some more stuff on there like Tragedy has done at some point too.

Added Lore: Spirit which Meridia will probably really need.

Yeah Spirit Lore might be useful.

Wouldn't that come under Cosmology?

Lores are more specific to Spirits themselves, and dealing with them - Cosmology pertains to the spirit realms, the Umbra, et cetera.

Sort of like the difference between knowing geography and fauna.

Nicole Bouchard wrote:Wouldn't that come under Cosmology?

From my understanding, Cosmology is more like a geography/navigation type skill whereas spirit lore is a lot more specific than that, kinda like zoology. There's crossover as in zoology will tell you a little about habitats and geography will tell you what lives somewhere but Spirit Lore is called on a lot in various books.

As far as I can tell.

Edit: Warp said it better.

Hmm... that might be in the same zone as say, Vampire Lore / Occult. That the former respresents a 'detailed study' of that aspect of the latter. Which now I've written it, reads like a decent 'general principle' for Lores in general.

It's a little sad it's gonna be so long IC until Meridia gets to meet Doris...

Oh yeah, what do we do for like, magic/spells in terms of successes or rolls and stuff? I'm thinking of having Meridia put up her Spirit/Life sight for the day.

You can use the Magickal reference chart in M20 on pg 502 when it comes to calculating the difficulty needed for a spell. Anja of course has final say on the amount of successes any effects needs but the chart is a good baseline.

For the spell you mentioned (Spirit and Life sight for a day) it would be a coincidental effect using Spirit 1 and Life 1. So it would be difficulty 4 (Highest Sphere [1] + 3)

The amount of success you would would be:

• +1 base success for the activation of the Magickal Sight (Or 2 if you want to activate both)
  
• +2 Successes for making the spell last a day
  
• Total: 3 or 4 success
  

In game you describe everything that your character is doing to cast the spell (how they prepare foci, what they do, and how they view their own spellcasting). It can be as detailed as you like it to be (for simpler spells a lot of details aren't really required).

Then in a little OOC Tag at the bottom of the post you describe plainly the spheres your using and the effect you wish to achieve. Afterwards you can make your arete roll and report them in the OOC tag or request Anja to make the rolls. Anja will count the successes and RP the results in the next post.

Here's a couple example of Serge spellcasting in game:

Simple: Serge extending his mind sight far out to detect an incoming enemy

Slightly More Complex: Serge casting a spell to clear out an entire area of bystanders

This is perfect, thanks!

Okay, casting is really scary in Mage.

Meridia wrote:Okay, casting is really scary in Mage.

lol, it's definitely more complicated. But once you get used to it it's not so bad and the amount of creativity you can put into a spell is definitely a huge plus.

Anja also tends to be more lenient on interpretation of spheres and what they can do.

Here  some advice to help handle the difficulty of spell:

For duration, a day is a bit lengthy. Due to the nature of PbP in game time is a little more fluid. A duration of a scene should also be serviceable which should lower the total amount of successes by 1.

Remember that any arete roll can be made as an extended roll if the mage has enough time. This means that at every interval (which is usually every few minutes) you can make an arete roll and the spell will be cast once enough successes are garnered. This is why you'll usually see us make multiple arete rolls at once.

Thank you for the explanation Anthony that is really helpful, take one extra exp for helping me out.

I see... So Mages are a lot more prep-focused than on-the-go than they are in Awakening or the other splats. Good to note, I'll kinda bear that in mind.



I've not really decided if the person who guided Meridia to her awakening was a Spirit who got through due to the weakened gauntlet around the church, a kindly Mage who sensed a dying soul nearby but had to go soon after, or her own Avatar making a show.

If you ever want to introduce it somehow, Meridia never found her again after that point, but does retain an interest.

I see... So Mages are a lot more prep-focused than on-the-go than they are in Awakening or the other splats. Good to note, I'll kinda bear that in mind.

It does also depend on the Mage in question. Technomancers [like Nick] are particulary heavy with the 'gear' - it's why she went into battle with 25kg of gear and Colin went with a pistol, a few little trinkets and wearing a lounge suit. Some Traditions - like Hermetics - are quite heavy on the ritual too, so requires 'prep-work' on that aspect. Serge is much more 'free-form' in style with magick.

Now, This Post is a bland example of 'here's one I did earlier'; I am simply stating to the ST to attempt a Rote I've already fleshed out and recorded; which was this -

'Fifth Limb' [Entropy 2, Forces 1]

An advanced level of 'Deadaim'; this Rote is when the user is not just familiar with their weapon, but understands it as much as they do the capabilities of their own natural limbs. Without thinking, they know exactly what it is capable of and more importantly, what it isn't. Usually, this requires the weapon in question to either be custom-made or adapted to the individual so it is familiar as the proverbial limb.

This is particularly good for Rotes you know you'll be using repeatedly. Or in this case, is a very 'quick fire' one - it's kinda difficult to pad out 'Nicole fired the gun at the enemy's head'. And let's remember, I think I cast this Rote perhaps 20 times in one scene once.

This Post is a rather rare example of Nicole performing a more flexible Rote; a simple Entropy 1 scan on a safe door via using her little old PDA to work out it's weak point. On the next page she then re-does that 'scan', which allows her to sketch the mechanism on the door which then another Mage breaks from within it, allowing them entry. I didn't know in advance she could do that and it wasn't directly on her Rotes list, but she had ensured in advance she'd brought enough 'gear' to give a wide range of options. In this particular case, 'gear' included a humble grease-pencil. [I will add here that the ST here is relatively lenient regarding what what can suddenly appear in pockets and bags, though partly due to the fact none of us have taken the piss with it].

Generally speaking, it is a good idea to if nothing else, think of a few Instruments which are relatively flexible in Rotes and easy to carry on the PC's person. Serge has his pencils and pad, Nicole has her Leatherman, Adepts love their phones. It is partly the reason why Hermetics love their wands - small, easily consealed... and can be so powerful.

I'm imagining Meridia will mostly be using Life/Spirit/Prime prebuffing and longer duration rituals with the assistance of her cult once they're all settled.

Meridia only really has her sacred iconography now in terms of physical instruments, so she's probably going to head out during some downtime and just basically empty out a few churches or have some sweet new silver tools made for her.

Spirit summoning and possession will probably be a big part of what she does, or maybe building ephemera into herself in various ways. I definitely have an image in my mind of her maybe just becoming some sort of biblically accurate angel if she ever hits Spirit 4.


Edit: Something I really have my eye on is her having a great set of ephemeral angel-esque wings which become visible in areas of weakened gauntlet.

It is the old joke, who would win if a werewolf, a mage and a vampire met one another in the elevator? It depend is the mage smiling? Mage the Ascension magick is insanely powerful, and can literary do anything, the answer to the question is could a mage do X is always yes with the right Spheres however it takes time for them to get going. Smaller effects can be fired of in a turn though.

I'm not sure if becoming a biblically accurate angel is viable at only Spirit 4 - might need some Life, as well - but I do believe you can summon one at that point...

As for prep-focused versus on-the-go, as Nicole said, it depends a lot on the Mage. Yes, Colin went into combat with his old service pistol, a few trinkets, and wearing a lounge suit, but where Nick relies on an impressive semi-mundane arsenal, Colin relies on information more than brute tools. In a manner of speaking, he's the Kingsman to Nicole's Terminator.

And the main thing it depends on is the mage's Paradigm/Belief/Style. In short, the character's 'guiding philosophy' regarding their magick, their reasoning on why it works the way it does, and finally the general way they perform it.

Once you've nailed what they believe they can do and why it works, coming up with Rotes becomes ever-so-easier as you already 'get' how your PC thinks.

I should probably make a couple rotes just for seeing things/ other basics.

Colin has a couple of rotes you might find inspiring there:
Spider-Sense (Correspondence 1) Allows Colin to sense when anyone or anything changes their vector in his presence, whether it be a pedestrian who suddenly turns to cross the street in front him, or a car that slows conspicuously down as it approaches from behind. Essentially, an early warning radar, which Colin has not really used since he had his PTSD treated.

Morning News (Entropy, Correspondence, Spirit and Prime 1) Colin reads the newspaper, and as he skims the pages, he can immediately tell whether or not a case is, in fact, related to the supernatural world. Additional successes will yield more precise insights, to the tune of determining whether something was related to spirits, vampires, Mages, werewolves, etc. - an extreme number of successes might reveal identifying information about the involved individuals themselves.