Covenants Chapter Two: Boons & Hooks

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Boons and Hooks

The Boon and Hook stage of covenant design allows troupes to add a wealth of story elements to their saga, and this chapter contains nearly 200 such opportunities. The Boon and Hook selections that the players and storyguide make for their covenant should reflect the style of play they prefer. Players interested in mundane politics, for example, should design covenants that have many reasons to interact with nobles. Players who prefer high-fantasy battles should design a more secluded covenant, perhaps in an area contested with a supernatural power. The covenant creation process is part of the saga creation process: what you select in this section strongly influences what you will do during play.

Boons and Hooks divide into six slightly arbitrary categories. Site Boons and Hooks describe the place where the covenant is. The Fortifications category details the covenant’s structure and buildings. The Resources category describes the covenant’s sources of wealth. Resident Boons and Hooks define the skills and interests of the covenant’s population. The relationships between the covenant’s population and outsiders are described with External Relations Boons and Hooks. The Surroundings category enumerates interesting places within the covenant’s immediate vicinity, approximately ten miles on flat ground.

This chapter includes almost all of the Boons and Hooks given in Ars Magica Fifth Edition. The Boons involving covenant buildings are superseded. The definitions of many are broader.

One important note: This chapter describes many covenants to illustrate various Boons and Hooks. These example covenants are not part of the Mythic Europe setting, will not be elaborated in successive supplements, and can safely be ignored by troupes who wish to do so.

Paying for Choices

The covenant creation systems ration choice. They are intended to focus each troupe’s decisions, forcing players to choose between many options so that they can be sure their selections reflect the stories that they want to tell. This chapter provides a series of options. Some have Boon or Hook costs, that is, they are Major (three points) or Minor (one point). Covenants created by troupes as homes for player character magi should balance. That is, the summed costs of their Boons and Hooks should be equal. If no cost is mentioned, that Boon or Hook is called a “Free Choice,” and does not figure into the equation.

The “Unknown” Hook is unusual in that it modifies the value of other Hooks. When the covenant is created, the Unknown Hook is assigned to one player. That player then selects a different Minor Hook that the other players and their characters will find surprising and uses it to develop stories for his turn as storyguide. The Unknown Hook is a Major Hook for balancing Boons. Unknown Hooks are inappropriate outside troupestyle play. Hooks that may be selected as Unknown are marked in the text.

Your troupe’s playing style limits the number of Hooks you should take. As a guide, select no more Hooks than you are likely to use in six months of realtime play. For example, if your troupe plays fortnightly, and plans to set about half of its stories in the covenant, limit your troupe to six Hooks. Troupes that play more frequently, or set more of their stories at the covenant, may have more, those who play rarely or prefer expeditions away from the covenant, fewer.

In negotiation with the storyguide, Hooks you intend to use together count as a single Hook for the purposes of this limit. If, for example, your characters are vying with a Bishop (Rival Hook) who is annoyed at their charging tolls to a Pilgrimage Site (Minor Hook), these might be counted together. The purpose of the six-month guideline is to make sure that the troupe pays for its Boons by playing through its Hooks.

Boons and Hooks are gained and lost during play. The Boons and Hooks of the covenant balance each other at creation, but rapidly cease to be equal. Nonplayer covenants have whatever Boons and Hooks are required to suit them for the stories in which the troupe wishes to use them. Their Boons and Hooks do not usually balance.

Site

This cluster of Boons and Hooks reflects the physical location of the covenant. Troupes that desire a covenant only as a place where their characters can rehabilitate between arduous quests should select sparingly in this section. Players wanting to focus their stories around the daily lives of their characters, on the other hand, are encouraged to select many Minor Site Hooks.

Major Site Boons

Aura: The aura of a limited area of the covenant increases by one point. It is only worth taking this if the aura of the whole covenant is already 5, as this then allows the covenfolk to live and work mostly outside the level 6 (or higher) aura, and thus avoid Warping. The magical space is likely delineated in some way: for example, one covenant has an irremovable monolith at the center of its magical space. The stone is not native to the area, and has been carved in elaborate and erotic shapes, but there is no memory, even within the stone, of how it came to mark its space, or if its presence is necessary to its mystical strength.

Conscious Space: The covenant lies in a symbolically embodied place. It is incarnate in a self-aware, friendly figure. For example, there are several Merinita covenants that are ruled, in a mystical sense, by a faerie noble who is aware of disturbances to the natural order of the territory. Most such nobles sense these disturbances through sympathetic pains that they feel, which they have learned to interpret in order to identify damage of certain types, and in particular locations, but some can see from the eyes of the animals in the aura, feel what the grass feels, or have similar exotic senses. For example, a sea mist haunts a spring covenant off the coast. It is able to communicate by constructing pale images, which alert the magi to potential problems. Some covenfolk claim that, recently, the sea mist’s shadow has taken human shape. Some suggest the mist is the ghost of a drowned girl — a bride of the Selkie king.

Fantastic Environment: This Boon is only suited to high-fantasy sagas. The covenant is in an environment where only constant magical intervention can sustain human life. A covenant under the sea, or floating in a lake of lava under the Earth, is in a fantastic environment. A covenant in Arcadia is also in a fantastic environment. Covenants set in these environments usually have little difficulty with mundane humans: invasion is nearly impossible. There are no neighboring nobles or churchmen, and spies are almost unheard of.

Immunity: Within the covenant’s aura, all people and objects are immune to a form of damage, influence, or Flaw. If players designing characters pair their Flaws to this immunity, it becomes a Major Hook. Their Flaw helps define the covenant’s culture. For example, if the Immunity prevents lycanthropic transformations, then the covenant will be home to a large number of recovering werewolves. The characters will go on missions to track down suspected werewolves. They face persecution if discovered.

Natural Fortress: This covenant is all but unassailable because of peculiar geography that limits attackers to a single line of advance. A covenant in Scotland, for example, is sited on a headland that has sea cliffs on three sides. Only a curtain wall and a stout gatehouse are needed to retain it. Covenants in similarly defensible positions should take this Boon, which includes the defensive works used to secure the single direction of possible mundane attack.

Regio: The covenant is located in a magical regio that only native guides can safely navigate. The labyrinth of the regio may take many forms, though its precise nature must be described. The Redcaps, who collect such knowledge, report twisting causeways, tangled woodland paths, convoluted sewers, or paths trod through sunset clouds. To fail to follow the path is often to return to the mortal world, but in many covenants false paths lead to prisons, over cliffs, or into the lairs of monsters.

Time Dilation or Contraction: The covenant resides in a place, usually a regio, where time does not run at the rate usual to Mythic Europe. Dilated time allows the magi to live for longer periods, from the perspective of outsiders, but they develop only slowly compared to those living at the standard rate. Contracted time, on the other hand, allows the members of the covenant to study faster, and develop their covenant more swiftly, than the rest of Mythic Europe, although to outsiders they appear to age rapidly. In some regiones, the time difference is unnoticed until the visitor leaves, when age fades from them, or comes crushing down. In others, they age in local time.

Vis sources within the regio usually refresh in mundane time. A handful of mildly time-contracted regiones have sources that replenish in local time. This is paid for separately in covenant creation, by paying for the vis that the source yields in a mundane year rather than a local year. The Redcaps have been searching avidly for quick regiones that replenish in local time, but have never confirmed their existence.

Settlements in regiones with dilated or contracted time are rare, but known. The Quaesitores have occasionally used prison regiones that rapidly contract time, and, on at least one occasion, trapped a group of suspects in a profoundly contracted regio while their innocence was determined.

The covenant with the largest dilation is a tiny chapter house in the mountains, where each day is a real-world month. The Criamon magus who lives within it believes calamitous times are near, and wishes to see the future of the Order, acting as a living repository of its history. The greatest contraction occurs in a covenant that House Tytalus founded during the Schism War to allow its younger magi to become hardened. This covenant also has only a single magus, who serves for a year of the local time, which is oneseventh of a normal year. Its population has lived for dozens of generations since the Schism, and their culture has become baroque and self-referential.

Things to Avoid

This section contains a few notes for new troupes, to help them avoid making poor choices in their early games. Optimal Killing Power Players familiar with other roleplaying games are sometimes tempted to select the Boons that give their characters the greatest power, or capacity to kill. It is easy to juggle the possible combinations of Boons and Hooks to create covenants powerful enough to massacre thousands. Troupes should select those combinations only if they are interested in stories about the consequences of unbridled power. Ars Magica offers a richer palette of stories than this. Rather than optimizing a covenant’s battle strength, troupes should select those Boons and Hooksthat favor the sorts of stories the troupe enjoys. Young magi are already very powerful. The Storyguide isn’t going to assault the player characters with waves of increasingly powerful monsters unless that’s what the players want. Players more familiar with games in which the characters kill and loot should consider what their characters wanted to do after they became rich and powerful. Castle On the Hill By the Faerie Wood A lot of Ars Magica’s flavor is lost if the players select a generic covenant like the prototypical castle on a hill by a faerie wood. The broad array of options this chapter provides, and its many examples, encourage players to experiment. While new players may be most comfortable with sagas set in a bland, tidy Middle Ages, this chapter encourages troupes with a little more experience to explore the intricacy and foreignness of Mythic Europe. Telling stories in Mythic Europe should be like a trip to a foreign country: to enjoy it fully, you need to embrace and take pleasure in how different it is. Defensive Selections Players should not select Boons in an attempt to stop the storyguide running certain sorts of story. Rather, the Boons and Hooks the troupe chooses should be a positive statement about the sorts of stories a troupe wants to tell. The players and storyguide should agree on the sorts of stories they want to tell before starting the saga. Disagreements among the troupe about desirable types of stories should obviously be discussed before any decisions are made about the covenant. Once the troupe has agreed on the types of stories it wants to tell, it is reasonable to select a Minor Boon to make a certain absence plausible. For example, a troupe that wants to avoid stories about mundane politics might take the Secluded or Regio Boon, to explain why they are never bothered by the local nobility.

Minor Site Boons

Aura: The magic aura of the covenant increases by one point. The players may take this Boon up to seven times, for a covenant in any magic aura up to ten. All the covenfolk must live within the aura.

Difficult Access: The covenant’s geographical surroundings make it difficult to assault. This Boon is suitable for covenants in mountain passes, on coastal islands that require boats to reach, or in deserts. A sufficiently prepared mortal warlord can overcome the defenses, but finds it expensive and troublesome.

Healthy Feature: The covenant hosts a fresh breeze from the sea, a healing well, or some other feature that increases the life expectancy of its people markedly. Inhabitants with access to this feature have a +1 bonus on their aging rolls. This Boon may be taken up to three times. It is a source for the Healthy Location bonus given on the Aging Table in ArM5, page 170.

Hostile Environment: The covenant lies far from human settlements in an environment unsuited to human life. Examples include a covenant above the tree line on a mountain or in a vast cavern deep under the Earth.

Immunity: Within the covenant’s aura, all people and objects are immune to a specified form of damage or influence, as per the Virtue. For example, Marco, a Redcap who claims at times to have been defrocked, states that House Jerbiton and the Brotherhood of Saint Lazarus maintain a leprosarium in such an aura. Its covenfolk lead long and healthy lives, so long as they do not leave. Upon departing, however, the ravages of the illness, suspended but not cured, descend upon them in an instant, their bodies withering and their skin sloughing away.

Mystical Portal: The covenant controls a mystical gateway, such as a Mercere Portal, a gateway to Arcadia, or the entrance to a well-understood regio with friendly inhabitants.

House Merintia, some say, controls so many portals to Arcadia that they have lost count of them, but fortunately, they say, they know of a portal that leads to the grave of Janus, god of doorways. The ghost of the dead titanic god visits those who sleep on his grave, and he pours wisdom into each ear simultaneously. Awaking, they know which doorway to seek, and where, and how to navigate its passage. Each magus may only dream on the grave of Janus once: to sleep there further is to slip into an endlessly recurring yesterday.

Regio: The covenant is located in a magical regio that can be entered in many ways. The covenant may take measures to limit entry into the regio, but these are never perfect.

Marco, a Redcap fond of late nights and large wineskins, reports that there is a regio in a certain city that can be entered from the steps of any building, within the city, that contains bricks stolen from the ancient mithraeum, by any woman with a red ribbon in her hair, and any man in pursuit of such a woman. It is perhaps fortunate that the Archimaga Tisiphone, a beauty renowned for her ability to evoke artistic talent in men, lives within the regio, and wears a red ribbon at all times, except when bathing. For the convenience of visitors, she usually bathes between one and two of an afternoon, so they know not to seek her in those hours.

Seclusion: The covenant is in a very remote location, and gets few visitors. This Boon cannot be taken in conjunction with the Road or Urban Hooks, and may be inappropriate for other Hooks as well. Redcaps still come to the covenant; this Boon simply restricts the number of random visitors.

Unnatural Law: Within the covenant’s aura, a series of natural laws are suspended. For example, in the Covenant of the Castle of Fees, glass is as durable and hard as iron, and is used as a building material and armament. In the Covenant of the Solemn Scholars, children are able to fly until they lose their virginity.

This Boon is suitable for covenants that want to play against genre. For example, there is a covenant powered by wonderful machines copied from the works of Heron of Alexandria. These steam rotators permit the covenant to manufacture many other wondrous devices, which fail to work if taken from the covenant. It also allows the troupe to strongly contrast the home of the magi to the mundane world.

Vast Aura: The covenant’s aura fills an enormous area, perhaps up to five miles across. Belinda, a Redcap who has gone further east than any other, says that at the very fringes of the Order lies just such a vast aura, and that therein lies a magical city. Wise old magi rule it. They claim their ancestors knew Trianoma, but had not heard of the Order before Belinda’s visit. Belinda has not returned: the Unnatural Law of the place permits outsiders to stay for only a single night, and only then at the cost of falling in love with a local, glimpsed in the avenues of palm fronds. No visitor may ever return, and no native who departs survives the melancholy.

Conversion from the Ars Magica Rules Converting existing covenants to this new set of rules is straightforward. All of the Boons and Hooks provided in Ars Magica Fifth Edition have been included in this chapter, except Buildings and Fortifications. All have retained their original names. Versions of each of the covenant situations from Ars Magica are also included. “Converting” existing covenants requires nothing more than applying the new rules and definitions here for the Boons and Hooks of the same names. The Buildings and Fortifications Boons have been replaced, to allow added detail. To convert their existing covenant to these rules, troupes should select the Boons and Hooks that best describe the covenant they have already created for their stories, and not be concerned if they do not balance. The new Fortifications Boons and Hooks have absorbed many possible explanations for the Buildings Hook, like gatehouses and great keeps. The remaining buildings, which inspire awe but are not necessarily military in function, have been termed Edifices.

Vivid Environment: The covenant’s site is extremely pleasant. This may be an effect of the Warping of the aura, an unknown supernatural influence, or a beautiful, natural feature. The beauty of the covenant’s surroundings makes it easier for the covenant to recruit new inhabitants. It provides bonuses for the calculations given in the Governance chapter.

The Covenant of Valnastium, a mountain valley, is a place of such beauty now. The magi of Jerbiton, however, claim that this was not always the case. They say that given the choice of the faerie bower Rosegarten or Valnastium, Jerbiton chose the uglier valley. Had he chosen the beauty of the Rosegarten, he would have been content with its splendors. Valnastium was made beautiful with his own devices and desires, and so exceeds the ephemeral beauty of Arcadia.

Major Site Hooks

Constantly Mobile: This covenant moves constantly. For example, the Covenant of Crisp Winds lives on a flotilla of ships, which follows a route around the Mediterranean to collect vis and trade goods at auspicious times. If the covenant were to cease moving, it would lose its income.

Highly Mutable: The contents of the covenant’s aura, with the exception of the human beings, whose souls provide them protection from this effect, are highly mutable. The method of mutation varies between sites, and is difficult for the magi to predict or control.

For example, Marco, a Redcap known for telling lies, states that there is a covenant in a regio that mirrors the dreams of the people of a city he will not name. If the city suffers a fire, then the covenant also suffers a fire. If a ship of exotic merchants land and many people dream of England, the weather becomes icy and annoying. If a passion play is performed, many phantasms with the shape of demons (but not their nature) rampage through the covenant, unblocked by the Aegis (for they have no Might). The magi stay there because the area within the Aegis remains much the same functionally, although its appearance changes from a Norman town to a Jewish ghetto to what people think an Arabic trading quarter must look like, and they find these insights into the human mind fascinating.

Magical Disaster: Long ago, this was the site of a mystical tragedy. Many supernatural forces in the area press the local magi to cease work here, lest they repeat the mistakes of the past. Other forces encourage them, promising that — this time — all will be well. Some say that Durenmar is such a site.

Missing Aura: The characters have settled in an area where they lack the most fundamental tool required to study their Art, a magical aura. Stories focus on how they better their situation, and how the covenant remains together when there is such a strong temptation for some magi to leave.

Marco, widely considered a charlatan, claims to have met a faerie king who held the aura of the fallen Covenant of the Redbreasted Warriors in a wine bottle. He said that he would invite to dinner any magus who could meet his five challenges, and allow them to choose their menu from his entire demesne, including, presumably, the bottle. Marco, cowardly, refused to meet his challenges and, fed only on pea gruel and water, fled the king’s hall by night.

Monster: A powerful mystical creature lives inside the covenant. The creature can be aligned with any realm, and is too powerful for the player characters to defeat at the beginning of the campaign.

Monsters are often large, and many are wily, but the Redcap Marco, who collected many strange tales, once remarked that a covenant had lost a tower to loveliness. When the maga Pallas passed away her lover, a nymph of unmatched beauty, began to mourn her immediately. Her grief was so great, and her attractiveness so intense, that it is said that whoever sees the inconsolable maiden falls immediately in love with her, and so refuses to disturb her mourning. The tower has gone unused for sixty years.

Road: The covenant is on an important mystical trail of some kind, so that mystical creatures, from one or more realms, often turn up at the covenant.

A most unfortunate covenant lies near the Chapel That Cannot Sleep. The chapel lies on an ancient battlefield, and was raised on the dun that surmounted the fallen. A mythic road, a right of way, sometimes appears when the corpse of a murdered man is carried to a graveyard, and in this case as each body was carried to the site, it created a road. A vast number of roads now leads to the Chapel, stretching out for miles in the direction of the pursuit of the foot soldiers of the losing side. All manner of metaphysical detritus washes up at the Chapel, and disturbs the sleeping dead.

Regio: There is a regio on the covenant site, although the covenant is not in it. The regio has inhabitants who occasionally come out and cause problems. This Hook may be Unknown. If the regio is not magical, that counts as an additional Minor Hook.

A convoluted Wizard’s War once arose from such a regio. Knowing it to be full of untamed sprites, a magus encircled the regio with a trellis of roses, grown thick then turned to iron. It was the nature of the regio to send forth the secret desires of members of the covenant, and so the childhood love of another magus, or a faerie of her shape, was killed upon the thorns. The second magus did not declare war because his love had died. Rather, he did so because he believed that the death of the one he loved most was what the first magus most desired, and that the regio had granted it to him.

Urban: The covenant is in a city. The vast majority of the inhabitants are not part of the covenant, and the covenant does not rule the city.

Minor Site Hooks

Corrupt Area: A section of the covenant has an Infernal aura, probably because of a terrible sin committed there. This acts as a seed for the corruption of the covenant, unless the characters discover the nature of the event and put things right. This Hook may be Unknown.

Cursed: The covenant is the victim of a supernatural curse powerful enough to ignore its Aegis of the Hearth. This should gravely concern the magi, because it indicates they have a supernatural enemy with both the desire and ability to harm them. This Hook may be Unknown.

Most curses of this type are not fatal. For example, magi from one covenant refused the hospitality of a faerie crone, and now suffer fatal burns if they taste wine, as it turns into green vitriol. The crone, fair-minded, warned the magi of the curse, so it has killed only one magus. New to Normandy, and not skilled in French, he foolishly ordered the coq au vin.

Evil Custom: Some of the mystical features of the covenant’s site are maintained through ritual acts that are evil, but of so long a tradition that most people in the area are aware of them, and so simply avoid being suitable victims. Many evil customs involve murder, but some simply require the imprisonment of a certain person for a time, the humiliation of a class of people, or sins of gross indulgence. This Hook may be Unknown.

Erratically Mobile: This covenant regularly moves, but its movements are erratic, and are interspersed with periods where the covenant settles in an area for a season. An example is a covenant of magi who have decided to follow the trade roads into Asia, traveling during summer and staying in major cities each winter. They have no name for themselves and lack any common property other than the coffee pot they bought in Aleppo from a Redcap who happened to pass by and learn their story.

Faerie Aura: The covenant has a faerie, rather than a magical, aura. The faeries most familiar with the site are very interested in what the magi are doing, and consider any attempt to block their access to the site, by Aegis of the Hearth, for example, insulting.

There is a covenant in Ireland that has been built on a faerie hurling pitch. This game, which involves two large teams attempting to abduct a ball using clubs, is all but a war. The Courts of Summer and Winter in the area play it twice a year, and always seem surprised by the result. Given that the only other option is a pitched battle against the faeries on their covenant site twice a year, the magi allow the game to spill through their buildings, but have installed stout doors on their sancta. If the game is not played, it is said, then summer will never end in the crops of autumn, or winter will never bloom into spring.

Flickering Aura: If the magi fail to perform a relatively simple task each year, the covenant’s aura declines by one point for the rest of the year. Flickering auras are usually the result of a traumatic mystical event that scars the spirit of a place. Magi who find ways to symbolically relive or repair the event can prevent their aura flickering. This is important, because flickering auras do not appear to deepen over time the way that auras in other covenants do. This Hook may be Unknown.

A particular covenant washes its walls each year in milk to prevent its aura from failing. The magi have no idea why, or even if, this is necessary, but it has been done since before the Schism War and dire, if painfully unspecific, warnings surround the practice. Haunted: Ghosts, perhaps of former magi, haunt the covenant. Most ghosts want to finish their worldly business before they pass away. The magi may wish to assist them. This Hook may be Unknown.

Mutable: The fabric of reality alters within the covenant in ways that unGifted humans find simple. For example, 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.

Poorly Defensible: The covenant’s founders placed it in a site that is overlooked by a cliff, can be flooded by diverting a river, or is otherwise not suited to a conventional siege defense. The magi need to retain good relations with their neighbors, at least until they remedy their defenses.

There is a covenant that made a deal with a nobleman in which they provided him with a longevity ritual, and in exchange, he granted them six acres of land. The cunning nobleman gave the covenant a lengthy strip of rocky beach. Stubborn and unwilling to allow themselves to be shamed, the magi reclaimed sixty hectares of land, surrounding it with a massive dike. The people within the dike are fatalistic, and each family keeps a rowboat in the roof cavity of their house. Most male children are named Noah, for luck.

Regio With Unexpected Entries: The covenant is located in a magical regio, but it can be entered in many ways. The covenfolk remain unaware of many of these, discovering them only when an unfortunate person or creature stumbles upon the covenant. This Hook may be Unknown.

The Dogrose School is particularly notorious for the ease with which it can be found. The School hides behind a city, and draws Gifted children to itself, by possessing their toys with an urge to sneak out on moonlit nights and walk odd streets, drawing their little masters away. House Bonisagus long ago claimed the Dogrose School for its own. Its members teach the little pupils Latin and a bit of Magic Theory before sending them to other masters. Sometimes the toys bring other, more difficult, visitors.

Regio: There is a regio on the covenant site, although the covenant does not lie within it. The magi do not know everything that is in the regio.

If the regio is not magical, that counts as an additional Minor Hook. This Hook can still be taken if the covenant is in a regio; in that case, it simply refers to a second regio.

Resident Nuisance: A minor mystical creature, or group of creatures, resides in the covenant. Their activities are no more harmful than minor vandalism, but cause waste, expense, and arguments. The magi could defeat and destroy these creatures, but it would take time and effort better directed elsewhere. This Hook may be Unknown.

A Redcap named Marco, who has been unable to locate his trousers on several occasions, reports that in one covenant, the grogs claim that a maiden appears to them in the depth of the night watch, carrying a mug of hot toddy. When they drink it, they fall unconscious, and are usually found naked in a barn. The magi have tried to hunt this faerie, but the grogs have proved almost entirely unhelpful. The ruler of the covenant believes the maiden is actually a prank played by generations of apprentices, abused by slothful grogs.

Road: The covenant is on an important mundane road, river, or sea route, so that people often turn up at the covenant, bringing or causing stories.

Warping to a Pattern: The Warping suffered by people, animals, and structures within the covenant is not random or restricted to a single motif. Rather, a discernible theme runs through the distortions. Characters familiar with the history of the site, the dreams of its founders, the epics of the ancients, and the folklore of the Order can sometimes explain the evolving theme, which is often a repetition of something that has been experienced before.

It is said that the site of the Covenant of the Monkey’s Reed has not forgotten its history. Located on a floating island, which moves about its lake, the aura is slowly twisting the people and structures of the covenant into an ancient Egyptian village. The rulers of the village were a priestly caste that worshiped the god Thoth.

Many magi of Monkey’s Reed wish to see what these ancient magicians looked like, reflected in the covenant’s aura, but there is a problem: the site replaces the memories of those it distorts, so that they gradually lose themselves in their new roles. Magi of House Bonisagus hope to convince the Archimagus Apollodarus — whose beloved died accidentally in a fire that he created — that he should accept the loss of memory as a balm and become High Priest of the Temple that, even now, can be seen forming in the brickwork of the gatehouse.

Weak Aura: Subtract one point from the covenant’s Magic aura. Most young magi would not wish to settle in an area with a poor aura, so each should consider the story potential of their reasons for settling such a substandard site.

Uncontrolled Portal: As per the “Mystical Portal” Boon, except that the portal is not under the covenant’s control. This Hook may be Unknown.

Many covenants have a portal that they do not control, but the harried magi near Granada certainly have the largest. The Pillars of Hercules, the islands that stand at the western edge of the known world, are thought to contain gateways to Arcadia and the Magical realm. This would explain why all manner of odd things dwell there. The magi of Granada have set themselves a task: to monitor the gate for creatures that might harm Europe. They are attempting to have a Tribunal recognize them as a dedicated covenant — see the Boon of the same name — but many magi point out that Granada has every reason to monitor the portal regardless of support.

Unhealthy Environment: The covenant’s members suffer a dramatically reduced lifespan due to an environmental factor at the covenant’s site. All people regularly exposed to the environmental factor suffer a –1 penalty to their Aging rolls. This Hook may be taken up to three times, but does not affect those who have Hermetic longevity enchantments.

This condition is a Hook because these environmental problems are often reparable with magic or labor. For example, a covenant where people suffer the miasmatic effects of a nearby swamp can ameliorate this effect in several ways. Cutting channels to a nearby river, or a magical effect, could drain the swamp. The miasma might be destroyed with magic. It might be rendered ineffective by planting of an orchard of sweetly flowering trees as a defensive perimeter. Deeply noxious environmental conditions might have mystical defenders, like bog trolls, which would have to be dealt with before the Hook itself could be eliminated.

This Boon may be Unknown, but becomes known as an increasing number of covenfolk feel its effects.

Urban: The covenant is in a small market town. Many of the inhabitants are not part of the covenant, and the covenant does not rule the town.

Many Spring covenants in cities lack a Magical aura, and should take the Missing Aura Hook. Older covenants usually have an aura, because they have workspaces out in the countries, have a regio that contains their laboratories, or have created caverns deep below the city where an aura has grown up due to their magical practices.

Fortifications

Most covenants are fortified sites, but the degree of fortification varies. Some covenants do not have the resources to build the sort of fortress they would like. Other covenants do not feel threatened by mundane armies, and so choose not to hem themselves into cold, cramped fortresses. Many covenants fortified long ago, and have chosen not to upgrade their defenses as new ideas and techniques in castle construction have developed. The way a covenant fortifies communicates, to observers, how the magi intend to act.

Free Choices

Several of the Free Choices in this section require the Castle Hook. This is because they lack the power to withstand determined military assault, yet pose sufficient threat to local noblemen that they cannot ignore the structure.

Island: The covenant is surrounded on all sides by water, although it is shallow enough to be forded in places. The covenant may be connected to land either by a wooden bridge or by a stone causeway, although paranoid magi might disdain either structure. The covenant’s buildings are not useful as defensive works.

Settling an island does not alarm nearby noblemen, although they might start demanding taxes from what they see as a village. This is not a castle.

Manor House: This style of home often used by a particularly rich farmer, or minor landholder. It is comprised of a large, stone building, often two stories tall, and minor outbuildings, which are wooden an indefensible. A manor house is surrounded by a secure space, called a bailey, defended by a shallow ditch and a thin stone wall about six feet high, without a walkway along its top. Some poorer nobles have wooden manor houses, or wooden bailey walls, but Hermetic magi rarely build in wood.

A manor house defends its inhabitants from predators and brigands, but cannot hold against a group of professional soldiers or magical assault. It lacks the space to act as a defensible staging area for knights. Possession of a manor house does not alarm nearby nobility, and a manor house is not a castle

Ringwork (requires Castle): This is the most primitive sort of castle, and is easily raised by Hermetic magic. It begins with the excavation of a vast ditch, in some cases twenty feet deep and wide. The soil from this excavation is piled and packed down to create a rampart as much as fifteen feet high. A thin, stone wall, perhaps six feet high, without a walkway, is placed upon the rampart.

Wooden buildings, including a short tower of little defensive value, lie within the ring. Some ringworks partition the defended space into two wards. The inner ward houses the ruler of the ringwork and his attendants, the outer their servants and supporters. Hermetic magi find this division useful, as it reduces their contact with covenfolk unused to The Gift.

Ringworks were highly effective castles until the crossbow became popular. A ringwork lacks the elevation necessary to assist defenders. They are less useful in the 13th century, but many ringworks are still being constructed in Mythic Europe because they are cheap to construct and maintain.

A ringwork cannot resist a determined military assault for long. It can act as a staging area for a force of knights, though, so aggressive development will alarm all noblemen within ten miles.

Small Tower: The covenant surrounds a small tower, four stories high, with one or two rooms per story. For small covenants, the tower is appended to a fortified courtyard, into which stock are driven in troubled times. Larger covenants surround the tower with outbuildings, which are wooden and lack defensive value. A stone wall, six feet high and without a walkway, surrounds these buildings.

Towers allow their inhabitants to see approaching forces from a greater distance, and increase the field of fire of magi and crossbowmen, but are much less comfortable to live in than manor houses. The magi probably have a hall in the courtyard and use the tower as a storehouse, retreating to it only in times of immediate threat. Towers used only as retreats and observation posts, called pele towers, are even less comfortable than tower houses.

A tower cannot hold off a determined force of soldiers. A traditional method of killing the inhabitants of a tower is to stack wood about it, then set the wood on fire, smoking the defenders to death. A tower cannot act as a staging area for large military groups, and alarms minor landholders only, so it does not count as a castle.

Castle (Major Hook) Castles serve three functions. A castle acts as a refuge from military forces, so it defends territory. A castle acts as a staging ground for armies, so it threatens to assault its neighbors. A castle costs a fortune to create and maintain, and in many places requires the permission of the king to build, so it communicates the status of its owner. A castle, then, is a claim to political power, backed with the threat of force. A brigade of knights, supported by a castle, can travel about twenty miles in a day. This means they have the ability to raid targets up to ten miles away and return to their barracks before nightfall. All people who live within that radius, or have interests there, will rapidly become aware of the existence of the castle. For these reasons, the temporal and spiritual authorities of an area cannot ignore a covenant that builds a castle. Covenants that hold castles must either be so secluded that there are no neighboring nobles to alarm, or must come to terms with the secular and religious powers of an area. The Boons in the following sections specify whether they are castles. A covenant with a castle must take the Castle Major Hook, unless the covenant has no mundane neighbors within ten miles. Thus, castles built on remote islands entirely controlled by the magi do not require this Hook, nor do castles in regiones. Castles lacking further fortification are ringworks, described by the Free Choice of that name. However, most castles have a strong point of final retreat: a keep, which must be purchased as a Boon. Shell Keeps and Tower Keeps are Minor Boons. Alternately, the Curtain Walls and Mural Towers Major Boon surrounds the castle with a strong defensive wall and additionally allows the troupe to select (at no additional cost) from among the four keep options described in the Keep Alternatives for Castles with Curtain Walls insert box.. Castles built with magic often have either the Magical Fortress or Superior Engineering Boon.

Major Fortifications Boons

The following Boons provide detailed alternatives to the standard fortification described by the Castle Hook.

Curtain Walls and Mural Towers (requires Castle): A curtain wall is a crenellated wall around a bailey. The wall is around thirty feet high and between eight and twenty feet thick. It has an exterior of dressed stones and is filled with a rubble core. Mural towers protect a curtain wall.

Most mural towers built before 1200 are square in cross-section. Round and semicircular towers are the preferred types for contemporary building. Most towers are enclosed buildings, but some, particularly semicircular towers, have no masonry on the inside face, so that if they are captured, they do not provide the enemy with cover. Others are closed until they reach the level of the parapet, and are then open.

There are many covenants where the towers are badly sited, and many more where each tower is so filled with personal material that it impedes defense. Some castles have towers as far from the obvious avenue of attack as possible. This is because the towers were built before crossbows become popular weapons of siegecraft: they are intended as residences, and so have been placed away from harm.

The Bell Tower built at Dover Castle in 1189 exemplifies an opposite extreme, the archery tower. It is an octagonal, three story tower. Each story has six positions for crossbowmen, with the other sides used for a stairwell and a latrine. During peace, the tower is used for storage and to barrack its crossbowmen. A tower like this could not be used as a sanctum, unless the magus was willing to have his laboratory removed swiftly as enemies approached.

Magi understand that their desire to claim a tower on the curtain wall can seriously impair the castle’s effectiveness. Many covenants compromise between the residential and military possibilities of the tower by designating the lowest floor as a foxhole and filling it only with materials easily removed or destroyed, and using the roof as a sentry post and sniper’s nest.

A covenant designed with this Boon has as many mural towers as suits the troupe. Framlingham has thirteen towers, including two for its gate, while other castles built at the same time are rectangular baileys with a fat tower at each corner and two at the gate. There are two disadvantages to having a dozen towers: they are expensive to build, maintain, and garrison, and they declare to all of your neighbors that you expect to rule the county someday. Every extra tower makes a castle more difficult to ignore.

This Boon includes either the Shell Keep or Tower Keep Minor Boon, or one of the four alternatives described in the insert “Keep Alternatives for Castles with Curtain Walls” on the previous page. It also includes the option of a barbican and moat, described in the insert “Barbicans and Moats,” also on the previous page.

Keep Alternatives for Castles with Curtain Walls The defenses of curtain walls are so formidable that the role of the keep changes in response to them. The keep is still able to assist in the defense of the walls, and can act as a place of refuge if the walls are lost, but many castle builders diminish these roles and find alternative to the tower or shell keep. A hall keep is a long, low building made of stone that is, structurally, an evolved form of the manorial hall. It is usually two stories high and has a limited number of entry points to minimize the number of defenders required to hold it. A hall keep, lacking a fortuitous hillock, is lower than the walls, which limits its usefulness to archers. The hall keep’s great advantage is that it is the most spacious and comfortable form of keep. A courtyard castle focuses on the defense of the bailey, forgoing a keep entirely. Players designing courtyard castles may take another large structure (anything suiting the Edifice Boon, for example) in lieu of a keep. Most masters of a courtyard castle plan, in the worst case, to fall back to their strongest tower, usually the gatehouse. A gatehouse keep is a large building, usually three stories high, that serves as both gatehouse and keep for the castle. Its lowest level is given over to storage and the entry to the bailey. The middle level is used for living space, equipment for the drawbridge and portcullis, and murder holes. The lord and his family dwell on the uppermost level. A chemise is not a keep. Rather, it is a curved wall closely surrounding a square tower. It is a way of giving many of the benefits of a round keep to a square one, without requiring demolition and reconstruction. Sometimes access to the tower is from the top of the chemise, by a drawn walkway. Barbicans and Moats A barbican, for game purposes, is a series of works that limit access to the gatehouse by an invader, including walls and yards that channel invaders into a narrow space overlooked by archers. It includes barriers like portcullises, drawbridges and fall-away causeways. It also includes murder holes, pit traps, and whatever other fiendish devices the magi can come up with to kill invaders. A covenant with the Curtain Walls and Mural Towers Boon may take as many of these devices as they like. Standard Castles (that is, those without the Curtain Walls and Mural Towers Boon) may take barbicans as Edifices. A moat is a body of water at least twenty feet wide and six feet deep that surrounds the covenant. The key function of a moat is to prevent enemies from mining under the covenant’s walls. The walls can rise either directly from the moat, or from a berm, a small circuit of land that separates the moat and the castle. If the moat flows swiftly from a natural body of water, like a stream or lake, then its water is fresh. Otherwise, a moat is a stagnant ditch that is probably an open sewer. Many castles do not have moats, and instead use ditches. A covenant with the Curtain Walls and Mural Towers Boon may have a moat without additional cost. Other covenants may buy moats as Important Buildings. Moats are often used to assist gate defenses. Some castles have a barbican on a small island, separated from the gatehouse by the moat. Others have causeways across the moats that approach the gatehouse indirectly, exposing attackers to crossbow fire from the walls. Some have submerged causeways. Moat monsters should be purchased with the Local Ally Minor Boon.

Magical Fortress: An alternative to mundane castle-building is the construction of a fortress by magic. The magical fortresses that are possible with the assistance of Hermetic magic are near limitless, and this catch-all Boon is designed to give players a blank slate upon which to describe their fancy. Mystical fortresses are often built on sites with the Unnatural Law Boon.

There are many examples of mystical fortresses in Hermetic and mundane folklore. One castle spins on its axis to make assault impossible. Automatons of brass defend another castle. A third is carved from the living body of an enormous tree, while it is said that in distant Africa, a small castle has been built on the back of the world’s greatest elephant. Hermetic scholars have speculated upon covenants deep under the sea, or floating on clouds.

A surprising number of Hermetic magi will lend their assistance to the construction of mystical fortresses. Many wish to see how it will work. Some magi see mobile fortresses as a way of waging war or engaging in trade. Others, who advocate a retreat from contact with mundanes, are interested in colonizing inhospitable environments.

A Magical Fortress requires the Castle Hook if a powerful noble is likely to become aware of, and concerned by, the site.

Superior Engineering: This Boon is used for castles that are not magical but appear to be, because they exceed all mundane expectation of what is possible or affordable. Players, for example, may wish their covenant to have concentric layers of defensive walls. This style of castle does not exist in 1220, although its forebears, like the walls of Constantinople and Krak de Chevaliers, certainly do, and a creative maga might extend the concepts they express in the defense of her own home.

These sites appear all but unnatural to surrounding noblemen, and evoke fear, distrust, and envy. They assure the viewer that the lords of the castle expect war with forces of such power that only a king could rally them. They also express the capacity to pour out wealth as if it were of no consequence. Just as no nobleman may ignore a nearby castle, no king may ignore a concentric castle in private hands. To build such a place, without permission, is a declaration of independence that assails the legitimacy of the monarch.

Minor Fortifications Boons

Artillery: The covenant has siege weapons, like catapults and ballistae, mounted on elevated points. These dissuade besiegers, and, in some cases, protect against attacks from the sea. When the covenant expects little trouble, many of their siege engines are disassembled and held in the covenant’s basements, out of the weather.

Bedrock: The covenant has bedrock foundations, rather than the more usual rubble. This protects it from undermining, the most effective method of breaching a castle’s walls. Bedrock castles cannot usually have wells. This limits their supply of water. It also prevents them from having underground storage areas, lacking magical or laborious mundane mining.

Edifices: An edifice is any major building erected to inspire awe. Covenants rarely need edifices: they could function equally well with many small buildings, made of cheaper and less ornamented materials. Many covenants, however, have at least one, to mark their wealth and power, to beautify their covenant, to arouse the envy of their peers, and to mark their covenant’s priorities. Edifices do not require the Castle Hook unless several of them, grouped together, form a structure as threatening as a castle.

Some edifices are used primarily by magi. The Hermetic Fair in the Alps is held in a vast, twelve-sided hall with walls of polished quartz. Impossible ivory trees, festooned with silk banners, support its roof. The Garden of Ossuaries at Valnastium is beautiful parkland dotted with elaborate marble tombs that are inscribed with, or recite, the deeds of early Jerbiton magi. Great Works — described in the Chapter 7: Library — may be purchased either as Edifices with this Boon or as books with Build Points.

Other edifices have an economic basis. One covenant keeps a woolshed of such exterior beauty that it is sometimes mistaken for a monastery, while one Mercer House has naval yards of such widely reported excellence that none dare raid its shipping. There is another covenant whose aqueduct and irrigation system are a marvel, such that certain Verditius magi weep at the sight of them.

Some edifices are designed for use by covenfolk. Val Negra has a tremendous bath-house, built by Flambeau, where the covenfolk gather, bathe, gossip, eat, are shaved, and have blood let. It also has a stadium, presumed of Roman origin, in which military sports were practiced, although its enchantments have now gone dangerously awry.

Most edifices, in older covenants, mimic Roman style. These buildings have barrel or groin vaulted roofs, which are hemispherical. The enormous pressure placed upon the upright supports by such roofs causes the walls of most structures to buckle outwards, so piles of buttressing stone must be erected to support them. The walls are very thick, so the windows are small and relatively few.

An alternative style has emerged in the last half-century in France. In it, the frame of the building is exposed, and such wall as can be done away with is. The key difference of these buildings is that the French have discovered that a pair of pointed arches that intersect at right angles form an extremely strong structure. These arched pairs can be placed on very tall supports. This technique creates buildings which look lighter and airier, but which are more difficult, and far more expensive, to construct. Windows are larger, and spires are far more common in these buildings. Many Hermetic edifices, particularly those refurbished during the last hundred years, show some combination of these two styles. This can confuse travelers, since the French style is predominantly ecclesiastical and the traditional style more mundane.

Motte and Bailey

Most motte and bailey castles have been strengthened since their creation with stonework. A problem for a nobleman planning improvements is that the motte dominates the bailey, and so cannot be ignored, but is not strong enough to hold a stone tower keep of the style found in more modern castles. The solution to this problem is the shell keep.

Important Buildings: The covenant has an additional large and important building not mentioned in another Boon. This Boon may be taken multiple times, indicating a new structure each time.

Shell Keep (requires Castle): The shell keep is a modification of the motte and bailey castle. A motte is an artificial mound of earth, between ten and one hundred feet tall, on which a wooden tower is built. This tower overlooks and defends a courtyard that is surrounded by a ditch, embankment, and wooden palisade. This courtyard is called the bailey. Some noblemen still build motte and bailey castles in 1220, although Hermetic magi rarely do.

A shell keep is a stone wall, usually two stories high, that replaces the wooden palisade atop the motte. The wall is thin compared to other fortifications, being between eight and fifteen feet, and has a crenellated walkway. Some structures like this are so large that it is not clear if they are a shell keep or a small inner bailey: Restormel in Cornwall, for example, is 40 yards across. Buildings are constructed, using the stone wall as one external wall. These are usually wooden, or thin stone, and lack defensive use, but are far more spacious, airy, and comfortable to live in than those of a conventional keep. The center of the ring of buildings is usually a courtyard.

The wooden palisade around the bailey is also replaced, by a thick stone wall about thirty feet high. This has a crenellated walk. Entry to the castle lies through the lowest story of a square tower, two stories high.

Tower Keep (requires Castle): Most tower keeps were built during the 12th century and are, generally, four stories high and either square or rectangular. Entry is via an external stairway to the second floor. The keep is usually topped with crenellated battlements. Newer keeps may be polygonal or, most recently, round in plan.

As an example of size, the two largest keeps of each type in Britain are Pembroke and Colchester. Pembroke is 80 feet high, 53 feet in diameter, and has walls 16 feet thick at the base. Colchester’s keep is 151 feet long, 111 feet wide, and over three stories high. Covenants that have works on this scale, which are relatively simple with Hermetic magic, will awe the local nobility.

The tower keep is surrounded by a courtyard, which contains wooden or stone buildings of no tactical value. The courtyard’s wall is made of thick stone, and is about thirty feet high. It is topped with a crenellated walk. A small tower, two stories high, defends the gate.

Vast and Labyrinthine: The covenant is extremely large and has been constructed in a rambling, disorganized way. No living person has seen every room in the structure. Large sections of the covenant are used infrequently, perhaps once every few years. Whole subcultures have developed among the covenant’s staff. Writ of Crenellation: Someone with the authority to do so has given the covenant, or one of its servants, the right to fortify their home. The Quaesitores, who are concerned about the propriety of dealing with major nobles, may want to know how it was procured.

Minor Fortifications Hooks

Crumbling: Many mundane castles are in disrepair. Their function is to defend places in times of strife, and when their owners believe an extended period of peace has arrived, they do not perform necessary maintenance. Some castles are simply badly made.: For example, there are many motte and bailey castles which have had their wooden motte tower replaced with a stone one. As these compact the artificial mound upon which they sit, they develop enormous cracks, and eventually fall to pieces. Crumbling is a useful Hook for saga with Gothic themes.

Outbuildings: Small hamlets often rise around castles. These house the lesser servants of the castle’s owners, those who provide goods for these servants, and those servants whose work is noxious, like tanners. These hamlets, if too close to the castle, provide cover and resources for besieging forces. Some castles’ lords destroy encroaching buildings, while others eventually throw a wall about them, creating a fortified village. Your covenant has yet to embrace either option.

Wooden: A large number of medieval castles are made of wood. These are particularly vulnerable to fire, and, since Hermetic laboratories are one of the very few sources of explosions in Mythic Europe, Hermetic magi prefer to avoid or upgrade them. They are, however, cheap and quick to construct, and so may be suitable for Spring covenants, particularly those in forests.

Resources

The Boons and Hooks in this section influence the covenant’s wealth. They are to be used in conjunction with the covenant economic system presented in Chapter 5: Wealth and Poverty.

Troupes should carefully consider the source of the covenant’s wealth. It determines the occupations of many of the covenfolk, influences the structure of the covenant’s community, and provides inspiration for many stories. The covenant’s source of wealth, and the many details which follow naturally from its selection, provide a counterweight, in many sagas, to the fantastical elements provided by other Boons and Hooks.

Major Resources Boon

Wealth: The covenant is fabulously wealthy. One existing Typical source of income is upgraded to Legendary, providing enough money for the most sumptuous of quarters and the purchase of the most expensive materials and equipment. The fortunate magi of such covenants can live in kingly luxury, as can the covenfolk.

Minor Resources Boons

Hidden Resources: The covenant has 250 Build Points of resources that are not immediately available to the player characters. These might actually be lost within the covenant, or represent sections of the library that are only open to more highly-ranked magi. This Boon may be taken multiple times.

Right: The covenant has been granted the right by some powerful individual or organization (usually a noble) to collect income from a privileged source. Examples include the right to collect the flotsam of shipwrecks, seize a portion of all smuggled goods found, exploit a royal monopoly, harvest timber in a royal forest, fish a certain river (or keep the royal fish, the sturgeon), or collect tolls on a road or at a village gate. The right is often vested in a companion, to separate the covenant from feudal obligation. Note that this Boon does not provide an extra source of income, it merely ensures that one existing source enjoys a measure of protection and legitimacy that it otherwise would not have.

Secondary Income: The covenant is blessed with an additional Typical source of income. This source of income is completely distinct from the covenant’s main source of income. As well as increasing the covenant’s total income, this diversification provides a measure of protection — should the main source of income fail, the magi will still be able to provide for themselves without serious difficulty. This Boon may be taken multiple times.

Vis Grant: The covenant gives out a portion of its vis to each member each year as a right. It must have sufficient supply to meet this demand. This Boon is not appropriate where vis is held in common by the covenant, or if the covenant demands service for a vis share; for the latter, use the Vis Salary Hook instead.

Wealth : The covenant is wealthy, even by the standards of other magi and the nobility. One existing Typical source of income is upgraded to Greater, providing enough money for the magi and covenfolk to live very comfortably, with a large surplus for spending on luxuries.

Major Resources Hooks

Indebted: The covenant owes a vast sum that appears to be beyond its ability to repay. The yearly interest due on the debt alone amounts to about three quarters of the covenant’s entire income, crippling its resources. If the debt repayments lapse, a powerful creditor will doubtless come calling.

Indiscreet Resource: Gathering one of the covenant’s resources involves overtly criminal acts. If these deeds are uncovered by the relevant authorities (who may be either mundane or Hermetic), severe punishment for the player characters is the likely result. This may be avoided by the successful completion of a story every five years or so. An example of such a source of income is banditry, and an example of such a vis source is the blood from a trapped and tortured faerie.

Natural Disaster: Within the first five years of the saga, a natural disaster seriously alters the economy (and possibly the landscape) of the entire region in which the covenant is located. The covenant’s principal source of wealth is lost. The covenant needs to find new sources of food, supplies, and income, and undertake major reconstruction, either at the covenant itself, or further afield. Example disasters include crop blights such as ergotism and rust, plagues, droughts, earthquakes, and volcanoes. This Hook may be combined with the Flawed Resources Hook, if part of the covenant’s infrastructure is also destroyed.

Poverty: The covenant has no sources of income at all and no mundane resources to speak of. Even providing daily food requires stories. Note that this will set the tone of at least the beginning of the saga.

Minor Resources Hooks

Contested Resource: Access to one of the covenant’s accessible resources is contested with someone, or something, else. Thus, getting the resource requires a story. As a rule, one story means that the resource is available for five years. The resource in question should be of sufficient importance that the magi will want to bother with the story.

This Hook may be taken multiple times to cover multiple resources. This Hook may be Unknown when the saga starts, and only become known when the first contest comes due.

Dwindling Resource: One of the covenant’s resources, usually a source of income or vis, is dwindling, providing an ever-smaller harvest. This could be a mine that is becoming exhausted, a lake or river that is drying up, or a population that is dying off or moving away. The resource loses 10% of its original value per year, meaning that it will be completely exhausted within ten years unless some kind of action (or story) is undertaken to halt the decline. This should be taken for one of the covenant’s more important resources, else the magi may not care that it is dwindling. This Hook can be Unknown, but it will likely be noticed before too long.

Flawed Resource: The covenant has 250 Build Points of improvements that likely will not last, for example, a building that will collapse, a library that will burn down, or covenfolk who will die or mutiny. The loss of these resources will constitute a story. If this story is successfully concluded (for example, a fire in the library is extinguished before it is totally destroyed), up to half of the potential losses may be saved. If the story is botched, however, the losses may be doubled. This Hook can be Unknown and may be taken more than once.

Illusory Resources: The covenant has 250 Build Points of improvements that do not really exist. This might be an actual illusion (a building, books, or covenfolk that are not really there), resources that have been promised but which never arrive, or otherwise due to false accounting or deception. When the characters attempt to use the illusory resources, a story will likely result as they discover and investigate the cause of this phenomenon. This Hook can be Unknown and may be taken more than once.

Indebted: The covenant owes a fairly large sum of money, vis, or something else of value to another person or institution, such as a noble, merchant, magus, or covenant. The wealth might have been borrowed either to invest in the covenant or a scheme that provides resources for the covenant, or to cover some shortfall or emergency. The yearly interest due on the debt is equal to about one quarter of the covenant’s income, enough to be a noticeable drain. Repayment of the debt in full will require either saving over several years or some kind of story. This Hook can be Unknown at the start of the saga, if the covenant has (or had) previous inhabitants with unpaid debts.

Indiscreet Resource: Gathering one of the covenant’s resources necessarily attracts unwanted attention amongst a certain group, such as the mundanes, nobility, faeries, or the Quaesitores. As a rule of thumb, this results in a story once every five years. Examples of indiscreet sources of income include the selling of enchanted wine or running a protection racket; examples of indiscreet vis sources include the harvesting of bones from a cathedral crypt or the hunting of faeries.

Natural Disaster: Within the first five years of the saga, a natural disaster seriously alters the economy (and possibly the landscape) of the entire region in which the covenant is located. The covenant’s principal source of income is then halved in value (apply the Slump income modifier). The covenant may need to find new sources of food, supplies, and income, and undertake major reconstruction, either at the covenant itself, or further afield. Example disasters include crop blights, such as egotism and rust, plagues, droughts, earthquakes, and volcanoes. This Hook can be Unknown. It may be combined with the Flawed Resources Hook, if part of the covenant’s infrastructure is also destroyed.

Poverty: The covenant has only one Lesser source of income, with little or no surplus. This may suffice for day to day matters, but resources for major expenses require a story. This Hook can be Unknown, but probably not for very long. It may not be taken with the Secondary Income or Wealth Boons.

Regional Produce: The covenant, or nearby lands, produce goods that are remarkable, if not unique. These goods bring in money, but are also significant because of the Reputation they generate for the region. It encourages wealthy visitors, influences the reputations of people identified as being from the region when they travel, and plays a central role in the community’s festivals. Examples include regional wines, cheeses, and luxury meats.

Vis Salary: The covenant members get no vis as a right; instead they must earn a share of the resources by performing services for the covenant.

Residents

The following Boons and Hooks modify the inhabitants of the covenant. These rules do not affect player character preparation; a PC must buy any communal Virtue independently.

A background character who fulfills several roles, and could be purchased with any of several Boons, needs only to be purchased once. For example, if the covenant employs a tame nobleman to fool mundane people into believing that the covenant is simply his estate, they not need pay for him a second time if he also acts as a drill instructor for the grogs. He does not need to be paid for as a teacher with Build Points, either.

Residents Free Choices

Hunters or Sailors: The covenant’s people live by hunting, fishing, or some other profession that gives them useful skills for certain types of limited military action. These people need payment, a penny per day, for their service, unless the covenant has reached some other arrangement with them.

Peasants: The covenant’s defenders live as farmers for the rest of the year. They do not practice at weapons during the year, but most are competent with an inexpensive weapon and are extremely fit. Covenants usually cannot call up large numbers of men during the planting or harvesting seasons. The advantage to peasant warriors is that they are never paid wages: a certain amount of military service is expected of them as part of their rent.

Style of Governance Each covenant should select one of the following styles by which the residents of the covenant are governed. These selections, which are considered Free Choices, differ from the options given in Chapter 3: Governance. Those concern how the magi govern themselves, while these describe how the covenfolk are governed. Autocracy: The magi reduce their interaction with the covenfolk by appointing one minion to speak with their voice. This autocrat is the final arbiter of all disputes among the covenfolk, and his decisions, mercurial or wise, have serious consequences for the covenfolk and their masters. Council: The magi allow the covenfolk to select a committee that runs the day-to-day affairs of the covenant. The magi reserve a veto on the decisions of the council. Democracy: The magi permit the covenfolk to select their own autocrat, but over-rule their choice if the selectee is incompetent. Democratically selected autocrats have a less administrative, more ritualized role, and usually depend on a highly effective steward, selected by the magi. Faux Feudalism: The covenant pretends to be a feudal holding, even to the extent of having a person playing the role of noble landholder, with scholars who are his or her “guests.” The nobleman acts as the governor of the community, acting as a judge of disputes, giving instructions to tenants and craftsmen, and ordering services and supplies from outsiders. Gerontocracy: The covenfolk form an extended family, which is ruled by the older members on behalf of the magi. Militocracy: The covenant is ruled by its military. The turb captain or a tame nobleman acts as autocrat, and may have some sort of mundane title. He might be a landed knight, for example. Most male covenfolk, and in some cases female covenfolk, spend a period of time in the turb before embracing their mundane professions. Theocracy: Priests rule the covenant. This is rare in the Order, and the Quaesitores generally do not approve of magi bending the knee to faerie gods, although there is nothing in the Code to prevent it. Pretending to be a Christian priest or saint, however, is a serious breach of the Code.

Major Residents Boons

Heavy Cavalry: Covenants that command heavy cavalry have a banner of knights in their service. Major noblemen often claim exclusive right to elevate others to, and sustain them in, the role of knighthood. A covenant maintaining a banner of knights is ignoring the privileges of these nobles. It also threatens war.

Knights are very expensive to maintain compared to defensive forces. Their role is to guard, or raid, land up to half a day’s ride from their base. A covenant with knights will make all noblemen within their raiding range suspicious, and many will respond with spies, fortification, or by employing more soldiers of their own.

Magical (Soldiers) (requires any other soldier type): Soldiers with supernatural mounts or equipment are a major threat to all neighboring nobles, so most covenants either deploy them only in emergencies, or make sure no witnesses are left after their operations.

A covenant is the Greek Isles, described in the book The Places I’ve Been — You Wouldn’t Believe Me, has a small force of men who ride the backs of gigantic terrapins. These creatures are difficult to raise and are slow-moving, but in naval battle they can swim against the wind, and they are able to mount amphibious assaults. The Quaesitores have asked the covenant not to alarm the nearby nobility, so they have spread stories about a tribe of faeries that ride turtles.

Tame Nobleman: The covenant rules a large enough territory that it can survive on the feudal rents of its vassals. It is illegal for magi to enter into feudal contracts, so the covenant has a generally willing servant who is the official ruler. This degree of integration with the feudal system worries some Quaesitores, but stays just inside the Code.

Minor Residents Boons

Cavalry: The covenant has a small number of horsemen. They are not paid in money, but the upkeep of the men and their equipment is expensive, particularly in southern climes, where oats are not plentiful. The presence of horsemen, able to raid at a distance from the castle, always concerns its neighbors.

Crossbowmen: The covenant has a force of crossbowmen. They receive nine pence each day, even if they are not required to fight. Between battles, they may be used as guards. If the covenant employs a garrison of crossbowmen, their neighbors will interpret their state of constant military preparedness as a threat.

As an alternative, the crossbowmen belong to a peasant company, like those formed in some towns for self-defense. They aid the covenant in war, if relations between the covenant and the peasants are good, and can be hired for adventures outside the most important agricultural times. If relations between the town and the covenant deteriorate, the crossbowmen defend their families against the magi.

Criminals: A small group of brigands or pirates serves the covenant. They may have forsworn their old careers, or might continue them on the covenant’s behalf. They are skilled fighters, but do not need payment beyond food, shelter, beer, and — if still in business — booty.

Famous Resident: A senior member of the covenant is an Archimagus, famous researcher, or wily political strategist who assists younger magi with their personal concerns.

Inhuman Residents: The majority of the residents of the covenant are inhuman. They have abilities that exceed those of mortals in a useful way. Some covenants house faeries, spirits, ghosts, and awakened animals. The covenant of Calebais is an excellent example of this Boon taken multiple times.

Literate Covenfolk: The local people, for the most part, are able to read, and enjoy it. In many areas, the ability to read places an individual outside secular law and into the remit of Church laws.

Local Language: The local people speak a language that is somehow useful to their masters. Many covenants have Vulgar Latin as their language, but others speak odd regional dialects that cannot be learned as easily by potential spies as the common tongues of Europe.

Loyal Covenfolk: Good treatment of the covenfolk in the history of the covenant has resulted in unusually loyal servants. After calculating Base Loyalty, add sufficient loyalty points to raise the Prevailing Loyalty of the covenant to +3 (30 loyalty points total).

Missile Weapons: The covenant’s mundane tenants include large numbers of people who are highly skilled with missile weapons. Examples include English peasants, required by law to practice the longbow, Majorcan shepherds, renowned for their deadly slings, and Scottish flounder fishermen, deadly with javelins. These peasants pay the covenant military service as part of their rent. They lack armor but may — in addition to their ranged armament — have inexpensive weapons, which they use to defend themselves against enemies within melee range.

Strong Community: The covenfolk look out for each other to a degree that is exceptional, even compared to the strong communal focus of medieval mundane life. This community is difficult for outsiders to infiltrate because each member of the community knows each of the others, at least in passing, and is loyal to them, at some level.

Useful Curse: Local people suffer from a curse which they find unpleasant and uncomfortable, but which increases their usefulness to the magi. For example, there are tribes in both Ireland and Greece where people live, involuntarily, as wolves for years. These wolves have human intelligence and can understand speech, and so make excellent covenant guards and watchers on expedition.

Veteran Fighters: The covenant has a small force of professional foot soldiers. They receive a penny each per day, even if they are not required to fight. Between battles, they may be used as guards and servants. Most use standard weapons, but their officers have expensive ones. They also have standard armor.

Crossbows Crossbows will be described in detail in a future supplement. Until then, the following rules should suffice: A crossbow takes (5 – Strength) minutes to reload. A crossbowman using a claw or pulley system reduces reloading time to (4 – Strength) minutes. A character with an anachronistic winding system may reload in (3 – Strength) minutes. No character may discharge a bolt more than once per combat round. There are ten combat rounds per minute. Historical: Historical Init +5, Atk +5, Def 0, Dmg +7, Range 25, Str 1, Load 2, Expensive. Anachronistic: Init +5, Atk +5, Def 0, Dmg +10, Range 35, Str 1, Load 2. Available in the conventional setting only from a handful of Verditius magi. Has a metal lath and winder.

Major Residents Hooks

Chapter House: The covenant owns and controls a second, smaller site, far from the covenant’s main holding. The site is so valuable that a small, dependent covenant, called a chapter house, has been founded there. Chapter houses tend to agitate for independence from their motherhouses, but deft handling allows them to act as efficient harvesters of material that rivals would otherwise claim.

Diabolic Corruption: Some of the covenfolk are diabolists. This is difficult to detect because the demon they serve has clouded their minds, so that they look normal when scryed upon, even forgetting briefly their Infernal servitude. They have invited their master and his minions into the covenant with depraved Infernal rites, so the Aegis does not bar them, although it does limit their supernatural abilities.

Divided Loyalty: The covenant is divided into factions, and the Prevailing Loyalty is calculated separately for each faction. These factions may be professional, political, or personal, but they are in competition with each other. Actions that affect the loyalty points (see Chapter 3: Governance) of the covenant as a whole affect all factions. Actions which benefit the loyalty of one faction over the others will cause a decrease in loyalty of the other factions equal to one half of the loyalty points gained. If the gap in Prevailing Loyalty between factions ever reaches 3 or more points, then a story results based on the tensions between the factions. This Hook is compatible with other Residents Boons and Hooks that affect loyalty; work out the total loyalty points, then divide them between the factions — but not necessarily equally.

Fractured Council: The covenant’s magi do not work together. This may be because of chronically poor organization, psychological damage from Warping, rivalry, misanthropy, or mutual hatred. Covenants dominated by player characters may not take this Hook (or, at least, do not get a Boon in return).

Mercer House: Part of the covenant is a Mercer House, a supply and storage facility dedicated to supporting the operations of House Mercere. Recaps often retire to the covenant’s town after they have served their term, and many raise families with covenfolk.

Rebellious Covenfolk: Due to previous events in the covenant’s history, the Prevailing Loyalty of the covenant (see Chapter 3: Governance, Prevailing Loyalty) is shockingly low. Subtract sufficient loyalty points to obtain a loyalty point total of –75 (a Prevailing Loyalty of –5). Stories that involve the disloyalty of the covenfolk continue until morale is increased.

School: The younger sons of many rich farmers and lesser lords congregate at the covenant to be taught letters and something of philosophy. Some travel to the covenant from surrounding farms each day, while many from further away board for much of the year. Their training is insufficient to work as clerks or jurists, but it prepares them for later, university study and marks them as gentry.

House Jerbiton runs several of these schools. Jerbiton apprentices are usually Gently Gifted, so they are more difficult to detect than those of other Houses. Schoolmasters seek signs of magical ability or precocious intelligence among their charges, then report promising students to the magi. House Jerbiton also runs schools for girls, which is a novelty for many noblemen.

Superiors: The player characters can be given orders by the ranking members of the covenant, which they must obey.

Minor Residents Hooks

Alienable Land: The covenant allows its people to own farmland, homes, and shops, rather than renting them. This allows industry to develop more quickly, as residents have a reason to improve their dwellings and land. This also allows covenfolk to mortgage their land, to secure the money required to start or expand their businesses. Stories arise when the land is sold, or lost, to creditors who come from outside the covenant. These heirs are unused to the covenant’s customs, and might seek the aid of a higher authority to recover property they consider theirs by right. Many covenants, for example, allow female heirs to inherit far better portions than outsiders might expect, or local laws might allow.

Dark Secret: The leaders of the covenant harbor a secret that, if exposed, may lead to their ostracism or punishment. Although they have many resources available to quiet it, the secret seems to crop up every few years as a potential problem. This Hook may be Unknown.

Distorted Covenfolk: The natives of the covenant have been distorted by its aura, so they find it difficult to interact with mundane people, or travel in the mundane world.

Dumping Ground: Many minor nobles have their older relatives retire to the covenant, in exchange for political favors and payments. In some areas it is traditional, if unseemly, for sons to force their fathers into monasteries, allowing the son to inherit before the father’s death and have the father’s upkeep paid out of monastic coffers. Covenants are not generally so generous, but some — particularly those influenced by House Jerbiton — accept aged, usually mentally impaired, relatives of noblemen, who are nursed in their final years away from their homes. Intellectually impaired children are also sometimes given to covenants, under a stipend system.

Fosterage: The covenant is home to the child of a powerful person or being, either because the being wishes the child to be raised among magi, or because the magi have demanded it as a concession for other services. This child’s safety is paramount.

Gender Imbalance: The covenant has a deeply unbalanced gender division. This is common in new covenants, which tend to have many male servants, and those that have lost many men to war. Surrounding communities judge the covenant by their own standards, and so expect a group that is mostly male to expand its territory as a way of claiming wealth and women. A community that has few men will be considered leaderless, ill-garrisoned, and vulnerable. These stereotypes are usually inaccurate for covenants, leading to nasty and unnecessary confrontations with expansionist nobles.

Guild: The covenfolk have a political organization that can arrange for many of them to withdraw their services simultaneously. The guild usually strikes only when it feels its members suffer mistreatment. The guild agitates for better wages, shorter hours, and less dangerous working conditions. Many guilds also provide funds for medical help, retirement, funerals, the widows of members, and other social services.

Military Preparedness Boons can be used to describe non-player characters who fight on behalf of the covenant. Player characters are exceptions to these general descriptions, and are created using the grog or companion rules. Applicable Boons include Cavalry, Crossbowmen, Criminals, Heavy Cavalry, Magical (Soldiers), Missile Weapons, and Veteran Fighters. Applicable Free Choices are Hunters or Sailors and Peasants.

House Church: A fervent group of Christians practices the sacraments in one of the houses within the covenant. Left unchecked, this may affect the aura. An added complication is that the House Church members may be heretics, living in the covenant as a shelter from the Church. This Hook may be Unknown.

Incompetent Covenfolk: Many covenfolk are dim-witted, unskilled, or accident-prone. This may be correctable.

Indigenes: The covenant was founded through a colonial process when the magi and their primary servants took possession of an area occupied by another people. The covenant’s population is stratified: the new arrivals rule, the indigenous population serve. The covenant would be far more stable, in the long term, if the two groups could reconcile, and perhaps form a hybrid culture, but that is difficult. The indigenous population feels generally angry and vengeful. The incoming population, on the other hand, feels generally superior and is subject to the temptations that the conqueror feels in their treatment of the conquered.

Inhuman Covenfolk: Enough of the covenant’s residents are inhuman that it draws attention from surrounding communities. They become aware of the inhuman population far more quickly if they engage in militancy or commerce.

Infants: Something about the covenant’s aura is affecting the next generation of covenfolk. In some covenants, the Hook is that every child born is a twin. Many women die in labor, the covenant’s population booms, and stories involving mistaken identity are common. As the population increases, the covenant needs to expand, possibly to the detriment of its neighbors. In other covenants children are very rare, which leads to folk and faerie remedies for bringing about pregnancy, the nurturing of children communally, and the constant need for immigrants. In some covenants, the children have odd flaws or skills, or are not human at all. This warping usually follows a single theme. In one Alpine covenant, for example, all people born are suited to temperatures far below the human norm.

Possession Victim: One of the covenfolk is possessed by a powerful demon. It has been able to cross the Aegis of the Hearth hidden in its host. It seeks to do harm and convert others to its service. This Hook is usually Unknown.

Refugee: A displaced nobleman, or noblewoman, has come to the covenant seeking shelter from the forces of a usurper who has stolen his or her land and riches. The refugee has useful skills, and may aid the magi, but intends to eventually seek revenge and restoration. This Hook may be Unknown.

Rights and Customs: Members of the covenant have a series of traditional rights that cause the magi difficulty, but cannot be altered without serious damage to covenant morale. These include local holidays, mandatory feasts, exemption from death taxes, and other odd local customs.

Seed of Madness: Madness is common among the covenfolk, caused by Warping or extreme social trauma in previous generations.

Spies: Agents of a rival have infiltrated the covenant or a nearby town. They are content to simply collect information at this time, but might perform sabotage as the rival’s scheme develops. This Hook may be Unknown.

Suffrage: The covenant grants equal rights to men and women. This is, theoretically, sinful and likely to incite contempt of the covenant’s officials by outsiders.

Superiors: The player characters are not in charge of the covenant, and while their superiors cannot order them about, the player characters do not have control of covenant resources.

External Relations

These Boons and Hooks affect how the covenant’s members interact with each other and with powerful outsiders. Players should contextualize these choices by selecting a large geographical area in which their covenant lies. Selecting a large town and saying that the covenant lies a certain number of days’ travel from it is satisfactory. More detail can be significant if the troupe desires historical accuracy in their saga.

The covenant’s location is important if a troupe wants to use historical materials to guide the development of its stories. Some troupes feel this is too much work, and have English castles and people wherever their saga is set. There is a long literary tradition of this; Shakespeare does it in Romeo and Juliet, for example, and it is a valid way to play the game. Other troupes prefer to steal color and story ideas from the folklore of the places they choose. Many choose an area because a player has an enthusiasm for that area’s culture.

Ars Magica divides Mythic Europe into twelve Tribunals. Magi live slightly differently in each Tribunal and face different pressures and threats. Many sagas ignore these differences. Most of the supplements for Ars Magica assume that covenants built in one of the Tribunals are concerned with the issues described as pressing for that Tribunal.

Within each Tribunal, covenants develop rivalries. These can be based on differences of philosophy, such as those between House Jerbiton and House Merinita on the expansion of towns into the forest, on professional rivalry, or even on simple greed and fear.

Major External Relations Boons

Autocephalous: Some areas of Europe are not ruled by any nobleman, or are ruled by smallholding nobles who have never bent the knee to an outsider. This Boon suits covenants in any place where they can, without question, claim the right to live without an overlord. A covenant with the Isolated Boon need not take this one.

Dedicated Covenant: This covenant was formed to fulfill, or later chose to adopt, a difficult task. Other magi in the Tribunal, or the Order, feel the covenant’s work is so laudable that they have passed rulings to ensure that the cost is shared equitably. Many covenants are dedicated to research. In Ireland there is a covenant dedicated to researching spells that protect against the servants of the Infernal, while in the Alps a covenant continually seeks better longevity enchantments. A dedicated covenant receives money, vis, and other assistance from other covenants. While this does not make its research lucrative, it does prevent the covenant from sliding into penury due to its work.

Exceptional Book: 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.

Favors Owed: The covenant is owed favors by someone or something, possibly another covenant, mundane lord, bishop, or mystical creature. The covenant can give the external party orders, although the external party decides the best way to carry them out.

Hedge Tradition: A local tradition of minor practitioners of magic has fallen under the control of the covenant. These servants of the covenant can have mystical abilities, but their talents do not vary much between practitioners. They provide useful information about their activities to the covenant, and aid it in minor ways. For example, in Loch Leglean, a covenant controls all of the midwives in the Stirling area. They collect useful information and perform minor magic to aid the covenant.

Prestige: The covenant is famous. Its members are well treated, as far as The Gift permits, and people are reluctant to cross the covenant openly. Within the Order, this applies to domus magnae, or to the oldest and most powerful covenants. A covenant that repeatedly aided and defended its mundane neighbors could get such a reputation in the mundane world, although that level of activity would draw the attention of the Quaesitores. The covenant has a Reputation score of 9. This Boon may be taken several times, with the prestige applying to a different group each time.

Powerful Ally: The covenant is supported, covertly, by a powerful figure whose personal agenda, although separate, is not uncomfortable to the covenant. The ally might be a faerie queen, a powerful creature, a nobleman, a young covenant, or even a prince of the church. This alliance will fail if the magi act in ways their supporter finds noxious, or fail to provide support in return.

Minor External Relations Boons

Benefice: The covenant owns the land on which the local church stands, the church building itself, and the cottage in which the priest lives. This means the covenant can, if it wishes, refuse to allow a given individual to use the church. The assignment of benefices is a matter of some controversy, since bishops reserve the right to appoint priests to congregations, while the landowners reserve the right to refuse access to their buildings to unsuitable priests.

Felicitous Tribunal: The covenants in your tribunal maintain a series of agreements. Even new covenants, if they abide by the agreements, are treated well, and consulted in important matters. The agreements usually cover political issues like vis harvesting, molesting the fay, and control of Hermetic populations.

Informants: The covenant has a small network of helpful people who provide the covenant with useful information about its rivals. Companions usually contact informants, and sometimes rescue them, or smuggle them to the covenant. Some Bjornaer covenants have networks of helpful animals, instead.

Local Ally: A person of prestige and power in the nearby area assists the covenant, overtly. A sheriff, local nobleman, or village priest would all be suitable allies, as would a powerful spirit constrained to a single location.

Prestige: The covenant, and its members, is well regarded. This may be because of previous actions, such as defeating a monster, or because of continuing features of the covenant, such as a superb library. The covenant has a Reputation score of 3. This Boon may be taken several times, with the prestige applying to a different group each time.

Marco, a Redcap many caution not to trust, claims to have visited a covenant whose women are as beautiful as a rainbow. Suitors come from far lands to seek the hand of scullions, maids, and washerwomen, and faerie princes send obscure gifts to the widow who owns the castle.

Promised Favors: Gifts and assistance have been pledged to the covenant, provided they do something that they find simple. The gifts can take many forms: vis, money, books, servants, seasons of work, and political support are common offers.

Ungoverned: Some parts of Europe have been in a state of anarchy so long that no one can be said to rule them. Covenants in these areas need only deal with minor, neighboring nobles, each of whom has many rivals.

Major External Relations Hooks

Beholden: The covenant owes favors to someone or something, possibly another covenant, or possibly a mundane lord, bishop, or mystical creature. The external party can give the covenant orders, although the covenant gets to decide on the best way to carry them out.

Center of Excellence: The covenant lies close to a mundane source of unusual goods, and employs specialists to make those goods. The rulers of the place that provides the materials, who are extremely wealthy, will grow to see the covenant as a threat to their monopoly. Examples include glass manufacture near Venice and silk near Constantinople.

Ceremonies: The covenant hosts the major ceremonies of the Order on a regular basis, such as Tribunals, ceremonies of welcome, and Hermetic fairs.

Hedge Tradition: The area in which the covenant lies is outside the usual sphere of Hermetic influence. It lies within the established territory of one of the hedge traditions that is active on the borders of the Order. Some members of the hedge tradition resent the covenant’s presence and its use of resources that they believe are rightfully theirs, but there is no formal state of war, yet.

Hermetic Services: A handful of covenants survive by providing resources to other covenants. These resources include goods, like special inks and vis, and services, like creating longevity effects. These covenants are particularly dependent on Hermetic peace for their prosperity, which forces them to act as conciliators in difficult situations.

Mundane Politics: The covenant is deeply ensnared in mundane politics and must keep the Quaesitores from becoming too interested in their activities.

Rival: Someone or some group is working to destroy the covenant, and has the resources for this to be possible. Thus, the rival must be of comparable power to the covenant.

Tribunal Border: The covenant lies outside any Tribunal, or in the disputed borderland between two Tribunals. Representatives of powerful covenants in the neighboring Tribunals attempt to sway the magi to join their Tribunal when the magi are forced to select one. Slighted suitors may be angered.

War Zone: The covenant lies between two powerful noble holdings that are at war. Each side requires the magi to join it. Failure to assist, on either side, may lead to reprisal because the warlord considers the covenant in league with his enemy. This Hook may be Unknown.

Minor External Relations Hooks

Ancestral Error: One of the magi who founded the covenant made a grave error that harmed many people, or willingly performed a deeply sinful act. The covenant must eventually face the consequences of this mistake. This Hook may be Unknown.

Centralized Kingdom: In some parts of Europe, England for example, it is perfectly clear who owns every bit of land. A newly founded covenant in such an area will need to explain its presence to, and come to terms with, its putative noble lord.

Church Territories: Large parts of Europe accept a representative of the Church as their mundane noble. This is a Minor Hook, rather than a Free Choice, because the Church is less tolerant of heterodoxy — thoughts that may lead to sin — in its territories than lay rulers are. This Hook may be Unknown.

Favors: The covenant owes favors to someone or something, possibly another covenant, or possibly a mundane lord, bishop, or mystical creature. This person cannot give the covenant orders, but the covenant is really obliged to help if he is in difficulty.

Hangout: There is a place outside the covenant where many of the player characters go to unwind. It might be an inn, a brothel, a church, a mundane scholar’s house, or any similar place. Many stories start there as the characters meet other attendees and are drawn into their lives.

Hermetic Politics: The covenant is engaged in the elaborate game of trading of favors that passes for politics in some Hermetic Tribunals. When the saga begins, the covenant owes favors to three other covenants, but is owed three favors as well.

House Covenant: A single House rules this covenant; the other magi who live in it are its servants. The leaders of the House appoint the leaders of the covenant, and the covenant’s charter forbids local magi from assuming greater control.

Infamous: The covenant is mistrusted, has a checkered Hermetic record, or is held in contempt. This mirrors the Prestigious Minor Boon.

Itinerants: A mobile community visits the covenant every year. This might be a wandering group of minstrels, a family of merchants with their servants, or bands of farm laborers looking for work. Some covenfolk welcome these arrivals, with their news and money, while others find them a source of endless trouble. While they may pick fights and engage in petty theft, they also carry rumors, trade goods, and money.

Missing Founder: One of the covenant’s founders slipped from Hermetic history indecisively, and this causes the covenant difficulty. For example, rumors emerge that the founder thought gone lives on in Faerie, or someone appears from Arcadia claiming to be his son. Alternately, a will might be found in a book in at Durenmar that gives many of the covenant’s goods to an heir, debtor, or cause. This Hook may be Unknown in the sense that the resumption of the founder’s estate is unexpected.

Public Vis Source: One or more of the covenant’s vis sources has had its location and method of harvesting precisely written into a ruling of the Peripheral Code. The covenant unquestionably owns the source, but any enemy wishing to make mischief knows exactly where the covenant’s vis comes from.

Rival: Someone or some group is working to undermine or stymie the covenant. This rival may be much weaker than the covenant, as long as he is capable of causing problems worthy of stories. This Hook may be Unknown.

Slavery: Your covenant has slaves in its population. It is illegal, in Europe, to enslave Christians, so enslaved populations are rare in Hermetic covenants. There are some Hermetic slaves in the Baltic, and others in the Levantine and Theban Tribunals, purchased after the fall of Damietta to the Crusaders last year. Slaves who convert must be freed.

Undemocratic Tribunal: Your Tribunal is dominated politically by an Autumn covenant, which is not interested in your welfare.

Unsafe: Redcaps do not visit your covenant. The usual reason the House gives for this lack of service is that the way is too unsafe even for the brave and resourceful servants of the House, although this excuse occasionally hides another motive. Instead of direct delivery, the covenant’s servants collect messages at a Mercer House or secure drop-off point. This delay means that the letters are sometimes worthless, opportunities for action having passed. The covenant can have normal deliveries if it can deal with its problems and then demonstrate this to the House.

Unsubtle Predecessor: One of the covenant’s founders funded its early work by pretending that the covenant had a gold mine or similarly enviable source of portable wealth. The covenant has claimed, for many years, that things have changed and they no longer have unending reserves of this commodity, but many local nobles do not believe them, or believe that they have maintained a sizable treasury of the stuff.

Surroundings

A circle twenty miles across, as a rough estimate, is the area that the mounted warriors from a castle can impose its lord’s will. The circle is distorted by geography, political considerations, and mystical influence, but the twenty miles around a covenant are its home ground. The majority of the covenant’s food, income, and emergencies are generated within this radius, and these Boons and Hooks describe its contents.

Major Surroundings Boons

Defensive Environment: Magical forces confound invaders in this area. In one part of Ireland, for example, the fog rises from the ground to befuddle harassing bandits and warn locals of trespassers. Some forests twist their trails so that tax collectors become lost. There are islands defended by winds, or circles of storms. These natural forces tend to be worthless again saints.

Tithing Miracles: A tithe, literally “tenth,” is the share of a person’s income that he gives to the Church. A tithing miracle is a miraculous increase in the remaining income that makes good the loss of the tithe. These miracles are reported regularly in this area, which makes the surrounding people particularly pious, and wealthier than normal. This in turn makes the Church more powerful than it would otherwise be. The miracle is usually noticed when the goods are sold, and found to be heavier than the owner expects, up to the weight of the untithed material. In some places miracles of increase exceed the tithe; the book of Kings describes a miracle in which a woman fills many pots with oil from a single pot to avoid selling her sons into slavery.

Mystical Allies: A large mystical creature is the friend and occasional benefactor of the covenant. Alternatively, a group of smaller animals assists the covenant.

Minor Surroundings Boons

Chase: A chase is an area of royal forest, or other forest that once belonged to a major nobleman, that has been granted to the covenant for its use. The intended function of the chase is the breeding and capture of game animals, like deer, and the chase probably includes hides and runs, to aid in hunting. The covenant, in turn, usually allows its servants use of the chase. Poaching is typically forbidden, as is tree felling, but the magi may vary this as suits them, to reward exceptional service. Most peasants collect firewood in the chase, harvest wild nuts and berries, and run small groups of pigs.

The chase is a thoroughly domesticated piece of woodland. It usually lacks large predators, like wolves, but the covenant employs gamekeepers to ensure that new marauders do not migrate into the chase. Gamekeepers may live in the chase, with their families. Chases also attract criminals as hiding places.

There are many stories of knights finding faerie courts while chasing deer, but the covenant’s chase is probably free of faerie nobles. Lesser faeries are found in profusion, but they have a more human, and friendlier, character than the primal forces of the dark woods. It is not, however, unusual for a chase to abut an untamed forest. The border is often marked in some way, for example by a stream. Beyond the border, the forces of the wild often lay traps, and post guards, to dissuade humans who stray from the chase.

Hidden Ways: The characters, and perhaps some local mundanes, can make their way around the countryside by some conventional means that is unavailable to outsiders. This virtue suits the secret paths of Sherwood or other forests, the labyrinthine canals of the Wash or other swamps, the intricacies of navigating caves or sewers, or ways of moving swiftly through a city’s spaces.

Minority: The mundane settlements near the covenant have many representatives of a foreign cultural group, which has its own customs and folk-magical practices. Members of the group might settle in the covenant, if offered a better life than in the surrounding settlements.

A covenant in England has many Jews among its covenfolk. They find the covenant a liberating community. The magi do not prohibit them from owning land, do not prevent them from entering trades, and do not force them to wear a white clothing patch. The covenant’s friendliness toward Jews must be kept secret, however, because the King of England has owned all Jews in his kingdom, and all of their property, since the Laws of Edward the Confessor were drafted in the 12th century. The laws allow a rich man to have Jews if he buys a special license, but the covenant has so many of the king’s chattels in its employ that it would not be able to give him the required money without raising the ire of the Quaesitores.

Major Surroundings Hooks

City: The covenant lies near a city. This is very convenient for purchasing material, but can lead to problems for political reasons. Most cities desire to dominate their hinterland, but noblemen usually control the area around cities and are jealous of their prerogatives. A city is a rich source of revenue, so if these noblemen are sufficiently powerful, they wish to control the city themselves. This Hook places the covenant in the zone where the city and its neighbors play out their disputes.

Demonic Interest: This area has come to the particular attention of a powerful demon. It does not focus its attention entirely on the covenant, but it would like to claim the souls of the magi, and their servants, for Hell. The demon is served by a series of lesser Infernal spirits, and it sends them, usually one at a time, to oppress the area.

Enclosed: Forces that the magi cannot currently counter have prevented all mundane travel to the rest of the world. This has the advantage of making the covenant safe from prying priests and noblemen, but leaves the covenant vulnerable to shortages of materials and skilled laborers. Any surplus the covenant produces for trade is likely valueless, as are portable forms of wealth like precious metal and gemstones, since there are no buyers for these goods available. They may be stored until the covenant connects with the outside world.

Faerie Landlord: A powerful faerie claims all of the territory that the covenant uses, and is easily angered by its activities. The landlord has extensive magical abilities and many spies. An example is the giant Idris, who controls all of the land around the mountain that bears his name, in Wales. He can call down mist over the land, ruin crops with foul weather, and send his servants — gray foxes who can seep into houses like clouds — to spy on and sabotage his enemies.

Meddlesome Saint: A saint takes special interest in this area, perhaps because her relics are held in a local church. The saint is the patron of a cause or profession, which she seeks to promote while simultaneously attempting to lead certain people back to the true path. A meddlesome saint is far worse than a meddlesome person, because saints are all but beyond Hermetic power.

Monster: A powerful mystical creature lives inside the covenant. The creature can be aligned with any realm, and should be too powerful for the player characters to defeat at the beginning of the saga.

Pagans: The covenfolk of this community worship something other than the Christian God. This is likely to cause intense friction with the Church if discovered. If the object of their worship answers their prayers on a dependable basis, it must be bought separately as a Boon, most likely an Ally .

Pilgrimage Site: Pious people travel from across the kingdom to visit a holy shrine near the covenant. This means that the Church is more active and vigilant in the area than usual. As a partial recompense, there are large numbers of wealthy people traveling through the area, and many similarly situated covenants make money by providing services to pilgrims.

Ruined Covenant: 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.

Seat of Power: The covenant is near the primary residence of a great nobleman or a prince of the church. Either is capable of raising a large army, and jealous of his control of the sources of revenue within this area.

Minor Surroundings Hooks

Death Prophecies: An apparition appears in the area to warn certain people that they are about to die. Many of these people seek to prevent their deaths using methods detrimental to their fellows. Some attempt to atone for their sins; others begin a final round of debauchery and murder.

Deathbed Visitor: A supernatural being appears to many people in the surrounding area as they are about to die. In some areas, it is Death himself; in others, demons come seeking the souls of sinners. If this visitor can be tricked, or beaten in a game in which the dying individual wagers his life or soul, then the dying person might be saved.

Faerie Court: There is a faerie court somewhere near the covenant. A faerie court is usually limited to a small geographical area, like a woodland, lakebed, or ring of stones. It is an endless source of stories if sought out. Occasionally the faeries may leave the court, like the Hounds of Anwyn chasing the dead across Wales by night, or the Selkie King coming ashore to find a bride. This Hook may be Unknown.

Fated Feat: An incomplete prophecy is widely known in the area. It causes upheaval whenever someone attempts to complete it. For example, in a castle near a covenant in Wales, there is a horn that can be blown only by the true heir of the ancient kings. Anyone attempting to gain access to the horn is claiming the local nobleman has no right to rule, which leads to trouble, but the horn periodically disappears from the castle, as if seeking an owner. Similar prophecies lead people to disturb resting monsters through out Mythic Europe.

Fallen Temple: There is an area near the covenant that was, for a lengthy period, a site of magical practice. The temple site has not been secured, so the covenant’s members cannot be sure what defenses or treasures wait there.

Festival: A large number of the local peasants gather for festivals on certain occasions. This often inconveniences the magi.

For example, the Irish Beltane Fire Festivals dispel minor Hermetic enchantments and curse witches, so those with The Gift must hide behind the Aegis of the Hearth on those evenings. Passion plays may be followed by troublesome miracles, or over-excited mobs.

Ford: Near the covenant lies a ford that is the most convenient river-cross ing for at least three days travel in either direction.

The river channels travelers to the ford, which can be exploited for income, but the ford is also an obvious military objective in times of strife, since it can be held by few men against many.

Guardians: In ancient times a hedge magician bound guardians to a site near the covenant. A legend says that the guardians protect the magician’s treasure, but a second, and more troubling, story says that the guardians are the jailers of a monster the wizard could not kill. The local nobility have made it clear that they do not desire anyone to disturb the trouble sleeping at the site, so any investigation must be circumspect.

Heretics: A large number of people in the area surrounding the covenant hold views of which the Church is unlikely to approve, once they become aware of them. The Church’s initial response may be to send friars to the area in an attempt to draw the heretics back to the true faith, but if this fails, military action by the Church’s mundane allies may follow. This Hook may be Unknown.

Hermit: A saintly hermit lives within the vicinity of the covenant. He does not meddle much in the affairs of mundane people, but is sometimes drawn from seclusion by visions. This Hook may be Unknown until the first encounter.

Legendary Site: An important historical event took place close to the covenant. This affects the covenant occasionally because either the events have not yet resolved themselves or outsiders sometimes stir up the site seeking artifacts or historical legitimacy. The regiones around Tintagel in Cornwall, for example, lie at the heart of many Arthurian myths: Merlin might wake from his slumber, a meddling person might unsheathe the sword that wakes the sleeping knights, or a king might attempt to seize the Round Table as it rises from a bog each midsummer and anger the faeries by his success or seek the aid of magi after his failure.

Massacre Site: There is a piece of unhallowed ground near the covenant that was created by diabolism, battle, or some other terrible misfortune. Ghosts, animals possessed by demons, and clouds of illness come forth from it, and rumors of greater horrors are common. This Hook may be Unknown.

Missing Expedition: A group of Hermetic magi attempted to set up a covenant in this area many years ago, but they vanished. Clues to their fate may emerge, and whatever happened to them might threaten to recur. This Hook may be Unknown.

Monastery: There is a monastery near the covenant, which uses much of the local land to support its monks. The monastery is not militarized, but the local population finds its leaders persuasive, and as it grows, it may desire some of the covenant’s land. Even now, it expects financial support from the covenant.

Monster: A powerful mystical creature lives near the covenant. The creature can be aligned with any realm, and should be too powerful for the player characters to defeat at the beginning of the saga. This Hook may be Unknown.

Protector: The covenant is responsible for protecting something, such as a village, a magical grove, or a weaker covenant. This Hook may be taken more than once, to represent multiple protectorates, and the site may be distant from the covenant.

Roman Ruins: A ruined Roman fort, wall, or township lies near the covenant. Rumors say it is intermittently haunted, and some treasure may remain, hidden nearby. The ruin’s chief use to magi is that it is made of dressed stone, which can be reused to make covenant buildings, if they can secure the rights to it from its owners. This Hook may be Unknown.

Sanctuary: A site near the covenant is a sanctuary: a place where the accused can shelter, either due to ancient law or because it is owned by the Church. Sanctuaries tend to attract desperate criminals, and innocents who are even more desperate. This Hook may be Unknown.

Site of Weakness: A mystical site near the covenant could be used by the unscrupulous to harm people for miles around. For example, a faerie stone in Wales that unleashes terrible storms that destroy crops if water is poured upon it. Climbing Mount Pilatus in the Alps can generate similar storms. Another covenant guards a graveyard, because sleeping there causes terrible plagues to emerge from the Earth and blow across the countryside. This Hook may be Unknown.

Ungarrisoned Castle: Within the covenant’s vicinity lies a castle belonging to a major noble or the Crown. Like most castles, it is ungarrisoned in times of peace. A constable, perhaps a minor knight, and his household keep it ready for rapid militarization, should trouble brew.

Covenant Situations

Each covenant situation described below is a package of Boons and Hooks that balance. Troupes wanting to move quickly through the covenant generation process should select the one that suits their needs most closely and tailor it with additions from the lists above.

Autumn Power

This strong, Autumn covenant is based on the manorial model. The covenant’s strength brings problems in the form of rivals, political involvement, and hierarchy.

Hooks: Castle (Major), Fosterage (Minor), Politics (Minor), Protector (Minor), Rival (Major), Rival (Minor), Superiors (Major)

Free: Faux Feudalism

Boons: Artillery (Minor), Aura (Minor), Curtain Walls and Mural Towers: Hall Keep (Major), Edifice x2 (Minor), Prestige (Minor), Tame Nobleman (Major), Powerful Ally (Minor), Wealth: Agriculture (Minor), Writ of Crenellation (Minor)

Devoted

This covenant has devoted itself to attempting to reach the Lunar Sphere — not, they insist, breaching it. Archimagus Theoderic, who is affable and encouraging, governs this covenant. His mater, the Archimaga Diana, was the last to attempt to reach the Sphere, but she was blasted into tiny fragments of glass during a laboratory accident on this site. Some other covenants, predominantly from Houses Bonisagus and Merinita, give these magi support.

Hooks: Ceremonies (Major), Magical Disaster (Major), Flickering Aura (Minor), Hermetic Politics (Minor)

Free: Autocracy, Island

Boons: Dedicated Covenant (Major), Fallen Temple: Diana (Minor), Famous Resident (Minor), Felicitous Tribunal (Minor), Seclusion (Minor), Wealth: Marble Quarry (Minor)

Ecclesiastical

This covenant, sponsored by House Jerbiton, has close ties to the Church. It has agreed to monitor a site that was once used by diabolists, but this has aroused the ire of the demon whom the diabolists served.

Hooks: Church Territory (Minor), Corrupt Area (Minor), Demonic Interest (Major), Mundane Politics: Church Politics (Major)

Boons: Powerful Ally (Major), School (Major), Vivid Environment (Minor), Wealth: Bankers to the Local Bishop (Minor)

Expedition

This covenant has been created to discover the diamond mines of Solomon. Its members endure hardship, but have hopes for fame and fortune. They follow a map that has been used before, by two expeditions which did not return.

Hooks: Erratically Mobile (Minor), Missing Expedition x2 (Minor)

Boons: Powerful Ally (Major)

Hermetic Market

This covenant lies at the center of Europe, and holds Ceremonies of Welcome each year, which allow apprentices to become magi. Many magi use these gatherings to trade and gossip, and the covenant charges a small fee for setting up a stall. It also controls surrounding businesses that provide food, accommodation, and alcohol. Its servants act as tailors, saddlers, and blacksmiths, to repair the equipment of travelers.

The covenant’s Unnatural Law refers to powerful truth magic that affects the place. Here, broken oaths cause the tongue of liars to bleed, forged items reveal themselves through chance, and light or heavy measures break or refuse to weigh. This effect has Penetration 15, but is believed by many to be higher.

Hooks: Ceremonies (Major), Hermetic Services (Major), Castle (Major)

Boons: Curtain Walls and Mural Towers: Courtyard Castle (Major), Minority (Minor), Road (Major), Outbuildings — Fairground (Minor), Unnatural Law: Truth Magic (Minor)

Military Camp

This covenant has militarized to fight faeries in its vicinity. Its buildup of force has worried its neighbors, who have seeded it with spies, and one mundane noble has begun to develop a coalition against it.

Hooks: Castle (Major), Rival: Faeries (Major), Rival: Nobleman (Minor), Regio (Major), Spies (Minor)

Boons: Artillery (Minor), Local Ally: Moat Monster (Minor), Curtain Wall and Mural Towers: Circular Keep (Major), Magical Heavy Cavalry (Major x2)

Mundane Lord

The covenant has become master of a coastal holding. It is closely tied to the mundane nobility and may soon come to the attention of the Quaesitores.

Hooks: Castle (Major), Road: Coastline on Sea Route (Minor), Mundane Politics (Major), Rights (Minor)

Free: Faux Feudalism

Boons: Local Ally: Selkie King (Minor), Powerful Ally: Duke (Major), Tame Nobleman (Major), Criminals: Smugglers (Minor)

Quaesitorial Agents

The covenant comprises a Hoplite (see Houses of Hermes: True Lineages, page 70) and a team of non-magical agents, sent forth by the Quaesitores to deal with situations that the Order would like maximum capacity to deny. Agents are given enormous sums of money and magical equipment to allow them to complete their tasks. This saga’s stories end with decisive, violent confrontations between the player characters and villains. As the plot of each story develops, the player characters destroy expensive equipment and ruin distant, picturesque locations with fulsome application of devastating magic.

Boons: Informants (Minor), Powerful Ally: House Guernicus (Major), Wealthy (Major)

Hooks: Beholden: Quaesitores (Major), Constantly Mobile (Major), Hangout: Venetian Villa (Minor)

Powerful Location

The covenant is located in a place of great magical power. In many ways this is helpful, but it brings its own problems. The covenfolk, for example, must live within the place’s potent aura, so almost all suffer from Warping.

Hooks: Monster x2 (Minor), Regio (Major)

Boons: Aura x5 (Minor)

Roman Survival

This covenant is a pocket of the Empire that faded from the world before it fell. Its citizens live in a small, self-supporting town ruled from a villa on the highest hill. The magi now live there, with the current ruler as their autocrat. The residents worship the Old Gods, and accept the magi as priests. The Roman character of the area, and its hidden nature, has led to its designation as a place for Hermetic ceremonies.

Hooks: Ceremonies (Major), Distorted Covenfolk (Minor), Pagans (Major), Rights and Customs (Minor)

Free: Gerontocracy: Oldest Member of the Wealthiest Family

Boons: Edifices x2 (Minor: Aqueduct and irrigation system, Stadium), Loyal Covenfolk (Minor), Strong community (Minor), Regio (Major), Vast Aura (Minor)

Spring in the Woods

This young covenant has been founded deep in the woods to escape the attention of the Church, nobility, and senior covenants of the Tribunal. It has managed to develop good relations with the Court of the Bees, but has, at the same time, aroused the ire of the minor faerie that used to raid the beehives. This faerie has found a way past the Aegis and now lives in the covenant, causing minor trouble.

Hooks: Faerie Aura (Minor), Faerie Court (Minor), Resident Nuisance (Minor), Small Tower: Wooden (Minor)

Free: Gerontocracy Boons: Hidden Ways (Minor), Local Ally (Minor), Unnatural Law (Minor), Useful Curse (Minor)

Struggling

The covenant has few resources, and some enemies, and has to work hard just to survive. Stories are likely to concern very mundane issues, such as food supplies, at least until the poverty crisis is resolved.

Hooks: Poverty (Major), Contested Resource (Minor)

Boons: Aura x2 (Minor), Regio (Minor), Seclusion (Minor)

Summertime (And the Living Is Easy, Relatively Speaking)

This is a classic Summer covenant. Set amidst cropland and supported by serfs, it has a castle it can’t quite explain and a few faeries it has annoyed, but no major problems, when the saga begins.

Hooks: Castle (Major), Faerie Court (Minor)

Free: Criminals , Faux Feudalism

Boons: Curtain Walls and Mural Towers: Octagonal Keep (Major), Informants (Minor)

Swashbuckling

This covenant is based on a ship that seeks adventure — or at least distraction and riches — for the magi who own it.

Hooks: Constantly Mobile (Major), Hangout: Smugglers’ Port (Minor), Missing Aura (Major)

Boons: Criminals: Smugglers and Pirates (Minor), Edifice: The Large Ship The Half Shell (Minor), Hidden Ways: Sea Routes Only Traversable by Magic (Major), Strong Community: Crew and Wives Ashore (Minor), Wealthy: Trade and Piracy (Minor)

Traveling Covenant

This covenant does not have a stationary site. It moves on a circuit to harvest its resources, or keep its trade contacts vibrant.

Hooks: Constantly Mobile (Major), Resident Nuisance (Minor), Rival x3 (Minor), Missing Aura (Major)

Boons: Informants (Minor), Local Ally x6 (Minor), Wealth: Trade Fleet (Minor)

Urban

The covenant is hidden in a regio in a city. While this makes reaching a market easy, it brings its own problems.

Hooks: Flickering Aura (Minor), Rival (Minor), Refugee (Minor), Urban (Major)

Free: Democracy Boons: Edifice: Palatial House (Minor), Regio (Major), Unnatural Law (Minor), Wealthy: Stationers (Minor)

Winter Ruins

The covenant is a fallen one and its magi have been assigned by their parentes, or the Tribunal, to rebuild it. They are the only magi present, but some of the servants of the previous magi remain, as does a powerful creature, either a deranged familiar or the beast that slew their final — admittedly Twilight-ridden and possibly demented — predecessor.

If, alternately, a magus has survived to welcome these new magi, the group should choose Superiors, or perhaps Famous Inhabitant, depending on the remaining magus’s personality.

Hooks: Contested Resource x3 (Minor), Monster (Major), Poverty (Minor)

Free: Gerontocracy Boons: Aura x2 (Minor), Edifice x2 (Minor), Hidden Resources x3 (Minor)

Worshipful

This covenant has been built in a regio where the inhabitants worship a family of pagan gods, who are powerful faeries. The family has fallen out with each other, and the magi have taken the side of the Blackberry God, a harvest deity. A magus is responsible for the rift, and thus it falls to the magi to resolve it. The Queen of Snowflakes, the former lover of the Blackberry God, controls the land above the tree-line, and some the covenant’s vis sources lie in this area; she does not make collection easy. Summer is now a ghostly infant, unable to be born until his parents reconcile, and thus prone to interfering in covenant affairs to bring that about.

The state of the conflict results in the season being fixed at harvest. While this means that the peasants are always busy, it also means that the covenant has a massive agricultural surplus. At present, this is used to provide the Blackberry God with vast amounts of beer.

Hooks: Ancestral Error: A magus caused the rift (Minor), Contested resource x 2 (Minor), Faerie Aura (Minor, as described in Regio), Faerie landlord (Major: Blackberry God), Pagans (Major) Rival: Queen of Snowflakes (Major), Rival: Summer (Minor)

Free: Theocratic: the magi, who act as priests for the god, rule through lesser priests, Peasants

Boons: Edifices x2: Great Hall of the Magi, Temple of the Blackberry God (Minor), Local Ally: Summer (Minor), Powerful Ally (Major), Regio (Major), Strong Community (Minor), Unnatural law: forever harvest (Minor) Vast Aura (Minor), Vivid Environment (Minor)

Entries in bold are particularly suited to low fantasy campaigns. Entries in italics are particularly suited to high fantasy campaigns.

Boons

• Artillery: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Aura: Site, Major
• Aura: Site, Minor
• Autocephalous: External, Major
• Bedrock: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Benefice: External, Minor
• Cavalry: Residents, Minor
• Chase: Surroundings, Major
• Conscious Space: Site, Major
• Curtain Walls and Mural Towers: Buildings, Major, requires Castle
• Criminals: Residents, Minor
• Crossbowmen: Residents, Minor
• Dedicated Covenant: External, Major
• Defensive Environment: Surroundings, Major
• Difficult Access: Site, Minor
• Edifices: Minor, Building
• Famous Resident: Residents, Minor
• Fantastic Environment: Site, Major
• Favors Owed: External, Major
• Felicitous Tribunal: External, Minor
• Healthy Feature: Site, Minor
• Hedge Tradition: External, Major
• Heavy Cavalry: Residents, Major
• Hidden Resources: Resources, Minor
• Hidden Ways: Surroundings, Major
• Hostile Environment: Site, Minor
• Important Buildings: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Immunity: Site, Major
• Immunity: Site, Minor
• Informants: External, Minor
• Inhuman Residents: Residents, Minor
• Literate Covenfolk: Residents, Minor
• Local Ally: External, Minor
• Local Language: Residents, Minor
• Loyal Covenfolk: Residents, Minor
• Magical (soldiers): Residents, Major, requires any other soldier type
• Moat Monster: see Local Ally
• Minority: Surroundings, Major
• Missile Weapons: Residents, Minor
• Mystical Allies: Surroundings, Major
• Mystical Portal: Site, Minor
• Natural Fortress: Site, Major
• Powerful Ally: External, Major
• Prestige: External, Major
• Prestige: External, Minor
• Promised Favors: External, Minor
• Regio: Site, Major
• Regio: Site, Minor
• Right: Resources, Minor
• Seclusion: Site, Minor
• Secondary Income: Resources, Minor
• Shell Keep: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Strong Community: Residents, Minor
• Tame Nobleman: Residents, Major
• Time Dilation or Contraction: Site, Major
• Tithing Miracles: Surroundings, Major
• Tower Keep: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Ungoverned: External, Minor
• Unnatural Law: Site, Minor
• Useful Curse: Residents, Minor
• Vast and Labyrinthine: Buildings, Minor.
• Vast Aura: Site, Minor
• Veteran Fighters: Residents, Minor
• Vis Grant: Minor, Resources
• Vivid Environment: Site, Minor
• Wealth: Resources, Major
• Wealth: Resources, Minor
• Writ of Crenelation: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle

Free Choices

• Autocracy: Residents
• Barbican and Moat: Buildings, Requires Curtain Walls and Mural Towers
• Chemise: Buildings, Requires Curtain Walls and Mural Towers
• Concil: Residents
• Courtyard Castle: Buildings, Requires Curtain Walls and Mural Towers
• Democracy: Residents
• Faux Feudalism: Residents
• Gerontocracy: Residents
• Hall Keep: Buildings, Requires Curtain Walls and Mural Towers
• Hunters or Sailors: Residents
• Island: Buildings
• Manor House: Buildings
• Militocracy: Residents
• Peasants: Residents
• Ringwork: Buildings, requires Castle
• Small Tower: Buildings
• Theocracy: Residents

Hooks

• Alienable Land: Residents, Minor
• Ancestral Error: External, Minor
• Beholden: External, Major
• Castle: Buildings, Major
• Centralized Kingdom: External, Minor
• Center of Excellence: External, Major
• Ceremonies: External, Major
• Chapter House: Residents, Major
• Church Territory: External,
• Minor City: Surroundings, Major
• Constantly Mobile: Site, Major
• Contested Resource: Resources, Minor
• Corrupt Area: Site, Minor
• Crumbling: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Cursed: Site, Minor
• Dark Secret: Residents, Minor
• Death Prophecy: Surroundings, Minor
• Deathbed Visitor: Surroundings, Minor
• Demonic Interest: Surroundings, Major
• Diabolic Corruption: Residents, Major
• Distorted Covenfolk: Residents, Minor
• Divided Loyalty: Residents, Major
• Dumping Ground: Residents, Minor
• Dwindling Resources: Resources, Minor
• Enclosed: Surroundings, Major
• Evil Custom: Site, Minor
• Erratically Mobile: Site, Minor
• Exceptional Book: External, Major
• Faerie Aura: Site, Minor
• Faerie Court: Surroundings, Minor
• Faerie Landlord: Surroundings, Major
• Fallen Temple: Surroundings, Minor
• Fated Feat: Surroundings, Minor
• Favors: External, Minor
• Festival: Surroundings, Minor
• Flawed Resources: Resources, Minor
• Flickering Aura: Site, Minor
• Ford: Surroundings, Minor
• Fosterage: Residents, Minor
• Fractured Council: Residents, Major
• Gender Imbalance: Residents, Minor
• Great Work: see Edifice
• Guardians: Surroundings, Minor
• Guild: Residents, Minor
• Hangout: External, Minor
• Haunted: Site, Minor
• Hedge Tradition: External, Major
• Heretics: Surroundings, Minor
• Hermetic Politics: External, Minor
• Hermetic Services: External, Major
• Hermit: Surroundings, Minor
• Highly Mutable: Site, Major
• House Church: Residents, Minor
• House Covenant: External, Minor
• Illusory Resources: Resources, Minor
• Incompetent Covenfolk: Residents, Minor
• Indebted: Resources, Major
• Indebted: Resources, Minor
• Indigenes: Residents, Minor
• Indiscreet Resource: Resources, Major
• Indiscreet Resource: Resources, Minor
• Infamous: External, Minor
• Inhuman Covenfolk: Residents, Minor
• Infants: Residents, Minor
• Itinerants: External, Minor
• Legendary Site: Surroundings, Minor
• Magical Disaster: Site, Major
• Magical Fortress: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Massacre Site: Surroundings, Minor
• Meddlesome Saint: Surroundings, Major
• Mercer House: Residents, Major
• Missing Aura: Site, Major
• Missing Founder: External, Minor
• Monastery: Surroundings, Minor
• Monster: Site, Major
• Monster: Surroundings, Major
• Monster: Surroundings, Minor
• Mundane Politics: External, Major
• Mutable: Site, Minor
• Natural Disaster: Resources, Major
• Natural Disaster: Resources, Minor
• Non-magical Regio: Site, Minor, requires Regio
• Outbuildings: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Pagans: Surroundings, Major
• Poverty: Resources, Major
• Poverty: Resources, Minor
• Pilgrimage Site: Surroundings, Major
• Possession Victim: Residents, Minor
• Poorly Defensible: Site, Minor
• Protector: Surroundings, Minor
• Public Vis Source: External, Minor
• Rebellious Covenfolk: Residents, Major
• Refugee: Residents, Minor
• Regio: Site, Major
• Regio: Site, Minor
• Regio With Unexpected Entries: Site, Minor
• Regional Produce: Resources, Minor
• Resident Nuisance: Site, Minor
• Rights and Customs: Residents, Minor
• Rival: External, Major
• Rival: External, Minor
• Road: Site, Major
• Road: Site, Minor
• Roman Ruins: Surroundings, Minor
• Ruined Covenant: Surroundings, Major
• Sanctuary: Surroundings, Minor
• School: Residents, Major
• Seat of Power: Surroundings, Major
• Seed of Madness: Residents, Minor
• Site of Weakness: Surroundings, Minor
• Slavery: External, Minor
• Spies: Residents, Minor
• Superior Engineering: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle
• Suffrage: Residents, Minor
• Superiors: Residents, Major
• Superiors: Residents, Minor
• Tribunal Border: External, Major
• Undemocratic Tribunal: External, Minor
• Ungarrisoned Castle: Surroundings, Minor
• Unsafe: External, Minor
• Unsubtle Predecessor: External, Minor
• Uncontrolled Portal: Site, Minor
• Unhealthy Environment: Site, Minor
• Urban: Site, Major
• Urban: Site, Minor
• Vis salary: Resources, Minor
• War Zone: External, Major
• Warping to a Pattern: Site, Minor
• Weak Aura: Site, Minor
• Wooden: Buildings, Minor, requires Castle

Attribution

Attribution Based on the material for Ars Magica, ©1993-2024, licensed by Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games®, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license 4.0 ("CC-BY-SA 4.0"). Ars Magica Open License Logo ©2024 Trident, Inc. The Ars Magica Open License Logo, Ars Magica, and Mythic Europe are trademarks of Trident, Inc., and are used with permission. Order of Hermes, Tremere, Doissetep, and Grimgroth are trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB and are used with permission.

Table of Boons and Hooks