Certamen

Game 2. Cont.

First up was NPC and Alciver. Alciver briefly disappeared into the trees with his large companion David and emerged looking a little worse for wear. Alciver's arse was handed to him. Politely.

Next came Calvin and Yvonne. Choosing Creo Terram the pair began certamen. Calvin creo terram The whole earth and Yvonne responded by creating mountains on the earth. Calvin reached below these mountains to create flawless diamonds in their depths and Yvonne could not respond. Calvin's advantage was so great and the magical aura so high that we entered the Twilight Zone! sorry... Wizards Twilight. Botching again on the GM's request Yvonne emerged hours later slightly less good at Terram than before and with a twilight scar of muddy footprints that evaporate after a minute or so. While she was so frozen however Calvin, naughty little boy that he is could not control himself and sketched a moustache upon her upper lip with grease paint. She was not impressed.

In the meantime, Calvin and Alciver bent their minds to a further certamen; Perdo Corpus but not before Alciver again disappeared into the wheat with David for a short space of time. However this time it was David that returned looking fatigued. Calvin gained a large bonus early on but set himself too high a standard with an opening action of Perdo Corpus "I destroy your thingie" Naturally Alciver had only weak floundering defense against such an attack and incorrectly counter attacked with Perdo Mentem "I destroy your mind". Still Alciver seemed especially energetic as Calvin began to tire even his best shot at Perdo Corpus "I destroy the thingies of all your future children and their off spring" met with little success against the seemingly inexhaustible Alciver. Calvin was forced to retire at the point of exhaustion.

The final certamen of the evening took place between the newly recovered Yvonne and Alciver. It was a contest of Rego Vim. Alciver took the lead raising a demon to eat Yvonne's entrails. She enclosed him in a protective circle. He contained the demon in a circle.
She suppressed the circle around the Demon. He summoned an angle to fight the Demon. She moved the vim inside the demons corpse. He created a connection between the two certamening magi. She used it to suck at his vim and was promptly knocked unconscious.

Fiat Lux!

Game 2

If only creating light was as easy as commanding the heavens, "Fiat Lux!" Friday's game consisted of two parts, a comedy of errors in trying to create habitable dwellings and quite a few rounds of certamen.

Play commenced as the players were told that not only did the sun shine eternally in the regio, as far as they were aware, but that their sanctums and laboratories, not designed as such, had ... nothing. No beds, no tables, no windows or light sources.

Each of the characters dealt with this problem in their own way. The grogs and companions happily started building huts in the "endless" (not quite) wheat fields. This was the sane and rational thing to do. Therefore, the magi did not pursue this course.

As a simple introduction to that night's Comedy of Errors, Alciver, Master of Spontaneous Magic and no slouch at Rego (to control) looked at his walls and desired... windows. A little chanting under his breath and a window was dialed into the stone. (Rather sloppy, but still, window.) More casts made a table, a hearth, and a stone bed.

Thus we arrived at the first philosophical quandary of the night. In terms of Aristotelian physics, weight, solidity, and other "aspects" of something are indeed aspects. Due to magic, (Perdo, to destroy), these aspects can be targeted. Thus, you can cast a Perdo Terram (Destroy Earth) spell on a stone and destroy its weight. After a brief think (and then cleaning up the bits of exploded brain) we decided that destroying stone's hardness was outside the scope of what their magics could accomplish. Thus, our innocent, trusting, and naive lad Alciver used Rego Herbam (Control Plants) to weave wheat stalks into quite a few domestic items. (A mattress, window shades, etc.) After a disastrous attempt at making a door, he decided that enough was enough and he'd make one every time he wanted to leave.

Thus ended the sane portion of the night.

Next up, we have the Marineta mage, Calvin. Named, unfortunately, not for the famous philosopher and theologian, but for the comic character. The house Marineta is known for their association and attraction to the Fey. Calvin, unfortunately, suffers from "Big" syndrome. One year into his apprenticeship, he went to sleep in a field and ... spent a busy busy day in Arcadia. He returned to discover that, while no time had passed in the real world, he, himself, was twenty years older.

This put a certain crimp in his apprenticeship. And in him. For he was someone who had spent twenty years as an 8 year old, now in a 28 year old's body. Of other interest, at present, is his uncanny mastery of Animae Magic (not something that everyone can do, thank the gods.) Specifically, he has a focus in Muto (to change) magic with an emphasis on changing things like thoughts and stones... into pesudosentient faeries. Yes, he can turn a thought into a pseudosentient creature. No, he hasn't tried it yet.

So this trick-seeking 8-year old in a 40 year old's body (now that he served out the rest of his apprenticeship) can create friends that most people wish were imaginary. He had a number of objectives. The first was, indeed, to get some light in his rooms. The second was to have a fireplace for his pet dragon. (Very very very small dragon.)

Fnord. And here is where one of his flaws came back to bite him on the ass. Badly. He had (he just retconned it out, I give all players a free retcon at the start of the game) the flaw Chaotic Magic. Basically, for spontaneous spells (I'm going to pull an effect out of my arse, thankyouverymuch) his.... tended to go rather awry.

As all disasters do, it started quietly. He decided to fiddle with his wall. Specifically, he wanted to adjust a property of the stone, he wanted to reduce its opacity. No problems (he was being very conservative.)

Lacking any rego (so he could shape the stone) he decided to be of "assistance" to the other players. (Cue music.) He wandered his way down to Maga Yvonne's Dungeon. It was dark. Very dark. Not in the Gothic architecture (none) or the prison props (few and rusted) but in the complete absence of light sense. Here he met young Alciver, so trusting and naive¹. The "fun" begins as our young friend ponders ways to let light in. Using Intellego Terram (Perceive Earth) he sounded out the ceiling, finding spots that were *not* underneath the temple proper. And then he spun a window. In the ceiling. The subsequent fall of earth (as the basement is a slight distance under the ground and the fields of wheat approach closely to the temple) while disconcerting, would be very useful to the next few people who would "drop in." (Yes, it's funny. Laugh.)

A shaft of sunlight now dimly illuminated the fairly large space. Of course, since the sunlight is going through the functional equivalent of a tube in the ceiling, it's not illuminating much. Or, to phrase the concept in Aristotelian physics, little illumination is reaching objects in the dungeon, meaning they don't give off visual species. (I'm so very glad none of my players is specialized in Imaginem (image) dealing with the concept of species as objects of sensation is a pain.)

And so approaches the ... Merinita. He also gets permission to enter Yvonne's sanctum and promptly acknowledges her request for a window in her ceiling. He happily walks to the center and casts a spontaneous spell.

...

And then a large circle of the ceiling... melts. (Massive overkill on his casting roll, leading to horribly chaotic results.) This melted ceiling still isn't opaque, so he decides to fix the problem by trying again. (Remarkable amounts of overkill on the casting roll later...) and he, instead of turning the ceiling transparent, turns it sentient. (Anyone could make that mistake. REALLY.) This pesudosentience, having just become aware, could speak. It didn't have any understanding of sensation or anything beyond itself.)

About ten minutes of conversation later, the ceiling asks for legs. As a fair number of people have observed, Sentient tools are generally a really bad idea. Sentient structural supports are even worse. The ever "helpful" Alciver casts a bit of rego terram and gives the ceiling legs. Another cast separates the "cone" from the surrounding ceiling and it starts walking around and blundering about, accidentally stepping on Alciver's foot in the process.

A circle of puzzled faces appear around the hole in the ceiling, which is in the direct center of the Temple's sanctuary. Observing the ... cone shaped monstrosity, a quick cast of a spell by Francis bids all life depart from whatever it was. As Calvin ran from the Dungeon, Yvonne and Alciver got a stern talking-to. This lecture, of course, was made worse by a grog falling through the random hole in the ground and landing on the pile of dirt.

Ordered to fix the two holes, Alciver does, which leaves Yvonne back where she started from: in the dark. As Alciver is fixing the holes in the ceiling, Francis comes to Yvonne with an offer: in exchange for an unnamed favor later, he'll provide a globe that's magically bright. After a number of almost certainly well-founded misgivings, she accepts. Of note is his very stern injunction to NOT DROP THE GLOBE. This warning of course aroused the players' curiosity and one of them looked at the globe with second sight. Apparently there's a fire elemental trapped inside.

The globe being carefully emplaced in a corner of the dungeon, the ever helpful (hahaha) Alciver is once again called in to shape some basic amenities. An ominous (though not immediately revealing botch) table creation and lab bench creation later, the lab is once again plunged into darkness as one of the lab benches he shapes engulfs the globe. This is the last straw for Yvonne and she shoos the slightly repentant Alciver out of her space. Carefully "drilling" into the bench with Perdo Terram, she uncovers her globe and rests, now having minimal amenities and space.

The walking locus of catastrophe, Calvin, then went to our humble Alciver to get some modifications to *his* room. A large hearth style fireplace in the middle of the room and, after some negotiations, a chimney completed the modifications. Of course, a hearth demands firewood. Now, the logical thing is to send some nameless grogs out to get firewood. Calvin did nothing of the sort.

Calvin, deciding that he needed a tree to get firewood created four stone homunculi and dispatched them to get a tree from a nearby forest. And off they went. Some time later they came back with a tree. In their zeal they also happened to bring back a tree with a bear in it, which was clinging on desperately. Calvin, standing in the vestibule watched as the homunculi brought the tree, with bear, in. The hapless Bonisagus, still studying the room, blanched and told Calvin to get the damn bear out.

Having his minions retreat out to the "Real World" he followed and heard a slight sound behind him as the Bonisagus locked the regio. Time passed. Meanwhile, Calvin managed to have his Faerie companions shake the tree and get the bear off, which promptly ran away, vowing never to climb a tree for honey again. Around this time, sunset occurred and the spell animating the stone figures faded. Walking back through the now open regio gate, Calvin was disheartened to learn that he wouldn't be allowed to bring his tree through. Sectioning the tree into firewood did the trick and he summoned four more stone homunculi. For the task of carrying the firewood, they demanded a few drops of mother's milk. Each. Negotiations ensued, followed by accusations by the homunculi that Calvin was a member of the bourgeois oppressors and that they were going on strike. He resolved the situation by vowing that he was one of the workers and would help them carry the firewood in.

Fiat Lux!

Having gotten the silly out of their system, the game moved on a day to the Winter Solstice. To celebrate the solstice, the covenant gathered together as a whole. A number of rounds of certamen² were to be fought, to determine resource precedence. The certamen battles will be continued in the next post.

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¹ A note on magi and their labs. Nominally, it is forbidden for magi to do all kinds of nasty things to each other on pain of being splatted. These rules are known as the code (A lovely oath that I'm actually making the magi swear in character. Out loud. ::grin::) The code basically promises immunity against being scryed upon and "depriving of magical power" which is a lovely catch-all that prevents killing and whatnot. However, entering another magi's sanctum/lab means one "forfeits immunity" Of course, the beauty is that the other magi, the one who's sanctum/lab it is doesn't forfeit. Thus, Alciver is quite naive in trusting that Yvonne's word is actually worth a damn when she promises not to magically [expletive] him up in her dungeon.

² Certamen, or game, is a magical, non-lethal duel between two magi of the Order of Hermes. In a house rule, to both make the game more entertaining and to use it as a teaching tool to teach the magic system of the players, each player, on their turn, must use the form and technique to respond to the previous scenario. As an example, consider a Creo Herbam certamen (Create Plant). The first attacker would say "A Great Oak grows in the forest" the second person would then, on his turn go "But an Acorn grows from the oak" The trick is to respond in context of the previous statement using the technique in an interesting way. The audience then votes, giving up to a +3 to either side.