1236, Spring
It was time for another session of Ars Magica this week. Previously, we had been investigating some of the strangeness going on around a nearby Loch, in particular a wolf headed man delivering fish and an odd woman and her son living alone near the shores of the Loch.
There have been a number of things that we’ve been investigating over many campaign years, most of them revolving around strange faerie happenings and also earthquakes. We’ve tried to follow up each one, but every time we have come away not really knowing anything more about what is happening, nor having any way of linking these things together.
So part way through the session there was an in-character discussion about what we were going, and whether there was any point investigating things further. This turned into a player discussion about much the same thing, and questions to the GM about whether we were missing anything obvious.
The GM took our discussions on board, and has accepted that we are feeling that things are going nowhere and would like a bit more progress on these plot threads. They have said that they will move things along. Whether we come to regret this remains to be seen…
Finally, I may have got the dates a bit wrong. I was thinking that we are still in Winter, but apparently we are in spring. I’ve started colouring finished seasons in our campaign diary (a Google Sheet, where we record what we are doing each season) to try and keep better track of things.
Jack
We stayed overnight with the Gruagach. By morning, Knox had re-appeared and was exceedingly cheerful. Allistor decides that there isn’t anything important here, so wants to head back to the covenant. The magi have been running around after the earthquakes and other oddness for some time, and still haven’t figured out what is going on. I think it’s starting to get to Allistor.
Allistor flies back to the covenant, and the rest of us follow using a slightly slower route, and going via the old woman.
Knox uses his eagle eyes to spy out the son, whilst Maedbh looks for a spot with a suitable magical vibe to give her an advantage when casting spells. Once Knox has found the son, she casts a spell on him to allow him to see magical effects. He claims that everything looks a bit weird. The son’s torc though is gleaming more than it was previously.
Maedbh comes up with a plan to tell the Clan Campbell bard who we had helped a couple of days ago about the woman and the son and the magic torc. She uses her faerie whiles on the man, to try and convince him that it was his idea to deal with the problem himself.
After that, we head back to the covenant.
When we get back, I find that some of my agents have returned to say that Lord Goullis had ‘hired’ a whole load of people to collect stone and pile it up, but people aren’t entirely certain about why. The rumour is that he plans to build a church, though given the amount of preparation, it would be a very big one.
Pisciculus ex Criamon – Summer, 1236
News will reach us that up in Clan Campbell lands, the the bastard son of the old chief had been dabbling in magic. When confronted, he turned into a giant serpent and slew several warriors. They lured him into a trap where he was tricked into drinking some poisoned mead. His mother killed himself by throwing herself into the Loch.
We also receive a box, which has a copper torc in it, fashioned in the shape of a twisting serpent.
From down south, it looks like Lord Goullis is building a large celebratory church in thanks for his victories up north. It will be near his castle, and he wants it to be his personal church. Given his reputation, people are surprised by this sign of godliness.
Pisciculus ex Criamon – Autumn, 1236
I continue to study. My plan is that now that I’ve improved my Rego, I wanted to improve my Creo up to a similar level. Improving my techniques will enable me to cast a wide range of magic.
I’m still weak in the elemental Forms, and since we have a very good book on elemental magic, I want to spend a season on each of Animal, Auram, Ignem and Terram to improve them by a magnitude. However, Maedbh seems to have a similar idea so I switch to improving my Imagonem.
My ultimate aim is to be able to learn Image from the Wizard Torn, a quite high level spell that requires skill at Rego, Intellego and Imagonem. I have some years to go before I can learn this spell.
