Apprentices Chapter Five: Adolescentia: Ages 15 to 21
See Also
- The Ars Magica Reference Document
- The Apprentices Open Content page
- The Apprentices product page on this wiki
Chapter Five: Adolescentia: Ages 15 to 21
Adolescence is the third stage of life, running from 15 to 21 years of age. Poets refer to this as the age of lovers, when a boy is no longer a child, yet not quite a man. An adolescent boy is given adult responsibilities while still receiving the tolerance his youthful years deserve. At 15, a character's Characteristics are no longer penalized for age, meaning that he often shifts into more adult roles. It is common for a 15 year old boy to join his lord's levy and march to war, or for an apprentice to stand in for her parens rather than merely assisting him. Adventures can lose their childhood focus and become more mature.
The teenage years bring all sorts of accompanying troubles. Puberty is a complicated mix of emotions, and years immediately following are fraught with anxiety, expectations, and inclusion into a new world of adult behavior. Romantic issues assume a sudden and overwhelming importance, often to the point of distraction. Time that was once spent in study or play is now interrupted by penning love poems and dreamily gazing out tower windows.
An apprentice achieves his maximum usefulness to his parens during this stage of life. Besides becoming an important laboratory assistant, the apprentice can perform other tasks in place of his parens. With several years of training under his belt, the apprentice might start performing duties that would otherwise require the magus to waste time on lesser projects, or that would distract him from his work. The invitation to assist a master in the lab is an important rite of passage and a sign of great status among an apprentice's peers, since it carries the connotation that the apprentice is no longer a child.
Coming of Age
By 15, most boys and girls have become productive members of society. Most have taken firm steps along a career path and are fully entrenched in their vocation. The vast majority of Mythic Europe's children, those of the unwashed, laboring peasant, serf, and farmer, are working the farm, driving the herd, and engaging in all the agrarian tasks necessary to sustain life. Young girls from the poorest to the wealthiest learn the textile trades, spinning, sewing, and weaving. Urban sons of guild members are likely apprentices in their fathers' guilds, toiling for a master who provides them room, board, and instruction. Other adolescents might be enrolled in universities or cathedral schools, and those bent on religious life might be already enclosed in monasteries and churches.
Adolescents work on their own, without parental supervision. Skilled tradesmen and clerks still work closely with an instructor, but they are not watched over as if they were children. Adolescents gather into samesex groups, both for safety, to reinforce social mores, and to exchange ideas and information. If work can be done in a group, so much the better. Village girls unite to do laundry at the well, and boys unite to drive the cows to pasture. Rural adolescents may have a younger sibling in tow, charged with watching the child in addition to their work.
A good many rural adolescents leave home during this time and head for town, which offers better employment opportunities, unsupervised freedom from parents, and the intoxicating lure of urban excitement. Not every adolescent goes willingly. Some are sent against their wishes by parents who hope to provide their children with a better livelihood. These adolescents are in addition to the number sent as apprentices to city guilds and those sent for institutional education. Besides working menial labor jobs, of which there are many, the vast majority of rural adolescents become servants in the houses of the nobility, wealthy merchants, and church dignitaries. Many better-off families hire adolescent servants, exchanging meals, clothing, and minimal education for the servant's labor. Adolescent girls and boys perform many, if not most, of the menial jobs done in a rich man's house.
An adolescent is easily taken by flights of fancy, easily distracted from work by sights and sounds. A pretty girl turns a boy's head and he drops the baggage he was carrying. A wounded, whimpering dog pulls a young woman from her chores, as she rushes to its aid. Adolescence is often described as the best time of one's life, mixing the innocence of childhood with the enthusiasm and exuberance of puberty, and before being ground down by adult toils and troubles.
Not every boy or girl becomes a productive member of society, and a good number instead become unproductive elements: beggars, thieves, layabouts, and cutthroats, to name just a few. Bad luck and ill circumstances lead many to such lives, but some actually aspire to such evil trades. While child rogues and thieves can be a nuisance and inconvenience, adolescent outlaws and troublemakers can be dangerous. Legally, most areas treat an adolescent offender as an adult. An adolescent is too young to inherit property, but not to hang for murder, heresy, or theft. While a child might receive a pardon for even the vilest crime, a boy or girl in her teens will not. While the family surely grieves, the crowd won't flinch at a hanged 16 year old boy or a 14 year old girl burned at the stake.
Story Seed: Against the Master's Wishes
In many areas of Mythic Europe, peasants are forbidden to leave the land they work without the permission of their feudal master. An adolescent who leaves home for the city is actually breaking the law. A landed noble notices that several of his serfs' sons are leaving the manor and heading to town, and asks the magi if they can help retrieve the boys. The player characters could be the fleeing apprentices, trying to outrun the noble's pursuing posse, or agents from the covenant sent to retrieve the boys. This could be a good introductory adventure. Players make adolescent characters who then flee home, heading for the nearest city but inadvertently meeting the covenfolk and magi sent to find them.
Story Seed: The Thrills of Love
Romantic infatuations strike the young quickly and ferociously, generated by a single glance, a casual touch, or a scented letter. Adolescents may abandon their sense of reason to chase a pretty face, braving all sorts of dangers just to be near the one they love. This is the stuff of many medieval legends and the romance literature popular in the 13th century.
Any character can suffer Cupid's darts. Love strikes without mercy, and storyguides should feel justified in simply stating that a player's adolescent character sees a beautiful face and instantly falls in love. Use this to propel stories, not to punish or penalize players. The obstacles to the character's desire to be near his love should seem insurmountable. Social and cultural barriers must be crossed: reluctant fathers persuaded, jealous rivals dueled, midnight rendezvous arranged, and love letters and items of affection must be covertly passed back and forth. The social suspicion fostered by The Gift can be detrimental, although the apprentice still feels the stings of unrequited love. Obvious obstacles aside, adolescent infatuation can be additionally complicated emotionally. Perhaps the apprentice's beloved does not return his affections, or is betrothed to another. Love affairs, secret or declared, can become unbelievably entangled.
For example, a visiting Tytalus magus arrives at the covenant with his 14 year old daughter in tow. Although she isn't Gifted, she is still the daughter of a powerful magus. To make matters worse, she is beautiful beyond measure to the (admittedly naïve) adolescent player characters. During her stay, the youths vie for her attentions, and if one of the adolescents is an apprentice, the competition should be fierce and extremely entertaining. The Tytalus' daughter plays up the rivalry, her head full of romantic notions, encouraging her suitors and hoping to provoke them into a duel.
More Marriage Story Seeds
A marriage is a nice hitch to wrap a story around, because they are common enough events to include all sorts of characters. Magi sometimes marry, which may involve the whole covenant, but even a secret marriage between grogs is storyworthy.
THE MASTER'S MARRIAGE
An apprentice's parens is marrying his beloved at the covenant, and the feast is set. A magnificent cake is baked, but it mysteriously goes missing just hours before the grand banquet begins. Knowing that his parens is preoccupied, the apprentice must find the missing cake.
THE ILLEGAL MARRIAGE
In some countries, serfs and other bonded men must first ask their lord's permission to marry. A serf that didn't shows up at the covenant seeking sanctuary from an upset local lord. Do the magi help him and his new bride, or do they turn them over to his lord, who has a reputation for savagery?
THE FAERIE MARRIAGE
A faerie proposes to a naïve adolescent character, who inadvertently accepts the proposal and is whisked to the Faerie Realm. Characters must retrieve the character, and not incur the faerie's wrath.
THE PRIVATE MARRIAGE
The adolescent son of a covenant grog disappears, and the characters are charged with finding him. He has run off and married a local girl, and now the pair are on the run and trying to find a new place to live.
A NOBLE MARRIAGE
The nearby knight is getting married and invites his neighbors to attend. Several of the covenant's adolescents go, but are unprepared for the heightened social interactions that result at court. Can the characters avoid making fools of themselves at the ceremony?
Marriage
The average age that most peasant boys marry is 18 to 25, while most girls marry around 17 or 18. Historical evidence for marriage is scant in the 13th century, and while records exist of kings, princes, and wealthy nobles marrying much younger partners, such behavior is limited to perhaps 1% of Mythic Europe's population. In most cases, the man is older than the woman. For the vast majority of the population, the agrarian peasantry, marriage for male characters happens after adolescence. For a female characters, however, it is very likely that she will enter this most holy of unions before she turns 21.
Clandestine marriages, those that occur without a priest and witnesses, are common. The willing participants verbally promise to marry each other and the act is done. The Church has recently outlawed such practices, and Canon 50 of the Fourth Lateran Council requires that marriages be performed by a priest. The marriage contract must be publicly announced before the event, and the priest is tasked with investigating if any impediments to the union exist. Most often, these impediments are degrees of consanguinity; the couple must be four steps of affinity removed from each other to form a legal union. Children of clandestine or illegal marriages — usually those who marry regardless of degrees of consanguinity — are illegitimate.
To end a legal marriage, a priest must annul the marriage by deciding that it was invalid in the first place. If annulled, the marriage never existed legally, and both participants are allowed to marry again. Annulments are expensive and time consuming, and out of the reach of peasants, townsfolk, moderately wealthy merchants, and the lesser nobility.
Some players may have heard of the legend of the "right of the first night," jus primae noctis or droit du seigneur (the lord's right). According to this legend, in some countries, the lord of the land had the right to sleep with any man's bride on the first night of her marriage. Although popular in several 20th century films, the legend of the right of first night is not medieval, and most likely arose in the 19th century, as an aspersion cast against the Middle Ages.
Supernatural Interests
Children are easier targets than adults, and some supernatural creatures intentionally target younger characters because of this vulnerability. Removed from the home and outside direct parental control and protection, adolescents are more at risk than younger children. Adolescentia is probably the age of man where the biggest developmental changes occur, during which characters change from a child into an adult. This transition does not go unnoticed by Mythic Europe's supernatural denizens.
Demons find adolescents tasty morsels, each ready for temptation, corruption, and sin. Magically compelling an adolescent to act sinfully might be easy, because of the target's lower resistances and tender age, but it is not actually sin. To be a sin, the act needs to be conscious. Like an adult, an adolescent needs to purposefully sin for the demon to succeed. Though most interested in mortal sins, demons start with venial sins, trying to tempt an adolescent into small acts of vice, in the hopes that he will eventually be tempted to commit greater sins. One demon spent five years trying to tempt an adolescent girl, posing as a wealthy merchant and continually offering her gifts and baubles in an attempt make her vain. On the cusp of her leaving adolescentia, the demon invited the girl to a huge banquet filled with sweet meats and wondrous devices. According to the legend, she escaped by crossing herself, but in your saga, she might need the aid of the magi to free herself from the demon's clutches.
Where there is sin, there is also salvation. Divine creatures take a more passive approach to adolescents, who after all have free will just like their parents, but many stand available if divine help is sought. In most cases, the character has to travel to the divine creature, either through pilgrimage to a holy site or by entering the divine creature's terrestrial regio. Most saints take kindly to adolescent petitioners, who receive a +1 bonus to the roll to invoke their patron saint (Realms of Power: The Divine, page 87). Other creatures, like divine unicorns and phoenixes, willing assist the troubled. Divine creatures are exceedingly hard to deceive, and supplicants with hidden selfish desires are easily detected.
Faeries take a keen interest in the liminal stages that begin and end the adolescent age of man. Susceptible and naive, a 15 year old is the perfect target for many faeries, who greedily lap up the adolescent's vitality. Some faeries actually feed on the flesh and bones of adolescents, but the vast majority seek the easily induced emotional surges of a young adult. A troll living under a bridge might challenge an adolescent to inspire courage, its preferred form of vitality. A faerie prince might promise to save an adolescent girl from her life as a servant by whisking her away to his faerie castle, while a faerie princess might need to be saved from a giant. The Woman of the Wheat Fields is a particularly nasty faerie from the Stonehenge Tribunal. Typically, she has a faerie servant abduct a boy traveling through the wheat fields and bring him to her.
Surrounded by her court of fairy damsels, she holds the child down, flays his hair and scalp, cuts open his skull, and removes his brains. Stitching him back up, she sends the brainless lad on his way, insane and doomed to wander aimlessly.
Magic creatures are the least interested in adolescents; their general lack of interest in humanity is not suddenly lessened the moment an adolescent walks on the scene. A thinking magic creature might be briefly interested in a youth, but much depends on the creature in question. A magic unicorn might be calmed by a pure adolescent girl, and a magic lioness might lick the wounds of an unconscious adolescent boy. A griffin probably views an adolescent as an easy meal. Unthinking magic things, such as elementals and spirits, won't notice the difference between an adolescent and an adult.
Story Seed: Time to Die
An adolescent son of a martial grog hears of a terrifying forest faerie whose role is to challenge a young man to combat, as a necessary step to that man's adulthood. Not understanding the role of faeries and assuming that there is no real threat, the boy decides to corral his adolescent companions into going with him to face the monster. The monster, a variant of a Fachan (Realms of Power: Faerie, page 77), expects to be killed by a champion's blade, but only after a fierce struggle. It is a deadly combatant and the creature will happily kill a novice warrior. Can the boys defeat the faerie or must they return home and ask for help?
Story Seed: Where's the Money?
The steward of the covenant regularly attends the small town's Wednesday market, but is unable to go this week because of other duties. He gives a group of adolescents a pouch of pennies and a grocery list, and sends them on their way. Along the road, the characters encounter a faerie peddler who offers to sell them his cow. Buying the cow costs all their money, and in reality is a rabbit. If the characters refuse, the faerie secretly changes their coins into leaves. In the small town, when it is time to pay for the supplies, the characters discover the faerie's spell. The merchant is upset and the steward surely will be, unless the characters can locate the faerie and force him to remove the spell.
Life in the Covenant
Most youthful player characters likely live in the covenant with the rest of the troupe's characters, although it is equally conceivable that they live in a nearby village or town, especially if they are the children of companion characters. Their days mirror their parents'. Like his parent, an adolescent character must work two seasons a year, giving him two "free" seasons to grow (teaching or training) or explore (adventure). The more closely an adolescent is connected to a covenant, the further removed he is from the regular social operations of mundane society, although life at the covenant will certainly mimic many of its forms. A covenant blacksmith's son may forge as many horseshoes as his village peer, but isn't afraid to wander the faerie forest on days off. Grog adolescents will eventually replace their parents in their duties, a convention followed across Mythic Europe.
Adolescent characters can undertake the same adventures adult characters can, and in fact may have more time to do so. If a magus needs a handful of grogs to accompany him, and the mission isn't especially dangerous, he may opt for the younger members of the turb, so that the more experienced members can continue their duties. An adolescent is always keen to show that he is an adult, and might persistently ask whether he can join an activity. Adolescents are often given more slack for making mistakes than their parents, meaning that a group of adolescent characters could abscond for an overnight journey without worrying about punishment when they are discovered missing. Because they are less experienced, such a party has a wonderful knack for getting into trouble.
An apprentice likely has days here and there that are free from chores or arcane duties. Having seen how his parens orders the covenfolk around, he could mimic this behavior, targeting fellow adolescents instead of their parents. Perhaps he has decided on some grand adventure, or more likely is charged with performing some errand for his parens. Quickly assembling his party, he is off, out the covenant doors and on the road to adventure.
Life in the Laboratory
An adolescent apprentice spends much of his time working in his parens' laboratory. Physically, he is nearly an adult, having outgrown the negative modifier applied to Characteristics, and if his parens has properly prepared him, the apprentice has some skill in Magic Theory. Every magus can have at least one helper. More requires a score in Leadership (ArM5, page 130), and it is the rare apprentice who cannot offer any assistance at this stage of his career. How much time the apprentice spends assisting his parens is up to the magus and his arcane preferences. A Bonisagus or Verditius apprentice might spend all of his time enclosed in the sanctum, assisting three seasons out of the year and receiving instruction in the fourth season, which also happens in the parens' laboratory. A Merinita or Bjornaer apprentice might find himself following his parens around the countryside, partaking in adventures rather than working in the lab.
The apprentice is an assistant, not a co-worker; he aids the magus rather than works on another project in the same lab. A standard Hermetic laboratory is only large enough for one magus to work. Combining different magi’s activities in the same space is extremely difficult. If the parens works on one project while the apprentice works in another, in the same laboratory, the laboratory is considered Shared, a new Flaw for the laboratory (see insert).
Like other laboratory assistants, an apprentice adds his Int + Magic Theory to his parens' Lab Total. The apprentice's Virtues and Flaws affect the Lab Total, as do his parens'. For example, an apprentice with Inventive Genius adds to the Lab Total, while Waster of Vis imposes twice the normal vis cost. All laboratoryrelated Virtues and Flaws apply. If both parens and apprentice have Waster of Vis, for example, the laboratory activity costs twice the normal amount of vis.
If the magus decides on a nonstandard laboratory routine, (Covenants, pages 107–9), his apprentice must work the same schedule. If the apprentice fails to work the same schedule, the magus does not receive the bonus of the non-standard work schedule. While not receiving any additional bonuses for working the same routine, the apprentice unfortunately suffers the same consequences as the magus for the nonstandard routine.
Both magus and apprentice are allowed time away from the laboratory activity to deal with other distractions. The apprentice cannot stand in for the magus or take over for him midway through the season. The rules for being distracted in the lab don't change for the magus (ArM5, page 103). The apprentice can also miss up to 10 days out of the season and not damage the laboratory activity. For every day past 10, however, the aid he provides is penalized by 10 points. For younger apprentices, this will negate their usefulness, since few have an Intelligence + Magic Theory total greater than 10. This penalty does not carry over the magus' Lab Total. For example, if the apprentice's assistance adds 5 points to the magus' Lab Total (Intelligence 3 + Magic Theory 2), missing 11 days (– 10 penalty) negates the apprentice's 5 points, but does not further decrease the magus' Lab Total by 5.
An apprentice has other capacities besides assisting in the lab, and if the covenant has spare laboratories, the youth can undertake individual laboratory assignments. The covenant might have to create a spare laboratory first, something the apprentice might be able to do. To create a standard Hermetic laboratory, a character needs a Magic Theory score of 3. A character with a lower score in Magic Theory can create a lab, but it is subpar, with a Refinement Characteristic equal to (Magic Theory – 3). If you are not using the expanded rules in Covenants, simply subtract the Refinement score from any Lab Total. In any case, a character creating a lab needs at least a Magic Theory of 1. Other requirements, such as space for the lab in the covenant, adequate square footage for the lab, and the necessary funds, must exist before a lab can be created.
If a spare lab exists, the apprentice can improve it. The Covenants book includes a large list of laboratory improvements. The apprentice must have the required Magic Theory score to make laboratory refinements (Covenants, page 110); generally, an apprentice character needs a Magic Theory score of at least 4, making this an added incentive to masters for teaching their apprentices Magic Theory at an early age. No other laboratory activities can be conducted in a lab while it is being improved.
Any Gifted character with a Magic Theory score of at least 1 and his Arts opened can perform individual laboratory activities. Such a character's Lab Total will not be very high, which will drastically limit the types of activities he can undertake. Still, there are a few choices that a low Lab Total does not penalize. He can extract vis, and will generate at least one pawn of Vim vis. While meager, this would be beneficial for covenants set in sagas with lower vis resources. He can also fix an arcane connection for the magus (ArM5, page 94). An apprentice can fix arcane connections with minimal training, needing only a Magic Theory of 1, which allows her to use vis during a laboratory season. Most magi find permanent arcane connections useful, either as links to prospective enemies or allies, distant locations, or remote areas.
While an apprentice may not have the Art scores to be able to instill an effect into a device, he may be able to open a device for enchantment. He will need a Magic Theory score equal to half of the required pawns needed to open the device. Magi occasionally put their apprentices to work preparing enchanted devices for them, thus freeing up the time for them to accomplish something else that season.
New Laboratory Flaw: Shared Lab
Covenants introduced lab Virtues and Flaws, which describe laboratory merits and defects. Shared Lab is a Free Outfitting Flaw. The lab is not large enough for the resident magi working on independent projects, each of whom needs at least 500 square feet of space. –2 General Quality, –2 Safety
Story Seed: Where Did the Cat Go?
A magus is spending a season making a magical cat his familiar, when the cat decides to go for a stroll. One of its powers is to shape-change into a person, which it does, and heads into the fields to play with the peasants. The magus orders his apprentice to bring the cat back by nightfall. The adolescent, who doesn't know the peasants very well, asks other adolescent covenfolk to help him. Can the characters find and return the cat in time?
Story Seed: Visiting a Colleague
The magus wants to visit a friend of his, but does not want to waste his entire season traveling to his friend's covenant. He sends his apprentice, accompanied by a few grogs, with strict instructions to reach the destination at a specific time. The apprentice carries a rug, of which the magus has a small piece, and at the desired time, the apprentice will unroll the rug and the magus will use Rego Corpus magic and the small piece as an arcane connection to instantly travel to the location. The rug can't be unrolled in the magus' friend's covenant, as the Aegis would stop the Rego Corpus spell. The apprentice must make the journey and find a safe place to unroll the rug, on time.
LABORATORY TURBULENCES
If the apprentice is young, there is a chance that he will experience a Turbulence during a season of laboratory work. The troupe and storyguide should decide if the activity undertaken is stressful, and if so, the apprentice should check for a Turbulence. A stressful season would include one in which the parens experiments, uses more than 10 pawns of vis, works odd hours or irregular work patterns, or one in which the Lab Total of the participants is barely high enough to accomplish the desired goal. If you decide that a Turbulence check is warranted, have the player make the check midway through the season. If the Turbulence is controlled, nothing happens, but if it is uncontrolled, reduce the Apprentice's Lab Total aid by half, as well as determining the regular results of an uncontrolled Turbulence.
LABORATORY ADVENTURES
Season after season of laboratory activities, even interspersed with seasons of study, doesn't provide the proper staging for actually playing an apprentice character. Even with all this time in the lab, a storyguide can still create adventures for apprentice characters, especially since the apprentice can miss a day here and there without unduly affecting the parens' Lab Total. Laboratory activities can veer off course during the season, and these simple readjustments can provide adventure opportunities. Ingredients might need to be replenished, broken equipment repaired, new equipment obtained, or arcane advice sought. For example, the maga runs out of a standard but necessary component for her lab work, any one of the hundred arcane things a wizard needs in the laboratory. Traveling to the safest site would take too long, but a closer site has the required ingredient. Unfortunately, the nearer site is guarded by a magical creatures. The apprentice must race against time to return with the desired substance, outwitting (or outrunning) the guardian of the regio.
Most magi characters have Story Flaws that the storyguide can use to pull them from their laboratories and engage them in adventures. An apprentice character may have these as well, but even better, he must follow his master's commands, which can easily include missions away from the covenant. Such expeditions are fertile soil for the creative storyguide, who can wrap a tale around even the most pedestrian chore.
Bellum
In the 10th century, the magus Casius invented a game called Bellum, Latin for "war," which gives apprentices a method to practice Arcane Abilities and magical Arts. During the game, the apprentice creates an illusion of a Roman soldier, which he then controls to fight an opponent's illusionary soldier. To win, an apprentice must defeat his opponent's illusionary Roman. A second way to win is to force the opponent to lose concentration, which cancels the spell. This game became wildly popular in several Tribunals, and magi continued to play it past apprenticeship. Any number can play, the only requirements being that an apprentice's Arts are opened, and he can cast the spell Ager Belli (Latin for "field of battle").
To play, two or more apprentices cast Ager Belli. As the apprentices concentrate, the soldiers converge, chopping and mauling each other in dramatic fashion. The players concentrate on specific images, hoping to make those images slay the images of their opponents. A judge, often a peer, decides each round of combat, determining who played the better round. Each round, the participants make an Intelligence + Finesse + stress die roll. The player with the highest total wins the round, if the judge is honorable, and the first player to win five rounds wins the game. Naturally, these rolls are for the players to determine which character had the better round. In game, the judge can cheat, determining the winner of each round by his own criteria.
A second way to win is to force the opponent to break concentration, which ends the Ager Belli spell. The first apprentice casts a spell to distract his opponent, while maintaining his own Ager Belli spell. Maintaining a spell while casting a second requires a Stamina + Concentration + stress die against an Ease Factor of 15. This is a risky ploy, because if he loses concentration on his Ager Belli spell, he loses the match. If he is successful, however, he casts a second spell at his opponent. This spell can jostle his opponent, distract him, confuse him, or otherwise interfere with him maintaining his spell. The opponent must make a Stamina + Concentration roll to see if he can maintain his Ager Belli spell. The storyguide must decide the Ease Factor based on the second spell's effect, using the suggested situations on the Concentration Table (ArM5, page 82).
Because this game was developed for apprentices, who have yet to swear the Oath of Hermes, targeting another apprentice is not strictly breaking the Code of Hermes. Apprentices have magically pushed, levitated, and ignited opponents. Loud noises, phantom horsemen, and creating a pit underneath an opponent are excellent distractions. Participants with no moral scruples should still remember that maiming or permanently harming another apprentice is damaging the parens' goods and is against the Code, so care should be taken in deciding how to distract an opponent. Winning by distracting an opponent is especially laudable because the Ease Factor to cast a spell while maintaining another is probably higher than the Ease Factor to continue concentration during a distraction.
Bellum is not just for two; other players can also join the game by simply sitting down and casting their own Ager Belli spell. Each player makes an Intelligence + Finesse + stress die roll, and victory goes to the apprentice with the highest total. Just like a one-on-one match, the selected judge is the actual arbiter; the die rolls are for the players.
Bellum is popular in large covenants, where it is played by both apprentices and young magi. Theoretically, Bellum matches are civil affairs, but these matches have been known to get out of hand, especially when players have been drinking alcohol. Bellum players have been known to withdraw from the contest early, to then push, shove, even trade blows with other players. The most extreme example of this happened at the Grand Tribunal of 1162, when a large Bellum game turned into a minor riot.
Story Seed: Where Are My Bat Wings?
During a seasonal laboratory activity, the magus runs out of bat wings. The apprentice must travel to the far side of the forest and spend an evening catching live bats. Friends in tow, the apprentice leads a group of same-age grogs to the selected location. Anything could happen: the apprentice catches too many bats in a net and they carry him away, he catches another magus' familiar bat, or the first bat he catches is really a faerie prince.
Story Seed: Investigating Evil
Nearby peasants are concerned that the local church is failing them. The priest refuses to preach, more people in town are getting sick, and the church grounds seem inexplicably eerie at night. With nowhere else to go, they ask the magus for help. He sends his apprentice to investigate, telling him to take something from the church that can act as an arcane connection, so that the magus can watch it from afar. The peasants are correct; the church is under the sway of a demon. This simple mission places the apprentice face-to-face with a demonic entity and its possessed priest.
Story Seed: Missing Mail
The local redcap is late. The magus is expecting some vis, which the redcap is supposed to be carrying. Since he is known as a recalcitrant drunk, the magus suspects the redcap is lingering in a village inn and sends his apprentice out to meet him. A few days later, along the regular route, the apprentice discovers that a knight has thrown the redcap in his gaol, thinking him a thief. The apprentice could just return to the covenant with this news, but perhaps thinks of the glory that awaits him if he frees the redcap and punishes the knight.
New Spell: Ager Belli
CrIm 10 R: Touch, D: Conc, T: Ind Req: Rego
This illusion creates a Roman soldier. The soldier responds to the mental direction of the caster, who must maintain concentration as the soldier moves. The image contains only visual elements. This spell is used by Hermetic apprentices to play Bellum. Note that other spells can be designed that make different illusionary images. A Roman soldier is a standard image, but any Size 0 figure is allowed, including knights, club-wielding barbarians, and supernatural creatures like fauns and satyrs.
(Base 1 (illusion affecting 1 sense), +1 Touch, +1 Conc, +2 coordinate complex movements of the illusion, +1 Rego requisite.)
Failing an Apprentice
The rigors of Hermetic study prove too difficult for some, and occasionally apprentices fail in their efforts to master Bonisagus' teachings. Losing The Gift is the main reason apprentices fail, although some are abandoned by their masters. An apprentice who loses his Gift cannot continue his magical training, having lost all his arcane powers. Once The Gift is lost, the character immediately gains the Minor Social Status Virtue: Failed Apprentice (ArM5, page 42), which replaces the Free Social Status Virtue: Apprentice. The character can still find work at the covenant as a laboratory assistant or scribe, but her career as a maga has ended.
Some apprentices are abandoned instead of failed. For whatever reason, the parens refuses to teach the apprentice any more and expels him from the covenant. Most Tribunals consider this a low crime; legally taking an apprentice implies that the magus plans to train and eventually Gauntlet a Gifted student. Those who stop short, who simply tire of teaching an apprentice and dismiss him, are in effect releasing Hermetic secrets and privileges they have sworn to safeguard to the world at large. Legally, it is cleaner for a magus to kill an apprentice he no longer wishes to teach. There is no provision against that. However, not every magus is that ruthless, and some who wish to dismiss an apprentice do just that. If an abandoned apprentice knows or somehow learns the Parma Magica, and has not sworn the Oath of Hermes, he instantly becomes a threat to the Order. This rare event is only possible if the apprentice learns the final key instructions of the Parma Magica before he has finished apprenticeship (see later). Once found out, he will be hunted down and slain, as will the magus who abandoned the apprentice. A lenient pursuer might offer Hermetic membership to the apprentice, but that is not a requirement.
An abandoned apprentice leads an odd life. Depending on why she was dismissed, she might find a new parens, whether a magus from the same House or a different one. Often, she can be adopted by another magus and finish her training. Many abandoned apprentices quickly seek magi from House Ex Miscellanea, hoping to find a sponsor who has less stringent requirements than other Hermetic magi. Other abandoned apprentices disappear into the woodwork. Such an apprentice considers herself trained enough, capable of continuing her arcane studies privately. She has all the capabilities of a maga, but is not a member of the Order of Hermes and cannot use Hermetic society as a resource for books, additional instructors, or other traded commodities. She cannot join a covenant or participate in any Hermetic functions. Having not sworn the Oath of Hermes, she is not bound by it, but neither is she protected by it. An abandoned apprentice is not necessarily doomed to a life of isolation. Sometimes groups form, outliers of the Order, who accept such members. The mock covenant Fenistal in the Rhine Tribunal is one such group. Run by the Exsules, these Hermetic offshoots of the Order readily accept any Gifted abandoned apprentices they can find (see Guardians of the Forests, page 114 for more details).
LOSING THE GIFT
For an apprentice character to fail his apprenticeship, he must lose his Gift, either permanently or temporarily. The mechanics of losing The Gift differ between player characters and non-player characters. For a player character, losing The Gift is always the player's choice and never decided by a die roll. The player decides that his character loses The Gift, and that he wants to continue playing the character after this dramatic occurrence. Several things could cause this to happen: a laboratory accident, a spectacularly botched spell casting roll, falling prey to a Gift-destroying demon, tussling with an Amazon sorceress, a particularly nasty Turbulence, and an incredibly failed Temporary Twilight comprehension. The character immediately loses the power to cast Hermetic spells, work any type of magic, and cannot use Supernatural Virtues or Abilities he might possess.
A Gift that is not permanently lost is suppressed. Instead of losing the Gift entirely, a player can decide that the apprentice's Gift is suppressed. The character gains the Major Hermetic Flaw: Suppressed Gift, which allows the character to continue to use existing Supernatural Virtues and Abilities. The character cannot gain new Supernatural and Hermetic Virtues while the Gift is suppressed. A Suppressed Gift may return, which is up to the troupe and the storyguide. How it returns should also be decided upon by the group, but surely it will involve a fantastic adventure that pushes the character to the limits of his capabilities. Because the Suppressed Gift is a Major Hermetic Flaw, it could be selected at character generation as an Inherited Flaw. If a player knows that he eventually wants to play a failed apprentice, he could select both Flaws as Inherited Flaws. Why would a player select this Flaw, which will decidedly alter his character's life? For the same reason that a player might choose Blind, Missing Hand, or Tainted with Evil; these Flaws describe the character that the player wants to play.
Storyguide character apprentices may lose The Gift in the same way, by choice. If the storyguide thinks this would better serve the saga, she can decide that the storyguide character's Gift is lost or suppressed. Alternatively, the storyguide can let the dice decide, and an optional method exists to determine if the apprentice loses his Gift. Every time a storyguide character apprentice works a stressful laboratory season, as described previously in Laboratory Turbulences, roll a stress die. If you roll a 0, roll an additional number of botch dice equal to the parens' Lab Total divided by 10 (round up). If any of those dice come up 0, the apprentice has lost his Gift. The number of botches and the importance of the NPC in the saga should determine if the loss is temporary or permanent.
Apprenticeship's End: The Gauntlet
The Gauntlet is the test each parens sets his apprentice to determine whether she has succeeded and is ready to become an Hermetic maga. Every apprentice's Gauntlet is different, designed to test their specific skills, although several Houses have standard Gauntlets that many members use to test apprentices. The Gauntlet must be passed to the master's satisfaction; there is no executive branch of the Order of Hermes that oversees Gauntlets or second guesses the individual master. If the master feels that the apprentice has not succeeded, the character spends another year as an apprentice before trying again. After three failed attempts, magi from House Quaesitor step in, overriding the parens' proposed Gauntlet and administering one of their own.
The parens decides when the apprentice attempts his Gauntlet. The exception is House Tytalus, where the apprentice undergoes his Gauntlet when he has had enough pain and suffering from his parens (Houses of Hermes: Societates, page 83). A selfish master could keep an apprentice indefinitely, although keeping an apprentice for more than 20 years is a low crime in many Tribunals. If an apprentice has been kept overlong, she could ask another magus to notify a Quaesitor of her situation. One punishment for a magus convicted of keeping an apprentice for too long is to forgo the Gauntlet, instantly declare the apprentice a maga, and pay her a rook of vis for each year past 15 of her extended apprenticeship.
Story Seed: Trial by Fire
A powerful magus of House Flambeau has placed a bet with all masters in the Tribunal that have apprentices nearing maturity. He believes that apprentices have gone soft, and could not succeed at a Gauntlet as difficult as the ones they had when he was an apprentice. He offers a wager of 10 pawns of vis to every magus, betting that their apprentices cannot pass a Gauntlet of his design without their masters' interference. If the apprentices are in grave danger, he will probably allow their masters to assist, but in that case all bets are off.
The apprentices are awakened at dawn on a lonely mountaintop, their masters nowhere to be seen. The magus explains that they are on their Gauntlet, and charges them with the task of traveling to the covenant where the Tribunal is taking place, over a hundred miles away. All of them must arrive within four days, or they will miss the Tribunal and fail the test. Finally, the magus gives them a fresh human corpse that they must transport with them. In a puff of smoke, he disappears.
The journey takes the apprentices through a small town with a zealous parish priest, into a wild forest where bandits have their camp, and into a regio where the ghosts of fallen soldiers rise to fight each night. When they arrive at the covenant, they learn that they have been watched the whole time via a spell using an arcane connection to the corpse, so that their masters are aware of how well (or badly) they did. If they succeed, the magus will be happy that there are new magi worthy of the title, and if they do not succeed, he will at least be glad of their masters' vis.
A Gauntlet makes an excellent story for an apprentice character. It should provide a challenge for the character, testing both the Arts and Abilities she is good at, and those in which she is weak. To make a Gauntlet dramatic, it could be set away from the covenant, so that a character must travel somewhere to accomplish her goal. The Gauntlet should not take more than 10 days, however, so as not to interrupt the apprentice's last season with her master.
If you do not wish to run a Gauntlet adventure for an apprentice character, you have two options. If the character has spent the required number of seasons studying magic, you can automatically have the character pass her Gauntlet. This method works well for players who plan to continue playing their apprentice character as a maga, and are not interested in spending a game session passing the character's Gauntlet. The second option is to roll a die to determine if the apprentice character successfully passed the Gauntlet. This method works well for a storyguide character apprentice working under a player character magus. Make an Intelligence + Ability + stress die roll against an Ease Factor of 9 for the apprentice character. Use the Ability you think most appropriate for the House and the particular apprentice, using the Hermetic Houses Summary chart for ideas (ArM5, page 30).
OPTIONAL RULE FOR PASSING A GAUNTLET: Apprentice's Intelligence + Appropriate Ability + stress die vs. 9
Failing this roll means that the apprentice must spend another year with her master. Botching this roll means something dire happened. The severity of the consequences should depend on whether the apprentice is a player or storyguide character, and if there are available characters (and player desire) to rescue the apprentice.
LEARNING PARMA MAGICA
Invoking a personal Parma Magica is the last thing an apprentice character learns, receiving the final key instructions after swearing the Oath of Hermes to her master. Few parentes take the time to teach Parma Magica, expecting the apprentice to learn it through exposure. The apprentice is regularly included in the parens' Parma Magica ceremony, and as he shares his Parma Magica, the apprentice watches and mimics the parens. All the while, the parens holds back knowledge of the finishing gestures and verbal components, that last bit of information that will allow the apprentice to invoke his own Parma Magica. Mechanically, the player records the number of Exposure experience points spent on Parma Magica on his character sheet, tallying it up just like any other Ability. However, his character will not be able to perform Parma Magica until the final key instruction is given. Usually, an apprentice character finishes apprenticeship with a score of 1 in Parma Magica.
It is possible that an apprentice could convince her parens to give her a season of instruction in Parma Magica. In this case, additional experience points will accumulate to a score higher than 1, but the final instructions are still withheld. Regardless of a character's score in Parma Magica, she will not be able to invoke her own Parma Magica until after she receives the final key, which happens after she has sworn the Oath of Hermes. Some apprentices are believed to have worked it out for themselves, but this is far from easy, nor is it common.
Any magus can teach the apprentice the final key, although doing so before the apprentice swears the Oath of Hermes is a High Crime. Essentially, such a magus is passing the secret of Parma Magica to someone who is not technically a member of the Order. While an apprentice is certainly under the auspices of the Order, she is not a member until she swears the Oath of Hermes.
Post-Apprenticeship
Having successfully completed apprenticeship, an apprentice character becomes a maga of the Order of Hermes. Her time is hers, no longer subjected to the will of her master, and she can pursue any avenue of life she likes. The very next stage for many is to find a proper home. Some join existing covenants and some form new covenants with other recently Gauntleted magi. Magi of the Rhine Tribunal often spend a few years visiting established covenants and taking advantage of that area's rules of hospitality (see Guardians of the Forests: The Rhine Tribunal).
Etiquette suggests that a recently Gauntleted magus provides his parens with both a feast and a gift to acknowledge the parens' efforts. Conversely, many covenants give a sizable gift of vis or a selection of copied books to the new magus, helping her to start off her career on the right foot. Those that have space in their covenant for a new magus can offer him a position, but much depends on the student-master relationship that existed during the apprenticeship.
The recommended minimum Ability scores for a magus are Artes Liberales 1, Latin 4, Magic Theory 3, and Parma Magica 1 (ArM5, page 32). While good, these are still only recommendations. An apprentice is a magus if he has been opened to the Arts, trained for 15 years, and then passed his Gauntlet to his master's satisfaction. A master could Gauntlet an apprentice who doesn't read, speak Latin, or know any Magic Theory. Such an apprentice wouldn't have been much help in the lab, and will make a sorry magus. His parens will suffer shame and social stigma for producing such an odd offspring. Most agree that every magus who undergoes an Hermetic apprenticeship should know how to read and write, speak Latin, and know his way around an Hermetic laboratory.
Houses of Hermes Gauntlets
While each Gauntlet is designed individually for an apprentice, commonalities exist within the Houses regarding the Gauntlet an apprentice undergoes. Use this section as a guideline for developing Gauntlet adventures, but do not feel restricted by these examples. House-specific Gauntlets are fully explained in the Houses of Hermes series.
An adventure designed as an apprentice's Gauntlet does not need to be the actual Gauntlet per se, but could be an introductory episode for the character, who must achieve some goal before facing her Gauntlet. Many Gauntlets are aimed at the individual and do not include other characters. For example, a Verditius maga must make an enchanted item to pass her Gauntlet. This isn't terribly exciting for the group, but a story detailing her journey to get the raw materials for her creation might be. She and her fellows must cross dangerous territories and face unknown dangers in a faerie forest. Pre-Gauntlet adventures should be designed to include the apprentice and her friends.
HOUSE BJORNAER
Apprenticeship is slightly different for House Bjornaer magi, who recognize their apprentices as full magi after they assume their heartbeast for the first time, regardless of age or training. Some Bjornaer magi will undertake mock Gauntlets after 15 years of training, especially if they are working with an apprentice from another House who is attempting a Gauntlet at the same time.
HOUSE BONISAGUS
House Bonisagus values theory over application and Order cohesiveness over competition. Bonisagus apprentices must pass a day-long oral examination set by an elder Bonisagus magus, and Trianoma apprentices must spend two seasons traveling on their own to distant covenants. Before these tests, apprentices must deliver a Laboratory Text that they have created during their apprenticeship to another magus who does not live at the covenant. This reflects their specific Oath, to share knowledge with the Order, and the apprentice is expected to take helpers along with her.
HOUSE CRIAMON
Passing a Gauntlet is merely a formality for House Criamon, whose apprentices are accepted as full magi once they are asked the Riddle of the Magus. This Riddle is a personal enigmatic puzzle for the Criamon magus, who spends the rest of his career seeking appropriate answers. Still, a Criamon apprentice could be sent to a foreign envoy — perhaps a magic creature, another magus, or a talking brook — to receive this Riddle.
HOUSE EX MISCELLANEA
House Ex Miscellanea does not have any formal Gauntlet procedures, and each of the distinctly different traditions that fall under this House has different methods of determining when an apprentice finishes her training. They do adhere to the Code by not teaching the final instructions of the Parma Magica to an apprentice until after 15 years, but any sort of Gauntlet imaginable is appropriate for the varied members of this House. Wind wizards might have to collect Auram vis from a mountainous stream, necromancers might have to speak with the ghost of a Roman senator, and diviners might have to forecast the time of their own death.
HOUSE FLAMBEAU
House Flambeau apprentices undertake a very stylized, very public Gauntlet, displaying their martial or magical abilities. A Gauntlet adventure would include attending such a ceremony, or preparing for it by facing challenges or long-held fears of the apprentice.
HOUSE GUERNICUS
The legal-minded House Guernicus magi make their apprentices take an extensive written examination, as well as engage in a mock investigation case. The master engineers a deception and then requires his apprentice to solve the case.
HOUSE JERBITON
Apprentices of House Jerbiton participate in a Grand Tour before their Gauntlet, visiting a large city and viewing its beautiful artifacts. In anticipation of this event, a Jerbiton apprentice would be interested in visiting nearby monasteries, nunneries, or noble houses to view any available objects of art. Rumors of a beautiful chalice or woven tapestry could easily divert a Jerbiton apprentice from his current studies, and make him gather his friends for an overland journey.
HOUSE MERCERE
Redcaps of House Mercere, as well as the few actual spell casters, must carry a message from one location to another to pass their Gauntlet. This is never straightforward, and the master always includes some trick or dangerous element in the task. For example, the apprentice must carry a faerie to a nearby covenant, since only the faerie knows the message. The faerie is devious and quickly disappears, forcing the apprentice to find it if she wishes to pass her Gauntlet.
HOUSE MERINITA
The Gauntlets for House Merinita magi are as varied as the individual members. In broad strokes, the House is interested in either faerie or nature. An apprentice's Gauntlet typically requires her to wander ancient faerie roads and lonely forests, looking for specific faeries, links between the Magic and Faerie realms, and penetrating deeply hidden faerie regiones.
HOUSE TREMERE
An apprentice of House Tremere must face his master in certamen to pass his Gauntlet. This is a highly formalized event. The apprentice does not need to beat his master, just make a decent showing in the contest. He must present his master with a branch taken from a birch tree, signifying the sigil that his master will keep. Prior to this, the apprentice must acquire a birch tree branch. Egotistical apprentices will want a branch from a magic tree, forcing them (and their companions) to search in nearby magic and faerie woods.
HOUSE TYTALUS
Apprenticeship in House Tytalus is cruel and torturous. Tytalus apprentices challenge their master for their Gauntlet when they feel they are ready. A Gauntlet adventure would be some activity that helps prepare a Tytalus apprentice for this inevitable challenge, some endeavor that allows her to practice her favored strengths.
HOUSE VERDITIUS
House Verditius is exclusively focused on making magical items. An apprentice must forge a completed "apprentice piece" for his master to pass his Gauntlet. Finding the raw materials for this piece can be quite dangerous, and entertaining.
Scholae Magicae
The notion of a group of magi forming a scholae magicae, or school of magic, to train Hermetic apprentices was an early idea. Based on the classical schools of Socrates and Plato, magi thought they could mirror classical models with one of their own. The first attempts were in the 10th century, 200 years before the current universities of the 13th century. All early attempts failed, despite the high hopes and dedicated efforts of the founders. By lowering their expectations, and enrollment numbers, at least two covenants have succeeded as schools of magic, but both are diminished actualities of the initial lofty concept.
Gifted youths are difficult to teach as a group. Unless they are constantly covered by a Parma Magica, they don't get along. The social consequences of The Gift drastically prolong the formative period of making friends. The children are suspicious of each other and distrustful of their peers, detracting from the classroom experience. The heightened anxiety of the situation makes Turbulences more common, and it is tricky to provide a continuous learning environment when the classroom explodes into flames during a grammar lesson. Even when a subject is rudimentary, Gifted children feel the anxiety of working next to their peers, and any excessive emotional outburst can lead to trouble.
Young students are also vulnerable to the passions of their classmates. Hermetic students are not immune to bullying, psychological inadequacies, and jealousy. Early attempts proved disastrous. Soon after the Schism War, a covenant tried to form a Gifted academy. The children did not get along. Suspicion turned into hatred; longstanding animosities became common; and magi who were expected to live and work together after apprenticeship clung to resentments formed in their youths.
The Hermetic Arts must be taught one-on-one, from magus to apprentice, and this limitation has yet to be overcome. Academic and Arcane Abilities can be taught to multiple pupils by a single teacher, and while these are important, they fall far below the importance of knowing the Arts. Hiring mundane teachers can be a problem. They too need to be protected by a Parma Magica, or are likely to flee at the first opportunity. Employing mundane teachers means introducing them to the Order of Hermes, not legally but knowingly, and some magi are hesitant as to how much the mundane world knows about the Order. While its existence might be public knowledge among some noble circles, details are kept fuzzy so as not to cause undue suspicion. The last thing the Hermetic Order wants is to be accused en masse of heresy or witchcraft.
Another problem is that magi change their minds. It is easy to commit to one, perhaps even two seasons of teaching a year, but a large number of students would require a greater commitment. Few magi wish to teach every season of the year, and even that might not be enough to bear the weight of heavy teaching schedule that multiple students require. But things change three or four years later, when magi realize the amount of work involved and the lack of personal time available. Because Arts must be learned through one-on-one teaching, many magi prefer a single apprentice-to-parens relationship. History has shown this to be the most effective method of propagating Hermetic magi.
These problems are not insurmountable, but overcoming them requires concentrated effort and a great deal of the magi's time. The school could be hidden, in a remote covenant or a regio; mundane teachers could be highly paid and protected by Parma Magica; and a powerful Aegis could limit Turbulences, as long as casting tokens are provided when the students need to practice magic. The biggest limit is the one-on-one teaching of the Arts, and many magi consider that until this limit is conquered, schools are a waste of energy and time.
There are at least two covenants in Mythic Europe that function as schools, although both should be considered covenants first and schools second. Though dedicated to teaching, neither has overcome the difficulties involved in instruction groups of Gifted students, although both have found ways around that difficulty. The island covenant of Polyaigos runs a school that educates Gifted children in the liberal arts, a system that only works because of the Theban Tribunal's treatment of apprentices in general (The Sundered Eagle; The Theban Tribunal, page 33). The mysterious Scholomance in the Transylvanian Tribunal teaches 10 students at a time, and while all might work for the Order after graduation, only one is Gifted (see Against the Darkness: The Transylvania Tribunal, Chapter 6).
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