That stretch is a good 800km long so if you keep to the eastern part Algeria we can try to keep a bit centralized.

On the other hand Suez to Tunisia, where both the redcaps and the menagerie wish to be, is 2000 km so we'll have great distances anyway. If we could pull the Border Fortress / Spiritual Knowledge covenant a bit west, maybe into modern day Libya we'll reduce the distances a lot. Maybe the Aguila oasis could work.

I've put it into a google map.
Feel free to mess around with it.


https://www.google.com/maps/d/...yfhQ&usp=sharing


The trade route map
https://easyzoom.com/imageacce...40d4969c14156bb6836f
This message was last edited by the player at 10:06, Mon 01 Mar 2021.

Nice map.

I like maps.

And this one is good.

In reply to Player 9 (msg # 150):

Yeah, the Border Fortress / Spiritual Knowledge covenant looks a bit... distant, from all other covenants. Far removed enough that it would almost make more sense for them to ask the Levant Tribunal to take them in.

It's probably faster to get from Tunisia to Suez covenant than it is to get to the hunter covenant, 2000km over land vs 3600km over water.

Strictly speaking for me I don't care where we set the boarder but building the canal was a cool idea to me (it was my idea) it being close to the Levant was the point for me. Being in Egypt was a selling point for my sodales interested in Jinn and Ghosts respectivly.

No idea where Jinn are found. The ancient caves in the national park south of y'all could hold interest for my necromancer (antediluvian ghosts, etc.)

In reply to Player 4 (msg # 153):

We could probably set the covenant near Siwa or closer to the Nile and we could also build the canal. I don't think they are mutual exclusive (even though the canal building will take more time).

Sure. But at that point we are still a million miles away and less convenient for travel, like with the other guys, it would literally take longer to get to us there (unless you are flying or teleporting and the timing becomes way shorter anyway).

Tassili N'Ajjer National Park stuck out to me as a good spot for magic auras. But what we are defending against becomes a lot more ill defined (granted that is only my hang up).

It's not a huge deal. We are going to use magic to get around anyway. Maybe we get a mercer portal between the Boarder and the Redcap house sooner rather than later.

EDIT: Also Suez is as close to the boarder of the Levant as Tunis is to Sicily. Our overreach on territory claim is other people' problem not ours. If covenants back fill between us and join Levant then we have an issue and political story hooks.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:16, Mon 01 Mar 2021.

In reply to Player 4 (msg # 155):

4th ed Blood and Sand has two Levant covenants east of Suez, one in Damietta and one by the pyramids of Giza.

So the Suez area would be well within the Levant tribunal going by that book.

In 5th ed it's a bit more fuzzy.

In this edition's core book Levant doesn't go past Jerusalem we should be well outside of their boarders by any reasonable measure. But authors move the boarders all the time when they write Tribunal books.

In reply to Player 9 (msg # 156):

I see. Interesting. Well, it is supposed to be a border covenant with those issues.

The 5e map keeps the Levant beyond the Sinai Peninsula. Oddly, though, that map also puts Damietta on the Sinai Peninsula, even though it's not at the eastern-most of the Nile river heads. However, LotN is 5e and it says this:



So I think we can stick with LotN and say the Levant Tribunal does not quite stretch this far, but it might well contest the border, which is partly what was desired as a Hook for the border fortress, if I'm not mistaken.

While the Border Covenant is far, we're spread across a vast area, so it makes sense for there to be distances between the covenants, and i envision that if such a sage continues, and move covenants, form, it could eventually split into two Tribunals, one for Egypt, Lybia, and Sudan, and the other for Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, or some such.

And I'd imagine that the Levant's borders are ambiguous because it's in a constant flux due to the crusades and jihads. And that pressure will only make it harder for them to push back on our Tribunal blocking them in the south, especially if the territory of our Tribunal is created wholecloth in Harco. It might be an issue raised in the Grand Tribunal, but that remains to be seen.

Several people have given me names for companions, and I've opened those characters. Everyone else can start sending names along. Again, if you wanted a Redcap, please do so; but if you were just willing to do so to make sure we have enough, use a different idea. Then we can start assigning these companions to the various covenants, as it looks like many covenants are narrowing in on their decisions.

The other immediate thing will be vis sources. I don't think I can come up with a enough interesting ones for so many covenants. This is where the creativity of the many is so useful. As I'd mentioned before, this will be fairly uniform across covenants regardless of size. Each covenant should come up with 15 pawns/year of interesting sources, no more than 5 pawns/year of which are for Techniques. You can skip the "interesting" part and just name an Art and an amount, but then you're capped at 10 pawns/year, max 3 pawns/year of Techniques. These are the sources that will be found within the first year or so of exploring your area, none of which are immediately known to the characters before setting out.

Also, in building libraries, I highly recommend looking at Through the Aegis. Every book in every library there is named; so that's pretty cool.

In reply to Alpha SG (msg # 160):

The Atlas Forums had, at least this past December, or November, a trhead where someone posted a bunch of Vis Sources

Hmm... In building libraries, I'm wondering. To avoid as much min-maxing while also encouraging continuity with canonically written stuff, maybe I should provide a cost reduction for books actually written up in any of the ArM5 line (e.g. TL&TL, HoH:S, TTA)? Does that sound good? Not something huge, but something to encourage it. TTA alone has a huge selection. What if there were a 10% discount at game start on canonical books (not adjusting the cost of roots and real-world books, since those are already low)?

In reply to Alpha SG (msg # 163):

Sounds good to me.

In reply to Alpha SG (msg # 163):

Nobody is going to object to discount summae. ;)

Good point. Hopefully it's enough of a discount that it will encourage that flavor, basically making min-maxing be the flavor thing. With two quick positive responses already, let's do it. 10% discount at game start for those books written in canon (excluding roots and real books). Round normally to tenths of a p.v.f.

In reply to Alpha SG (msg # 166):

Nice. Time to check the price of Elaine's writings.

I would definitely support a reduction in price for canonical books from TTA as very few are very good, most are in the 20 BP range and whether the "Sound Book" levels and qualities from Covenants would be accurate or not, it definitely creates a perception that books that cost less than 27 BP* are not good books.

* using BP to gauge the quality/level function, I know we are not using BP.

I'm doing a lot of saddling gift horses even though I don't like horses.

I'll take the discount. But I hate referencing canon spell, book, covenants, etc.

I'm assuming publised books at 0.1 p.v.f. is per volume so all 10 volumes of Decem Libri Historiarum would be 1 p.v.f..

In reply to Player 9 (msg # 170):

Yes, that's per physical book, so if the set is more than one physical book, it will cost more. Decem Libri... costs 1 p.v.f., for example.

I know someone has joined the library. Does anyone have more info to update this with?
This message was last edited by the player at 03:42, Wed 03 Mar 2021.

In reply to Player 4 (msg # 172):

The two in the library covenant are:

Malik ex Verditius
Vespera of Tremere

A Redcap has joined.
No more Magi that we know of yet.

Player 17 is still considering his options, but one of his ideas was a magus that would fit nicely into the Library.