A few in game questions

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

"In the rural South, it would definitely be a noteworthy and scandalous thing, yes - especially if it was clearly a fashion choice, and not just old clothes falling apart. (There's a category of humor about people so poor that their shirt sleeves fall off and suddenly some stupid foreigner shows up and mistakes them for viziers.)

In Mineta itself, though, vests actually aren't uncommon - particularly among certain relatively rarefied art circles.  The pricey ones are generally made from pieces of fabric left over from the creation of expensive coats - stuff that tailors might otherwise have tossed out or sold for a couple of pims to blanket-makers or rag sellers.  In "half-coat" form, they've got the decadence of the fabric but also a kind of jaunty irreverence.

(The less affluent classes find that kind of thing less amusing, even in arguably the most cosmopolitan city in the world.)

So maybe the real answer is: they're a taboo among, like, the Chards, just because they're tainted by association with pretentious tradesmen.  And Luti Jaconelli's family would probably beat you up if you wandered into their neighborhood wearing a vest and didn't have the obvious power to keep yourself out of trouble. But I bet you Caspar Pfeuffer will have bought at least one by the time he's a third year, and nobody who knows him will be particularly put out."

[Schwarzbart]

Do the Venalicium Library have hidden parts of its library that only people chosen by the library can enter?
So i.e. a 1st year the Library like can enter some of this hidden parts while a Regent might never enter them in the live time.

[Schwarzbart]

On 3/29/2018 at 8:07 PM, Schwarzbart said:

1. Can you tell us what new god our character bloodline can be traced back to when having the "History: Descended of Royalty" background?

2. Are there human bloodlines that have the chance to show powerful ability early in live? And if so what ability do they show? 

3. Any of our backgrounds planed to give powerful ability / action at later years and if so can you give us hints about the background? 

Think this 3 questions where never answered

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

Good catch- I don't think I saw these.

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

Here you go!

"For 1, Octavius is the New God that is referenced by Kings.

For 2, the bloodline hypothesis is hopelessly complicated by centuries of aristocratic bias.  Noble families regularly exaggerated or invented childhood feats to establish that their lines were born powerful/favored by the Gods/magically special.  There does seem to be research suggesting unusual magical influences on certain families, but the data is muddy.

That said, the classical cases involve either (1) elemental affinities (i.e., infants manipulating fire, or other Incantationesque phenomena), (2) Gates affinities (families that attract spirits or that have a way of stumbling through doors that don't go where they should), or (3) Glamour affinities (perhaps like Neta's family), (4) astrological affinities (i.e., dreamwalking, danger senses).  In popular folklore, (1) and (2) suggest descent from extraplanar entities, (3) a fey ancestor, and (4) divine descent - but it's not at all clear to researchers that that's correct, particularly given the impact of astrological phenomena and the positioning of local ley lines at a person's birth.

For 3... [Redacted]."

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

And for your second:

"Most hidden rooms in the Venalicium are unknown to the students, for obvious reasons.  There are a few exceptions: there's supposed to be a door that only opens for Familiars whose wizards are sick or hurt and are in need of assistance.  There's also supposed to be a scriptorium for couples in romantic relationships (or destined to have romantic relationships)."

[Schwarzbart]

And here I thought that the Venalicium has a mind of its own and sometimes give people access to part or all of its library for unknown reason.

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

This, also is true.

[Rhialto]

21 hours ago, Legate of Mineta said:

S;

And for your second:

"Most hidden rooms in the Venalicium are unknown to the students, for obvious reasons.  There are a few exceptions: there's supposed to be a door that only opens for Familiars whose wizards are sick or hurt and are in need of assistance.  There's also supposed to be a scriptorium for couples in romantic relationships (or destined to have romantic relationships)."

Gods and men, but I just really want to write something about this for a future Academagia game for Sima Venesico.

So, I have the following questions, which almost certainly are relevant:

1. What does this scriptorium look like - or is supposed to look like?

2. How widely known is the description of this scriptorium? That is, does the average person, upon hearing about this scriptorium, assume that it has any distinguishing features, akin to how the average person might associate the term "alien" with certain distinctive features?

3. Do the non-satyr fay have their own writing system(s)? If so, are they taught in Hedi College?

[Legate of Mineta]

Rhi;

"1.  It's said to be a rectangular room, with desks along the north and west walls and bookshelves on the south and east.  Magical torches in sconces on the walls - they light when someone is proximity to them, so you can always find one another.  In the center of the room, there's an oversized standing desk that might once have been used by people of authority - but it's now somehow almost lost in a living, magical rosebush that has grown on its surface and out of its drawers.  People who visit and collect petals from the roses apparently enjoy assorted blessings for two or three days afterward.

2.  The description above is reasonably widely known among the student body, though you can't tell how accurate it's likely to be.  As for the average person's assumptions: apart from the rosebush, it's really not that exotic by Academagia standards.  But, of course, there may be elements you're not hearing about.

3.  No, generally speaking, Faerie cultures use human scripts for (relatively rare) communications with the human world.  Their own cultures rely much more on oral tradition, with talking animal messengers generally taking the place of written correspondence; they pride themselves on memory (and on extremely long lives), so why write down things when there's no meaningful risk that they'll be lost or forgotten?

There are courts and communities that do things differently, granted, but they're as likely to use an archaic form of Renaglian as anything else."

[Schwarzbart]

Is creating new Spells or Magical Items along some basic guidelines a game concept planed for the next years?

[Legate of Mineta]

For Y2, not Spells. But Enchantments you'll see.

[Schwarzbart]

1) How common do it happen that a student end up in the wrong bed i.e. because (s)he is drunk or trough magic have their senses messed up?

2) Are there some club that make you do a dare to join them?

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

"1)  Depends on how wrong a bed you mean!  For students with roommates, it's certainly not unheard of - Cante has dosed himself and collapsed into Marc's bed more than once.

But dorm rooms are generally locked and warded when unoccupied, so it's relatively rare for somebody to wander into a neighbor's suite and crash into an empty bed located in more or less the same position as their own.

2)  Absolutely.  Heck, even the Rimbal team has hazing traditions that are honored more often than not - steal a patch of soil from an opposing team's pitch, jump out a certain third-floor Godina window, etc."

[Schwarzbart]

And here I thought at last the 1st years are 4 students in 1 room

[Legate of Mineta]

It depends on the College (and in some cases gender.)

[Metis]

How distinct are...classes? Species? Races? Um...the (ostensibly?) same kinds of Fey from one major landmass to the next?

[Legate of Mineta]

M;

"Oh, yeah, that's not the safest question to ask in Fey company.  It's really hard to know who's been illusioned up to look like what and which tribes are so unutterably opposed to each other that you'd never get them to admit that they were physically similar - when in fact they were literal cousins.

That said, the similarities of any types of Fey humans are likely to meet across the old Empire of Man are generally fairly striking; the great Fey processions and hunts can easily travel from island to island, and the smaller and weirder Fey seem to have access to magics that in human society would be called Gates and locked away.  They all tend to be influenced at least somewhat by dominant local human cultures, sure, but modern scholarship suggests that there are "core" Fey traditions (and physiotypes) that persist (or at least evolve in relatively consistent ways) across a very wide geographic distribution.  The Walkers of the Sands in the distant south know at least some of the same songs as the Reindeer Peoples of the far north, and they may even have second cousins who inter-married.

But, again, it's worth stressing that this is an assessment based on knowledge of Fay groups that interact with literate human classes and let them walk away alive and with their memories unscrambled.  Who knows how the weirder ones differ!"

[Schwarzbart]

Was a player who started with the Page background on the way to become a knight who out of some reason got changed to become a mage now? 

Because in the story the Master you served under as Page don't sound like he is old enough to be a Knight him self how was the education supposed to be continued after the 7 years of be a Page? (From what I read in RL you supposed to serve 7 years as page under a noble lady then serve 7 years as squire under a Knight before become a knight your self when at last 21 years old. So isn't the master you serving under as page supposed to be more then 14 years older then the player?)

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

Here you go!

"The intent was that, as a page, you were sent to serve with a noble family, and that the young master in the story was presumably the son of the actual head of the family.  He would have been responsible for your well-being in the absence of his parents, at least in theory, and he would’ve been entirely within his rights to expect you to perform duties on his behalf while you were in the family’s service.

You certainly would’ve been released from service when you were accepted into the Academy - the Academagia is a pretty prestigious deal, and your acceptance would’ve reflected well on the family you served as well as on your own.  You are welcomed back after graduation for a year’s condensed service (as a magical counselor rather than a squire) and then a knighthood if you were so inclined; again, an Academy education counts for a lot."

[Schwarzbart]

How is the social status of a Knight who have no land of his / her own? Just like a normal landless noble?

Are new knight forced to enter an army and if so at officer level?
 

[Schwarzbart]

3) Is there any official magic school that teach something in the direction of Clockpunk or Steampunk?

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

For your questions:

"The status of a knight without land is more or less like that of any other landless noble... but with modifiers.  If you're from an old knightly family who's fallen on hard times, you'll be welcome in the same places as an ambitious young soldier who was knighted on the field after saving her lord's life - but some people will think that your courtly manners make you more "real" a knight, while others will think that young soldier with a new title has more real influence.  There's also the question of whether you're a landless knight who's in service to a lord or lady, in which case you're carrying all the weight of those affiliations, or whether you're a knight-errant just out there doing your own thing, in which case you might be anything from a bandit to a saint.

New knights are generally expected to offer support in battle to whichever figure made them a knight (though sometimes it's understood that you can have other obligations that matter more), but you're unlikely to be called into a standing army unless the lord or lady in question is actually in the middle of a conflict.  You're not likely to be treated as just a footsoldier with a title, regardless; unless the lord or lady who "made" you is very poor, you'll probably be given a shield, a sword or wand, a horse (and the means to feed it), and some kind of armor if you don't have them already.  You will stand out.

All that said, note that Everwine von Zoedorf's father was made a knight for rescuing the son of the Duke of Zoedorf from drowning, and the title is hereditary, but Everwine very much hopes to go his entire life without standing on a blood-drenched field.

3) No, actually!  There's a small consortium of fairly recent Vernin graduates who are actively seeking funding for such an enterprise in northeast Meril, and many of the great workshops in Ritzeln and Staade have significant apprenticeship programs - but there doesn't seem to be anything quite like a steampunk Academy currently in existence."

[Metis]

Is there a limit to what kind of fey can end up being a human mage's Familiar? I'm assuming the Sprite Familiar is a fey of some description, showing at it as least is possible at all, but to what extend, assuming that's correct, is it?

[Legate of Mineta]

M;

"First principle: yes, you can have fey Familiars. A fey-like a sprite or a will-o-wisp is relatively common.  The smarter and more powerful (and more human-like) the fey creature is, the less likely it is to respond to calls for a Bond in the first place.

There are very rare cases where magical Bonds form between humans and near-humans."