[quote=“HertsJ”]OK, thanks for the replies but I think I expressed myself poorly. I wasn’t really asking whether Mana Site was the best personal resource for a solo ritualist. It’s more do you expect to be provided with the mana required when being asked to perform a ritual?
Let me put it the other way: If you want to be enchanted with, say, Swan’s Cruel Wing and you seek out a solo Summer ritualist. Do you expect to pay the ritualist solely in coin, solely in mana or in some other form? Or a combination, let’s say two mana crystals and half a crown for his trouble? (don’t worry if that’s cheap or expensive, it’s the principle that that’s his casting cost plus an amount of profit)[/quote]
If I am casting on someone else’s behalf, I expect them to provide the basic mana (although on one occasion I ended up selling them the mana for cash, and they then gave me my mana back in order to perform the ritual…).
The additional payment can be in whatever form - usually something worth a crown, but not always. I actually have a contract with one of the Freeborn Families that they will replace my Volhov’s Robe when it wears out in return for Day magic at cost. I have also been known to perform rituals for cake…
[quote=“Celesti”]Hakima covens (Of which there perhaps 2 active on the field) are actively recruiting because we are not, as the fluff says, the most powerful and organised ritualists in the Coast. Many families have large covens, typically for buffing fleets and the like. I have tried organising Freeborn magicians to work together and herding greased cats doesn’t come close…
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The Hakima on the field is one of the best examples of the game in play going in a completely different direction to the way the brief was written.
According to the BRIEF, the Hakima provide the organised covens for BIG rituals and the families have one-or-two “house magicians” and “dabblers” who mostly solo cast.
IN PRACTISE what you have are family covens geared around getting the best use from specific mid-range rituals, mostly focussing on a single lore (usually autumn or night) and only performing a few rituals every event. By contrast, The Hakima tend to operate independently, churning out solo rituals or working with different covens on a temporary basis. While there are a couple of Hakima covens, all the members are more than capable of operating solo if we need to - whereas one of the family covens was effectively shut down at E3 this year by player-non-attendance meaning they couldn’t hit their usual magnitudes.
I’m not quite at the stage where I can “fart day magic” (I only came in this year, and started with some coven rituals, so it will take at least another year’s XP for me to pick up the other rituals in solo range) but the rituals I do have tend to be ones that none of the families can cast for themselves - and when they need them cast they REALLY need them cast…
You definitely cast at cost plus fee as a solo ritualist, whether you want to carry a supply of mana and charge a premium fee for it rather than have them do their own mana buying is up to you.
[quote=“HertsJ”]OK, thanks for the replies but I think I expressed myself poorly. I wasn’t really asking whether Mana Site was the best personal resource for a solo ritualist. It’s more do you expect to be provided with the mana required when being asked to perform a ritual?
Let me put it the other way: If you want to be enchanted with, say, Swan’s Cruel Wing and you seek out a solo Summer ritualist. Do you expect to pay the ritualist solely in coin, solely in mana or in some other form? Or a combination, let’s say two mana crystals and half a crown for his trouble? (don’t worry if that’s cheap or expensive, it’s the principle that that’s his casting cost plus an amount of profit)[/quote]
I tend to give people the impression that I’d really appreciate it if they helped me stretch my sadly limited personal budget as far as possible - after all, we’re doing this for the Empire’s good as well as my own. Then I can quite happily ‘go over budget’, but clearly that would need to be paid back because this is now someone else’s coin we’re spending, and while I’m prepared to do them a favour, you know what those inchoate, unnamed and clearly absent authority figures are like…
Et cetera.
By which I mean, if I’m doing a ritual for resources other than mana then I’m building in personal profit in terms of both money and political capital, whereas if I’m doing it for mana then I’m guilting them into at least paying me something on top of that. (Meanwhile, if it’s Plot that I’m investigating, I will be hitting up everyone in the area for mana ) And if I’m casting it at below cost then I’m outright expecting a return on that investment somewhere.
) And if I’m casting it at below cost then I’m outright expecting a return on that investment somewhere.