I want to become a ritual mage for my next event (need a new character), but I’m struggling to work out the vibes for each realm based on the Wiki. My girlfriend is an accomplished Autumn Ritualist, so I know they’re very much about deals and stuff but I can’t really work out how other realms’ covens would vibe.
Does anyone have any personal anecdotes about what their coven is like, what kinds of spells they cast?
Also, any recommendations of good covens to join in different nations? I’m not settled on a nation yet.
Not a ritualist, but have had a lot of fun doing the ill advised poking of Spring realm nonsense as someone playing an Urizeni briar.
Currently, there’s a lot of game coming from a choice made to cast one of the high magnitude Spring Rituals… both on the Conclave debate side and on the Nation interplay side
(TL;DR- Between Spring and Autumn in setting, there was a drought. PD offered, in one of the Winds of Fortune, a handful of ways of breaking it.
Two were taken. One was gentle rains (cast three times ), the other was a Thunderous Deluge.
Needless to say, the Empire- sans some contested territories- is now no longer in a drought. Might now have had some not too insignificant flooding issues.)
I am slightly biased in saying that Urizen’s major Spring Coven is pretty ace.
The players who are involved are brilliant folks, OC and IC, there’s a chance to talk to the new Spring Archmage as it is the Coven he is/was part of, and… Because Urizen is the smallest human Nation in play, you’ve got a chance to really jump in feet first
Winter:
It’s got a good selection of rituals that are useful from the solo level to the strategic level. Divination, curses, combat, even some economic ones.
Excellent value for any investigator, and often underrated for this. Get the deep info on a curse. Get the name of a myster corpse. Destroy cursed magic artefacts. Buff someone up to really ruin the culprit’s day so they can’t escape.
Night
You need to have a plan for what you’ll do with Night. A lot of Night isn’t obviously useful, or it’s very niche. Especially the cheap stuff, so it’s one where “go big or go home” can apply. Or it requires you to be proactive with the rituals tyou do know. It’s great if you want to be a sneaky bugger, or team up to stick Hero Points on people or turn forests into ninjas. A single rank of Night is unusually good value, as it means you can take part in a Signs and Portents ritual even without mastering it and you’ll get your own vision.
Spring:
I used to play a Spring mage and enjoyed it. Not just un-natural disasters and Vallorn Poking! There’s some pretty good support and aggressive rituals in the low end these days. Cheap STRIKEDOWN with a staff. Reasonably priced 2/day Stay With Me if you need a backup medic. However it doesn’t do much other than Healing and Violence at various scales. There’s not much Access to Plot/Solve Small Problem stuff in Spring Lore.
On a skirmish, there might be ribboned items that can be investigated. The best way to do this is usually to shove said items in a bag then do the ritual back in Anvil. There’s also rituals like Shadowed Glass of Sung that can let you scan the area of a skirmish for plot hints.
In general, divination works on a person (who has a character ID a ref can look up). Or an item or Curse card, (which has a ribbon ID that a ref can look up) Or a territory (WHich has database links to the armies present, magical effects, plot, etc). The way you check is to get a ref and say “I want to cast Detect Magic on this thing to see what rituals will give me more information about this thing”. Then they’ll tell you which rituals will give more information.
Autumn: Do you like sending messages to NPC’s? Do you like having the only congregation buff in the game? Do you like fleet, MU and Business Buffs? Do you like money???
Autumn is very fun, and you get a magic item detection spell if divination is your jam, though its mag 8 like most of the divination spells (forget that isn’t accessible to mag 1 character, still stands tho)
Dawns got some big autumn covens
Summer: Dawn, the realm, become overpowered and die in glory!!
As an aside I’d actually consider teaming up with the people you already know at Empire rather than going out and seeking to join covens in other nations, as that can be somewhat trial and error on the whole fun finding thing.
The other thing with Covens is they’re more often shaped by their nations and the particular magical tradition they practice than the realm. Have a read of the various magical traditions linked from here, I’m personally quite fond of Dramaturgy which is very League and Goetia (a flavour of Totem Magic).
Each of their nations also have a page on Magical Traditions and that nations particular style, this is Highguard’s. In play this translates in the Day coven I know in Highguard to lots of use of bells and hand washing to cleanse participants and the ritual circle before and after, plus a lot of hooded and veiled people chanting in call and response during the ritual. Clarity of the Master Strategist also used ceremonial cladding each of the generals with a sword and shield.
), the other was a Thunderous Deluge.