So you want to form a Day Coven

[Mark_Wilkin]

Part 2 in our ongoing series on Covens.

What advice would you give to new players who were thinking of forming a Day coven ?

What are the cool rituals, what kind of items would you recommend they make or look out for, what potions? Would you recommend any particular Magical Traditions to them? What kind of things do Day Covens get up to? Which Eternals should they talk to, oppose or at least have frosty silences with? How do they work in your partcular nation’s magical traditions and Hearth Magics?

And the most important question, what are the fashionable Day Mages wearing this season and what’s their Coven aesthetic?

---

So you want to form a Winter | Summer | Autumn | Spring | Day | Night Coven

[Iulian]

Economic rituals - mining at 8 sells mana crystals for ingots at a 2:1 ratio, fleet at 12 spends nearly a season’s base production from a mana site to slightly more than double a fleet’s output, so it’s reasonably easy to calculate if those are usable. I wouldn’t make them your main game.

Scrying rituals - High Places and Sun and Moon - are always in demand but you won’t necessarily get anyone to pay you for them. They are usually on the level of ‘we want someone to have cast this, but we don’t want to cast it ourselves’ for the big covens, so they used to be a way of making yourselves useful as a small coven. My knowledge is a little out of date - I’m not sure to what extent the market is sewn up - but there are generally a huge number of places to cover. A good way of getting to know the Warmage.

Plot rituals - Clear Lens, Skein of Years, Lantern of Ophis, Leviathan, Combing the Beach - are useful to the famous, the self-starting and the lucky. I’d expect any of the archmages to want to swing these on a regular basis, but also to already have a source. Back when I played an archmage, pretty much the first words out of my mouth upon seeing a situation where one of these rituals could have been cast, were ‘Who’s doing [ritual] and do they need help?’ It’s worth noting that rituals that ask Eternals for information are asking them for information about the world or about a specific plot - they really don’t work on things players have done. (What do I mean by plot? Winds of Fortune; quests, especially weird sounding ones; anything that goes out of the far end of the Hall of Worlds; anything related to past life visions; weird and unusual magic items.)

Combat / game mechanic rituals - Ascetic Star, Horizon’s Razor Edge, Illuminate the Higher Mind etc - are useful if you’re operating as an adjunct to a battlefield group or if you’re taking the field yourself. Largely speaking, small buffs are efficient but not powerful and large buffs are powerful but not efficient.

Curses - All the World in a Grain of Sand is a lovely thing to use for roleplaying, but don’t plan on using it on a non-player character. It’s for player-versus-player action. I wouldn’t base a group around it.

Big rituals - All three big Day rituals are the kind of thing that you want to make happen if you can. They are all big enough to make your coven’s name - if you can pull them off on the regular then your Archmage should pay attention to what you think as much as the other way around.

[Conan]

So, depending on the focus of your coven (battlefield/being nosy/quests/info gathering), you would want everyone to take some stuff they can do solo, and then depending on coven size a few rituals that you can just about manage if your whole coven gets together (showpieces basically). You will probably want most of the bases covered below 10 magnitude by at least one person. Bright Lantern, Horizon’s Razor Edge, Piercing Light & Cyrstal Clarity of the Rational Soul. If you are going for Day being a strong part of your group’s aesthetic, then someone to have Solace of Chimes and cast it on your group tent if you have one at the start of each event.
Above that you are getting into Coven rituals - Scrying is useful to get yourself known and get your foot in the doors as a coven, especially if you can cozy up to your nation’s generals to scry where they want in a timely manner. Economic rituals are also useful if you can get clients willing to pay - try and get mastered cost + at least half a crown. If you can do multiple then great, pocket the free crystal. The mines one used to be better because it was a bit broken but they fixed it. Sular’s Promise has competition from the Autumn one that is cheaper so that’s unfortunate. If you can get some regular clients then great, especially if they are visiting ports that have a relative jump at +6 ranks (ports are slightly uneven in their rewards distribution).
If you’re going to be leaping into every mission & plot you can, then investigation stuff is very useful, but you’ll have to be proactive to make use of it, ideally being active within your nation’s plot will get you chances to go and do things. Skein of Years, Bright Lantern are more useful than Clear Lens in most situations.
If you’re in Dawn and willing to take the battlefield, get 3-4 people with Chimes of Annulment.
All the World In a Grain of Sand is awesome and the last word in a curse fight, but its also one of the most expensive curses out there and basically just useful in PvP.
If your Coven is even close to big enough to cast Clarity of the Master Strategist than master it and make casting it your main goal. Once you can do it, do it as often as you can. If you are that size also consider everyone mastering Piercing Light to destroy enemy Shrouds.

Items-wise, you are mostly looking for lore boosters like rings and staves. If your nation is herb rich, maybe look for some personal-mana-as-crystal-mana potions but they aren’t cost-effective unless herbs are cheap and plentiful. Other than that, covenstones can be situationally useful, but only worth the investment if you’re making regular use of them. Then general gear for fighting, wands of gain spell, etc. Impale for paralyse rod if you’re a bit cheeky and like giving people nasty surprises.

Pick a magical tradition that best suits your Nation is always good advice. Day works pretty well with Astronomancy and Dramaturgy IMO, although Runes are always a solid bet. The stuff which shows your breadth of specific knowledge looks impressive with Day, and the above traditions are all symbolism based and have a lot going on with them so if you can commit some key bits to memory that’s great.

In terms of stuff to do - In my experience, Day Magic practitioners benefit from having a lot of information from varied sources, to cross-reference and link together to solve problems. Various Day rituals can extend that ability, but having your fingers in lots of pies and gathering and sharing information will massively extend your reach, and your ability to ask the right question at the right time (when doing Swim Leviathan’s Depths for example). So have some people involved in your nations politics, the Synod, Conclave, the Military Council, or just hanging around the pub. Then periodically meet and share what you know with your coven, so that people can start making links and pulling the coven as a whole into all sorts of activities. Let the Archmage know your coven exists, and if you’re up for scrying, the Warmage and Imperial Seer - THEN FOLLOW UP AND STAY INVOLVED. If someone from you coven comes up to them once or twice ever, they will forget about you almost immediately, so you need to keep engaged and be helpful, since plot opportunities will blossom around them.

[Conan]

Day Eternals are mostly on good terms with the Empire with one glaring exception which people will no doubt talk about in play. Day Eternals are hard to negotiate with because they tend to withdraw easily, are more interested in the intellectual than material, and thus don’t have or want much, so making deals is difficult. Its a general problem with the Realm really. They don’t just want you to have cool sea adventures, let them put eggs in you or sell your soul to them for favours, so its harder to get to grips with them in a substantive way.

Leviathan is the easiest to contact (since during the ritual it will talk to you directly), but hardest to draw further out. The best way to engage with a Day Eternal has been to be earnestly keen on their specific area of expertise. Many of these are quite cerebral, so you might need to have someone read up on some highbrow academic subjects. Talk to the Archmage in play for a host of more colourful opinions on the Day Eternals.

Day mages look good in blues (sea or sky), silvers, whites, greys and blacks (for contrast). Although some noted Day Mages have recently transitioned to greens which they are ROCKING. Complex geometric patterns are IN, multiple light sources about your person are SO HOT RIGHT NOW. Good walking boots are A MUST. A fashionable bag full to the brim with writing implements and reference material IS A CLASSIC LOOK THAT IS ALWAYS IN STYLE.

[McGonigle]

So Conan has said alot of things I feel are important so I’m going to focus in on some things rather than try to do an overview.

Generally Day is good at two things the information game and the strategic game. Both of which really want you to have a notebook and like information.

Day has the lowest entry point into the Strategy game, with the Scrying rituals (which also might help you build connections with other people in that game) and Carve the Crystal Guardians Which is the best of all the buff an MU to support an army (that’s not saying much) but most importantly lets a Mage decide to support an army for a season because they care (and that is sufficiently cool it occasionally gets cast.)

Personal Buffs - The Battlemage Academy
Day has barely any personal buffs, what it does do really well is magically teach spell knowledge for a while. This might be an interesting niche for a battlemage coven (you might want to multi realm later since there isn’t much for the concept.) A group with a diverse selection of spells across them, able to enchant the group to suit the objective feels a very day way to go (fighting Vallorn we all have venom, trying to stop escapees -entangle etc.) Also to my knowledge it hasn’t been done yet and feels useful both as a interesting fighting group concept and to enchant others

You don’t need much Day for this (Day 1 would work, but getting 2 would make it soloable outside the regio.) Leaving you with more exp for spells and combat skills.