Ars Magica, Northumbria Covenant House Rules

• Bookkeeping, Covenant
  
• Brawling, Ability
• Character Sheet, PDF
• Experience and Advancement
  
• Noncombatant, Virtue
• Playing Characters
• Who plays What?
• Practice
• Training
  

Bookkeeping, Covenant

All income of vis and money occurs at the end of each winter. expenses are paid at the same time or as the the resource is used.

Aging rolls and deaths occur in the Winter. Births occur in the spring.

Brawling Ability

ArM5 clarified the specialties for Brawling and how dodging applies. The specialties for Brawling are: punches, grapples, knives, dodging. The dodging ability for Brawling is only used if the character has no other combat abilities, or is fighting unarmed or with a knife/dagger.

Experience and Advancement

Characters cannot advance or spend experience during an adventure. During the course of a single season, a character may advance in the following ways:

EXPOSURE

All characters get to check for Exposure each season for any casual knowledge that they have access to.  Characters on long adventures should check with the GM for what Casual Knowledges they are exposed to.  For characters hanging around the Northumbria covenant, the following Casual Knowledges are available:

Grogs and Companions

• Yorkshire Lore
• Northumbria Lore
  
• Legend Lore (England specialty if they don't already have a specialty)
• Northumbria Covenant Lore
• Language - Anglo Saxon
• Language - Western Norse
• Language - French

Magi

• Yorkshire Lore
• Northumbria Lore
  
• Legend Lore (England specialty if they don't already have a specialty)
• Order of Hermes Lore
• Language - French

TRAINING, PRACTICE, AND STUDY

In addition to learning through Exposure, characters can choose to advance themselves through Training, Practice, or Study.   However, there are some restrictions.   Characters cannot benefit from Training, Practice, or Study if they perform any of the following activities during that season:

• Participate in an adventure lasting more than 10 days
• Act as a Trainer for others
• Engage in some laboratory activity (summoning vis , creating an item, summoning a familiar, etc.)

In order to benefit from Training the character must locate a trainer (obviously).

PDF Interactive Character Sheet

Here is a PDF character sheet that you can actually fill out. It's from the Atlas-Games Web site But I'm tweaking it a little.

Noncombatant, Virtue

Characters who take the Noncombatant Virtue may not learn any weapon skills. All grogs start with the default Ability Brawling 1 and may keep this Brawling Ability at level 1 but not raise it. The character may not exchange another Ability as a replacement. A specialty of dodging would be appropriate for a Noncombatant.

Playing Characters

Who Plays What?

Wizards and Companions will only be played by their creating player. Grogs can be shared among all the players depending on the adventure (i.e. there may be adventures with only one wizard or no wizards). You should try and play a grog within the parameters set out by the grog's designer.