Covenant Rules Residents

Residents

The following Boons and Hooks modify the inhabitants of the covenant. These rules do not affect player character preparation; a PC must buy any communal Virtue independently. A background character who fulfills several roles, and could be purchased with any of several Boons, needs only to be purchased once. For example, if the covenant employs a tame nobleman to fool mundane people into believing that the covenant is simply his estate, they not need pay for him a second time if he also acts as a drill instructor for the grogs. He does not need to be paid for as a teacher with Build Points, either.

Residents Free Choices

• Hunters or Sailors: The covenant’s people live by hunting, fishing, or some other profession that gives them useful skills for certain types of limited military action. These people need payment, a penny per day, for their service, unless the covenant has reached some other arrangement with them.
• Peasants: The covenant’s defenders live as farmers for the rest of the year. They do not practice at weapons during the year, but most are competent with an inexpensive weapon and are extremely fit. Covenants usually cannot call up large numbers of men during the planting or harvesting seasons. The advantage to peasant warriors is that they are never paid wages: a certain amount of military service is expected of them as part of their rent.

Major Residents Boons

• Heavy Cavalry: Covenants that command heavy cavalry have a banner of knights in their service. Major noblemen often claim exclusive right to elevate others to, and sustain them in, the role of knighthood. A covenant maintaining a banner of knights is ignoring the privileges of these nobles. It also threatens war. Knights are very expensive to maintain compared to defensive forces. Their role is to guard, or raid, land up to half a day’s ride from their base. A covenant with knights will make all noblemen within their raiding range suspicious, and many will respond with spies, fortification, or by employing more soldiers of their own.
• Magical (Soldiers) (requires any other soldier type): Soldiers with supernatural mounts or equipment are a major threat to all neighboring nobles, so most covenants either deploy them only in emergencies, or make sure no witnesses are left after their operations. A covenant is the Greek Isles, described in the book The Places I’ve Been — You Wouldn’t Believe Me, has a small force of men who ride the backs of gigantic terrapins. These creatures are difficult to raise and are slow-moving, but in naval battle they can swim against the wind, and they are able to mount amphibious assaults. The Quaesitores have asked the covenant not to alarm the nearby nobility, so they have spread stories about a tribe of faeries that ride turtles.
• Tame Nobleman: The covenant rules a large enough territory that it can survive on the feudal rents of its vassals. It is illegal for magi to enter into feudal contracts, so the covenant has a generally willing servant who is the official ruler. This degree of integration with the feudal system worries some Quaesitores, but stays just inside the Code.

Minor Residents Boons

• Cavalry: The covenant has a small number of horsemen. They are not paid in money, but the upkeep of the men and their equipment is expensive, particularly in southern climes, where oats are not plentiful. The presence of horsemen, able to raid at a distance from the castle, always concerns its neighbors.
• Crossbowmen: The covenant has a force of crossbowmen. They receive nine pence each day, even if they are not required to fight. Between battles, they may be used as guards. If the covenant employs a garrison of crossbowmen, their neighbors will interpret their state of constant military preparedness as a threat. As an alternative, the crossbowmen belong to a peasant company, like those formed in some towns for self-defense. They aid the covenant in war, if relations between the covenant and the peasants are good, and can be hired for adventures outside the most important agricultural times. If relations between the town and the covenant deteriorate, the crossbowmen defend their families against the magi.
• Criminals: A small group of brigands or pirates serves the covenant. They may have forsworn their old careers, or might continue them on the covenant’s behalf. They are skilled fighters, but do not need payment beyond food, shelter, beer, and — if still in business — booty.
• Famous Resident: A senior member of the covenant is an Archimagus, famous researcher, or wily political strategist who assists younger magi with their personal concerns.
• Inhuman Residents: The majority of the residents of the covenant are inhuman. They have abilities that exceed those of mortals in a useful way. Some covenants house faeries, spirits, ghosts, and awakened animals. The covenant of Calebais is an excellent example of this Boon taken multiple times.
• Literate Covenfolk: The local people, for the most part, are able to read, and enjoy it. In many areas, the ability to read places an individual outside secular law and into the remit of Church laws.
• Local Language: The local people speak a language that is somehow useful to their masters. Many covenants have Vulgar Latin as their language, but others speak odd regional dialects that cannot be learned as easily by potential spies as the common tongues of Europe.
• Loyal Covenfolk: Good treatment of the covenfolk in the history of the covenant has resulted in unusually loyal servants. After calculating Base Loyalty, add sufficient loyalty points to raise the Prevailing Loyalty of the covenant to +3 (30 loyalty points total).
• Missile Weapons: The covenant’s mundane tenants include large numbers of people who are highly skilled with missile weapons. Examples include English peasants, required by law to practice the longbow, Majorcan shepherds, renowned for their deadly slings, and Scottish flounder fishermen, deadly with javelins. These peasants pay the covenant military service as part of their rent. They lack armor but may — in addition to their ranged armament — have inexpensive weapons, which they use to defend themselves against enemies within melee range.
• Strong Community: The covenfolk look out for each other to a degree that is exceptional, even compared to the strong communal focus of medieval mundane life. This community is difficult for outsiders to infiltrate because each member of the community knows each of the others, at least in passing, and is loyal to them, at some level.
• Useful Curse: Local people suffer from a curse which they find unpleasant and uncomfortable, but which increases their usefulness to the magi. For example, there are tribes in both Ireland and Greece where people live, involuntarily, as wolves for years. These wolves have human intelligence and can understand speech, and so make excellent covenant guards and watchers on expedition.
• Veteran Fighters: The covenant has a small force of professional foot soldiers. They receive a penny each per day, even if they are not required to fight. Between battles, they may be used as guards and servants. Most use standard weapons, but their officers have expensive ones. They also have standard armor.

Major Residents Hooks

• Chapter House: The covenant owns and controls a second, smaller site, far from the covenant’s main holding. The site is so valuable that a small, dependent covenant, called a chapter house, has been founded there. Chapter houses tend to agitate for independence from their motherhouses, but deft handling allows them to act as efficient harvesters of material that rivals would otherwise claim.
• Diabolic Corruption: Some of the covenfolk are diabolists. This is difficult to detect because the demon they serve has clouded their minds, so that they look normal when scryed upon, even forgetting briefly their Infernal servitude. They have invited their master and his minions into the covenant with depraved Infernal rites, so the Aegis does not bar them, although it does limit their supernatural abilities.
• Divided Loyalty: The covenant is divided into factions, and the Prevailing Loyalty is calculated separately for each faction. These factions may be professional, political, or personal, but they are in competition with each other. Actions that affect the loyalty points (see Chapter 3: Governance) of the covenant as a whole affect all factions. Actions which benefit the loyalty of one faction over the others will cause a decrease in loyalty of the other factions equal to one half of the loyalty points gained. If the gap in Prevailing Loyalty between factions ever reaches 3 or more points, then a story results based on the tensions between the factions. This Hook is compatible with other Residents Boons and Hooks that affect loyalty; work out the total loyalty points, then divide them between the factions — but not necessarily equally.
• Fractured Council: The covenant’s magi do not work together. This may be because of chronically poor organization, psychological damage from Warping, rivalry, misanthropy, or mutual hatred. Covenants dominated by player characters may not take this Hook (or, at least, do not get a Boon in return).
• Mercer House: Part of the covenant is a Mercer House, a supply and storage facility dedicated to supporting the operations of House Mercere. Recaps often retire to the covenant’s town after they have served their term, and many raise families with covenfolk.
• Rebellious Covenfolk: Due to previous events in the covenant’s history, the Prevailing Loyalty of the covenant (see Chapter 3: Governance, Prevailing Loyalty) is shockingly low. Subtract sufficient loyalty points to obtain a loyalty point total of –75 (a Prevailing Loyalty of –5). Stories that involve the disloyalty of the covenfolk continue until morale is increased.
• School: The younger sons of many rich farmers and lesser lords congregate at the covenant to be taught letters and something of philosophy. Some travel to the covenant from surrounding farms each day, while many from further away board for much of the year. Their training is insufficient to work as clerks or jurists, but it prepares them for later, university study and marks them as gentry. House Jerbiton runs several of these schools. Jerbiton apprentices are usually Gently Gifted, so they are more difficult to detect than those of other Houses. Schoolmasters seek signs of magical ability or precocious intelligence among their charges, then report promising students to the magi. House Jerbiton also runs schools for girls, which is a novelty for many noblemen.
• Superiors: The player characters can be given orders by the ranking members of the covenant, which they must obey.

Minor Residents Hooks

• Alienable Land: The covenant allows its people to own farmland, homes, and shops, rather than renting them. This allows industry to develop more quickly, as residents have a reason to improve their dwellings and land. This also allows covenfolk to mortgage their land, to secure the money required to start or expand their businesses. Stories arise when the land is sold, or lost, to creditors who come from outside the covenant. These heirs are unused to the covenant’s customs, and might seek the aid of a higher authority to recover property they consider theirs by right. Many covenants, for example, allow female heirs to inherit far better portions than outsiders might expect, or local laws might allow.
• Dark Secret: The leaders of the covenant harbor a secret that, if exposed, may lead to their ostracism or punishment. Although they have many resources available to quiet it, the secret seems to crop up every few years as a potential problem. This Hook may be Unknown.
• Distorted Covenfolk: The natives of the covenant have been distorted by its aura, so they find it difficult to interact with mundane people, or travel in the mundane world.
• Dumping Ground: Many minor nobles have their older relatives retire to the covenant, in exchange for political favors and payments. In some areas it is traditional, if unseemly, for sons to force their fathers into monasteries, allowing the son to inherit before the father’s death and have the father’s upkeep paid out of monastic coffers. Covenants are not generally so generous, but some — particularly those influenced by House Jerbiton — accept aged, usually mentally impaired, relatives of noblemen, who are nursed in their final years away from their homes. Intellectually impaired children are also sometimes given to covenants, under a stipend system.
• Fosterage: The covenant is home to the child of a powerful person or being, either because the being wishes the child to be raised among magi, or because the magi have demanded it as a concession for other services. This child’s safety is paramount.
• Gender Imbalance: The covenant has a deeply unbalanced gender division. This is common in new covenants, which tend to have many male servants, and those that have lost many men to war. Surrounding communities judge the covenant by their own standards, and so expect a group that is mostly male to expand its territory as a way of claiming wealth and women. A community that has few men will be considered leaderless, ill-garrisoned, and vulnerable. These stereotypes are usually inaccurate for covenants, leading to nasty and unnecessary confrontations with expansionist nobles.
• Guild: The covenfolk have a political organization that can arrange for many of them to withdraw their services simultaneously. The guild usually strikes only when it feels its members suffer mistreatment. The guild agitates for better wages, shorter hours, and less dangerous working conditions. Many guilds also provide funds for medical help, retirement, funerals, the widows of members, and other social services.
• House Church: A fervent group of Christians practices the sacraments in one of the houses within the covenant. Left unchecked, this may affect the aura. An added complication is that the House Church members may be heretics, living in the covenant as a shelter from the Church. This Hook may be Unknown.
• Incompetent Covenfolk: Many covenfolk are dim-witted, unskilled, or accident-prone. This may be correctable.
• Indigenes: The covenant was founded through a colonial process when the magi and their primary servants took possession of an area occupied by another people. The covenant’s population is stratified: the new arrivals rule, the indigenous population serve. The covenant would be far more stable, in the long term, if the two groups could reconcile, and perhaps form a hybrid culture, but that is difficult. The indigenous population feels generally angry and vengeful. The incoming population, on the other hand, feels generally superior and is subject to the temptations that the conqueror feels in their treatment of the conquered.
• Inhuman Covenfolk: Enough of the covenant’s residents are inhuman that it draws attention from surrounding communities. They become aware of the inhuman population far more quickly if they engage in militancy or commerce.
• Infants: Something about the covenant’s aura is affecting the next generation of covenfolk. In some covenants, the Hook is that every child born is a twin. Many women die in labor, the covenant’s population booms, and stories involving mistaken identity are common. As the population increases, the covenant needs to expand, possibly to the detriment of its neighbors. In other covenants children are very rare, which leads to folk and faerie remedies for bringing about pregnancy, the nurturing of children communally, and the constant need for immigrants. In some covenants, the children have odd flaws or skills, or are not human at all. This warping usually follows a single theme. In one Alpine covenant, for example, all people born are suited to temperatures far below the human norm.
• Possession Victim: One of the covenfolk is possessed by a powerful demon. It has been able to cross the Aegis of the Hearth hidden in its host. It seeks to do harm and convert others to its service. This Hook is usually Unknown.
• Refugee: A displaced nobleman, or noblewoman, has come to the covenant seeking shelter from the forces of a usurper who has stolen his or her land and riches. The refugee has useful skills, and may aid the magi, but intends to eventually seek revenge and restoration. This Hook may be Unknown.
• Rights and Customs: Members of the covenant have a series of traditional rights that cause the magi difficulty, but cannot be altered without serious damage to covenant morale. These include local holidays, mandatory feasts, exemption from death taxes, and other odd local customs.
• Seed of Madness: Madness is common among the covenfolk, caused by Warping or extreme social trauma in previous generations.
• Spies: Agents of a rival have infiltrated the covenant or a nearby town. They are content to simply collect information at this time, but might perform sabotage as the rival’s scheme develops. This Hook may be Unknown.
• Suffrage: The covenant grants equal rights to men and women. This is, theoretically, sinful and likely to incite contempt of the covenant’s officials by outsiders.
• Superiors: The player characters are not in charge of the covenant, and while their superiors cannot order them about, the player characters do not have control of covenant resources.