The Covenant of the Door was the focus of an Ars Magica saga that spanned about 18 months of real play from 5/2005 to 12/2005. As storyguides (us 2), we discovered that the promise of the door as a saga basis wasn’t all that we’d hoped for. Our efforts at chronicling are evidence of our flagging interest in this particular saga. It seems that every other saga is a low point. Like a mountain range of fantasy fun! Anyhow, our next and well-fated saga can be found at The London Chapter. Given that we are set in 15th century London, the style of play will focus on networks of social dealings. So more notes, more chronicling, and less forgetfulness is key to survival.

Our previous saga is here: Pax Hermeticus.

The Covenant of the Door was founded in 920 A.D. in the deeply forested and rugged terrain of the State of Petchenegs (modern day Ukraine). Our saga represents a ’change of watch’ in June 980 A.D. (real time: April 2005), as the founding magi journey to what one must assume are greener pastures, and our yearling magi make the covenant their new home. The seclusion provided by the covenant locale is of great convenience, for the Covenant of the Door has a secret. And that secret shows the apparent seclusion of the covenant to be illusionary...

The covenant proper is a grand wooden structure in the local tradition. Its clutch of onion domes tops the canopy, and are a visitor’s first glimpse of this lone outpost of Hermes. Behind the grand structure lies a steep sided bowl valley which houses the exotic menagerie, atrium and herbarium, and a tall stone spire upon which sits a feat of mechanics: The Orrery. The flora and fauna, not to mention the tomes and artifacts possessed by this far off covenant might make the uninitiated ponder the significance and nature of ’The Door’.

But we of The Covenant of the Door shall be guarding that secret. The Door

Current Affairs
In March of 984, a group of men come in the night, dragging an old cart. They call to the hospitality of the Covenant, and claim to carry the frog imprisoned body of a Magus. Further, they are seeking a past master, Vvax, and have some dealings with him.

The road to home is long and twisty. Sahsa, the Captain, and crew have traveled back from Kiev, making a stop in at the newly acquired mink farm, and further to Tana. Here they have pondered the nature of Murder and Justice, while deciding arbitrarily whether the men who will hang are guilty or not. Master Sasha’s dissatisfaction with his inquiry has lead him to act rather brashly, however, and now a trading galley, The Lady of Persia, sinks in the Bay of Tana, its’ crew vyeing with the rats for air and land alike.
It is nearly certain that the Captain will not approve

At the Covenant, A lost eye of glass becomes a portal into the Enigma as Herr Dokter Reinholdt brings the light of lights into his top floor laboratory. The Migosh, in reverence, submit the old man in the consecrated cave of mushrooms. As Jorg witnesses, a cherished rite is passed for the soul of the man to pass.

A Summary Of Events To Date
The founding members of The Door have decided to relinquish their covenant to newly graduated magi. A representative from The Door has made a round of the Order, and interviewed many. The choosen six have been notified, and wagons from The Door have been dispatched to assist these six and their belongings to this new home.
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June 980 - The newly graduated magi have arrived and been briefed by Cephus, the remaining member of The Door. One of the six new magi has yet to arrive. Oriens has invited everyone to the first covenant council.

In more trivial news, the grogs, new and existing, of The Door have been rubbing elbows.

June 980 - ’The Suspect Scribe’ - Johann the Scribe is exchanged for a payment in coin for his tuition at the University Al Qud.

June 980 - The first covenant council is held and parameters for a first draft of the Charter are determined with much credit to the long-winded Oriens.

Sept 980 - ’The Horror’ - The Door bursts open due to the assault from a gigantic tentacled creature residing in the lake beyond. It is discovered that a magus has accidentally waked this monster from it’s sleep. Tashi is saved from drowning by Jorg, and the monster is returned to sleep. An ancient temple of Ares is discovered in the lake, below the monster.

December 980 - ’Farewell Captain Igor’ - Captain Igor decides harsh discipline is what our turb needs, but the turb sets upon Igor with its own discipline and he is beaten unconscious. El Gato rips out Igor’s throat and declares Andrej captain. Thus ends Igor, captain.

January 981 - ’Unbreakable Marbles’ - The Door opens onto a river gorge, and El Gato and Aziz deliver a package to two idiotic ’bridge trolls’, Stropp and Bergie near the secluded town of Ytrem, Denmark. Payment: 10 pawns Te in the form of nail parings.

January 981 - Jorg hires Migosh to clean his lab, Aziz stops Migosh from cleaning his sanctum doorknob, and Sasha is lectured by Oriens about the greater qualities of Bonisagus over Verditius after requesting Oriens create an item for him. A brief recital ensues, and Sasha takes home a ’musical’ instrument of Oriens’ creation.

January thru June 981 - Oriens makes a mess in the library with a trapped device he is investigating. Vernal council censures Oriens for using vis stores without permission, and Sasha is censured for failing to perform covenant service. The two are instructed to reflect on their misdeeds two hours per day. Both spend this time with their Tubular Lungs (see Oriens resources), and give a recital in June to a tepid reception. Later, Sasha selects several grogs to perform games of stealth through the covenant. In other news, Jorg has investigated to pieces the shamanic turd which arrived with the indigenous traders. Literally cracking in two under heat, and releasing an invisible, yet forceful entity which absconded after leaving several dents in the laboratory walls.

June 981 - Master Sasha gathers the Grogs in the courtyard, and handpicks a few who he thinks might suit his ’purposes’. These four or five are set to a variety of tasks including the climbing of the outside of the Covenant proper, and mostly centered around thieving various items from different parts of the House. Though the Grogs seem to be only marginally prepared for such things, Yuri and Slim Wickett both do quite well, and all four of them help each other to succeed. Sasha is disappointed that some of the finer details of his instruction are either avoided, or forgotten, but considering what he has to work with, these few will have to do. At the end of it all, Sasha lets the Grogs know that they are now members of his elite team, and that if he ever hears of them doing such things without his persmission, he will turn them into little cheeses, and eat them, a promise he is ready to keep.

June 981 - The hex placed upon Yuri by Yanish has run its course. ”Return to your bed of filth and do not leave!” Yuri returned from the ’hunting trip’ to find a chicken scratching his pallet, and chicken shit on his sheets. He promptly killed and consumed the offending bird. Deep in the night, Yuri awoke with a bloated belly emitting clucking sounds, and explosive diahrea. With no end to his sickness forthcoming, Andrej confined Yuri to the outhouse. Three weeks later the curse ended. Yuri contemplated suicide, and Otto provided him a knife. The latrine hole filled up, and Andrej asked Yuri which of the men had treated him poorly during his stay in the outhouse.

March 981 - Aziz’s vis hunt goes horribly (double-botch) wrong when taking a set of red river rocks from what seems to be an offering stone precipitates a battle with an odd sort of wolf. During this battle, Ugh and Aziz are deeply wounded, Ugh is marked with urine, and Teronomus is carried off into the night. ”Leave red, leave woman, leave ... alive” was the only warning the group received. A humid wind that smelled like a pot of warm blood, then a wind that blew shadows through the camp so it was difficult to see clearly, then the attack... Stutz and Borislav carried their wounded comrades home. Ugh received a permanent physical scar (-2 physical flaw) to be announced. Again, a chirurgeon would have been useful.

August 981 - The door gem begins to grow a purple star in it’s center, then the door buckles and cracks, destroying the bar. Several new runes are seen for a moment during the crack, and El Gato captures them on parchment. One of the existing runes is blotted out. Jorg botches an InTe on the door, and is pulled by his fingers up the door and then two of his joints are smashed into the crack. Kessil heals him.

September 981 - Pavelovich comes through the door with a pregnant fox, and french soldiers are seen on the other side of the door snooping around. Several grogs on door watch go through without permission. Tashi and Aziz come to look. Andrej leads a group of grogs through, and kill the soldiers, cover the tracks. Meanwhile, Aziz and Tashi have both passed through the door and gone into twilight. Uri is killed by a frenchman, and Vladimir is sent packing for his inability to follow orders. He is killed in the woods by El Gato as he travels away. Jorg and the other magi make a bold experiment upon the damaged door, and realize, mainly with Jorg’s insight, that three pawns of vis are required as a toll for one magus to travel unscathed through the door.

September 981 - The surviving frenchman is questioned by Oriens and El Gato, and reveals that Papovich unwittingly led the french baron’s forces to the door. The fox pups have begun ’blinking’, teleporting short distances with each yap they produce. Tashi and Aziz wake from their twilight, with no apparent ill effects. A sudden summer storm brings wind and ice crystals and cold to the covenant. Tashi casts a spell to accelerate the storm’s coming, and botches, sending a bolt of lightning onto him and Jorg. Jorg is wounded and takes his rock shape. Tashi speaks his secrets to Jorg-stone as the storm rages.

Pavelovich’s shed has a shutter torn open by the chill wind, and the pups use this disturbance to ’run’ to the covenant proper, and the warmth there. El Gato, Oriens and Aziz make efforts to contain these difficult pups as they run rampant through the covenant. Some pups get into the vis stores and eat various arts, causing various effects to their blinking. In the end, they pups are rounded up by Papovich, or killed by El Gato, and all is well. There is much to speak of in the seasonal council on the Autumnal equinox.

September 981 - The remaining fox pups are relegated to the menagerie, and a dubious future caught between an anaconda and whatever roams the valley in the night. Autumnal Equinox council is held. A good deal of arguing and motioning, and few tangible results (Oriens’ opinion, but not in the minutes). Aziz and Tashi each have a dream which obviously relates to their twilights. Jorg journeys with a troupe of grogs to the local shaman before heading to Tana to retrieve skiff and sails for his next project. Otto, the bad-blooded scout, finally has his revenge on Ugh (aka Wolf-boy), doing him to death with a trap comprised of jerky and well-aimed arrows. Otto claims that Ugh attacked him, and he was forced to defend himself, though all the shafts were shot into Ugh’s back... Jorg has something in store that only a Criammon executioner could concoct.

November 981 - Jorg arrives at the shaman’s camp to find him and his apprentice, Sesh, preforming curative magic on a tribesman sick with cholera. The venerable Shaman pulls the sickness-spirit from the stricken man, and binds it into a petrified seed pod wrapped in Holly and Yew twigs. He presents it to Jorg, who tries to refuse the gift and leave it there. The shaman is missing his right eye, and ear from a viscious but long past claw wound. Jorg speaks with the shaman, who turns out to be quite eccentric, and disdainful of the Magi’s so called ”study of mysteries”. It seems the old codger believes that a mystery is only of value when it poses difficulty in the full light of the sun. Jorg wishes to learn more, and The Shaman tells him that he must procure two things to proceed. One is an Icon worthy of the Weather God Varpulis, and the other is a nice hat, with a feather in it. At this, Jorg is not sure if he IS interested after all, as the old man seems perhaps too strange for him.

Jorg then journeys onward to Tana to obtain materials for his sky skiff. A celebration is under way when they arrive, for a daughter of the magistrate there has been engaged to the Duke of Kiev. Journeying home, Jorg stops at a swamp to teach Otto a lesson. Jorg gives Otto a riddle to ponder, and turns to rock form. Otto quickly goes bonkers, and ends up pummelling his fists to pulp on Jorg’s unresponsive rockness. In the end, Otto disappears and the troupe completes their journey home.

November 981 - Ali Kazaam, companion at large has been freed from his jail cell by Sasha’s parens, and told to never be seen by his covenant, or Sasha ever again. Ali finds that Sasha has moved to the Pechenegs from a local friend, and travels to Kiev. But, unable to enter the city (he is a moor), Ali takes lodging outside of Kiev, and there meets Babu, a flambouyant moor, and self-proclaimed man of enterprise. Babu agrees to assist Ali in tracking down Sasha, but first it is into Kiev disguised as porters for a bit of light-handed work. Through luck and loads of prying into the vice-jawed Ali, Babu uncovers enough information about The Mouse to get a handle on Karl, our redcap, as he passes through Kiev. Ali sends a letter to Sasha.

January 982 - Redcap Karl arrives wearing a badger skin cap which was once the live female badger which El Gato requested from his parens. Karl makes no excuses, and El Gato seems to swallow the pill, making a gift of the hat back to Karl. Sasha receives Ali’s letter, and is off to Kiev with the captain, sgt. John James and several quick-handed grogs.

March 982 - Sasha arrives in Kiev, locates Babu and Ali, and enters Kiev where he donns the clothes and name of Frederick Barbarosa, a minor lord of Bohemia. Babu, Ali and Mycah check into the Dark Horse, and Sasha takes lodging at The White Glove. Henri, host of The White Glove, sees them well tended, all the while drinking a new spirit called ’Brandy’. Babu, Ali, Mycah and Sasha all meet in the basement of the Dark Horse among the casks to arrange the theft of wedding gifts from the Count’s son’s wedding. Later, at a banquet for the wedding guests, Sasha’s alias turns out to belong to a real noble, trouble! (double botch and a whimsy) Sasha gropes his way through the awkward event. Though it seems he has convinced the accusing noblewoman of his validity, she had previously said the REAL Frederick Barbarosa was two days travel behind her, so a decision must be made before there are one to many Barbarosas at the table.

March 982 - Sasha splits his group and leaves town with his newly acquired ’noble’ cart. Five miles from Kiev, the troupe deliberately cracks a wagon wheel and waits for noble assistance from the stream of guests journeying to Kiev. Sasha obtains a ride from two young french nobles who are involved in a tour of festivals and brothels across europe. Sasha has taken a new alias and face, and re-enters Kiev to lodge at the Rose Petal, and await the wedding. The troupe attends the wedding feast the following evening, which takes place in the garden of the Count’s keep. The real, and rather coarse, Count Barbarosa has brought a stallion and mare as his gift, and when the horses begin mating in the wings, Sasha’s thieves use the distraction to make their way to the bridal chambers. Once there, the dark room provides two surprises: The bride’s twin sister, and a local thief have arrived before them. The fearless sister tells them that she shall be swapping places with the bride every other year, and spend the rest of her time at a nunnery, and shall be consummating her ’marriage’ later this evening (to which ends she asks some awkward questions about sex). She asks that they take what gifts they need, and promise that one of them shall return in two years to take the bride’s diary to the her at the nunnery in Tana so that she shall be prepared to take her sister’s place as princess. The troupe escapes the event with their booty, and slips out of Kiev when the gates open in the morning, and before the smaller gifts have been missed. They bed down in the forest after an extended days travel, and the next morning awake to find Cpt. Andrej and Sgt. James have deserted. Sasha makes effort to find them, but they have a good lead, and have used a river to cover their direction. With the possibility of pursuit from Kiev, Sasha abandons the hunt and sets out on the long road back to the covenant a much richer man.

September 982 - ”An Unwanted Pearl” - Sir Troy, second son of a Denmark Baron, joins up with El Gato at the Abbey of Tugilio which is currently beset by a half-paid rabble of sellswords left inconsolably bitter from a brief and mis-managed war of Barons. Sir Troy, the leader of the coup on a neighborring barony after his father’s death, is sought after for payment, but escapes the sieged abbey with help from El Gato. Sir Troy, it seems, shall be taking the briefly held title of Turb Captain from Ali Al-Kazaam.

November 982 - Tashi travels to the south eastern plains in search of vis. His cache turns out to be a dessicated horse. A storm brews as Tashi inspects the remains, and he is struck by lightning as the storm breaks. Tashi takes a journey in the ensuing period of unconsciousness into the clouds on the back of a spirit horse. He fights for control of his mount, and battles a storm spirit.

The storm retreats, and the troupe rests. The following day, a band of a dozen plainsmen is seen riding towards the troupe. The troupe flees, but is too slow to outride the tribesmen. Tashi casts fear on the leader, and so ends up talking to a proxy. He is asked to sacrifice a man to the storm god. He does. He is asked to ride back to the clan. He does. He states that when they arrive back at the clan, he will demand to be their leader and their fealty. He is informed that that wont go over well. He leaves in the morning for the covenant.

The Story of Our Formation
The founding members of The Door have decided to relinquish their covenant to newly graduated magi. A representative from The Door has made a round of the Order, and interviewed many. The choosen six have been notified, and wagons from The Door have been dispatched to assist these six and their belongings to this new home.