At the Discord server for Mage the Podcast Ailon Rouge asked “Design a chantry for you to live in for the rest of your life. What’s it like?”. This is my attempt to answer. Hopefully I’ve understood the question properly. Ailon generously granted me 88 Chantry creation points (Book of Chantries pg. 170) which is on the high side of “Powerful Chantry”. The way Ailon worded his question makes me think the Chantry would be a comfortable place for me – not a dramatic or interesting place to use in a Chronicle for players. So what would be my ideal mystic residence?
Basic Assumptions
I’m going to lay out my assumptions.
- I’m a mage. I’m not going to work out which faction I’m in.
- I have a cabal of other mages to share my Chantry. I’m going to count myself fortunate and say they share my taste in aesthetics and comfort.
- I don’t have any enemies in particular and want to focus on a pleasant place to study and recuperate between errands for my faction.
- Security is an issue. Even peaceful mages are targeted by hostile forces.
A powerful Chantry will exist inside a Horizon Realm for stealth, protection and better mystical study. On Earth will be a few Nodes that send their Quintessence to the Horizon Realm. There will be only one portal to Earth. That will be to a Node in the central Texas Hill Country. That would be private land miles from town.
My Horizon Realm would be about the size of the state of Illinois and would be a tropical climate similar to Costa Rica. Almost a third of it would be shallow ocean with coral reefs and a beach. Perfect for snorkeling and a source for fish for the dinner table. The rest would be rain forest with rivers. The rain forest would be perfect for pleasant walks and would provide lumber.
The Chantry proper would be a fortress on top of a steep, craggy hill that touches the sea. No paths would lead to the fortress but there would be a cable with small gondola lifts. A crane beside it would lift large and heavy loads. In times of trouble the cables could be cut to make the fortress unassailable by conventional means. A few work buildings and storage houses would lie at the base of the hill.
The fortress would resemble the castles of southern Europe. Unforgettable views of the sea and the forest would be available on all sides and breezes would mitigate the tropical heat. The electrical system would be quite limited. Solar panels on the roof would charge a battery that would only be used for running a few laptops and tablet computers. No Internet access. Traditional means would be used for lighting, cooking food, etc. This would limit technomage opponents and give a slower pace for living.
The Chantry would house a truly large library and one or more servants would be busy in the workshop making things with wood. I would have a long French workbench set aside for myself there. A variety of lumber would come from the surrounding forest. My cabal would create a simple Wonder (Matter 2 effect) that would reduce the tropical humidity in the library and workshop. The workshop would not have any power tools. Traditional western and Japanese carpentry tools would be there in abundance. My carpenters may produce enough high quality furniture to trade with other Chantries. Large and well-appointed magical laboratories would be in the lowest levels of the fortress.
The number of non-mage (human) servants would be around 15 to 20. If I could not recruit self-reliant people from other Tradition Chantries I would look in religious communities of the United States and possibly Europe. Amish and Mennonites are industrious, appreciate a slower pace of life and more remote settings. I would have to hear a number of impromptu religious lectures but I don’t mind that as much as some people do. Anyways, my experiences with those groups of people have note been as bad as the ones portrayed in popular entertainment.
For guardians I would convince umbrood to take the bodies of immense wolves in my realm. They would be fierce protectors and would identify imposters by smell. Enemies could use magick to copy my appearance or even mental patterns but copying my smell would probably be more tricky.
The fortress would have a portal to a particular realm in the High Umbra that I would have spent much effort finding. In the pages of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books there is mentioned a library that exists somewhere in the Other Worlds that holds all the books that people meant to write but never did. I would visit that realm often.
Point Expenditure (Book of Chantries pg. 170)
Earthly Node
Location +1
Communications +2
No Shallowing +5
Horizon Realm
Ward +5
Security System + 10
Guardians +15 (loyalty +10)
Horizon Realm Size +10
Fortification +5
Nice Climate +5
Library +10
Laboratories +5
Servant loyalty +5
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