Rules:Symposium
This page describes the teaching regimen and spellbook creation rules for the Symposium.
Teaching Regimen
Teaching is by lecturing.
For those lacking a MagPL, and whom have come to learn it, they must do the following:
Attend a minimum of three lectures on the basic principles of magic. Attend a minimum of two lectures on spell structure. Attend at least one lecture on combat spellcasting.
These can be done in no less than thirty days, and all lectures must be logged and given to Hroefn, along with a list of attendees. Only approved lectures will count. In exchange, a teacher will gain both 1% MagPL, from the restatement of basic principles, which refreshes their insight into how they've been casting spells, and allows them to refine their general technique, as well as gaining credit with the Charm Bank of the Symposium, for this service, the exact amount dependant on the attendance, and the skill with which it is taught.
This will grant the student a beginning MagPL level of 150, and Apprentice status in the Symposium. Attending extra lectures may increase the starting PL somewhat.
For teaching spells/techniques, the following must occur:
The lecturer must submit a solo to Hroefn, of the lecturer supplying the administration of the Symposium with the details on what they intend to teach, for approval.
Lectures are posted in advance, with details both IC and OOC of what will be taught, by who, when, and for how long, and signed up for by students.
Each lecture is worth 10 TD (if the technique being learnt qualifies for Mage Doubling, then the 10 TD is worth double, as is normal), or a fraction thereof, towards the progress of a tech. An 81-90 TD tech would take no less than nine lectures to complete. All tech days costs are counted, AT BEST, at Neutral bias. Students with worse bias must spend extra TD in completing the tech, as extra study. Students may not otherwise invest TD in learning lecture-taught techs. If a student misses a lecture, their progress is halted, and can only be continued by joining another lecture round by the same teacher, at the point where it was dropped.
At the completion of the lecture series, each student's mun must write a solo, detailing their student's putting together of the concepts expressing in the lecture series into the theoretical and applicable portions of the spell. This solo must be approved by BOTH the lecturer, and Hroefn, at which point the student receives the tech.
In exchange for teaching the lecture series, the lecturer receives credit at the Charm Bank, dependant on the number of attendees, and how many passed and failed.
Spellbook Creation
Those who wish to scribe a book of knowledge for the Symposium must follow the following system.
The mage must have completed the technique entirely before beginning the text. Once that is complete, they may begin to transfer their knowledge into writing. They must write a solo approved for this purpose, detailing the effects and appearance of the spell, and the underpinnings of how it functions. This solo's benefit is channelled to the writing of the book, which has a base days to complete equal to half the base days of the tech itself. Duplicating the completed writing takes half the time it took to write the book originally. The book must be copied by hand, by a master of the technique. Someone unfamiliar with the technique will always add errors, making the book useless.
Example: Magus the Mage is going to write a book detailing his OMGWTF spell, a technique that has a base days to develop of ninety days. First, he performs a solo, detailing the casting and appearance of the effect. He gets it approved, garnering him the first three TD of the book's progress. Since the OMGWTF tech had a base days to develop of ninety, writing the book has 45 days as its base. Applying Magus' Good tech bias means that the book will take thirty-four days to complete, and he already has three for the solo, plus any PT he chooses to redeem and apply to it. A mage's ability to derive two tech days from one PT point does apply to this activity, if it applies to the technique being written down.
A mage who wishes to study a book and learn the techniques therein must follow the following system.
Once a mage gains control of a magical text, however they do, they may study it to learn the written knowledge of it. The primary advantage of learning from the book is that the mage gains the equivalent of a tech bias one step better than normal, for learning it from the book. However, they need to remember all the information in the book in order to turn it into practical knowledge. If they turn from studying the book to study something else, they must start over, and then must learn it at their normal bias. If their normal bias would not permit learning the spell because of bias requirement, this tech bias bonus does not apply. If they already have an Excellent bias, or this alteration would make the spell take less than twenty days to learn, it does not apply.
If the book is written by an Official Teacher of that technique, then it gains any advantages granted by their regimen. If not, then it does not.
Example: Joe, Magus' apprentice, wants to learn the OMGWTF spell from the book that Magus scribed, earlier. Joe has a Neutral tech bias, and Magus isn't an Official Teacher. Normally, it'd take him ninety days to learn OMGWTF. However, with the references and coherency of teaching that the book provides, he can learn it faster, and it'll only take him sixty-eight days instead of the normal ninety.
This system ends up producing a total time investment equal to the normal, if both mages have Good tech biases. Of course, this then equates out to a saving of total time if more than one student uses the produced book. Only one student can study a book at a time. This system should encourage more would-be teaching mages to write books, as it places the majority of the necessary days on the student, rather than the teacher.
