Coryani Battle Mages Article

Provided it does not violate world setting and basic restrictions (“Hi! I am a mage who escaped from Ymandragore!”), you can “say” you are whatever you want provided that you receive NO in-game benefits. For example, a person playing a Warped One Aardvark from Censure could say he was raised as a member of a Noble House of Censure and thereby claim to be “Noble Born”. That is all fine and well for roleplay purposes, but if you need to be Patrician/Noble Born, etc. to get into the VIP section of a bar to rub elbows and get certain key information for a mod, you should *generally* not gain the benefit.

As always, it comes down to a particular Judge’s discretion based upon table make-up, story flow, etc. In the above example, if a table were “stuck” in a mod..I might allow a persuasion attempt to convince the doorman they really are Noble Born. If there were an actual Noble Born or Patrician in the party, I would not allow it, because that could be the particular moment for that other character (who actually took the background) to shine.

Hello,

I think you’re splitting hairs here.

If your shaman acted as a battle mage (not a Coryani Battle Mage) then yes, I don’t see an issue with you claiming that.

As for claiming to be a legionnaire to reap the benefits but not actually being one – I suppose that’s sort of like that “Stolen Valor” we keep hearing about, where people are claiming to be veterans to reap the benefit, but have never actually been in the military.

So if you want to play a charlatan type, I suppose you could do so, but you’d also have to fake the legionnaire tattoos on both arms. And hope you don’t run into an actual veteran.

Well, no that isn’t what I was saying. I thought from your posts that my character could be a Coryani Battle Mage Shaman, and it could be true, despite the fact that they wouldn’t qualify for the Coryani Battle Mage Path. That makes sense as long as your roleplaying description of your character is the prime controller of your character – not paths and backgrounds.

So I compared that to being a former Legionnaire. If your character description is the prime controller (excepting only qualification for roll-play requirements, where obviously actual rules and character build trumps character “flavor text”) of your character, and you can have been a Coryani Battle Mage without the path, then it seems like you could have a character who is a former legionnaire without the background – no stolen valor involved. You obviously wouldn’t have any of the talents, etc of the background, so no rules violation, but if it’s in your character story that they were in a legion, but you don’t take the background, and your character go into a legion hall… do you get treated as a former legionnaire? Same with the battle mage question. If you are a shaman, have the former legionnaire background, and say you were a battle mage, and you have to deal with some battlemages, do you count as one of their numbers or not if you don’t have the Coryani Battle Mage path?

Cody’s completely-not-official-until-and-unless-Henry-approves-it Opinion:

1) To be a Legionnaire, you have to be a Citizen of the Empire. This is reflected by the fact that the Legionnaire Background is open only to Coryani characters (Almeric has their own thing). As such, you cannot be from anywhere else and be a Legionnaire (be it the Hinterlands, Milandir, etc). If your family ‘came’ from one of those places or you did, unless you were somehow given Coryani Citizenship (such as earning the Armillius of Vigilence, IIRC), you are considered a Gentile and are the equivalent of a citizen of another country living in the United States on a visa. You also can’t say “Oh, I became one later!” as would be represented by a Path, since you need to sign a 10 year term to be a Legionnaire IIRC. As previously stated, to be a “coryani soldier” who is not a citizen, you need to take the Former Soldier (ba), and just say you fought in an Auxilia (which could in theory come from any nation as more-official mercenaries).

2) To be a Coryani Battle Mage (as of a member of the specific Auxillia Magus) you have to be an Eldritch Caster (a magus). These are the people who qualify as a Battle Mage of the Coryani Legions (Pa). The Shamans, as listed in Henry’s article, are Legionnaires who HAPPEN to be Shamans, and are filling the niche of a Battle Mage while not officially being a member of the Auxillia Magus. These Shamans–as long as the legionnaires in question aren’t too upset by their heretical pacts with minor lesser spirits–would be honoured as per their regular Battle Mage breathern, but likely wouldn’t earn the accolades of their more ‘official’ comrades. My view of this would be a commoner vs. a noble in armies of olden days: It was vanishingly rare for a commoner ever to rise to the ranks of the Officer Corps, and damn near impossible for those that did make it there to make it to command ranks like General. The same thing is seen in Roman Republican armies (it was a bit different in the Imperial age) where the highest a non-patrician could get in a legion would be Primus Pilus (first spear), but he was like a high-ranking sergeant in that even the most junior Tribune (a Senatorial/Patrician position) outranked him, and that Primus Pilus could never be more than a high-ranked Centurion, and certainly couldn’t attain Generalship/Legateship.

3) The Mother Church of Coryan still is not a fan of shamanism, as it is viewed as a person giving their ‘worship’ to minor and/or heretical powers. As Henry stated, a lot of these non-Eldritch battle mages are ‘hedge mages’, and these by almost definition are commoner/peasant stock within most fantasty tropes (and especially in Arcanis). This means that their magic would at best be viewed as suspect by the authorities, especially by official bodies like an organized Auxilia Magus.

My main question is how do val Psions fit into this? Are there just so few of them that they are functionally the same as a shaman Legionnaire (they are not an ‘official’ battle mage, but fill the same niche in a squad)? Would they fill their own cadre? Would the number of val’s in the ‘common lines’ be considered relatively rare as most in-universe vals (as opposed to heroes) would be filling up the non-combat Tribunships? Who knows!

Broadly, I agree pretty consistently with Cody’s (unofficial) opinions as outlined in his three bullet points. I would note under his third point that the Mother Church is increasingly “unfriendly” towards eldritch casters too these days & not just towards the heretical hedge mage/shaman guys…

Psionics is an interesting point. It’s my unofficial opinion that you probably don’t have a lot of psionts in a legion. Vals make up a small part of the troops. Awakened Vals make up a small part of the Vals …

So it wouldn’t surprise me to find that most Legions have a couple of awakened Vals among the Optios, Centurions or (perhaps especially) the Tribunes, but I seriously doubt that there are cadres of them. I’m guessing in the 6 or less range. Maybe some unlucky legions don’t have any. Some legions such as the Legion of the Black Sun or the Legion Anguis Reptatus seem to have a lot of them…but the LBS & LAR are both weird cases in other ways. For example the LBS live in Nishanpur and are all undead.

I would note as dicta that the position of Tribune was historically a squishy one as I understand it. There are stories of Trinues taking over after the death of the Legate while on campaign and also stories of Tribunes as glorified gophers and accountants…with no meaningful powers. Conversely the First Spear (most senior Centurion) was effectively the third in the chain of command and often ran the day to day affairs of the Legion’s camp. (i.e. NOT just a sergeant) John Roberts Maddox wrote a great mystery novel in the SPQR called “No One Loves a Centurion” in which Decimus, a Tribune in Caeser’s legions, has to carefully step around one of the Centurions who really takes a disliking to him. Decimus outranks the Centurion on paper, but in practice angering the Centurion has direct negative consequences. Generally the average Legionaires are more likely to do what the Centurion wants…

How do “war priests” fit into the Legions? I suppose you could just say you served (as long as you are a Coryani citizen). You would not have the brand and all that, but otherwise I would not have an issue at the table as a GM. I’m at work without books so can’t see what the War Priest path says.
The article mentions the Auxillia Medicus, so I guess the question is if all priests are members of that branch, or just those who focus more on healing.

Hello Michael,

How do “war priests” fit into the Legions?

War priests are a completely different kettle of fish. Legions that have temples as their patron usually (but not always) forego Battle Mages and instead have priests and holy champions within their ranks.

But that’s a discussion for another article.

Hello,

On a related note is there a Nierite legion out of Novo Cormata?

None as yet. The situation is quite fluid over in Nova Cormata and while they are fending off attacks from marauders and nomadic bands of savage Gar tribes with “legion” like formations of warriors, they haven’t formally created a legion.