(DRAFT)

Vis Bounty refers to the yield of a vis source, and this Saga Rule incorporates methods for increasing the bounty of certain vis sources, as well as establishing some general guidelines for calibrating bounty of a given source.

One common issue with published vis sources is their high degree of opaque intricacy. While vis sources that require certain actions or activities to be done at certain times or in some specific manner may be more "creative" and "neat," one wonders how any character ever figured out how to gain that vis. One example, taken from Covenants (p73), should illustrate this point. The "Lens of Wisdom" requires that the light of the sun, at noon on the summer solstice, should be focused through the lens onto a blank parchment, causing arcane symbols to appear on the parchment, which now contain Intellego vis. How anyone would have managed to discover this, other than pure accident, is quite a mystery.

This sort of arrangement is fairly common in published examples of vis sources, and can be a problem for ongoing Sagas. Storyguides that want to include this sort of "discovery" are likely to face players who simply become frustrated and give up after trying several innovative and reasonable ideas, but not having the luck to have tried exactly the thing the author of the published source noted.

One way around this is for the Storyguide to have someone "discover" the method, either through the agency of an NPC, or simply by narrating a PC's actions for them. This work-around is undesirable for several reasons, not least of which is that it steals away the agency of the player characters.

This Saga Rule offers a systemic solution to this problem, by enabling players to think of creative and appropriate methods for gathering vis, and applying those creative solutions to more basic vis sources. Rather than requiring a pre-set innovative solution, players will be incentivized to try their own innovations, and if successful, will either gain a mild increase in the bounty of a given source, or might possibly garner special vis, such as Extraordinary or Dedicated vis.

This approach can benefit from some general categorization of types of vis sources, according to the relative difficulty of gathering vis from the source:

As noted, the base bounty for a source should increase if gathering the vis is more difficult. The base bounty may be zero: this allows players who think that a certain Aura or situation should manifest vis, to come up with an innovative way to to gather that vis (similar to the example "Lens of Wisdom" noted above). In this case, the vis bounty is entirely dependent on additional actions taken; no vis manifests without special actions on the part of the characters. Such vis could be termed "contrived vis," as no vis manifests without some contrivance on the part of the characters.

Some vis sources may have a lower bounty than the base amount in the guidelines above; this may be due to multiple vis sources in a given Aura (thus limiting the amount of vis manifested by any one source), or may simply be a lower than expected bounty, allowing for potential future increases due to Aura changes, for example.

Knowledge of vis is governed by (Realm) Lore for the appropriate supernatural Realm. Magic Lore could give knowledge about vis gathered in a Magical Aura, or from a Magical creature, and could reveal the existence of special types of Magical vis such as Extraordinary Vis and Dedicated Vis. Faerie Lore could give knowlege about vis gathered in a Faerie Aura, or from a Faerie being, and could reveal the existance of special kinds of Faerie vis. Infernal Lore could give knowledge about vis obtained from Infernal sources, and so on.

Additonal actions on the part of characters might increase the bounty. Some examples of such actions from published sources include:

- Using the Lens of Wisdom to focus sunlight on parchment at noon on the summer solstice (Covenants, p73)
- using Perdo magic to cause more things to break and require repairing in the Covenant Workshop (Covenants, p74)
- sacrificing an animal on The Stone of Death at the rising of Saturn each day for ten days during the third decan of Gemini in mid June (Covenants, p75)
- causing a king bee to bring forth special honey and make obeisance to magi
- giving wise judgement over the Parliament of Ghosts on the first full moon after the spring equinox (Covenants, 75)
- allowing magpies to steal away vis-bearing crystals to their nests, then collecting hatchlings containing Animal vis (The Thieving Magpies, Covenants, p 76)
- filling a stone bowl on a column with water prior to a specific day (St. Swithin's Soupbowl, Covenants, p77)
- creating a storm-inducing enchantment that draws lightning to itself (The Lightning-Bringer, Covenants, p77)
- hanging an agate pendant on an ancient tree on a mountain peak on midsummer's day (The Peak of Storms, Covenants, p77)
- singing a specific melody in the presence of reeds in a specific spot during a season when the winds blow strongest (The Reed Melody, Covenants, p78)
- hang cloth over hot spring and collect water from it at end of season (The Spring of Asclepius, Covenants, p79)
- collect acorn from special tree and bury it, casting spell to sprout it overnight (The Cursed Tree, Covenants, p79)
- ferment wine from golden dandelion blooms and leave it to age until the winter solstice (Mallorn Dandelions, Covenants, p79)
- collect "rants" from an old woman on a specially prepared comb (Firebrand's Rantings, Covanent, p79)
- talented musician play special rebec & collect vis from bowstring at end of season or year (Reginald's Rebec, Covenants, p80)
- ensure an echoing cave falls completely silent for hours, then capturing the silence with a spell (The Sound of Silence, Covenants, p81)
- possess a strange non-Hermetic enchantment to gather thoughts as vis (The Box of Unguarded Thoughts, Covenants, p81)
- weeping of a mother on the shores of a cold lake (Howling of the Winds, Covenants, p81)
- grind broken stalagmite to powder (The Cave of the Nameless Goblin, Covenants, p82)
- treat a special rock in a Hermetic laboratory (The Rock Shepherd, Covenants, p82)
- stay at least a week in a certain regio (The Auberge, Covenants, p82)
- place 1p vis of each Technique around the edge of a circle in a special hollow hill and leave for a season (The Cave of Magic, Covenants, p83)

It is notable that in the published examples referenced above, no vis is available unless the specific actions noted are taken; this Saga Rule changes that, to increase the bounty of vis if such actions are taken. If using the vis sources noted, Storyguides or Troupes must decide how much vis could be gathered without special actions (and how), and how much increase the special actions might yield. Many of the above sources could start with a base bounty of 0p, and vis might only be collected with special actions.

The guiding principle for contrivances that could increase vis bounty is that they should be challenging and have the potential to drag characters into stories. Some examples noted above may not be sufficiently challenging or story-producing to warrant an increase in bounty. "Treatment in a Hermetic laboratory," for example, is fairly bland and inspecific.

As with knowledge of vis in general, character Lore should influence how successful a given contrivance will be - a high Magic Lore may not be sufficient to guarantee success at increasing vis bounty, but it certainly helps. Lore knowledge may be represented through Storyguide guidance or Troupe discussion to refine a proposed contrivance.

In some cases, characters must make some sort of sacrifice, such as allowing half of the vis manifested to remain ungathered, so that the vis source will renew each year, and not diminish over time (Apples of Hesperides, Covenants, 72). This prompts the concept of a magical ecology, which may be especially appropriate for an Aura which manifests multiple vis sources. The inter-relationship between the sources might require foregoing collection of some vis, for example, in order to gain other vis. Special actions taken could influence the type of vis that is gained when other vis is left ungathered. Such a situation might be appropriate where the base bounty is greater than would otherwise be supported by the magnitude of the Aura.

The increase in vis bounty should be proportional both to the degree of challenge and/or story potential, and to the base bounty; a small source of vis might increase by a pawn or at most two, while a larger source might increase by a somewhat greater amount.