Forming the Novarium

In the game Novarium, I am going to be adopting a lot of the covenant/coterie architecture from Ars Magica and later White Wolf. However, I am going to be making significant changes.

Your group of characters is going to be collectively referred to as a Novarium (I bet you saw that coming).

The premise of the world is that the human empires are the only remaining civilization standing in the face of evil. The Novarii exist parallel to these political systems, and have organized themselves into Exarchates (a byzantine term similar to a province but religiously based). Beyond the boundaries of the Exarchates are the Marches, the wild lands of the earth inhabited by monsters, the fae, and the servants of Satan. Your Novarium is going to be placed in the jagged edge of that boundary.

At the beginning of the game, the entire party is granted a Mark (plural Marches) by the Exarchate under which they serve, in exchange for some kind of agreed upon annual duty (which you will negotiate with the GM as described below). You will name your Mark whatever you wish; real world examples are extensive (Denmark, tons of examples in Germany, the province of Marche in France, northern Spain was a network of Marches vs the Moors for Charlemagne, etc). This becomes your territory and the GM is able to be efficient and only design within this region; thus providing a mini-sandbox of sorts that you are really invested in clearing out.

Marks should be very large, roughly comparable to a Duchy in terms of geographic and human resources. As a Novarium, your territorial rights are magical in nature, not political. The Mark may overlap with several civil and military jurisdictions. You are supposed to cooperate with the political authorities, although most likely your goals will eventually end up opposed with respect to some issues. Ultimately, what you have authority over are Fonts. Fonts are places where the Three Realms intersect and magic flows from the Divine Realm into the Mortal Realm freely in the form of water embued with magical power; called Essence. Rumors claim that these points are the origins of life itself, bringing water from the Divine Realm aeons ago when life began. They have now largely been corrupted, their magic twisted to suit the needs of Satan and used to create powerful monsters and fae. (Side note: hunting down and killing monsters results in its own Essence award).

When the first Font is discovered in a border region of an Exarchate (called the Prime Font), the Exarch issues a call for volunteers to tame the wildlands and bring it's magic under the control of the Novarii. This call is what brought your Novarium together. To start the game, the Exarch (i.e. the GM) will make your characters an offer to take the Mark.

The offer consists of four elements:

1. Prime Essence: the Prime Font generates a certain amount of Essence per year, of which the Exarch demands a very high percentage. The percentage is so high that there is very little left for the Novarii. This creates an incentive for you to find more Fonts.

2. Secondary Essence: The Exarch also demands a much smaller percentage of all other Fonts discovered in the territory. This is a kind of low grade magical tax of sorts. It isn't enough to make you balk, but it is enough to provide some additional resources to the Exarch as you advance (which is what they want you to do). Note that this tax does not apply to Essence extracted from monsters and fae.

3. Indenture: This is the amount of Essence that can be paid as a lump sum to permanently void the duties paid to the Exarch. If you can afford to buy-out the Exarch, you get to keep all your Essence for yourself.

4. Material: The Exarch gives the Novarium a mix of coinage and property around the Font to help them establish themselves.

The Novarium can negotiate with the Exarch for more or less Material in exchange for more or less in Essence duty paid. After this negotiation, the game begins and the character move into their new territory.

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I feel that this setup offers advantages over Ars Magica and White Wolf's group management systems. Their systems for this are heavily reliant upon players giving up points from their own builds (White Wolf) or on the good balancing against the bad (Ars Magica). By turning that around in the form of an offer, it puts a lot more control in the hands of the GM in terms of making sure that the group fits into the world they designed while simultaneously allowing them to negotiate and giving a huge helping of versimmilitude to the transaction. It just feels like the kind of thing that mages would do. It feels... cool. Am I alone in this?

It also provides you with only a starting point from which to explore, but it provides the GM with a framework. They don't have to design the whole world, just this one place. And it is well-suited for modules.

Thoughts?