Spring 1221 - The Initial Situation

[Keehnelf]

The Covenant of the Verdant Springs is a fairly old (if undistinguished) covenant, founded in 786. It has passed its generations, sitting nestled in the deep forested mountain valleys of Alsace unmolested and unregarded, happily whiling away the years. The greatest vice it might be said to have exhibited is its mundanity: no Magi of great renown have graced its halls. The names of its Masters do not come easily to any Magus's tongue. But this is not so bad. Just as none have won great fame, none have brought ill repute to its doorstep either, at least within the bounds of the Order of Hermes.

But the benign neglect that the Covenant earned for itself through the ages remains a kind of neglect, and with lack of care can come a sort of creeping trouble. And so it was with the Verdant Springs, and the keep known as Thannenkirch.

The passing of the Covenant's Master, Salvatus Leclerc of House Criamon on Midwinter's Day 1220 was not the start of the trouble; no, not at all. For years, in search of the secret to unlocking the final circles of the Regio that lay over the mountain, he had been trading away the hard-won spoils of prior generations of magi. For favors, for books of very specific and largely useless lore, and for the supplies of Vis he required to power his increasingly intricate experiments. Now, he is gone, the treasuries of the Covenant pillaged and denuded of their already-humble contents, and there is much work to do.

Genser Vestius, of House Bonisagus, is an even-tempered Magus not even fifty years of age, well-suited to the leadership of his small coterie but ill-suited to the politics of his place within the Tribunal. Hunted by inquisitors, he dares not leave the bounds of the Covenant for any reason, and must rely on Salvatus's headstrong former apprentice, a Spaniard named Juvenus Calaver, to manage the trade and politicking that are needed in his stead.

Joining them among the established magi of the Covenant is the much younger Esmer d'Alsace of House Tytalus, an almost monastic devotee of the Living Arts, and his fiery young apprentice Benedict de Jesu.