Catching Buonacorsus

Buonacorsus is harder to catch because his magic is subtler and more difficult to track. The player characters might find the Animation hidden in the Septizodium and remove or nullify it. The statue is the clue. Buonacorsus spent many seasons awakening and enchanting the Animation, which serves as an Arcane Connection to him, one the magi can use to track him down. Similar to an invested device, the statue adds a +3 bonus to the Penetration Multiplier, although Buonacorsus doesn't have any Magic Resistance.

A more pedestrian tactic would be to find the wizard through the statue's manufacturer or movers. Buonacorsus enchanted the statue but did not carve it. Casual inquiries throughout Rome will point the player character to a renowned sculptor specializing in marble and living in one of the Ghibelline sections of the city. The sculptor spent two seasons making the statue and he definitively remembers it. It was commissioned by a "strange noble" and then delivered to his residence in the Colosseum by six of his day laborers. The sculptor assumed the noble was connected to the Frangipane family although he didn't recognize him. The sculptor can also direct the player characters to the men who moved the statue, who are visiting a nearby wine shop. When questioned, these men easily remember the residence, especially because they were there recently to move the same statue from the Colosseum to the Septizodium. Directions to Buonacorsus' home are easily obtained.

Buonacorsus has prepared his home against invasion. Loitering around the grounds are several Frangipane knights, men loyal to the emperor and voluntarily supporting the Augustan wizard. Normally only a half-dozen men mill about, but if Buonacorsus knows that he has been discovered he asks for and receives a troop of a dozen knights. The men guard the entrances to the section of the Colosseum that houses Buonacorsus. Loyal imperialists, they remain for as long as Buonacorsus desires.

Inside the Colosseum the regular entrance to the first room is protected by his rite, Stony Protection of the Hearth. The second room is protected by the rite The Soldiers' Secret Ambush, and the final room is protected by Escaping the Gloomy Place, triggered when Buonacorsus shouts the command phrase. Buonacorsus spends most of his time in the third room (laboratory) during the day and in the second room (bedroom) at night. He hears the triggered ward in the first room on a Perception + Awareness roll + stress die against an Ease Factor of 3 (during the day) or 9 (at night). Buonacorsus is a coward. If discovered his only choice is flight. As soon as he hears the crash, he shouts out the triggering phrase for his third ward and flees to the laboratory's secret escape exit. He has practiced this maneuver repeatedly. Once he has fled the room he can easily escape the building through one of several planned exits. From there, he leaves the city at first opportunity and heads to the emperor's lines.

If captured, Buonacorsus confesses. He knows that Alyates is influencing the cardinals' decision and says that Alyates' involvement forced his hand. If the player characters seemed surprised to learn about Alyates, Buonacorsus uses that to his advantage, shifting blame away from him. He remains silent about the Suffer the Judgment of Jericho rite. Most likely the player characters have more means of getting the information than Buonacorsus has of keeping it. Having no Magic Resis-

tance, he is vulnerable to all types of Mentem effects and his mind can be as easily tilled as a garden. He can't remove the rite from the Septizodium, but he can tell the player characters what the triggering conditions are.

The player characters must decide what to do with Buonacorsus once captured. He is nearly powerless by himself, removed from the emperor's military support, and his rites take too long to cast to be much help. Affecting noble traditions, he promises to be an ideal captive if the characters want to ransom him, and he says that his colleagues will pay handsomely for his return. Whether this is true or not depends on if you want to continue using Buonacorsus as a storyguide character after this adventure.

Buonacorsus has a variety of goods within his home, mostly personal effects, but a few items that may interest player characters. Members of the Augustan Brotherhood use vis, so an assortment of raw vis would be appropriate, an average amount for a typical adventure in your troupe's saga. Buonacorsus only uses vis when enchanting Animations and casting rituals, both of which he has already done, so the amount and type of vis placed here won't affect the adventure. His written works include a complete copy of The Aeneid and several texts commenting on some of the rites he has invented and his knowledge of the School of the Stones. Another Augustan wizard could use these texts to increase his scores in the mentioned rites and the School, but a Hermetic magus would find these nearly incomprehensible, although they could be used as a source of insight for integrating Virgilian magic into Hermetic magic (see Rival Magic, page 12).