i think there is a large difference between writing letters and writing what would be considered an academic book to your peers. i think you could write a low quality book with language 4 but you would be ridiculed by your peers for such a crappy work.
I swear I said this exact same thing somewhere. I can't find it, though. But yes, this is my view. I'd probably limit it to a ridiculously low quality score. Perhaps a quality of 4[1], so low that it makes getting to a score of 5 an incentive worthy of pursuit.
[1] If you have a negative communication, and a score of 4 in a language, I'm thinking you just can't write a book that has any positive quality sufficient to impart knowledge.
Sure, why not? poings over to make change in wiki
POING 
So would Fiona like to be Deputy Princeps instead of Deputy Vilicus? We still get to play together in the Interpres office 
[color=blue]"I would be delighted."
After the vote on the amendment to the charter and a couple of other sundry items, the various magi present start to gather themselves up to depart the council chamber. Tranquillina, emboldened by the confidence the other magi have placed in her with the dual officer roles, decides that this might be a good time to confide in the others.
"I know it is late, sodales, but if I may," she begins apologetically, "I would like, while we are all here, to open up another discussion, about a notable event that I experienced a few months ago - on my very way here for the first time, in fact."
"Almost surely the answer is 'yes' for all of you, but to start: do you know Maris ex Tremere, of the Le Maison d'Levrier covenant?"
As the others respond, Tranquillina casts a Diameter version of By His Works (HoH:TL page 73), in a quiet voice and using subtle gestures, to refresh her memory of the conversation with Rose and Maris after she Leaped into their bivouac. ((Sta -3 + Cr 6 + Me 10 - voice/gestures 7 + aura 5 + stress die 1/
exploder 1/exploder 6 for 24 = 35 / 2 = 18, good enough for Moon duration even! so five months....))
Fiona nods. [color=blue]"Not well, but yes."
Not at all, answers Isen. Why would you ask?
Tranquillina begins to pace unconsciously around the room. "Well, at the time I sent my letter to this council back in the summer, Maris led a group of Tremere and their retinue on an overland journey, from Le Maison eastwards all the way to Coeris. Her apprentice, Rose, was to be in charge of the journey, some sort of training mission. Since their path was leading them very close to Mont Beuvray, Maris gave me a hair from one of her grogs, so that I could use Leap of Homecoming at the appropriate time to come quickly to Mons Electi."
"Around midday, of the day I later arrived here and met Isen," she gestures to the somber magus, "I did perform that Leap, but with much greater difficulty then anticipated. I appeared within a temporary camp, with a circular trench dug all around a stone building. When I arrived, I felt a tingling in my fingertips, exactly what I am used to when entering a covenant's Aegis of the Hearth; I suspect you know the sensation I mean."
Tranquillina's young eyes drift up towards the ceiling as she recounts what happened next. "Rose was in charge, the other magi were absent. And Rose, she handed me a token, and said the following to me: 'I invite you into our field Aegis. I apologize for any difficulty related to your arrival. This was the most powerful Aegis I could cast without vis.' Immediately she began to swear at herself for saying too much." She looks around the room at each of the magi in turn. "Her attempts to deny it were transparent falsehoods. This Rose, this Tremere apprentice, cast a version of Aegis of the Hearth without consuming the vis that the ritual normally requires."
With a deep breath, she adds, "And when Maris reappeared, she seemed to indicate that there was some connection to Mons Electi."
Fiona leans forward excitedly. [color=blue]"A 'field Aegis', she called it? And you're certain she said that she cast it without any vis whatsoever? You don't happen to have any idea how powerful an Aegis it was, do you? And whether it was a true Aegis and not...?" Fiona's voice trails off as she can't imagine what else it could possibly be.
[color=blue]"This is revolutionary! This could be the biggest breakthrough since Notatus invented the Aegis more than four centuries ago!"
This could well be the closest anyone's ever seen to Fiona actually drooling.
[color=blue]"Wait...what kind of connection to Mons Electi?"
I do not know Maris of Tremere. Can anyone fill me in.
"I remember her words exactly," Tranquillina replies to Fiona, a little bitingly perhaps (though she inches backwards noticeablely when Fiona leans forward). "It seemed to be a reasonably powerful Aegis - stronger than the one you have deployed here, for example." A bit of Tranquillina's excitement at the sheer magnitude of the breakthrough is reawakened in echo to Fiona's reaction.
"This, I am less sure about," Tranquillina admits. "You would think that Maris would simply command me never to mention the spell ... but that is not precisely what she did. She said this: 'I suggest that you don't talk about this to anyone, except those of your new covenant. Eventually, you may discover more than you bargained for, but I'm not going to reveal anything to you here and now.' I found her specific mention of Mons Electi strange - in large part, that is why I share my news with you now."
"I knew her for a few months while I visited Le Maison at Tria's invitation this past spring and summer. But I know little about her, in troth, other than that she is a senior Tremere maga." Tranquillina frowns as she sifts through her magically enhanced memory of the event. "Listen to this, sodales: she said, 'I am my pater's filia. He has decided to share his legacy with many not of his original House. I don't have to like it, and I don't have to do it myself.'"
She stops pacing and peers, a bit helplessly, around the council table. "Who is Maris's pater? What House did he belong to before Tremere? And, what can his 'legacy' be - especially if it includes a Field Aegis?!"
Tranquillina would know that Tremere is a True Lineage, just like House Bonisagus. One does not join the House, one must be raised within the House, so to speak. So, it should be corrected, what House did he belong to after Tremere?
And it is extremely unusual to retire from House Tremere. Other Houses is a bit more common, in this saga, it's very rare for it to happen, which could explain some of Maris's hostility...
[color=blue]"Exarch, won the title about three years ago," Fiona says casually.
Fiona is unable to hide the pain at Tranquillina's pulling back. ((Com 2 + Guile (hide true feelings) 3 + die roll 0 (but not a botch) = 5))
[color=blue]"Sorry," she says in Gaelic.
[color=blue]"Ahhh," Fiona says, a look of sudden understanding on her face.
"I knew her for a few months while I visited Le Maison at Tria's invitation this past spring and summer. But I know little about her, in troth, other than that she is a senior Tremere maga." Tranquillina frowns as she sifts through her magically enhanced memory of the event. "Listen to this, sodales: she said, 'I am my pater's filia. He has decided to share his legacy with many not of his original House. I don't have to like it, and I don't have to do it myself.'"
Fiona looks around the table at the others to see if anyone else wants to explain first.
((Per 2 + Folk Ken 3 + stress die 0 (no botch) = 5.)) Tranquillina isn't sure what Fiona is apologizing about; she wasn't aware of her subconscious reaction to the vis within the giantess.
((sucks, I wanted her to invite Fiona to tea later and have a heart-to-heart 
))
Sensing the pregnant pause, Tranquillina patiently regards the council around the table, waiting for someone to open up as she has just done.
Isen is stunned at first. And then, contrasting with his previous attitude of "Why do you want to bother us with an unknown maga? 
", the questions erupt
Holy! Are you sure?
Actually, no, I tend to believe you. Of course, they'd keep such a thing to themselves. The conniving bastards...
From his tone, it's difficult to say if Isen loathes or admires the Tremere.
We must get our hand on this. This could mean an aegis in every sanctum, without the size problems we face! And that's without talking about deploying an aegis anywhere. This would increase our defense tremendously.
Hell, this is exactly the kind of breakthrough I was hoping to find in the celtic ruins here. The one that gives you an edge. Although I didn't thought things would happen like this.
Xenophon, you think? That would make sense. And to think we never went through his papers...
if this meeting is after 1225.1, then Korvin has gone through the papers.
I can't see this happening after 1225.1, or certainly Tranquilina not mentioning it for that long (over a year and a half).
And I think the Princeps rotation goes away effective 1224.1?
((I think we had established that this meeting is happening in 1223.4. It preceded the end of the Princeps rotation, for sure (this is the meeting that decided that!). And yeah, it seemed to me like half a year after arriving is about the right amount of time (at most) for Tranquillina to feel comfortable bringing up secrets with her new sodales.))
"Xenophon ex Tremere? I know that name...." Tranquillina offers. "From half a century ago at least - is he dead now, or passed into Final Twilight?" ((Int 3 + Order of Hermes Lore 1 + stress die 9 = 13, +1 for "lineages" specialization. Does Tranquillina know anything else about Xenophon?)) "- wait - his papers?" she slows Isen down, confused.
Alexei had been half-heartedly listening, so many things going on in his mind. He did like the change in how the officers were to be selected and their duties. He only slightly heard about the field aegis, something that he would ordinarily be interested in. It was when the topic of the Tremere and Xenophon that he had his full attention. He reaches forward and pats Tranquiliana on the hand.
'We have shared much of the sorrows of Mons Electi...but there are still secrets that are now coming to light for you. Xenophon was the name Apollodorus had when he was a Tremere, long ago."