Arrgh! Now I have to undo 10 years advancement and recalculate...
okay- during your experimentation the grog you tried the spell on wound up 5 years younger. You are unable to repeat the result, but you did garner a bit of attention with Bonisagus wanting to get a copy of your lab notes and older Praelixitions wanting to know why you haven't spent any time seeking out hedge wizards to bring into the order instead of spending your time cooped up in the lab- there is much clucking of tongues...
Probably something to do with this being fast-forwarded background intended to bring an experienced magi into play rather than a solo game 
Oops. If this happens again, I'll stick with the advancement log. For me, it's just changing numbers in an excel spreadsheet, and neither art impacted any lab total during the period.
If you spend time recruiting hedgies just mark the seasons as adventure, take the 7 xp and keep going.
Okay. For the Talisman - could you clarify whether I can count on contracting for Alchemical Purification (A&A p. 76) to improve the shape and material of some or all of the materials I will work in my Talisman, to what degree, or whether you'd require me to roll something to acquire such components or whatnot?
It would require a season of adventure and a roll against both area lore and merchant to acquire- and another season for the alchemist to make (durring which you could be doing something else)- the required target number will be much higher if the area lore if for the rhine area than something more Mediterranean where alchemy was actually practiced with some degree of frequency.
Sounds like I need to rethink the last two seasons of the decade and postpone the Talisman, cause I don't want to do this twice.
Allright, I've been thinking about this, and doing an adventure to locate that assistance makes sense to me. So does using area lore. That being said, I don't foresee Anastasia wanting to develop Profession merchant to establish the merchant contacts while on the road, and even if I wanted to go down that path, the Blatant Gift will be an obstacle to doing business, at least in the short run, and I will end up doing a bad job without developing a very high skill. Likewise for area lore, I don't see that developing a high level of area lore enough to pinpoint where specialists in a foreign tribunal is necessarily what a magus should do with his time... So it sounds like I need help.
I'd like to propose the following. I'll develop some basic area lore for Italy, enough to feel comfortable travelling in a foreign tribunal. I'll rely on that, and mostly Order of Hermes Lore, to locate able assistance for the adventure. I'm thinking plausibly a local redcap, that knows the Tribunal well and has some mercantile know-how to assist, probably recently gauntleted. If he's useful and we get along, I may seek to keep him or her as a companion which I would bring to the covenant at the start of the game.
If that's okay with you though, I'd like to do rather top-level at first and not have to build the character prior to the adventure since we're in pre-story mode. I roll my character's checks and he or she is treated as an NPC. I'd finish advancing Anastasia so that she's ready to play when you launch the game, and then I would create the redcap at gauntlet and advance him a number of years beyond gauntlet to reflect the time post-adventure, but do a character at a time rather than in parallel. And I'm okay if you tell me that, when I create him, he needs Area Lore at level X, Profession Merchant at level Y, and that kind of thing, to justify the help he's given me. And if he/she's not fully approved by the time you launch the game, then he is busy doing his yearly redcap business and has not relocated to the covenant yet. That way, building another character won't delay my joining the game too much.
Does that approach make sense before I review my advancement?
The approach certainly makes sense- add an extra season of adventure and we will call it an automatic success.
Advancement log: http://amfightorflight.wikidot.com/anastasia-advancement-log
I found that I had a season in Fall 34 where I had written "TBD" for 11 xp, so I assigned those XP for Perdo. Sorry for that, I guess it can happen when working with page code. And I removed the two last seasons of the decade that were for the Talisman since I need to adventure and have waiting time for components. This gives an updated Anastasia at 40: http://amfightorflight.wikidot.com/anastasia-40-years-old
The Talisman design is here: http://amfightorflight.wikidot.com/anastasia-talisman
I provided a write-up of what it will look like. Bonuses for alchemical purification:
Hornbeam for Vim on hostile magic;
Gold for Peace;
Alabaster for Mental Accuity;
Ivory for Healing;
Marble for Wards;
Emerald for Snakes and Dragonkind;
Turquoise for Necromancy;
Opal for Travel.
Difficulty of the Alchemical Purification for the Alchemist Philosopher: Base 5, +1 to +3 magnitude to increase the bonus by +1 to +3, so formula levels 10, 15, 20 for the NPC, with a lab total of Int + Philosophae (Alchemy) + Philosophic bonuses. From what I gather of the system, it’s incredibly easy to double your philosophy score, provided you can get sulfur and cappadocian salts which give +2 and +6 respectively for purification, before getting into any sort of lab bonuses or experimentation. So the real key is finding someone who is highly skilled in Philosophae (alchemy). Note that I spaced the 2 season adventure you required with 24 seasons to give some time to my contacts to make the necessary research and enhancement, with the notion that I was probably acquiring a component at a time unless the contact already had purified materials on hand. Anastasia is obviously looking for higher end purification if possible, hence the willingness to wait. GM to confirm final bonuses for the materials purified.
Also advancement up to 50 is completed and gives this: http://amfightorflight.wikidot.com/anastasia-50-years-old
Looking at where I am, she would probably join the covenant at roughly 53, so i should be able to finish this week.
fall 34 is 9 points in creo acording to what I copied at the time, so I have no idea what you are trying to retcon here...
please keep in mind that alchemical purification, after you contract an alchemist, will require 1 season of work by the alchemist per material to be purified. The first season of adventure is to find a guide to help locate the alchemist, the second is to go with the guide to actually find the alchemist- there is no benefit to putting gap time between the two after you find the alchemist it will require the one season per material as noted. Furthermore between the base costs of some of these materials plus teh cost for an alchemist's services you would at minimum be having some very heated discussions with your covenant council.
It is advisable to ask questions before proceeding with an assumption, as I am more likely to reject a character than I am to bend the rules because you did work based on a bad assumption. I have hopes that the above post is in fact a backfired attempt at an April fools joke and will wait to hear more from you before I proceed with looking into your character advancement at this time.
I misquoted the season. It's not Fall 34, it's Winter 34. Feel free to look up the wiki log, and let me know if you have something different in yours, because I checked several versions and had no skill or art written anywhere. I will post more on the other things later.
I'm not looking for a benefit, as much as I didn't want to assume the alchemist could work 8 seasons in a row, without research or other commitments. So I built time into the project to take into account those pitfalls. If the material is ready earlier, no problem, it can sit in my lab. Incidentally, doing things with a 6 year wait period can account for things like any argument over covenant finance, because I wouldn't need to buy everything at once.
I don't think the cost would be that high. If it helps to picture what I had in mind, this picture was an inspiration: https://www.amazon.com/Mariell-Handmade-Brushed-Ivory-Wedding/dp/B010PDT0UW
Without the fake pearl part 
, and white and green rather than white. The second picture can give an idea of how light the thing is. And the dimensions of that item which are indicated as 4 1/4" Wide x 2 1/4" High are actually larger than what I wrote up, which is 3 by 1. The thing is very tiny, delicate and is intended to be worn in the hair. I would say it weighs globally half a pound or less. This isn't an imperial crown with ostentatious jewels, where I'd fully understand if you saw a problem.
If we look at the cost of the materials, the most significant cost is the emerald, which is the only precious gems in the lot. C&G has the price, I understand that Precious gems rate at 80000 MP... per tun. A tun is 2420 pounds and 16 ounces per pound means an ounce of precious gem is worth 2 MP. An ounce is a 140 karat gem which is huge! There's a reason Covenants lists "Half a dozen precious gems" for 1 mythic pound as a typical expense. That MP probably accounts for the handful of semi-precious Opals and Turquoises (which if I go by C&G prices, are worth 8 times less than a precious gem). There is probably a quarter pound of gold or less, which would be worth 2.5 MP. Ivory has some trade value, my guess is that it's close to the value of a semi-precious gem, and if you look at the petals of the image above, they are tiny, and the ivory would be spaced by relatively worthless alabaster and marble. I would wager the whole Talisman probably cost 5-15 MP in components. Even with the higher assumption, over six years... That costs less than a lab at upkeep +2 would. Which is probably an insignificant expense for a covenant capable of allowing MT*5 pawns per year, when a pawn of vis can be traded for 100 MP if memory serves.
annoying but irreleavant details first
- years start with spring, end with winter. I know this doesn't quite match the callender (which both starts and ends in winter) but it has thematic reasons.
- you are converting using a metric ton, which will not exist in the game time period. an Imperial Ton is 2000 lbs
from there, slightly more relevant- it did have TBD and it annoys me that I missed that and ran the advancement anyways- my fault not yours
in the modern day a 1 karat diamond is (depending on quality) roughly the same price as an ounce of gold- emeralds are currently less, but that varied by time and location historically, so a single gem in the 1/16 MP range does make sense. However the real expense will be the alchemist's time. Certainly an Alchemist is willing to work for 8 seasons on this project- which comes out to 4 years employment at 40 pounds a year for a decent alchemist, or at 100 pounds per year for one with the level of renown you seem to be seeking.
I'm going to wait to review up to age 50 until we have the details on this talisman worked out.
- I fixed the seasonal order. Good news: I don't have cyclic magic affecting my lab bonuses
- I'm using the weight conversion ratio in C&G p. 140 which is used for the price table on p. 141. No idea whether it's a metric ton, imperial ton, or other kind of tun.
Yeah, okay. I wasn't expecting that would cost a typical covenant's yearly income to hire. At that point, it may make more sense to pay this with vis pawns, or with money obtained from selling pawns within the order if the alchemist is a mundane not associated with a covenant. Would that work? If not, what do you feel is appropriate here? Enchanting a temporary magical item as a form of payback to the alchemist for services rendered (e.g. hermetically legal to sell, such as 70 years)? Do you want me to review the components I'm purifying?
the funny thing is that the table in C&G doesn't even agree with itself- a pin't a pound the world around, and the volume definition of a tun was the origin of the weight definition- a tun (volume) is 250 gallons, but they define it as 240, which comes to 1920 pints or 1920 pounds, while they defie the same measurement by weight as 2420 lbs- actually a metric ton is only 2200 lbs, an imperial is 2000 lbs, I have no idea where they pulled the 2420 number from, but I've kind of gotten used to ignoring blatant ignorance in AM...
in case you every wanted to know a butload is 25 gallons or 200 lbs and refers to the butt or bottom 10% of a tun container.
Anastasia does not have a personal vis source, so tryin to account for it with vis instead of gold really hits the same snag- it's just a different valuable resource you are trading away for a pet project. You might consider making a talisman with few components. Like 1 or 2
Yeah, I don't have a personal vis source, but I'm supposed to be able to spend up to MT*5 per year. Is there a difference between spending it to buy components for lab projects, versus spending it on lab projects, or spending it on rituals like other characters have? If there is one, I don't see it anyway. I also see no value in a 2 component talisman. It is something I will rapidly discard because unlike generic items, I can have only one. May as well shelf the project, and build it in game. That will just take me away from the story for a couple of years, which I was hoping to avoid but oh well. I'll think on what to do with the advancement.
Yes, there is- the limit if 5xMT a year is not an income of 5xMT a year- the book is clear that you do not accumulate vis that you do not use in the lab, it is a result of what you gain and scrounge in the times you do not use it. As such it does not constitute an alternative expense account.
Yes. I wasn't trying to generate a profit either, just to enable a lab project. Nonetheless, I will respect your ruling and move on.
I have reviewed the advancement taking out the Talisman: http://amfightorflight.wikidot.com/anastasia-advancement-log
Here is a revised Anastasia at 50: http://amfightorflight.wikidot.com/anastasia-50-years-old