The thing here that is frustrating me is that it seems to me that you expect everyone to know almost everything from all the books. I haven't read most of the books and don't have a lot of experince. You mention it is similar to Merinita's mysteries. I don't know any of them. So you keep saying there is overlap and it is not different enough. I don't know the differences. I said when I was looking for a game I was new to the system. I am trying to figure something out but every time I do you add on more books to read. Do traditions really have so much impact on a game that it requires so much effort. When I picked it from the core rule book it seemed not to matter. I will continue trying to specify this but try and see where I am coming from. Not everyone knows all the things you do. I don't expect players at a Shadowrun game or DnD game to know all 50 books of info.
The key thing here is not even about the rules. I keep repeating that you need to create a tradition, not just have a list of what virtues you want. Think about history, or fiction, something that is the inspiration for a small group within the order. I'm bringing up books in terms of suggestions of where to get an idea what you are wanting to do. Also keep in mind that maybe faerie blood can be something you have that isn't part of your tradition, something incidental to it. The key thing I keep saying that you seem to be disregarding is "step away from the rules" and create the culture of these magi- I can work with you to create the structure of how they fit into the rules, but trying to build from a list of virtues and justifying everything i terms of rulebooks and trying to explain those choices is not working. The really key point is that I am telling you to try a different approach and you seem to be asking me what hoops to jump through. This is very reminiscent of a conversation I had with another player months ago who I ultimately asked to leave the game, not because they didn't understand the rules but because they were not interested in roleplaying instead of roll playing.
I am trying to "step away from the rules" but let me try and make another attempt. I will try and make the inspiration for the group and we can expand from there.
Lets try going with their inspiration is finding secrets of the magic realm through it's interaction with the faerie realm
please understand by definition an ex misc group is not one which is interested in researching the highest mysteries of the world. They are hedge magicians, integrated into the order and bringing their own unique take on magic due to where they are coming from. the witches, the druids, the shaman, the dream walkers, the astral warriors. they may be a religious cult, or a small focus of ancient academics, or simply a community that used magic in their own unique way before being brought into a larger community. They were not formed intentionally with full knowledge of the larger world of magic and hermetic theory, they did not come into being in order to research anything.
A small group who focus on ancient academics makes the most sense in my head.
I actually found some fan made tradition and this was the description :
A ragtag band of wizards, whose only common trait was their faerie ancestry and strange looks, they banded together to protect each other, their varied looks earned them their nickname from the outside order.
Putting in common their knowledge of magic and faerie lore, they learned in time to tap into the power of their faerie side to bolster their spells, more than a few proving themselves able to expand that into a greater mastery over spontaneous magic. Everything comes at a price, though, and when using their powers, the Whimsical Wizards weaken themselves a great deal. Every apprentice is warned about going too far, using the grim tales of some progenitor's errors.
Something like this could be neat but change it to fight the world you are trying to make
The problem as described is that these "whimsical wizards" represent a single generation, not a real tradition. Now you could go with something like a trollwife or sealwife tradition: a hereditary family tradition which was passed down which also had a tradition of marrying a certain type of faerie like trolls or Selkie every few generations. Presumably it had an initiation for those without the Gift at some point as well, though whether that has also survived in parallel to the hermetic tradition or not is something you would need to decide.
Yeah this is not the be all end all. Just a template to work from.
Let me go down your points and add in details to make this work better. Let's make this a Sidhe tradition. Every other generation the first male has to journey and find a Sidhe to marry. Let's also say the non-gifted did survive and became herbalists and "doctors" for the small town and family they lived in.
And covenfolk/soldales for the covenant when it was formed. So far so good. Also hypothetically if they have a apprentice who was not a blood relative there might be some form of faerie adoption that could give them the virtue.
Yeah maybe it is a ritual that gives you faerie warping point(s) to call a faerie to adopt you. If it fails then you have to try again until it works
I'm not going to worry about how the ritual is performed unless you want it for your own background, in which case it will probably give something like the faerie friend flaw to go with it... perhaps they have to marry a sidhe.
which wouldn't be an unreasonable flaw even for someone in the family.
I don't think we have to worry about it. Although having them married to a sidhe would be fun.
also keep in mind that Merinita are probably trying to poach children who are apprentices from this tradition for centuries, what are we looking at for a major hermetic flaw and minor virtue?
I had blatant gift but lets get rid of that for something more thematic
Chaotic Magic seems like a good major hermetic flaw
I still like Inventive Genius. The family had to invent most of their stuff on their own. So they had a knack for creating new things. Also since fae like to be chaotic. I think experimentation and the randomness it provides would suite them
Okay, though I would recommend that the character still have blatant Gift, given the setting. but yes, that does seem to fit.