I was reading over the rules for Holy Magic again, from RoP: Divine, and it says that a magus must reinvent their magical practices in a big way. But, what if a Holy Magus, guided by God, found a child that had the True Faith and The Gift. He goes on to train this child. Wouldn't he just train him in Holy Magic with holy spells instead of Magic Theory and regular Hermetic spells from the start? In this way, the child wouldn't be tempted to use the more sinful magic. Or would he have to learn Magic Theory and regular spells, then relearn them?
(First I'd say: many chance he is an Ex miscellanea. But if not, that wouldn't change anything.)
My point is: if you are a holy magus and find a child skilled with the true faith, it's a sign of god and an ordeal: you will have to demonstrate that your love in God is greater than the custom. So you will only use the holy magic part and the child wouldn't have any magic theory. It's make sense to me that if your parens is a holy magus, he will give you the knowledge of pious magic, and not sinful one.
But, if he's trained by, say, a Criamon Holy Magus of the Priory of St. Nerius, he would learn the Parma Magica, but not Magic Theory. He would have have the Hedge Wizard flaw, but would he be considered a member of the Order?
Yes, full member of the Order. The OoH is full of non hermetic magi. This is one of the reasons of why house Ex Miscellanea exists. I see no problems with this character, except that it can be quite a challenge to play
Yes, he's I'm thinking of making him as an NPC, inspired by Brother Philip from the book Pillars of the Earth (excellently portrayed by Matthew Macfadyen in the mini-series).
A follow-up question would be about sinning. The book says that a Holy Magus can not use his magic to sin. What is sin? Are we talking about the seven big ones, or everything the Church sees as sin? What is seen as a sin often varies geographically, doesn't it? The seven deadly sins are quite universal, I would think, at least in the Dominion.
In a supernatural world, I would say that a Sin is NOT defined by the church at all. What defines what is sinful and what is not is the Almighty, and we know about them through his sketched notes (the Bible). To be clear for a player, I would guide myself with the 7 deadly sins. Clear cut and easy to identify. otherwise it is extreemely easy to enter into muddy waters and end up messing things up.
It would stand to reason that a magus having learned and integrated Holy Magic, and reinvented all hismagical repetoire could teach just those holy things to his apprentice. No need to first teach him all the 'wrong things' only to have to guide him into changing his ways.
The apprentice would surely miss out on some of the hermetic repetoire, and could easily be labelled a Hedgie.
Interesting concept. I might try out that Holy Magic at some point.
