Cyclic Magic (positive) (p. 41): Change the second sentence to "At those times, you receive a +3 bonus to all Casting Scores".
Does Cyclic Magic apply to Certamen?
Bit odd but would you apply Alluring to Magical beings to the Presence attack roll if the Certamen is done without the Parma up on both sides?
What about Way of the Land?
W
Certamen is not really casting, closer to being brute force against brute force magical melee.
Also, the Certamen duel starts with creating a symbolic circle that separates the combatants from the outside.
So an argument could be made that external environmental factors don't affect the Certamen.
YMMV, probably discuss with your troupe.
The rules say no. It affects casting and lab totals, and certamen is neither. This could be an oversight on the authors' part, but if you want to second-guess their intention, it should be a troupe decision.
Why would it be fought without parma? It seems moot to me. But if you can find a case, there is nothing in the rules AFAICS to say that alluring does not help.
I think that is tricky, and must be seen in light of how widely you apply it in general. What is direct interaction with the land and its inhabitants?
IMO it should only apply if the opponent is an obvious inhabitant of the land. For most magi, only Ways of the Covenant would be relevant (if that is at all permissible). The location would not give the bonus.
Leaning toward an oversight but the Merit/Flaw should only apply once to either defence or attack
Leaning toward applying it to the initiative total
I know... never had that before but us young magi managed to bully with a small army the time of the Certamen ahead of planned time as we showed up at sunrise thinking that without their big Parma, we would maybe stand a chance of winning this Certamen... still unlikely.
W
The Virtue I'm curious about when it comes to certamen interaction is Intuition.
If you are down to luck because you think you do not have the information then it seems to fit the description of the merit. I'd go the better the roll, the more intuitive you are. Since the forms provide some sort of benefit which usually reflects in inhuman mannerism which become more and more evident as the art form is higher, intuition could eliminate a few forms making it still a competition but you have an edge.
W
I think Intuition would only be useful to chose if you are going to veto the other magi first choice of Art or not (assuming you have no better information about your opponent). Maybe also to chose which Art you should propose... but I think it is harder to have a "right" answer for that due to the multiple possible combinations.