BTW, Wits, you can go ahead and create a character creation topic for your magus.
How about this: as an apprentice, the PC had a particularly nasty master and his training was deficient. The master who was in all ways a jerk was eventually called on the carpet by a tribunal for unrelated matters. As a punishment, he was stripped of his apprentice. Now a magus, the PC has problems with mentem magic. Also because of his history (ie his sordid master), he has problems fitting in at more established covenants. Striking out with the others is, in part, a way of showing the order that despite his weakness and past, he is as good as others. (It could also be that his former master blames him for the debacle with tribunal or that his master's covenant blames him and wants to see him fail if that would be helpful.)
Magus is in WIP. He is 24 years old. Finally I limited it to spell levels = hermetic age (so 3rd magnitude at character creation), since it was difficult to create a clear character concept that did not look like a kaleidoscope of spell types with only level 10 spells. "Strong" arts will be Rego, Muto Herbam and Terram.
Xavi
I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the logic... He was kind of rescued from a bad master by the Tribunal (which means by extension the established covenants), but now he wants to stick out on his own? Forming a new covenant is kinda of going against the (implicit) wishes of the Tribunal, so it seems lile a strange way to demonstrate his gratefulness and worth.
I don't know if you've read all the discussions, but in this saga the Order has become calcified and no new covenant has been formed for a while. Tribunals represent the status quo -- they don't want you to succeed because it would prove that young magi can just go out and survive without the strict rules of the established covenants. That would break their stranglehold on resources, and the attendant power it brings them. A few single, isolated, magi is one thing. A new covenant is different; a threat to established order.
A question: How would Necessary condition:sing actually work without performance magic? Would it mean you must always take the penalty for not speaking the magic words? Or would the singing count as vocalization? Necessary condition:sing is in the core book's example, whereas performance magic not, so it seems like it was intended to work independently somehow.
(I had designed my concept with performance magic as the minor magical virtue of the ex misc tradition, but I forgot only core book stuff is allowed)
I believe it only means you have to sing the words of your incantation rather than speaking them. It does make casting silently impossible.
Agreed. Or casting underwater, unless specialized magic is used. Lungs of the Fish would not work for this, as it "turns water into air as it enters your lungs".
I would further add that some sickness (e.g. laryngitis) might also make spellcasting impossible for him, or require him to make a Sta check to be able to cast. That would be a plot device by the storyguide, however, and is unlikely to happen more than once or twice over the course of the saga.
Dang, not even underwater? That's something I didn't realize either - shouldn't it be possible, though, given that it's quite possible to sing or talk etc. underwater? Shouldn't it just restrict voice range spells prohibitively, and probably you wouldn't have enough air for more than one spell? Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NcCNAmXQDA
What about in bird form? Can a duck sing in this sense? Best to be clear about all this before I make the first draft of the character.
You can't sing properly under water, in my opinion. You may make noise, for sure, but that's not singing. Singing requires the use of words, sentences, rhymes. If you just make a sound (for example hold a note), then it is not "proper singing", but rather using your vocal cords as a musical instrument. (That even makes sense froma mystical viewpoint.)
Singing as a bird might work against the flaw, but you would still get the -10 penalty because you cannot form words, as a regular magus would. If you look at p.83, you'll notice the penalty is "Words and gestures".)
Necessary Condition is a Major flaw, after all. 
You can sing underwaterYou cannot sing well underwater, but singing is no problem. . I have tried it 
The requisite is to sing, not to sing well. I would limit it to being able to cast magic underwater but without voice in practical terms.
Aphonia might be a problem, so be careful with your bold voice and gestures! 
I would like to have the possibility of participating in any underwater exploits we might undertake, so I chose to do away with the necessary condition after all; rather than building the tradition's concept around the poem singing (which I'll still have as flavor), I think I'll build it around earthy, concrete wisdom instead. So these sagely Tietäjäs aren't your urbanite abstract intellectuals with puissant theory, but rather hands-on knowers with Study Bonus and Study Requirement.
Can we say that he was rescued from a nasty but established and prominent magus by a kindly Bosangius who was viewed within the order as somewhat of an eccentric and who (shortly after the PC's gauntlet) passed into final twilight? As a result the old master and by extension his covenant have it in for the PC? Perhaps the now deceased new master was also somewhat of a free thinker himself which is why he was viewed as a fringe member of the order. The PC's desire to prove himself would be motivated both by a desire to prove his own worth and to vindicate the nutty ideas of the recently departed new master.
After thinking about it some more, I'll simplify things. Singing underwater is ok, but will suffer from a penalty similar to that of singing in animal shape. Equivalent to Quiet Words (-5) and with an additional Botch die because of the distortion of the words.
No to say that you can't change your tradition, but you have the option to keep singing as a Necessary Condition if you want to.
Hmm, what does that mean for trying to cast Voice spell underwater (which, sooner or later, Phyteas is going to have to do). Normal range, but a -5 penalty ?
Hey, could I invent a spell mastery 'Underwater Casting' during play ?
I think that's a good way of doing it, and we might end up needing that houserule during our saga anyway.
I sort of took to liking the new earthy concept of the tradition, however, so I think I'll stick with it - it sort of works better as a package, since I couldn't think of a good alternative to performance magic for the singing concept.
Voice range reaches as far as your voice (so a booming POF can reach father than a normal voice POF), so regular Voice range underwater sucks big time. Probably no more than 4 or feet for booming voice. However, high frequencies carry very well underwater, so you can get longer ranges than what you get with booming voice range on dry land if you MuCo yourself to be able to say, talk like a dolphin.
Xavi
Casting Pillar of Fire underwater ? Voice isn't going to be your only problem there !
Too true! :mrgreen: I was referring to dry land, so you got my meaning.
Is "move living being" a legitimate minor focus? It excludes dead beings and mind stuff, but seems to cover parts of rego animal, corpus and herbam. What about "move living creature"? That would seem to narrow it down to corpus and animal.
Well, first you'd have to define move. There's 'move like a puppet' where you control the (otherwise normal) movement of a creature, then there's the 'move around' where you basically do telekinesis, and there's teleportation; and each of the three would I think be a different focus.
As for 'living beings' or 'living creatures', well, said like that it sounds a bit like a fudge, like you are artificially extending across forms. As far as the breadth of what you want goes, providing you chose one of the three above, it's okay, but the focus part is a bit flimsy. If you could somehow phrase it to make it sound like a focus, I'd be happier. Puppeteering might work, for the first...