My suggestion was made thinking that you can usually exchange 3 pawns of [Te] vis for 3 pawns of [Fo] vis with a redcap, so this isn't that distant from having, say, a source worth 3 pawns intellego and exchanging it as desired whenever there is a redcap nearby. I agree that the flavor should be unpredictable, but in practice I think we can eschew that, since it's reasonable to pay in whatever the contractor requests and he can simply be lucky about finding vis?
From a narrative point of view, I think it could be interesting if fate never brought him a specific kind of vis (eg. he never finds Perdo and no one pays for his services in Perdo, they just don't have it when he requests), but this is just a though. :v
When you put it like that the whole thing makes a lot more sense to me! It's indeed interesting! Would he then have the Cabal Legacy Flaw, to start with Theurgy? I understand this would allow one to bypass the "no initiation before play" limit. And what about the tradition's major non-hermetic virtue?
Thanks for being understanding about my point on mystery cults. I said it's minor because I don't think we are risking to wander too far... but at the same time, if I say nothing I might actualy start to think like that someday.
I agree that mystery cults don't need to become the center of the saga. It's just that to me they usually seem "bigger", just like demonic influence. But I reckognize this is mostly a matter of perception, and admittedly I haven't dealt much with mystery cults in my home games. Maybe it's the moment to change that?
I'm not even sure how to comment that. XD
I also don't think we have any incompatible characters so far!
Excellent question, and one for which I'm not sure I have a good answer. But I'll try.
Most of the time I've seen mystery cults in play turn out as "this magus has no life outside the cult". The way most cults are written kind of suggest that (to me at least). Assuming this is true (and I fully know it isn't necessarily true, and that my understanding might be biased due to little experience with this) and we have a few mystery cults, we suddenly have some magi playing in a completely different game.
So in a way my comment is an overreaction that amounts to "please don't make everything about the cult".
But again, this is just a biased opinion (that is changing). =]
I appreciate this conversation, it has already allowed me to rethink a few things. And be sure that this isn't me asking anyone to drop your concepts!