If a magus is in his Macnigmartha (I'm sure I mispelled it but I'm not looking it up for the question) and advances in their understanding to where they can take their own apprentice, and that apprentice in turn reaches the ability to guantlet, would it be allowed to take the pledge, join the order, and learn Parma Magica even though their parens had not?
My reading would be that any apprentice, in any tribunal that never actually joined the order (say because their hermit parens died before administering the Gauntlet) and then trained a Hermetic Apprentice outside the Order that their apprebtice could join but would require a sponsor who is a Hermetic magus in the full sense.
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And then there is the matter of which Houses they could join.
I would say, no True Lineage house unless their master is a full member of that house.
I suspect that if they were of the blood of Mercere then house Mercere would be willing to sponsor them regardless. Ironically a redcap could do this since they are considered full members.
Could they? Isn't it the sponsor's responsibility to teach parma?
Anyway, I do not think the case at hand is any different from any non-Hermetic magus joining the Order. They need a sponsor who fill the gaps in kntowledge, administer the gauntlet or equivalent (depending on house), oversee the Oath and other formalities (depending on tribunal). What may differ is who would be plausible sponsors ...
Would the true lineages accept such a magus, having skipped a generation in the line? I agree that for Mercere, it is the bloodline that matters, and the blood does not skip a generation. I could see Bonisagus making an exception if the magus has been trained in their ethos by a descendant, but it would probably be controversial, and depend on what reputation could be earned by accepting them. Guernicus and Tremere very much depend on having been raised in the culture to function properly in their roles, so I find it very unlikely that they make an exception.
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Presumably when a Tytalus passes their gauntlet by killing their parens they are taught Parma by someone else, so there is clearly precedent on that point.
Yeah, that someone else is whom I would call a sponsor, who would also in this case have to explain several things, such as the fact that the apprentice is not being marched but rather welcomed into the Order, and of course oversee the Oath.
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Yep. An apprentice can't be marched; she is chattel. But the parens she killed would have violated his Oath ("No apprentice of mine shall be called magus until he first swears to uphold the Code."), if the apprentice just became a maga without a sponsor, proper gauntlet, swearing in and teaching the full Parma.
The Order will then hold that sponsor responsible for all obligations to the Order coming from making that apprentice a maga ("I shall be the first to strike them down and bring them to justice."). It doesn't matter to the rest of the Order, if Tytali consider the killed parens her real one.
Hardly the only inconsistency in how the order actually operates. Of course you can't exactly march the dead.
If a dead pope can be put on trial, a dead mage can be (retroactively) marched.
And then everyone who helped hunt them divides up their stuff?
No inconsistency there.
The Tytali provide a sponsor to the killer apprentice, thereby making the apprentice into a Tytalus plus saving the face of both the killed parens and the House.
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Do you have a reference to that or is that your assumption? Because often other Tytalus magi won't know where a deceased Tytalus is, and its not like they are going to be advertising to their apprentices that killing them will be passing the gauntlet (or at least not all of them will). Of course other magi are at least aware of the convention...
Since a gauntlet can be whatever the Parens, Sponsor, or House* decides, the Tytalus sponsor saying they passed the Gauntlet by killing their former parens is a "proper gauntlet."
/* House, it seems, merely by unenforced convention but maybe there are counter examples I am unaware of. Examples of this being most of the True Lineages IIRC.
Yep. The point is, that the sponsor declares before a gathering of magi - typically with a Quaesitor for record keeping - that the apprentice has fulfilled the Tytalus requirements of a gauntlet.
If an apprentice just does something without anybody noticing it, this is certainly not a proper gauntlet.
Lots of things can happen after a Tytalus apprentice killed her master: e. g. she may flee, never to be heard of in the Order again, or she may for some time pretend in the covenant that her parens is in twilight or in hiding. Nothing of this will make her a maga.
House Tytalus cannot impose own procedures upon the Order here. But they can use the Order's procedures - sponsor, proper gauntlet, administering the Oath of Hermes etc. - to make the killer apprentice a Tytalus maga.
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The problem is that according to RAW they pretty much have, and to a large degree the "structure" of the order is far less rigid than any modern government or even most clubs.
House Tytalus? Who let them?
Is this just creative reading of HoH:S p.78ff Culture?
Read HoH:S p.83 box Story Seed: The Unwilling KIng for an example of just how far Tytali might go to show off their House's culture. But most - unless they forgot about the Betrayal of the Tytali - follow their Oath and their Tribunal's Peripheral Code.
Realistically in the Hermetic Order just about every house has, to varying degrees. The order is more about trying to just get along than enforcing an overly strict version of the code.
True. However, the Order is more than anything a live and let live pact. Then there is an element of mutual protection, in the ancient join or die philosophy, and the secret of Parma Magica which is critical contributor to the let live part.
Anything which threatens this let live part is a violation of the Oath and a capital offence. Everybody who is currently a member has been invited into Order by someone, had the Oath witnessed by someone, and been taught Parma by someone. If the Oath is subsequently broken, this someone - the parens and the sponsor - bear a lot of the responsibility and has been sworn to correct the mistake, i.e. by hunting down the bad apple.
This Code is entirely strict. The only non-strict element is the interpretation of what constitutes a threat to the let live. There is nothing to suggest that someone can invite somebody in and then refuse to take responsibility.
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I don't believe I have suggested that anybody could do so. I'm just wondering about holes presented in RAW that would presumably have had to be worked out for which there is no official method in RAW for working the details out. I do not doubt for one second, for example, that a Tytalus who passes their guantlet by murdering their parens still needs to swear the oath and learn Parma magica. What is not addressed explicitly anywhere is how, and I would expect the answer to vary significantly between the tribunal of Thebes (where swearing the oath is done at a mass ceremony at the tribunal) and the tribunal of Hibernia (where finding another Tytalus could be a challenging proposition and many gauntleted apprentices run around for years, potentially outliving their parens before swearing the oath and joining.
The problem is that there is very little consideration of these issues given in the texts. Simply saying that following a year or more of running wild before deciding to swear the oath, join the order properly and learn Parma does not address how this works for apprentices whose parens died between gauntlet and oath.