I think this might be a fun exercise and I'm just curious. Do you have a House you have very little interest in making magi characters that belong to it? Maybe you think the Jerbiton are boring, maybe the Tremere are too authoritarian, Criamon too weird or pacifists not fun to roleplay, the Tytalus are little britches (one and all), etc. If you choose to play, whatever the reason, list the house and reason and come up with a concept of someone in that house that you might want to play.
I'll Start- House: Tremere Reason: Annoying authoritarian bullies who abuse a really terrible rule and feel boring, at best, and evil at worst to me. Concept: Researcher into vermin and, especially, the ecosystem of the Ethereal Fisherman Spiders (on p130-131 of HoH:TL). Might have the Leadworker virtue to have some slightly greater facility as a spiritual necromancer as well. He would probably want to bind a spirit familiar, a spirit of a swarm/colony of these spiders and need to research how to summon that. Reason I like this concept: Of all the things mentioned in the Tremere stuff of the line this one little blurb really stands out as an interesting creature idea and it puts into play that there is a spiritual ecosystem and even flies and the like have spirits to be consumed by these strange little spiders.
House: Tytalus Reason: The conflict, the sith style apprentice-master relationship. All the Machiavellian rubbish the house does. I consider the house should of collapsed considering it's conflict dynamic, and no covenant would want one in their covenant.
Also it gives obnoxious PCs the opportunity to be obnoxious, because "that's what their house does". If I were to SG AM in the future I wouldn't necessarily veto a Tytalus, however, big red flag. I'd ask serious questions about how the person would play the Tytalus. Concept: Peacemaker - Nothing is more challenging than resolving a conflict. Reason I like this concept: It inverts the the who Tytalus concept. I still remember a great quote in a 200AD comic, "7 is the best chaos number, which is why there are 6 of you." Similar thinking. Removing conflict involves conflict.
House: Bjornaer Reason: Ancestor worshippers are as far as I can care to see. Then fighting against both the Dominion and Faeries makes them more irritating and annoying to me. Concept: Platonic philosopher who wants to under the ancestors and the link between animal and human. Reason I like this concept: The ancestors being animals never made sense to me and someone trying to get to the bottom of it (Regardless of they are or not their ancestors in the particular saga) seems like a fun way to generate conflict.
I'm sort of breaking my own rule with this one, I happen to like the House but I'll use other people's statements that I've heard as the reason. This one is actually based on a character I made once. House: Jerbiton Reason: Jerbiton characters are boring and the Gentle Gift which they all have is really boring. If you wanna play an artist, scholar, or noble just make a Companion. Concept: Newly gauntleted maga whose grand-uncle and pater is a member of the Philosophers of Rome (see Mysteries p122) and is seeking to become a Daimon Patriarch of his bloodline. Neither have the gentle gift and the Pater refuses to train anyone outside his family. She is only his second apprentice. Either Mentor or Close Family Ties story flaw. He has taught her to use the non-mystery dream magic from A&A to manipulate mundanes and groomed her to join his little cult to help him become a Daimon. Will she join and help? Reason I like this concept: It flies in the face of a whole lot of how a lot of players seem to view Jerbiton magi. I love me some daimon summonings and Ascendancy really is the coolest game end-state one could shoot for.
House: Bonisagus Reason: As written, they have done nothing of note for almost half a millennium, and are currently worse than useless. Concept: Unofficial Apprentice Protective Services Officer. Takes apprentices from unworthy and problematic magi or lineages and finds better situations for them. Reason I like this concept: Turns the usual, expected abuse of this ancient provision of the Code on its head.
Who knows. A Tytalus parens who thinks he has an apprentice that a Bonisagus wants, might enjoy the challenge of never letting the Bonisagus actually encounter the apprentice in a way that shows off their desirability, while leaving the apprentice mostly free and not hidden in a secure dungeon.
If someone wants to play that concept I would alert them fitst to a Peripheral Code ruling (in HoH:TL?) that allows a Bonisagus to be sanctioned for claiming too many Apprentices.
Admittedly, that Bonisnatcher was testing the apprentices to destruction or similar, but a precedent is a precedent.
In other Tribunals such peripheral code may or may not exist in various wording. Anyway "Apprentice Protective Services" follow a worthy tradition and may even be encouraged if they stick to a reasonable definition of "unworthy and problematic magi" and get more apprentices to pass their gauntlet.
Not to be a total curmudgeon, it is an interesting discussion, but I hope we can get back to the topic. Some discussion of viability of a particular concept is cool though. That said, not perfectly viable concepts in this manner seem like great material for generating stories. I could also see a Trianoman line that does this exact thing, taking apprentices from the worst offenders.
House: Merineta Reason: Faeries as presented in Ars are both weird and boring. Concept: Faerie Slayer, abused as a child by dark Fae and suffered under a misanthropic Fae Master. Likes to destroy forests. Reason I like this concept: Turns the "Faeries/Nature are cool" idea of the house on it's head.
That apprentice protector is not far off from my Tytalus character, who enjoys conflicts with apprentice abusers and challenging his own House on their model of education.
House: Guernicus Reason: Killjoys better suited as antagonists than PCs. Along the lines of Lee's Tytalus critique, there's a temptation of Guernicus mages to rules lawyer the other players. Concept: Gentleman thief who is scrupulous about staying just barely on the right side of the law. Why I like this concept: The model for this concept is Edward Hoch's character Nick Velvet. For a fixed fee, Velvet would steal any object of apparently insignificant value. The NYT obituary for Hoch described his creation this way: Perhaps Mr. Hoch’s most popular sleuth was Nick Velvet, a professional thief engaged to steal a bewildering array of things for his clients. These included an ashtray, a cobweb, a canceled stamp, a dead houseplant, a used tea bag, a sliver of soap, a ball of twine, a bingo card, an empty paint can, a Thanksgiving turkey, a blue-ribbon pie, a bathroom scale, a bald man’s comb, an ostrich, a skunk, a major-league baseball team and — in perhaps the most blatantly criminal act of all — an overdue library book.
In the Ars Magical world these sorts of items could be arcane connections, trace evidence of crimes, or obscure entrees into plots and conspiracies. I like the idea of a magi pulled into heists on the one hand, but also trying to figure out why someone would pay five pawns of vis for some burnt mutton. The challenge would be finding legal ways of acquiring the objects and also serving some larger sense of justice while skirting the law.
Magically the Velvet magi would focus on high finesse and unusual intellego spells. These would mostly be lower level spells, so magic addiction could work as a hermetic flaw.
House : Guernicus Reason : Killjoys better suited as antagonists than PCs. Holier than thou rules lawyers sticking it to the other players with unearned prestige. Concept : All violations of the Hermetic Oath are caused by Hermetic Magi. The crime is being a Magus. The sentence is Wizards March. Why I like this concept : Not so much like it, but it is silly and complements the earlier 2000AD quote from Nemesis the Warlock, this time Judge Death.
Basically a Guernicus who read between the lines of all the Peripheral Code case studies during apprenticeship and becomes disillusioned by all the vote stacking and corruption he sees. Decides to argue every case towards Marching at least one party. When the final magus is (legally) gone, he will March himself, and then the Hermetic Oath will be inviolare.
Still, I love the idea of a brutally powerful Guernicus Quaesitor Hoplite who goes around causing vast death and destruction wherever he goes in his pursuit of Justice.
I think that's the humorous bit, obviously Judge Dredd is a fascist but Judge Death is Judge Dredd turned up to 11. I think his catch phrase is "the crime is LIIIIIIIFE!"
Yes, I did mean the villain from Judge Dredd. Specifically the later story where he dictated his biography. Never particularly liked that story, except one scene stuck with me, where as a trainee judge he ran a court room and legally executed every case brought before him, even the last one which was a couple looking to divorce, but saw what happed to every case before them and when they faced the judge they swore that they had made up and no longer needed a divorce. The judge happily congratulated them on their love then executed the relieved couple for wasting the court's time.
