As The Fixer says, childhood xp spend seems a bit off.
The list of allowed abilities for childhood is very limited. You are supposed to have 45xp in those, plus native language. I count only 15 in Awareness.
Many of those abilities are very useful to a magus. Things like guile and folk ken are just as applicable amongst other magi as they are amongst the peasantry. Area Lore is only not useful if you never have anything to do with the area ever again.
As it stands, he comes across as more of a savant than a prodigy. A shut-in, as mentioned, with no worldly experience whatsoever.
Covenant Upbringing also plays merry havoc with your native language (check the flaw). Personally I would recommend away from it, unless you really did grow up in a massive covenant with no exposure to the outside world. Note that covenant upbringing still allows most of the social abilities, since you still grew up in a social environment. Area Lore (covenant of youth) would make sense, too - which is likely to be a more useful ability than you first think and you can buy it with those initial childhood xp.
Not quite. Popular usage is to use 'ex' to denote membership of a house; so that "Murien ex Bonisagus" is used to denote "Murien from the House of Bonisagus". Published material does not use this convention. For a start, it is incorrect Latin; the Founder/House names would have to take the ablative case to be used with the preposition "ex" for this meaning. Furthermore, the preposition "ex" becomes "e" before voiced consonants (relevant for b,g,v in this situation). So it is more properly "Murien e Bonisago" (assuming that "Bonisagus" uses the 2nd declension). The various rules are complex enough for it to be preferable to stick to English and say "Murien of Bonisagus"!
Note that House Ex Miscellanea is a special case, because the name of the house does not derive from the name of a Founder, but a joke/insult adopted by Pralix. HoH:S indicates that the usage should be "Ebroin magus Ex Miscellanea" rather than "Ebroin of House Ex Miscellanea", because "Ex Miscellanea" means "from porridge" (well, a porridge-based stew containing blood, oats, and offal).
Likewise, HoH:MC lists "Bjornaer" as a special case as well, since it is already means "of Birna" in Gothic. Thus "Falke of Bjornaer" is wrong, but "Falke of House Bjornaer" and "Falke Bjornaer" are correct (and the latter is what the house itself tends to use).
This post is now reading far too much like a scene from "The Life of Brian", so I'll stop!
I too am loving this - please, don't stop. Some book in the publication line should really give names a full chapter treatment. Not a full tractus on Latin, just enough to game with. I cobbled together a similar "poor man's guide to Arabic Naming Conventions" some years ago and it vastly improved my "Al-Qadim" DnD games.
Would be great if there was more info on names and honorifics in other languages besides latin, for companions, grogs, and so forth. Not just dull lists of names of course, although some ideas beyond Henri and Richard would be swell. More thinking of how to put together all the names, titles, honorifics, nicknames, etc, a person might acquire in life, both in Latin and in other courtly and course common vernacular tongues.
So, since I apparently pooched it yet again, I went back and redid all the ability xp from early childhood, later life, and the 120 from apprenticeship. Rather than make a third big ol' honkin' post for the same character, I just edited the one on the previous page. I thank you all for your continued patience with me and assistance, and I do think I am getting at least a little better each time I submit my work for critique. As for the enemy in Joda's flaws, Lysander of Criamon, I have a concept in mind for him as well (something of a warped counterpart to Joda, who is to Vim what Joda is to Creo, and who believes that Twilight is a vision of the Truth of the universe, and that the key to the Enigma is to be found by experiencing and understanding twilight as much as possible), but for his abilities and virtues, it's all a tangled mess in my head. After that, perhaps I'd be competent enough to work on my idea for Sephriel of Merinita, a magus who is fascinated with the fae (of course, since he's merinita), and, either at chargen or shortly thereafter, pursues the mysteries of Glamour magic and Animae magic. But perhaps my ideas are getting ahead of my actual know-how....
I would point out that Joda Magil has two story flaws (enemies and mentor) and three personality flaws (driven, temperate and ambitious). Magi in general should have at most one story flaw and two personality flaws; this is -- in my opinion -- particularly true for one's first character in Ars Magica.
Oh, guide dang it to heck. Well, if that was the only problem, then I still consider myself improved in the arena of character creation. I am getting rather tired of messing things up on Joda though, so perhaps I should work on Lysander or Sephriel now, if anyone has any advice for those concepts as described in previous posts?
Actually, he looks okay to me. I count only Mentor as the story flaw, and Ambitious and Driven as his personality flaws.
I haven't done an xp-tallyup because I'm lazy, but his spread of abilities looks a bit more reasonable. The only thing I'd do is talk to your SG about his area lore ability. If the saga is set in Britain, narrowing that down to a smaller area would make sense (most likely the area he grew up). If not, its probably sufficient for occasional visits. That's not something us forumites can answer; that's a question for your SG since its very saga-specific.
As for his enemy... unless you're doing it purely as an exercise, I wouldn't create that character. I'd just outline as much as you have, give it to the SG and let the SG worry about it. You don't want to know the finer details of an NPC antagnoist. If you're looking to flex character creation muscles, what I would instead suggest is create two or three grogs who are designed to support Joda. A combatant shield grog and one or two others - remembering that a grog doesn't necessarily mean a fighting man.
Yes, I updated the build after I read that post. I probably should've made that explicit in my post. As for Lysander, it kinda was as an exercise to make him, but honestly, I'd be more interested in playing Sephriel of Merinita, who is particularly fascinated by the fae inspired mysteries of Glamour and Animae, and who prizes flexibility and spontaneity in his magic over formulae or any rigid structure, although he understands the value of formulaic spells, particularly rituals. Would it be cromulent to have him start with one or two of the minor mystery virtues in the mystery cults houses book, such as spell timing and arcadian travel, maybe even a major virtue such as Glamour?
If you like Glamour and Animae, here are a few suggestions:
Look at the Shadow Masters (or something like that).
I wouldn't start with the Mysteries. It will be more fun to delve more deeply into the Mysteries in character.
Consider a Major Magical Focus in Illusions, as suggested for Shadow Masters.
Focus on Creo and Muto (Glamour and Animae) and Imaginem (Glamour). I would use Affinity/Puissant here.
Allow the character to interact with faeries well, such as with Alluring to Faeries. Or maybe just good Pre and Com. Having Faerie Rank could work, too.
Just have fun with remaining Virtues. Make the character interesting.
Abilities:
Craft (Bookbinding) 4
Teaching 4
Etiquette 1
Profession (Bookmaker) 3
Charm 3
Folk Ken 3
Guile 2
Native Language (English) 5
Medicine 3
Philosophiae 4
Artes Liberales 4
Bargain 3
Awareness 1
For the concept of sephriel of merinita, I am now thinking, since the common sentiment here is to not try to take mystery virtues at chargen, that I'll build him for spontaneous casting mojo (I'm thinking either diedne magic or life-linked spont magic as major hermetic virtue, which would be recommended?), with emphasis on Creo, Muto, and Imaginem as suggested, maybe a little bit of Auram or Vim (I like lightning and metamagic). Any other bits of advice or suggestion?
You have not specified which Craft the Puissant Virtue applies to.
Profession: Scribe would be highly recommended. Meanwhile I don't think you need both Craft and Profession for making books unless you're considering having him make the vellum, too.
Along those lines you might consider having him skilled in illumination if you want him to have all the book skills.
Because I'm a nincompoop and forgot to actually spend the extra 50xp from the Educated virtue, so let's go ahead and sink that into Latin 4...
Anyway, back to the subject of Sephriel of Merinita: I currently am brainstorming his virtues, and am thinking of using Life-Linked Spontaneous Magic as his Hermetic major virtue, and making him a spontaneous casting specialist who's getting ready to initiate into the mysteries I described before (Animae magic and Glamour magic), but what would other highly recommended virtues for him at character creation be?
...leaving him unable to write a book in latin (language score of 5+ required)
I personally favour Diedne Magic over L-LSM, but that is a matter of taste, really.
L-LSM allows you to spend a large amount of fatigue to cast a powerful effect a very few times a day.
Diedne Magic allows you to cast spntaneous magic all day and never tire, unless you spend a fatigue level to add that extra kick.
So, as another alternative to Diedne Magic or Life-Linked Spontaneous magic, how well would Faerie-Raised Magic work for Sephriel's Major Hermetic Virtue? Also, how soon and quickly could Sephriel get himself initiated to other merinita mysteries like Glamour and Animae, and maybe later on Theurgy for extra spontaneous magical mojo?
How long would it take to get initiated into various mysteries? That's a 'how long is a piece of string' question - and it's really up to your troupe. Obviously stories about initiations will be fairly focused on that character, so it depends to a degree how often the spotlight focuses on the character.
What I would typically recommend from a storyguide is a story-in-two-parts for finding the right mystagogue to do the teaching: the first part being the character identifying the story requirements, the second part being actually undertaking it - with the gap in the middle being the lab work done in preparation. Once the mystagogue is found and willing, you've then got the actual mystery script stories - some of which are just seasonal activities and a small RP scene, and others of which involve stories that the whole troupe can get involved in.
For example: if the script is 'find and slay a powerful monster, then write a tale about it and present it to your sodales' you've got a story the whole troupe can do, followed by a seasonal activity for just your character and finally a short scene where the story is presented.
