I suspect you would have to establish yourself as a wandering magus first, probably one whose official residence is in another tribunal, and then find a covenant to join so you can pretend to leave the covenant you are not a member of in order to join.
Of course in Hibernia you might be able to pretend to be a magus on macgnímartha might be your way of establishing yourself.
How would that work? You would have to pass your gauntlet afterwards, and how do you do that without a master to vouch for you?
Recruit. I did say Ex Miscellanea, did I not?
Edit: It was in an earlier post.
I do not doubt they can be forged, but first you have to know about them, and they are a bit obscure. It's one thing to know what a red cap means and what a quaesitor does, it's another to know about a bit of administrative trivia. Usually a sigil is your magical sigil; voting sigils (probably) only appear in Tribunal, to vote. This is not the sort of thing to come up in conversation.
Of course, Mimicus may not have voting or even attending Tribunal in mind.
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Oh right, my bad, all my apologies.
I'm not too familiar with those practices yet. Until i started really reading about AM, i just assumed the Order murdered every gifted person who could not become an apprentice.
Your average member of the Order is not interested in non-member Gifted who are not a threat. The ones who are interested are as likely to want to study them as "Join or Die!" them. Even the "Join or Die!" ones will ignore hedge mages who are not powerful, since they are not worth the time and effort (never mind the potential of becoming a laughing stock for bringing such poor beings into the Order).
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You simply let on that your master passed you when you have established the proper relationship with a covenant to join. It's not like they typically ask for a letter of reference.
The tl;dr of this entire thread appears to be that getting a foot in the door is amazingly easy, but maintaining the cover for any length of time would be very difficult indeed.
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Then, of course, is the question of response, which could be slow and painful, swift and painful, fatal, humiliating, entertaining, educational, cautionary, or several combinations of those.
There is an entire rpg based on such a setting (not Mythic Europe): Paranoia.
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1431855571439.pdf
It is out for decades in different versions already.
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Yeah, paranoia's a classic, we have someone in my group that makes one-shots from time to time.
I guess @Cyborg accurately summed up the discussion.
Apparently, anyone could try it, even non gifted people, given sufficient basic knowledge of the order, but then the real deal is fitting in, and that's when the character's skills, knowledge and powers, influence their longevity in the order.
I thank all of you for this wonderful talk! I've learned a lot and i hope you all did as well.
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I have a question that follows from this statement. I have always assumed it's the Parma Magica that stops the effects of the Gift and not magic resistance in general. So a knight that carries a holy relic will have magic resistance, but still feel the negative social effects of the Gift. Does anyone play this differently?
I agree. It is also evident from the fact that some magic creatures have a virtue not to react badly to the Gift, and that would be nonsense if their might sufficed.
If blocking the social effects of the Gift was something done by all Magic Resistance rather than just the Parma Magica, it would be mentioned in the write-up of Magic Resistance rather than specifically in the write-ups of Parma Magica and the Gift.
AM5, p.76 when talking about the social effects of the Gift says "The Parma Magica blocks these effects (negative social) of The Gift entirely. A maga with a Parma Magica is not bothered by the Gifts of other magi, although other people are still bothered by her Gift. This effect may have been as valuable as magic resistance in aiding the foundation of the Order"
If Magic Resistance blocked the social effects of the Gift, it would be stated in places like this instead of specifically the Parma Magica. However at every location in the core book discussing blocking the social effects of the Gift, it is Parma Magica rather than Magic Resistance which is mentioned.
All Hermetic Magi have Magic Resistance from their Forms even without the Parma Magica. Yet it is the Parma Magica which is always singled out as blocking the negative effects of the Gift.
Otherwise there would be little problem teaching a group of Gifted apprentices together if MR was enough.
Even more, the core book has discussions of how creatures of the Infernal (p. 196) and Divine (p. 198) Realms are affected by the Gift. Which would have been much less relevant if their MR just blocked it.
I like the idea of an non-mage mundane, posing as a wandering mage. and visit covenants for a good living. I will use such an npc for my round an see what happens.
He will be a failed apprentice (he failed very early an was kicked out of the covenant of his master in another tribunal - so nobody remember him). As ex-apprentice he knows enough stuff about the order, magic, rules, behaviour, etc. to blend in.
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I like that.
It is worth reading the discussion in Antagonists under the papal legate out to make an alliance with OoH. Your story hook is excellent if the Order is fairly open about its existence. Some sagas will have the Order so secretive that they would never kick a failed apprentice out, but rather forbid him to leave for fear of leaking secrets.
Good Input, txs.
Luckely we don't play ars magica the masquerade. Especially not the players, they always leek to much informations to others. I would say, even if the order try to hide, they will be known - maybe not as an order, but that "there are strange peoples living, dont mess with them ..." and over such rumors you can find convenants - just listen to the local gossip.
Anyway - the apprentice was young and the first years still living in the covenant. but had really nothing to do, he miss his apprentice status and never found a new way. the mages of the covenant simply forgot about him (looking at my players this has a 100% probability). Then he simply sneaked out, was not really missed, and try to live a mundan life. But he never found his way in the mundane world.
First he try to talked to others about the mages, but nobody believed a young unknown person (or don't want to believe him) - hmm, i should give him the flaw magical air.
So he moved away.
Later he thought, "if i can nobody tell about the order with getting something for it, then let this knowledge give me inside the order a good life" - the culprit was born.
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Sadly, I have also observed that there are a lot of players who leak some game information and I think that is really sad. It just ruins the experience for new players and spoils everything.