Some few faeries do age, which is one of the drivers of the changeling phenomenon: they can make themselves young again by being tended as a baby for a time. The rest seem ageless, yes, although some do die of natural causes, Pan for example, during the Silencing of the Oracles.
You find somewhere that I said the rules are broken? I said I didn't like them and I explained why.
My interest in this topic is precisely that future products could assume every little rabbit born in a magic aura ends up immortal. Or they could not work that way, because its a virtues/flaws sort of thing. I would like to convince the writers of a later bestiary or other book with magical animals in it that it only the big bad high Might creatures or those things that are spirits should be immortal by default.
But I guess feedback like that is whining. So noted.
That's not the rule in RoP: Magic. I tried to point out to you that it is the creator of the creature who decides whether a creature is immortal or not. The storyguide/troupe can give the creature Ages Quickly and Susceptible to Deprivation. This is not a house rule. It's accounted for in the rules as written. If all Magic creatures were immortal, there would be no need for either of these Flaws. You ignored this fact and continued to lambast the author for selecting the default for magical creatures as immortal and belittled my suggestion to alleve your problem as a "house rule."
I'm sorry if I offended you, but I don't see the point of arguing against this strawman construct. If you are going to ignore the rules and argue against something that isn't even required by the rules, that's just silly in my view.
You are right that its not /required/ that all creatures of magic be immortal. But its a flaw if they are not. The usual perception is that the default option does not include any particular flaw. As a result, it seemed likely to me that as written, future products would tend towards making magical creatures immortal. I don't recall seeing a section with guidelines on deciding what sorts of creatures ought to have what sorts of flaws or how common Ages Quickly is. Now you can say "that's up to the Storyguide", but the storyguide isn't the only one writing Ars Magica material. What's going to be the expectation in future Tribunal books, Bestiaries, Adventures, etc? I'm hoping not "totally haphazard" or "I guess its not immortal because I need more flaws".
Btw, I vehemently object to the suggestion I "lambasted" anyone. I have never said anything derogatory about another poster, author or otherwise. I don't know what posts you are reading, but they apparently aren't mine. I haven't even "attacked" this idea, unless you think 'I'll probably do it differently' is some sort of scathing onslaught. Even the supposed attack of mine you quoted (which wasn't an attack) was followed immediately by me saying "so I'll just set 'ages quickly' as the default in my campaign".
I don't get what you are reacting to. I already said... before you brought it up... that I was going to handle it in my saga the way you later suggested. What I'm trying to discuss is what is the general consensus....or even better (albeit unlikely)... the Line's official view of how things are envisioned.
The line's official view is up to David, who is off at Grand Tribunal UK, I hear.
I know. Even if David was sitting around staring at the forums all day, I wouldn't actually expect him to make a hard answer to the question. Pleasantly surprising, but certainly not expected. All I was expecting to get was some sort of discussion of the membership on the topic of how people thought it should be handled.
I've been out of this conversation for a long time (just ben busy). But My point was what I said in the last line "The core was written before the relationship between immortality and might became established"
The intention of the familiars rules was to take a creature with might and extend its life to be as log as the life of the magus.
Things have changed since then.
Ok... Just to be a jerk 
If the default was that magical creatures were mortal, with immortality being a virtue, wouldn't you say exactly the same thing?
Or, if you had a list like "dragons are immortals", "magical cats are mortals", wouldn't this be a lot worse?
No, I think there is a meaningful difference between the default being mortal with virtues for unaging and the default being immortal with flaws for aging. Certainly either way the storyguide can make it work out to the same net effect.
Or do you mean: Won't some people prefer it to be the other way no matter which way it is? Doubtless. There's no perfect world. But I do think...and this is just an impression, not a 'fact'.... that the mortal with Unaging option is more similar to how it has been.
As far as lists, something itemized at the level you mention would be pretty silly. IMS, the general rule is going to be something along the lines of "all spirits are immortal, as are most creatures with a Might >30; other creatures will have Ages Quickly/Susceptible to Deprivation by default. Unique individuals can be the exception, as always."
Where no one asked him about this interesting discussion. I did briefly post on the forum, to let Erik now we were trying to get the Live link up and running (we did, hullo California!) but unless anyone in California asked over the link up I don't think we actually know David's opinion yet. He will be back online later this week having returned, and i expect he will comment then; I just wished i had read the forum while GT was still on, but I was utterly exhausted and preoccupied...
cj x
Having finally gotten my own copy of the book in question, I note that familiars will often agree to a bound simply because that keeps them magical (prevents aclimatisation). This would be espesially true for those with high MM.
I also note that it is said that familiars often die about the same time the magus does, but not allways - so I would hold that a familiar doesn't really loose it's imortality, but rather that the magus's death might steal their will to live (as sometimes happens with married couples).
It could also be said that they risk being aclimaticed once the bound is gone.
From the little I have played with magic being creation, I stand with John Post: Age Quickly and Susceptible to Deprivation are much welcome when it comes to designing your creature and giving it all the "expected" virtues. Look at the sections on animals in Mystery Cults and check what virtues they are supposed to have. Unlike basic Qualities, you have to pay for them.
Now, beasts of virtue, for example, are prohibited any flaw that are contrary to making them the archetype of their species. It is also suggested that personality flaws are often inappropriate (set personality traits instead).
In essence, all that moving the default immortality status to "mortal" is doing is shifting the virtue/flaw balance and thus the overall power level of your beasties. It's not really making any statement about whether most magical beings are immortal or not. I'll even dare assume that the authors have accounted for that in the "standard" number of virtues and flaws they suggest at each power level.