Say a magus wants to use fertility magic to conceive two gifted twins or three gifted triplets, ignoring for a moment the lab total they would need to do this may be almost impossible, what do you think the fertility “component” costs would be? How would you price this conception in the mechanical terms of fertility ritual creation?
Obviously you’d need Giftedx2/3, so 6 or 9 points for that.
Would triplets be as simple as 3 appearances that are all defined to be identical?
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Given that Fertility Rituals are specific to each child, there's a number of approaches that could be taken:
1.) Multiple rituals in succession; the ritual itself takes only half an hour and two fertile parents. However, the ritual has to take place 'during conception' (not 'during sex'), so it seemingly requires the mother to be in estrus. While hermetic magic can't create female sperma (read: ovum), ReCo magic might be able to cause the mother to release more sperma than normal to make multiple successive conceptions happen. The amount of effort you want to spend making the children look identical is up to you, but otherwise you'd end up with fraternal rather than identical twins. You'd want multiple different rituals to avoid Corrupt Fertility Rituals, of course.
2.) You could specify one of the traits (probably minor) as 'twins' and split the factors between them. So twins (1+1), both with The Gift (3+3) would be 8 points and require a lab total of 80 (or 40 if the mother is performing the ritual). This is less supported under the rules, given that Fertility Rituals are supposed to be specific to the child, not the 'conception' per se. IMO this is a short cut in terms of time and vis to get multiple Gifted children, though the lab total is fairly rough, so I'm on the fence as to whether I'd allow it, though to be honest getting 2 Gifted children is less beneficial than getting 1 Gifted child with a specific Major and 2 specific minor virtues - but if those children end up being PCs that does not matter. Given it's one ritual and designed to produce twins, it's probably going to avoid Corrupt Fertility Ritual.
3.) Fertility Magic might not be set up to support this. Twins/Triplets are biologically undesirable, as they put the mother at greater risk and require more resources at one time when born. From a hermetic perspective, adding risk to the process is risking both the time and vis spent doing the ritual, though obviously hermetic magic can smooth the process for the mother significantly. And Fertility Magic is child specific, so it seems to be set up for single births, but I can see the argument that it 'should' be able to produce twins/triplets on demand if that's what is desired. It's possible that you could not split the traits among offspring, so that you design for one child, add traits to produce extra offspring, but the extras don't get the virtues specified. Or that they do, but they get Corrupt Fertility Ritual, being effectively duplicates by default.
Overall my recommendation to players would just be to make babies one at a time and keep things simple.
I would probably go with option 2. Option 1 is related to science that would be quite anachronistic and limited to a single ritual per sex act/time of conception seems appropriate to me.
Also, the whole point is twins or triplets and their supposed magical power and whatnot. Whether this is reflected in any rules or not is inconsequential to the "mythic" idea. And since help with birthing, magical and mundane, is easy to come by for Magi the increased risks of pregnancy and childbirth are fine.
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Option 2 is the most difficult in terms of Lab Total (basically an 80 to get in the door with twins, 120 with triplets), unless a young maga somehow gets Fertility Magic quite young.
I guess option one depends on how twins arise in Mythic Europe. Looking at Art & Academe, multiple births happen when the male sperma enters multiple chambers of the woman's womb (which has 7 chambers!), so sequential impregnation seems quite possible. And apparently hermetic magic CAN create sperma, just can't unite male and female sperma, or at least the sperma that hermetic magic makes can't create children? The limit of the soul is in there somewhere, probably.
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So I really was serious about "don't worry about the lab total required" and the maga was going to teach the children the Hermetic virtues so Apt Pupil is the only other virtue I'd definitely want to give them.
switch the target to group for a set of twins/triplets? Obviously identical...
Does the Fertility Ritual have a RDT? Because Longevity Rituals don't have one either. I mean, you could assume it's Touch/Mom/Ind but I doubt you can alter it like a hermetic spell, any more than you could a Longevity Ritual.
You might not be able to alter it as easily as a spell/normal ritual, but an additional Breakthrough allowing it "effectively" be Target: Group is a possibility. Sure it requires an additional breakthrough (and SG allowance), but it is a valid possibility.
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Certainly, breakthroughs let you do a lot of things.
How about granting a virtue such as Minor Magical Focus (your own twin) or a flaw along similar lines such as Necessary Condition / Restriction? Note that this might not necessarily guarantee both kids inherit the same virtue, and a storyteller would be well within his rights to say such a twin is a grog or companion-level character (or arguably, refuse the virtue/flaw as inappropriate), but it seems to me that if the virtue/flaw is accepted by the gamemaster, it would at least guarantee there is a twin. Possibly Magical (Being) Companion could bring a magic human to life as the twin of the gifted child. After all, Fertility Magic is clear that it can make a giant-blooded or faerie-blooded child without either of the parents sharing those virtues or relevant ancestry.
As I stated above, the whole point is them being gifted. Yes, I am aware that this will mean I am training three apprentices over the same 15 year period. That part is fine by the SG, paying for the Gift virtue three times, etc The main question was by current rules how would you price twins/triplets as a character feature along the same lines of defining their sex or their appearance? Due to the use of the daimon I linked to above performing the actual ritual the lab total is really no object but anything that involves original research into expanding fertility magic is out.
I was answering by my reading of the rules. Fertility magic doesn't explicitly allow you to become pregnant with twins or triplets, but I think the above virtues and flaws may be a way to go in that direction by RAW. Now it seems to me that you and your storyteller have already decided this is possible, so yes, I guess my suggestions are moot. As to your specific follow-up questions, no, I would not charge for similar appearance multiple time. This is only relevant if you care that the twins or triplets have a specific gender or look. Also, it seems to me that, with the Daimon you linked above, you can give her suggestions as a theurge as to what you'd like, but she'll make the decision in the end. Sounds like it's mostly in the hands of your storyteller what happens next.