I imagine even this can get messy quite fast. A few things come to mind immediately:
What if the "missing" magi has stuff that requires ongoing upkeep, like feeding his pet griffon? Or a Vis source that requires regular harvesting, else the unharvested Vis is lost? What is the legal status if some other magi harvests the Vis going to waste - do they get to keep it, or if they hand it over do they get recompensed for their efforts?
Perhaps the Covenant believes in communal property, and you are effectively renting your sanctum space within the Aegis through regular service to the Covenant. And if you do not provide regular service while you are away in Twilight?
Can someone expect to have all their assets preserved, while neglecting debts, obligations and duties?
Can you cite the relevant jewish law, rather than giving a vague allusion to a story that many consider a fake? In any case, what you say would be unthinkable for the vast majority of merchants (of all religions) in 1220 Europe.
Don't get me wrong. If a magus disappears leaving duties and obligations unfulfilled, his sodales may well move in and deal with his "estate", whether to assist him in absentia or as a reparation for losses (or to simply prevent those losses). I gave examples myself, the most obvious one being an "abandoned" apprentice, pointing out that these situations might require a reaction within months rather than years or decades.
But that's sidestepping the main issue. If a magus disappears for two decades leaving no debts or obligations unfulfilled, without explicit provisions or tribunal rulings his stuff remains his stuff. You can't plunder his sanctum, or harvest his vis (if you harvest vis otherwise lost, you can make the point that you are not really depriving him of magical power, but otherwise...) on the basis of "oh, missing is as good as dead".
In our saga, the two elder Archmagus who founded the Covenant have both met an end. One to a messy aging roll and the other to (assumed) final twilight. Each was the parens of a PC magus. It has been over 30 years of since the more recent of the two and yet no one has attempted to "crack" their sanctums.
Our Covenant does use a vis salary, which requires a duty season every year to collect a share of vis. So there is no buildup of vis that can not be used (other than any they might have saved up in their labs). There is a share of silver, though with our current high income total it is not an issue. Most of a given Magus share ends up going to the Covenant to pay for things anyway.
Any Covenant owned books they held in their sanctums have long since been recalled to the library by magic. The two donated any books they wrote to the library so at most there might be an unfinished text.
So breaching their Sanctums would yield some personal (non-magical) property, however much Vis they had stored in their labs, and varies enchanted items (mostly lab improvements). We don't need the space (we have three Sanctum buildings that have never been used), there is no telling what kind of magic security might be in place, and none of the players really feel like kicking in what feels like our parents (actual or symbolic) tombs to get what would be minimal gain.
The typical halachic practice - which also Jacob should have used - is writing a 'git' to the wife, which she can thereafter accept whenever she wishes. Therefore the witnesses are important, because a woman alone cannot stand witness.
Here is a letter from 1204, preserved in the Cairo Geniza and available in translation from the Internet for free:
For a description of the practice of a preventive 'git' before setting out on a journey you also can buy the following article from the Internet - or get it through an academic library:
We are talking about three very different things here.
The letter you are citing is one in which the husband replies to his wife, who's been asking for a divorce upset by his long absences, that he'll accept it with a heavy heart if that's what she really wants.
The practice of "divorce tenders" you then refer to is quite something else. Occasionally, but by no means universally, jews leaving on some voyage on which they might die but their death go unwitnessed would essentially sign a "blank check" of divorce for their wives. The idea was that the wife would know after a set time that the husband would be 99.9% dead - but have no way to prove it. At that time, she could then accept the "divorce offer".
This is drastically different from, and offers no support at all, to your earlier statement:
First, you did not divorce your wife before embarking on a journey. If you returned safely, you were still married.
Second, it was not about the journey being long. It was about a journey having a decent chance of the husband going "missing in action": most likely dead, but unprovably so. In fact, the key idea was that there would be some fairly certain date by which the husband could be presumed dead.
Third, it was by no means a law, nor even a widespread custom. In general, divorce meant that the wife would also release her claims on the husband's support, so it was most often used in the case of complex business arrangements where it would be important to have a certain, timely tool to severe the marriage.
That said, I can very likely see magi willingly entering agreements with their covenants before undertaking some dangerous mission. "If I am not back by Easter next year, presume me dead, and pay a mass for my soul. Let all my earthly possessions go to you, my covenant sodales, for the many years of support and friendship; save for my Talisman that should be burned in the Holy Fire of the temple of Mythras, and my diary that should go to my beloved filia".
Actually, this is the only way of a halachic divorce: the 'git', which the husband provides and the wife accepts.
So Jacob divorced his spouse to save her from ending up an Agunah.
By the Jewish History article above, this practice did depend on the Jewish community.
Absent other guidelines, I suspect that a mage's soldalibus might harvest a registered personal vis source, maintain record, put the vis aside, and include a modest fee for this service. A very smart proxy harvesting magus (who is not vis poor) would not collect this fee until the mage returns or the prescribed term has expired.
I don't think a single person has pushed this idea. Everybody seems to be referring to tribunals ruling someone 'dead' and/or filii/covenants pushing for tribunal rulings to that effect.
Just to confirm the previous claims that nothing is certain.
He could have just teleported to a distant tribunal to meet an old friend.
He could botched something and accidentally teleported to nobody knows where (not even he).
He could have been abducted by a faerie/demon/something.
If he had just left his body behind, you might have had a chance to know something ...
Inheritance rules are not immediately relevant. What matters is rules of absence. What does the covenant charter say about a member who goes AWOL and no longer takes any responsibility for daily affairs?
A possible alternative is that "old" magi tend to avoid taking apprentices and might be faced with social stigma if they do.
A magus with a warping score of 7 would have 1-year Twillight experiences (if he fails the comprehension roll, which is not infrequent, but does not botch it). Using the rough guideline of 2 warping/year post-gauntlet, that would mean a magus who's still training an apprentice 65-70 years (i.e. 130-140 warping points) after his own gauntlet would be considered too old. Which in turn means that only the first half-century after gauntlet would be considered the appropriate age to start the training of new apprentices.
One very positve aspect of this "cultural" assumption is that it reduces the number apprentices a magus has over his lifetime, which in turn is needed to assume that the population of the Order does not grow too explosively.
I agree that old and twilight prone magi are more likely to avoid taking apprentices than making fostering arrangements, even in tribunals where fostering is relieves the magus of their personal teaching obligation.
However, I think there is a lot more individual variation than you suggest.
The Hermetic population is limited by the availability of Gifted children, more than by the availability of masters, and my guess is that they are very unevenly distributed. Many teach none. Some teach half a dozen. Some die young.
A cautious magus can easily go 65-70 years p/g with less than 70 warping points. A reckless magus may pass 140 twilight points long before he is 50.
In canon, the mature magi, about 65-70 years p/g appear to be in their prime. This is the age were I would expect them to train their best students. A couple of decades older, they start being described as old and scarred by twilight. At that point it makes sense to abstain from apprentices.
Even so, old magi tend to avoid twilight by avoiding risk. Several magi are described as never casting a spell for fear of twilight. One could imagine these magi training apprentices to cast their spells for them, and many of them would never care about stigma. I agree that these magi may not be the ideal masters, and stigma is quite plausible.
In any event, accidents happen, and while the stigma you suggest makes a lot of sense at the point where long twilight episodes are obviously likely, I don't think it will kick in until such an episodes has first been observed.
The one I was suggesting was just a possibility. I agree there would be a lot of variation. Even the stigma I mentioned might be mild or non-existent, and might not deter the truly motivated magus.
I sightly disagree. First of all, you want to avoid a long Twilight throughout the time you are training an apprentice, so if there's a social pressure in that sense you should stop taking fresh apprentices well before (15-20 years) being sufficiently warped to have the potential for one, not after having actually had one. After all, you are considered a dangerous driver if you drive well beyond the speed limits, not just after your first accident
Also, I think a magus 65-70 Post-Gauntlet (hereafter PG), i.e. maybe 90-95 years of age, is "in canon" at the end of his prime - which (with a lot of variability) I think might be the two decades from 50 to 70 years post-gauntlet, so perhaps 75 to 95 years of age. That time period is probably (as I was saying, with a lot of variability) that in which you'll train your best and last apprentice. Again, it's one thing to finish training an apprentice when you are 90, it's another to start!
I think "social" ages run a little younger than what you may suggest. Looking at the Rhine, where a magus' "prime" tends to be a little older than that of other Tribunals, we see that:
Handri of Irenicillia (81) is in his prime, Vinaria (97) is no longer, and has in fact had at least a 7-year Twilight.
Urgen (114) was in his prime while he was Primus (between ages 59 and 97).
Murion (98) is towards the end of her prime - her own filius Andrus (61) is preparing to challenge her for Archmage status, and many think that Occultes (72), leader of the Linden Guild would be a better Primus.
Igor Rastvan (101) of Roznov is described as powerful, but already past his prime ("his filii fear that his overwhelming zeal is a symptom of a mind unhinged by Twilight.")
The two senior magi of Tremere in the Rhine are Stentorius of Fengheld (107, admittedly still in his prime albeit at the end of it) and Severicus of Roznov (77).
The leaders of the Apple Guild are Henri La Tour (the leader of Oculus Septentrionalis) and Daria La Gris (the leader of Triamore) and Wilhelm Weiss. We know little of the third, but the first two are described as (early) in their prime, and they are respectively 66 and 67.
Sure, but I did not consider what people should do, but rather what they are likely to do.
In real life, people tend to be slow to admit that they are past their prime. There are enough examples of people who would not even admit it after having experienced the real evidence (e.g. twilight). Most people would be even slower to tell somebody else that they be past their prime. I do not imagine this being very different in Mythic Europe. For this reason alone I expect magi to take apprentices right up to the point where it is blatantly obvious to everyone that they, specifically and individually, should not. Statistically «should not» simply does not cut it.
Looking at Hibernia, I see the three magi at Elk's Run seemingly in their prime, with no evidence to suggest that they near the end of it, aging 87, 92, and 97. I agree that some may be past their prime and some more may see the end of it coming, but some, still, seem to reach a century still in their prime. Variation, and I do not find it appropriate to tell an accomplished magus at a 105 that they are not fit to take an apprentice, and certainly not without specific evidence..
A common problem is that the ages of Magi in the books do not line up with the ages that happen during actual play or large simulations.
All of the simulations over the last two decades have shown that Magi live far longer and are many times more likely to die from a failing Longevity Ritual than Twilight. Across the different types of simulations, the average age of death is the mid 150s (that is total, not PG) with outliers pushing 200 or more. And in general that amount of Magi going into final twilight is in the single digit % of the total "dying".
What does this phrase mean? When an LR fails it automatically makes the recipient survive the crisis far as I was aware. Do you mean gaining the 5th decrepitude level?
