I’m looking to build an Ex Misc Holy Magus, a follower of Sol Invictus, for my current saga, and I was hoping to make sure I understood exactly how it worked. Per the Divine book, someone with True Faith can learn the favored abilities of their tradition without taking the virtues. Does this mean I don’t need the Holy Magic virtue to start with Holy Magic rather than Magic Theory by RAW? If not, can a faithful character be created with points in any of the favored abilities without the virtues by RAW? Finally, while this is likely a conversation to have with the troupe, is there anything written about what the Invictine consider to be sins, given that a Holy Magus cannot use their magic to sin?
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In game terms I do not believe any sins are specified for sol Invictus, though a lot of Ars Magica source material treats sin as an objective rather than religion dependent concept. Historically the cult of Sol Invictus existed in a polytheistic nation, and its members would regularly worship other deities as well. Morality was defined at that point more by culture than which deity (or deities) you worshiped. A lot of mystery cults had additional proscriptions, but since sol Invictus was a national cult rather than a mystery cult it had none.
The idea of a cult of sol Invictus surviving to the 13th century is probably less historically grounded than the possibility of a cult to just about any other ancient god you could name surviving, but it is canon, and very lightly documented in game. What is documented (for example being considered monotheistic) is contrary to the historical record, so you are kind of in a “whatever you want to build” area with your troupe. It could imitate the local (supposedly universal) concepts of morality, or it could echo Roman concepts of morality from whichever period you decide they should be derived from (they were not constant throughout history. Over the centuries of Roman culture ideals of behavior shifted.
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That’s kind of what I figured, I think I’ll likely end up making a Christian-like, but significantly more martial set of morals.
If you are designing your character with extremely detailed character generation, where you know what their master taught them every season, with True Faith you could easily justify them having gained 5 xp in any of the Favored Abilities of the tradition, and thus effectively learning any or all of the Supernatural Abilities associated with those Virtues. If you’re imagining their master taught them, you could justify your character learning any of the Divine Methods and Powers, or even other divine or magical Supernatural Abilities the same way, as long as the character could gain enough xp in one season to offset the penalties.
For most characters, however, you just take the virtues, because most troupes don’t want to do all of that overhead at the beginning of a saga. 
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This is exactly what I’m looking for, thanks. I’ll see if the troupe wouldn’t mind doing extremely detailed creation.
A point about detailed creation, it will make generally stronger, but “flatter” characters. Why? Normal creation you just have points to spend. PIayers know getting to level 5 or 6 in an art in play is easy (1 season), while getting 15 - 21 XP when the art is level 10 or more starts to be challenging, so many players will focus on a technique and art to be good at, and round out the others arts in play.
In detailed creation, if the choice is to read a summae and get an art from 0 to 6, or get 8 XP in another art, the benefit of having level 5-6 in lots of arts so one can do some simple sponts often, is compelling, as is 13 more XP.
If the magi are being made in the same covenant, they have access to the same library, which will drive skills down the same line.
I am not saying don’t do extremely detailed creation. I am saying be aware of the quite large changes to characters that will occur.
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Understood, thanks for the advice.
I half agree with that.
There are 2 creation optimizations that exist:
- You can read 4 Roots of the Arts and get 60+ xp in a single year after that saga starts. You are leaving 30 xp on the table if you read them during a 30 xp year. This means you want Arts at 0 to get the most out of that.
- You can cap a (secondary) Art without needing the right Summa in your new covenant.
If you go with Extremely Complex Character Generation (p55), you won’t be penalized by reading a Root early. You’ll want to read “missing” Summae during your apprenticeship.
Still, I’d rather use the standard detailed character creation but give a free 5 xp for every Art that reaches score 5. That way you get the equivalent of 3 Roots in a 30 xp year.