As one of the magi in question from the Dread Comedian's saga the situation may be normalizing.
I admit when I read the table of contents my impression was that this was just not going to work. My character has about as much interest in "beautiful" living as...interacting with our Flambau or trapsing near Nocti's tower.
So I was surprised at how well he does fit into Jerbiton. He isn't a lab rat, he thinks that if God gives you a long life you should live it, not huddle in a tower accumulating "power" for no better reason then having power. So that is a check.
He enjoys traveling so check.
Of course Byz isn't a bad city but it has not much going on Barcelona, and really Rome is where it should be at. So check sort of, visiting Byz, no problem why not?
So my character takes "Brutal Artist" and drops the flaw about his Parens which fits better anyway. His "Art" is war and at this time he fits in not at all. He could care less that he is not welcome in the various "sewing circles" which make up his house. He appreciates fine art, good wine (non-existant in the dreary place he finds himself), beautiful women (eeespecially red heads; Wales's only redeeming quality), fast horses, magnificient hosptitality (a concept that keeps tripping him up with Fey), a well balanced sword, a spirited charge and any number of others things which don't equate to vis sources and musty tomes. But he sees no reason to sit around discussing them, which is about as fulfilling as entombing yourself in a tower for a hundred years. He does enjoy discussing Caeser's campaigns against the gauls and that absolutely wonderful last charge that routed the Heathens. Again I think that is check sort of.
The character is a noble hence the choice of him as an apprentice. Check.
Mentam is a strong secondary Art for the character but I have limited number of spells that use it (1). I need to learn Perdo just for PeMe (you forget what you just saw), to go with my ReMe (you do what I say). Imaginem gives some potent battle field applications. So check (if not exactly typcial).
Pacafism is out for the character. He is a bit sick of war at the moment but that is largely due to two years of fighting in the Reconquesta and seeing far to much death incidental to the fact. Did we really need to burn that village to the ground?
He rarely (read next to nearly never) uses his hermetic name. Check sort of.
He isn't much into subtle manipulation. He tried that with the Flambeau and it turned out badly.
At any rate, after some thought Jerbiton fits still without too much shoehorning. While it is to late to change things if an edit is ever considered "beautiful living" should be modified to some other phrase.
I was not expecting the character would fit based on what the table of contents led me to expect. I was astounded that the character still works, and happy as well.
I can't comment on the other character who might have more difficulty fitting in.
But the chapter as a whole is interesting but as we are a few hundred years before the setting a lot of it is just useful for getting a feel for the house itself. A bunch of self centered popinjays would likely sum up my characters view of most of his nominal housemates who would likely respond with comments about barely literate thugs with a deluded sense of their worth and the sublty of a blacksmith.
