Hello everyone,
I'm a prospective new member of the Troupe and the saga. hopefully, things click and we can get some interesting roleplay going 
.
A few notes about the player:
- Most of my AM experience is with 3rd edition, around 20 years ago. I've played some 4th edition as well, but even that was 15 years ago or so.
- I've never stopped roleplaying though, nor had my interest in the setting dwindled - I just didn't have the chance, and only recently discovered this medium.
- Since I am likely to be rusty with mechanics, I welcome suggestions on how to adjust things to make them work better. Generally speaking, I'm more interested in capturing the flavour than in brute force, to the extend that I tend to build underpowered characters - I love broad characters and plentiful skills, and tend to end up not specializing enough. Hints towards possible improvements that do not endanger the "soul" of the character(s) are encouraged.
- I'm a librarian by trade and a historian/anthropologist by interest, so whistle me back if I'm being too nerdy about details. It's a habit that tends to irk most gamers, although I suspect most AM players have a fairly rugged tolerance .
So far, I have a fairly complete character sheet for a Companion, and a sketch for a Magus. I'll present the character ideas here, and if they sound good to the Troupe, I will post their character sheets in seperate threads.
Companion:
Donella filia Mercere
sigil: a stylized pinetree over a sealed scroll
Un-Gifted Redcap with strong fairy blood. Born in the Rhine-Meusel area (Holy Roman Empire) to a couple that knew they had some peculiar forebears. [The bloodline, in fact, was being watched by both Houses Mercere and Merinita for potential mages.] Even so, the parents were rather scandalized when their baby girl had hooves. She was raised on their manor house in the forests a few days outside Trier, where she became friends with the groundskeeper and huntmaster. Her parents' attempts to at least educate her properly was a bit of a lost effort from the start, but at least she learned how to disguise herself and how to talk herself out of problems (she didn't need to be taught how to talk herself into them; that came naturally). Donella is an attractive tomboy, very curious, but a bit shy since there's a lot of world out there and she's had a fairly insular upbringing.
Her apprenticeship was in the Rhine Tribunal, where she traveled extensively in preparation of her Redcap future. Although she has little to no interest in academia at large, she developed a keep interest in the the history of the original bloodlines that make up the Order. As is traditional in the Rhine tribunal, she was invited for the final seasons of her apprenticeship to study with one of the Gilds at a major covenant. Although Durenmar was an option, and expected of her, she chose Crintera, domus magna of House Bjornaer. Her listed reason was that the libraries of Durenmar nor Irencillia had preserved the true teachings of Merinita the Founder, whereas the Hawthorn Gild (strongest amongst the Bjornaer but weakest politically in the tribunal) might. This mostly bemused the Mercere, irked the Bonisagi (who consider her fairly uppity for someone un-Gifted), and rather ticked off the Merinita (who were smarting, anyway, at the perceived loss of an apprentice when the Mercere traced Donella down first).
The political ramifications of the final two seasons of Donella's apprenticeship, combined with a barely hushed-up affair with a senior Bjornaer mage (she should have known better...), means that House Mercere decided she'd make a great addition to the Redcaps serving a tribunal - somewhere else. Someplace where she could settle and grow out of some youthful exuberance perhaps. Hence, her arrival in Scotland on the doorstep of the covenant.
Note: she is, in fact, an excellent messenger, with a great dedication to the Order. It's just that she has trouble containing her opinions when confronted with institutionalised ignorance (as she sees it). One on one she's charming and quite attractive, but she's terrible in committee, and she's lacking more than a little wisdom.
Note two: she would take very great risks indeed to learn of Merinita's Forest mysteries. Due to the particulars of the regio around Crintera, she knows she has a Pine heartshape, although this cannot be awakened, as far as she knows.
Magus
Donal Dubh mac Gillie Brath ("Black" Donald of clan MacGillivray), aka
Carduelis filius Ex Miscellenea
sigil: a stag's head with a finch between the antlers
Scion of a Highland clan that recently has come under pressure from King Alexander II's allies in their native Argyle. They are still holding onto their domain, but the future is uncertain. With the King off adventuring in England, they are likely safe - for now. His family ties are very important to him, and this will manifest somehow - I'm still trying to make up my mind between Feud, Close Family Ties, Enemies, etc.
Several members of the clan have hedge-magical abilities (all tied to the Magic domain), which they treat fairly matter-of-factly (although they are just as skittish around flamboyant displays of magical power as any mundane). In Donal's case this was a bit more obvious than usual, and he was noticed by a disciple of Pralix, and introduced to the Order. [His magic follows the rules for the Rusticani].
Carduelis is an expert woodworker and carpenter. He's trying to get to grips with this new approach to magic that people are trying to teach him - in his family, it always kind of developed naturally as one got better at their craft. It doesn't help that his Latin is yet of dubious quality, although he's trying to get better at it. Thank goodness he knew how to read and write already.
In time, he will likely develop an interest in magical languages, and some of the things he's heard of the abilities of Welsh magi means he'd like to visit there someday.
Note: I am strongly considering Exotic Casting as a Virtue. He has a preference for writing in Goidelic (the rootlanguage of Scots, Irish and Manx Gaelic) as well.
Well, let me know what you all think of it. The Companion idea has quite a lot of detail already (I've got more written down on a character sheet), but the Magus is still pretty sketchy, and I could easily develop something else, if you feel that it wouldn't mesh well with the local Verditius magus (maga?).
) you might want to figure out her Characteristics. Those are kind of important 
.