So, Mercurian magic gives you discount on rituals, say 5 to 10 every year for a very heavy ritualist.
You also get the wizards communion, which is all fun and games, if you are among kind. If you teach your sodales the communion, they won't be able to help your rituals, or at least, help you get a discount.
For this, you pay your major virtue, and have a more limiting backdraft than even weak spontaneous magic.
If you look at is sec, it is worth about a major virtue without the built-in flaw, or am I overlooking things?
Not that I am not happy with having it, but the setback is quite hefty in comparison with other virtues.
Well, if your a player with a style that heavilly favors spontaneous magic, then it is a huge hinderence. But some players do not care that much for sponting. And, since you can still cast ceremonially, you can still manage some pretty powerful sponts. The benefit is that you save a lot of vis. You will be the one casting the Aegis and other covenant rituals, people will seek out your services, and you can lead a grand communion that will yeild massive penetration results.
It depends on what your character plans to do with his Mercurian Magic.
His strengths lie in ritual magic... so maybe he boosts all his attributes cheaply using CrCo and CrMe. All 5s.... yum.
He's a great healer.
Mercurians like having Mercurian buddies. Even without some other virtue, other Mercurians will be in contact with him, asking for favors (help out with this big spell) and being on tap (now it's my turn to initiate into a mystery).
Speaking of initiation, he starts the game with a group of sorts! And who better than a bunch of Mercurians to help each other become Daimons? (They pay less vis too!)
He's the one casting the Aegis. Not exciting stuff, but maybe the excitement can come from elsewhere in the character.
Mercurian Magic combines well with Mystical Choreography (the virtue that reduces ceremonial magic to 1 minute per magnitude), but also combines will with flaws that further nerf spontaneous magic (Chaotic Magic + Weak Spontaneous Magic ).
Not my favorite virtue, I admit, except for specialized builds.
I am going to seek out this magical choreography thing, in which book is it? I have no qualms about a little more casting time, but it is a tad ridiculous this way.
About the initiates thing, for my social character that will give a bunch of hooks to get to powerful magi, tranks for that tip again!.
I was investing in corpus and have a nice rounded techniques score (all 5, rego 9), had this character build aroud revi, so the aegis was mine already, the healing rituals are adding up as well, and I procured a lab text of the shrouded glen for in the far future. The rituals to increase stamina are not all that hard early on, will look into them soon enough (I think it is best to first get lower effects, cheaper and easier for the next effect).
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