Super lovely magi come first and stinky lowlife companions second - hehe
In this case Nicholas will of course back off immediately. Neither does he want to make enemies, nor does he think he has any right for anything in the covenant. And... he was curious who the eagle was that the birds of the mountain were speaking of, he will certainly not get into conflict with him.
Still sad, because it would have been a brilliant fit for a falconry and its falconer.
P.S. I wouldn't mind the best friends thing at all. Still I don't think sharing the top of the rotunda would be an option - didn't sound like a lot of space up there.
stinky, lowlife what a fabulous welcome 
I am sure if Nicholas aids Arni in installing desired Focus/Features, etc... he'll be thought of as less stinky and not as low! 
All meant in jest and hopefully taken as so. It is my strange English sense of humour - lol
No worries...
I know quite well I was ranting. My impression stays however, that "animal handling" professions are nothing but a huge pain in the a**. If I am wrong and you have a clear picture of the differences I'd be happy to learn though.
What does it take in total to train a falcon for hunt?
Taming, increase loyalty (as far as I see fit), does hawking require training? If so, what amount of training is advisable?
[tab][/tab] Again you are confusing two separate actions. You find, you tame, maybe increase loyalty. Then the falcon is ready to go. When hunting with it, use Falconry. Teaching it 'tricks' is a different aspect, one not normally done with birds of prey. Hunting comes naturally to the bird, its instinct. In real life, some species are trained permanently, others last only a little while. In conclusion just need falconry to do all that, in one package. Is the character finished? Should I go over him again?
The books disagree though.
[url]Animal handling vs. Profession: Falconer/Marshall/Kennel...]
We agreed that I don't need Profession: Falconry for training, right?
If you say I can do all that with falconry I should think about dropping animal handling completely...
... although I tend to keep it this way as it would be quite narrow...
... maybe just flipping the scores though. We would still need a house rule that replaces animal handling for falconry for the full scope of finding, grooming, taming birds of prey...
There should be no change since you last looked at it.
I think we should get clarity on the animal handling vs. Profession: Falconry matter. Outcome might affect some scores. Other than that Nicholas should be ready (and is quite eager to get on stage).
Question to raven Form characteristics: should that be Pre +1 from Nicholas instead -1?
What? No, animal forms have nothing to do with character stats. Its a very complicated process and very detailed one, from HoH:MC in the Bjornaer part.
In detail: Size is -4. Mental stats are for bird ( Cun -1, Per +2, Pre -1, Com -2), substituting Cunning with Character Intelligence score. Then you get 7 points spent on 4 physical stats, add size to Quickness, reduce/raise Strength by sizex2. Crows add to Com from Mimicry and Vocal traits, 1 to Per from Keen Eyesight, and none to Int from Crafty cause we are using your characters trait. Your magical companion should be similar but will have some differences...
Ok, fine. Never looked much into the details. Intuition thought something along physical from animal, other from human. Obviously intuition can be quite wrong... 
What about the falconry vs. animal handling stuff?
Posted on another thread, hope it makes sense? How about Animal Handling 2 and Falconry 4 instead?
That's what I thought as well.
Hey eldarin!
Wanted to let you know for your intro adventure and getting to know the Magi, Anna is Gentle Gifted, and Scylax has a lesser version of this that affects only those attuned to the Magic Realm (think Nicholas is). So those could be more normal interactions.
Thanks, but Nicholas is in general a bit shy and not too much worried about the strange magi in particular. He is and was exposed to a minimum amount of magic already in the end.
In addition Nicholas is not really a "Magical Being" as per the inoffensive virtue of Scylax and Raven was part of the description of weird sages...
I suppose someone will approach Nicholas at some point in time and until then he is probably interacting with animals and covenfolk only.