The powers that be raise a good point, but just remember that in terms of Hermetic politics, Parma solves those issues. So it depends on what you're looking to do is all!
If you just need a sounding board, you're more than welcome to drop me a PM. Perspective sometimes helps.
Thanks Andern. One of my issues is choice paralysis, as there are so many cool characters to create 
tricky to settle on just one.
Regarding the penalties from the Blatand Gift, and the regular gift to be honest, do spells like Aura of Ennobled Presence which gives a bonus to rolls to influence others, effectively offset penalties for the spell's duration?
Oh don't I know? Trust me, been there.
So it'll help, but it won't totally offset the penalty. The penalty is more than the mechanical -3, it's how people look at you, how much they trust you, how will they are to deal with you etc. As memory serves, there's a fairly decent chart explaining the differences between the three types of Gift in the core book somewhere.
So yes, you can use magic to help, but you're still... odd to most folks.
Yes, spells like AoEP do work with the Blatant Gift, effectively reducing its effect from -6 to -3 for the specific purpose of the spell (e.g., to influence, lead, or convince others for AoEP). But it remains -6 for all other purposes.
Sorry about the delay on working on things, it was a busier week than I anticipated.
I'm presently teasing out a new idea and I hope to have something posted soon.
I'm basing the character off of the Elemental Magic Virtue. While it's not an exceptional Virtue, I realized a bit of hack that might make it overpowered, and wanted to check in before I proceeded. Every time you gain an xp in one Form, you gain it in the other three as well. If I were to use my correspondence to study Aquam, gaining 1 per season, I would theoretically gain one in the other three as well, every season.
I doubt this would be game-breaking, but wanted to check in.
No problem. Better to get it done right than to get it done quick.
Thanks! I just edited my above post with a question you may have missed.
Actually, the Virtue is a bit more narrow than that. It states that "[w]henever you successfully study one of these Arts (that is, gain at least one experience point from study), you gain an additional experience point in each of the other three." (ArM 5 core rule book, p 41, emphasis added.)
So it's limited to xp gained from study. You don't get the extra xp in any other circumstance, such as when you advance because of adventure xp, learning from a teacher, or correspondence.
That makes sense! It doesn't seem to be too strong a virtue, and I saw a house rule that could be interesting, although feel free to say no. Essentially what it does is that for the purpose of magic resistance, if your spell has requisites, the weaker magic resistance of your target in all arts used is taken in account. If I were to invent a spell such as Pilum of Lava CrIg(Aq) 20, then my target would use their Aq resistance rather than Ig ... a small change boost perhaps, but flavourful in an otherwise modest Virtue.
It's sort of unfortunate that it takes up the Major Hermetic slot ... any chance you'd let me take is as the Ex Misc Major Virtue, in addition to a Greater Focus in Weather? If this seems to strong, that's okay.