Ahh...Ancient Magic. A glorious book about.. uh.. ancient.. magical... things... uh. Hmm. I don't own that book.
In this case I can change Oliverius a bit leaving out the Mechanica of Heron part. What do you think silveroak?
If you're interested in the Mechanica of Heron, I suggest that Oliverius's apprentice finds those books and goes hog-wild. I do own the HoH:MC book, so I can at least play around with Automata (and learn how they work) but since the mentor characters aren't the long-term focus, it's cooler for Arduino to pick up the weird stuff. 
ancient magic without the book sounds fun :>
all you would do is investigate items for insight, which would lead you to specific spells or devices you would need to invent, then suddenly you develop new virtues. And without the book you would be researching as blindly as your character...
but if you would rather you can change the background accordingly, though in that case he would need a new motivation to come to PO from Verde.
Well, I don't know the mechanics, and would need someone to give me information/suggestions on how to handle pretty much the entire process. >.< But really, its whatever you prefer for that. I'm willing to ruin things for you... or to you know, have a tutorial on researching old broken things.
getting insight involves studying a potential source (old books, items, or a teacher- if it is ancient magic presumably a ghost or other supernatural entity) and rolling magic theory+int with a target of 18. If you reach the target you are given a spell or enchantment that you can produce in order to get breakthrough points equal to the magnitude. When you get enough breakthrough points the gnomes steal your underwear and world domination... er you get a new hermetic virtue related to what you were studying.
If you don't know the mechanics I prefer to left the Mechanica of Heron discovery to Arduino and make some changes to Oliverius' background.
silveroak regarding Oliverius I'm thinking to replace the Driven flaw with Ambitious and the Magical Friend flaw with Grudge (HoH: Mystery Cults p.136).
In this scenario Oliverius left Verdi for the bitter rivalry with another resident wizard, who has hampered him several times over the last few years exploiting the greatest weight he has within the Covenant.
Oliverius choose Praesidium Orae as his new home because is an ascending Covenant rich in Vis and mundane wealth, located not too far from Verdi where his enemy still dwell.
In fact, Oliverius has not forgotten and waits for the best time to repay the attentions he receives, randomly questioning his apprentice on Verdi's news and hoping to get some useful information.
Works for you?
Hi all!
Once again, a storm heads my way IRL. Probably won't have any connection Wednesday on, and it's difficult to predict how long it will be since I can be online again. Best case scenario, Saturday. Be safe, hope it doesn't affect anyone else!
that works for Oliverius
Ok, raccoonmask and silveroak I updated the Oliverius wiki page with the new background and flaws.
Also, any time a mixed-house covenant doesn't have any Verditius, it's usually VERY happy to have a Verditius. For some reason. No idea why, they're all mad as hatters.
Go ahead and fill in Oliverius, it looks like both Ouragon's and Taurus old labs are available...
Arduino can start as well, but they need to be filled in quickly or started in 1123.
I'm really beginning to suspect that I have a problem... I think Ars Magica is making me addicted to spreadsheets. I just spent the day making a lab spreadsheet for Oliverius. SO many if/then statements.
I haven't added a menu for Arduino yet, but I have a functional labwork spreadsheet!
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing
You don't want to know how many spreadsheets I have for this game alone. and most of them are in excel because google spreadsheets doesn't have enough functionality for me.
One thing I do want to mention- once a Jinn has been located you can always re-negotiate with it in later years. Of course given travel times you might still use that adventure towards finding more Jinn, but that will give you a bit more room for building up your Jinn quest points.
Hi silveroak, duly noted. The difficulty lies in building Sihr up to 20 and beyond, so 20 Might jinn are as high as she can possibly bind at the moment, even with Confidence.
Hey guys.
I'm posting here in response to the Praesidium Orae looking-for-players thread. I've got my own looking-for-game post as well.
Checking to see if you've still got room for another player. I'm very flexible in terms of concepts.
Thanks!
there is certainly room, you can either make an apprentice for one of the currently available masters to teach or if you want a house not yet represented you can make both master and apprentice - though you will not wind up playing your own master...
or of course you could start with a companion...
Just as a quick double-check: Exposure xp can benefit from affinity, yes? It counts as a study total?