As regards the Cat, it won't occur to Gregorius to take her on his own, and he'd probably want a good reason before he took her on a mission to go and investigate the barrows. If you've got one, have her suggest coming IC.
Alternatively, Gregorius is definitely taking Alcimus. He may also take a few of the grogs (could potentially be any of the vaguely plausible ones), so if you want to play any of those, go for it.
On the Barrows thread, I'm thinking about slightly delaying the expedition to the end of the season and spending the first 80 days developing a version of Lay to Rest the Haunting Spirit - when it comes down to it, it is pretty silly going into a barrow unable to affect incorporeal enemies. I don't think there are currently any obvious time constraints that'll make that an issue(?)
We've also got a new player in the process of creating a character--but don't worry about that PC for the purpose of the current threads, as I'll deal with him in my own story.
She really doesn't need a reason, permission, approval, or anything like that...she'll come along because she's curious, and won't bother mentioning to Gregorius ahead of time that she's coming. Depending on her mood and how dangerous she thinks it's likely to be, she might even bring her kitten. (Well, she'll bring a--by this point, she has several litters of somewhat magical kittens/cats running around. The covenant does not have a vermin problem.)
Bear in mind that the Barrows presumably aren't right next to the covenant (although I'm not sure exactly where they are) - is she going to trek across the countryside on her own initiative?
Having just now read amul's latest post in the Barrows thread, looks like they are next to the covenant after all (amul? Am I understanding that right?)
One day, if Gregorius ever gets a talisman (relatively unlikely given his flaws), I can see him imbuing it with the set of the following enchantments:
Cr(In)Me(Vi)
This enchantment triggers whenever the supernatural aura changes, and forms words in its master's mind with the (new) level of the [Realm] supernatural aura.
(Base 3 (+ 1 complexity?) = 3/4, +3 lvls environmental trigger, + X levels usage.)
It's the only example of the canoncial "change in aura" environmental trigger I can remember seeing - it's almost always sunrise/sunset. It's also sufficiently low level that Gregorius would probably be able to enchant it even given his Weak Enchanter flaw. Whether it's worth the time is a different question, although for a scout it might be.
Wouldn't that need multiple versions to detect the various kinds of aura? I still think it earns greater Cool Points if the talisman somehow changes to reflect the current aura, as with the CrIg/InVi lamps that Patrick's made. Though a MuTe shift in a gemstone color would be good too. Hrm....or even a ReAq movement within a glass vial.....
Still, the notion of using the InVi as a trigger in an enchantment seems like the way to go.
The current build is based on the idea that you'd have four essentially identical enchantments, one for each realm.The talisman changing requires you to notice it doing so, although avoids the annoyance of having the voice in your mind when you know full well you're crossing aura boundaries (I'm umming and erring whether unlimited uses is actually desirable for pretty much that reason - at least if you put in a finite number you can exhaust them if you want to. Also, when you don't want to.
So...I could pretty easily go hog wild throwing Vis sources into every new location which I bSG for. I can think of three or four right now for the necropolis. We should probably put some kind of limit on how many I'm allowed to introduce, or give me some guidelines for when it is appropriate.
Allowing the SG to maintain the element of surprise should he so desire, and also allowing the magi's thoughts to be free from interference. Plus, I like the relative analog scale better for knowing aura strengths. The numbers are a mechanical necessity, but I prefer to think of it all as approximations.
I really don't want Patrick to go after the herd established for the Temple regio. That's part of Viola's storyline, and I'm the one who came up with their backstory. But I can certainly go looking into all the others, and maybe just say that Patrick doesn't run into that particular herd?
I suspect those horses may have multiple backstories by now (they had a backstory written by Arya when I gm-ed the horse-hunt). That said, given that neither have yet come up in play, it's probably not a problem, and the previous backstory can be quietly dropped.