Which will make things so much easier for me when the time come to give names to locals! 
No hundreds of locals named Bob? Damn.
I really like the vis source. It is different from what I expected, and it contains an oak :mrgreen: Anything with "oak" in its description is good, as well all know 
Now, if we can talk with that tree... InHe25... well, maybe tomorrow.
BTW: I am going for a focus in oak since it is cool and the other things we have been discussing are not as cool. Cool always beats useful and powerful in my opinion. 
And I am the guy that dropped a mountain on a fleet in another campaignh, so that is something
I am liking the cast for the show. All except halancar, that cannot have a tail, poor guy :mrgreen: 
I promise to learn a shapechanging spell eventually. And in a strong aura, when the tide is rising, I can probably spontaneously turn myself into an otter for a second or two. Or even Concentration or Diameter duration with some luck and some confidence...
FYI, this is the available spells we have among the 4 of us listed by Form. If repeated, it is because 2 of us have it.
Beast of the Outlandish Size MuAn15 (+14)
Doublet of Impenetrable Silk MuAn15 (+14)
The Voice of the Bjornaer Magus MuAn15 (+14)
Footsteps of Slippery Oil CrAq5 (+12)
Mighty Torrent of Water, CrAq 20 (+20)
Clear Sight of the Naiad, InAq 15 (+18)
Lungs of the Fish, MuAq 20 (+20)
Sweet Water of the Island-Bound, PeAq 20 (+13)
Ward Against the Faeries of Water, ReAq 10 (+13)
Ward Against the Spirits of Water, ReAq 10 (+13)
Bind Wound (CrCo10) +10
Eyes of the Cat MuCo5 (+10)
Preternatural Growth and Shrinking (MuCo10) +12
Rise of the Feathery Body (ReCo10) +13
Clothe the Naked Form CrHe10 (+12)
Clothe the Naked Form (CrHe10) +18
Summon the Glade Dweller (CrHe30) +18*
Suppleness of the Willow (MuHe5) +20*
Piercing Shaft of Wood (Mu(Re)He10) +20*
Wood Golem (ReHe25) +21*
Phantasm of the Human Form CrIm25 (+21)
Image Phantom (MuIm20) +14
Veil of Invisibility PeIm20 (+17)
Wizard's Sidestep ReIm10 (+17)
Lamp Without Flame, CrIg 10 (+12)
Aura of Ennobled Presence (MuIm 5) +9
Wizard's Sidestep (ReIm 10) +13
Posing the Silent Question (InMe 20) +16
Greater Recollection of Memories Never Quite Lived (MuMe 5) +16
Loss of But a Moment's Memory (PeMe 15) +16
Aura of Rightful Authority (ReMe 20) +29
The Call to Slumber (ReMe 10) +20
The Eye of the Overlord (ReMe 25) +29
Unseen Porter (ReTe10) +12*
Sense the Nature of Vis, InVi 15 (+9)
Gather the Essence of the Beast (ReVi15) +15
Not a bad list
An excellent list. Thanks for preparing it, Xavi, that will help everyone determine what spells their magus can eventually learn if you all cooperate and scribe those. And there is only a single spell that overlaps, which is great for your magi.
Now, it will be up to allof you to identify gaps in this list; spells that you'll want your magi to learn in the near-to-mid term in order to help your covenant survive.
You can talk to the tree now, all you want. There is just less chances of it answering. 
I knew you'd like the fact that it's an oak. And for a while now, I'd been trying to figure out what the primary vis source would be. I wanted something less traditionnal, but nevertheless something that a redcap could have found by himself, with little in the way of magical investigative powers. Things finally settled down to this. I must say that I'm proud of it. And there are reasons behind the oak, the moss and the vis that links nicely to the whole situation and evolution of Heligoland. Plenty of story potential in there, should the magi choose to do some digging regarding the vis source.
And it has the nice advantage that it is easy and clear what the focus is. Even though I was the one to suggest the broader focus, I like the fact that it can easily be described by a single word. IMHO, foci should be like that, even when it means they are narrower than the rules allow And it's not any worse than a magus with a focus with wolves.
Nice list ! Now, let's see, if I take away the spells I already know, and the ones I can't learn (yet, assuming an Aura of 3) ... and the couple I could learn but which I have no interest in...
There, there are only two spells left for me to learn ! Eyes of the Cat and Aura of Ennobled Presence ! And now that I think of it, lab texts wouldn't help me much in either case, unless I want to invent some brand new level 3 spells with the remainder of my poor Lab Totals.
Methinks Pytheas had better work on his Arts first ! 
Answering on this here because it affects the overall tone of the saga.
Although mundanes can copy magical texts if they have a score in Magic Theory, magi only allows that most trusted of mundanes anywhere near their valuable books. They have many reasons for this: mundanes can be manipulated by other magi; they can be bribed; they can reveal secrets; they can be spies; they resent magi for the power they possess. The list goes on and on. But it all comes down to a lack of trust. When they do use mundanes to copy magical texts, those mundanes almost never see the world outside of the covenant's wall, for they know too much.
Comments?
No problem with that. They basically become extremely well cared for (expensive luxury living, probably a longevity potion, influence) land-bound serfs. A lot of people would kill to get this treatment in Mythic Europe. I assume 1 or 2 of these will be in the powerful covenants. One of them (head librarian) might even sit at the council chamber as a non voting member of the council. Their services should be expensive, even if not as much as the time of a magus, and they certainly can write down stuff MUCH better than magi. Even in a really low trade Order, I see a place for those around, and they will have work to do, een if it is only copying level 6 tractatus. level 4-7 (-2 to +1 Comm) tractatus should be relatively common even under this order's design. Nobody removed Hubris and "I know it better and will show them all" attitude from magicians Most of these will have few copies, though, like 5 at most, not the thousands of copy of each good tractatus seen in the RAW.
cough you're getting carried away. There are around 1,200 members of the Order in RAW, so 100 copies should be more than enough to make a tractatus available to the whole Order. In fact, given how long magi live, and the fact that most have a few Arts they are not really interested in, I'd say 30 copies should be enough to get one to any interested magus in a reasonable amount of time.
They would also spend a lot of time translating the lab notes of magi to make them into fully legible lab texts.
Actually, learning to translate the lab texts of a magus requires a Lab Total, so only another magus can do it. Probably. Unless the ST is feeling generous.
That is correct, but only when you are working on the lab text of a magus "whose secrets and abbreviations you do not know".
If the magus spends a season teaching you to translated and decode your texts, then I consider that you can then work mostly on your own, with only an occasional question to the magus. In such situations, a mundane can do the work.
Of course, that only makes the magi more paranoid regarding access to the mundane scribes they employ to do this.
Just a suggestion. It seems that the characters are finished, basically. It might take a few posts to get the Triamore stuff solved. Why don't we start up with the other magi arriving in Heligoland before Quercus arrives? That way the other players will not need to wait around while we solve the gathering of resources on Quercus's part. There is certainly plenty of stuff we can get from there. How does that sound?
Xavi
We can do that, but the other magi also need to describe the resources that they will bring to the covenant, and how they gathered them. Your idea was good, perhaps each should start a thread about that.
There is also the matter of deciding how the magi got in contact with each other, probably a little before the redcap Bernhard offers them a deal regarding the location of the vis source.
Finally, there is the matter of creating each magus' shield grog and personal servant. The servant doesn't need to be statted up completely, but a good description at least is necessary. If the servant has any significant skill to bring, then he needs to be statted out as a grog.
Am I going into too much details here? I have a feeling that it will help establish your magus as an individual, as well as his outlook on the formation of the new covenant, before you all get together. But if you'd all rather jump to the getting together thread, we can do that.
I can start on mine, but... do we assume we get some time post-Gauntlet for that, or did we somehow manage to put something together during apprenticeship ?
That I have some ideas about. Should we create a grog thread, or put them on our magus' ?
No, no, it's all good !
That's up to you. What I want is vague description of what you acquire, and how. No stats, for I will assign that, but something like "a few tractatus on Forms, copied without permission during apprenticeship" or "some money, a Gift from my mundane uncle when my parents died".
Xavi's magus is a bit of a special case, as we want him to learn Aegis between the end of his apprenticeship and the start of the covenant, but each of you can go that route for your magus if you want to. Provided that makes sense for your magus' background. Pytheas, for example, has a much narrower time window between his Gauntlet and the start of the saga. But we could work something out for him as well.
Perhaps a separate thread, but one per player? Something like "Halancar's mundanes creation". Once they're complete, we can collate them in a global thread. Or directly put them on the wiki when I set one up. The reason I'm waiting for the wiki, BTW, is that I'd like to know the covenant's name first. And that should be discussed by the magi.
I really liked Yair's staff wielding shield grog posted in the gorg thread, so I plan to go that way: a staff wielding shield grog, one that can actually lead Golems in battle if necessary (leadership: golems).
Custos, Well travelled (since he is Quercus' shield grog and has travelled as extensively) and I was thinking about giving him skinchanger: sparrowhawk as well. That would make 2 of them undergoing the same processes and allows the shield grog to match the abilities of his magus so that the magus is not alone. He would hate the fact that Quercus gets in dangerous situations needlessly since it makes his own job (and life expectancy!) difficult.
Does that fly (pun intended) or does it sound too weird?
Xavi
It flies for me. Perhaps the reason they both have Skinchanger is because they are blood-related? He might be a brother or a cousin.
On the other hand, Skinchanger makes it difficult to carry armor around for the grog, though. One of your goals might be to enchant items that get transformed along with you when you skinchange. This will be difficult, as skinchanging is not hermetic.
Do you think if would be appropriate to take the minor personality flaw Fear (of Pytheas) for Pytheas' shield grog ? Basically he is far more afraid of what he thinks Pytheas could do to him than he is of dying, which explains why he serves him so loyally...