[tab][/tab] eldarin would like to join us. I think we got 2 spots (one I am still keeping for Solon). Should I ok him making a magi and companion. He would have to join you 'next year' officially though.
Ok by me and welcome! Hope this means we can pick up the pace on the adventures, so that this newcomer can actually join us! 
Sounds good to me.
If he takes as long to complete the characters as we did, then we have a bit of time to complete current adventures. 
But, yes, I wouldn't mind speeding up.
I take the current comments as a positive sign (no idea how many players are here that should agree with me joining) and test immediately if I can post in this forum...
I am Jan and really looking forward to pick up Ars Magica again after about a decade. Back then we played 4th edition in person. I guess that counts as relative newbie for both Ars and play by post.
I have some thoughts on a magus, but couldn't give a ex post title yet. Should I start a character thread anyhow or is a building discussion a good fit for here?
I'll at least start here, we can move it somewhere else if that's more appropriate I suppose.
My initial idea (independent of this campaign) was to have a stonemason of House Verditius that would work towards creating enchanted buildings. I think this is not a good fit for several reasons: there is a Verditius already that stated he made clear to be the only Verditius prior to join the covenant being the most important probably. Having yet another Magus with high Terram is probably another. Last but not least I planned to take Giants blood, which is explicitly ruled out (I might have settled with Large instead though).
Now I am contemplating on what to do instead.
I thought about a Jerbiton version of the stonemason but I fail to see why he would go off to live close to nowhere... And the everybody knows Terram problem would stay.
I think about a tribunal local Tytalus (whose patens forbade joining the covenant; what better reason to do it could there be. I would actually not rule out that this was part of the parens plan). An area of study could be the conflict between opposing forms - e.g. Corpus vs. Mentem. I would go as far as designing a (major) hermetic flaw that requires all magic to include the opposing form as a requisite. I struggle to find an opponent for at least Vim and Imaginem though - maybe reduce the flaw to just elemental forms (and potentially add Elementalist on the virtues side). Would that be an acceptable flaw although it is not in any book I know of?
That's my thoughts so far. What do you all think?
Best
Jan
Hi Jan/eldarin, welcome!
IonianD will surely give you the guidelines for characters, most everything is here.
Not really grokking this Flaw, but you could certainly make a Greater Malediction and flesh it out more. If you look at all the characters participating, all Flaws and Virtues are more or less from Core/Houses of Hermes, so not really sure if such a Hermetic Flaw would be appropriate.
Taking a Major Virtue to completely offset a Major Flaw does not seem right.
As for House, you do you! From a Covenant perspective, we lack experts in Animal or Herbam, who would be most welcome for money making schemes, in Mentem (Annastaj apparently is), Imaginem, Aquam, well, most everything! 
The idea of that flaw would be that Ignem magic always has an Aquam requisite, Terram magic always has an Auram requisite (if not limited this list would go on). While an elementalist virtue certainly eases the burden, I am not sure I would agree that it completely offsets the flaw.
I do agree that non-standard virtues and/or flaws can be problematic.
Ok, forget about this comment. I forgot how good Elemental Magic really is
Hehe, I am not implying Elemental Magic as written is a good Major Virtue! But in this particular case it would have its normal (subpar) effect plus totally negate the proposed Major Flaw, which would be too good.
We don't have a dedicated healer/characteristic enhancer magi in the covenant if that is of any interest. The Mercere cult of Hero's are a great choice for this type of build in my opinion.
We lack most things. We have CrAu, PeVi, and Te specialists, and a few (more or less) generalists. Sorry if I forgot somebody.
John is right that a healer would be useful. As somebody else mentioned, Animal and Herbam have some interesting applications to income. We lack both. The weakest technique in the troupe is Intellego, and that's a gap worth filling. We have level 10 summa in Latin though. I am sure every other missing art is useful as well. The list of missing skills is long, it is the present skills which make a short list
Personally, I find it a little bit awkward with a growing number of Greek magi. The covenant was announced initially, with a serious ambition to recruit outsiders. The outsiders are already the minority, and I think balance is better. Just a thought. Not an absolute.
Good point about the outsiders vs. greeks, will add myself to the outsiders.
There are two Bjornaer and the covenant is missing Animal?
Yes. Why would you assume that a bjornaer knows animal?
Now, you got me curious
Well you probably can't assume any form from the house... Even Flambeau might specialize in Perdo, I would still be surprised to meet two and find no knowledge of Ignem...
The point for Bjornaer and Animal might be weaker - I give you that - however, I would have expected some knowledge...
I think that assumption makes as much sense as expecting every pair of human magi two know both Corpus and Mentem between them.
The point here being that heartbeast bjornaer has nothing to do with Animal, or any other Hermetic art, and bjornaer tend to shun magic which may superficially resemble the heartbeast (HoH:MC). There is a case to say that bjornaer are the least likely to know Animal.
Anyway, rechecking I see that we have some knowledge of An. Pavo, the other bjornaer has 6; which I counted only as generalist knowledge I think it is too low to make much difference to herd income, at least I have not been able to come up with a strategy that Pavo can use to boost income yet.
Pavo is a healer, but not specialised - with Creo 8 and Corpus and Animal at 6, he has 20+ Sta+aura for healing humans and animals. So far he only has Bind wounds and Purification of the Festering Wounds, but he brought the Animal equivalent of Purification as a lab text which even the notoriously poor student Pavo can use. So Pavo is an adventuring healer and a "fix-it-just-enough-and-let-bed-rest-do-the-work" healer rather than the "big ritual, now you're fixed!" sort of healer.
There are many things we don't have, so there's a lot of character types available. Just don't play a Bjornaer mystagogue or a Verditius and you'll avoid the worst overlaps.
The way is completely open for a Intellego specialist, or a Mentem specialist, or an illusionist, even a CrIg flambeau would be a positive novelty.
On a trip through next sunday. Posting will be extra erratic.
Ok Cat, I'll just move on the two stories your characters are involved.
Welcome Eldarin to the group. I hope you have much fun with us. Be sure to read all announcement threads, and more specifically thisone.
I hope you all will have much with me fun as well. Looking forward to starting my character creation thread soon.