That's one year doing more fire stuff. Now, as I said way back when I started the Adelbert thread in 2013, I'm pretty much done with making ignem spells that Ranulf would reasonably choose to spend his time on. There are a few more he'd want, and there are of course a ton more possible, but there is nothing which rises to the level of being in the top ten thing's he'd find useful.
Having, in the time since I set Ranulf aside, created Adelbert and Andreva and worked with the other authors through the other Anulus Connectens magi (if you're not familiar with them they're here: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/anulus-connectens-magi-of-hermes-covenant/10506/1) I've come back to him with some different ideas about magi. Of importance here is my opinion that it is revealing to think of the magical progression of an OoH magi in three stages:
*First period, The character has many glaring holes in their abilities and they need to see to them. The magus has to struggle to do the things that the player wanted to do when they envisioned the character. There are lots of things that they need to learn and they need to learn them right now.
*Second period, the character can relax, they've developed what magic/arts/abilities they need to function they've already somewhat fulfilled the vision that were set up to achieve. They spend their time really developing stuff relevant to their interests. I find this period the most fun to design for. Earlier in their life I keep thinking of spells and effects for them to make but I'm constantly running into the character's limitations and the creations of the characters tend to reflect the way that the character could get the job done rather than the way that would be the most cool.
*Third period, they've gone as far down their path as one would care to, and they should do something else.
We saw the third period hit the Anulus Connectens magi as they approached 90 years out of apprenticeship and the other authors had difficulty coming up with more projects for their magi to engage in. Andreva finished developing a reasonable suite of stuff related to swords and underground spaces around 60 years out (Terram is exceedingly practical) and then moved into a new path of developing stuff to survive a wizard's war. Adelbert had a sufficiently deep repertoire of investigation tools at 90 years out of apprenticeship and he moved into animals. Ranulf pursued a goal of using unnatural fires to accomplish as many tasks as possible, that's a frightfully difficult thing to do so I think that it took Ranulf a lot longer to reach that third stage of "enough has been done with this, he should move on to something else". Nevertheless, Ranulf has hit that point and I'm going to take him in a different direction.
With that second period completed it doesn't make sense for me to develop Ranulf without a prominent goal and plan. Without this, asking the question of what abilities, spells, and enchanted items would he develop at this point in his life isn't satisfying because he's really got what he needs available to him already.
During the 90-105 period I had Ranulf challenge to become an Archmagus and fail to beat a Tytalus magus who bested him by being more devious. Being more devious than Ranulf with his Societates Milites attitudes probably isn't that hard. I'm going to have him try again.
I didn't go back and reread their material, but as I recall archmagi are a group that interact with one another and tend to work for the benefit of the order. This, of course, serves their needs because they benefit greatly from the order, but I imagine that they frequently think of it in a magnanimous way, that they are doing a great service to their fellows. As I see it, the archmagi as a group benefit from having more archmagi (providing that they're the right sort of people). But, as an archmagus, you don't want to be personally bested in your challenge, you'd much prefer that, if there are magi worthy of inclusion, they best someone else and leave your reputation unspoiled. Yet if everyone makes their challenge too hard then there are no new archmagi and everyone suffers. I think that there is some social pressure within the group to make challenges where the worthy could succeed with effort. Setting so difficult a challenge that no one can ever beat you could be seen as prideful and selfish.
There is a Tremere Archamga who in her career has focused on magical spirits and creatures. She has written several books regarding such creatures and spirits. Her archmagus challenge is to get a spirit or creature of her choice to serve her for a year. Ranulf has at some point earlier in his life paged through a copy of one of her books while at some other covenant. In doing so he read about Olbrecht's Sky Drake (https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/5th-ed-opinions/108/1) and noted that this creature was a real nightmare for him personally in that it could dispell ignem magic at will, it was completely immune to fire, it was invisible, and it could not be easily located. When this maga set her Archmagus challenge Ranulf remembered the passage and thought it very likely that if he were to challenge the Tremere she would ask him to acquire the sky drake. Ranulf still had friends who believed that they'd like his voice among the archmagi and he's getting up there in years. It wouldn't do to have him earn the distinction and then be lost to twilight a mere two years later. Ranulf quietly started developing a collection of spells and devices to allow him to beat the sky drake, thinking that even if she chose some other target he'd benefit from being able to pursue the quarry with a different set of tools, tools unknown to her.