Choose a name for the covenant. Otherwise it's going to stay "Fortress of Solitude" and that would make us a laughingstock!
Do you want the Mercere Portal to link your covenant to Durenmar or to Harco? If you link to Durenmar there will be more opportunity to chase after stories in the northern frontier (hunting the Order of Odin, anyone?), and if you link to Harco you'll have more Hermetic politics and/or Redcap-centric adventures (easy access to Rome also brings the possibility of interaction with Magvillus and Verdi). Note that I've got more material for the north than for Rome, but it's ultimately up to you. Alternately you could pick someplace completely different, so long as it was a site of significance to the Order during the time of the Founders.
Pacing: Your books are so exceptionally good to make you need less downtime. I'm not opposed to long pulses, I just don't like spending tons of time on maintenance. Please give feedback on how much time you want to "pass" between adventures.
Stories: I do have an overall story to tell and mysteries for you to unravel, but to be honest, there's enough story seeds just in your story flaws and your backgrounds that we could build a pretty interesting saga just dealing with your own personal issues What kind of ratio do you guys want, between "my" plot, and yours?
My biggest pet peeve as a player, is "railroad plots" where you have no choice but to participate, even plots that it makes no sense for the characters to pursue. As a result, my "stories" are open-ended-- I've designed more or less the entire world, every person in it and their goals and motivations (that's the benefit of populating a saga with every PC you've ever played!). How you interact with the world, how you choose to pursue events, is entirely up to you. There are mysteries to be solved, but how you go about solving them (or IF, even) is entirely up to you. I won't get bored so long as there's more roleplay than bookkeeping. If the roleplaying wanes and I do get bored, though, I reserve the right to have MY story hooks come up and bite you in your collective ass!
One final note: I DO expect the characters to get along reasonably well with each other. Your characters can be jerks (they ARE magi, after all) but if any in-character antagonism goes too far, you can expect to be hung by your own rope. Thought I should mention, since it seems most (if not all) of the PCs have a lot of potential for "does not play well with others"
Name-wise I was tossing around with the idea that Creo is quite special to the site. Creation, abundance, blossom and so on. Latinizing that I came up with Wirral Floris or Florens Wirral perhaps? I think a common way of naming covenants is after their creator, but we don't know who that is, perhaps a Jew? Then perhaps the name could be in Hebrew, but I have no Hebrew dictionary and the ones i found online translated into words in the Hebrew alphabet, of course. Just some ideas anyway.
Regarding the Portal I don't really mind where it goes. I'm more familiar with Northern Europe, and actually have only played within the Rhine Tribunal before, but it's interesting to learn about new areas. I go with whatever most of you want.
Adventuring usually makes for more interesting roleplaying. I guess the seasons we spend at home studying or experimenting can be fast forwarded if nothing interesting happens. Adventuring doesn't necessarily mean going away from home though. I guess sometimes the problems come searching for us...
I say about 50/50 between your plots and the plots driven by our character backgrounds. Maybe 60/40 in favour of character plots.
Elysante is open-minded and can be quite nice unless she is met with complete lack of etiquette (not necessarily noble etiquette, she knows how magi can be).
I like "Fortess of Solitude". That or perhaps "The Covenant of Death and Doom". Valten likes all things associated with Perdo
Durenmar
Let it flow organically, whatever fits the moment
I would prefer things forcus more on your stories. Use Flaws & Hooks to link us into your stories. I myself dislike the rigid categorization of Flaws. I choose the Mentor Flaw seeing it as a Virtue that costs a negative point . Soe flaws are better in the background, requiring your chatacter to think and behave a certain way, but not drawing the whole of the covenant into your personal drama.
It doesn't really fit the covenant's outlook as it is when we arrive. We might rename it later I guess and what it seems from our characters there will most likely be a heated debate about it in such case.
Let's go with Castellum Solitas if no one else has a better suggestion.
It fits with Valten's outlook
I actually do like Fortess of Solitude. It is unique. No saga I have seen has ever done that.
I am willing to compromise though. However, I really am not too keen on Castellum Solitas. It sounds like the name of that usurper covenant from the revision of House Flambeau (which I am very much not a fan of).
How about a place name, name the covenant after the mundane location (or an archaic name for said location)?
I must say I prefer Castellum Solitas before Fortress of Solitude. The later sounds pretty cheesy to me. However i'm not familiar with all the older Ars Magica books so if there are names that give too strong resemblance with names of other covenants I understand you would like something else.
I'm more in favour of trying to name the covenant after the location. We have Neston or Naestun in Old Norse or the name of the peninsula, Wirral. If there is some Celtic name of the area that might be used as well. Or perhaps something in Hebrew (spelled with latin letters preferably) since there have been Jewish magi before.
Since the place is so strongly linked with Creo I think it might be suitable to involve that in the name as well. "Wirral Florensis" would mean something like "Wirral in blossom". Quite far from "Covenant of Death and Doom", but I guess it would seem more in touch with the status of the location.
If no one else weighs in on the portal, it looks like it'll be going to Durenmar.
Regarding individual character plots, I will try to separate individuals' stories into their own threads so those who aren't involved can easily ignore them. Where possible I will do my best to use your story flaws to link you into my stories, of course; I'll just be using separate threads when that isn't an option (rather, when I'm not clever enough to make them all overlap).
Oh, and on pacing: I'll try to keep thing moving along and if y'all feel like you need a downtime pulse, just mention it in the OOC thread, if there's a consensus we'll figure out ways to slow things down.
Also I really like a couple adventures in the Tales of Mythic Europe book, so if you haven't read it yet, please don't!
It would be useful to my character, certainly. But if there is overwhelming favor for Durenmar I don't see a reason to push it for Harco. Out-of-game, I'm perfectly okay with it being to either location. In-game, we'll find a way anywhere.
Since we're on a river, how about Fluvium Florensis? "River in Bloom" doesn't quite make sense unless you look at it figuratively, but it sounds better than "Wirraleum"!
'Litus Florensis' or 'Ripa Florensis' is other alternatives meaning Coast/Shore in Bloom. Since the name of the saga is Shores of Albion, that might fit on a meta-level as well.
What kind of ratio do you guys want, between "my" plot, and yours?
Valten likes all things associated with Perdo
. Soe flaws are better in the background, requiring your chatacter to think and behave a certain way, but not drawing the whole of the covenant into your personal drama.
