Peregrine, do you mind if I mess with history a bit for Leandra's background? I'd like to move the timeline back on the MacMhuirich bardic family by about 20-30 years or so. 
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacMhuir ... dic_family
No, go right ahead. It's an "alternate history" anyway, and I have no problems fudging with reality a bit.
After giving this some more thought, I realized I'm missing something critical to mystery cults - novel virtues. The mechanical structure of the cult that I had in mind wouldn't give a character anything he couldn't ordinarily take at character creation. All of the Mystery Cults in The Mysteries bestow actual mystery virtues that a character couldn't gain anywhere else. With that in mind, I'm leaning toward a new long-term goal that doesn't necessarily involve a mystery cult and will probably be impossible - bestowing a non-descendant of Mercere with the Mutantum Magic and Tamed Magic virtues.
I expect this will involve decades of experimentation, most of it MuCo and MuVi. It will eventually require experimenting on Gifted subjects, probably Antoninus's own apprentices. Obviously he'll want to keep this as quiet as possible. Which brings me to my biggest question - is this concept acceptable to Peregrine and the troupe? I'm not concerned with whether or not he can ever reach his goal. I'm concerned with the potential for his actions to cause trouble for the covenant and its members.
I'd think it'd require experimenting on Gifted subjects pretty much from the get-go.... unless you start your experimentation by attempting to understand Mutantum Magic better, inventing spells that use it. In either case, out of character I don't have a problem with it -- magi aren't required to be particularly nice individuals. In character, Leandra may have a huge problem with it, but she hasn't even been introduced yet. 
Talia wouldn't care. She might object to it being done to Ezio, but that's complex...
As to Mutantum magic, it is stated as to follow along the lineage of the founder. I tend to think that some virtues should be inherited and some virtues can't be taught. To make Mutantum a taught virtue, I'd think it would be a Hermetic Breakthrough, or at least as many points as one...
So. March 4th, I'm moving back to Texas. I already have a job lined up (going back to my old job that I had when I came up to Pennsylvania to help my parents, especially my dad), and housing. My last day at McDonald's (God willing, ever) is February 16.
I won't be taking most of my stuff with me, I'll be leaving it here, probably boxing a lot of it up so it will be easier to move when Mom moves to Houston in a few years (or dies, but I'm hoping the former). So that gives me about two weeks to get everything squared away up here and ready to move. I'm definitely taking/shipping all my Ars books (because I kind of need those).
The down side is that my new job is full-time 40 hours a week (but it's an office job, so that's okay), and I don't have a car so I'll be on the bus. So my online time is going to be significantly curtailed, to probably an hour or three during the week, and most of the day on weekends (down from most of the day all the time now).
Which, unfortunately, means I'm going to have to curtail my playing and prioritize my playtime starting in mid-March when I actually start working again. I'm hoping I don't have to quit any of my three active sagas, but that's a possibility 
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So. Yeah. That's what's going on with me.
Glad to hear you have a decent job, and my condolences on the move -- those SUCK. ( I moved to Does Moines from Indy 6 months ago.)
We'll miss you, but RL takes priority.
Total coincidence - my mom's from Iowa. Was in the last graduating class in Milo.
Good luck with everything and take care of RL first. This will keep.
So. Got my last schedule (yay!) at work today, and it looks like Friday's my last actual day of work (although technically, they could call and ask me to come in Saturday, but I don't see that happening). Followed by three weeks plus of waiting to move, packing some every day, and stuff.
Which means the stress of dealing with crap at work is about to end, and hopefully I will actually start caring about stuff again. It's not fun not caring, which is why I've not been all that motivated here lately. But I see it getting better soon, at least for a while.
So. At least I've not given up, although it may look like it sometimes
(I just realized...reading this, I sound a little like Eddie Izzard, don't I? 
)
I may have sporadic access this weekend. Going to visit my dad in New York, and I'm not sure if he's got wireless, and my phone is an incredible pain to post from. So y'all may get a break from my wildly addicted posting habits. You may rejoice.
I'm going to fess up and say that I'm not quite sure how to handle Magic in the Blood, and chalk it up to my inexperience as a storyguide.
What Ability should the book be? I'm torn between Magic Lore and Magic Theory, leaning ever so slightly toward the latter because it's discussing a theory on whether one can accurately predict the Gift occurring in children.
The other was about figuring a good starting point for the price. My initial inclination was to try to convert the build points for the book into vis stocks or vis source, but that sounded hella expensive once I did it (I was going to average the two, but that wound up being 45 + 1.8, halved, or about 23-24 pawns). I wound up basing it on how much vis a typical magus could extract from an aura in the time it would take to write the book. Does that sound reasonable? And if not, how would you have figured it?
You can always say that it gives XP in one of these abilities and exposure in the other. I would go with Magic Lore as the primary one, since dtecting the Gift is useful to a multiplicity of traditions, not just the hermetic dudes.
I'm good with either, though I'm inclined to agree with Xavi's Magic Lore argument.
Per Covenants, a tractatus of quality 9 is somewhere between 'sound' (quality 11) and 'vain' (quality 6). Sound tractatus normally sell for 2 or 3 pawns, vain for 1 pawn (p. 95). My recommendation is 3 pawns for the copy brought to the tribunal, 2 pawns to order a copy to be delivered in a season or two. Even if this is considered a vain book, the author thinks enough of it to put copies up for public sale at tribunal, so he probably believes it's an 'important work' or some such nonsense.
I know the feeling. I was drawing a blank on Antoninus, so I'm currently falling back on a vague approximation of Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes.
I know the feeling. I'm just now starting to find Vibria's voice.
I'm going to be airborne most of the day tomorrow (the 4th), and don't know what my access will be like for a couple days after that. By the end of the week, I expect things to be back to "normal" for a couple of days, but I start my new job next week, so I should be available evenings. Don't know yet what that's going to do to my posting rate, but we'll see.
Well, I'm about as settled in to my new place as I'm going to get until I start getting paychecks again, in a few weeks. I don't start work until Tuesday, and we're expecting rain this weekend so I doubt I'll be going anywhere. Down side, I got a slight case of the crud (although not as bad as last time I moved – drove almost 1800 miles in three days, and then slept for most of the next three).
So I'll be trying to get caught up on everything the next day or two. If I can remember what the froo I'm doing.
Sorry I've been so quiet the past few days. I came down with the crud late last week, and am still getting over it. And I totally didn't feel like thinking at all this weekend, but I have been reading. Started my new job today, so I'll have a couple of hours in the evenings to derp around, and I'm off this weekend. But between getting a new checking account and going to see Oz, all on the bus, I don't know how much time I'll have Saturday. Sunday's wide open, unless somebody kidnaps me or something. (Hey, a pony can hope.)
I don't mind keeping Parma as relatively restricted, but technically, you go around the corner in a hallway, and it's lost. Seems overly strict. I tend to view it as some sort of reasonable distance is allowed, and ignore line of sight. I don't have a definition of reasonable, but I think it's almost unreasonable that if you could see the other character 3 miles away from the hill, that he's still covered, while he's in the next room with the door closed, he's no longer covered.