I'm having trouble setting on a concept. Analysis paralysis.
It could be a Flambeau
or a Jerbiton
or well, you get the idea...
Something will percolate, eventually.
I, for one, would be highly amused at qcipher playing a lab rat and JL playing a Flambeau. It's like Bizarro-world 
That would be, like, me playing a guy.
Mikhail was a guy. But he was basically just you, with a Russian accent. Also furry.
The Flambeau concept I'm working with is a female singing (Necessary Condition) pirate of the School of Sebastian (mMF:Wind for the House Virtue). Leaving the ocean would be a big deal. Loch Ness of that period is effectively landlocked. Maybe she could work out a spell to portage a ship, or she builds the Caledonian Canal 600 years early...
Anyway, that's what I've been struggling with. I've been playing with some other concepts, but they get suspiciously close to Marcus and I'm trying to avoid that.
Hey now!
Actually Verditius is my second favorite House. Though...I have to admit I often think of combat favoring enchantments.
I'm currently awaiting the arrival of Hermetic Projects before finishing up...Morgan (for lack of a better name, right now).
Just fyi - I don't have Hermetic Projects, and it doesn't look like I'll be getting it anytime soon.
It is a useful for many of its ideas for ways to apply the bases with a few revised form/shape bonuses.
I have been reminded that I should get level 15 and 20 intangible tunnel varients for my mind reading (sight to touch and arcane connection to touch) so that I can pose silent question without warping target at sight and arcane connection ranges.
It's mostly a sanity check for me. To see if I can do what I want her to be able to do is reasonable, or at least when it is possible for her to do it. It's a planning tool.
At one point I thought about creating and controlling the wind to make a ship go where desired. Then I had a brief flirtation with water, but that is harder. Then I thought about just controlling the wood and it is as hard as the wind, maybe a bit harder. And the wind thing puts me in potential conflict with an NPC of the covenant, which I really don't want to do. Being a Flambeau, it's unlikely she'd share any of her weather mastery secrets with my character.
I might toss the concept altogether. Still in a bit of analysis paralysis.
Yay for Amazon Prime and FedEx. I should get Projects tomorrow.
I has it. Now, do I close my door and put a sign on my door indicating I'm in a webinar, so as to prevent interruption?
I'm digging the Hermetic Projects book. Just doing a leisurely read of it. It helps to have Arts and Academie and City and Guild, but the times that those come up they give quick rules for them.
If I was to run a new Ars game it probably would be to use a grand project like the ones described there.
So Projects suggests Major Magical Focus:Ships. And I can kinda see that, because a ship is more than a sum of its parts, a canvas sail, wooden hull secured with iron nails, and caulked with tar covered plant material like moss. However, if I took mMF:Wood, I can affect like 90% of the ship and a lot more things that aren't even the ship (wood is in a lot of places).
Should Ships be a minor or major magical focus? Major seems a bit extreme, when mMF:wood probably does 90% of what MMF:Ships does when focused on a ship, and then all the other stuff.
Focus: Ships will also cover Auram effects to fill sails, and ReAq to muck bilge. A focus on wood would cover making ships, but not a whole lot of things you would do with the finished product.
Special/Deleterious Circumstances when he was sea legs or land legs would be kinda cool
Also, Ships seems kinda small for a Major, since everything you could do with it would also be encompassed by Travel, which is usually a Major focus.
You're hitting all the problems I have with Ships being a Major Focus... It's major because it covers parts of so many TeFo issues?
Yes, ships are major focus because they can include creo, rego, intellego and muto effects in Herbam, animal (sails perhaps), some aquam and some auram.
I'm inclined to say Major, which "should be smaller than a single Art, but may be spread over several Arts." Minor "should be slightly narrower than a single Technique and Form combination."
With a Focus in Ships, I can think of several things. The obvious CrHe to make a ship in the first place, as well as ReHe to bond planks together or to patch a hole in the hull, CrHe to make canvas or ropes, PeAq to bilge, CrAu to make a wind, ReAu to shift the wind, or if you want to get higher-level, ReHe to make the ship fly. And these are just off the top of my head.
So, I'm thinking Major, simply because it is so flexible and so many things can be done that fall under that umbrella.
um...lost me there for a minute. You thinking that Ships shouldn't be a Focus at all? Or that there should be a Focus more powerful than Major? (Like, say "Über-focus"?)
Heading to a covenant with a ship focus and virtually no sea access is weird. Then again, there are 2 (right?) Verditius that could help with ship items or the ship itself, whether they have the focus or not.
The Shipyard section in the projects books has info on creating a shipyard/laboratory as well as items that allow you to launch a ship into the sea while being in the mountains say.
Just throwing this out there...an interesting Flambeau concept could be a Hermetic Sahir, and her ship a flying carpet, or variation on one. Wouldn't need Arabic roots, but could be part of their legacy of focusing on genius loci, and is also a singing pirate.