In the Rhine tribunal, Severicus of Tremere is said to control the sigil of Hygwald (GotF, p. 109), who was trained in Blackthorn. This is puzzling me - it is written that a newly gauntleted Tremere gives his symbolical birchwood wand to his parens (and they pass it on to their's if they don't hold their own sigil). So how can Severicus get control over the voting sigil of someone not descended from him?
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There could be several explanations.
For example, it might be some form of intra-House punishment for Hygwald's piratical activities (let's say the House reprimanded him, and suggested that ceding his sigil to Severicus for some time would be an appropriate show of contrition).
In my sagas, it works this way. Suppose you are an elder Tremere magus who holds the sigils of your descendants. Then, if you and some of those descendants live in different Tribunals, there's a problem: you have the right to vote in your descendants' Tribunals, but that would require either attending or appointing an attendee, and more importantly it would require you keeping abreast of the local political scene. Not efficient at all. So what happens is that the House expects you to entrust those sigils to some senior Tremere there.
This is then exactly what happens with Hygwald, who was gauntleted in Stonehenge, and thus presumably has his parens there: said parens has entrusted Hygwald's sigil to Severicus. Note that this goes a long way to explain why in many Tribunals Tremere sigils appear more concentrated than one would expect based on filial relationships alone.
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Maybe a mutual ancestor died and passed their held sigils down to their descendant who had actually earned their sigil?
Yes, that makes sense. I just need to come with a reason why the sigil wasn't given to the exarch, but that's presumably just Tremere politics.
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From HoH:TL, p.118, emphasis mine:
When a young magus moves to a distant Tribunal, the conciliarius instructs them to seek guidance from the senior Tremere magus in that Tribunal instead. This is usually not an exarch.
The way this is written suggests that what's really important for holding "foreign" sigils is seniority, rather than exarch status. So Stentorius, who is not only the exarch but the senior magus of the Tribunal too, should probably have been entrusted with that sigil. But perhaps there's some notion is that it's slightly better if there's a separation between the two roles.
One crucial observation to make in this sense is that Stentorius is the leader of Fengheld, and Fengheld has allegedly "come to an understanding" with Waddenzee over their piracy, even though the Quaesitores and presumably the majority of the powers-that-be seriously disapprove of it. So, if I were a conciliarius of another Tribunal, and had to entrust the sigil of my wayward filius to one of the two conciliarii of the Rhine, I would probably choose the slightly younger but more conservative and neutral one, over the older one who's involved in the same activities as said wayward filius. So yes, a political but sensible choice.
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One reason might be that Severicus might be closer "geneologically" to Hygwald (via his parens) and therefore have the strongest claim compared to Stentorius.
I could very much imagine Hygwald's parens' parens'... shared a parens with Severicus' parens' parens... and therefore Severicus would be considered to be the senior Tremere with respect to Hygwald. That is my interpretation.
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In my sagas, it works this way. Suppose you are an elder Tremere magus who holds the sigils of your descendants. Then, if you and some of those descendants live in different Tribunals, there's a problem: you have the right to vote in your descendants' Tribunals, but that would require either attending or appointing an attendee, and more importantly it would require you keeping abreast of the local political scene. Not efficient at all. So what happens is that the House expects you to entrust those sigils to some senior Tremere there.
I noted that in Hibernia, all named Tremere have their sigil held by someone in Transylvania. In yor own saga, you can certainly add some Tremere who can vote, but it's an odd situation given that the Tremere are pushing for reforms.
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Sure, because in Hibernia there's no "senior" Tremere who's won his own sigil (a "consiliarius" in HoH:TL terms). If there were one, he'd get all the Hibernian sigils (this is not just my view, it's HoH:TL).
Frankly, this does appear to be a "management" issue for the House - the Tremere Prima should probably send such a senior magus to Hibernia, and she'll probably do so eventually. But these problematic situations happen in human organizations all the time, and often stay unresolved for a surprisingly long period of time.
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