I actually have one guy with Chthonic Magic, which has proven to be interesting. I allow Diedne magic but I discourage it. IMS, it dos equal "short lived character", so I do warn them of that.
Hi,
You didn't have your Flambeau WW the CM guy?
(I actually like CM as a virtue, which I cannot say for DM.)
Anyway,
Ken
"In the sense that I believe that our glorious Order was duped into senseless killing of innocent fellow mages, while the true enemy was allowed to fester and grow fat in their blood, and continue their attempts to oppress the Order, as they have tried to do from the start. The wrong House was cast out in the Schism War, and that is plain for all to see".
"You are the deluded one, in believing the vicious lies that the slaves of the Dominion dangle before you in order to distract the likes of you while they tie the noose around the neck of magic. What harm ever did the exotic mages you fear so much ever did to the Order ? While you chase them, the mundanes and the Church whose boots you are so fond of licking continue theior unrelenting assualt on everything that is magical and wonderful in the world, to drown everything in their ant-like mediocrity. The Infernal you and they fear so much is but the shadow of their accursed Dominion. Uproot it, and the Infernal shall gutter out like a shadow deprived of the light that generates it. Damp its all-consuming flame, and the gentle light of magic shall be free to enlghten the world, and chase away the shadow. There is but one true enemy of the Order nowadays, and it is the mundanes and the Dominion they serve in their ignorance and the traitors and flase mages that disgrace their Goft by serving them".
"So the slave of mundanes shows his true colors. Here is the true enemy of the order, always ready to renege his oath to his fellow mages to side with mundanes. Well met... court wizard. Is your tongue pained enough kissing the backsides of nobles and priests ?"
"Ah, the eternal delusion of you pathetic followers of the Nailed One, to believe that the First Cause shall lockstep into place according to the childish fables that you tell yourselves in your books. In your delusion, you aren't even able to recognize that you create the Dominion and the spirits you venerate, with your ant-like devotion. Anyway, face me like a magus, but do not dare include me in your childish belief system."
"No, the likes of you disgrace our Order and are its true enemy, always ready to sell out their fellow magi, and let the very auras and vis sources our Order thrives on, in order to grovel before the mundanes and priests you love so much. Those who put allegiance to mundanes before solidarity to their sodales betray their oath, and should have no place in our Order. Come on, mundie-lover, has your butt-kissing of priests left you any strength to face a real mage ? Do you want a Wizard War ? Bring it on. Your bleached bones shall be testament to the hollowness of the lies you expose and the viciousness of your betrayal."
Sure. 
"Only a dim-witted mundie-lover could mistake an oath-sworn alliance pact with "molesting". Come on, court wizard, do I need to teach you the Latin vocabulary all the way once again, before we can have our WW ? I would not want you misread my declaration when it comes. As for the mundanes, it is them who shall not cease interfering with our livelihood, and need to be uprooted in blood and fire".
"Fine, once we are done, this tribunal shall have one less poisonous viper ready to sell out his fellows to the mundanes."
As I would, from the opposite point of view. 
He's keeping it a secret, so far. He did slip up once and invoked dark Gods in front of another magus, but he did not recognize them as such. He is in the same saga as a Holy maga character, which has also proven to be interesting. I go easy because the player is a really good player and Ludo is a really interesting character. But I forsee major problems down the road. The player was dissapointed when I stuck to the RAW and told him that he cannot summon angels with magic, and that the Divine is indeed the supreme power.
Aha! So that is how you justify your vile dealings with the infernal. I KNEW thats why you Flambeau´s are so in love with fire and brimstone!
Pft, you Flambeau, just trying to divert attention away from the diabolics in your ranks!
Just simple logic. Now wether its based on facts or delusions, thats another matter.
Thats bad GM:ing. If the player is really GOOD at keeping his secret from those who WOULD persecute, why should he be shortlived? And the only ones who would always be automatic enemies are Tremere. Stay far away from them or anyone else too zealous or with enough awareness about the surrounding world and they will be ok much/most of the time.
Its not like its easy to figure out a Diedne exactly.
Cthonic magic would be riskier for sure.
Very sensible. 
But I would avoid picking the kind of character that MM RP in our little fun exchange in one of my games, given how I redefined the sensibilites of the Order A Really Advanced Order... And above all, never play the inquisitor.
Hold up, Out of Character. That is not something a Flambeau magus would ever think, let alone say in front of other Flambeau magi.
In character…
“That’s all the evidence I need to convict you, former sodale. I call for a vote to cast this deluded madman from the Order! There is nothing innocent about human sacrifice or their blood magic. No excuse, none.
Let’s see: Murdered innocents, corrupted sodales, summoned demons, stole our vis, created a culture if ignorance (which you are an example of), and so on and so forth. I have nothing against exotic magi, just Diedne and their sympathizers.
Are we even living on the same plane of existence?
OOC – I will spare you the Theology, but this is very-very bad thinking. Just awful.
How about my mother and father? They were mundane. My children? One has the Gift and the other does not. Should I love one child more than the other?
What about your mother?
How do you know I am not Jewish?
Actually, I would likely not even bother with the debate if this was in an actual game. I would just declare war and let my actions speak for me.
But seriously, you would play a Flambeau magus like this?
I am not a GM. I am an SG 
And I myself personally don't like the Diedne. I play them as they are in fact the villians that they were portrayed, and the Tremere & Flambeau were right. As a player in Novus Mane, I have a covenant mate with the Diedne Dark Secret, and I play ignorant. But for th saga I run, I need the players to give me some allowance for my preferences in exchange for the massive efforts I put forth. I don't want any Diedne staining the covenant I have been running for fifteen years now.
Just self preservation. Though the character would be very upset and feel pretty bad about killing anyone.
I see, your attitude towards the Diedne mirrors mine towards the Tremere (and the Jerbiton to a lesser degree).
About the Flambeau, in my sagas, they have come to the realization that the Tremere duped and exploited them during the Schism War, and have transferred their resentment against the Nazi... err, well-organized House all the way. So yes, I would RP a Flambeau that way. Even in canon sagas, there are going to be some Flambeau that think that way, since it is an established canon fact that historical judgement about the Schism War is controversial in the current Order, and I would only play the kind of Flambeau that thinks the Tremere were the guilty party in the Schism War (or member of any other house, for that matter). Only the canon Tremere are still adamant and monolithic in their negative judgment of Diedne.
About the theology, at that point of discussion, I was tapping the IC theory that Belief creates Reality, and hence the Dominion and the powers and supernatural creatures linked to it are created by the believers' faith, and the real Creator is unknowable and in no way linked to the Dominion.
"Belief defines Reality" is intrinsically flawed. The majority of people don't believe "Belief defines Reality", so if it does, it doesn't. And since Reality is everything, past and future, it never did, and never will. The idea the Belief creates Auras almost works, except the Magic aura seems "strongest" where there is no one to Belief.
Belief kinda affects faerie... kinda. Emotion, expression, and story do more.
You are both right, I should have termed it Belief (and Emotion, Expression, Story, etc.) define the Realms, and the Auras. A way to make the Dominion and the Divine Realm only generated and fueled up by belief and emotion of the believers, and having no ultimate backing from supreme cosmic forces (no more than the other Realms, anyway). To a degree, the forces generated by the Realms gain independent action (as spirits and creatures) and have ability to extend the boundaries of the realms, beside the direct influence of human belief/emotion. In this model, God either does not exist and seeming actions by him are actually performed by the most powerful angels, or the unconscious collective will of the believers, or he's just a very powerful previous magic/faerie being, the supernatural embodiment of Goodness, uplifited into the current impressive power level and a separate Realm by the massive level of belief and emotion he gets. Anyway, the Divine Realm has no direct connection with the Creator (if any), or the impersonal origin of the Universe, which is unknowable, and does not pick sides between the Realms, anyway.
I think this interpretation of the Dominion/Divine fits the setting nicely (it may or may not require to house-rule away the trumping quality of miracles, but one could also explain it as the result of the fact that currently the Divine realm is at the top of the metaphysical realm power level totem pole, thanks to the massive amounts of belief and emotion it gets in Mythic Europe), so I refer to it when I play/SG. I also find this interpretation of the setting much more confortable than one which makes Abrahamic monotheism even remotely more "in the right" than other belief systems.
Except there is no "as they are in fact", because the portrayal is ambigious to say the least.
Or do you accept Flambeau and Tytalus magi as tainted as well? Mmm which other houses have skeletons in the closet as well? Hmm?
Otherwise thats just being extremely selective about what source material you accept or totally hypocritical.
Very much agreed.
Thanks. Having given some more thought to the concept, it appears IMO that all four Realms can be thought as the expression of an archetypal concept (Righteousness, Wickedness, Nature, and Story) in all its manifold manifestations.
To a great degree, the Realms appear to be fueled, shaped, and directed by human belief and emotion, and determines most of their power and features, but not entirely, since they also appear to have a significant degree of self-direction and the ability to tap sources of power not directly related to humanity.
This may be justified in several ways: as it is appears to some degree, some embodiments of the Realms (creatures, spirits) have the ability to acquire self-direction and sentience, and hence to shape them beyond the intervention of humanity; not just humanity, but also the other parts of reality have to some lesser degree the ability to shape and influence the Realm in a similar way; and the Archetypes that generate the Realms are embedded in the primal structure of reality, and this connection also fuels and shapes them beyond the intervention of humanity; last, but not least, the imprint caused by human belief/emotion on the Realms has a lasting quality, so many manifestations that do not appear to be related to current beliefs are actually realted to the ones of ages past, even if the current expressions of the collective unconscious are paramount if determining the current power level of the Realms.
A minor quibble about a previously-discussed point: notwithstanding what I've stated or agreed previously, I've reread the relevant bits in TMRE, and I've come to the conclusion that the rituals involved in immortality methods are not subject to the limitations created by Rigid Magic and Unstructured Caster. This for two reasons: first, it is stated that those "rituals" are not true Hermetic Ritual spells, but are only treated as such for game-mechanic purposes, and actually are either time-consuming preparations or non-Hermetic magical rituals. Therefore, they are not subject to Flaws that affect Hermetic magic. Moreover, the ability to make them is always granted by an Initiation, which always happens after such a Flaw is gained, and as such the Initiation trumps the Flaw, since its whole purpose to allow the immortality method.
Hi,
YMMV, but I definitely disagree.
Puissant Magic Theory affects the associated lab totals. So does Inventive Genius. Wouldn't Deficient Technique? And so on.
Since they are treated as such for game mechanics, and flaws are a game mechanic as much as virtues.... By the way, these Flaws do not specify Hermetic Magic. One says "you cannot use vis when you cast spells." Period. The other, "you may not learn ritual spells." Period.
The ability to cast it is not granted by Initiation, only the ability to learn the ritual--and that, only if the character can otherwise learn it, which requires sufficiently high Arts scores, and so on.
Anyway,
Ken
We get back to the fact that the "ritual" in question is a lab activity, not a spell. I thing it's clear, and I think it shows in the fact that it is easy to get help doing it the first time, to peg the lab total. If it were a ritual spell, there would be a roll to check for a botch (all ritual spells use a stress die) and with the amount of vis in question (one die per pawn of vis!) you are looking at an almost guaranteed twilight episode. Good luck finding volunteers for that!
Hi,
Just because you want it to be easy doesn't make it so.
The ritual has to be learned, it also has to be cast. Since there are actual rules for casting rituals, which do not have to be made up, it makes sense that these actual rules are actually used, barring explicit rules to the contrary, such as the rules for Longevity Rituals.
If you don't like the rules, fine. That's another issue entirely.
Anyway,
Ken