I have noted the rule that magi suffer 1 warping point per year as a result of their longevity potions (for being under a constant powerful magical effect designed for them).
However, I note in the supplement Magi of Hermes, that none of the examples accouint for the annual increase in warping points. In fact, in many of the examples the characters as presented should have one Minor Flaw and one (or in most cases, two, three or more) Major Flaws from Warping due to the constant effect of the longevity potion.
Also, in looking through the supplement Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults, I am questioning the warping effect of the Path of Body's final level and the Path of Walking Backwards final level. Both paths suggest that the magi following them could poentially exist "perhaps for centuries", but that is inconsistent with the suggestion that they would continue to gain warping points annually, since in the first hundred years they gain a minimum of a Minor Flaw and a Major Flaw and in the second hundred, two more major Flaws, and in the third hundred two more Major Flaws, and that is only due to the ongoing longevity effect - let alone any warping points gained from doing anything or from other effects.
I would like some clarification on the effect of warping point accumulation due to longevity effects, given the above items in the supplements that seem to contradict the provisions in the main rulesbook.
Magi don't gain flaws from warping.
kit isn't just magi but almost all traditions have an alternative to vanilla warping. Warping is a sort of worst case scenario for folks who don't have a better option (although some of the options in RoP: Infernal might in fact be worse I don;t recall)
The infernal is really bad. I'm not sure if its worse, but you do NOT want to muck up when fooling around with the powers of the Infernal. I highly recommend getting careful with (ability) for your main method and avoiding anything that would increase botch dice like the plague when using malifica. Also never cast something if there is a chance of getting the bad effects of failure.
OTOH, the Divine version of twilight is "get loads of xp", sure it takes from other xp, but you can always get that back with a L3Q22 summae. Or if you are a monastic tradition it can become "get lots of xp, at no cost. Or gain cool virtues. God loves you."
Vituperation is indeed nasty at least in-game. IIRC, rulewise it's basically Wizard's Twilight except that it occurs in Hell, grants a butt-load of Confidence points for some reason, and forces you to ensure that someone dies in a state of mortal sin within the next year or else die yourself.
It also forces a aging roll and I don't think it always protects the body. I have no idea why it grants confidence points. Probably by the same logic as a Tytalus (sp?) apprenticeship.
Once you've had a time-out in Hell, I guess whatever comes next, you can always say "well, I've been through worse!"
In contrast, the best (in-game) is probably Divine - you just disappear for a while, and come back with increased scores in Theology or Lore: Divine. And I don't think it maxes out - you just disappear for longer and longer periods of time.
Of course, the character may disappear for long enough to outlive the game saga, which is functionally similar to death. Kinda.
You need a really high warping score to do that. Its 1 month a warping point, and no aging while inside. Faerie calling isn't too bad either, so long as you fail to comprehend it you get new negative sympathy traits. However, a season of study can make those non-negative, and another makes them positive. The end result is your sympathy increases. Which in turn empowers your magic. No risk until you get a sympathy trait of +10, but its fairly hard to accidentally gain positive sympathy. You should end up with a huge array of low level sympathy traits!
True, but your body's not protected from harm while in Faerie Calling. You can act, but it's hard and if it happened in the middle of an adventure there's a pretty good chance the faerie wizard could die as a result!