The Multiple Apprentices thread got me thinking how do you think the Order would respond to a surge in the number of gifted children they had access to. For instance the Breakthrough mentioned in Magi of Hermes of non-sterilizing Longevity Rituals became the norm in the order. Also for the sake of discussion assume gifted parents who are under the effects of these improved rituals almost always have gifted children.
I could see a lot of areas of initial conflict as older and politically powerful Magi who are still sterile attempt to claim the children of younger magi with gifted families. Though as the ranks of fertile Magi start to swell tribunals the political climate might quickly change. Soon the question isn't who gets these children as apprentices but what do we do with the extras.
Our game has a side that every few years, Twins (or more) are born. Usually, the twins are both gifted, and if triplets, the third is not. (In one instance the un-gifted child had a death Prophecy that bound the three together) This has caused a lot of gifted children to be around. The magi have sometimes taken two apprentices, or split them. In some instances, they have been sold off. You could say that its become a story, that provides profit (payment) and loss (battles by potential masters). Most of the magi in the covenant are so busy, they haven't looked into the cause....
IMO, you'd get a Tremere breeding program pretty sharpish. In the Order, the rate at which you can replace fallen frontline soldiers is crucial to the balance of forces. House Tremere can't allow itself to become a tiny fraction of the Order's population (unless it can maintain its position with diplomacy or something) and so I think it would take its rapid-training program from after the Schism War our of mothballs. If antoher House goes for a breeding program, then House Tremere won't have a choice, IMO, but to have one as well, and they don't do these things by halves.
House Tremere, uniquely of all the Houses, has experience with running a Reconstruction Generation, complete with magi who sacrifice their own studies to raise the new recruits, experiments at communal raising of apprentices, and facilities in fast-time regiones. If the Tremere get this technology, then given they have in the past trained apprentices in places with 3:1 time dialtions, you get your first batch of Tremere who breed true in between six and eight years, and then a new batch every year after that, with an apprenticeship taking five real-world years. After about ten real world years, the incubator regione becomes self-perpetuating (the graduates can teach), and they can just spew out vast numbers of Tremere, compared to the historical hundred or so. And it doesn't matter that these new Tremere aren't really strong magi, or that some are trained specifically to be teachers (5 in all Arts as soon as possible, no spells until then) Tremere combat doctrine is adapted to the idea that Tremere are never the best at anything, and they've been saving magic items since the dawn of time on that basis.
The other thing? The Order's current political position, de facto, is that it is not expansionist. Actually it -is- expansionist, but there's no (ahem) sorcerer's crusade, no forceful movement to take more land. If Hermetic Magushood begins to breed true, then unless they get something like the Spark breakthrough from Soqotra, you are going to get an Age of Discovery, through sheer population pressure alone.
Okay lets stop beating around the bush and address the Elephant in the room. What we're looking at is perhaps a series of privately funded 'universities' in which some of the greatest teachers in the Order and Mundane world spend time teaching classes of the Next generation. Bonasagian kudos would go into the person who could mitigate the social effect of the gift on each other if not in providing any resistance as such.
Some of the most skilled Mundane teachers could be brought in (and given the same gift mitigation) to teach classes the basics like Latin, philisophae and Artes Liberalles. These could be run and funded by House Mercere's trading houses.
I could see the Deanship of one of these facilities being a great piece of political power for Magi as it would allow a magi to imprint upon a large number of the next generation of magi.
Add into this mix skilled Veterans, Physicians, Magic theory specialists and other teachers and you can create a generation of Magi whose start could automatically included the equivilent of the Skilled Parens.
Then after a number of years (say 7) of this sort of education, a shortened Apprenticeship is given to the magi by a Fully Gauntleted Magus for training (8 Seasons) and then returns to their accadamy for training in the Parma.
This would RADICALLY change the order, but would perhaps make things interesting for people who want to run this sort of story, or be a goal for a Jerbiton Magi.
MUCH better than that. You can get 50-90XP per year if you try. Its easy as long as the Arts and Abilities are very low level. Like Summaes for Arts with Limit 7 and 28XP(or at least limit 6 and 21XP) and for Abilities limit 4 with 25XP. Ie. primers extraordinaire.
And Hogwarts, well you could also go with Fairhaven style, if you want cutthroat competition(literally), Winding Circle style for the opposite, Unseen University for a markedly "hands-off" approach... Those are the ones i can think of ATM.
Or just do what we did, covenant model upsized. It doesnt go quite as far so its more inline with canon materiel.
One could argue that multiple apprentices are already a necessity for the martial houses (Flambeau, Tytalus, etc). Take a look at this old thread on magi attrition rates:
I contend that since the martial house magi are almost certainly going to be lost at higher rates than other house magi, there is internal pressure to seek out and train more apprentices over the course of their lives. Perhaps not in groups, but if the average magus trains one or two over the course of his life, perhaps martial magi should have a goal of training two or three.
