Varden Plan

Some possibilities for Varden. These make use of the costs and training table, rules for Sciences and the Mark of Autochthon.

Magitech

Varden is the only one in the circle who knows much about artificing. To really get good at it, however, he needs to learn the Science of Magitech. This will allow him to use his Craft skills on things that are too advanced for him at the moment, such as repairing the two warstriders (check the bottom of those pages, by the way, as they list what is needed to repair them). To get them up and running, you'll need a Magictech rating of at least ●●. To get them fully functional, complete with flight options, you'll need Magitech ●●●●.

For the first dot of Magitech, you need to have Occult 3, Craft (Fire) 3, Craft (Air) 1 (all of which you already have), Lore 4, and some source of knowledge that can teach you. So, you will need:

6xp to take Lore to 4 (144 hours)
Wyr'palja's Workbook contains enough information to act as a tutor for Magitech ●. You could also use the Mark's "tapping the source" ability for this if you wanted, but this seems like a waste.
2xp and 200 hours to learn. (Naturally, using Precision could speed this up.)

To learn Magitech ●●, you first need to learn another science called Perfection. This is a more mundane science for making flawless, but still non-magical items. Mortals train for a lifetime to be able to do this. It will not take you that long. You already have the abilities needed to learn Perfection ●, and can again use Wyr'palja's Workbook and other sources to teach you:

2xp and 200 hours to learn. (Naturally, using Precision could speed this up.)

Magitech ●● requires Lore 5, Occult 4, Craft (Fire) 4, Craft (Air) 2, Perfection 1. So, you'll need:

8xp to take Lore to 5 (192 hours)
Wyr'palja's Workbook contains enough information to act as a tutor for Magitech ●●.
3xp and 300 hours to learn. (Naturally, yadda yadda.)

Magitech ●●● requires Lore 5, Occult 5, Craft (Fire) 5, Craft (Air) 3, Perfection 1. So, you'll need:

Wyr'palja's Workbook contains enough information to act as a tutor for Magitech ●●●.
6xp and 600 hours to learn.

Magitech ●●●● requires Lore 6, Occult 6, Craft (Fire) 6, Craft (Air) 4, Perfection 2. This is a bit trickier. You can't actually raise abilities to 6 until you raise your Essence to 6, which you can't do until you are at least 100 years old. So, instead, what you need is add specialties to your abilities. These will add to your rating for particular uses of the skill. So:

3xp and 288 hours to gain a +1 Magitech specialty to Lore. (Note that the Mark can give you this specialty without xp or training time for a permanent point of Source.)
3xp and 144 hours to gain a +1 Magitech specialty to Occult (cheaper, because it is favored).
3xp and 144 hours to gain a +1 Fire specialty to Craft.
3xp and 300 hours to learn Perfection ●●.
Your only current source of training Magitech this advanced is to use the Mark. As a solar, a point of permanent Source and temporary Precision will buy you training for this dot.
10xp and 1,000 hours to learn Magitech ●●●●

Experience change: -41xp

Architectonics

This is another science, dealing with manses. Your abilities already let you repair manse structures, fix their minor powers and make minor alterations. The Architectonics science allows design of manses, adding new powers to them and repairing their more formidable powers. It's progression is similar to Magitech, except that it is based on Craft (Earth) instead of Craft (Fire), and requires a lesser science called Geomancy instead of Perfection.

Raising Essence

Raising your Essence to 5 would cost 32xp and take 768 hours. You don't need a trainer for this. If you want to use the mark's Deep Resonance, you could spend eight Willpower and gain a dot of Precision to go into a training trance that compresses the 768 hours of untrained learning into an eight-hour vision quest. Since this is to gain a point of Essence, you must describe this vision quest to the rest of the players (not necessarily the characters), which will give you an immediate test to regain Willpower at the end of it (i.e. roll Conviction, gain willpower for each success). What does Varden find out about himself during this quest? What allows him to unlock this new power?

Ebon Shadow Style

You have five charms remaining in the Ebon Shadow tree. Mastering this tree would take:

Blow-Concealing Gesture Technique (8xp, 80 hours untrained). Can deny dodge or parry to target.
Limb-Immobilizing Method (8xp, 64 hours untrained). Instead of damage, paralyze limbs.
Shadow-Body Style (8xp, 80 hours untrained). Flatten body to fit through small openings.
Paralyzing Touch Attack (8xp, 80 hours untrained). Reduce target's Dex.
Shadow-Stepping Motion (8xp, 40 hours trained, requires Essence 5). You must have training for this charm, so Source may be required. Teleport into a shadow up to 100 yards away.

Excellencies

The Mark provides knowledge of a set of excellency charms. The solar versions allows buying extra dice for stuff. Varden could do worse than learning Craft Overwhelming and Martial Arts Overwhelming.

Mixing Styles

Your two styles don't allow armor, and don't have any form weapons in common. This means that to use charms from both at once, you need to attack bare-handed. In addition, the two styles don't offer a lot of combo opportunity.

On the other hand, since the style combination already uses no armor and no weapons, you have a lot of choices for adding in another style. You might want to take a serious look at Wood Dragon.

Gem of Desire

Remind me to change the mechanics of the Gem of Desire. The Second Edition version works a lot better (not as easy to resist).

Unlearning Brawl

Varden can use the Mark to unlearn his one Brawl charm:

Pay a point of Willpower and gain a point of Precision to unlearn Ferocious Jab, gaining 8xp.

Experience change: +8xp

Increase Strength

Increasing Strength from 3 to 4 costs 12xp and takes 576 hours with a trainer, twice that without. The Monsoon Needles could be used to cut this to 10xp and 288 hours.

Increasing Strength from 4 to 5 costs 16xp and takes 768 hours with a trainer, twice that without. While the Monsoon Needles can still be used as a trainer, your Essence isn't high enough to cut the training time in half (though if you first raised your Essence to 5, it would be).

If you want to use the mark's Deep Resonance, you could spend eight Willpower and gain a dot of Precision to go into a training trance the compresses the 768 hours of untrained learning into an eight-hour vision quest. If you want to describe this vision quest to the rest of the players (not necessarily the characters), you gain an immediate test to regain Willpower at the end of it (i.e. roll Conviction, gain willpower for each success).