I posted this on Dio's, and a couple of people said they liked the idea. Since Immy types aren't known to reply over there, I thought I would repeat it here.

I always assumed the idea for the Nexus bond power came from the people calling for an Aes Sedai/Warder cabal. The bond was a really cool power, but due to the way grudges are held in CF, the idea of maintaining the balance kinda fizzled.

I would like to see a Mage cabal for Good/Neutrals that incoperates elements of Master, Warlock, and Nexus powers. Before you scream overpowered, hear me out.

* Warrior types would be allowed in, same as in Nexus. Their main powers would stem from the bond. I never played a Nexan, but I understand they received some rather decent benefits. This would remain somewhat unchanged from Nexus.

* Mages would have two paths: The path of the Magus, and the path of the Bond Dedicate. Perhaps give every mage Tome and Magical control.

Magus
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Followers of the Magus path have chosen to focus on augmenting their magical abilities at the cost of having less of a bond with their fighter counterparts. These Magi receive benefits similar to old Master and Warlock abilities. However, they would be able to build their own combination, similar to thief paths. Each would spend some time as an apprentice until they were accepted by the leader of one of three paths. Everyone gets a certain number of points with which to buy cabal powers, but the powers cost more or less depending on which group you have chosen.

Offensive devotees would be able to purchase things like scourge or mental knife cheaply, but defensive powers would cost them a LOT, and not work as well. Those who choose the defensive path would be able to take things like Transform, warlock shielding, or counterspell; but any offensive abilities they took would be expensive and gimped. Then there could be a middle of the road crew. Abilities all have the same cost, and all work decently well.
As to the bond, Magus path followers would receive some exp bonus while killing with their bondmate, and be able to do things like communicate while in a shifter form, know when the bondmate is attacked anywhere in the world, and receive aid in making their way to the bondmate...
ex: call 'sense bondmate'
>> You sense your bondmate to the north.
Go north.
>> You sense your bindmate to the east.
Go east.
While doing this, your concentration on your bondmate is so strong that there is a noticeable lag on where and where PK (Or remove them altogether)


Bond Dedicate
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The bond dedicate has forsaken augmenting her magical abilities in exchange for a much stronger bond. The more times she bonds with someone, the better her abilities from them get. If she bonds the same person many times in a row, they can increase even higher. (Must stay bonded a significant amount of time to count, so they can't just bond and rebond until they're superhuman)

The dedicate gets hungry and thirsty less often, and gains an overall increase in regen. She has the same tracking ability as a Magus, but once in a VERY great while (100 tick reuse perhaps) she can gate directly to her bondmate if he has been attacked.

She gains temporary insight into the weapons her bondmate knows, able to parry and dodge them as if she knows them just as well as he. She can draw hp from her bondmate or pass it to him, but only 75% makes it across. No actual number is specified, but the syntax might be:
call 'transfer health' light/medium/heavy/full/sacrifice
light would transfer approximately 15% of current life, Medium approx 40%. heavy approx 70%, full would transfer everything leaving you at 1 health...
Sacrifice allows a dedicate to make the ultimate sacrifice for her bondmate. As long as she has more than 65% of her life and is not in combat, she can sacrifice herself, pushing the full amount of her life force across the bond. This altruistic action will fully heal her bondmate and grant him an effect similar to Aristaeia. The Dedicate's bondmate may flee while this affects him, but when the duration expires he is fatigued (- to max hp, str, hit/dam) for either a set number of hours or until his bondmate is once again beside him.

Other benefits could possibly include hiding/camoing with the bondmate, perhaps an Invoker could energize a bondmate's weapons with an element for a certain amount of time, maybe angels will occasionally rescue the bondmate, or archons heal him. Perhaps bond dedicates could bond with other mages in groups to perform special spells!

Fighter-Types
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I like the idea of having fighters, it beats counterpoint to the Scion fighter types. Some of the benefits to and from these folk have been mentioned above, hide/camoing the mage with them, added hitpoints, etc. The fighters would also benefit from a slightly higher regen rate and less need for food and water. These benefits would be lessened or removed altogether for mages taking the Magi focus.

Autoguard: The bond allows the fighter to have an extra pair of eyes and ears that he can sense through the bond. If he so chooses, he can have a chance to intercept any sort of "surprise attack" aimed at his bondmate.

Spell Charge: The fighter may allow his mage to cast a spell upon one of his weapons (or a glove or gauntlet, if using fists). This item must be magical to hold the spell. The next time the fighter strikes with this weapon, the spell discharges normally with whomever took the blow as the target. As mana and lag are taken care of when the weapon is charged, this is almost like the mage getting a free spell.
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This is about all I have for now. I really picked my brain, throwing in some things I know about Aes Sedai and warders, some abilities from D&D, and other stuff I thought was cool. I spent over an hour on this, expanding greatly from the ideas I put on Dio's. I know this stuff is probably fairly overpowered, but I was just tossing out an outline, and brainstorming. Feel free to add suggestions and all, but we could do without any flames I think.

>* Warrior types would be allowed in, same as in Nexus. Their
>main powers would stem from the bond. I never played a Nexan,
>but I understand they received some rather decent benefits.
>This would remain somewhat unchanged from Nexus.
>

These were pretty powerful. The main problem with nexus was the power discrepancy between when you were bonded and when you weren't.

>* Mages would have two paths: The path of the Magus, and the
>path of the Bond Dedicate. Perhaps give every mage Tome and
>Magical control.
>
>Magus
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>Followers of the Magus path have chosen to focus on augmenting
>their magical abilities at the cost of having less of a bond
>with their fighter counterparts. These Magi receive benefits
>similar to old Master and Warlock abilities. However, they
>would be able to build their own combination, similar to thief
>paths. Each would spend some time as an apprentice until they
>were accepted by the leader of one of three paths. Everyone
>gets a certain number of points with which to buy cabal
>powers, but the powers cost more or less depending on which
>group you have chosen.
>

Sounds fine so far.

>Offensive devotees would be able to purchase things like
>scourge or mental knife cheaply, but defensive powers would
>cost them a LOT, and not work as well. Those who choose the
>defensive path would be able to take things like Transform,
>warlock shielding, or counterspell; but any offensive
>abilities they took would be expensive and gimped. Then there
>could be a middle of the road crew. Abilities all have the
>same cost, and all work decently well.
>As to the bond, Magus path followers would receive some exp
>bonus while killing with their bondmate, and be able to do
>things like communicate while in a shifter form, know when the
>bondmate is attacked anywhere in the world, and receive aid in
>making their way to the bondmate...
>ex: call 'sense bondmate'
>>> You sense your bondmate to the north.
>Go north.
>>> You sense your bindmate to the east.
>Go east.
>While doing this, your concentration on your bondmate is so
>strong that there is a noticeable lag on where and where PK
> Or remove them altogether)
>
>
>Bond Dedicate
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>The bond dedicate has forsaken augmenting her magical
>abilities in exchange for a much stronger bond. The more
>times she bonds with someone, the better her abilities from
>them get. If she bonds the same person many times in a row,
>they can increase even higher. (Must stay bonded a significant
>amount of time to count, so they can't just bond and rebond
>until they're superhuman)
>

Don't like this. Encourages perma-ing, even if there is no ooc basis for it, you still get people staying in pairs too much.

>The dedicate gets hungry and thirsty less often, and gains an
>overall increase in regen. She has the same tracking ability
>as a Magus, but once in a VERY great while (100 tick reuse
>perhaps) she can gate directly to her bondmate if he has been
>attacked.
>

Sounds too strong to me.

>She gains temporary insight into the weapons her bondmate
>knows, able to parry and dodge them as if she knows them just
>as well as he. She can draw hp from her bondmate or pass it
>to him, but only 75% makes it across. No actual number is
>specified, but the syntax might be:
>call 'transfer health' light/medium/heavy/full/sacrifice
>light would transfer approximately 15% of current life, Medium
>approx 40%. heavy approx 70%, full would transfer everything
>leaving you at 1 health...

OK on the health transfer as long as it is only mage to fighter and not vice versa. I'd also restrict it to being based on natural hp and not hp with gear and preps.

>Sacrifice allows a dedicate to make the ultimate sacrifice for
>her bondmate. As long as she has more than 65% of her life
>and is not in combat, she can sacrifice herself, pushing the
>full amount of her life force across the bond. This
>altruistic action will fully heal her bondmate and grant him
>an effect similar to Aristaeia.

Don't like this. We've already seen examples like someone's arcane who used to sacrifice themselves regularly for someone else's unholy weapon, and it was of debatable legitimacy.

OK. Don't really have time now to go through the rest so I'll just say, it sounds decent enough although I am not comfortable with a lot of the suggestions (having played nexans), but unless I missed it, you haven't given this cabal a reason to exist. What exactly are their goals?

Generally speaking the powers seem on the strong side when looked at as a whole, to me, but some are pretty interesting and might be good if used somewhere in the game.

> The Dedicate's bondmate may
>flee while this affects him, but when the duration expires he
>is fatigued (- to max hp, str, hit/dam) for either a set
>number of hours or until his bondmate is once again beside
>him.
>
>Other benefits could possibly include hiding/camoing with the
>bondmate, perhaps an Invoker could energize a bondmate's
>weapons with an element for a certain amount of time, maybe
>angels will occasionally rescue the bondmate, or archons heal
>him. Perhaps bond dedicates could bond with other mages in
>groups to perform special spells!
>
>Fighter-Types
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>I like the idea of having fighters, it beats counterpoint to
>the Scion fighter types. Some of the benefits to and from
>these folk have been mentioned above, hide/camoing the mage
>with them, added hitpoints, etc. The fighters would also
>benefit from a slightly higher regen rate and less need for
>food and water. These benefits would be lessened or removed
>altogether for mages taking the Magi focus.
>
>Autoguard: The bond allows the fighter to have an extra pair
>of eyes and ears that he can sense through the bond. If he so
>chooses, he can have a chance to intercept any sort of
>"surprise attack" aimed at his bondmate.
>
>Spell Charge: The fighter may allow his mage to cast a spell
>upon one of his weapons (or a glove or gauntlet, if using
>fists). This item must be magical to hold the spell. The
>next time the fighter strikes with this weapon, the spell
>discharges normally with whomever took the blow as the target.
> As mana and lag are taken care of when the weapon is charged,
>this is almost like the mage getting a free spell.
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
>
>This is about all I have for now. I really picked my brain,
>throwing in some things I know about Aes Sedai and warders,
>some abilities from D&D, and other stuff I thought was cool.
>I spent over an hour on this, expanding greatly from the ideas
>I put on Dio's. I know this stuff is probably fairly
>overpowered, but I was just tossing out an outline, and
>brainstorming. Feel free to add suggestions and all, but we
>could do without any flames I think.
>
>

Like I said, I was just brainstorming stuff that I thought would be cool as it came to me. I wasn't thinking in terms of how people could abuse it, or ooc permagroups.

The reason to exist would be as a counterpoint to Scion. From what I have seen of their roleplay, Scions are seeking to allow these dark powers into the world that want to remake Thera as a generally nasty place. These people would see the Marans as mostly warriors who don't understand the extent of the problem, and the acolytes as to pacifistic to want to help. Master was really a "Magic for magic's sake" cabal, and this will be at the core of their beliefs as well. These sound like beliefs mostly geared toward goods, I know, but neutrals don't want their world taken over by shadow critters either. They would also be motivated to further the cause of magic in Thera, but these particular folk dislike Evil magic because it is ultimately so corrupting. I don't believe that a neutral person necessarily has to have both good and evil tendencies. The basic neutral for this cabal would have a "Live and let live" philosophy as their basic mindset. Most neutrals would rather deal with good people, because they aren't going to backstab you, or trick you (for the most part) and are simply more pleasant.)

Another focus for the cabal, if the above doesn't sit well (I'm still brainstorming) still hangs with the "magic for magic's sake" but is dedicated to keeping the Demons of the Abyss, Devils of the Nine Hells, and the Blood war between the two from spilling over into the material plane. These mages, unlike most folks in Thera, understand that there are horrors beyond the nightmares of the darkest minds just a planar gate away. Neutrals in this cabal may also wish to prevent mortals from being entangled in the plots of various good Outsiders as well. Some of the Warriors that join may understand the extent of what they face, others may simply want to attach themselves to the great power this group holds. I'm trying to loosely style things after the White Tower and Aes Sedai here...

Do you have any thoughts on powers that might work, having played a Nexite?

N to the T