What faction is most appealing to new players?

[Kamamura]

ULM!

[llamabeast]

My ex-girlfriend absolutely loved getting interesting random picks and working out what to do with them. Every time one of my games hosted when I was at hers (and later her own games), she would straight away insist I check all my recruited mages to see what picks they'd got. She also really liked searching for magic sites.

As such I'd recommend Arcoscephale or T'ien Ch'i. They are nice races anyway. EA T'ien Ch'i is pretty cool, with the Warriors of the Five Elements as well. Also they are kind of goodies - I think it's nice to start off playing the goodies. Oh, and they have national summons - always nice to see what weird beasties you can conjure up.

[Cor2]

I was actually thinking Ulm as well.

Do tell us how it turns out. My wife refuses to play because the game involves killing and war.