In my experience, the best advice for newbies is that which educates them toward nolonger being newbies.
The qualities of an ink are based on its composition
An ink is composed of 3 parts which, together, define how it will behave. The general ingredient types are pigments, binders, and the medium.
The color is usually a pigment or dye. I usually refer to this ingredient as the "pigment" but this is just me not liking the word color as a descriptor of an ingredient. Pigments are a suspension, and will tend to separate a bit, so you need to mix them. If the bottle says "shake before use", it's a pigment. These can clog pens. Dyes are usually a solution, and rarely separate. Because they are much finer, dyes are less likely to clog a pen. Most black inks are just carbon powder, usually the product of some sort of burning and refining process- basically, liquid charcoal. Other pigments come from all sorts of interesting places. Pigments react to the acidity of a page and UV light. Some Pigments react more than others. Knowing how they react (and what your ink actually contains) takes research. There's no simple way around it. If you want to know, you need to take the effort to go out and find out yourself for each individual one. Higher opacity inks usually have more pigment, and also tend to be thicker, making them less appropriate for pens. In pen work, you want a thin ink with a fine, bold dye. Avoid anything significantly more viscous than water or alcohol. Places which have samples to try an ink are the best to do quick research into products with poor labeling.
The binder adheres your pigment to the paper's fibers as the medium evaporates. It's basically a type of glue. Different binders have all sorts of different qualities. Some are like a lacquer which barely absorb into the page, sitting on the surface and sealing the ink under a shiny, hard, crusty layer. India ink is an example of an ink with this sort of strong, rigid binding agent. Because such a binder is mostly a surface treatment, it can crack, crumble, and otherwise degrade over time. It also causes the ink to take much longer to dry, as there is a curing process in addition to the evaporation of the binder. Lacquer binders are the worst ink to use in a pen. They are extremely hard to remove from a nib once dried, requiring mechanical abbrasion, and they destroy the inner workings of fountain and technical pens if not thoroughly cleaned immediately following use. These kinds of heavy-duty binders are much harder to find, especially in colored inks. Most binders absorb into the paper and prevent the pigment from separating from the medium, keeping an even color distribution. These binders preserve more of the paper's qualities, and are more commonly available in most inks. These are usually fine to use in a pen. Some binders significantly alter the viscosity of the ink, causing it to be thicker, more like an oil, changing the way it flows and pools on a page. Higher viscosity inks generally take longer to dry, as the pooling reduces the air-exposed surface area, and prevents absorption.
The medium is the liquid carrying the dye and the binder. It is almost always water. Less common are spirit (alcohol) based inks, and even more rare are oil based inks. If an ink doesn't say "spirit" or "oil" on the packaging, it's a reasonable assumption that the ink is water based. Without additional ingredients, the drying time is based on this ingredient, and air-exposed surface area. The lower the viscosity, the more the ink will spread out and absorb into the page, increasing the surface area and speeding drying time. In calligraphy, you generally want as thin of an ink as possible, so your ink will dry faster. Generally, of the three, spirit based inks dry the fastest, and oils the slowest. However, additional ingredients are sometimes added to an ink which will speed the drying process and alter the viscosity. Water based inks are by far the most used because they are as close to being chemically neutral as possible, and so will generally last longer. If an ink is "archival", it is likely water based. Spirits, though thinner and faster drying, are highly acidic, and so generally give the work a much shorter lifespan. Spirit based inks also tend to be too thin for use on low weight paper. They soak in much easier, and so tend to also soak through much easier. Finally, they aren't very good for dip pen use, as an open bottle of spirit based ink will lose as much as 30% of its volume to the air over the course of its total usage, as alcohol is more volatile and evaporates much more easily than water. You're much more likely to encounter spirit based inks in contained pens- sharpies being the most famous example. Do not use oil based inks in a pen. They are insoluble in water, making them nearly impossible to clean. Being both thick and slow drying also makes them especially unsuited to calligraphy. They clog pens and cause headaches. Also, and this may or may not affect preference, but spirit and oil based inks usually STINK, as in they smell very bad.
In practice, the behavior of an ink also depends on the paper
A lot of the qualities you're asking for depend more on the paper you'll be writing on, and how the ink interacts with it. The absorbency, weight, tooth, and finish of a paper will dramatically alter the way ink behaves when applied to it. You say you're planning on using many different papers. Some are good for this, and others should just be avoided. Using India ink as a baseline example, because it is widely available...
A high tooth paper will interfere with pen travel and, if it is toothy enough, have visible ridges or texture rising from the mark, while a low tooth paper will allow smooth, uninterrupted marks and even distribution. Cartridge paper, letterhead, vellum, and most craft store card stock are good examples of the kinds of paper you should aim for when doing ink work.
A loose, highly absorbent paper will result in marks soaking into the page like it's paper towel, causing marks to become blobby, fuzzy, or blurry. A dense, tight, low absorbency paper will allow the ink to sit on the surface, but might fail to allow the ink to bind to the fibers well. The less ink absorbed by the paper, the more it pools, and the longer it will take to dry. Machine pressed papers, like craft papers and printer papers, tend to be really tight and sturdy. Watch out for hand-made papers, which can vary wildly, and construction paper, which is often very loose and soft. News print is another example of soft, absorbent paper. Recycled papers should also generally be avoided here, as they tend to have inconsistent absorbency across their surface.
A fine, low-weight paper will warp and buckle, possibly even dissolve, under the moisture of the ink, causing excess ink to run and pool into troughs as the page distorts. Fine paper also tends to allow much more bleed, as there's nowhere for excess absorbed ink to go, but outward from the mark. A heavy weight paper will hold up to moisture much better, will exhibit little to no rippling, and gives the absorbed ink somewhere to go within your mark area. Anything thicker than printer paper is better. The thicker the paper, the better for your mark.
A gloss-finished paper often has a coating, such as wax or kaolin. These tight, non-porous finishing treatments cause the paper to become hydrophobic, preventing any meaningful inkwork. Magazine pages and wrapping paper are examples of kaolinated finishes. Packaging paper, that brown stuff, is often coated with an oily, plastic, or waxy finish. Foils will also repel moisture and generally refuse the binding agent.
You want non-acidic paper. Acidic paper will chemically react with the ink's ingredients over time, and change its properties. The pigment may change color, the binder may degrade, the paper may dissolve. While some inks are less reactive, this merely slows the effect. If you're doing temporary works, feel free to ignore this advice.
