Okay, my response above was made on my understanding of the Thaumaturgy rules as they stand, and I stand by the fact that having the materials available and the knowledge to perform the ritual is already covered in the Lore part of the spell. Remember you're telling the story of the spell in any case, so it may be that you grabbed some things on a hunch, or took a quick trip back to your workshop to grab supplies. You could use your Resources to declare you've got specific supplies within your Sanctum to allow a tag on it, which gives you the free +2 in any case for having the Sanctum. It's just a matter of how you interpret the thaumaturgy rules. I just don't think it should be an automatic unquestioned bonus.

However, having re-read several times the section that covers Arcane Sanctum in Resources, I think the whole thing could do with some clarification from the writers.

As I read it the standard of your Sanctum basically limits the complexity of any Thaumaturgy cast within it to your Resources -2 steps unless you specifically try and improve it during the game. This seems a little harsh because if you've not specifically put skill points into buying Resources at more than Mediocre, then at the start of play the most simple Thaumaturgy is basically beyond your ability to perform within your own sanctum. In some ways you'd be better just doing the ritual on the street because at least that just defaults to Mediocre rather than the Terrible rating your Arcane Sanctum would have.

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick on how the sanctum actually works - does that limitation only apply to researching ritual theories?

I'm not against there being some limitation based on the standard of the Sanctum - obviously a fully kitted out workshop with fitted silver circle is going to be better than a damp shed with a chalk circle. But I'm not entirely sure what the limitation should be? Any suggestions?

My opinion is that it's a matter of degrees of separation of magic and killing. In my view the example of throat slitting while target is sleeping due to a spell simply isn't a breach of the First Law. Yes it's murder, yes it's unpleasant, but the actual weapon that dealt the killing blow is unconnected to the magic that caused the sleep. Otherwise the Wardens themselves would be guilty of breaking the first law if they used magic in a fight that resulted in the death of a warlock. The sleep didn't cause the death, it merely made it easier to accomplish. The magic wasn't directly responsible. The example used in the First Law section of the book mentions using air to throw someone off a building. If the magic is a direct cause it violates the first law. Otherwise it's just likely to get you looked at closely by the Wardens and the mortal authorities. In the sleep case the slitting of the throat is a completely separate act from putting the person to sleep. In the air blast example from the rulebook the spell actually throws the person to their death.

My reading in the section on the First Law is that there is a lot of unpleasant grey area that may not result in a Lawbreaker stunt (so no metaphysical consequences) but may result in a trial and a Doom of Damocles punishment. Much of it is going to be down to personal interpretation by the GM, depending on how severe they want the First Law to be.

My best guess is that's why they went with transformation being an all or nothing thing. It's just a lot easier to manage that way. Most of the time people have a pretty clear idea of the before and after but won't necessarily agree on the in-between. The other potential problem is tracking mixed sources of damage at that point. If you're transforming someone and someone else shoots them, what happens when their stress track fills up? Does it matter if the last thing that happened to them was a spell or a gunshot?

The rules do seem to point to that being the case. Certainly a full transformation explicitly requires a Taken Out result, and the section in the laws of magic stresses how unlikely someone is to survive it (a normal human at any rate). If you want to allow transformation as a less inherently harmfull effect can I suggest that inflicting any Consequence triggers the full physical transformation, and the duration of that transformation is dictated by the level of Consequence inflicted.

The point about tracking different types of damage though is actually fairly irrelevant. The stress track itself isn't actually damage, it's near misses, inconsequential scratches etc. Damage only occurs when you actually take consequences (which itself is basically taking the damage now to allow you a chance at a lucky miss later). The only thing that counts is what caused them to be taken out - and to an extent that's player choice, they can choose to to take an Extreme consequence to deal with the gunshot to give them the possibility of living in a transformed state when the spell causes enough stress to Take them Out. But the chances of survival in that state are slim unless the GM is forgiving - though I suppose you could allow a reverse transformation within a short time as a hope of survival for any mortal without a Wizards Constitution or similar.

The 'why' is fairly easy. One member of the band has the Cassandra's tears power. Mostly they collaborate with another lyricist on their songs, but there's one song on every album for which they wrote the lyrics for alone and that's when their gift comes to the fore (gives you a way for the players to work out who it is too).

The who is more difficult. It depends what type of music you want them to play.

"Polly Want a Potion!  RAK!"  Has to be an aspect.  I have no idea how to work it in though.

The Aspect is "CURSES! I'M A PARROT!"

Thanks for the comments everyone. There are some issues I need to at least think about, so it's all good stuff.

Yes the player wants the curse to still be in effect, so it is basically plot powered.

However, there are a few things I'm still a little unsure about with regards to some of the issues raised.

The first of these is the exact effect that running water and salt would have on a situation like this. Bearing in mind that it's in fact 2 curses we're talking about. The first is the curse that transformed him (and you can consider that one to be cast by a powerful wizard at the height of his power, with human sacrifice involved, and in his own place of power) - so that one's a doozy in and of itself. The Death Curse reinforced the original curse - I'm thinking that maybe it's added certain requirements to allow it to be broken. The requirements are either something the character just wasn't prepared to consider (he's a protector of children, so maybe 'the heart of a child' killed by his magic - something vague enough to have an alternate meaning if we need it to), or it's something that is now virtually impossible to get. Because the curses have inflicted a permanent character Aspect, I’m looking at it from the viewpoint that it has become a part of the person, which means it’s treated like a supernatural power when passing through a Threshold.

The only stuff I can find in the rules on the effects of water on a spell is to treat it like a Threshold, that and a very vague paragraph in Our World, which doesn’t really go into any system mechanics (If anyone can direct me to any more meaningful information I’d appreciate it). Which theoretically means that the dampening effect of water (and indeed the threshold for a religious sanctuary) would only be in effect while you were within them. Which is fine, I’m quite happy that the presence of running water and a heavily sanctified holy place could massively degrade a curse, as it would any spell. However, if you were trying to cast something to counter the curse, wouldn’t you also be suffering the same degradation to your attempt? Which would seem to cancel out the benefits of performing it in such a place (you can of course combat this with preparation, but it’s going to be a dangerous proposition for him to try and cast it himself). Am I wrong in my assumption of how this works, and if so can you point me towards what I’ve missed.

As far as contacting other Wizards goes, the circumstances of the original curse involve the character being framed for the enthralling of children. The charges was proven false - so he no longer has Lawbreaker or Doom of Damocles - but not for some time afterwards, so initially it wasn’t an option to go to another wizard. Then there’s the blank spots that have happened from time to time, and yes, he now finds himself quite comfortable as a parrot.

As far as a transformation spell goes to allow him to change back into a human form, I’m figuring, from a system perspective it’s simply that every time he tries without the correct requirements in place his CURSES! I’M A PARROT Aspect is invoked to prevent the change.

And as Doc Nova says the situation is riddled with plot hooks.

Thanks again all.

Seems to me that having the bad guy fall while trying to get away, benefits the character.

Just my point of view, but I'd say that's far more heavily weighted towards the detriment of Voldemort - which edges it into Compel territory.

The paragraph on page 98 says that Invocation for Effect allows you to make a Declaration - which is defined on page 116 as introducing a new Aspect. So effectively you can add another aspect to Voldemort, and then tag that, and then again and again ad infinitum - which seems a little silly. In this case I wouldn't allow an Invocation for Effect, just a straight Invocation or Compel.

Okay, one of my players has come up with a lovely idea for a Wizard character. It’s one that I’ve decided to allow, even if it means fudging things a little.

The concept is a Wizard who was transformed into a parrot long ago (so long ago that he’s actually spent more time as a parrot by far than as a human), as the result of a spell cast by a wizard gone bad. The only reason he’s survived the transformation is his Wizards constitution (combined with the fact that the wizard that did this was particularly adept at transformation spells). He managed to kill the wizard in question, but unfortunately the Death Curse made the transformation as near permanent as possible – there is a way back to human form, but the character has yet to discover it.

So, aspect-wise, I’m considering a Trouble aspect along the lines of CURSES, I’M A PARROT!

Compels for this include actually acting like a normal parrot – either as a result of having been a parrot for so long that certain behaviour seems natural, or due to a drop in ‘connection’ with the portion of his intellect and human body that is effectively stored in the Never Never. I reserve the option to have that Never Never portion of him attacked at some point, but don’t have any real intention of doing so at present. This accounts for a number of lost years and blank spots, where he’s effectively spent time as a normal parrot before regaining his senses. He’s looking at either being a companion for one of the other PCs or having a street urchin (possibly a gang of them) that he goes around with. (I sort of envision him as an avian Fagin type if he goes with the group of street urchins).

Another compel option is for the length of time to perform a ritual (we both like the image of a parrot nudging ritual components into place). As an automatic thing rituals will take longer to perform, but it really only acts as a compel when time is an important factor.

Invocations include getting overlooked as a normal animal, difficult to hit while flying, able to fit through gaps a human couldn’t etc.

Because I’m looking at running a Chest Deep game, I’m having to look at the refresh costs quite carefully. I’m going to insist that the character needs to have at least ‘Wings’ as an ability in order to fly around (I could just make the ability to fly an invocation of the parrot aspect, but I think I’d prefer to take the Wings route). This means that the character needs at least 1 more refresh than is available on the regular Wizard template. Rather than downgrade him to a Sorceror, I’m probably going to take the approach of saying that his parrot abilities have replaced some of his wizarding ones. Specifically I’m looking at swapping The Sight for Wings, and giving him the option of taking Channelling instead of Evocation – allowing him another point to spend on something parrot appropriate – and representing the idea that his current form cuts him off from invoking more than a single element (Air would seem appropriate). The idea is that as and when he is returned to human form the full Evocation and Sight will swap back in.

Incidentally, I have looked at the Parrot on the mundane animals thread, and while I agree with most of it, I don’t think Diminutive Size is necessarily appropriate in this case – I have pictures of a parrot face to face with my two year old son, and it’s by no means dwarfed by him. That said, it does depend on the breed of parrot, so Diminutive size could be appropriate in some cases, just not this one.

Does all this sound fair enough, bearing in mind that I don’t want to make the whole thing too much of a creation nightmare, and would rather it not be too much of a headache in play – which is why a few tweaks at character creation and an Aspect  seemed the way to go. The aspect comes from an extreme consequence inflicted as part of the original spell, as per the Transformation rules under thaumaturgy.

Does all that seem fair?

Honestly, I'd be inclined to say that you can't. (It adds a whole new level of complexity - can you then counter that counter? What about countering the counter of the counter.... and so on).

I'd probably approach the situation by from the point of view of making the spell harder to counter when initially casting it. Should be easy enough to model in the casting rules.

As far as countering evocation goes I think it probably depends on the situation. I'd lean towards needing to act at the same time or immediately after if you're a zone away (you can go for the whole Big Trouble in Little China battle between Egg Chen and Lo Pan effect - cheesy but dramatic). If you go before you'd basically be holding your action to counter it anyway.