Maybe technomancy requires you to be a scientific crank. Maybe it only works if you buy into some kind of nonsensical pseudoscience that "explains" all the wacky stuff you can do.

That way, you can have someone who doesn't believe in magic, but does believe in and practice something very similar.

That's for temporary Powers in general. IoP lending is a special case; it says so on YS 167-168.

The attack would still have to fit the method of feeding. So you could drain blood by shooting people, possibly by inhaling from the wounds, but for emotions you'd have to use ranged Incite Emotion attacks or something similar.

I'm pretty sure an elder BCV would have more powerful attack options than this. Like Evocation. With that in mind, maybe the way to go would be making vampirism powers compatible with attack spells. The image you had in mind would certainly be achievable that way.

Not sure about this.

I don't see feeding attacks as fundamentally different from normal attacks. So if I was writing this, I'd basically just make it [-1]: Remove the physical contact requirement from Blood Drinker/Emotional Vampire. Let people provide the range and the weapon ratings with their own abilities.

But looking at the book again, it's not totally clear how Blood Drinker and Emotional Vampire are actually meant to work.

You can take Human Form without Beast Change.

But if I were your player, I'd definitely take Beast Change. It's an amazingly useful Power. Especially for someone who wants to use both Channelling (Fire) and Claws. Being both a spellcaster and a brawler is way more manageable when you have two whole skill pyramids to work with.

EDIT: I always forget that Lycanthropes are a PC template in YS...

I've been playing this game for a long time, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a lycanthrope PC.

This forum hasn't been a good way to get in touch with Evil Hat for a long time.

It's not totally clear how True Faith works, but it's definitely not just internal to the believers. The White God, whatever it is, clearly exists and exerts real power through its angels.

Picking an example at semi-random, Shiro didn't get his powers from being a Baptist. He got them because God (or perhaps his angels) decided to give them to him. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone with True Faith was in a similar boat. But for game purposes I'd totally allow a character to take Righteousness fuelled by their belief in the American way or whatever; whether or not it's what Butcher intended, it'll work fine in play.

If you ask me, the big mystery of True Faith is what exactly God is. The actual-factual miracles in the story make a number of real-life theological controversies a lot harder to answer.

I'm not really sure it's possible to discuss that topic without getting into touchy territory, though. Had a whole thing written out on the topic and deleted it because it was mostly applicable to real-world religion as well as Dresdenverse religion.

Here's a weird thought. Islam doesn't have a lot of symbols (it's a whole thing), but the first verses of the Qur'an that were revealed talk about how God taught humans with a pen. Would you let a sufficiently devout Muslim just pull out a pen and start warding off a vampire with it?

I'd allow it. It's not mechanically overpowered or religiously offensive, so why not?

Devout words seems decent. Blessed Words I'm not too impressed by. Letting you block physical attacks with Conviction is a genuinely new capability; letting you make a taggable Aspect with it isn't. Unless your GM lets you get a bit supernatural with the effects of your prayers.

Like most Catch-related things, exactly what's holy enough to beat the Toughness of (for example) a vampire is not really nailed-down rules-wise. If I was GMing, I'd probably let you consecrate a baton with appropriate ceremonies and a mundane Conviction roll. Wouldn't be something you could do casually, though.