And here we are, my cover, and the release date!

Lady Raven, first in a new 4-part series, will be available from October 31st

Thanks! 

Absolutely. What's going to be great about this is seeing how the PCs react and how their attitude to it influences any potential investigation.

I think I'm inclined to rule that renfields are still human, much in the same way a changeling or lycanthrope is human. They're controlled, and physically boosted with magic, but the Wardens would view their death by mortal magic as a violation of the First Law.

For me the toughest part of Fate to get people's heads around has been that, unlike most games, Fate isn't about building powerful stats. It's about building a powerful story.

I love that Fate allows the freedom to play with things on a narrative level, and that's how I regard skills. To me, skills are not a reflection of a character's literal ability, but rather of how much of the story they can steer with that ability. This is why I'm perfectly happy with my players using Minor Milestones to swap investigation and combat skills around regularly. Early on, the story is about the characters figuring out what's going on, so they do better at finding clues but take some licks if they get jumped. Meanwhile, towards the end when they've figured out who the bad guy is, the story shifts to be about them kicking ass, and they change their skills around to suit.

I do find that magic is a real spanner in the works when it comes to presenting the group with a challenge. But there are a couple of solutions to this.

1: My favourite is conflict groups. It's an easily-overlooked section, but the rules state that you separate out characters into groups for a conflict, and that "typically" this is simply "players vs villains", but it can easily be more refined than this, with certain PCs fighting certain opponents. This is great for making sure that wizards don't dominate the whole conflict, and allowing all players a chance to shine.

2: Compels. Using magic in a city? Compel for car alarms to go off or street lights to explode, drawing attention or injuring people. A villain bursts a fire hydrant to put the aspect "doused in running water" on a wizard, and uses the free compel to stop the wizard using magic. There are all sorts of fun ways to challenge spellcasters.

That said, arguably the biggest badass in our group is the Pure Mortal. He's gone toe to toe with a Kemmlerian necromancer. And won. Twice.

Potestas, it's cool your own games have different setting rules. Mine do, too, in certain places. But in particular because this discussion is about whether or not the Wardens would regard the killing of renfields with magic as a violation of the Laws of Magic, and therefore is firmly based on what we've seen on their attitude in the books, I don't think it's really relevant whether or not the White Council is correct about the changing effects of magic on a person who mis-uses it.

After all, the Wardens were perfectly ready to execute a teenage girl for using magic to steer a guy away from drug use.

It's a little off-topic, but I'm curious about this "killing with magic is okay in self-defence" thing. I can't think of any instances where a mortal killed another moral directly using magic, and it was considered okay. Can anyone correct me?

Though I guess it's not that off-topic, since the severity of the Laws would inform how the Wardens make their decision if they find out.

Basically, regardless of whether or not your group applies the Lawbreaker stunt for a given infraction, if the Wardens decide the Laws have been broken, the sentence is death, except in the incredibly rare circumstance of the Doom of Damocles being imposed.

With the renfields, we would have to consider what "counts" as human. The typical renfield is mentally destroyed. Inhuman Strength is an option, but could easily be explained the way Butters suggests in Skin Game, that their natural preservation instinct is over-ridden. So, if we were to regard renfields as inhuman, what about humans who had suffered mundane brain damage? Is it okay to fireball someone who's insane?

In the last couple of sessions my group make short work of a heavily-guard Black Court nest, taking out a total of 32 renfields, all of whom were killed with magic (burned with fire, sandblasted with coal dust and metal filings, and pebble-dashed with rocks). Yep, the two players responsible were happy to kill them.

Now, I've decided not to enforce the Lawbreaker stunt, given the mental damage done to the renfields by their masters.

But this group is already on shaky ground with the White Council, as two of their member had, in their backstories, been framed for violating the First Law and have, as a result, been on the run. They've currently managed to negotiate a deal for a retrial and re-investigation, having recently saved the world.

However, I'm thinking that the Wardens would come out in force against the group if they find out that nearly three dozen humans had been killed by the group, using magic to do the job. Even accounting for the fact their minds are gone, it ought to show a marked willingness to take human life on a massive scale.

Thoughts?