our second campaign started with the autumn court (in our game world a fae court centered around the lady of the lake from arthurian legend) claiming a young boy as new champion/knight. knowing this might be a cruel life for the kid the characters intervened. end the end - after some trials - they struck a bargain - the boy will be their champion when he has reached adulthood and one of the player characters will prepare him.

one of the trials was to present the court with a "sword for a hero". (in the first campaign the group has gotten hold of the fourth sword of the cross (there are pictures with jesus nailed to it with four nails, I used that to get a sword free of harry's story). they had lying it around, waiting for a sign who would be a new wielder for the sword, but nothing happened. so they took this as a sign and so they handed it to them and the lady of the court - i think you would have guessed it - stuck it into a stone.)

for them it was pretty awesome and an interesting start into the campaign because they were at the heart of a fae court for the first time and it was something completely different from what we did in the first campagin.

but the nice thing is, later it came all full circle in the end of the campaign. during the progress of the stories a close friend (NPC) was transformed into a hellish killer monster, and the group went any length to find a cure (they even got to the library on the icy wastes of leng, where they learned that that only a weapon like the sword of the cross can kill that creature, no cure possible). just the night before they planned to travel to avalon - the seat of the autumn court - another character, a wizard of the white council, was betrayed and abducted by his teacher who wanted to sacrifice the char to an outsider in exchange for immortality (he had planned this for years since he noticed that his apprentice's blood has certain properties). so the group broke into the castle ruin where the ritual was taking place and tried to safe their friend. they burned his mentor to ashes, but the character was as good as dead, bled out. just as they left, they noticed a barge in the water trench around the castle. in it was the lady of the autumn court, saying that avalon "desperately needs heroes". the island was under siege of the thuata de danann (who are possibly the spring court in my game world) and a new bargain was struck - the life of the young wizard and the sword and they will help in the defence of the island. from all present persons only the least likely - a crossroads demon from hell - was able to pull the sword out of the stone. they managed to end the siege by tricking the attackers into a contract that made the war into a sports event. in the last story the demon uses the sword to bring salvation to their friend an act that will ultimately make her the new knight of the sword.

the whole campaign is here (sorry, it's in German, but this is the language of my RPG-group): http://www.worldofmagic.at/wiki/index.php?title=Wizard_for_Hire_Season_2

when my players get to set foot on the icy plains of forbidden leng next session, i will make them fill the smallest consequence due to the cold, should represent that they are not as up to a fight as they would be in their home environment. and i know they will complain :-)

i am bit late to answer the thread, but when i am GMing i would allow what the story justifies. so in principle, yes i would let you drop the stunts.

my opinion - just to be sure my wizard would use a potion to survive underwater (although as GM i think magic that is cast on land, transforms the body and then going into the water should work just fine). he has several mixtures for this. one transforms the drinker into the creature from the black lagoon movie, with aquatic and a host of other powers, costing a lot of fate points (useful to salvage depleting uranium from sunken submarines). another potion simply enhances endurance under water with it's strength, allowing the char to hold his breath "very long".

my character also has a pick lock rote, but he uses earth/magentism for this.

libraries, parks, gentlemen's clubs, saunas...

the one or two times evocation has been used to move a car out of the way or something like that in my games, i've used the tables on page 321 for reference.

Halloween related?

don't forget, harry's birthday is on 31st october...

This actually reminds me of something...  A while back, I ran across a semi-magical noir coat in one an RPG I can't remember -- Spycraft, Cyberpunk or Shadowrun, maybe?  Anyway, the coat was a long trench coat of any color or design you desire, but it contained an "extra-dimensional" pocket large enough to hold and hide a single object about the same size and shape as a sword or shotgun.  The pockets also always -- no matter what -- contained a half pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and exact change for cab fare.

Something like that might be a little more interesting variation on the coat, rather than the usual "magically armored" version.

sounds like a coat from mage: the ascension.

another take on the wizard's business might be that he is "open" on the wizardry. (as i see it, harry advertises as wizard, but most cases we know of are beginning more like a normal PI cases.) the wizard i play lends his services out to farmers cooking weather for them, to save the harvest, if they can afford it. instead of the signature duster he wears a leather jacket, adorned with large mystic glyphs and markings when he's doing business. (see? harry is quite a discrete guy compared to him.)