...Not that I ever actually SAID that to her, or I'm sure we would have gotten divorced a lot sooner.
I tend to be high Int/low Wis myself. And my Wis tends to be inversely proportional to the Com score of whoever I'm dealing with.
If a lv40 Aegis resists the item, does that mean the item needs 40 penetration to function inside it, or does that just mean the item takes the same -20 CT penalty and -20 Penetration penalty that foreign spells would?
My initial reaction would be to say that it needs Penetration of 41+. Magic items don't have a Casting score, I think, so you can't really subtract half the Aegis level from a number that doesn't exist. And "resisted", to me, implies magic resistance, à la Parma Magica or Magic Might.
So does it take 20 off your Penetration AND still have to be penetrated at 40? It seems counterintuitive that it would do both. Aegis already drops penetration by half the aegis' level, but it seems stupid that you'd need 60+ penetration for an item to work in a lv40 aegis.
A level 40 Aegis reduced your casting total by 20. This aspect shouldn't have any effect on an item, since items don't have Casting Totals. Where it affects items is by them being Resisted by the Aegis, which I'm reading as having to overcome the Aegis as Magic Resistance, i.e. Penetration. I'll have to check the handy-dandy Aegis Cheat Sheet, though.
Ah, I was remembering it wrong. It actually says "Penetration totals for magical creatures are reduced by the same amount." I'd remembered it as CTs AND PTs were both reduced, because I haven't looked at the description for Aegis in 6-7 years or so.
I take Resisted to mean the item does not work at all, no matter what. The Penetration score is irrelevant.I do not think this applies to Attunments, for attunments instead add to the weilders casting total which is then subject to spell resistance rules instead.
Which puts Ryu in a bind of "WTF do I do now?". Been there 
Easy solution: do nothing. There is a solution. The characters simply do not know what it is (nor have they even contemplated the issue). It is irrelevant to the story at hand. And, just brainstorming, I can think of several solutions...
- Vulcanus made the items, and had participated in the last casting of this Aegis (perhaps they do theirs in summer?)
- Vulcanus made the items, and had somehow obtained a token from Gemma? Maybe She is helping him? Send a coded message in her letter?
- The items were made by someone else, who had participated in the last Aegis casting &/or has a current token.
- The items were hidden here on the island. Bernhard knew where they were stashed and distributed them when we reached the island. The aegis covers the whole place, but the antechamber area was excluded or is being suppressed.
And it is as easy as that. They work, there is a reason but we do not know what it is (nor do we care 
). This detail is unimportant to our current objective (so far).
There's no way Caduceus would have trusted Vulcanus with a token, and the only magi who participate in that ritual are not friends. The most plausible would have been that when Vulc scouted out the tower, he planted the items within the Aegis in advance (which is also a good reason why we waited until spring to go).
There you go.
I'm thinking about spending 5 of Vocis's Drake Hunt xp on a level of Mastery for Visions of Hell. Is that acceptable?
Sure 
Cool. Now I need some advice from the troupe. I'm thinking it's long past time Vocis got around to making his talisman. I've been thinking about it for a while, trying to balance the limitations of his Waster of Vis flaw and his focus on illusion, and I keep coming back to a cloak. The bonuses mesh nicely with the powers I have in mind (personal illusions, personal wards, flight) and it won't cost much vis to open for enchantment. However, a cloak is just so fragile. I don't want to spend years enchanting a talisman just to have it torn to pieces or burned to ash in the first combat he sees. Any suggestions for how to make a cloak durable enough to serve as a talisman? Is enchanting it with Doublet of Impenetrable Silk enough?
What if it's woven from something suitably awesome? Like maybe from the silk of Shelob's webs or something?
That'll increase the material value.
Masks have overlap with the S/M bonuses of cloaks, and can be made of sturdier stuffs. Helms or the nebulous "jewelry" could provide similar bonuses while being more durable items.
I have a quick question before I start filling out the Magi Planner; for a lab with a refinement of 0 (ie. our "standard lab") can we refine it immediately (in the Winter of 1230)?
Yeah, my fall-back plan is to use a silver or brass ring, which is the nicest and largest jewelry he can open. I'm just hoping to find a solution for the cloak because it's my stylistic preference.
Samite should be a little sturdier than wool or linen, but it's still flammable and tearable. A constant MuAn(Te) could make the cloak as impenetrable as steel, and a constant ReIg could keep it impervious to fire, but that gets expensive.
If you don't think it's too cheesy, Vulcanus could make a cloak of chainmail for him... With small enough rings, it could be as supple as some cloth types while being resistant to fire and sharp objects... though probably wouldn't offer a whole lot of protection to the wearer.
A google image search also gave me the idea that a chainmail capelet could be really cool, too
farm4.staticflickr.com/3084/2743 ... z.jpg?zz=1
For that matter-- is making items for other magi a salary-worthy activity?
And we should probably figure out whether or not the covenant would actually provide the vis for VIbria's armor or not