At first I did not realize what you are talikng about, for I saw nothing significant at first. Then I noticed your lab has a Vis source. Wasn't expecting that 
You paid for it legit, I can see such a condition preexisting in someones old lab that you move into.
Or being a recent development.
I further noticed the magical etch a sketch 3dbb 
You over paid for a Major Virtue (spent 30 instead of 20). However, the Covenants rules further state that you have to include Flaws &/or Increase Size. That bites. I wanted something simpler, where characters can hit the ground running and act as if they have always been here. This is the magical nature of the aura 
I deleted the new HR. I should put these things up for debate first. Yell at me next time I do that
Here is my crack at a revision...
Laboratories
[tab][/tab]Everyone gets to hit the ground running.
[tab][/tab]Each magus is granted of one of the covenant's several towers, containing the Standard Andorra Lab. This automatically includes the Free Virtues of Dedicated Building and Superior Construction (+1 Safety, +1 Upkeep, +2 Aethetics, +1 Rego). Easy modifications & additions include Defenses, Elevated, Grand Entrance, Guard, and Servant. The magus may optionally choose some interior space (that happens to be available), but this means certain features may not be available (such as Dedicated Building, plus Grand Entrance &/or Elevated may not be available as depending on the situation).
[tab][/tab]The option for Magical Heating &/or Magical Lighting is available to any who choose it (each chosen as either Excessive &/or Superior Heating/Lighting, but none increases Upkeep and choosing both some form of Magical Heat and some kind of Magical Light lowers the Lab's Upkeep by one point.
[tab][/tab]Further, every magus may choose from three more options: 1) to start off with the Standard Lab as described above, including the features and options already given, and/or any other Free Virtues &/or Flaws as appliclible (including Magic Items); 2) Modify and Refine the Standard Lab according to standard rules and options given below; 3) Create a Custom Lab by having spent points on Lab Virtues and Flaws, again using standard rules with options described below.
Standard Lab
[tab][/tab]I already told you what the Standard Lab is and what your options with it are.
Customized Lab
[tab][/tab]You may spend your first season to modify and customize a standard lab with a balanced number of Virtues & Flaws. This not the same as Refinment and that score is not changed.
Refined Lab
[tab][/tab]All the standard rules for Refinment apply, save that you are able to reduce the amount of time it takes to install Virtues &/or Remove Flaws by including or replacing them with New Flaws. Consider a Minor Virtue as being worth 1 point and a Major Virtue as 2. A Minor Flaw is -1 and a Major Flaw is -2. The total number of points is the number of seasons it takes to install of these Virtues with these Flaws, but the minimum is at least one season in addition to the season of Refinment. This also means that, without changing refinment, it takes a season to change and rearrange all of a Labs Virtues & Flaws as long as they achieve the exact same balance as they did previously.
[tab][/tab]This increased speed is part of the magical nature of the covenant's aura, and no one is even aware of it.
Purchased Lab
[tab][/tab]You may spend points from Mustering Out to purchse Virtues & Flaws for your lab, or to transfer a lab you created in play to the covenant. Again, this is just the magical nature of the Regio at work here, and you are not even aware it is happening.
[tab][/tab]The following rules replace what was written before, but according to my calculations having looked at all current labs, this formula makes everthing fit.
- Nonstandard Lab: Pyramid Value of Size x 10 (eg. +1 costs 10, +2 costs 30, +3 costs 60)
- Refined Lab: Refinment x 5 (up to a maximum of your Magic Theory minus 3)
- Virtues: 5 points for Minor, 10 points for Major; may include Flaws, since Vitures - Flaws may not exceed Size + Refinment)
- Extra Lab: 25 points (an additional Standard Lab, fully equipped)
- Retained Lab: 25 points (if you designed, refined, &/or modified a lab during your character's pre-game development, you may transfer that lab in it's entirety to your new location).
E.G. Vocis spent 40 points on his Lab, including 15 points for a Refinment of 3 (the maximum he is able), 10 points for Size +1, 5 points for a Minor Virtue, and 10 points for a Major Virtue.
((Vocis had previously spent 10 points for a Minor Virtue and mistakenly paid 30 points for a Major instead of 20, then he further neglected to balance the Virtues with Flaws or Increased Size, which may be my fault for dismissing a valid question when I was distracted))
Upkeep
[tab][/tab]As for Upkeep, the Covenant bears the cost of the first 10£ of your expenses (Upkeep +3). Above that, the covenant splits the cost with you. However, you recieve an annual Salary of 6£ and 3 pawns of Vim, you recieve an annual Stipend of 6£ and 3 pawns of Vim if you serve a Covenant Office, and you can earn a Wage once a year of 6£ and 3 pawns of Vim for performing extra duties. Vis of another Form may be taken in lieu of Vim, this is just a term of accounting. A pawn of a Technique may be taken in place of 2 pawns of Vim. The covenant will buy & sell (or rather, exchange) vis for silver and visa versa at an even rate of 12£ per pawn of Vim. Exchanges such as this are not to exceed the value of a Rook of Vim in a given three-year span.
E.G. Vulcanus has a Lab Upkeep of +6, an annual expense of 21£ of silver, The covenant covers the first 10£ off the top, and pays half of the remianing 11£ to leave Vulcanus bearing the burden of 5.5£. He recievs a Stipend as Artifex of 6£, leaving him with one-half £. He also recieves a Salary as a Master, and often earns Wages for his extra duties.
I prefer to think of it as a magical PowerPoint presentation. 
I wanted a feature that added to Teaching and fit with his illusion specialty. This seemed to work.
Considering you've retconned the system to give me the lab I purchased without any change in cost, I'm ok with it.
If the Intangible Tunnel is at Sight range, then doesn't it only work so long as Arachne can see it? If the spider goes inside and she can't see it anymore, she should no longer be able to affect it with magic, so the spell should end, right? (Isn't that the whole point of having the spell at Arcane Connection range?)
Just wanted to double-check before describing what happens with the spider.
Nope.
For spells, the range is the range to the target at the range of casting.
For exemple, if you cast a Ward agaisnt Heat and Flames at touch range at someone, you need to touch him to cast the spell, but it'll then run its entire duration, you don't need to keep touching it. Here, likewise, you need to see the target to cast it, but then, the spell will run its entire duration.
The point of having the spell at AC range is that, well, it's AC, so you can use it for Wizard's Wars, safely tucked at home, instead of needing to drop into range of your ennemy.
If you check Hermetic Projects, IIRC, you'll even see variants of it at Touch range.
Hope I was clear enough.
I'm considering having Vocis copy lab texts in his season with Sigmundo. Flight spells and items are at the top of my wish list.
I'm not convinced that this holds for Concentration spells. Concentration maintains an ongoing spell. If you're maintaining an ongoing spell then it seems logical that you can only do so while the spell's requirements are met. A concentration duration Eye range would end if eye contact is broken, so why would a concentration duration Sight range spell continue when the target is no longer within eyesight?
I'll poke the main forums and see what the peanut gallery says.
I don't have Hermetic Projects 
But as you've interpreted it, there IS no point to having the spell at AC range. By your interpretation, you could cast a lv10 Touch range Tunnel at Concentration duration on a friendly magus, use your talisman to sustain it indefinitely, and ten years from now when you're no longer friends with the magus, blast them with Balls of Abysmal Flame, no matter where they are, or what they're doing, without an Arcane Connection. Perfectly safe and tucked at home, Hermetic Limits circumvented.
In fact, with 24 uses per day on an item that maintains concentration, you can establish permanent Tunnels to every grog and covenfolk in Andorra, and cast spells at and through each and every one of them, from the other side of the world, years later. Arcane Connections would have to be fixed, but a talisman maintaining concentration on your spells for you lasts forever. That's... beyond broken.
Hey guys, so I’m working on writing up a Venditor for Vulcanus and have a couple of different ideas and would like to hear your opinions (especially Ryu’s) on which one would be more interesting for the game.
They’re diverging paths from the same initial concept so you will notice a lot of similarities between the two. The basic concept is a merchant who has been forced to leave his previous employer and eventually met Vulcanus and was hired on to be his venditor.
-
- Born in Greece to a long line of smiths. His family is directly descended from the Faerie God Hephaestus (Theban Tribunal book) 5 generations ago, and the god’s blood still flows through them (Faerie Blood, Eye of Hephaestus, Touched by Faerie {last two from City and Guild]) and they are capable of crafting wondrous items. However, by virtue of their blood, as the men grow older they take on more of the physical characteristics of Hephaestus, growing more physically unattractive as the years go by. His mother did not wish the same fate for him, so she sought out a grove sacred to the old gods (a faerie region) and prayed for the gods to hear her prayers. An attendant of the gods (a daughter of the Faerie goddess Aphrodite) appeared and agreed to a pledge. His mother would die in childbirth, and in return her son would never suffer the fate of the rest of his line. The attendant touched his mother’s womb to seal the pact and disappeared.
As the pact promised, his mother died at childbirth. His father was distraught at losing his one true love, and thus resented the child that killed her. As he grew older, he proved to be more handsome than any other member of his family, the touch of the gods’ attendant leaving her mother’s blessing on him (Aphrodite’s [Venus’] Blessing]. However, when he grew old enough to hold a hammer and strike an anvil, the trickery of Aphrodite became clear. The physical deformities that eventually were visited upon members of the line were directly related to their smithing abilities, and his mother’s pact ensured he would never be able to smith anything of worth (a malediction that essentially recreates Ability Block [Crafts] and Profession [Smith]). Already resented by his father, his lack of ability further ostracized him from his family. As a consolation he proved quite adept at selling the family’s wares and took on the role of merchant; selling their goods throughout Greece and occasionally even beyond. However the final straw for his father was when he was found in bed with the wife of a lucrative client. He was quickly cast out of the family and told never to return. -
Selim ibn Ahmed was born in small village in Arabia to a family of bedouin’s who had settled in the area a generation before. His father worked as a camel-hand for a local merchant who recognized Selim’s charm and wit at an early age. While the blood had skipped his father’s generation, the blood of a Jann (The Cradle and Crescent) ran through his veins and had gifted him with remarkable presence. As such, the merchant took him in and trained him in the ways of his craft, and Selim excelled. By the time he had reached the age of 16 he was leading his own team and by the age of 18 he was exploring trade opportunities for silk and Damascus steel in Greece and the rest of Europe. He proved exceptionally capable and was expected to eventually take over the reins of the merchant house until an encounter with a sultan’s daughter led to him being fired and almost killed.
Based on the relative depths of the two characters' back-stories, I would say that you seem more excited about the Greek. And, to be honest, it sounds like a better character to me than the Bedouin does. So, if you're asking for first-glance votes, I'd go with the Greek.
The Greek guy sounds cooler... as long as he never steals a woman from Vulc 
Man of Steel was not just bad, it was beyond bad. I can think of a lot of bad movies I've liked over the years, and this was not one of them. About an hour into stuff blowing up, I realized... I was bored.
The film has a top notch cast that was never given the opportunity to do anything. It also had top notch script writers, whose work was cut and edited into oblivion. Instead of an engaging narrative, we got... two and a half hours of shit blowing up. Zack Snyder blew up so much stuff on screen, that you actually get bored of stuff blowing up.
I am so disappointed, I'm actually angry about it 
Man of Steel: Just what I expected, although I'm still disappointed. This is a movie I wanted to like. But, well, I mean, people routinely throw bazillions of $ into SFX and barely pay writers. This shouldn't be surprising
No.
Checked it yesterday, Ars p111.
I'd only need to keep in Eye range if I wanted to control the effect (for exemple, a Touch range flight spell), but dropping out of range wouldn't end it (See Aura of Rightful Authority). And that one is often forgotten, probably because it's muddy (see, for exemple, Confusion of the Numbed Will p151).
In HP, they have other IT variants:
AC range, Conc duration
Sight range, Diameter duration
Touch Range, Moon Duration
First, an AC can easily mean a greater penetration, especially as you don't have to cast silently and with minimal gestures (unless you want your target to know you're casting a spell on him, of course)
Second, a magical effect flickers at sunrise/sunset, so, unless the ReVi effect was designed as Constant (which would be a stupid waste of time and vis), it would drop at the first such occurence, save if I "pick up" at these moments, twice per day, for 10 years.
Third, the AC used in the IT can also be used for the spells used through the IT, which can make all the difference.
If a magus is paranoid and dumb enough to create scores of lesser constant items (one per tunnel) that'll each alive intangible tunnels he'll create to every magus he touches (assuming he penetrates) AND lucky enough so that his intangible tunnel is never, never detected (which is quite easy) instead of just sending grogs to collect their poop, well, he surely deserves to be able to use those touch range spells without the benefit of an AC.
Only because you forget the flickering. Conc + Maintain concentration isn’t Constant duration.
See Ars p99 : To do what you say, I’d need to maintain concentration simultaneously on EACH effect for them to go on. Twice per day. Without ever forgetting, or failing, because, say, I was instead performing my Parma Magica Ritual.
Same thing here.
Well, It looks like I'm going with the Greek. Thanks for the input! It'll probably be a few days before I get anything up as my wife and I are doing a cross-country move/vacation from the west coast to the east coast and I don't have a lot of free time right now.
But that's what's so offensive! Goyer and Nolan almost assuredly provided a solid script. Snyder is just horrible enough that whatever cohesive and engaging narrative was in the script, it didn't survive the filming and editing process.
Need to take a pause for work tonight and tomorrow. Sunday is reserved for gaming postings
Are you guys still having trouble logging in? Today is the first of the last three or four days I've been successful loading the pages.
I've been logging in daily and I've only had one or two failures this week. In each case, the forum was back within an hour. It's still slow, but seems to be working most of the time.
I've actually had decent luck the past couple of days, for the most part. Only one or two 503s or related error. It was slow yesterday, but it seems to be okay so far today.