And just to put a warning out there...just got an Internal Server Error page... So brace yourself. 
Me too. But I am on laptop and wise enough to copy paste.
I think they got the email notifications fixed. I just heard like eight pings on my yahoo messenger in the last ten seconds.
They're not fixed, they're still rather delayed...
Just for my amusement: what story does Wilhelm's "Jormungandr's shenanigans during the floods" refer to?
All the leaves are brown,
And the skies are gray...
Bascially, that story was never resolved, the player disappeared, and I just handwaved it complete for simplicity. But when he conjured all the corpses, he found his magic to make them do stuff was ineffective. He ended up sexing them up before he could do anything. Note: do not take Restriction virgins and create corpses to do your bidding... They are immaculate corpses.
Slight totally irrelevant rant incoming:
So, my store's in the middle of a big remodel. Putting in a second drive-through lane, expanding in areas, moving stuff around, putting in new friers and grills. Three weeks beginning to end, we're in week two now. We're staying open for the remodel except for a couple of days next week when they put in the new equipment.
Get to work this morning at 6. Closed until further notice. Openers get in at 4, they're still there doing makework, cleaning and what not. We're supposed to open at 5. So, apparently, everything is blocked off or unreachable, can't get into the cooler or do much of anything we need to do. Going to be like this for probably two or three days.
And I'm like, "Really? You've been here two hours, and didn't call anyone to tell them not to bother coming in until further notice?" Luckily I live two blocks from work, but we have people who live halfway across the county who drive 20, 30 minutes each way.
So, yeah. Slightly annoyed.
End of rant.
That blows... And of course, no pay for those days...right?
Right. Luckily (if you want to call it that), I was only scheduled until 9:45 today, and off tomorrow, and 5-11:45 Thursday. So, at best I'm only out four hours, or possibly eleven. Like I told mom, "It's a joke, but I'm getting tired of waiting for the punchline."
The nightclub I work at is in the middle of a massive remodle. They put this huge akward pizza oven in the middle of my line that is of no use yet (I am the solo cook at an open kitchen behind the downstairs bar at Excalibur nightclub. Every Sunday morning as we close, crew comes in and tears up something new. This past Friday, they didn't clear out until 6pm and my line opens at 7. Lotta mess to clean up in that short hour.
So - what is the party line on Apollodorus, for the magi at Mons Electi? Did we ever discuss this (in character)?
Nope... 
But some facts are known. His body was never recovered. Despite the terms in the Charter, can one prove murder without a body? And no one at the covenant has tried to summon his ghost, which in the paradigm should be haunting about...
I seem to remember that Viscaria wanted to bring in Cygna as a necromancer, but with all that went on, that probably wound up not happening...,or, at best, a stopover on their way home. I would imagine we would need a pretty buff necro just to get past his Form bonuses anyway.
Viscaria wanted Cygna for the confederate of Valerian who killed himself.
But you all know Wizard/Ritual Communion, so getting higher penetration isn't all that much of a problem.
Seems like we're having some trouble getting on the same page about how Voice Range spells work with variations in how loud the spells' words are spoken. This is an attempt to summarize what we agree upon (in the context of the Dimicatio, primarily) and what still needs to be determined (in the context of One More Unto the Breach, primarily). I don't have an emotional stake in the outcome; I'm just trying to understand the rules of engagement.
Let's first assume that there is nothing that is magically enhancing or inhibiting the magus's voice (no amplification or PeIm spells). Then I believe we have agreed upon the following. All quotes are from ArM5, page 112.
- To be affected, a target must be within the distance that the magus's voice carries. RAW says: "Typically, firm words carry about 15 paces, while a shout carries about 50 ... a spell cast silently at this range can affect only the caster."
- It is the words carrying that makes the spell work, not whether the target hears the words. "The range is based on the distance that the caster's voice carries, not on whether the target can hear it. Deaf targets, stones, targets in a noisy environment ... can all be affected at the normal range."
- The voice that carries to the target does not have to consist of the Hermetic words for the spell; a shout will still establish the range necessary to affect the target. However, penalties for quiet words or no words will apply to the spellcasting total, in the absence of Obfuscating Casting. (I don't think RAW takes a position on this either way, but I think it's what we decided in the previous discussion. As with all of this, please tell me if you disagree.)
Now let's talk about situations where magic is present that changes how the magus's voice is heard.
- You can't affect farther-away targets by magically making yourself louder. "Magical enhancement of the voice does not increase this range...."
- RAW says: "... targets under the influence of PeIm spells that stop sounds from reaching them can all be affected at the normal range."
- RAW also says: "However, if the caster is silenced or quieted by magic, the range is reduced. Such a spell must penetrate the caster's Magic Resistance."
To me the last sentence is a little bit confusing, especially compared to the second-to-last sentence. But here's my attempt at an interpretation.
- If a magus produces spoken words normally, but the auditory species carrying the sound of his words are destroyed, relocated, or transformed, the spell still affects targets in the area where the voice would have normally carried, regardless of where the auditory species end up.
- If a magus is under the effect of a spell (Muto Corpus, say) that makes him lose his voice, prohibits him from shouting, etc., (or makes him forget how to speak, or makes him afraid of the sound of his own voice ...), then the range is affected - in the same way as if the magus had voluntarily chosen to speak at the volume the spell forced him to use.
I welcome your thoughts, either in favor of or opposed to these interpretations.
All that makes sense. I still, however, am bothered if someone can cast a Voice-range spell without words (which normally takes a -10 penalty, and requires that the spell affect the caster only), but shout or say some gobbledygook while casting the spell (or at the end, which is effectively the same thing, imo) to extend the range of a wordlessly-cast spell. Something like this should require, I think, the Obfuscated Casting Mastery Ability. I think my proposal of requiring a Concentration check of 15+ was a reasonable remedy for the problem, but I seemed to be in the vast minority in that regard. I'm not going to say that it sounds like cheating or gaming the system, but it feels wrong to me somehow.
But if I'm alone in thinking that allowing someone to cast a spell with no words, incurring the -10 penalty, and allowing them to simply yell "Oppa!" at the end to avoid the "caster only" effective range listed in the chart on p. 83, so be it.
I am all in favor of the Shout option. In lots of fantasy fiction, there are instances of the wizard shouting or using words other than what would be associated with the spell. Like Doctor Strange. Some times he uses weird rhymes, and sometimes he just shouts the name of the spell or casts while making dramatic speech.
But maybe he has them all mastered. He is sorcerer supreme after all 
This isn't about the shout, that issue has been decided. There is a contradiction in how sound/Voice works in RAW.
Yes, but Doctor Strange still kicks ass. 8)