No worries, take care sir and enjoy the holiday.
Good luck, JL, take care of yourself first.
Sounds like you're a secret agent 
Hope that secret mission don't get you killed 
Yeah, yeah, I know
But that was before
Hope everything's clear, now
It's just a bit of a potential mess that I'm working through. It's not my mess, of course. 
In any event, a couple of stories seem to be stalled, but I can't really do anything to move them based on the direction I left things or the player left things.
Alexei's:indicated he's going back to the covenant to talk to whomever is best at Auram, that doesn't involve the SG.
Viscaria's: I posted about her dreams turning into waking dreams, but no response.
The other stories are waiting for me to push them forward.
I need to post Abagail at 5 years and update Korvin on OP. I also need to discuss an idea for bringing the Gifted Mercere more together. All on my short list.
If Alexei wants to talk to Renaud about the local legends we can do that in the 1000 faces thread. Let me know.
Alexei would like to do both, who is best at Auram though?
I'll make a post shortly in 1000 pieces.
In case anyone else keeps track of the leader board on post counts, I apparently passed Arya for fifth place last week. Ironically enough, the post that put me ahead of her was about her.
So, I'm 5th, Fixer is 4th, and JL is 2nd.
Don't know why I keep track of this stuff, I just do. Although I'm not sure if I should be worried about my 4.37 posts a day.
My post count is over 10/day. 
Yeah, I saw that...which is why I'm not that worried about my puny-ass 4.37 after all.
Let's see, where am I..?
Woot! 7th!
We are a chatty lot, aren't we?
Discuss, discuss
Just Auram, or a specific Technique + Auram?
If it's just Auram, well, forget Isen
Well, at least, I'm not gonna be 4th much longer, seeing as I'm under 2 posts per day on average.
Joined on 2006, too. Time flies.
I want to get them all in a secret society 
Inspired by Societas Eruditorum
Ignoti et quasi occulti
It's a weird question, because I feel like the entire skill system is so deeply broken that trying to keep it functional and balanced is like deck chairs on boats to me.
If I were SG, I would completely rewrite the skills system. Open ended lists of overlapping skills and every gorram book published releases a half dozen additional skills. It's BS. I would most certainly reduce the number of languages out there, and I would provide a much more functional list of potential specialties, and more importantly, a list of invalid specialties.
Okay, that strikes me as a fallacious argument. Show me one place in the MRB where they say "skill with specialty counts."
This strikes me as a significant cultural difference. In the modern age, when you say, "Sheelagh reads a book," the image is of her sitting in some spine-bending position on the incorrect bits of furniture, eating apples and drinking milk and getting the pages of a trade paperback all sticky.
In the medieval paradigm, when you say, "Sheelagh reads a book," what you mean is "Sheelagh seeks out the librarian, who moves the massive folio to a reading pedestal in one of the many alcoves of the library." The entire world thinks of books as nigh-sacred, incredibly rare things. People haven't even invented "reading without speaking" yet.
At age 10 in the medieval paradigm, being given access to a library book is a terrifyingly impressive burden in the middle ages. Sheelagh, especially as a giant, comes from a world where she might literally be flayed alive for tripping in front of the wrong person. She knows perfectly well that this book was hand-copied, bound and illuminated by 4 masters of the book-making arts. She's not going to get apple sauce on it.
So the reason Renauld is being asked in the first place, Alexei wants to get a Familiar. I have an idea for a large dog, ideal for hunting and fighting, like a Mastiff. Alexei figures that a Redcap might know more local legends about a magical dog. I tried some lookups online, and couldn't really find a dog breed that fit, back in the day. Does anyone have any suggestions of a breed?
Area lore also includes local legends(as per RAW). Renaud has lore Bibracte(legends) at 4 by 1227.
That is why I suggested Renaud.
A quick Wiki check shows a couple of possiblilities.
Greyhound I would suggest strongly against, as they are quite fragile...speaking from personal experience, since we have a rescue greyhound. Their skin is paper-thin and tears easily, and we almost had him bleed out from stepping on a rock on the back step.
Probably alaunt or mastiff, seems right up Alexei's alley. The mastiff was described as far back as 1570, and is depicted in paintings in the 15th century, so it's pretty reasonable that they were around in period. The Alaunt is recorded in England in the 5th century. Either one of those seems like it would work pretty well.
It's a bit of a red herring, first because you didn't have a propensity to do anything of the sort when you were an SG for a saga here, and second the language ability has no mechanics associated with it. Bringing up the entire ability system in the framework of a discussion of language ability discussion is totally off the point.
Show me where it says it doesn't count. It does count in specific places. In this instance, I don't believe written is a valid specialty for a language. If you want to overrule me, the mechanism for doing that is getting all of the troupe to come to consensus around your view that written is a valid specialty.
I think we had this discussion (or one much like it) in Canaries, and I'm of the opinion that you need a raw Language score of 4 to read a language and 5 to write (if you have Artes Liberales and literacy in the appropriate script). Rereading the description of Specializations on p. 62, where it says "you act as if your score were one level higher than it actually is," it can easily be argued that this should apply to Languages, as well. But Languages, despite being an Ability, have next to nothing in common with any other Ability - specifically, you almost never have an associated roll. Area Lore, Brawl, Entrancement, you have to make an Ability + Characteristic roll. I think it is this difference that..um..makes the difference. So I'm going to go with needing a raw score of 4/5 to read/write. And I'm fine with calling it a House Rule as opposed to RaW.