[Following is a set of questions I asked of Sandy Petersen for clarification. The quoted portions are the appropriate chink of my original question. The other portions are his answers.]

Overall, I like it a lot. Much more satisfactory than the "Classic" vessel system that I have seen in various forms. It fixes the "fetch aka familiar problem" and the "knowlage skill problems" and produces a system that seems to be more than a bunch of pieces put together into loose formation.

Thank you. I'm rather pleased with the overall form of it myself, but many of the details still (as you noticed) need to be worked out.

The implication is that you either have or do not have a given Art.

So, it you have it you can use it with no modification to your spell skill roll, or you can't use it at all. Does this apply to the Brithini and the Vadeli? Or am I totally confused?

Right now, the way I am working the Arts is that you can either use an Art or not. The fact that the Brithini and Vadeli learn them as skills is merely a technique. Once a Brithini sorcerer is at 90%, he gets full access to his Art.

Mind you, I have considered making the Arts into skills, too, and forbidding a user to have more levels of any Art in a given spell than his skill in that Art/10. What do you think?

The whole problem of learning arts has been a bit of a poser to me.

[Presence] This totally removes the concept of duration. This is good. What I'm confused by is the characterization of spells as TEMPORAL. The implication I get here is that these spells last until: a) The end of the round when they were cast if not maintained by presence, or b) Until the sorcerer who cast the spell chooses to stop supporting them with presence. Is the base duration really five minutes as per RQ3?

A temporal spell requires Presence to maintain. If you have insufficient Presence to cast a given spell, you _cannot_ cast it. Hence, when you cast a temporal spell, it is maintained until you choose to drop it. It has no "base" duration. You have no choice but to maintain such a spell for at least one round, since it takes one round to drop a spell from maintenance.

Example: Kevin the Vadeli has a Presence of 40, 30 points of which are used up in maintaining various important effects. He can cast only a 10-point spell, since that's all the room he's got left in his Presence. If he casts a 10-point Instant spell, then the next round he can cast another. But if he casts a 10-point Temporal spell, then at the end of that round, all of his Presence is now filled. If he wants to cast another spell, he's going to have to take a round to drop one or more old spells.

Does the caster have to awake or conscious to maintain them?

No.

Can he pass control to another sorcerer?

Hmm. Hadn't thought of this. Not a bad idea, though. I'll add this possibility as a ritual spell. First I got to think through the implications, though. This means that a highly skilled sorcerer could transfer a powerful spell over to one of his apprentices ... hmm.

A sorcerer without any presence cannot cast any spells. As this does not quite fit with the Hrestoli Farmer caste, can they cast spells, or are they assumed to have taken the high vow?

I play that the Hrestoli farmer caste can cast only 1 point spells. If you have a better suggestion I'm all for it.

Vows -- Seems like a good mechanic for making the system work.

Thank you. It has the secondary effect of making wizards rules-ridden old whiners. Which I like.

Celibacy: Primary definition of celibacy in the several dictionaries I looked at is remaining unmarried.

Huh? I'd never heard that definition before, and have always used "celibate" as "no sex".

[Saints] The overall effects can be really gross. Is it really suposed to be as easy and straight-foward to gain their patronage (sacrifice x power) as this seems to indicate? I would expect that there are other conditions needed to gain the patron, as well as restrictions/conditions imposed on those who have a patron saint.

Remember it costs 1 POW permanently each time you invoke a Patron. The details on extra requirements for saints are really more of a Malkioni religion thing, not a sorcery thing. But I'm sure you have to do more than just sack some POW to get a saint as Patron.

can anyone choose them as a Patron? For example, a Lunar sorcerer in Pavis obtain Talor's blessing by simply sacrificing power?

No. You must be Malkioni. Brithini & Vadeli can't do it.

Am I correct in assuming that any Westerner could obtain a saint as a patron, not just a sorcerer?

Yes. This may be the main source of magic available to most peasants in the West.

I sort of feel that studying the skills should be another way that those people who have not become followers of Malkion/The Invisible God can learn sorcery skills, but I would prefer to avoid having to make a half dozen die rolls to cast a single spell.

Obviously you'd only roll once, using the lowest of all rolls involved. Just like the standard RQ rule.

That afflicted me, too. I'm gratified that at least one other RQer agrees that my system fixes both RQ3 and RQ4.

Hmm. Would you let any farmer accept this vow? This gives some farmers a pretty good Presence. On the other hand, what if the farmer's Presence is 0 or less (it can happen, you know, with High Hrestolism)? Huh?

Saints:
Speaking of Saints, with regard to Conwy's Blessing, does permanent mean it lasts forever or until the caster dies?

Forever.

Other sorcerery questions

I think that they have vows, but probably different ones.

Dwarfs use Sorcery, I believe (though presumably different spells). I don't think they use vows. I'm not sure what they do instead.

I think they are sorcerers using this kind of magic.