This game is taking a long, long time for you guys to develop.  As a result, I bet it's going to be fantastic.  Keep up the slow, steady work!

Bite your tongue!  Keep the whips crackin'!

I'm still interested in this as well, but I've shifted my attention to Codex Alera world instead, since I'm hoping that the official Dresden will be out soon.

Off-topic, I apologize. But I am so confused as to the different titles of wardens. Can anyone just list them in rank? Is Harry in the middle or at the bottom?

I don't have anything specific from the books to back this up, but it's my feeling that there isn't probably a real hierarchy, as Wizards in a group are like herding cats.  The only titles that I recall having seen were Warden, Regional Commander, and Field Commander.

The notion of "game balance" is more important for number crunchy systems and less important when the story is the focus of the campaign. FATE is loose enough so that the story drives the adventure.

Yes, I see what you mean.  I actually came to the same conclusion after I last posted.  I am probably thinking in a different paradigm, because I don't have any real experience with FATE.  I will say that the game I have played most in the last 10 years is Shadowrun, because it has been the most flexible system for creating characters that I have come across, but it is not without it's problems.  I really like that system, but FATE excites me a lot, because it is flexible to the extreme. 

When I posted originally, I was thinking about designing these Items/Gadgets.  I remember a few weeks ago in  a Master Plan podcast, they were talking about the difficulties of putting together a shield bracelet to work in  the game.  I don't know how much I can write here for fear of spoilers and such, but it seems hard not to talk about specifics from the books to discuss how one might create rules in a game to cover them.

I can see how the Gadget Rules from SotC can apply to that.  You can raise the difficulty for the creation by a level for each additional protection.

However, once created, this item is also more difficult to use.
I realize you guys are already thinking about that aspect, because you said as much in podcast.  My reason for the original post was because since the podcast I have been thinking about those same things, then when I began going over FATE and SotC... well, you get the idea.

Maybe the other problem I am having is the infrequency of my game sessions, I spend a lot of time in between session metagaming(designing characters or concepts for characters) because I can't actually play.  FATE kind of makes that obsolete, in that really stats and items become inconsequential next to the art of story-telling.  Whereas I can see how that will make playing the game more fun and less dice, it may make for dull in between times.   I might need to find another hobby.

Ok, after re-looking through SotC Rules after you guys have pointed me in some good directions...
I see that it looks like one might have a magic items as a Stunt, which if I am reading correctly, is essentially used instead of/with a skill.

So I see the Rules for Advancement in SotC, and I like some things.  I like the idea of Some Stunts having prerequisites.  That could help from having people picking the Uber Shield Bracelet as a Stunt without it costing them a little more to get it.

So would be like improvising a Gadget in SotC?  I guess that's really just a skill of some sort, though.

This is a bit of an old topic, but I thought I'd throw in a couple of cents.

Something like the sound track to Diablo 2, the Blizzard video game actually has some great music, and even better for your purposes, it is designed to be background music, so it would set a mood in the room rather than be obtrusive.  You could add some more tunes by looking at movie sound tracks for the same reason.  Conan the Barbarian soundtrack might be good. 

I know these are sort of Medieval age oriented, but they still make good background.  Perhaps something like Bourne Ultimatum?  Dunno, I don't know that one.

Well, I guess I am looking stupid right about now, but my main point was, as most of the song mentioned are great, they are written to be heard as opposed to background to set a mood.