And thus there is room for both you and Spidey.  Also, isn't Jim planning a Mirror Mirror style book?

Another idea would be to build a tarot deck with each card acting as a sponsor ritual.  This can be used as a draw a card at random for a random effect that may help you or not, or the deck can be used as a divinition tool.

To quote Neil Young,

"It's better to burn out than to fade away".

Burn your mortal bridges. No one else is saying it, so I will: what makes people special, unique, amazing? It's magic. True magic, the power to transcend mere mortality, the power not to lose your human nature but to redefine it.

Look, everything out there wants to put you in a box. Power source. Food. Toy. And they'll succeed, because where you can scrape the sky, they can rip down the stars around you. That's the hard truth. That's human destiny. Struggle, persevere...get something's attention, die.

Or is that the truth?

Being a wizard doesn't make you less. It makes you more. And the core of that, the core of all that power, is not fire or water or even thaumaturgy. It's self-definition. A wizard isn't some mystic alien that happens to look like a regular person at first. A wizard is a human being who says, human beings are mighty. You're not a power source, you're not food, you're not a toy, and you have the phenomenal cosmic power to back it up. You're right and your brother is wrong: you won't be the little girl who shone like a star rising against a supernatural night.

You will be a woman, a transcendent human being, a queen with a soul in bloom, and you will burn like the sun.

Heh.

As for what i would say with limited understanding of the character and almost none existent understanding of the game, i would say take up the power since it will be another tool for which to use, unless that compromises your character build.

Yeah.  That works in many games also.  I don't so much like players vs DM/GM mentality...but making sure the players know that turnabout is fairplay can be a deterrent.

We dont play against him per se, he lets us do what we want within reason; this just makes sure it doesnt turn into too big of a gong show.

As for the idea of going after specific sacrifices, I like the idea of some characters making better sacrifices than others, but only in the order of sacrificing power such as a Wizard does better than a vanilla.  I dont think sacrifices having a link to the target is the best idea other then adding to the horror of the spell, unless its a bloodline curse in which case the last sacrifice provides the link.  The sacrifices in Changes other then Maggie had no connection to Eb other than being human.

what do you call the Valley of the Stone Table?

Peace

Nah, Jim can't put that in the Dresden Files

Isnt the entire Matrix Technomagic?