I'm shocked that no one has mentioned plain simple anger. Thought about a mercenary type WC clan that instigates conflict. They use their powers to cause conflicts which helps their client (most likely warmongering profiteers who sell guns, etc.) do business.

Wrath is a very common "non-canon" WCV-emotion, even suggested in YS. I can't really see a clear enough delineation between Anger and Wrath, how would you describe them so they are different enough?

Mr. Death covered pretty much everything, but I noticed one thing.

A Maneuver to put an aspect on yourself - called a Navelgazing maneuver - can actually require a roll. If someone else is trying to stop you from doing it, you'll have to roll against whatever your opponent uses. The example used in the book is the opponent trying to distract (by shooting) against placing a "Deep in Concentration" aspect.

I can't give a definitive answer, but I think the restriction is that they can't kill anyone without an active relationship to the courts. It might instead be that it requires a prior relationship (like a deal of some sort) directly with the queen, but I'm not sure.

Then they are breaking their own rules.

I should edit it to say "Don't make me roll unless it's interesting and their are success and failures with that roll that are interesting"

How are they breaking their own rules?

The dice only come
out when there is an interesting challenge with
meaningful consequences.

There's also an almost ˝ page long margin note about how important that part is.

You want to make sure that both
outcomes are interesting—though “interesting”
isn’t the same as “good.”

Again highlighting that if there's no interesting result from both results of the roll, don't call for one!

If your GM doesn't follow that, take that up with your GM. That kind of thing can't really be worked into the rules other than through repeating the message above.

Something to reduce the effect of any Backlash maybe? Or increasing effective available Lore for determining amount of Preparation needed?

With Bless This House, I think part of the reason for the restriction is one of balance, and also to reflect that there are some places where God believes the extra help isn't needed to keep people safe. I always figured that places like the Carpenter home should be extremely rare. In practical terms, I wouldn't give even a stronghold of faith like a major church a threshold higher than 3.

I'd agree with that, the problem is that the very example they give, right in the "Determining Strength" paragraph, is a church (thus starting at +3), with two factors to enhance it (very old & foundation for local Catholics) giving +2 each, thus pushed to +7!

Homes start at +4, then they give examples like "lived in for generations" and "inhabitants lived most of their lives there" as factors, so having both would be +8. The Carpenter house, using these guidelines, would have a natural threshold of at least +6 (all the kids growing up there); I'd say that Michael building it himself would warrant another +2, honestly.

Either thresholds start or build way too high, or BtH is seriously underpowered when it comes to boosting an existing threshold.

Sure, it's great at lifting a very flimsy threshold into something that actually protects, but proper homes aren't gonna see much of an increase!

I'm a newbie aswell, but I'll take a stab at some of the questions:

1. Channeling/Evocation and Ritual/Thaumaturgy all give 2 focus slots each. Additional focus slots can be gained with Refinements. Each Focus Item slot can be turned into 2 Enchanted Item slots.

2. Those are what's called Navel-gazing Maneuvers, placing a maneuver on yourself. They can, depending on circumstances be opposed, just like any maneuver.

3. Apparently, according to what I've seen here on the forum, the game balance tends to break down somewhat at higher refresh, so that might be a reason. Personally, I think handing out extra refresh a little faster during the earlier parts of a chronicle seems reasonable, at least if you're going for a "growing into your power"-kind of story.