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The mobile site works quite well for me, has some small issues with the rendering of the menu and the links are far too small but other than that pretty decent.

Things I'd do for the mobile site:
- The aforementioned link from the main site
- Change the links to be button'ish. Could be as simple as just padding them all, would especially help for mobile phones. Tablets are better but you can still mis-click.
- Use a bit more HTML5. Not the fancy stuff, but just simple things like <input type="email"/>, which helps with the correct keyboard. It also degrades gracefully to a normal <input type="text"/> on HTML4 browsers.

In general though, on my GalaxyTab 10.1 it looks pretty decent and works quite well.
On my Galaxy S2 it works decently, but the visuals are horrible. There's just a bit too much info and choices for a screen of that size, neither of which is exactly easy to deal with :)

[ever]

I would think that anyone would be able to duplicate any effect, given the appropriate research time. It's not like once one person learns to carve a depression in a block of wood that no one else will ever be able to learn how to make a bowl.

That would be the reasoning behind duplicating a simple spell like lighting a fire, boiling water, mending bones etc. The principle is simple, as is the execution of it. In game terms it's likely to be the exact same spell as some other spellcaster has researched, but you'll probably have to research it from scratch if that takes longer than learning a spell from another caster.

More advanced spells like teleportation, farsight, polymorph and the likes probably aren't quite as easy. Everyone's inherently able to cast those spells, but that doesn't mean you can just do it. It'd probably be more like a well crafted piece of software, you understand what it does but without the source code you can't just go around duplicating it.

I'm not sure where exactly the limit on what you can just "pick up" will be, if allowed at all.

There will be only one Fireball spell, making up your own won't work. Because getting spell formulas, trading for them, etc. is a major part of the game. And control of some especially interesting spells will be part of what the councils powers could be.

Got the same problem as Indirik, can't change my password. It just claims I haven't filled out any of the fields. Tried it in Opera 11.50, IE9 & Chrome 13 so it's unlikely to be a browser issue with the javascript.

Incidentally the page is somewhat broken in IE9. The navigation div takes just a wee bit too much space so the main div appears below the menu, albeit still with a left hand margin. Fonts are quite normal as well, so I suspect IE support isn't your biggest priority :)

As Tom said in another post the spells created now will be available. I'm guessing we won't know them at the start, with the possible exception of a few simple ones, but they're going to be in the game. He said there would be some advantage to be the creator.

Spells can be learned, but you have to learn them from someone. At a guess simple spells will probably be more or less learn able by anyone, maybe at a higher cost if noone teaches you, while more complex ones will likely be one off spells. You can invent it, but if I want to learn it I have to beg, borrow or steal your works.

Rituals follow much less rigid structures. You pick your base and intent, as well as effect, and start performing it either alone or with help. If you pick decent costs for it the GM's will just let you continue, but if you decide that you can create the Sword of Instant Death(tm) in 5 minutes without expending any resources they'll just slap you with a "Didn't happen, try again with this cost..." or some spectacular failure.

The rest I dunno. I'm guessing no duplicate spells, but they might let it slide if it happens simultaneously.

One of the greatest benefits of Councils is just that, sharing spells. Depending on the council in question all spells might be held in common, they might be divided into ranks, they might require you to have rare spells to join etc. Council politics really are half the fun of the game IMO, can't have spellcasters without some intrigue and fun.

Would it be possible to modify spells until they're considered by a GM? It may be less of a problem once the game gets going, but in my spell submission frenzy I've made a mistake or two. Not a big issue, but means you have to reject my spell and I have to rework it later rather than me just fixing the mistake.

Could cause a race condition if someone evaluates it at the same time as I fix the mistake, but that should be solvable.

Of course Tom also steps in and squashes your more, uhm, extreme actions with logic. Way back in SM1 I got a lil annoyed with the nobles of some city, I think it was Sirion, and my sneaky mage went on a weee killing spree. Tom ruled that my somewhat excessive solution to the loyalty issue was seen by more than a few servants, who promptly spread the tale. In the end neither me nor the council to which I belonged were all that welcome in that city.

Even if Tom doesn't step in someone else is bound to rein you in. A power mad spellcaster isn't good for the reputation after all so unless the councils manage to establish themselves like they were in the good old days the power hungry ones are bound to get some player opposition.

If they have a short lifetime then there's probably no need to worry about them - they'll be summoned, do their job and then disappear back from whence they came. If they're permanent, then they could be treated as NPCs?

They'd probably be your NPC's. The summoning/animation doesn't take very long, but that doesn't have to mean the duration of the spell is as short. Actually I'm not quite sure how that would be treated, is it a duration 1-2 for the summoning or is that also the lifetime of the summoned creature? Would probably make sense to make a spell summoned creature live as long as the duration, while a ritual summoning would last longer or even be permanent.

Move is another obvious one.

What about Change? Polymorphing, transmogrification, etc?  Presumably such a change could only affect shape, not material.

Are divinations allowed? I thought I remembered someone saying something about it one way or the other; anyway, if they are allowed, there should be a Know intent.

What about conjuration?  Would a Create be allowed?

That's all I can come up with off the top of my head that seem relevant.  I can think of a few others, but they wouldn't really be applicable to SM.

Harm, Control & Protect more or less cover those areas IMO, with the possible exception of the Divination.

Polymorph: Change + Body/Nature
Create: Change + some element or Alchemy

Divination is trickier and, if allowed at all, I'd either lump it into Control or introduce some new intent to deal with divination, farseeing, scrying and the like. Possibly make a 'Sight' intent, although that might be a rather limited intent.

For the transformations, Control is perfectly suitable for yourself, but how about Alchemy for inert substances?

Some spell ideas:

Polymorph
Control + Nature
Changes a living creature into a different creature. Need not be static but one picks the target creature while learning the spell, might be changeable.

Shapeshift
Control + Body
Much the same as Polymorph, transforms yourself into some other creature. Both this and Polymorph should perhaps respect the original mass to a certain degree, so a person cannot become a small mouse. This limitation could be skipped to permit more fantastic transfomations. Human -> Eagle or somesuch.

Swiftness
Control + Wind
Makes the caster swift as the wind, able to run at tremendous speeds and avoid blades.

All the different Fireballs, Icebolts etc could be good ideas. Balls could target a small group, while bolts would hit a single human. The extravagant caster might even make Infernos and the like, increasing target to strength 4 or even 5.
Shields have already been mentioned, so I won't suggest those again.

Create Golem
Control + <Any base>
Animates a golem of any (suitable) base. Earth, fire, death etc. Different sizes could be either creating several, or creating one big golem. Probably most useful as a ritual, but being able to summon a few of those would be useful in a pinch.

Purify
Protect + Nature (Other bases would make sense as well - water/earth etc depending on the location)
Sanctifies an area cleansing any harmful effects or opposing taints. Death would cancel life, but leave a death taint alone. Obviously many different spells with same basic purpose, just widely different Base.

Banish
Harm + appropriate base
Banish a creature belonging to the appropriate base, or a set of related creatures possibly. For example banish undead, banish water elemental etc. Shouldn't kill the creature outright, but make it avoid you or an area. If the creature in question presses on, for example it's forced by some other controlling wizard, it's hurt or maybe even killed. Size/power of creature vs the effect could determine the outcome. Effect 1 would cause no real harm to any elemental, while an effect 3 would render lesser elemental incapacitated (if they could even be forced to approach), while more powerful elementals would only be hurt.

Philosopher's Stone
Alchemy + Earth (Alternately Control)
Creates gold from base metals. Should obviously be used with care since the infusion of too much gold would not only make the character suspect, but would also tend to cause inflation in the area.

Farseeing
Sight + Mind (Control might be sufficient, Wind might be an appropriate base as well)
Enables the caster to see far off lands. Not sure how the rules would apply to this seeing as the effect is cosmetic, the target is likely a 4(house) or 5 (field/village) and the duration would likely be between 2 & 4. However this doesn't take into account the distance you project your mind, without some sort of limitations the spell might be too powerful. If it's even allowed.

Past Sight
Sight + Mind
See the past as it happened around the caster. Could either be limited to the casting point, or a bubble around the caster. Has some of the same problems as Farseeing, needs a check on how long ago the actions may be. Minutes, days, hours? Could perhaps be solved by using the duration creatively. Durations 1 is useless, you see what's happening now. Duration 3 for example allows you to go back 45 minutes, and see 15 minutes of events, or go back 30 minutes and see the next 30 minutes. Similar with higher durations, you can go far back and see for a lil while, or stick to the closer past and see more of the events.

Not sure if the more mundane spells would be appropriate, or if they could be assumed to be known by any initiate. Things like boiling water (Control + Fire), lighting a torch (Control + Fire), creating a light ball (Control + Fire again) and any other practical yet not astonishing spells.

Trying to think of some sort of enchanting or magical smithcraft, but I'm not sure how it would fit into the current world. Probably shouldn't be too easy since an abundance of magic swords and wizardly staves would likely follow.

That's some of my less flamboyant spell ideas. I'm just not certain how useful all of them are seeing as the effects are rather vauge, but they're some of my ideas. If they don't make it into the engine, yet are permitted, I'll be getting myself a nice dry cellar in which to study them later :)

I'd forgotten most of the EC warfare, but then again I was only around for the first few years of it. Was nice to read it again, although my beloved Oligarch has far too little information from the early days :)