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RotesSC (Correspondence Effects)

Apportation     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 159 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 2

Although the rudiments of Correspondence are insufficient to actually teleport safely over long distances, a mage can affect some small Patterns. A quick Effect causes an object or creature to transport to or from the mage. The mage must also use the appropriate Pattern Sphere, typically Life or Matter. Apportation can’t affect any Pattern more complex than the mage’s Correspondence knowledge. That is, even a Master of Life or Matter can transport only very simple Patterns with this limited understanding of Correspondence (plants and very simple animals for Life, basic homogenous substances for Matter).

Bubble Of Reality     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 160 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 4

By removing a Pattern from interaction with “space,” a Correspondence Adept can cause an object to exist in its own sort of pocket dimension. Actually, the subject exists beyond the bounds of space, but the distinction doesn’t matter much. What’s important is that normal space and reality can’t interact with the target. However, the mage can still make Correspondence connections between normal space and the “bubbled” subject, so that it’s possible to see back out to the world or to scry on the object even as it’s cocooned away. Normally the object exists in its own non-space and the mage establishes a link at need. If the mage wants to keep a link going, cause the bubble’s apparent linkage to move or encompass a large area, he must generate a sufficiently large Effect.

Chain     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 159 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 3

“As above, so below.” Like objects often bear similar Resonance, and changing one can change the other. With Correspondence magic, a mage can strengthen or weaken the ties between objects or places. Such a chain makes for a powerful tool in building magical links, or a good way to defend against Correspondence senses and attacks. A simple Chain Effect lets the mage change the attachment between two Patterns.

Co-Location     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 160 ]

With this bizarre magic, a mage may stack multiple locations and allow them to interact freely. No damage occurs to objects that superimpose themselves on one another during co-location, yet they’re solid to one another.once separated, they’ll not superimpose again. Stacking entire areas (instead of just objects) is possible, but highly vulgar, difficult, and usually only done by desperate or crazed mages.

Correspondence Sensing     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 159 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 2

The ancient arts of scrying take many forms. The mage might use a tiny camera, a reflecting bowl, a magic mirror, or any number of means. The end results are the same: The mage draws a connection between her senses and the desired location. The mage can use her normal senses there, and thus she can watch events unfold, listen in on a conversation, or look into other worlds or ages, although such Effects are substantially more difficult and prone to interference or unusual results.

Correspondence Sensing can follow the traces picked up with a more basic Sense Connection, allowing the mage not only to determine if something is a gate or if someone’s scrying on an area, but to trace back to the location at the other end. This Effect lets the mage determine where a gate goes before passing through, or find out where a spy is lurking and look back. Spirit magic is also required if such a connection crosses the Gauntlet or into certain protected Realms.

Once the mage knows how to sense an area, she can defend against such senses, performing countermagic against other spies by using her Correspondence knowledge — her own knowledge of scrying techniques — to block the perceptions of the spy.

Filter All-Space     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 160 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 3

Spreading senses across the Tellurian, a mage can search for specific objects or creatures as she extends her senses. The early Correspondence power of Correspondence Sensing may allow for scrying of specific areas or Patterns, but this more advanced technique lets the mage look in many places at once. The mage senses everything going on in all the places scried, which may call for the judicious use of Mind magic.

A mage who isn’t looking for anything in particular could simply split perception across multiple locations and draw in a welter of sensory input. Conversely, a proper filter, especially with the right Pattern knowledge, lets a mage sift through many places to find an exact and particular target. The mage can then eliminate scenes from the multiplied vista until homed in on the right spot.

Hermes Portal     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 160 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 4

Free-standing gates or doorways to other places are staples of magical travel. The Order of Hermes claims to have pioneered a specific version that creates a permanent Gate through the Tapestry and then includes a ban (see Ward) to prevent the passage of anything but sentient, willing creatures. Such a Gate makes for quick and accessible transit between any two places desired, and the mage can make it usable by others easily.

Usually, a properly banned Gate seems like a darkened window; Correspondence Sensing allows the mage to trace and view the other end, or the Gate might not ban light and therefore would appear to be a panorama of the destination. Without a ban, anything on the other side of the Gate can pass through freely, which can cause all sorts of complications — the Wu Lung reportedly use an Effect that blasts an enemy with the fires of Heaven (Gated in from the sun). Either sort of Gate is a vulgar Effect, although a banned Gate is usually worth the additional work due to its greater safety. Of course, putting the bans on the Gate requires knowledge of the appropriate Spheres (usually Life, Mind, and Matter).

Portals can also open into multiple and varied locations. Such a portal might be keyed to a specific thought or password (with Mind), to a sequence of places (passing through them with Time), or to different places according to the subject (with Matter or Life). A particularly defensive portal could cause anyone without the right password to be deposited in one place while all of their material possessions wind up somewhere else. Such portals are staples of travel between heavily guarded Nodes and Chantries, as the magical defenses let mages discriminate easily between who can use such portals and where they’ll go.

Landscape Of The Mind     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 158 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 1

One of the most basic Correspondence exercises, this Effect opens the mage’s awareness to her surroundings without recourse to normal senses. With concentration and ritual, the mage can “feel” or perceive a great area of space, although extreme areas are both difficult to encompass magically (requiring many successes) and difficult to process mentally (generally requiring the aid of Mind magic for anything beyond a city block in area).

Polyappearance     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 160 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 4

Instead of disappearing from one place and reappearing in another, an Adept of Correspondence can choose to simply stack himself in multiple places simultaneously. The mage seem to inhabit all of the spaces at once. Onlookers in the various places see the mage react to the surroundings of all the locations. Thus, the mage could react to things that aren’t there in one place but are present in another. The mage takes in the sensations of every place at once.

Just because the mage exists in multiple places doesn’t mean that he can cause those multiple objects to interact, though. The mage might grab or use something in one place, but it won’t have any effect on the other places that the mage exists, unless additional Correspondence magic teleports or co-locates the subject. The mage also suffers the consequences of everything in all the locations. If a mage is in an open area and a small room at the same time, the walls of the small room block the mage’s sight entirely (since there’s still really only one mage, just experiencing multiple spaces). Getting attacked by multiple people is a bad idea.

On the other hand, poly-appearance can be advantageous. Akashic Brothers multiply their positions to strike from multiple angles at once, while Hermetic mages hold conferences with multiple groups simultaneously.

If the mage actually wants to process information from multiple locations, a Mind Effect is invaluable. With Life and Prime, the mage can also make additional bodies, and then use Mind to split her attentions between them, though only one body at a time can actually do magic (in effect, the mage’s attention focuses only on one actual body at a time).

Sense Connection     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 159 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 1

Powerful uses of Correspondence pulls places together or wrap space around like taffy. The proper rituals allow the mage to sense such distortions. This Effect is handy in determining if there’s a gate nearby, whether someone is scrying, or whether an object is being manipulated remotely. The mage can also determine if a Pattern has a specific connection to another Pattern. Obviously, this knowledge is extremely useful in sympathetic magic, or in determining what would be a good item to use or place to work a specific Effect. Note that a mage can’t necessarily tell what something is connected to. The Effect merely indicates the presence or absence of an unusual Correspondence.

The Seven-League Stride     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 160 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 3

Legend has it that the Order of Hermes made magical boots that would take the wearer exactly seven leagues with each stride. Though such boots are an artifact of the past, this Effect mirrors their capabilities. A competent mage can step from place to place nearly instantaneously. Depending on the exact sort of magic used, the mage might seem to blur past in an instant, or just vanish and reappear somewhere else. Regardless, the mage effectively teleports to any place he desires, although near and better-known locations are easier to reach, of course.

Just as a mage can teleport himself through judicious use of Correspondence, objects or creatures can be moved with the right Effect. Simple Apportation can affect only simple Patterns, but as the mage’s Correspondence knowledge improves, she can affect similarly more complex Patterns. Simple living things or composite objects can be moved with variations on the Seven-League Stride. Adepts and Masters of Correspondence can even use their greater rituals to bring along other people or to transport large or unusual substances.

Combined with Correspondence Sensing, the mage can travel to just about any place that can be scried — which is a good thing if the mage doesn’t want to land in a hostile environment by accident. With Sense Connection, the mage could detect a scrying adversary, trace that connection, and then teleport to the spy.

Spatial Mutations     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 160 ]

With true Mastery of Correspondence, the mage can alter distance and direction as desired. Though the mage can’t really “create space” per se, she can easily cause a perceived distance to change without affecting the relative outside world. She can bend space around to make strange shapes that don’t hinder objects or creatures inside. To those on the inside, the space seems normal while the outside appears distorted, though such magic doesn’t actually affect the subject directly — it just makes them appear different relative to the rest of the world.

Since the mage can change distances or directions, she can cause an object to become very small relative to herself, but it would still have the same mass and strength. She could make something largest but it wouldn’t become any more resilient. In effect, the material properties of various Patterns don’t change, just their appearance in three-space.

Ward     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 159 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 2

Just as a mage can sense distant locations, the mage can also defend against such perceptions. A ward prevents sensory intrusion from most varieties of supernatural perception. The mage simply creates a bar against the connections of space that would form with Correspondence Sensing. Such an Effect pits its successes against the successes of any scrying attempt, so a well-built ward can keep out even determined spies while a hasty one just makes scrying a little blurry. The ward’s successes subtract from any scrying attempts successes, but the spy’s work of battering down the ward is noticeable unless the spy is also careful enough to rebuild the ward while worming through it.

With the proper conjunctional Spheres, a ward can be set with specific conditions or blockades. A ward with the right Mind magic might let through certain viewers or certain people in a particular state of mind, or who know the right password. Time magic can key a ward so that it’s penetrable to viewers in a specific range of time. Matter or Life magic allows wards to be woven directly over such Patterns, and it makes scrying on the objects themselves difficult.

Once the mage can actually pierce or strengthen space (Correspondence 3), a ward can be built as a ban, an actual barrier to passage. The ban might appear as a forcefield or a set of glowing runes, or it might have no visible manifestation. The Spheres used in the creation of the ban determine what it keeps out. A Matter ban could be keyed to resist intrusion by bullets, iron, or radioactive material; a Forces ban might block certain energies; a Life ban can keep out specific creatures or types of creatures; a Spirit ban naturally protects against demons and spirit entities. The ban strengthens space against the creature, combined with the power of the appropriate Pattern Sphere, to hedge it out, though anything not keyed to the ban passes through normally. Thus, a ban against spirits would still let a spirit’s spells and thrown weapons through, so be careful. Bans must usually be cast over an area, and unless the mage spends a lot of time adding to the duration and conjunctional Effects, they aren’t likely to last for too long.

Whereami?     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 159 ]

Spheres: Correspondence 1

Absolute sense of space gives the mage a perfect determination of her relative location. Combined with Spirit, the mage can even intuit location within spirit worlds, and thus find her place almost anywhere in the Tellurian. Mind magic lets the mage determine the validity of her senses and establish whether she’s hallucinating or dreaming. Naturally, wards can alter or block such perceptions, and Paradox or Quiet might confuse the issue. In most cases, the Effect simply lets the mage get a rough idea of where she is relative to some axis of her normal, familiar world, so that she can get home or find her way. This Effect gets its name from the Virtual Adepts, who tend to use computer-aided maps and positioning to determine location.

RotesSE (Entropy effects)

Beginner’s Luck     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 162 ]

Spheres: Entropy 2

There’s a statistical possibility that any random attempt to do anything will actually succeed. You can get a hole-in-one the first time you pick up a golf club or hit the bull’s eye at a rifle range on the first try. The trouble is doing it the second time, as the chance gets exceedingly improbable. One lucky shot is in the realm of possibility, but five holes-in-one from a rank amateur is beyond belief.

Most mages agree that skill and practice will beat blind luck any day. When faced with any feat that she’s never attempted before (or at least succeeded in), however, a mystic may use the Effect to call on the force of beginner’s luck and do the impossible.

For each success with this Effect, the Storyteller may add one success to any non-magical Skill roll that a mage’s player has two dice or less to attempt, in addition to any successes that the mage makes on her own. The “automatic successes” from this Effect last until they’re used in some spectacular success, at which point the magic expends itself.

Each future attempt to use this same magic for the same feat adds one to the difficulty, reflecting diminishing returns. Mages who wish to continue to make spectacular successes should learn additional levels of the Skill in question. No one stays a beginner for long.

Binding Oath     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 164 ]

The most powerful Fate magicians can call destiny itself to witness the oaths and pacts that they oversee. The skein of Fate takes chart of the subject and marks him. Such an oath brings the weight of fortune to bear on any who break it. Even without any additional compulsions or bindings, the oath has power due to the simple weight of destiny hanging over the subject.

A Binding Oath doesn’t necessarily lay actual prohibition on the subject. The individual retains his free will. However, should he choose to break the oath willingly, he reaps the full weight of consequence. Fate’s tapestry bends to ensure that disaster befalls the oathbreaker, and he’s clearly marked to any who can sense the weight of destiny.

Laying a binding oath is a difficult task, since it must be made to last long enough to have any meaning — typical oaths last for a cycle of the moon, a year and a day, even an age or an eternity. Placing a prohibition on an unwilling subject is even more difficult, especially if the victim is already marked for a great destiny. Thus, such oaths are usually saved for situations of the greatest weight and consequence, like ceremonial initiation into the mysteries of a Tradition or the foundation of a new Chantry.

Blight Of Aging     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 164 ]

Spheres: Entropy 4

Infusing a Life Pattern with excess Entropy can have all manner of decrepitude. The caster doesn’t necessarily specify any sort of particular physical problem. Rather, the mage simply curses the creature, afflicting the being with a rapid aging and disease. Though Life Patterns are normally self-correcting, the right combination of Entropic factors can drive a Pattern haywire, eventually causing it to fall apart and destroy itself. Rapid aging, cancer, system failure, and multiple infections can all result

A significantly strong curse can reduce the creature to a decaying corpse in a matter of days. More subtle curses may cause the victim to suffer a relapse of an old wound, the onset of a nasty disease, or a slow slide into a coma. The mage doesn’t choose the result. Instead, she simply levies the curse and watches as the individual suffers the results (like in Steven King’s Thinner). Medical attention might slow the onset of such a curse, but normal science can do nothing to prevent the deterioration. Victims wither and die slowly, or they just suffer some sort of debilitating disfigurement, and only an enlightened magician or scientist can find a way to battle the curse (with sufficient command of countermagic).

Life-destroying curses are a common (if powerful) staple of most magical styles, but they’re usually relegated to the status of dire and dangerous magic. Dabbling in such magic is a quick path to Jhor.

Games Of Luck     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 163 ]

Spheres: Entropy 2

By controlling localized probability, the mage can influence the outcome of nearly any game of chance. He can tell which horse will come in, who’ll get the winning poker hand, and how the dice will fall. As with all Effects of this sort, the mage’s successes get increasingly improbable as they continue. At low levels of success, the mage might influence the events but not completely get the desired result. At high levels, the mage can exert a fine (but not exact or total) control over the outcome of such random games. Although it may seem that a mage could make large quantities of cash this way, chance has a way of catching up. Besides, the bookies probably won’t let you Virtual Adept run the numbers on his laptop while he’s playing poker.

Like Clockwork     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 163 ]

Spheres: Entropy 3

Patterns that rely on precision can be improved and shielded with this simple Effect. By insulating a Pattern against the forces of Entropy, a device can be not only protected from decay and never allowing errors to creep in. Obviously, time catches up with all things so this Effect can’t be made permanent. However, it can stretch the life and accuracy of all sorts of machines if it’s maintained regularly (especially clocks, computers, and other such precision devices). The Technocracy uses this Effect extensively, simply through regular maintenance of its machinery. Tradition mages might work small charms and blessings into a device to give it similar benefits. This Effect’s success establish a duration and size for the subject, keeping it shielded from running down naturally. The successes also defend against Entropy attacks levied against the object in question: An Entropy attack deducts from this Effect’s protective successes first before hampering the object’s functionality.

Locate Disorder And Weakness     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 162 ]

Spheres: Entropy 1

By using Entropy senses, the mage can locate areas of chaos, disorder, and decay. A simple sensory Effect determines roughly where an object may break, where an occurrence may happen randomly, or how a sequence of events may fall out. With more successes, the mage gets more detailed and accurate information.

By concentrating on an organizational structure, the mage can find the most disorganized and chaotic point. Doing so can be useful in determining areas that may be difficult to understand, or places where a few more little changes may go unnoticed.

Focusing on a Pattern, the mage can sense the weaker areas and make a devastating attack in those places. Applying the magical senses lets the mage use his Entropy magic to augment the damage roll.

Midwife’s Blessing     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 164 ]

Spheres: Entropy 4

Remember all those stories about fairy godmothers and blessed children? Such blessings are possible with the right command of Entropy. The mage’s blessing doesn’t ensure specific qualities, but it does help to ensure that the child will grow with health and strength. The usual Verbena form of the Effect is a laying of hands on the belly of the mother-to-be, with the blessing, “Grow tall, straight of limb, and well favored.” Hermetic mages have been known to enchant for specific qualities in their children, instilling specific forms of vis (Quintessence) with Resonance designed to protect against negative qualities. Progenitors are more straightforward, deliberately engineering genetic qualities to remove negative traits and disease susceptibility.

Obviously, ensuring that a child is completely bereft of mischance is too difficult to perform, but a well-cast ritual can at least prevent birth defects or fatal diseases. Protecting a child all through childhood would require an extremely strong ritual. The mage also can’t specify any specific gifts for the child; all she can do is ensure that harm or misfortune just won’t come the child’s way.

Mutate Ephemera     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 164 ]

The vagaries of chance can take effect even on time, space, and thought, and Masters of Entropy can pull on these threads as well. Most often, this Effect is used in conjunction with constructs of thought and mind. Without even using the Mind Sphere, the Master can cause someone’s mind to wander with a glance, lead her down a new chain of thought with a few well-placed words or change her mind about something with a simple warning. The Master of Entropy can also reweave destiny to take note of someone or to ensure that a particular place or time will be a conjunction of great import. As with other manifestations of Entropy, the magician isn’t guaranteed of the final outcome, but he can make certain that something comes to pass, for good or for ill as he determines.

A simple bending of ephemeral chance can cause someone to change his mind about a whim or thought, or it might lead him to a new conclusion. Actually shifting someone’s weight of destiny or placing a powerful curse or blessing, making a cryptic prophetic pronouncement, or designating an area as a center of unusual happenstance is much more difficult. Placing a bond of fate over an area or for a large span of time requires that the mage address the difficulty of that distance or duration.

Ring Of Truth     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 162 ]

Spheres: Entropy 1

For those who believe in such things, destiny has a way of coming to the fore. Prophets speak the words of destiny, and events come to pass; people make simple statements that turn out to hold profound truths. Attention to destiny (or just to the patterns that indicate when someone is most likely to lie or to be right about something) can tell a mage whether someone’s words hold accuracy.

The Ring of Truth relies on some tie to destiny to determine veracity. Although this powerful Effect can help a mage determine if someone is lying or if the individual’s words are somehow important, it has limits. The mage can only analyze something that has meaning to her — a question that has no relevance to the mage or the subject can’t be analyzed. That is, the mage can’t simply query a random person on the street, or even a cabal-mate, about sundry details of the Technocracy and expect an objective assessment of truth if the questions are without connection or context to the subject. Furthermore, the Effect isn’t infallible and it often leaves the mage with cryptic hunches or incomplete answers. Fate is fickle.

Serenity Of The Stone     [ Masters Of The Art — Page 76 ]

Spheres: Entropy 4, Life 3, Mind 3, Prime 5, Time 5

This rote, a favorite of the Akashic Brotherhood, slows the aging process so drastically that the mage doesn’t seem to age at all. Once performed, the mystic need not recast the rote time and again.

This rote can seem coincidental if the mystic secludes himself from regular contact with Sleepers. His Mastery of Prime creates a mostly self-sustaining Pattern that slows time and entropy. Life and Mind magic keep his faculties, both physical and mental, in proper working order.

The down side is that the mage is still a “thaumivore” of sorts, and must periodically refresh the Prime Pattern maintaining the Effect.

Since this rote is more effective than most, the mage need only consume a point of Quintessence every week or so. If Quintessence isn’t available, the mystic takes a Health Level of lethal damage per day, and begins aging more rapidly. In some cases, Paradox strikes willworkers at this delicate stage, rapidly withering them beyond their actual age. The cause is unknown, although the Chorus theorizes that the irregular ebb and flow of energy is an affront to Divinity.

Since this rote is more effective than most, the mage need only consume a point of Quintessence every week or so. If Quintessence isn’t available, the mystic takes a Health Level of lethal damage per day, and begins aging more rapidly. In some cases, Paradox strikes willworkers at this delicate stage, rapidly withering them beyond their actual age. The cause is unknown, although the Chorus theorizes that the irregular ebb and flow of energy is an affront to Divinity.

Shed The Years     [ Masters Of The Art — Page 76 ]

Spheres: Entropy 4, Life 3, Mind 2, Prime 5, Time 2

This is a “maintenance” rote preferred by mystics who can’t bother with constantly active magic on their physical person. Some Verbena brew potions of youth; Sons of Ether boast of their Phoenix Engines. Whatever the outward trappings, this rote reverts the mage’s body to the state it was in nine years ago, effectively giving her almost another decade of life. Mystics who use this rote tend to perform it in a Horizon Realm, since the Paradox backlash could be intense indeed.

This effect requires five successes, and the difficulty is appropriately frightening. The pretense of high ritual usually aids the process as does the presence of Tass. The mage temporarily halts entropy while using Life magic to rejuvenate her body. The Time Sphere helps the mage recall what she was like (not what she thinks she was like) nine years back, and the Mind Sphere helps her mentally adjust to the resetting of her brain without losing the memories of the last nine years. Finally, the adept must be a Master of Prime to fuel such an incredible regression to a younger, stronger state. Once the rote is completed, the willworker ages normally.

Slay Machine     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 163 ]

Spheres: Entropy 3

Just as Entropy can protect a delicate Pattern from failure or decay, so too can chaos induce just such occurrences. By accelerating the process of inaccuracy and failure, the student of Entropy can render a modern technological device a heap of rubble — or at least cause it to fail badly enough that its compounded errors make it worthless.

The number of successes scored on the Effect determines how much chaos the mage manages to inject into a given system. For complex machines, the mage can cause gears to break, belts to snap, axles to bend, and rods to slip. Electronic components suffer surges or failures. Computers and calculators get random errors and crashes along with computational problems. Simple material Patterns disperse in an accelerated rate of decay: Water evaporates, steel rusts, wood rots, and copper corrodes. A couple of successes would be sufficient to interrupt a personal computer, but 10 or more successes would be necessary to crumble a large engine to broken pieces.

RotesSF (Forces effects)

Darksight     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 166 ]

Spheres: Forces 1

In the absence of visible light, the mage can shift his perceptions up or down the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. This allows him to view infrared or ultraviolet light, radio waves, X-rays, etc. He won’t he able to discern colors, but he may read other interesting perceptions from the various spectra — X-rays would allow him to see an object’s underlying structure, and he could see in the dark using infrared.

Virtual Adepts and Sons of Ether tend to use special visual lenses, filter programs, or goggles for this Effect, and they look through scientific spectra. Mystical magicians use this power to see by heat or sound, often mimicking natural creatures that can do the same.

Electrical Chaos     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 166 ]

Spheres: Forces 2

Virtual Adepts in need of a quick diversion often sabotage Technocratic equipment with a sudden electrical pulse. Akashic Brothers and Hermetic mages sometimes concentrate electricity around themselves or their weapons and use it to shock the enemy. Either way, the mage simply diverts the flow of electricity, causing it to concentrate in one area or discharge in another. Such an Effect is a damaging attack, striking against a living opponent or a device susceptible to electrical damage.

Embracing The Earth Mother     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 167 ]

Spheres: Forces 4

The Earth Mother sleeps only fitfully, and the Dreamspeakers can cause Her to stir in Her slumber with their drums and calls. The weight of Gaia’s attention draws around the target, focusing gravity about him. Virtual Adepts and Sons of Ether perform similar feats technologically, by concentrating and redirecting gravitons. Euthanatos sometimes freeze their targets in place with the “weight of terror.”

Successes scored on such a result focus the force of gravity around the target, making the victim seem to weigh more. A good guideline is that each success beyond the initial casting requirements increases gravity around the subject by one G (Earth gravity), so with four extra successes a subject would feel five G’s (normal gravity plus four). Thus a 75 kilo man would feel as if he were a whopping 375 kilograms. (That’s about a 165 pound man to an 825 pound man, for all you English weight system users). The character can probably stand in G forces up to his strength rating. Beyond that, he’s reduced to hugging the ground, and if the forces exceed twice his Strength rating, he starts taking damage from his own body weight — excess levels of gravity score damage on the damage chart normally.

Hermetic mages are known to concentrate surrounding forces like fires and electricity into their opponents as well, diverting massive power to strike their enemies.

Energy Shield     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 166 ]

Spheres: Forces 2

By bulwarking against certain forces, it’s possible to not only defend against many attacks, but also to create a variety of interesting exceptions to “natural law.” Bending away light makes a mage invisible, but it also means that she can’t see. She must rely on other senses or use Correspondence to sense other locations. Pushing away sound renders the mage completely silent; the mage could also concentrate sound into an area, drawing in sound from around her and keeping it from being heard elsewhere. It’s a simple matter to protect against electrical or fire attacks, too. Altering the direction of incoming kinetic energy allows the mage to stop or deflect bullets. By deflecting gravity, the mage can make himself essentially weightless, able to float or levitate, even controlling direction by allowing forces from certain directions to interact with her. Such a shield could also be helpful in repelling radiation or other esoteric sorts of rays.

Note that most mages only maintain a shield against one or two types of forces at a time. It’s nearly impossible to make a shield that hedges out all incoming forces.

Friction Curse     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 166 ]

Spheres: Forces 3

Turning a subject’s motion into heat energy, the mage not only renders the subject unable to move, but cause the victim to heat up until he bursts into flame. This Effect essentially turns the subject’s movement into damage, so faster objects are more susceptible. A modified version can cause the subject’s own breathing action to create cold, freezing the subject in place and encasing him in a block of ice. Partial successes negate some motion and impart some heat; multiple successes can transform motion into damage. Better still, since the target can’t move, he’s hard-pressed to dodge the ensuing eruption of fire or cold.

Inferno     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 167 ]

By sucking all the light and sound out of an area and transforming it into heat, the mage can cause a small area (like a person or building) to suddenly burst into all-consuming flames. If the mage spends several turns gathering the Effect, the subject may notice an odd darkening and silence almost as if doom itself hovers over him. Once released, the Effect raises the subject’s temperature rapidly, causing it to explode or melt. Naturally, this Effect is vulgar as all hell, but it still scores damage normally. Plus, it’s aggravated to boot.

Quantify Energy     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 166 ]

Spheres: Forces 1

By invoking this Effect, a mage can sense the type and amount of energy at work around her. She can easily translate her perceptions into accurate measurement units such as volts, amps, and teslas. Note that this quantification includes kinetic energy, which allows a mage to determine an object’s speed in relation to her if she knows the object’s mass.

Just because a mage can sense and quantify energy doesn’t necessarily let her make sense of it. A mage could note the presence of radio waves, but he might not be able to translate and hear them immediately.

Storm Watch     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 167 ]

Spheres: Forces 4

By redirecting wind forces and heat patterns, the mage can bring rapid change to the weather. Verbena and Dreamspeakers in particular perform such rituals with dances, sympathetic magic or paeans. The mage can banish wind, bring up, or disperse clouds and cause the surroundings to become hotter and colder.

With two successes, the mage could perhaps stir up a light breeze or cool off a hot day, while with 10 successes, the mage could generate a heat wave or bring in rapidly moving clouds over a small area.

Telekinesis     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 167 ]

Spheres: Forces 3

At low levels of skill, a mage can perform rudimentary telekinesis by altering the directions of motive forces on an object. With the ability to transmute forces, though, the mage can easily turn body heat, a shout, even ambient light into a push that controls or moves an object. With Prime magic the mage could create telekinetic force from nothing. It’s easier to manipulate smaller objects, of course, and fine control is quite difficult. The mage must also have a constant source of force. If no outside force influences the subject, there’s nothing to transform into kinetic control. On the other hand, since people generate all manner of forces, it’s usually a simple matter to hinder an enemy’s movements.

Some mages focus telekinesis by using dolls or representations of the subject, while others just use transformative runes or phrases to direct the motion. In many cases, mages find it easier to telekinetically manipulate the subject if they can act out the motion, but that action isn’t always necessary.

Tempest In A Teapot     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 167 ]

The stormwives of the Verbena use this magic to harness the pull of the moon and the flow of the tides and brew a tempest, using a small copper kettle inscribed with runes and a length of cord as their foci. Multiple witches may act in concert, dancing around a larger cauldron. The Verbena of England claim that the storm that wrecked the Spanish Armada was their doing. Existing storms may be called and controlled with Forces 4, but with this level, the witch weaves the tempest out of the energy of the moon herself.

RotesSL (Life effects)

Alter Simple Creature     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 170 ]

Spheres: Life 2

By grasping a Life Pattern and molding it metaphysically, the mage learns to heal or change it as desired. Euthanatos use a version of this called “Little Good Death” to learn how to tear simple Patterns, bringing death to plants or small creatures as a stepping stone to greater skill. Verbena use this skill to mold their trees and pets into pleasing and healthy forms, and to cure disease or injury in such. Causing a change to the Pattern relies on the Storyteller’s judgment of the power of the feat and severity of the change.

Animal Form     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 171 ]

Spheres: Life 5

Although the mystical Circe’s transformation of men into pigs is perhaps one of the better-known examples of this power, Verbena and Hermetics still have a history of changing offenders into various sorts of animals. The subject must retain a similar general size, although the mage can induce the Pattern metamorphosis to cause the victim to shrink into a mouse or grow into an oak tree with enough work. The subject’s consciousness remains, but it will eventually fade into the new form, as with Mutate Form.

Animals can also be changed into humans with this power — although they retain their animal instincts, they may slowly become more human. Whether an “uplifted” animal could Awaken is unknown.

Better Body     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 171 ]

Spheres: Life 3

Mages who rely heavily on Life Effects use this power to alter themselves. A mage can take on various forms to her advantage: Claws, gills, increased Physical Attributes or Appearance, body armor, and more. The only limits are imagination and what the mage believes that he can do within his paradigm. Successes scored indicate the limits of the change: One success would be good for an extra dot on one Attribute, for instance. Additional successes can maintain the Effect or generate larger changes.

If a mage changes a Pattern beyond normal limits — increasing Attributes to legendary levels (six or more), adding totally inhuman features, fortifying to soak against aggravated wounds, etc. — the subject gains permanent Paradox as long as the changes remain. Usually Paradox is a problem only for mages, but other victims can suffer as well, especially when Paradox erupts near them. Such gross changes always cause Pattern bleeding as well.

Simply altering a Pattern within its normal range of forms — swapping two Physical Attributes, for instance, or changing eye color — is a much simpler and less danger-prone use of this Effect.

Heal Self   ·  [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 170 ]

Spheres: Life 2

Each Tradition has a time-tested means for self-healing; mages get into too many scrapes not to. Verbena renew themselves with a draught of pure water or a charm of good fortune. Hermetic mages restore the form of the physical body by words that mold flesh. The Akashic Brotherhood uses “Ho Tien Chi,” or the “Breath of the Day After Birth,” to bring in healing energies and vitality, as taught through Do. Celestial Choristers lay on hands while Technocrats use simple slap-on medical patches, amp drugs, and regenerate devices. The Effect is simple: The caster simply heals damage.

Life Scan     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 170]

Spheres: Life 1

A simple attachment to a computer can search for the bio-fields of nearby living creatures, allowing a Virtual Adept to determine the locations and conditions of such targets. Although such scans require additional work (and Correspondence) to reach over a great distance, they can be helpful in targeting friends or enemies, since the Virtual Adept can recognize individual Patterns that have been detected and logged previously. Most Virtual Adepts also include special filter programs to cut out undesired life-forms from the scan, like microscopic organisms or simple vermin (aside from Technocrats).

Many other Traditions can perform a similar Effect with an appropriate scrying tool. A Verbena might use a mirror that shows images of nearby creatures, while a Euthanatos sniffs for the distinctive scents of various creatures.

Mutate Form     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 171 ]

Spheres: Life 4

The mage can alter the form of any living creature, changing its appearance and function much like the Better Body Effect. Disguises and beneficial alterations are popular among Tradition mages in varying degrees — Verbena sometimes give their pets unusual capabilities, Euthanatos might change the appearance of their confederates and Hermetics would just deform people with whom they became irate.

The mage can also transform himself, taking on animal form, changing shape, and generally screwing with the basic nature of his Pattern. In this case, the mage can actually turn his Life Pattern’s true nature into that of another creature: He can become a true cat, for instance, and thus avoid the problem of Pattern bleeding due to internal conflict. On the downside, the mage fundamentally is whatever form he assumes. He must spend a point of Willpower each day to retain knowledge of his former self, his intellect and human instincts; he may also need time to adapt to his new form (as adjudicated by the Storyteller — two Experience Points is a good measure). Certain Mind magic can help the mage to get around some of these problems, which is fortunate, because if the mage runs out of willpower in his animal form, he completely loses his identity and believes himself to be a normal animal of that sort.

The successes rolled determine the scale of change possible with this Effect. As with any gross physiological change, there’s a risk of Pattern bleeding if the true nature of the Pattern isn’t altered.

Perfect Metamorphosis     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 171 ]

Spheres: Life 5

Overcoming the problems of imperfect Pattern-transformation, the mage can create a Pattern that carries the physical nature of a beast yet holds as well his own persona and mind. The mage can take on the shape of any creature that he desires, of any size. She can shift or revert, cure her own Pattern of undesired changes, and maintain a perfect state of health in any living form as she desires.

Physiological Emotion Control     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 171 ]

Spheres: Life 4

Many Virtual Adepts view human beings as biological computers. By inducting certain reactions within the physical body, the Adepts can “reprogram” a person’s behavior. Emotions like anger or fear can be induced by causing the body to release adrenaline, while endorphin stimulation can bring on intense pleasure. Even depression has biological causes. This “tyranny” of the physical body over the mind is one of the reasons that the Virtual Adepts wish to attain a virtual reality state, where that body is left behind and the mind is no longer a slave to the body’s desires.

Any Adept of Life can induce emotions in a subject by causing the person’s body to release or stifle the correct hormones. More successes on the Effect roll make the emotion more severe.

Prayer Of Healing Revelation     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 170 ]

Spheres: Life 1

The Celestial Chorus studies Life magic to detect illness and injury. These Disciples learn to identify flaws that indicate various diseases, injuries, poisons, and parasitic infestations in a life form’s Pattern. The mystic must usually make a Perception roll when scanning the Pattern. The more successes scored on the Effect, the more specific the information she receives. One success might reveal poison, two might reveal that the poison is affecting the respiratory process, and three successes might determine the poison to be arsenic.

Rip The Man-Body     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 171 ]

Spheres: Life 3

With this Effect, a Euthanatos can rend the Patterns of complex life forms. As the mage lacks detailed knowledge of such complex Patterns, she can’t unravel the Patterns quickly. This damage often manifests as lesions and internal hemorrhaging.

RotesSM (Matter effects)

Alloy     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 174 ]

Spheres: Matter 4

By grabbing two Patterns and compressing them together, the mage makes an alloy out of solid objects. He can shove a chunk of wood into the middle of a piece of plastic or blend two types of metal into a composite. Such an alloy still retains the properties of its individual components, but it might have its own characteristics if it’s mixed finely enough. That is, a chunk of wood stuck in a wall of plastic would still burn, but if the wood were diffused throughout the plastic, the wall might have a pleasing wooden texture while remaining fire retardant (although it could well give off poisonous smoke when it did catch fire).

Alter Weight     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 174 ]

Spheres: Matter 5

By manipulating the properties of an object’s elemental mass, a mage can change it into a unique element that has a weight dissociated from its size. A tiny object can be given the mass of a car, or a car could be made light enough to be picked up (great gas mileage, hell in strong winds). Objects that are heavy for their size — superdense materials — tend to be stronger and more durable than the balsa-like constructions of hyperlight material. The level of success scored indicates how much the object can be tweaked in terms of density. With a couple of successes, the mage might succeed in changing its mass by 25% while 10 successes could alter it by a factor of several times.

Analyze Substance     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 173 ]

Spheres: Matter 1

Any number of simple enchantments can be used to determine material properties. The mage could pick out gold from iron pyrite and tell exactly what a chair’s made of and how much weight it can hold. Mages do so in many and varied ways. Sons of Ether and Virtual Adepts use their favorite tricorder-style sensing devices, Hermetics often compare to known samples and look for disparities, Ecstatics just “go with the flow” and pick whatever feels right.

Destroy Structures     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 173 ]

Spheres: Matter 3

The mage uses her knowledge of Matter Patterns to break down structures by shredding their Patterns. The Effect resembles Sculpture, but the mage simply breaks down a Pattern as quickly as possible. The mage can destroy nearly any simple object. He can tear up concrete, steel, and cloth with equal ease. However, advanced compounds might be too difficult for the mage to unravel (and require a higher level of skill). Note that the material isn’t reduced to nothingness; it’s simply scattered and torn apart.

The mage can also turn an object into some other sort of inert substance and go from there. Doing so can be useful if a mage is dealing with matter that won’t be destroyed just by dispersing it, like poison gas or acid.

Fragments Of Dream     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 173 ]

Spheres: Matter 1

Dreamspeakers view all manner of fragments of the Earth Mother’s dreams. By tapping such dreams, they can expand their perception of Matter. The mage extends her senses beyond physical reality into Pattern. She no longer sees matter in the same way: Instead of a brick wall, for instance, she sees its Pattern in her mind’s eye.

This Effect allows the mage to perceive things that would be unseen in physical reality. She could sense the contents that might otherwise be hidden, such as a false bottom of a suitcase. Really dense or complex Patterns may be more difficult to penetrate.

Matter Association     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 174 ]

Spheres: Matter 5

A Master of Matter can change how certain Matter Patterns interact with other Patterns. If he decides to make a Pattern unable to interact with others of a specific type, he may well get a material that’s insubstantial to certain substances. Bullets could fire through body armor and a coroner’s tools could pass through dead flesh. The Master can also make the matter take on the properties of some sort of matter or entirely new properties, so a piece of matter could be made superconductive, incredibly strong, and somewhat ductile, despite originally being a crumpled-up ball of duct tape. Such massive transformation are, of course, generally vulgar and reserved for occasions where the mage needs a permanent special object. The successes scored determine how much the mage can alter the nature of the object. With a few successes, he might tweak the weight and interactive properties a bit, while many successes would allow the mage to reverse fundamental properties, make an inert substance radioactive, or vice-versa. He could also swap around characteristics from multiple types of matter.

Melt And Reform   ·  [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 173 ]

Spheres: Matter 2

The mage turns an otherwise inviolable object into a similar but much more accommodating item. The mage could grab a stone wall and briefly render the stone into clay, easily shaping it with his hands until the Effect ends, or he could turn a statue to butter and let it melt before changing it back. This Effect makes an excellent way to get out of traps, although it may take some work to be explained as coincidental.

Sculpture     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 173 ]

Spheres: Matter 3

By changing the shape of a chunk of Matter, the mage can easily sculpt a substance without bothering to transform it like Melt and Reform. The mage just grabs the Pattern mystically — whether by pantomiming the sculpture, chanting its name of power or whatever — and yanks it around into the desired shape. The object responds and takes on the appropriate form. Sculpture may require multiple successes for every large or complex objects.

Straw Into Gold     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 173 ]

Spheres: Matter 2

Just like Rumplestiltskin, the mage can weave base matter into a valuable substance. It remains a homogeneous material, but it takes on qualities desired by the mage. Vulgar willworkers may literally turn tears into diamonds and straw into gold. More subtle magicians could improve the quality of an existing object, or “accidentally discover” that an object is more valuable than it first appeared. In this fashion, a mage can turn cheap beer into a decent stout, make generic brands seem of higher quality, and cause an ordinary item to actually be made of something valuable.

Transformers     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 174 ]

Spheres: Matter 4

Complex and radical changes in composition let a mage with the appropriate knowledge alter the function of various decides. A mage could turn his wristwatch into a dart-firing weapon or cause his stereo system to also house a telephone. There’s almost no limit to what can be done, although the mage must have the knowledge necessary to build and use the device. Such devices are just reorganizations of existing Matter, so they must still conform to the general laws of the consensus. That is, the mage could cause his wristwatch to also have a dart-firing mechanism (since someone could conceivably build such a device normally), but it wouldn’t be able to also serve as a teleporter.

RotesSmi (Mind effects)

Adjust Conditioning     [ Technocracy: Void Engineers — Page 45 ]

This ability is for Void Engineers only. This refers to extensive mind control, like the Social Conditioning procedures of the New World Order. Usually, the Conditioning is never completely removed, only subverted. The complexity of this Effect lies in its subtlety — if Technocrats appear to have their now Conditioning reversed completely, an extensive investigation would begin. However, if certain small but important points of the Conditioning are altered, the operative becomes loyal to the Void Engineers, rather than to the New World Order.

Astral Projection     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 178 ]

Spheres: Mind 5

The Astral Realms are reaches of pure thought. Because of their ephemeral nature, it’s often difficult to navigate or survive in them. Adepts of Mind can make short jaunts into astral space; Masters can separate the mind from the body to make extended journeys. In such realms, the mage experiences pure thought constructs, meets beings of thought, and passes with incredible speed through the highest reaches of the spirit world. Successes scored on such an Effect determine how long the mage can remain outside of his body, and how deeply he can penetrate into the Astral Umbra.

Unlike Spirit magic, which allows the mage to enter the spirit world physically, Astral Projection releases the mage’s consciousness as a free-floating thought. The mage can be detected with Mind senses, but he’s otherwise invisible and intangible. Since the mage has no body, he must rely on magical senses to detect or influence his surroundings. He can still use other Mind Effects, of course, and he could take control of a subject thus if necessary. Without recourse to ritual and magical foci, the mage may have difficulty with successive magic, but at least such magic is coincidental in the Umbra.

Astral entities can interact with other astral beings and similar thought-constructs only. Since the physical body means nothing, the mage uses Wits instead of Dexterity, Manipulation instead of Strength, and Intelligence instead of Stamina. Ghosts, spirits, and other astral forms can do combat with the mage. Such attacks injure the psyche of the mage and sap his will, draining Willpower Points instead of health levels. If a combatant runs out of Willpower, he’s disrupted. A spirit or mummy would simply dissipate into the Umbra, while a mage finds that his silver cord, the tether between body and mind, snaps.

A mage lost in the Umbra, fades away into the Epiphanies (realms of pure thought). A Master can avoid this fate for a time, but his will erodes slowly, and the individual vanishes into the mists of the Umbra, never to be seen again. Mages have reported meeting once-human astral beings that seemed quite capable of surviving as pure minds, but such an existence is beyond the capabilities of even a Master. The only recourse for a mage lost in the Astral Umbra is to reconnect to a physical body using Possession — be it his own, or someone else’s.

Note that a mage who projects his awareness astrally has no sense of his physical body unless he uses other Effects (like Correspondence) to maintain a sensory link to his body. Thus, the mage is well-advised to keep his physical form hidden and protected.

Create Mind     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 179 ]

Spheres: Mind 5

The penultimate mastery of Mind allows the mage to create an entirely new consciousness. The mage can determine the personality, intellect, and foibles of the consciousness. If left unattended, such minds tend to drift into the Astral Umbra, where they float away, dissipate, or go insane. With a proper housing (like a newly created body, a computer, or a section of Umbral space), the mind can stay and perhaps even achieve a level of independent sentience. Unless built as little more than instinct, such minds do tend to grow beyond the initial parameters of the creator.

Virtual Adepts use this Effect to create machine intelligences, computers that can think and take on human roles. Such machines can be dangerous — many become unstable or resent their servitor roles — but they’re also the most effective forms of computers available.

Of course, if a created mind isn’t also given a soul (with Spirit magic), then it has no existence beyond its own memory. Should such a persona “die,” it’ll never reincarnate and it’s gone forever. If a mage uses sufficient magic to create a new mind, body, and soul, then perhaps it would be possible to create true life, but the Master capable of such a feat hasn’t walked Earth for decades, if not centuries.

Empathetic Projection     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 176 ]

Spheres: Mind 2

Emotions carry great weight. By focusing her emotions and casting her attention to a subject, the mage can send a sudden impulse or feeling. The target can be made to experience the mage’s own feelings, or the mage can strike an emotion into the subject. The successes scored indicate the intensity of feeling. With two or three successes, the subject just has a slight sudden urge or quaint moment of queasiness, while five or six successes would cause a sudden blast of emotion to scream into the forefront of the target’s mind.

Obviously, a sudden influx of emotion can startle a person or cause her to act strangely for a moment (or longer, if the mage places a duration on the Effect). The target may suddenly laugh inexplicably, drop something, or flee the area in panic. Stronger-willed targets are harder to affect. The target can spend a point of Willpower to resist the urges, as with any sudden impulse. If the subject has reason to suspect the mage’s intrusion, a Willpower roll can be used to resist, so an extended ritual may be required to affect a wary subject. In some cases, a sudden blast of pure, heart-stopping emotion can paralyze or shock a subject (inflicting standard bashing damage).

The mage can’t send actual pictures or words through this method, but a sudden feeling of danger or need can often be a useful missive when in trouble. Of course, other Mind magicians in the area may well sense the panicked empathic projection.

Manipulate Memory     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 178 ]

Altering memories is delicate work that requires incredible finesse. An Adept of Mind can not only probe and delve into the subject’s memory, but he can alter such memories, implant false history, wipe areas blank, give the subject special knowledge, or even leave the victim a tabula rasa. Such work isn’t to be taken lightly; the mage must invade the subject as per Possession, and then accumulate successes to alter memories. Unless the mage also takes some precautions like immobilizing the victim or performing this Effect in the subject’s sleep, the target is likely to notice the sudden gaps and changes in memory. Although the subject can’t remember what’s changed, the process is terrifying one to someone who’s not expecting it. Thus, it behooves the mage to work with the utmost subtlety, unless he plans to simply rip apart the victim’s memory and leave it at that. Acting this way is a good way to pick up nasty Entropic Resonance like Destructive and Obliviating.

When the mage alters memory, he can make the memories as realistic or artificial as he likes. The subject might be left with only vague recollections, cartoon-like images that can’t possibly be real, or crystal-clear images of a life he never lived. A subject wiped of all memory doesn’t necessarily lose his Talents, Skills, and Advantages, but he certainly doesn’t know what he can and can’t do. Subjects who have special knowledge implanted can call on rudimentary Knowledges, although until they’ve become accustomed to their new database of information (by spending Experience), they’ll be able to access only the basic Knowledge (one dot). Still, memory-alteration is a great way to de-empower enemies into someone’s head quickly.

Mind Empowerment     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 176 ]

Spheres: Mind 1

The mage’s mental discipline, even at this rudimentary level, lets her accomplish prodigious feats easily. She can focus on multiple tasks at once, improve her thinking capabilities, and focus her concentration. The mage can reach out to feel others’ emotions, defend herself (rudimentarily) from such intrusion, or enhance her mental capabilities.

The mind-shielding of an Initiate is crude but effective: The mage’s successes on the Effect counter direct Mind assaults. Very subtle or skilled assailants may be able to bypass this protection, and the mage’s mental defenses at this level of skill are obvious to anyone who cares to probe the magician’s psyche. This Effect can at least keep out some unwanted guests though.

Empowering mental processes allows the mage to function like a calculator or computer. He can work through information rapidly and with little or no error, and he can collate facts and logical data. The successes scored either cut down the time necessary to process information accurately, or allow the mage to multi-task and concentrate on multiple avenues of thought at once. Although the mage still moves, responds, and acts at his normal rate, he can engage in battle while simultaneously thinking about several problems and deciding what sort of tie to wear for formal dinner later that evening. The mage can even improve her Mental Attributes temporarily and artificially, although surpassing human limitations or supercharging her mind for too long can risk Pattern bleeding.

With emotional sensitivity, the mage can “see” auras as multicolored halos that reflect the emotions of a person or object, or even feel some level of the subject’s emotion. Strong emotions practically scream out at the mage, and they may even be traumatic if the mage doesn’t defend herself with mental shielding. A knowledgeable mage can also detect some types of supernatural activity or creatures by watching an aura. She can even tell as a subject goes through mood shifts. Watching reactions to others lets the mage tell friend from foe, and the mage can also determine when a subject is lying, with careful study and a handful of successes on the die roll. The mage can also determine when an area has strong emotions associated with it, or sense the presence of Resonance in a given form of Tass or at a Node.

No-Mind     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 176 ]

Spheres: Mind 1

A simple examination for nearby mental Patterns allows the mage to detect other thinking beings in the area, and to determine their positions, individual genders, and types. The mage senses the closest minds first in a pattern that radiates outward, but he can screen out known types deliberately. The Akashic Brotherhood performs this Effect through the “No-Mind” technique, emptying their own thoughts to clear away their minds and make them more sensitive to others, but the other Traditions have similar mind-sensing Effects as well.

Possession     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 178 ]

One of the more fearsome Effects possible for Adepts of Mind, Possession allows a mage to exert direct control over the subject’s thought. If the mage succeeds in besting the subject’s Willpower, he can control the target’s actions directly, either taking over the subject completely or just influencing specific, desired parts of the mind.

When the mage takes total possession of a target, the victim’s thoughts become overlaid with the mage’s. The mage needs only think the appropriate actions, and the victim performs then naturally, often oblivious to the invading mage. The mage can direct the subject’s body easily (to the subject’s normal limits, of course) and dig through memories or surface thoughts as with Probe Thoughts. The subject will even remember all of his thoughts as his own; his entire mind is subsumed by the mage’s power.

Should the mage decide to exert control over a simple part of the target, she can command the subject’s motive processes jerkily, seize emotional responses, direct the target’s thoughts, or perform any combination of such. Unless the mage seizes the target’s thoughts, the victim will be aware that someone is controlling him.

Establishing partial control, of course, is much easier than totally suppressing a victim’s personality. Simply making a subject jerk an arm or start crying uncontrollably would only require two or three successes. Actually overpowering someone’s mind requires the caster to at least best the target’s Willpower rating. Even if the mage only exerts partial control, the target is likely to remember the incident unless the mage also uses additional magic to control or erase the target’s memories.

Probe Thoughts   ·  [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 177 ]

Spheres: Mind 3

It’s nearly impossible to keep secrets from a skilled and determined disciple of Mind magic. The mage can simply bore into the target’s mind, rooting around at will for surface impressions, or dig into memories, sensory information, or even the subconscious. The target may suddenly experience strange thoughts and emotions as the mage brings them to the fore, or the mage can expend additional effort to slip in quietly and dig through the target’s mind unnoticed.

With a successful probe, the mage can dig into memory (as the subject remembers it), experience any or all of the target’s senses (perhaps in conjunction with he own senses, by using a multitasking Effect) or determine the victim’s subconscious drives and desires. A quick surface scan may go unnoticed, but deeper probes often alert the subject that something is amiss. The successes scored indicate how deeply the mage can probe. Two or three successes give fleeting impressions of surface thoughts, while five or more open up buried memories and painful secrets. If the mage wants to sneak around unnoticed, his player must score additional successes exceeding the subject’s Wits. A suspicious subject can resist the initial intrusion with Willpower, as always, and a Mind mage can often build a mental shield or even a layer of fake thoughts to block the intruder. In the latter case, the intruder must best the target’s Mind Effect in order to break down the mind shield or notice and bypass the fake layer of thought.

Psychic Impression     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 176 ]

Spheres: Mind 2

The mage leaves a Mind imprint on a given place or object, thus imbuing it with a particular emotion. Most often, this impression is some Resonance Trait of the mage, but the mage may imbue the target with a strong emotional Resonance under circumstances of great stress. The object carries the Resonance for as long as the Effect lasts. If the object is used in conjunction with an Effect, its Resonance may assist or hinder the Effect. Thus, the mage can cause an item to feel his own hate, elation, curiosity, joy, or rage. A bullet used in hate would carry greater mystical weight, as would a bandage infused with compassion or a bottle of wine infused with camaraderie.

When a mage places Resonance in an area, that place gains a certain “emotional weight.” A house could be made to seem creepy, a nightclub might have a dance floor that brings out anger or lust, a church could be peaceful. Such an Effect can be felt by anyone who enters the area, though generally only those with Awareness will recognize it as supernatural. Normal people will just find the place relaxing, agitating, or whatever.

Telepathy     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 178 ]

Spheres: Mind 3

Direct mind-to-mind communication is possible with this power of Mind magic. The mage can send words, pictures, or concepts directly to the subject, and he can read the surface thoughts of the target in return. With enough successes, the mage can connect to remove subjects, unfamiliar ones, or multiple subjects (with additional successes needed for each). Thus, the mage can easily link minds with a member of her cabal or try to set up a telepathic network between multiple people, at the cost of a great deal of effort.

Since the mage setting up a telepathic link works on the basis of pure concepts, she can communicate through images or ideas instead of simple words. Language is no barrier to the trained mage. By contrast, those without Mind experience still tend to think in terms of language, and the mage may have to cut through the babble of words to get at the underlying concepts.

By sending images or sensory information, a telepath can also cause the subject to experience hallucinations. The complexity of the illusion determines the required successes, and a wary target may try to resist with a Willpower roll. With few successes, the illusion may seem unconvincing, incomplete, or phantasmal. Illusions created with high levels of success — usually five or more — are indistinguishable from any real sensory input. Even if the target knows that something is an illusion, his body may well react reflexively when his senses warn him. Better still, the mage can simply send a knife of disturbing psychic Resonance straight into the victim’s brain, inflicting bashing damage.

Untrained subjects, especially those with low Willpower, have a tendency to generate a distracting amount of psychic volume. The mage might well decide to lend a little organization to the target (by extending a mind shield) just to keep less skilled members of the link from distracting the group. Keeping a mental link up is certainly a distraction of some level, and the mage may suffer additional penalties to dice pools above and beyond the penalties for maintaining an Effect if there’s a substantial amount of psychic “chatter.”

RotesSP (Prime effects)

Body Of Light   ·  [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 183 ]

Spheres: Prime 2

At this level of Prime, the mage may use his control over the ether to weave what’s known as a Body of Light. A Body of Light is a purely etheric construct that typically takes the form of a person’s idealized self, but it may take any form the mage devices. There’s no mental or emotional content to such a creation. It’s merely a useful empty shell typically used to house the astral form of a mage using Mind to travel. Without one, the psyche is essentially naked for its journeys through the Astral.

The Body of Light, however, is more than just a work of vanity. The form serves as armor, as well as a physical form for travel within the Middle and Lower Realms of the Umbra. Astral travelers who wish to perform shapeshifting or other feats in places where they don’t have a spiritual body — like Dream Realms — must use a body of light. Also, without such a body, an astral traveler is invisible to those in the physical world, even to those who can sense spirits or magic (Spirit 1, Prime 1). While those sensitive to mental emanations (Mind 1) will be able to sense the mage’s presence, he’ll not be able to communicate without further use of Mind magic.

The Body of Light is also commonly used in conjunctional Effects with the Pattern Spheres to allow a mage to materialize his idealized form as an illusion of light, as living flesh or even as a golem of living stone, while his true body and spirit lie protected elsewhere.

The technique of crafting the Body of Light is also used to create things of ether which are then transmuted to physical substance via the Pattern magic. It may also translate things of the base elements into pure ether which may then be used as adjuncts to a Body of Light.

Bond Of Blood     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 183 ]

Spheres: Prime 3

Transferring Quintessence between Patterns is a staple of potent magicians. The mage can take Quintessence from Tass or from a Node. If offered freely, the mage can even accept Quintessence from another individual, or gift a person with his own Quintessence. The mage can store energy in a Periapt or store it in another object. With a powerful enough Effect, the mage can even strike out against another mage and drain away that magician’s extra Quintessence, although energy stored in the Avatar is inviolate.

Transferring Quintessence between Patterns is a staple of potent magicians. The mage can take Quintessence from Tass or from a Node. If offered freely, the mage can even accept Quintessence from another individual, or gift a person with his own Quintessence. The mage can store energy in a Periapt or store it in another object. With a powerful enough Effect, the mage can even strike out against another mage and drain away that magician’s extra Quintessence, although energy stored in the Avatar is inviolate.

Although other supernatural creatures often carry their own power, taking Quintessence from them is a chancy matter at best. Most have a form of power that doesn’t translate well into universal energy, and it’s often bound up in their own inherent natures (that is, their Avatars). In the rare case where a mage is offered that power in some sort of conduit — vampire blood, for instance, or a shifter ritual that allows the trade of spirit energy — he can harvest Quintessence from the source. However it’s usually inefficient and loaded with Resonance.

As a variant, a mage can sometimes channel a small trickle of Quintessence from a Pattern that’s destroyed. An object that’s burned normally releases its Quintessence back to the Tapestry, but the mage can coax some of that Quintessence into taking a slightly longer route and funneling through another Effect. Such an Effect must be used conjunctionally with whatever magic it’s powering, but allows the mage to draw a single point of Quintessence from the process of breaking or sacrificing things, like pouring out an offering of wine or burning several sticks of valuable incense.

Consecration     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 181 ]

Spheres: Prime 1

A mage may allow the ether to suffuse his aura, so that his unique pattern of psychic Resonance bleeds over and into an object and forges an etheric bond between the two. This phenomenon occurs naturally, and Sleepers even make it happen subconsciously, but the magic of Prime can perform quickly what is usually an extended process. Such consecrated objects are useful in that, as they’re considered part of a person’s Pattern, they’ll thus transform, translate, or otherwise change along with the subject to whom they belong. There’s also some risk to this Effect, for such intimately connected items can be a great danger if they fall into the hands of an enemy. Likewise, a person or a place may be aurally marked in this manner, the subject linked to the place or person, and the person or place linked to them in turn.

Naturally, such sympathetic magic causes an object to carry some of the mage’s Resonance Traits, and it may seem to have a “personality” of its own, reflecting the owner. An object so suffused typically counts more closely as a connection to the mage on the Correspondence Ranges chart.

With Prime 2, it’s possible to form such a bond with a living creature. Although this bond doesn’t help the mage to sense the creature’s thoughts or moods without Mind magic, it’s used in the formation of familiar bonds (for familiars with living forms) and sometimes as a sort of “lifeline” to valued friends or loved onces. The mage can always use his Prime senses to track back the link, as long as it exists.

Convert Node To Tass     [ Technocracy: Void Engineers — Page 46 ]

Spheres: Prime 3

The Technocrat converts all available Quintessence in the Node to Tass, absorbing it into some portable source. This allows him to carry the Quintessence away to provide fuel for the many Tass-powered Devices the Convention uses. Think in terms of the Enterprise stopping on a planet to gather Dilithium crystals. Converting a Node’s Quintessence to Tass is a sizable, time-consuming task: Each roll takes a half hour of game time.

Create Talismans And Artifacts     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 184 ]

Spheres: Prime 4

Although it’s technically possible to create some forms of minor magical items with lesser Prime power, most potent objects require at least an Adept’s knowledge of Prime. The mage essentially concentrates Prime energy and reweaves it into the desired Effects (using other Spheres known, or guided by special grimoires and mentors), imbuing the object with a magical Pattern in addition to its own natural qualities. The item gains certain powers, perhaps even taking on elements of the mage’s Resonance and personality.

A mage can also use this power to create a Soulgem, a special Periapt that concentrates Quintessence with her own Resonance. Such an item is tied intimately to the mage’s Avatar, and it can be used by only the mage herself.

Divert Prime Force   ·  [ Technocracy: Void Engineers — Page 45 ]

Spheres: Prime 2

This ability is for Void Engineers only. By tapping a source of Quintessence (including his own Avatar’s life force), an Engineer can power a short Effect, lower a magic roll difficulty, or conjure some force from nowhere. Obviously, the Engineer knows that his actions consume some amount of energy’ long-lasting procedures require a constant flow of Quintessence — hence, batteries.

Enchant Life     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 184 ]

Spheres: Prime 3

Because of their ever-flowing and changing Quintessential currents, Life Patterns are more difficult to affect with Prime power than simple Matter or Forces. With this feat, the mage energizes the Life Pattern and gives it greater solidity, anchoring it in reality. This Effect makes the creature seem more “real,” and it often provides a sudden flush of energy or emotion.

Furthermore, the living being can inflict aggravated (Pattern) damage with its own natural weapon. Akashic Brothers thus affected can score incredible damage with their bare hands, or shape shifting Verbena can use claws to incredibly dangerous effect. As always, such an enchantment typically requires the expenditure of a rare and valuable point of Quintessence.

Enchant Weapon   ·  [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 183 ]

Spheres: Prime 2

A mage now learns to reweave the underlying Quintessence so as to clarify and intensify existing forms, enchanting objects and creatures. Weapons treated in this manner — while doing no more damage than their mundane counterparts — strike directly to the Patterns of their targets, inflicting aggravated wounds.

The etheric form may also be made different from the physical, so that a dirty denim jacket may have the underlying structure of a Kevlar vest, or a broken talismanic dagger may still have a whole blade with regards to magical structure. Such structures are still what thy appear to physical reality — the denim jacket wouldn’t stop bullets, nor could the nonexistent dagger cut butter — but to etheric, spiritual, and astral reality, they’re quite real. The jacket could stop spirit darts while the dagger could stab wraiths, or even perform whatever magical or ritual functions it did before.

Note that a mage can’t yet imbue Life with static seething Prime energy at this level, so he can’t cause his own Pattern to tear into other Patterns — but a clever mage could easily wear enchanted gloves for combat. Enchanting a Pattern in this fashion typically requires energizing it with a point of Quintessence (the enchantment lasts for the duration scored, but is almost never permanent without a greater supply of Quintessence).

Flames Of Purification     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 184 ]

Spheres: Prime 4

Mages of the Celestial Chorus aren’t destructive by nature. Still, they have been known to wield the power of Prime to cleanse reality of abominations. By fanning her focus over a chosen object, a Chorister can invoke this Effect and cause the object to burst into mystical flames. This fire sheds no heat, yet it devours quickly the target.

The mage releases the object’s Quintessence back into the ephemera of the Tapestry. The item suffers aggravated damage, and its Pattern evaporates into nothingness if it’s destroyed completely. Only inanimate objects or forces can be dispersed with this power. With the Bond of Blood variant, the mage can even channel a tiny amount of this Quintessential destruction into a separate Effect.

Fount Of Paradise     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 185 ]

Spheres: Prime 5

The famed Akashic fount allows the mage to reseat his Pattern with respect to the Tellurian, refreshing his Quintessence anywhere and any time. Akashic Brothers also use this Effect through meditation, while Choristers pray for holy inspiration. The mage simply uses this Effect and each success translates into a point of Quintessence restored to his Avatar.

Heart’s Blood     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 182 ]

Spheres: Prime 1

An initiate of Prime can easily sense the flow of Quintessence through his own body — his life energy. This energy flows from the Tellurian, through the Life Pattern, and back out to rejoin the cosmos. Each point corresponds to a health level, the last three on beyond Incapacitated and their loss resulting in death.

In desperate times, mages skilled in Prime — typically the Celestial Chorus and the Verbena — can push themselves beyond their limits and “give until it hurts,” taking the additional health levels at points of Quintessence above and beyond what’s stored in their Avatars. Such damage may only be healed by time and bed rest, not magic, so most mages will usually only risk the Bruised health level. Mages of the Chorus, however, have burned themselves out in acts of martyrdom to perform one last holy miracle, while Verbena with low Avatar ratings often use their Bruised health level as a power reservoir, considering the sacrifice of heart’s blood more holy than the spiritual energy used by most mages.

Holy Stroke   ·  [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 183 ]

Spheres: Prime 2

Even initiates of Prime can defend themselves by using pure, charged Prime energy. When a material object isn’t handy for brief enchantments, or when the mage simply needs to get the job done with a demonstration of pure, non-conjunctional power, this Effect is appropriate. The mage fires coruscating energy at the opponent, or creates an ephemeral, glowing weapon of Prime energy. Such a construct requires Quintessential fuel (typically one point per use), but it inflicts aggravated damage using the mage’s Prime skills. Depending on the attack, the mage might fire it off as a bolt, or simply slash with a glowing sword of holy energy. Such attacks are particularly effective against supernatural opponents. On the downside, the mage must score enough successes to not only inflict damage, but to maintain the Effect and to affect the targets desired (striking an opponent with a blast of Prime counts as one target; creating a Prime hand weapon only counts as one target regardless of how many people it’s used to strike, which is why swords of light are more common than holy bolts in massive battles).

Lambs To The Slaughter     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 184 ]

Spheres: Prime 3

Sacrifice is a highly controversial magical procedure, painted black in the eyes of most of society — and no few mages — by images of Nephandi gaily slaughtering virgins, goats, children, passersby, and whatever comes to hand.

Sacrifice, however, is used, approved, and even praised by all Traditions in one form or another. The most common — and most holy — form is self-sacrifice, as done with Heart’s Blood. Heart’s Blood may be combined with a living bond (see Consecration) to sacrifice one’s own life energy to power another’s magic. The magic comes from a willing sacrifice, and this sacrifice lends the magic additional power, the psychic Resonance of the primal energy in harmony with the magical working. Thus, a woman who gives of her own life energy to save the man she loves will have the power of that Quintessence affected by the Resonance of her love (and the total sacrifice of her life may not even be necessary, depending on the magic).

In many other magic spells, the mage sacrifices some sort of material object: Breaking an item, burning it, burying it, or otherwise destroying an object of value. In the case of Tass, this act releases its excess Prime energy; to a mage with Prime magic, it allows the mage the opportunity to channel away a small measure of Quintessence as the item is destroyed (typically one point). Such Quintessence returns quickly to the flow, as soon as the object is broken, and so it must be used immediately.

The trouble with most Nephandi rituals — and the reason most Nephandi gain no additional power from their sacrifices — is that the victims are unwilling. Every point of Quintessence pulled out of the blood of an unwilling victim generates an equal and opposite measure of psychic Resonance absolutely opposed to the murder and everything he or she stands for. This Resonance cancels out any benefit there might be from blood on the altar (apart from pleasing one’s Dark Masters).

However, a willing sacrifice — such as a Celestial Chorus priest who martyrs herself to save her flock, a Verbena acolyte willingly burnt in the Wicker Man to end a famine, or a Nephandic groupie who really and truly believes that the best thing she can do with her life is spill it on the ground for the greater glory of the Dark Masters — gives a great deal of power to a ritual. This sort of devotion can’t be mentally compelled or blackmailed, but it can be carefully taught. There are certain Nephandi who raise children as “innocent lambs,” treating them well and telling them: “The Dark Masters are your friends. The Dark Masters are better than Barney. There’s nothing more wonderful than to be sacrificed to the Dark Masters — but we won’t do that yet. We’ll save it for a special occasion. All praise the Dark Masters.”

Verbena, Hermetics, Euthanatoi, and particularly traditional members of the Chorus engage in similar practices, but with domestic animals — particularly lambs, goats, chickens, and calves. They raise them with a great deal of special care and special treatment, then use them as the centerpiece (and main course) of seasonal rituals and feasts. As vampires know, the amount of life energy in such a creature isn’t as great as it is in human, but there are also less moral qualms about killing a chicken or lamb.

Many people find the concept sacrifice of distasteful, but it’s included here both as a story element as an important part of both ancient and modern magical and religious belief. However, a Storyteller is free to disallow sacrifice as a source of magical power if it’s a story element she doesn’t want to deal with, if it’s inappropriate to particular magical ceremony, or if the proper rites and rituals haven’t been observed by the player’s character. A Verbena might gain between two and five points of Quintessence from an appropriately raised and humanely slaughtered lamb as part of a May Day feast. Then again, the limb may not be that innocent or willing, and any possible bonus might be spoiled by negative Resonance. It’s a matter of Storyteller opinion and judgment whether any particular sacrifice holds power beyond the beliefs of the person performing the ritual.

Master’s Enchantment     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 185 ]

Spheres: Prime 5

This catch-all describes the greatest enchantments known to Masters of Prime — the enchantment of a living being, place, or time with the power of Prime. Enchanting a living creature enables the mage to create a Relic, a magical being or blessing on a person. Enchanting an area, often by bending ley lines or channeling natural energies, creating a Node. By consecrating a specific time with adherence to rituals and patterns, the mage can create Junctures where regular surges of Quintessence spring forth.

Naturally, such superlative enchantments represent the pinnacle of the Master’s craft. Few mages even attempt such vulgar feats any more, and the number of mages who could complete such a task — or even know that it’s possible — dwindles every day.

A mage who creates a Node or Juncture essentially makes a temporary ripple in the Tapestry, where a specific space (with Correspondence) or time (with Time magic) surges with Prime energy. The mage must meet the full requirements of the area and the duration, and such a task qualifies at least as an outlandish feat (requiring 10 or more successes in addition to the duration and area). Creating a new Node permanently is a job for an entire circle of Masters, and it can backfire and blow all of the mage’s into oblivion. As rare as they are, Nodes are easier to find than create.

Paradox Ward     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 185 ]

Spheres: Prime 5

Although only Archmages of Prime would know for sure, mages surmise that the nature of Paradox runs counter to the smoothing effects of Prime. This Effect draws upon that theory, negating the worst results of Paradox with a charge of Quintessence. The mage invests some symbol of his workings with Quintessence, showing that he puts utmost effort and care into his magic. Then, instead of rebounding or twisting in unusual and unexpected ways, the magic takes form exactly as desired, powered by the Quintessence. Each point of Quintessence channeled with such a rote (up to the successes scored) nullifies one point of Paradox. With a little duration, the mage can set this Effect up in advance right before casting a more powerful Effect, or he can add this extra care and power to another Effect conjunctionally as he weaves it.

Watch The Weaving     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 182 ]

Spheres: Prime 1

This Effect isn’t so much a spell as an additional degree of sensitivity. When any magical Effect is attempted within the vicinity of a disciple of Prime, he may roll Perception + Awareness to detect the weaving of the etheric threads. Once the mage has noticed the subtle tint of magic — or if the mage is just naturally suspicious — he can use this Effect to actually see or sense the magical weavings. Most mages perceive these weavings as patterns of light and color in the air, although perceptions vary according to the nature of the mage, the Tradition of the spellworker and the Effect in question. However he perceives magic, the mage may watch the weaving and attempt to identify the patterns and thereby discern the magic’s intent, as well possible affiliations of the caster.

Mages of the Order of Hermes use a standardized system of mathematics, colors, and seals as notion to record the forms of unknown magic. They may then take these notes to Masters of the Order who then decode the basic form and intent of a particular weaving. The mage may then allow the patterns of familiar rotes — or unknown spells that bear the seal of a friend or ally — to pass by unopposed, as the mage knows they’re of friendly intent.

This forewarning also allows the mage to attempt countermagic if he understands all the Spheres involved. Other mages, who don’t have etheric senses, can recognize only magic that involves them directly in some way or of which they will feel the immediate effect. For example, if a Nephandus attempts to conjure a demon, most mages can’t attempt to counter this spell (even with knowledge of Spirit) since the spell isn’t affecting them directly. However, a priest of the Celestial Chorus could use Prime to sense the stirrings in the ether at the Nephandus’ words — and possibly even recognize the demon’s sigil as it appeared in the air. Assuming the mage also understands the Sphere of Spirit, he could counter the magic invocation the moment it began.

Continuous magic, particularly wards and curses, may also be detected by use of this Effect, although it often requires some knowledge of the appropriate Spheres involved in order to comprehend their nature fully.

Wellspring     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 185 ]

Spheres: Prime 4

When a mage finds a place of strong Resonance that matches her own power, she can reaffirm her place in the Tapestry and draw strength from the matching emotions. The mage simply “opens up” to the power carried by those emotions, and refreshes her Quintessence naturally. It’s like a sudden shot of energy that comes straight into the mage’s innermost drives.

What constitutes acceptably strong and appropriate Resonance is, of course, up to the Storyteller. A mage generally needs to use an Effect of this sort at a place where the Resonance is powerful enough that it’s felt even by normal people. Even if the location isn’t a Node, the mage can draw a small amount of Quintessence from it (generally one point for every three successes scored on the Effect, up to a limit of the mage’s Avatar rating). Once the mage has filled up her reservoir of Resonance (drawn out Quintessence equal to her Resonance Trait rating), she’s “used up” the metaphysical power in the place, and she’ll have to come back later for more.

RotesSS (Spirit effects)

Affix Gauntlet     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 189 ]

Spheres: Spirit 4

By hardening the Gauntlet in an area, the mage can cause any number of effects. He can trap a spirit into a place or object, create a ward that ejects a spirit from a space, or tightly control an environment and protect it against the spirit entry. Successes scored on such an Effect generally raise the Gauntlet, but they could have other consequences.

By warding an area, the mage can prevent spirits from entering or leaving a space. Successes generate an area and a duration for such a ward. This ward exists in both the material and physical world — any construct of ephemera can’t pass through unless it can defeat the potency of the ward.

An interlocking pattern of Spirit energy can trap a spirit in place, or force it out of an area. The mage’s player must score more successes than the victim in a contested roll — typically the mage’s Effect versus the subject’s ability to travel in spirit form (be it through Spirit magic, a spirit’s powers, or whatever). If the mage succeeds, he can banish a spirit from a place or person (with exorcism) or lock it in place so that it can’t escape. Such powers are a staple Chorus and Order or Hermes’ means for dealing with demons and other evil spirit manifestations.

Trapping a spirit in an object creates a fetish. A willing spirit can empower an object deliberately; an unwilling spirit must have its will broken by the mage’s Effect. If the mage succeeds, the Effect creates a temporary fetish. With a willing spirit, the fetish lasts as long as the deal allows; for an unwilling spirit, the mage must use successes to generate a duration for the spirit trap.

Lastly, the mage can place a spirit in possession of a body temporarily. Most often this is done by wrapping shards of the Gauntlet around the mage, holding the spirit in place so that the mage can tap its power, but the mage could also cause a spirit to possess an unwilling victim. In the former case, the mage must best the spirit’s will (if it resists), but can then draw on the spirit’s special Charms and powers; in the latter case, the mage must overcome the victim’s will, and then can inject the spirit into the victim for the determined duration.

Awaken The Inanimate     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 187 ]

Spheres: Spirit 3

By talking and crooning over a physical object, a Dreamspeaker or Akashic Brother may Awaken its spirit and rouse it into awareness. A Verbena might spread blood in a pattern over the object while a Hermetic mage would sprinkle it with dark dust and carve a seal onto its surface.

Objects, once their spirits are awake and aware, can be particularly useful. Their personalities tend to be very protective of those who have treated them well and ill-disposed toward those who have treated them badly. The object couldn’t really do much on its own, but it might cause small coincidences that work for or against the mage.

Rousing an object typically requires plenty of ritual successes — five or so for a gun, 20 or more for a house. This is slow, but often coincidental unless the mage wants an especially vulgar manifestation. The older and more physically-charged the object is, the more powerful its spirit and the harder it’ll be to rouse. The newer and less important the item, the less powerful and less intelligent its spirit and the easier it is to rouse. A new knife from the knife shop, never used, would have less personality and intelligence than a cockroach, but could be made aware with a minimal amount of magic. Over years or decades, the objects would start to absorb some of its owner’s personality. The knife an old shaman forged in boyhood would have a strong and active spirit (though it might not be a fetish per se). As always, an object with strong Resonance similar to the mage’s is more likely to awaken to his call.

An object with an awakened spirit exists in multiple worlds at once. A person can use an awakened knife in the physical world to injure spirits in the Near Umbra, or he may cut the silver cords that connect astral travelers to their bodies.

In the modern age, may objects resist awakening completely. The dullness of mundanity infects them and prevents them from taking on their own personalities. Even if a mage manages to awaken an object, there’s no guarantee that it’ll be helpful, or that it’ll know anything of value.

Breach The Gauntlet     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 189 ]

Spheres: Spirit 4

Like the earlier power of Stepping Sideways, this capability lets the mage cross into the spirit world — but he does so by tearing open a hole in the Gauntlet (or, perhaps, bringing spirit and material worlds completely together again). For the duration of the Effect, any being that’s not specifically warded can travel the gate, entering, or leaving the spirit world.

A breach of the Gauntlet is generally quite vulgar, but it can be the only way to get allies or Sleepers without Spirit skill into the Umbra. Some spirits also crave entry into the material world, but they don’t have the power to cross over on their own.

Naturally, this Effect is very difficult; the difficulty varies with the strength of the Gauntlet, and the successes required are usually high (five or more plus duration and area affected). Note that passengers through the gate do take storm damage from the Umbra just as per the Stepping Sideways rote. Sleepers, ironically, therefore enter the Umbra with the least risk.

Break The Dreamshell     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 189 ]

Spheres: Spirit 5

The Dreamshell is the Dreamspeaker term for the Horizon. To enter the Deep Umbra, a mystic must break through this Dreamshell, just as she must break through the Gauntlet when stepping sideways.

Ten successes or more are required to pierce the Earth Mother’s Dreamshell. Other Realms might have weaker or stronger Horizons. If the mage uses an Anchorhead (a special Domain set amid the Dreamshell), the passage becomes easier and requires only five successes.

Fortunately, the Dreamshell isn’t overrun with flaying spirit energies, and crossing it doesn’t carry the same inherent dangers as Stepping Sideways.

Call Spirit     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 187 ]

Spheres: Spirit 2

A sort of “Hey!” shouted randomly into the Umbra, this Effect lets the mage translate his voice into spiritual terms on the other side of the Gauntlet. The successes scored determine how pervasive and compelling the mage’s call is. Powerful spirits rarely show up to such a call — they have better things to do, and they’re usually too far out in the spirit world, anyway — but lesser spirits often flock to such. Spirits seem to love messing around with the material world. The mage can’t really exert any control unless he has more powerful spirit magic, but he can attract attention. If the mage uses Spirit Sight, he can call for specific spirits or even hold a conversation with something (or someone) on the Other Side.

Deep Umbra Travel     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 189 ]

Spheres: Spirit 5

Surviving the utterly barren spiritual environment of the Deep Umbra requires a membrane of spirit magic. This spiritual essence creates a sort of bubble around the mage, protecting him from the ravages of the Deep Umbra. The traveler must reach and enter another Near Umbra before the duration rolled for the field elapses, or he’ll die a cold death in the Void.

Deep Umbra travel is a dangerous affair. Most distances are great but highly subjective. Mages often experience hallucinations or visions in the Deep Umbra, and they can encounter strange entities that make their homes there. Such creatures are rarely friendly to humanity.

A few bold mages actually build giant ships that travel the various dimensions, not only skirting space but piercing into the primordial Void itself. The Void Engineers are foremost among such, of course, but Sons of Ether also build great and fanciful Etherjammers to carry them to distant places. In the Deep Umbra, they look for other worlds, spirit realms beyond any known place, and clues to the formation of the Tellurian.

Detect Possession     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 187 ]

Spheres: Spirit 1

A Chorister uses exorcism rites while a Verbena test the subject’s blood, but whatever the ritual, it’s a simple way to determine whether another spirit rides within a material shell. The mage simply uses his spirit perceptions to sense the offending spirit’s presence in a person (or object, in the case of a fetish). The mage may not be able to do anything about it, but it’s useful to tell if someone’s actions are her own. Of course, determining the exact nature of the spirit may require the use of the Cosmology Knowledge or Mind magic.

Spirit Sight     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 187 ]

Spheres: Spirit 1

It’s usually a simple matter to shift one’s sight into the spirit world. A mage can see what exists on the other side of the Gauntlet, although he may not be able to affect it directly. Thus, a mage might notice that an area has a very nasty or vibrant spirit reflection, indicative of some sort of problem or boon. The landscape of the nearby spirit world usually reflects the physical world of that area, but often with significant changes based on powerful events and items in the place. The mage can also see spirits as they go about their business, and some might even take notice in return.

With enough successes, the mage can translate multiple senses into the spirit world, allowing him to hear or feel spirits as well as seeing them. Usually, the mage can only sense one area at a time (spirit or material), unless he splits his senses and concentration with additional Life and Mind magic. The difficulty generally depends on the thickness of the Gauntlet.

The Spirit’s Caress     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 187 ]

Spheres: Spirit 2

A mage can reach across the Gauntlet briefly to touch a spirit on the other side. The mage could strike a spirit or just interact with it while remaining otherwise physical. This Effect is a perfect means of conflict if the spirit has no way to manifest in the material world to return the insult. Of course, the Effect just allows the mage to affect the spirit; it doesn’t guarantee the results of any of his physical actions (the mage might pierce the Gauntlet and reach across, only to miss the spirit with a punch).

Combined with the Prime Effect Bond of Blood, the mage can share Quintessence with the spirit, or ask to give up Power in exchange (treat them as interchangeable resources). This tactic doesn’t work as well with ghosts although some wraiths have their own means of granting power to a mage, as the ancestor-spirits of the Wu Lung can attest. Note that Quintessence drawn from a spirit takes on the spirit’s nature as its Resonance, so it’s best to deal with a spirit that does the sorts of things that the mage wants to do.

Stepping Sideways     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 188 ]

Mages can push through the Gauntlet and into the Near Umbra. Once in the Umbra, the mage walks and interacts with the place just like always, but as a being of ephemera instead of as a material entity. The mage is always noticeable to those who know what to look for. Living beings stand out in the Umbra, especially if they visit the deadlands.

Traveling through the Gauntlet is usually done as an extended ritual — the mage makes a real or symbolic journey and eventually passes into the spirit world. The difficulty of such a journey varies with the thickness of the Gauntlet. Should the mage botch, he may well become stuck. In such a case, only another mage able to reach into the Gauntlet can pull him out of push him through.

Crossing the Gauntlet is a very dangerous journey. The storm winds of the Reckoning lash the very Avatars of those mages who dare to cross into the Mirror World. When a mage crosses into the Umbra, roll the mage’s permanent Paradox + Arete (difficulty 6). Each success indicates one level of aggravated damage as the storm winds flay the mage’s enlightened spirit. In some particularly nasty cases, mages have even had their Avatars flayed apart by the storm winds, getting haplessly dumped back in the material world with less power and sometimes horribly Gilguled. Such punishments rely on the Storyteller’s cruelty.

RotesST (Time effects)

Contingent Effect     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 193 ]

Spheres: Time 4

By placing a hold on a magical Effect, the mage turns it into a contingency: A spell that doesn’t go off until some specified condition comes to pass. Doing so requires the use of other Spheres. If the spell only functions when a specific individual arrives in the area, for instance, then Life magic is necessary to discriminate the subject’s Pattern. The mage can either make the magic hold off until a certain amount of time elapses (anything within the Damage and Duration table, based on successes rolled) or set further conditions with other Spheres. The mage also has the choice of simply letting the Effect dissipate once it reaches its time limit without any activating conditions.

Hanging an Effect on a Pattern does place a certain amount of magical “weight” there, and such an Effect is noticeable to most magical senses. Doing so does, therefore, count as a maintained Effect, although the mage doesn’t actually need to concentrate on it.

Note that, if the mage casts a contingent Time Effect, she won’t know if the subsequent Effect hung with it is successful until the contingency goes off, unless she also takes the time to use other magic to examine the Effect itself.

Distort Time     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 193 ]

Spheres: Time 3

By generating a field of slow or fast time, the mage causes localized distortions that let people or objects move and react to the world at different rates than normal. A bubble of fast time would contain a person who could move two or three times faster than normal, for instance, while slow time could enfold a hurled weapon and causes it to seem to float through the air in a leisurely fashion. The subject still experiences an undistorted sense of subjective time, so the fast man would feel as if he’s moving at normal speed while the world around him is slow, and the hurled weapon would retain its deadly momentum but could be easily grabbed by the handle.

Every two successes scored causes the bubble to accelerate or decelerate time by one factor. Thus, two successes would allow a mage to double her physical speed, taking two actions in a single turn.

Divinations     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 192 ]

Spheres: Time 2

Scrying-bows, speaking mirrors, uncontrolled cryptic pronouncements or songs, and visionary trances are staples of magical divination, and they’re keys to understanding the past and future. Although both ends of the spectrum are clouded by possibility, Time magic can at least draw back the curtain for a moment to snatch glimpses of what may be hazy or indeterminate; the further from the present, the more clouded the vision.

Successes rolled on such an Effect are split up to determine both the duration to which the mage can look into past of future, and the accuracy of the divination. Such visions are almost never totally accurate, but they can sometimes paint a useful picture. Beware the mage who sees visions of disaster, though; that way lies insanity.

Perfect Time     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 191 ]

Spheres: Time 1

Although Mind magic can provide an accurate internal count and chronometer, only time magic can sense and correct for distortions in subjective time. From Virtual Adept self-adjusting computer clocks to Akashic internalizations and Verbena biorhythms, the mage learns techniques to feel the flow of time with incredible accuracy and to automatically adjust for jumps and skips in the time stream. If the mage is flattened with unusual Time Effects from adversaries or strange Umbral spaces, she at least has a chance to adjust and adapt. Better still, the mage can keep absolute track of her own Effects and timing, easily judging subjective time as necessary to put a precise duration or spin on any action.

Programmed Event     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 193 ]

Spheres: Time 4

The mage stops time in a localized field and sets a tie when it shall resume. Say she lifts a cup from a table and drops it. By freezing time around the cup for one scene, she causes the cup to hang in midair until the scene ends. At that time, the cup falls and breaks. When events in physical reality are frozen for extended periods, Paradox forces usually erode the magic and free the events from stopped time prematurely. Also, if someone were to grab the cup, static reality would reassert itself and the magical field would disperse.

It’s possible to generate stasis over a fairly large area, but it’s both difficult and dangerous. Anything more than a yard or two of area causes a significant temporal disturbance, noticeable by mages nearby (say, in the same city). The Backlash from such a tremendous casting can be painful as well. The larger the area, the more quickly outside time erodes the stasis, so such fields tend to collapse rapidly.

Sidestep Time     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 193 ]

Spheres: Time 5

Instead of halting time in a small area, the mage simply steps laterally to the current of time, effectively removing herself from the evolution of the world. While in this state, the mage can move about freely, insulated by a tiny field of time-adjustment but otherwise moving so rapidly that the world is standing still by comparison. The mage can interact with things that she can touch — she still generates enough force to move along the ground, and she can pick up items and move them — but anything that’s not included in her field is stuck with the rest of the world. Thus, the mage can pluck a knife out of the air and shove it into an opponent, but the enemy won’t bleed or suffer injury (from the mage’s viewpoint, anyway) until the Effect ends. Taking other people along for the ride is possible, but it requires the mage to extend her Effect to include them. Note that, while in a sidestepped state, the mage’s magical powers are tied up in maintaining the field, so it’s impossible to do additional magic with the mage’s intervention while outside time. Thus, “mundane” devices still function, but anything that would require the mage to actually call upon her Arete is impossible.

Time Sense     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 192 ]

Spheres: Time 1

Powerful events recur in the supernatural world, unseen to normal mortals but visible to mages. Such events range from tiny slips of déja vu to the phenomenal shifting and phasing castles, caverns, and complexes that seem to exist outside of time and appear on regular cycles — or with no pattern at all. Keeping up a running sensitivity to such phenomena is trying, but a mage who suspects the presence of something unusual can feel the ripples caused by such disturbances. These disturbances include the sorts of wakes left by other time magic, as from time travelers and distortions of the other Time magic, as from time travelers and distortions of the time continuum. Potent spirits sometimes hold courts and there are gates that open only on certain cycles. The mage can sense any and all such phenomena with a modicum of concentrations. Indeed, the mage may well presage such events before they occur, or feel the rippling residue left by such happenings.

Time Travel     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 194 ]

Spheres: Time 5

Physics aside, the mage simply vanishes from one point in the time-stream and reappears sometime else. Although scientists would argue that a mage doing so would wind up in the void o space (the Earth having moved far from its position in the time jumped), the mage’s Pattern obeys metaphysical laws, so the mage reappears in the same place from which she left. The successes scored indicate how far the mage can travel through time, and how many people she can bring along, if desired.

Traveling through time generates a significant temporal disturbance, and many time travelers find that there are already groups of other mages waiting to find out what’s going on when they arrive.

If the mage leaves an “anchor point” in her present, she can pull back on that thread and return to the time that she left. Otherwise, the trip is one-way. Likewise, the mage can try to send a subject into the future, but he may discover to find the mage and deal him.

Trips to the future tend to be fairly easy, but unpredictable. The mage simply scries an appropriate time, or even jumps blind, and reappears in some future point. Past travel is much more difficult and dangerous, primarily because the weight of memory causes reality to assert itself against the mage directly. Past travelers tend to vanish into the time-stream, destroyed by Paradox or other forces, and never seem to make significant changes to the time line (not that anyone would remember, though). Some mages maintain that a sort of “time police” group prevents other mages from traveling too far through time, or from manipulating the time stream overtly.

It’s rumored that Archmages have a more effective form of time travel, even permitting them to alter the past in a limited fashion, but who would know?

Time Wards     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 192 ]

Spheres: Time 2

Any sort of mucking about with time “muddies the waters,” so to speak, and although a novice mage can’t perform fine manipulations with time, she can at least lay about with random Time Effects to make the surrounding time-stream disturbed and impenetrable to time perceptions. Other mages trying to look into the past or future get only a blur of possible visions and confused images, and Time Effects tend to run into the rippling temporal currents and get dispersed into the rapids. With enough force and work, the mage can completely block off an area from time sight and render it totally opaque to temporal scrying.

Unless the mage uses other Spheres in conjunction, an Effect of this sort just blocks out a small area of time in her own location. The exact duration warded is determined by the duration chart, although the mage can determine how far the ward extends to past and future by splitting up the duration. Successes rolled are also used to generate the ward’s strength; a persistent or powerful mage can break through time static with enough will. In other respects, these wards are similar to the more familiar wards built with Correspondence.

Time Warp     [ Mage: The Ascension — Page 193 ]

Spheres: Time 3

By pulling time back into a loop, the mage causes a small area to suffer a local “rewind” of time. The mage herself remains immunized against this Effect due to her command of time magic (otherwise he wouldn’t know that he’d done anything and the looping would be almost pointless). From there, the mage can change her actions and responses to a given situation, already knowing how it would turn out otherwise. By combining already knowing how it would turn out otherwise. By combining Life and Mind with the Effect, the mage can actually rewind herself physically and undo the effects of physical trauma, while still retaining her memory of the events that never happened.

In game terms, the mage causes one or more turns to rewind and get redone in her area. Successes spent on the area determine how large a location is affected — the mage might just unwind damage done to herself, or might rewind a whole area to undo a massive catastrophe. Additional successes spent on individuals can insulate them from the Effect just like the caster, so that they remember what’s about to happen again and can act appropriately. Anyone who’s not insulated just redoes whatever they were doing before, although they might change in response to someone else’s differing actions. That is, a man in Black firing his gun still fires it (and scores the same result as before) unless, say, one of the rewound mages decides to body-check the MiB instead of diving for cover.

Rewinding time isn’t only exceedingly difficult, it’s very vulgar. If the mage rewinds time over a specific thread (say, one particular turn), then any attempt to affect that spot of time against must overcome the successes scored on the initial rewind — time is already so bent out of shape that further manipulations must be even more powerful. Time scrying and the like also fight a similar barrier. Time’s distortions make it hard to read the area — which, incidentally, means that although the mage knows what may happen when she rewinds time, she still can’t predict how her changed actions will change the replaced time line. Rewound time tends to stack up Paradox due to the inherent trickiness of the feat. Every turn of rewound time causes Paradox for the Effect, so rewinding three turns would cause triple the normal Paradox for the spell.

Naturally, this spell is so difficult and specific that very few mages use it at all. Some paradigms just don’t accommodate the idea of “rewinding time” while others facilitate it, but all mages agree that such stunts are left to young hotheads who haven’t yet learned the dangers of such vulgar magic. Your Storyteller will probably hate it if you overuse this Effect, too, which is another sure way to get lots of problems.