Mage/Rules

Arcana

• Per Mage: the Awakening 2.0 pg84, when raising your common arcana to 5 or your inferior arcana to 3+ you will need to find a mentor to tutor you in the practices you are attempting to learn. Log the scene and submit it to staff along with your XP spend. Once your XP spend is approved, the teacher may claim a standard beat and the student may claim an arcane one.

Arcane XP

Arcane XP is not in effect. All Mage purchases may be made with Regular XP.

• Focused Arcana Raises: You may immediately claim 1 whole Arcane Experience point upon raising a Focused Arcana of your Legacy. Note: Focused Arcana are Ruling Arcana of your Path that your Legacy likewise has as a Ruling Arcana. The doubling up of the benefit nets you 1 Arcane Experience point when you raise it after having joined your Legacy. This does not apply simply to raising your Legacy's Ruling Arcana unless it is also a Ruling Arcana of your Path.

Changeling Dreams

• Due to the strange and alien nature of Changeling dreams, and a desire for balance and focus in one of the areas where Changelings should exceed the abilities of all others, Mages suffer the following penalties when attempting to use magic (whether from Arcana or Attainments) to access, modify, or otherwise affect Changeling dreams:
  • -1 to all rolls per dot of the subject Changeling's Wyrd to a maximum of -5. This stacks with any other penalties to these rolls, including the Oneiromantic Resolve penalty from CtL 2e. Even a willing subject subconsciously resists tampering with their own dreams.
    • Acanthus lower that penalty by 1 due to their Tower's alignment and possible overlap with Arcadia. Example: Ollie the Obrimos and Yuri the Acanthus are both trying to enter the dreams of Telly the Changeling. Telly's Wyrd is 4. Ollie suffers -4 penalty to all rolls due to Telly's Wyrd, while Yuri suffers -3.
  • A Clash of Wills with an unwilling subject. Changelings always Lucid Dream.
  • These penalties may be modified by purchasing the following custom merit:

Arcadian Affinity: , , This merit offsets situational penalties encountered when dealing with Changeling dreams, and Arcadian mysticism derived not from the Supernal but rather from Changeling lore. The two dot version eliminates one die of penalties, the four dot version eliminates two dots. The five dot version of this merit permits the user to initiate a socialize roll to improve first impressions with hobs, eidolons, and other denizens of Arcadian origin by one step.

Dark Eras 2

Spells from Dark Eras 2 currently in use:

• Wyrdbound Oaths.

We are not including, nor will we at any point in the future include, nor permit as creative thaumaturgy:

• Malleable Thorns
• Masking the False Fae

Additionally, the guidance for how the Hedge reacts to Mages is currently not in use just because we haven't had a chance to talk it all through. Anything from DE2 not explicitly included is discluded.

Dissonance

• If you raise an attribute or skill beyond the mortal maximum using magic, the effect becomes subject to the Dissonance rules on M:tA p299. To be clear, this is caused by either rolling the impacted stat around sleepers, or using a derived trait of those stats around sleepers. If you have Strength 10 and move your full speed, that will cause Dissonance. If you have Dex 6 and use your defense, that will cause Dissonance. If you use your heightened persuasion in a roll to convince someone of something, that will cause Dissonance. Dissonance gains the same roll factors as Paradox does with evermore larger crowds.
• Causing Dissonance is a minor breach of the Precept of Secrecy. The degradation of your spell's integrity is happening because the Abyss is attacking your magic. This is generally accepted as a "Bad Thing". Furthermore, when Dissonance happens, you are causing breaking points in the integrity of sleeper witnesses. This is also generally accepted as a "Bad Thing". Use your magic carefully, subtly, or within the limitations of the the human experience.

Ex Nihilo

• This spell creates a mundane item. It can create any item legally permitted by our crafting system. It cannot create any item that violates our crafting system. No swords with 8-Again, no axes with Incendiary, no knives with 5L damage ratings, etc.

Universal Language

• This spell also allows the subject to speak any human language.

General

• We do not use the term "cabal" on this game. The term we use is "cadres". For similar reasons, we do not call them covens, nor circles: simply cadres. Please get used to saying Cadres. It has always been Cadres, ICly. This isn't a local peculiarity. It's just a word we're not using. Feel free to DM DadHoc if you'd like the explanation.
• We do not use the term "mana" on this game. The term we use is "potentia". It has always been Potentia, ICly. This isn't a local peculiarity. It's just a word we're not using. Feel free to DM DadHoc if you'd like the explanation.

Mage Sight

Piercing The Mask

Having discussed it, because it's not laid out in the book clearly, piercing the Mask for Mages requires Prime 1 AND Fate 1 Active Mage sight (not Peripheral) and a Clash of Wills. Pierce Deception may tell you that something hinky's going on over there but then you would require the IC knowledge to know you'd need to layer in another Mage sight, etc. etc.

Peripheral Mage Sight

What 'pings' Peripheral Mage Sight? Any activated power or supernatural event, with exceptions as below.

Examples of things which 'ping': Kith powers upon activation (the things with italic names), werewolves shifting, Mage spells, Vampiric disciplines.

Examples of things which do NOT 'ping': Always-on Mage attainments, previously-activated powers, Kith Blessings (the 'exceptional on 3' part of a Kith's writeup), always-on powers, powers designed to conceal (Obfuscate, Forces invisibility, Mask of Superiority, Mirrorskin kith blessing)

Clash of Wills only 'pings' when you WIN for powers which are designed to conceal. Otherwise, you'd win when you lose. Think about it: 'gosh, there's no one here but me, but something just went off on my "radar", I better look again, more closely, or change my behavior!' So if it pings on that CoW even if you lose... you're still winning even when you lose the Clash. Not cool, not fair.

Perfected Items

• Raw Materials: A single item's worth of the base metal is Availability 2 for Tin, Lead, Iron, Steel, or Copper. A single item's worth of the base metal is Availability 3 for Gold, Silver, and Mercury.
• Ritual Tools: If you are creating perfected path tools, these do not require you to purchase the Perfected Item merit. If you are creating perfected weapons, or equipment with a purpose other than ritual application, the merit then applies.
• Siderite: Siderite does not count as Cold Iron.

Praxes

• Regaining Pools: You will only regain Potentia and Willpower from a praxis if it is used on screen. It need not be used during a time of dramatic tension or threat to life, but it must rise to the importance of being viewed within the lens of your on screen life.

Ritual Casting

• Merits such as Good Time Management and Patient, or any other non-supernatural merit which impacts extended rolls in general do not apply to Ritual Casting times. Your Gnosis is always the determining speed factor. Ritual Casting is not an extended roll.

Sympathetic Magic

• Sympathetic Names: Everyone has a true name. Even Mages. It's the name they confide to their most trusted allies, the name they whisper into the ear of a lover. The name that, when someone shouts it in a crowded room, has them turning their heads to see who is calling them. Only the individual knows if the name they were given at birth is true to them or not, and many choose to select and use new names that resonate with greater truth to them for whatever reason. Knowing this name becomes a Yantra. Not knowing it increases the withstand against the sympathetic range attainment by 1.

Wisdom Degeneration

• Daily Meditation: Daily Meditation adds +2 to your rolls to resist Wisdom Degeneration. Meditating on high concepts and the Supernal is a fantastic way to bulwark your Wisdom. The roll for your meditation must be made prior to your degeneration check. You may not reroll a failure.