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.

Arcane XP

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

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.

General

• We do not use the term "cabal" on this game. The term we use is "cadre". 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.

Hermese

Type: Language Merit
Cost:
Prerequisites: Mind 2 or Forces 2
The language of the various Hermes Mark units. It is not spoken, per se, it is projected into the Consciousness Module and/or brain of the individual through either magical or digital means. Without the aid of magic, the human mind just hears signal noise. With application of Forces, the digital signal may be translated or encrypted and broadcast. With Mind 2, Hermese may be spoken directly into the mind of another, akin to Telepathy. Possession of this merit represents actual knowledge of the language, which can also be bypassed with use of Universal Language.

Legacies

• Legacies who provides no additional ruling Arcana now provides one. (Either one that is made obvious by the Legacy itself or the character's relation to it, subject to staff approval.) This should be recorded on your sheet.
• Legacy attainment that matches Praxes your character have no long offer a refund and an Arcane Beat as we do not use beats or Arcane xp, they are swapped out with a different praxis of your choice.

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 if the subject is unwilling. 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 Trickeries upon activation (the things with italic names), werewolves shifting, Mage spells, Vampiric disciplines, Changeling Sealings, powers designed to conceal when you win a Clash of Wills (Obfuscate, Forces invisibility, Mask of Superiority, Mirrorskin kith blessing).

Examples of things which do NOT 'ping': Mage attainments, previously-activated powers, Kith Blessings (the 'exceptional on 3' part of a Kith's writeup), always-on powers, powers designed to conceal when you lose a Clash of Wills (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.

Naturally Perfecting

Places of Power: Items left in the influence of places of power which naturally provide potentia or a potentia analogue will begin to perfect if left undisturbed for a number of months equal to their size. At the end of that month, roll one chance die. If it succeeds, the object perfects. Every month thereafter, another chance die may be rolled. The power rating of the place of power must equal or exceed the size of the object being perfected otherwise the object will remain unchanged. It's much easier to find naturally perfected pebbles than naturally perfected VW Bugs.

Mother's Tree: Children of the Tree receive an additional chance die to roll each month. Thyrsii receive an additional chance die to roll each month. Dreamspeakers receive an additional chance die to roll each month. Therefore Dreamspeaker Thyrsii Children of the Tree roll four chance dice per month when perfecting objects at the tree.

Ritual tools perfected by the mother tree provide an additional +1 to their usual tool yantra when used by Children of the Tree.

Naturally perfected cold iron still has magical modification and does not count as cold iron for the purposes of Changeling banes. This is a direct overruling of the text in Signs of Sorcery and wherever else that reference may exist in the future. It is not up for debate. Please don't ask, it annoys Spider.

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.

Sleepwalker

• This is not a house rule but a reiteration of RAW: any Mortal+ counts as a Sleepwalker for the purposes of causing no Dissonance and immunity to the Curse. Sleepwalkers who have no other supernatural community ties (that is, they are not a Fae-Touched or Ghoul, but are otherwise a Sleepwalker) may buy Sleepwalker merits from MtAw 2e.
• We do not use the Sleepwalker Merit, as all of our Mortal+ characters do not require it.

Sleepwalkers & Shadow Names

• Sleepwalkers who are members of a cadre must purchase the Cadre Theme merit (MtAw p 100) for their cadre to qualify as having the entire cadre purchasing the merit.
• Sleepwalkers may purchase the Shadow Name merit (MtAw p 104) and receive the Withstand benefits and the mundane skill rolls protection benefit -- basically, any benefits which are not linked to spellcasting.
• This means that a Sleepwalker who purchases Shadow Name at 3 and is part of a cadre where all members have the Cadre Theme merit receives +4 to Withstand on Temporal Meddling(tm) and -4 to attempts to identifying her mundane persona as the same person as her magical self.

Supernal Sensitivity (••/••••)

Prerequisite: Sleepwalker (Mortal+ & not Fae-Touched, Ghoul, etc.)
With this merit at two dots, the Sleepwalker senses supernal magic in a manner mechanically similar to Peripheral Mage Sight. They cannot discern which practices or Arcana are being used and they cannot sense non-Supernal magic without a separate merit which permits them to do so; they simply sense the Supernal presence of uncloaked effects, feeling it rather than seeing it. The player should define how this sense manifests, within reason -- it is always identical regardless of the magic being used. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, she tastes summer ineffably upon her tongue, they feel a sudden wash of nostalgia with no apparent cause.

At four dots, the Sleepwalker knows when Nimbus Tilts affect them the way that Awakened do. Additionally, she may enter into a Clash of Wills to sense cloaked magic, rolling her Wits. If the magic targets her directly (as a numbered target but not as within an area of effect), she may add her dots in Supernal Sensitivity to the roll. If she has Supernatural Resistance (HL p. 78), she may add the dots of Supernatural Resistance to her Clash of Wills roll as well; the dots of Supernal Sensitivity do not add to her resistance roll, if any.

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.

Temporal Anchor (Time ••••)

Practice: Patterning
Primary Factor: Potency
Cost: 1 Potentia
Suggested Rote Skills: Science, Investigation, Empathy
 Without the assistance of magic, it is impossible for the human mind to discern when the time stream alters around them. Even with time magic at some of its most advanced practices, it can be difficult to truly comprehend. At the Storyteller's direction, whenever encountering events or objects that are contrary to the time stream in which this effect was cast, enter a clash of wills with the entity attempting to perform it. Success or failure does not effect the event in any way, save that success means the temporally anchored individual recognizes the anachronism for what it is, and understand their original time stream to be the "true" time stream.

Universal Language

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

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.