Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 445 Combat System Charts For specific wizard duel systems, see the Magickal Duels section. Order of Battle • Initiative: Initiative Rating (Dexterity + Wits) + one die. • Attack: See whether or not attacks hit their targets. • Defense: See whether or not a defender has avoided an attack. • Damage: Determine how badly the combatants get hurt. Attack • Projectile Guns: Dexterity + Firearms. • Hypertech Force Guns: Dexterity + Energy Weapons. • Thrown Weapons: Dexterity + Athletics. • Hand-Held Weapons: Dexterity + Melee. • Bare-Hand Attacks: Dexterity + Brawl, Martial Arts, Athletics, or Do. • Magickal Attacks: Arete. If attack involves a strike or weapon, roll appropriate Trait as above. Defense • Dodge: Dexterity + Athletics, difficulty 6. Each success removes one attacker success. • Block: Dexterity + Brawl or Martial Arts, difficulty variable. • Parry: Dexterity + Melee or Martial Arts, difficulty variable. • Desperate Defense: Dexterity + Athletics, -1 die per attacker after first. • Countermagick: Arete, difficulty 8, as a dodge; see Chapter Ten. Damage • Damage: As attack type, difficulty 6; dice pool is attacker’s damage roll + numbers of successes after the first. • Soaking: Stamina roll, difficulty 6; each success removes one damage success. • Bashing: All characters can soak. • Lethal: Humans cannot soak without armor, except under Cinematic Damage option. • Aggravated: No soak without special protection. Magick and Violence • Violence as Focus: One action, two rolls: Arete/ Enlightenment, to see if magick succeeds; and attack roll (as above) to see if attack succeeds. If violence is focus and character cannot perform one without the other, then player does not need to divide dice pool as if performing multiple actions. • Violence Enhances Magick: Two actions, two rolls: roll attack normally; each success lowers difficulty for subsequent Arete roll by -1 (maximum modifier -3). • Magick Enhances Violence: Two actions, two rolls: Arete roll to cast Effect; each success reduces difficulty of subsequent attack by -1 for each success (maximum modifier of -3). • Fast-Casting: Improvised magickal attack; +1 difficulty on Arete roll. Spirit Combat • Initiative: Spirits roll Willpower for initiative. • Attack: Spirits roll Willpower, difficulty 6, unless using a Charm. (For specifics, see Charm entries.) • Defense: Spirits roll Willpower, difficulty 6, to dodge; or else split Willpower dice pool between attack and dodge. • Damage: Spirits roll Rage, difficulty 6; each success inflicts one health level of damage. Said damage may be lethal or aggravated, depending upon Charm. Mages with Spirit/ Dimensional Science Sphere can soak spirit damage, difficulty 6; mages without Spirit can soak with Arete, difficulty 8. • Soak Damage: Spirits soak damage with their Willpower Trait. Materialized spirits attack and defend as physical characters. Most physical attacks and weapons cannot harm un-Materialized spirits, nor can Spheres other than Prime and Spirit/ Dimensional Science.
446 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition The Health Chart Health Levels Dice Pool Penalty Movement Penalty Bruised 0 Minor pain and swelling; he’s banged up but otherwise fine. Hurt -1 Cuts, bruises, aches, perhaps bleeding, but no major impairment. Injured -1 Minor and painful injuries limit the character to half his normal movement. Wounded -2 Notable injuries handicap him; the character can’t run but may still walk. Mauled -2 Significant internal and external damage; character can hobble around (three yards/ turn) but not move normally. Crippled -5 Catastrophic injuries; character can only crawl (one yard/ turn). Incapacitated N/A Character’s unconscious from pain and trauma; no movement possible. Dead N/A Another soul greets the Great Mystery. Healing Damage Health Level Recovery Time* BASHING DAMAGE Bruised to Wounded One hour Mauled Three hours Crippled Six hours Incapacitated 12 hours LETHAL AND AGGRAVATED DAMAGE Bruised One day Hurt Three days Injured One week Wounded One month Mauled Two months Crippled Three months Incapacitated Five months * Recovery times are cumulative. Targeting Locations Target Size Difficulty Damage Modifier Medium (arm, briefcase) +1 1 die Small (head, hand, gun) +2 2 dice Precise (eye, heart, kneecap) +3 3 dice Cover and Concealment Cover Difficulty to Hit Target Shooter’s Difficulty Lying Flat +1 0 Moving +1 +1 Behind Wall +2 +1 Only Head Exposed +3 +2 Character Is... • Ambushed: Attacker rolls Dexterity + Stealth (+ Arcane Background), resisted by target’s Perception + Alertness, difficulty 6. Attacker gets one free action if she wins, with one additional die per success after the first one; attacker goes first in tie; target spots attacker if target wins. • Blinded: Cannot block, dodge, or parry; all other tasks +2 difficulty. • Knocked Down: As per Immobilized until standing back up. • Immobilized: Attackers reduce difficulty to hit by -2 if target can move; hit automatically if target cannot move. • Stunned: If, from one blow, target suffers damage that exceeds Stamina rating, then target is stunned one turn; attempts to hit are -2 difficulty during that time. • Fighting Multiple Opponents: +1 difficulty per attacker, to character’s attack and defense rolls, up to a maximum penalty of +4. A mage with Correspondence 1, Mind 1, or Time 2, and who has an active sensory Effect in one of those Spheres at the time of combat can ignore penalty. • In Rough Conditions: +1 to +3 difficulties, depending on circumstances.
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 447 Armor and Shields Armor Type Rating Dexterity Penalty Tough Hide 1-3 0 Cybernetic Armor 1-4 0 Reinforced Clothing 1-2 0 Enhanced Clothing 1-5 0 Biker Jacket 1 -1 Leather Duster 2 -2 Cosplay Mail 2 -1 Chainmail 4 -2 Steel Breastplate 3 -2 Full Plate 5 -2 Kevlar Vest 3 -1 Flak Vest 4 -2 Riot Suit 4 -2 Military Armor 5 -2 Alanson Hardsuit 7 -2 SHIELDS Trash Can Lid 3/+1 0 Wooden Shield 2/+2 -1 Metal Shield 4/+2 -2 Riot Shield 5/+2 -1 Notes: Tough Hide reflects animals, Bygones, constructs, or shapechanged mages with especially thick or armored skin. Cybernetic Armor has been built into the wearer. See the Background: Enhancement. Reinforced Clothing has been stiffened, padded, or layered with thin mesh protection. Enhanced Clothing is apparently normal clothing modified by the Matter Sphere. Biker Jacket represents thick, practical, heavy-duty protection. Cosplay Mail reflects modern costume armor. Chainmail represents battle-worthy chain-link armor, heavier than cosplay mail. Full Plate is articulated knight’s armor. Riot Suit is police heavy body armor. Military Armor reflects a full suit of modern battle armor. Alanson Hardsuit is a standard-issue, full-body suit of hypertech Technocratic armor, used by Union security forces composed of extraordinary citizens and Enlightened agents alike. See Appendix II (p. 656) for details. Wooden and Metal Shields represent field-ready shields built for jousts and reenactment battles. Riot Shield is a thick Plexiglas or metal-with-viewport shield, employed by police forces (typically in a wall formation) during civil unrest situations. Ranged Combat Maneuvers Maneuver Traits Difficulty Damage Aiming Dexterity + Firearms N/A +2 dice to hit per turn spent aiming Full-Auto Dexterity + Firearms +2 +10 dice Point Blank Dexterity + Firearms 4 Weapon Strafing Dexterity + Firearms +2 Special 3-Round Burst Dexterity + Firearms +1 +3 dice to hit; damage as weapon Thrown Weapon Dexterity + Athletics 6 Weapon Two Weapons Dexterity + Firearms +1 Special Dirty Fighting Maneuvers (min. three dots in Brawl) Maneuver Traits Difficulty Damage Blinding Dexterity + Subterfuge 9 Special #1 Body Slam Dexterity + Brawl 6 Strength + 2/B or L Curbstomp Strength + Brawl 6 Strength +2 /L Haymaker Dexterity + Brawl 7 Strength +2/B + Knockdown Head Butt Dexterity + Brawl 6 Strength +1/B Jab Pistol Dexterity + Brawl 6 As Firearm +2/L Low Blow Dexterity + Brawl 7 Strength + Stun/B or L Pistol Whip Dexterity + Melee 7 Strength +2/L Notes #1 = Enemy blinded for one turn per success, loses two dice from his dice pools until he recovers. May cause lasting injury, depending upon attack.
448 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition General Hand-To-Hand Maneuvers Maneuver Traits Difficulty Damage Bite Dexterity + Brawl 5 Strength +1 to +3 /B or L Claw Dexterity + Brawl 6 Strength +1 to +3 /L or A Disarm Dexterity + Melee +1 / 8 Special #1 Flank/ Rear Attack Dexterity + Ability -1 /-2 As Attack Grapple Strength + Brawl 6 Strength or None Kick Dexterity + Brawl 7 Strength +1 /B Punch Dexterity + Brawl 6 Strength /B Reading Opponent Perception + Trait 6 Special #2 Sweep Dexterity + Brawl 8 Special #3 Tackle Dexterity + Brawl 7 Strength + Special #4 /B Notes #1 = Attacker rolls Dexterity + Melee at +1 difficulty; if successes exceed opponent’s Strength score, he drops weapon. If not, attacker inflicts usual damage. On botched roll, attacker loses own weapon. Bare-handed disarm is Dexterity + Brawl, difficulty 8, minus one die from usual attack pool. (See also Martial Arts Disarm, below.) #2 = Resisted roll, observer’s Perception + Combat Trait against opponent’s Wits + Combat Trait. Successful observer adds one die per success to the dice pool to perform next action. #3 = Knockdown: if blow succeeds, antagonist winds up on ground. #4 = Requires at least two yards to achieve effective momentum. Each combatant needs successful Dexterity + Athletics roll (difficulty 6 for the attacker, difficulty 6 + the attacker’s successes for the target) or wind up on ground. May damage attacker. Do Special Techniques (min. two dots in Do; four techniques max.) Maneuver Traits Difficulty Damage Arrow Cutting Dexterity + Do 7/9 Deflect/ Weapon Hurricane Throw Dexterity + Do 8 Strength +3 + successes Iron Shirt N/A 6 + 1 die to soak per dot in Do Kiaijutsu Special 7/ N/A /8 Special #1 Plum Blossom Dexterity + Do 6 Leaps; see entry Soft Fist Dexterity + Do 7 Attacker’s Strength + Weapon + Successes 10,000 Weapons Dexterity + Do N/A 1 die per dot in Do/B, Weapon/L or Weapon +1/L Typhoon Kick Dexterity + Do 8 Strength +5 + Successes Weapon Art as per Attack N/A Special – see entry Notes Do practitioners of all levels may also perform General Hand-To-Hand and Martial Arts maneuvers, choosing between bashing and lethal damage; may not perform Dirty Fighting maneuvers at all. #1 = Practitioner may give self a three-turn Stamina bonus of one dot for every success in a Stamina + Do roll (difficulty 7); frighten enemies by rolling Manipulation + Do (difficulty is the target’s Willpower +3); or hold the Shout in (Charisma + Do, difficulty 8), adding successes to Expression, Leadership, Intimidation, or performance-based Art roll.
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 449 Martial Arts Maneuvers Maneuver Traits Difficulty Damage Counter Throw Dexterity + Martial Arts 6 Special #1 Death Strike Dexterity + Martial Arts 5 Strength +2/L Deflecting Block Dexterity + Martial Arts 6 Attacker’s Strength/B #2 Disarm Dexterity + Martial Arts 7 3 Dragon Tail Sweep Dexterity + Martial Arts 8 Opponent’s Strength /B Elbow/ Knee Strike Dexterity + Martial Arts 5 Strength +1/B Flying Kick Dexterity + Martial Arts 7 Strength +2/B Hard/ Soft Strike Dexterity + Martial Arts 5/6 Strength +1/B Joint Lock Dexterity + Martial Arts 5 Grapple + Successes/L Nerve Strike Dexterity + Martial Arts 7 Strength +3/B #4 Snake Step Dexterity + Martial Arts 6/5 Dodge + 3 dice Snap Kick Dexterity + Martial Arts 5 Strength +1/B Spinning Kick Dexterity + Martial Arts 6 Strength +3/B Throw Dexterity + Martial Arts 7/6 Strength + Movement/B #5 Thunder Kick Dexterity + Martial Arts 7 Strength +3 + Successes/B Vital Strike Dexterity + Martial Arts 7 Strength/L Withering Grasp Dexterity + Martial Arts 7 Strength/B + Disarm Notes See also Minimum Ability and soft or hard style listings for each maneuver, under full descriptions. #1 = Resisted roll of Dexterity + Martial Arts against attacker’s Dexterity + Brawl, Melee, or Martial Arts; success deflects attack and may Throw, attacker as below. #2 = Each success subtracts one success from attacker’s roll; if defender scores more successes than attacker, then attacker must roll Dexterity (difficulty 8) or take own Strength in bashing damage. #3 = As per Disarm, above, bare-handed; minimum three dots in Martial Arts Skill. #4 = If attacker scores at least three successes against opponent, opponent must make Stamina roll (difficulty 8) or be stunned next turn. #5 = Attacker with Dexterity + Martial Arts dice pool equal to or higher than opponent’s Dexterity throws opponent up to one yard for each success scored. Extra damage possible – see entry.
450 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Melee Weapons Weapon Difficulty Damage/Type Conceal Notes Axes Hatchet 6 Strength +1/L J Tomahawk 6 Strength +2/L J Axe 7 Strength +3/L N Great Axe 7 Strength +6/L N #1 Polearm 7 Strength +3/L N #2 Blades Stiletto 4 Strength +1/L P #3 Knife 4 Strength +1/L P Short Sword 5 Strength +2/L J Sword 6 Strength +2/L T Katana 6 Strength +3/L T #4 Great Sword 5 Strength +6/L N #1 Sai 5 Strength +1/L J #5, #6 Hook Sword(s) 7 Strength +3/L T Used as pair, #2, #5, #6 Clubbing Weapons Riot Baton 5 Strength +1/B T Baseball Bat 5 Strength +2/B T Crowbar 6 Strength +1/L J Staff 6 Strength +1/B N Iron Staff 7 Strength +3/L N #1 Mace 6 Strength +2/L N Nunchaku 7 Strength +2/B T #5, #7 Spiked Club 6 Strength +2/L T Huge Spiked Club 7 Strength +4/L N #1 Fist-Extension Weapons Sap 4 Strength +1/B P Brass Knuckles 6 Strength/L P Spiked Gauntlet 6 Strength +1/L J Hand Claws (small) 6 Strength +1/L P Hand Claws (large) 6 Strength +2/L P Katar 6 Strength +2 J #3, #5 War Fan 5 Strength +2/L J #5, #7 Wind and Fire Wheel 6 Strength +3/L N #6 Improvised Weapons Broken Bottle 6 Strength +1/L P #8 Chair 7 Strength +2/B N Chainsaw 8 Strength +7/L N #9 Table 8 Strength +3/B N #1
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 451 Whips and Chains #10 Chain 5 Strength/B J Chain Whip 6 Strength +1/L J Kusarigama 7 Strength +3 /B T #2, #6 Manriki-Gusari 7 Strength +2 /L T #2, #6 Flogger 6 Strength +1/B Barbed Cat 6 Strength/L J Whip 6 Strength/L J Bullwhip 7 Strength +1/L J Notes Difficulty: The normal difficulty at which the weapons is used. Damage: The number of damage dice rolled when employing this weapon. Type: B = Bashing L = Lethal A = Aggravated Conceal: P = Pocket J = Jacket T= Trenchcoat N= N/A #1 = Two-handed weapon; very heavy – requires min. Strength 3 to employ. #2 = Requires two hands to employ properly; +2 difficulty if used one-handed. #3 = Penetrates up to three points of armor. #4 = May be used two-handed for an additional +1 damage die. #5 = +1 to dice pool when used to block. #6 = +2 to dice pool for disarm attempts. #7 = +1 difficulty to opponent’s block attempts. #8 = Breaks after three uses. #9 = On a botch, user inflicts damage upon self. #10 = May be used to entangle an enemy’s limb at +1 difficulty. Melee Weapons (continued)
452 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Ranged Weapons Type Damage Range Rate Clip Conceal Notes Conventional Guns Revolver, Lt. 4 12 3 6 P SW M640 (.38 Special) Revolver, Hvy. 6 35 2 6 J Colt Anaconda (.44 Magnum) Semi-Automatic Pistol, Lt. 4 20 4 17+1 P Glock 17 (9mm) Semi-Automatic Pistol, Hvy. 5 30 3 7+1 J IMI Desert Eagle (.50 AE) Rifle 8 200 1 5+1 N Remington M-700 (30.06) SMG, Small 4 25 3 30+1 J #1 Ingram Mac-10 (9mm) SMG, Large 4 50 3 30+1 T #1 HK MP-5 (9mm) Assault Rifle 7 150 3 42+1 N #1 AK-47 (7.62x39mm) Shotgun, Sawed Off 8 10 2 2 J Winchester Model 24 double barrel (12 Gauge) Shotgun 8 20 1 5+1 T Ithaca M-37 (12 Gauge) Shotgun, Semi-Automatic 8 25 3 6+1 T Benelli M4 (12 Gauge) Shotgun, Assault 8 50 3 32+1 N #1 MPS AA-12 (12 Gauge) Technocracy Sidearms #2 Biggs X-5 Model R Protector 5 40 4 12 J #3 Biggs X-5 Model A Protector 5 40 4 12+1 J #1 Biggs Mjollner Mk. IV 10 100 1 10 T #4 Castle-Graves WW-3 8 200 3 50+1 N #1 Bolan Mk.13 Weapons System (as noted below) #1,#5 HIT Mark Chain-Gun 8 150 3 200 N #1 Bows #6 Short Bow 4 60 1 1 N Hunting Bow 5 100 1 1 N Long Bow 5 120 1 1 N Crossbow, Commando 3 20 1 1 J #7 Crossbow 5 90 1 1 T Crossbow, Hvy. 6 100 1 1 N
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 453 Taser 5 5 1 1 P #8 Tear Gas 3 3 1 5 P #8 Pacification Spray 5 3 1 5 P #8 Military Weapons #9 .30 Caliber Machine Gun 12 800 5 100 N #1 .50 Caliber Machine Gun 16 1000 5 200 N #1, #10 30 mm Cannon 15 1200 8 100 N #1, #11 M-79 Grenade Launcher 6 400 1 1 N #12 M-19 Grenade Launcher 8 600 2 1 N #10, #12 Flamethrower 3 levels/ turn, fire 60 1 5 N #12 Rocket Launcher 12-16 500+ 1 1 N #12 Notes Damage: All damage from firearms and bows is lethal. Range: Within listed range (in yards), difficulty is 6; at twice listed Range, difficulty is 8; within two yards, difficulty is 4. Rate: Maximum number of bullets or three-round bursts the weapon can fire in a single turn. Clip: Maximum number of bullets the weapon can hold. Some weapons, listed as “+1”, can hold a full clip with a round ready in the chamber. Conceal: See Melee Weapons chart. #1 = Gun may fire full-auto, three-round bursts, and strafing sprays. #2 = All category weapons except chain-gun feature laser sights and can be used by Sleepers and extraordinary citizens; issued only to Technocracy personnel of extraordinary citizen level or higher. #3 = Revolver; at the touch of a button, can chamber any type of ammunition loaded in the cylinder. Both Model R and Model A made of composite materials – invisible to metal detectors. #4 = Rarely issued to unEnlightened personnel, as it tends to jam on a failed roll during unEnlightened use; still, more attuned to Consensus than it was years ago. #5 = Combines a submachine gun main weapon (as per AK-47; 50-shot clip) with auto-shotgun capabilities (as MPS AA12; 20-shot clip) through the main barrel, plus a grenade launcher under that barrel (as a MP-79/ six-shot magazine). Laser sights. Heavy; requires Strength 3 or better to employ but has relatively low recoil. #6 = Long and short bows take an automatic action to nock and draw; crossbows require two automatic actions to reload. A character with Archery 3 or higher can nock, draw, and loose an arrow as a single action but cannot do the same thing with a crossbow. #7 = Collapsible; requires one turn to unfold from storage configuration, plus one action to load once it has been unfolded. #8 = Bashing damage, not lethal; adds no extra damage from successes scored. Tear gas and Technocratic pacification spray also reduce target’s dice pools by two dice for one turn per success. #9 = Requires Firearms specialization in Heavy Weapons and a Class C license to own legally in U.S. #10 = Not man-portable; must be mounted on vehicle. #11 = Chain-gun; not normally man-portable, but carried by some HIT Marks and heavy-duty cyborgs. Halves armor protection due to high-speed “drilling” effect. #12 = See Explosives chart. Thrown Weapons Weapon Difficulty Damage/Type Conceal Knife 6 Strength/L P Shuriken 7 3/L P Spear 6 Strength +1/L N Stone 5 Strength/B varies Stone, Large 5 Strength +3/B N Tomahawk 6 Strength +1/L J
454 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Special Ammunition Types Type Damage Effects Ectoplasmic Disruptors 5/A Blasts spirit entities and vampires with aggravated damage explosion; normal damage to physical beings. Explosive Shells 6/L Mini-grenades; six dice on target, minus one die/ yard from impact to max. of -6 dice; usable only in shotguns and Technocratic firearms. Flechettes 7/L Tiny darts; modern body armor reduced by -2 to protection from this ammo, but old-style thick armor counts as double for this ammo only; only from shotguns and Technocratic firearms. Incendiary Rounds 4/A Phosphorus – ignites in air when fired; inflict two dice aggravated damage for one turn after they hit; ignite flammable objects. Rubber Bullets B Damage as normal bullets for the gun, but bashing, not lethal. Taser Bullets 5/B Electrical charge inflicts 5 levels bashing for two turns; Technocratic special ammo. Tear Gas Rounds B Fills two meter radius with tear gas – see Toxins, p.456; shotguns and Technocratic firearms only. Teflon Bullets L Damage as per normal bullets for the gun, but reduce armor protection value by -1. Special Gun Sights Type Difficulty Reduction Notes #1 Laser Sight -1 One turn to aim. Sniper Scope -2 Two turns to aim. Night Vision Scope -1 Dark only; also lets shooter see in darkness. Computer Targeting -3 One turn to aim. #1 = Scopes add two dice to shooter’s dice pool for the first shot only. Environmental Hazards Fire Damage Heath Levels/ Turn Size of Fire One Torch; part of body burned Two Bonfire; half of body seared Three Inferno; body engulfed Soak Difficulties Heat of Fire 3 Candle (first degree burns) 5 Campfire (second degree burns) 7 Bunsen burner (third degree) 8 Electrical fire 9 Chemical fire 10 Molten lava or metal Electrocution Health Levels/ Turn Electrical Source Two Minor; wall socket Four Major; protective fence Six Severe; junction box Eight Fatal; subway rail
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 455 Explosives Type Blast Area Blast Power Burn Notes Toxic Gas Grenade 4 N/A No #1 Concussion Grenade 3 8 dice No #2 Fragmentation Grenade 3 12 dice No Molotov Cocktail 2 8 dice Yes #3 IED 3-5 8-15 dice Depends #4 Suicide Bomb 4-6 10-15 dice Depends #5 Gasoline 3 2 Yes #3 Gas Tank (car) 5 12 dice Yes #3 Car Bomb 5 20 dice Depends #4 Truck Bomb 20 30 dice Depends #4 Blasting Powder 1 1 Yes #6 Dynamite 3-5 6 dice/ stick Yes Nitroglycerin 4 3 No #7 Plastique 1-6 1-20 No #8 Napalm 10-50 Special Yes #9 Small Rocket 3-6 10-15 dice No Artillery Shell 10 20-30 dice No Nuke 1-30 miles Seriously? Yes #3 Notes Blast Area: Center of explosion, measured in 10’ increments; all characters and objects take full damage within Blast Area, -1 success for each yard outward from there. Blast Power: Number of dice rolled per pound or ½ gallon of explosive; sometimes simply a dice pool instead. Burn: Whether or not the explosive also ignites fires. Damage lethal unless noted. #1 = See Toxins chart. #2 = Bashing damage, not lethal. #3 = Aggravated damage. #4 = Might also be incendiary (aggravated damage + fire) or shrapnel (half armor protection). #5 = Strapped to, or inside of, user; kills user upon ignition. Also, #4. #6 = Loose gun- or flash powder; also creates blinding flare when ignited. #7 = Liquid, unstable; may ignite upon impact. #8 = May be shaped for precise explosion area; stable until ignited by electronic detonator. #9 = Jellied gasoline; aggravated damage. Storyteller rolls one die to determine how much flaming napalm hits a given character, then rolls that many dice per turn for 10 turns. Not extinguished by water, only by total lack of oxygen. Successful dodge reduces damage dice pool by one die per success. Dodging the Blast Difficulty Size of Explosion 6 Small detonation (grenade, Molotov cocktail) 8 Large explosion (gas tanks, small bombs, IEDs) 9 Huge explosion (artillery rounds, tanker trucks, truck bombs)
456 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Toxins Toxin Rating Difficulty Disease Poison or Drug One 6 Cold (B) Alcohol (B), Cocaine (B), Tear Gas (cloud, B) Two 7 Chicken Pox (B), Food Poisoning (B), MRSA (L) Methamphetamine (B), Methanol (L) Three 7 Influenza (B); Cancer, Early (L); Pneumonia (L) Ptomaine (B), Tainted Water (B), Belladonna (L) Four 8 HIV (L); Leprosy (L); Cancer, Advanced (L) Salmonella (B), Ammonia (L), Fouled Water (B) Five 8 Severe Flu (B/L); Cholera (B); Cancer, Extensive (L) Bleach (L), Industrial Waste (L), Chlorine Gas (L) Six 9 Bubonic Plague (L), Anthrax (L) Strong Acids (L) Seven 9/T3 Ebola (avoid as cloud, L) Sarin (L), Cyanide (L), Acidic Sludge (L) Notes: Clouds of toxins inflict damage per turn spent within the cloud without gas protection gear and cannot be dodged; to avoid the effects, a character needs protective gear or Life 2 magick. Many toxic chemicals work on skin contact and cannot be avoided by holding one’s breath. Clouds also drift with wind and may be dispersed or spread with Forces 2 or higher Effects. Holding Breath Stamina Holding Breath 1 30 seconds 2 One minute 3 Two minutes 4 Four minutes 5 Eight minutes 6 15 minutes 7 20 minutes 8 30 minutes 9 45 minutes 10 One hour Objects Durability Substance is… 1 Fragile (normal glass, thin wood or ceramic) 2 Breakable (sturdy glass, plywood, crockery) 3 Breakable but tough (interior door, safety glass, drywall, thin metal) 4 Strong and rigid 5 Strong and flexible 6 Solid 7 Solid and thick 8 Solid, thick, and reinforced 9 Thick, solid, and dense 10 Exceedingly strong and dense 11+ Damn near impenetrable Structure Object is… 1 Fragile (wine glass, light bulb) 2-3 Easily broken (window, laptop, drywall) 4-5 Sturdy and complex (car engine, camera, printer) 6-7 Sturdy and simple (table, plank, tire, thick door, brick wall) 8-9 Thick and simple (stone wall, streetlight pole, metal bulkhead) 10 Thick and reinforced (safe, bank vault, building foundation) 11+ Built to take enormous punishment (airliner, ship, military vehicle)
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 457 Sample Objects and Surfaces Object/Surface Durability Structure Damage Notes Barriers Window 1-3 1-3 1 #1 Plexiglas 3-5 5 2 Screen Door 2 2 N/A Flimsy Door 1 5 1 Thick Door 2-4 5-7 2 Metal Door 3-5 6-8 4 Vault Door 10 10-18 8 Drywall 3 2-4 1 #2 Wooden Wall 3-5 6-8 2 #2 Brick Wall 6-8 6-8 3 #2 Stone Wall 6-9 8-9 3 #2 Steel Wall 7-10 8-15 4 #2 Chain Link Fence 2 6 1 #2 Wooden Fence 2-4 3-6 2 #2 Metal Fence 3-4 7-10 3 #2 Furniture Chair 3-4 4-6 1-2 Coffin 2 7 2 Computer 1-3 2-4 1-2 Couch 3 7 3 Lamp 1-2 2-3 1 Shelving Unit 3-4 6-7 2 Table/Desk 2-4 4-6 2-3 TV 2 2 2 Street Objects Mailbox 2-3 2-6 1-2 Manhole Cover 4 6 3 Metal Bars 4-8 6-7 2 Street Light 5 8-9 3 Tree 5-10 10+ 3-5 #3 Notes Durability: Overall hardness and/ or thickness. Structure: Useful integrity; when damage exceeds Structure, the object is broken. Damage: The number of dice the surface or object adds to an attacker’s bashing damage pool if he uses that object or surface as an improvised weapon. #1 = Damage lethal if glass gets shattered before use as a weapon; doubled for heavy-duty glass. #2 = Damage reflects being hit with a piece of the wall or being slammed hard into it. #3 = Extremely varied, depending on age, type, and size of tree.
458 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Part V: The Technological World For all that certain mages go on about the glories of the Mythic Age, their world is our world, and our world’s full of technology. From car chases to gadgeteering upgrades, that technology comes into play fairly often in a Mage: The Ascension chronicle. The following systems certainly won’t reflect every conceivable use of technology in your game, but they’ll help your troupe address many common moments of technological mayhem. Vehicle Systems Until the early 1900s, you walked, rode a horse, or spent lots of time in some rickety contraption that tended to be slow, uncomfortable, and subject to weather conditions. But ever since the inventions of internal combustion, the automobile, and highly durable materials during the midto late 1800s, most people have traveled great distances at high speed and think nothing of it. The Technocracy, of course, is quick to claim credit for such innovations. Whatever their origins might be, however, our vehicles are part of our daily lives. In game terms, characters might find themselves in high-speed chases, drive-bys, tense repair situations, and other sorts of vehicular chaos. And although Mage’s Storyteller System avoids detailed transportation rules (whole games have been built around such details!), it’s worth knowing what happens if you grab a jetpack or hop inside an armored limousine. Vehicle Traits For the most part, vehicles are best handled as story elements – characters get in them and go. For those times when the magick meets the road, though, the following Traits define the essential systems for common vehicles. • Safe/ Max. Speed: Safe Speed reflects how fast a character can drive the vehicle in question without risking a wreck; for every 10 MPH over that limit, add +1 to the difficulty of that character’s operation rolls. Max. Speed is more or less where that vehicle tops out. • Maneuverability: Certain vehicles handle better than others. Maneuverability reflects the maximum dice pool a character can use when operating this vehicle. (This applies only to the dice pool used for driving, of course… although it’s also hard to seduce someone in the middle of a high-speed chase.) • Crew: The minimum personnel needed to operate the vehicle. Pass. (passengers) reflects the number of people, other than the operators, who’ll fit into the vehicle under normal circumstances. Cramming is possible, of course, but it may affect the vehicle’s ability to function. • Durability: The number of health levels it takes to penetrate the vehicle’s body; until that point, damage just bounces off the surface. • Structure: The amount of damage the vehicle can take before it’s too destroyed to function as more than a block
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 459 of wreckage. (Granted, Matter and Entropy magick can do wonderfully creative things with wreckage…) • Weapons: This Trait speaks for itself. See the Combat section for details. For vehicle repair, modification, hotwiring, and carstripping rules, see Inventing, Modifying, and Improving Technology, (p. 463-464). Stunt Driving To commit gross acts of vehicular insanity, a roll of Dexterity + Drive (or Pilot, Jetpack, or other appropriate Ability) reflects your character’s skill. The difficulty for that roll depends upon the craziness of the stunt and possibly the conditions involved as well (icy road, flat tires, shattered windshield, etc.); typically, such stunts start at difficulty 4 and go upward from there. Remember, though, that the Maneuverability Trait limits that dice pool, and exceeding the vehicle’s Safe Speed adds to the difficulty of that roll. Let’s say, for example, that Lee Ann Milner tries to pull a bootlegger reverse. If she’s driving a sports car, her Dexterity + Drive dice pool has an upper limit of 9; if she’s driving an SUV, drop that limit to 5; and if she tries to do it with an RV… well, good luck with that, Lee Ann! Botches while driving are bad. Seriously, don’t botch a stunt driving roll. Ramming and Collisions In order to avoid absurdly complicated rules, assume that a vehicle ramming a character inflicts that vehicle’s Durability in bashing damage, plus one die for every 10 MPH (14” per turn) that the vehicle was traveling at the time. Thus, a crotch-rocket motorcycle ramming someone at 50 MPH inflicts eight dice of bashing damage, but a limo going at that speed inflicts 10. Certain vehicles inflict additional dice of damage simply because they’re bigger and harder than a character is. The limo in question actually inflicts 13 dice of damage because it hurts to get rammed by a limo. (For additional levels of damage, see the charts below.) Passengers inside a colliding vehicle take the usual damage, minus that vehicle’s Durability rating; if they’re strapped in, halve the damage they would normally suffer. In many cases, the Storyteller can simply employ the cinematic trope of having important characters more or less unharmed and unnecessary characters incapacitated or killed in a crash. For additional details about getting clipped by vehicles or the people in them, see Ramming and Slamming (p. 439). Drive-By Shooting and Passenger Concealment Characters firing from inside a moving vehicle suffer a penalty of between -1 (low speed) to -3 (high speed). This goes up, of course, if they’re moving through rough or obstructing terrain (rain, fog, ice, off-road, etc.). Characters inside a vehicle are typically protected by that vehicle’s Durability. Unless the shooter rolls four successes or more to hit her target, assume that the vehicle protects the passengers. A targeted shot through the window normally adds +3 to the shooter’s difficulty, although smaller windows (say, like on an armored car) may add +5 or more. Certain attacks, of course, can easily exceed that Durability rating; in that case, the passengers might take damage from the attack, minus the vehicle’s Durability rating. For typical firearms, just figure that the usual cinematic “car protects the passengers” rule applies; however, for heavy weapons – .50 caliber machine guns, rocket launchers, pulse cannons, etc. – a shot that rolls at least four successes to hit and penetrates the vehicle’s Durability has a good chance of hitting a passenger as well. That chance depends upon the size of the vehicle relative to the size and number of its passengers. It’s far easier, after all, to hit one of the two people in a tiny sports car than to hit a specific one of the 30 people in a bus. Shooting the Gas Tank Movies notwithstanding, it’s pretty hard to blow up a car by shooting at its gas tank. But because exploding cars make great coincidental Forces attacks, it’s worth noting that an attack on a vehicle’s gas tank demands at least three successes on the attack roll, and must inflict no fewer than six health levels’ worth of damage, before the fuel goes off. An exploding car detonates for roughly 12 dice of flaming aggravated damage. Larger vehicles (helicopters, boats, tanker trucks, etc.) can inflict far more. For details, see Explosions in the Environmental Hazards section. Optional Rule: Minimum Driving Skill Cars are easy to drive; 18-wheelers are not. As an optional rule, assume that driving a car requires at least one dot in Drive before you can do so competently, but driving vehicles in the Truck class demands at least three dots. Any character can certainly get behind the wheel of such a vehicle… but control it? Not likely. Cycles are notoriously difficult too. You may assume that a character needs at least one dot in Athletics in order to operate a bicycle, a Dexterity of at least three to operate a unicycle, and no fewer than three dots in Drive (or perhaps a specialty in Motorcycles) in order to avoid smearing himself across the pavement on a motorcycle. Again, a character can mount a cycle and maybe move slowly down the street on it under calm conditions. If she needs to exert control over that bike and its velocity, though, that’s another matter entirely…
460 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Vehicles Wheeled Street Vehicles Vehicle Safe Speed Max. Speed Maneuver Crew Durability Structure Weapons Cycles (Durability does not protect rider; see Minimum Driving Skill) Unicycle 1 x Strength 3 x Strength 5 1 1 3 N/A Mountain Bike 3 x Strength 8 x Strength 5 1 2 4 N/A Racing Bike 4 x Strength 10 x Strength 6 1 2 3 N/A Dirt Bike (Motorcycle) 50 80 9 1 4 4 N/A Light Motorcycle 75 130 8 1 2 3 N/A Touring Motorcycle 90 170 5 1 (1 pass.) 4 4 N/A Crotch Rocket 100 200 7 1 2 3 N/A Badass Hypercycle 120 250 7 1 5 5 #1 ATV 30 70 5 1 3 5 N/A Cars (Mass inflicts +1 die of damage) Jeep 60 80 6 1 (4 pass.) 4 6 #2 Compact Car 70 130 6 1 (1 pass.) 3 3 N/A Midsize Sedan 70 120 5 1 (3 pass.) 3 4 N/A Station Wagon 80 120 4 1 (5 pass.) 3 5 N/A Sports Car 130 200 9 1 (1 pass.) 3 4 N/A Street Racer 70 240 8 1 (1 pass.) 4 4 N/A Cop Car 80 200 7 1 (3 pass.) 5 5 N/A Police Interceptor 100 250 8 1 (3 pass.) 5 5 N/A Bond Q Division Supercar 100 250 10 1 (1 pass.) 6 5 #2 Trucks (mass inflicts + 3 dice in impact-based damage; + 3 protection to passengers) Limo 70 110 4 1 (5 pass.) 4 6 N/A Armored Limo 70 100 4 1 (5 pass.) 8 6 #2 Stretch Car 80 100 3 1 (5-7 pass.) 3 5 N/A Pickup Truck 70 110 5-7 1 (1-4 pass.) 3 6 N/A SUV/ Van 60 120 6 1 (3-7 pass.) 4 7 N/A Armored Supervan 50 100 5 1 (3 pass.) 10 10 N/A Off-Road Truck 60 90 5 1 (1-3 pass.) 4 7 N/A Hummer 80 120 5 1 (1-5 pass.) 5 8 #2 Armored Car 60 80 4 1 (1-5 pass.) 10 10 N/A RV 60 80 3 1 (1-5 pass.) 3 8 N/A Bus 60 100 3 1 (20+ pass.) 4 8 N/A Large Truck 60 110 4-5 1 (1 pass.) 4 6 N/A Heavy Truck 60 100 4 1 (5+ pass.) 6 8 N/A 18-Wheeler 70 110 4 1 (1 pass.) 5 8 N/A
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 461 Notes #1 = May mount any two of the following options: two .30 caliber machine guns (Difficulty 6, Damage 12, Rate 5, Range 800 yards, Capacity 100 shots); oil slick jet (Difficulty 4, -6 to pursuers’ Drive rolls, 4 shots); smoke screen jet (Difficulty 4, -4 to pursuers’ Perception and Drive rolls, 4 shots); six rockets (Difficulty 8, Damage 15, Rate 1, Range 3000 yards, Capacity 1 shot); one 30 mm cannon (Difficulty 7, Damage 15, Rate 8, Range 1200 yards, Capacity 50 shots). #2 = Civilian vehicles have no weapons. Military vehicles may mount one of the following options: two twin-mounted .30 caliber machine guns (above); one 30 mm cannon (above); one mounted .50 caliber machine gun (Difficulty 7, Damage 12, Rate 5, Range 1000 yards, Capacity 200 shots); one M-19 grenade launcher (Difficulty 6, Damage as grenade, Rate 1, Range 400 yards, Capacity 1 shot); one TOW rocket (Difficulty 6, Damage 16, Rate 1, Range 2500 yards, Capacity 1 shot). Weaponized vehicles may also carry concealed technomagickal Devices – see The Toybox, Chapter Ten. Military Vehicles Requires min. 3 dots in Drive + appropriate Specialty to operate at all; mass inflicts + 5 dice in impact-based damage. Passengers get full protection from Durability. Vehicle Safe Speed Max. Speed Maneuver Crew Durability Structure Weapons APC 30 60 4 2 (11 pass.) 12 15 ! Riot Tank 30 50 3 2 10 15 !! Light Tank 20 30 (on road) 2 4 18 (front)/ 15 sides 18 !!! Heavy Tank 30 50 (on road) 2 4 22 (front)/ 20 (sides) 25 !!!! Notes ! = As #2, preceding chart. !! = Two M-19 grenade launchers (to fire gas canisters), two .30 caliber machine guns, and one battering ram. Vehicle can be sealed against water and gas attacks. !!! = 105 mm cannon (Difficulty 7, Damage 20, Rate 1, Range 1200 yards, Capacity 1 shot), plus two .50 caliber machine guns (front and turret) and two grenade launchers. Can be sealed. !!!! = 120 mm cannon (Difficulty 7, Damage 30, Rate 1, Range 2000 yards, Capacity 1 shot), plus three .50 caliber machine guns (front and turret) and four grenade launchers. Can be sealed. Wheeled Street Vehicles (Continued)
462 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Aircraft Requires Pilot Skill to operate at all; military aircraft require at least 3 dots in Pilot + appropriate specialty. Passengers get full protection from Durability. For details about the Pilot Ability, see The Book of Secrets. Vehicle Safe Speed Max. Speed Maneuver Crew Durability Structure Weapons Hot Air Balloon Wind Wind 0 1 (3 pass.) 4 4 N/A Jetpacks (requires Jetpack Skill; Durability does not protect wearer; technomagickal vehicle.) Jetpack 100 250 10 1 4 4 N/A Ornithopter 120 200 10 1 4 2 N/A Helicopters (requires Pilot + Helicopter specialty. Except for gyrocopter, Durability protects passengers.) Gyrocopter 70 150 5 1 3 3 N/A News Copter 140 220 6 1 (1 pass.) 4 6 N/A Large Helicopter 150 250 6 2 (4 pass.) 5 6 N/A Attack Chopper 180 280 9 3 12 10 ! Military Utility Helicopter 180 280 7 3 (10 pass.) 8 10 !! Black Helicopter 200 400 10 2 13 13 !!! Small Planes (requires Pilot; military planes require Fighter Jet specialty. Durability protects passengers.) Small Prop 110 170 5 1 (3 pass.) 5 6 N/A Medium Prop 180 230 4 2 (10 pass.) 6 8 N/A Large Prop 300 400 3 2 (50 pass.) 6 10 N/A Lear Jet 350 450 4 2 (20 pass.) 8 15 N/A Fighter Jet Mach 2 Mach 2.5 7 1 8 15 !!!! Notes ! = 30 mm cannon, 16 TOW missiles, 16 rockets (all as previous). !! = Two .30 caliber machine guns; or two 30 mm cannons; or six rockets and two .30 caliber machine guns. !!! = Two .30 caliber machine guns, two 30 mm cannons, 12 rockets, and 16 TOW missiles. Also features stealth mode (Arcane 5 except vs. Technocrats) and requires Perception roll (difficulty 6) to hear. Requires Technocratic extraordinary citizen crew. !!!! = 20 mm cannon (Difficulty 7, Damage 15, Rate 3, Range 1000 yards, Capacity 100 shots); four Sidewinder missiles (Difficulty 8, Damage 15, Rate 2, Range many miles), six Sparrow A1M-7P missiles (Difficulty 8, Damage 20, Rate 2, Range 30 miles, and 14 250-lb. smart bombs (Difficulty 6, Damage 40).
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 463 Inventing, Modifying, and Improving Technology Who says that magick has to look like old bones and musty books? For many mages of the 21st century – of any century, for that matter – the gears and wires of apparently mundane technology can become vehicles for Enlightened miracles. Even without magick, a skillful mage can improve existing technology, invent new gadgets, or modify one thing into another. The various Spheres can assist such projects, of course, but the foundation of such tasks comes from innovation and skilled labor – sweat equity, not mystic shortcuts. And so, when your Etherite adventurer wants to soup up her Camaro, or your Hollow One tinkers with a sound system, the following rules reflect the things a smart mechanic can do to apparently mundane tech… with and without Sphere Effects. As shown on the Art and Science portions of the Dramatic Feats entry and its related charts, the design, creation, and jury-rigging process involves a number of rolls if you want to play it out in game terms. Naturally, a character needs tools, a work space, and the necessary materials before she can make or update something without vulgar magick. The world’s greatest mechanic still can’t turbocharge an old VW bug without serious investments of time, gear, and grease, both elbow and otherwise. Sure, he could knock three times on the engine block with a rusty screwdriver, but unless he’s just trying to make it go like it did before (“You’ve gotta know where to hit ‘em JUST RIGHT…”), his explanation’s not gonna fly and neither is the car. Repair and Modification Modern mages love to tinker. If your character repairs or modifies a vehicle or other mechanical contraption, assume that the task involves an extended roll with the appropriate Attribute + Ability. (Again, see Art and Science on the Dramatic Feats chart.) Suitable Traits include Computer, Crafts (with the appropriate specialty), Hypertech, Science (again, with a given specialty), and Technology. Each roll reflects an hour or two of work, with several sample tasks on the chart nearby to give you guidelines for the successes involved in each task. To determine difficulties and successes, check the Modification and Repair chart, which can be used for both vehicle work and other mechanical repairs. A well-stocked workshop can lower the difficulty by -1 to -3, but improvised repairs without proper tools increase it by +1 to +3. Given time and materials, a good mechanic can fix or modify almost anything. Use rolls and charts only when you’re racing against the clock, working with limited resources, or trying to do something that’s theoretically impossible. It’s easier to work with what you already have than to create something that hadn’t been there before. Modifying your old Saturn, for instance, involves less effort than building a whole new car from scratch. It’s also easier to improve on junk than it is to upgrade a high quality-machine; the better the original craftsmanship, the bigger the challenge you face. Story-wise, repairs and upgrades demand time, labor, parts, tools, and space, as noted above. Although it is possible for a Modification and Repair Job Difficulty # of Successes Diagnostics 6 5 Routine Maintenance 4 2 Simple Repair 4 3 Major Repair 7 10 Extensive Repair 7 20 Fitting New Part 6 10 Security Override #1 8 3 System Overhaul 7 15 Minor Modification 7 5 Major Modification 8 15 New Capabilities 8 20 Hotwiring #1 5 3 Strip-n-Chop #1 6 15 Electronic Malfunction 5 5 Technical Glitch 9 2 Jury-Rig +1 +2 Quick-n-Dirty +2 +3 On the Fly +3 +5 Notes: #1 = Can also involve Wits + Streetwise at +2 difficulty. Quality of Device Type of Device Difficulty Modifier Junk -2 Cheap/ Poorly Made -1 Average Commercial Quality +0 Expensive/ High Quality +2 Custom Made +3 Cutting-Edge Prototype +4 Invention Type of Invention Difficulty # of Successes Moderate improvement on an existing device 8 5 Significant improvement on existing device 9 10 Brand new device based on new or unconventional principles 10 20
464 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition skilled and powerful mage to gesture a few times and make parts fly together on their own, that sort of thing is spectacularly vulgar. Jury-Rigging For quick and dirty improvements – like a pair of machine guns grafted onto your Dodge pickup truck, or some special improvements to make that truck go faster – a successful juryrigging roll allows for short-term improvements. After a scene or two, however, those improvements start to break down, causing damage to the machine in question. (“But Captain – she canna handle the strain much longer…”) In order to keep those improvements permanently, the mechanic needs to make extensive modifications –very probably with a bit of Matter or other Spheres thrown in for good measure. The Modification and Repair chart shows three levels of jury-rigged modifications and repairs. Jury-Rig assumes a bit of time and materials, Quick-n-Dirty reflects a slapdash job with minimal time and resources, and On the Fly represents the sort of wing-and-a-prayer job you do when the Hordes of Hell are bearing down on you and all you’ve got to work with is the contents of your pockets and the junk scattered at your feet. All three options add to the difficulty of the repairs or modifications listed above, and all three require more successes than usual. Inventing Devices Innovation is the hallmark of brilliant technomancers everywhere. Although it’s not something that comes up often in the heat of battle, any self-respecting machine-mage has a project or three scattered across her workshop. For times when you want to introduce a new gadget or vehicle to the chronicle, put the following guidelines to good use. Before you can build some great new thing, you’ll need to hash out the principles, work through the bugs, and tinker with prototypes until you reach a semi-workable design. In story terms, this sort of thing can take months or years of brainstorming, research, and frustration. Game-wise, the Research and Design entries in the Arts and Sciences category of the Dramatic Feats chart reflect the brainstorming process. The Invention listing covers the process of putting the pieces together into something that works, and the Invention chart nearby features guidelines for the difficulties and successes involved in the process, as well as the successes necessary to complete each step of that process. It’s worth remembering that a functional invention must still be something that can exist within the Consensus and operate by currently understood scientific principles. A radical invention – like the computer chip in the 1970s – may be possible, but it will require extensive testing, refinement, and propaganda before it’ll be accepted as viable technology. That’s one of the reasons that Etherites, Technocrats, and Virtual Adepts publicize their favorite theories and inventions: popular acceptance makes those creations viable. (See the Chapter Six sidebar SCIENCE!!!) Inventions that defy the current laws of reality are capital-D Devices… that is, magickal items. For those sorts of inventions, see the Cybernetics, Hypertech, and Weird Science practices in Chapter Ten’s section Focus and the Arts, as well as The Toybox in Appendix II. Again, invention requires space, time, materials, and labor. An invention without some serious workshop time is simply an idea. Unconventional Enhancement Mages of all kinds (most especially technomancers) can use the Matter and Prime Spheres to enhance the structure and power of a given machine. Using whichever tools and procedures seem appropriate to his focus, the mage crafts high-density cloth, advanced polymers, cold-fusion batteries, or other innovations to upgrade the quality and functions of a machine he creates. In game terms, this simply translates to using Matter 2 or 3 to make advanced materials, Prime 2 to enhance a power supply, or other Spheres to add a bit of extra kick to the device in question. (Correspondence 1, for example, to a pair of binoculars, Forces to boost a Taser’s shock, that sort of thing.) The player makes an Arete roll for coincidental magick, and each success over the first one adds an invisible but helpful boost to the object’s properties. Using the Bustin’ Stuff rules (see pp. 439-440), the mage could add one point to the object’s Durability or Structure for each success. Perhaps he might add to a weapon’s damage dice pool (one extra die for every two successes), reflecting a super-sharp sword, for instance. He could also enhance the story-based quality of the item in question to make a car with paint that never scratches, a hat that never falls far from the mage’s hands, and so forth. Such enhancement does not make the item itself magickal – just better than it would be otherwise. For magickal items, again see Appendix II.
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 465 Part VI: The Digital Web Welcome to the front lines of the 21st century reality wars. Despite its origins in technological gadgetry and 20th century scientific principles, the Internet transcends the rigid rationalism of its foundations. It has, in many ways, failed the Utopian dreams of its initial explorers. And yet, the Digital Web has indeed opened the gates for Reality 2.0. That reality, however, seems more rooted in the Internet’s effects on the material world than in some rarified virtual reality beyond Earthly human concerns. The Internet of the early 21st century is a globespanning mass of contradictions. In certain regards, it’s a dehumanizing playground where restless people distract themselves from the real world with petty bickering, pointless games, and near-anonymous echo chambers where truths, lies, and everything in between blur into overwhelming scads of information. And yet, it also opens the doors and windows – for better and worse – into the magnificent human drama. People live, love, get furious, and find redemption online, in that space where physical reality has little bearing on what does and does not feel “real”. Although they’re still tools for industrial powers, the net and its ports of access – computers, cell phones, reliable Internet service, electricity, and so forth – are open to anyone who can get those tools to work. In the early ‘90s, net access was limited to computer nerds with expensive gear and impenetrable vocabularies; these days, the web is an essential part of life across the globe. Commerce depends upon it. Entertainment makes it hum. Social media – perhaps the greatest human innovation since the telephone – builds real-time bridges between people of all cultures, regions, and economic backgrounds. From Cambodian villagers to Berlin stockbrokers, everyone is more or less equal on the Internet. So what about the Digital Web, that voracious playground of Virtual Adept futurians and Iteration X posthumanists? Now that the Tron-meets-the-Wild-West vibe of its early incarnations has given way to the most democratic medium since the printing press, what has happened to the Internet’s metaphysical aspect – the living dimension shaped and accessed by pure information? Well, it’s grown a bit since then… Virtual Crossroads As described earlier in Chapter Four, the form and extent of the Internet in your Mage chronicle depends a lot on what you want to do with your setting as a whole. In a 1990s-style saga, the Digital Web retains its Great Race vibe, filled with grids and FREEKS and cyberpunk nostalgia. In a more contemporary game, however, the dilemmas shown in the sourcebook Digital Web 2.0 have grown in size and complexity. By the late ‘90s, the Web’s gatekeepers realized that their elite fantasies of anarchistic paradise or enlightened command had been blinked out by the chaos of the human world. In the aftermath of that particular wakeup call, they’d also confronted the herds of Sleepers who, for
466 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition better and worse, were beginning to claim the Web as their own… and they recognized, in the process, that their pristine ideals of light and code were being consumed by the humanity they’d thought they could leave behind. Beyond that comprehension, the smarter netizens now understand that the theories of Web consciousness were correct. The Internet is alive, is feeding off the life energies of its visitors, is growing exponentially and uplifting itself by the square root of human knowledge. What apparently began as a rip in time/ space ostensibly torn by Alan Turing is now revealing itself to be a godlike meta-being whose ultimate nature and agendas remain alien – yet achingly familiar, because they come from us. Those who understand and ponder such things now wonder what the Digital Web wants… what it craves… what it might desire in a few years that it hasn’t processed yet… and what it will do with us if and when humanity really has abdicated Meatspace for the world online. Meanwhile, the groups that once aspired to leave their flesh behind – the transhumanist visionaries of Virtual Adepts, Iteration X, and other cyber-topians – have largely shifted focus. The old plans of uploading one’s self into the Internet forever were crashed by the great Whiteout of 1997, when Doissetep’s implosion proved that the Digital Web was not immune to events outside its space. Moreover, the shifting focus of life on Earth in the Age of Terror (with or without an Avatar Storm and Reckoning) encourages people to look for solutions in Meatspace before our entire world blinks out for good. More and more often now, the Internet is regarded as a tool of revolution, not an escape hatch for the digitized elite. As author and social oracle Erik Davis points out in his book Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, the Internet is the dominion of crossroads trickster gods: Hermes, Legba, Coyote, Lucifer. It’s both the ivory tower of the empowered elite and the back door to that stronghold. A crossways between passion and technology, abstract faith and hard mathematics, the net provides a techno-temple for sacred profanations. It’s the marketplace of dreams and the outhouse of our collective imagination – raised with weapons, stocked with data, infused with righteous fury, and cemented with pornography. Today’s Virtual Adepts, then, favor the Trickster Hermes in his guise of the enlightened prankster thief. Functioning as his Mercurial Elite, they use the Internet – both its mundane form and its Digital Web aspect – as a six-dimensional chessboard for defeating tyranny and Enlightening humanity… not by projecting everyone on Earth online, but by using the power of information access to tear down established paradigms and open the doors to a techgnostic golden age in which information holds the keys to Ascension. (For more details about these concepts, see Gnosticism in Chapter One, (p. 39), and Techgnosis and Transhumanism in Chapter Four, (p. 105.) Digital Web Systems So what rules do you employ when this ever-expanding Web appears in your chronicle? In several regards, that depends upon your Storyteller. The intricate layers and rule systems contained in Digital Web 2.0 range far beyond the capacity of this chapter… and, in any case, they might be obsolete or altered significantly in a new-millennium Mage chronicle. Although there is, as of this writing, a sourcebook called Digital Web 3.0 in the works, the exact contents and rule systems of that book have yet to be codified. What, then, should a Storyteller do? With a few exceptions (most of which are outlined below), the 21st century Digital Web should be simpler to employ and closer, in most regards, to Earth than it was in the early days. After all, the real-life Internet is easier to use in 2015 than it was in 1994, so the cumbersome rules systems presented in the original Digital Web sourcebook are clearly obsolete. These days, adventures in the Web are more like adventures in material reality than they were back then. This era’s netizens are more native to that environment than the old school Web-spinners were, and the Web itself has – for better and worse – become more like our world than it used to be. As far as rules are concerned, we suggest treating the Digital Web as a Realm of the Middle Umbra, subject to Whiteout Paradox backlashes and accessed by several forms of astral and metaphysical projection, as outlined under Web Access, below. Keep things as simple as possible, and treat weird online life forms as spirit entities – several of which appear in Appendix I. If and when you want to get into the more complex and peculiar aspects of the Digital Web, check out Digital Web 2.0. Although those systems are based in the late ‘90s, many of the specific rules still apply. Web Access Beyond the obvious web-surfing techniques employed by normal people (see the Dramatic Feats chart earlier in this chapter), Awakened/ Enlightened people use the following methods to project themselves online: Sensory Visitation The quick and easy way to enter the Web involves simply strapping on the right gear and logging in. Any Sleeper can do this, although most mortals figure that what they’re seeing is cool graphics, not actual reality. In the old days, sensory visitation required bulky VR gear. Now all it demands is a pair of high-end net-access sunglasses, maybe with a pair of sleek VR gloves for tactile contact. Certain gaming platforms provide a limited interface for sensory visitation through screens, keyboards, and other related devices. Sure, this virtual reality looks like state-of-the-art graphics… and it is. Still, there’s more to that World of Woecraft game than most people think. Why else would it be so addictive? Story-wise, sensory visitation projects the traveler’s visual, audio, and – to a limited degree – tactile senses into the Web. Through the interface, her mind visits the Web even though her physical body remains at home. Although her contact with that online world holds certain limitations, she sends a part of her consciousness into that space. System-wise, sensory visitation requires only the proper equipment. Anyone can do it, although few people understand
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 467 just what it is they’re doing. A traveler uses several Mental Traits in place of Physical ones: Intelligence instead of Strength and Wits instead of Dexterity. Thanks to that uneasy separation of body and mind, all rolls for a visiting character receive a +1 difficulty penalty; that used to be +2 in the old days, but the interface has improved since then, and people are more attuned to computer simulations than they were in the ‘90s. Astral Immersion At the next level of Web access, a traveler immerses herself into the Web through a limited form of astral projection. As the narrator mentioned in Chapter Four, this trick involves projecting your senses – and by extension, your sense of reality – into the Web. Thanks to a combination of good gear, a ready mind, and the skill to go where the visitor wants to go in the way she wants to go there, the average netizen can reach the deeper level of digital reality without actually downloading herself into the Web. In game terms, astral immersion requires good VR equipment (by 2015, you could use a high-grade smart phone or tablet with correct programs and the right apps), an Intelligence + Computer roll (three successes, difficulty 7), and at least two dots in the Correspondence Sphere. If your group employs the Data Sphere option (detailed in the sidebar and in Chapter Ten, pp. 524-525), the roll for that difficulty is 6 instead of 7. Again, the character uses Intelligence and Wits in place of Strength and Dexterity, which gives an edge to agile-minded netizens. On both game and story levels, the astrally immersed character is vulnerable in Meatspace; her entire concentration remains focused on the Digital Web environment, leaving her body in a deep trance. Smart travelers leave alarms, guards, or allies, and other levels of security on their bodies; after all, if anything happens to the meat back home, that visit may become a one-way trip. On the positive end, they can drop out immediately if need be. Although the experience of going from one reality to another can be disorienting for a minute or so, the benefits of being able to ditch out on a bad situation kinda make up for the inconvenience of building a new icon when you return. Holistic Immersion Maximum access involves projecting one’s own self into the Digital Web. Downloading the body as information, a high-end Trinary computer system disassembles the traveler’s physical data and jacks it into a different level of reality. Although the necessary gear has been refined since the 1990s, this is still one hell of a stunt, requiring tremendous processing power and Enlightened technology. Story-wise, the traveler becomes pure information; this requires at least seconds of processing time with the appropriate gear. Although rumors speculate that portable HI Devices exist, few people are crazy enough to trust their molecules to a glorified iPad, so such Devices might or might not exist. Rules-wise, holistic immersion requires specially equipped Trinary computer Devices, an extended Intelligence + Computer roll (five successes, difficulty 7), and a Life 4/ Correspondence 2/ Forces 2 Effect. A character using the Data Sphere still faces difficulty 7, due to the physical nature of this metaphysical download process. Each roll reflects 30 seconds of processing time. Any interruption during the transfer process disrupts the attempt and inflicts an immediate Paradox backlash upon the user. (See Chapter Ten.) Downloading yourself into a computer is, of course, extremely vulgar in all locations on Earth, so that backlash can be very, very nasty. A holistically immersed character uses all of his usual Traits in all of the usual ways. For better and worse, he is in the Web. A traveler could also access the Web holistically by climbing into that Zone on the Pattern Web. See the Climbing From World to World entry in the Otherworlds section for details. Web Traits A traveler who enters the Web through either sensory visitation or astral immersion uses his Intelligence as Strength and his Wits as Dexterity. Stamina is still Stamina. Although his icon may take damage, his physical body rarely does. (See Digital Damage, below.) A holistically immersed character uses his normal Traits. Physically present, he enjoys and suffers all effects of his presence. Icons As with many computer and video games, netizens get to design their own small-a avatars to represent their virtual selves. Typically called icons (see Mind Matters, Icons, and Avatars, Chapter Four, p. 107), these synthetic reflections can take whatever form a traveler can devise. Certain areas, called Constraint Realms, might limit the types of icon a person may wear within that area. In general, though, the netizen can Optional Rule: The Data Sphere In the Revised sourcebook for the NWO, an optional rule allows certain characters to replace the Correspondence Sphere with a related Sphere: Data. Essentially, the character regards the usual Correspondence principles as aspects of information. Detailed in Chapter Ten, this option reflects the practice of compiling and correlating data to connect things to one another. If your group chooses to employ this option, a character using Data instead of the Correspondence Sphere reduces all Digital Web-based magick difficulties by -1. Essentially, his approach to data works exceptionally well in a Zone in which reality and principles are based upon mathematical information.
468 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition program an original design, download a predesigned one, or select a variety of virtual costumes to reflect her desired persona. In story terms, netizens place great importance on clever, appealing, and imaginative icons. It’s like dressing for an exclusive and very high-end Halloween party – the wrong icon marks you as someone unworthy of attention… or worse, worthy of the wrong kind of attention. Social interactions in the Web can slide up or down the difficulty scale based upon the icon you wear. It’s always a good idea to keep several options in mind. Crafting and Changing Icons Game-wise, a player rolls Intelligence + Computer, difficulty 5, to design an original icon. Wearing a pregenerated one requires no roll. Icons start with a base Appearance of 1 and an Intimidation of 0. Each success allows the player to add one dot of Appearance, Intimidation, or both to her character’s icon. Crafting a basic icon requires at least three successes, although taking one “off the rack” is more or less instantaneous if you don’t much care what it looks like. A really good icon might demand five to 10 successes, with each roll reflecting five minutes or turns of game time. Changing icons is quick and easy if your character has preloaded options that were created earlier. Such costume changes require one turn and no roll. Really radical or offthe-cuff transformations, however, demand a Manipulation + Computer roll, difficulty 5; each success allows you to shift one dot of Appearance, Intimidation, or both. (As the Virus Infection entry points out below, it’s also a good idea to outfit your icon with security software. See that entry for more details.) Aside from Appearance and Intimidation, icons do not change a character’s Traits or capabilities. Any additional abilities or accessories (fire breathing, wings, etc.) must be created with additional magicks. Fortunately, most forms of magick are coincidental within Webspace; for details, see Magick in the Web, below. Physics and Travel Within the Web, space is space and objects are objects. Specific features might seem odd by Earthly standards, but things that appear to be real in the Web are real in the Web. A netizen can lean on a wall, walk down a street, or break a virtual chair over another icon’s head. Especially given the elaborate physics engines involved in modern computer games and CGI, the digital world is as real to its inhabitants as our world is to us. (With a few sensory quirks, however – see the Flatlands entry in Chapter Four, pp. 104-105.)
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 469 Navigating between Web sectors involves conduits: streets, doors, passageways, hot links, etc. Certain Constraint Realms, however, might require you to “level up” before they’ll let you in, which – as in any computer game – involves meeting certain conditions to achieve entry. To get around in unknown parts of Netspace may require a successful roll of Perception + Computer or Intelligence + Etiquette (with a specialty in Web Culture), or Area Knowledge (with a specialty in Digital Web). Hot Links A popular innovation from the late ‘90s allows travelers to access different places via a hot link: a flashing sign or object that connects a traveler with another Web sector. In this case, the traveler simply touches the hot link and pops into the other location. Such links rarely lead back to the original location, however, although a savvy traveler can backspace with a Correspondence 3 Effect. Popping and Backspacing “He who controls Correspondence controls the Internet.” That’s not entirely true, but a mage with three dots or more in the Correspondence Sphere certainly has an edge over visitors who do not. In the case of popping and backspacing, the netizen can hop back and forth between sectors so long as she has some idea where she’s going and doesn’t encounter a Constraint that blocks her access to and from that area. Popping and backspacing usually employ a pop prog: a program that scans for a prospective location, logs that area, and focuses the Correspondence 3 Effect. Assuming that he’s going back to his previous location within a minute or two of arrival, the traveler doesn’t need a pop prog in order to backspace. A smart netizen takes a turn to scan for the new location with his pop prog, then pops on the following turn. Popping blind (that is, without scanning first) raises the usual difficulty by +2. If both locations are located in the same sector, the Effect remains coincidental; if the traveler pops between sectors, the Effect is vulgar. (Again, see Magick in the Web, below.) A failed pop lands the traveler in some interesting form of hot water: the wrong place, a bad time, in the middle of nasty business, and so forth. A botched roll drops the visitor into some truly awful place or kicks him off the Web with a soft de-rez, as described under Digital Damage, below. If the traveler wants to pop in or out of a Restricted sector (an area with tight Constraint protocols), then the difficulty rises to 8 or 9, the Effect is vulgar, and a failed or botched roll instantly inflicts icon death or a chaos dump upon the traveler. Even if the player’s roll succeeds, the character may get booted out anyway unless he’s appropriately prepared to suit that sector’s particular Constraints. Magick in the Web The full systems involved with Digital Web magick are too elaborate to detail here. Groups that want to explore the range of options can check out Digital Web 2.0, pps. 106-111. As rough guidelines, however, the Storyteller can assume that most forms of magick are coincidental, with the following exceptions: • Magick that comes from nowhere. Being technological in origin, the Web demands technological origins from the so-called magick cast within its dimension. Mages who cast spells by will alone are essentially performing vulgar magick without witnesses. (See Chapter Ten, p. 531-535), for details about the different kinds of circumstances.) • Spells cast inside a Restricted sector that come from outsiders to that area. Netizens set up Restricted sectors to keep other people out. If and when undesirable visitors show up, the spells or Procedures they employ are automatically vulgar with witnesses because the folks who established that area set the local physics to reject trespassers. A Restricted area established by cyber-shamans, for example, would dropkick a Black Suit’s obvious Procedures. By the same token, a shaman dropping by to raise some hell in a Technocratic SRVR is in for a nasty surprise… • Effects that violate a sector’s Constraint protocols. Along the same lines, C-sectors are configured with reality physics that accept certain things while rejecting others. A sector built around medieval fantasy, for example, would render guns or jetpacks vulgar with witnesses, no matter who’s trying to use them. • Any magick cast within the Corrupted web. The localized physics are fucked, and so is anyone who tries to mess with reality there. Any and all Effects in such areas are considered vulgar with witnesses, so just don’t even try. • Great Big Magicks™. Large-scale spells throw around a lot of energy. And like a data-hog program on a computer, a massive expenditure of energy risks slowing or freezing the localized reality. For all its size, the Digital Web Zone is still just a few decades old. Unlike the Earth, which Restriction Protocols In a Restricted sector, netizens must obey certain protocols or else get booted out of the sector. This effect is immediate – it’s essentially like grabbing a live power line without protective gear or magick. From a game perspective, the boot does not require an attack roll. Although a generous Storyteller might allow a Wits + Computer roll (difficulty 9) in order to avoid the boot, the ejection from a Restricted sector is a function of the physics in that sector. A person violating a Restriction protocol is acting counter to established natural laws, not the will of someone who needs to catch the offender in the act.
470 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has had eons to adjust its physics, the Web remains structurally unstable; radical power fluctuations disrupt its integrity, often leading to a Whiteout. • Forces or Prime Effects that score more than five successes. For the same reason, Effects that generate a lot of power risk triggering a Whiteout. In this case, the spell itself may be rolled as if it were coincidental; if the player scores five successes or more, however, then each success rolled inflicts one Paradox point on the caster. (Six successes, then, would inflict six points of Paradox.) This rule, however, does not apply in Warzone sectors, which have been configured to handle massive surges of energy. • Effects or gates that jump between sectors or that attempt to bridge the Web with other areas of the Otherworlds. With the exception of hot links – which have been specifically designed to pop folks back and forth between locations – an Effect that tries to open new passages from one sector to another, or from the Digital Web into some other Realm or Umbra, is considered vulgar with witnesses… the witness in question being the Web itself. • Effects that jump from Netspace to Meatspace… because it’s one thing to watch something morph onscreen, and another thing entirely to watch your computer turn into an asparagus. Whiteout: The Paradox Glitch Even a reality as flexible as the Digital Web has its limits… and when those limits get pushed by too much energy and information shifting around at once, the Web crashes. The resulting Whiteout can be as innocuous as a localized slowdown or as vast as the Great Crash that took the entire net offline in ’97. Anyone with a lick of sense fears a replay of that particular incident, so folks online tend to avoid throwing their weight around too freely. The Lag Story-wise, Whiteouts de-rez the offending netizen. Large ones crash parts of a sector, and really large ones trash the area and everyone in it. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can spot an impending Whiteout by the lag: a stuttering effect that slows and pixelates everyone in the surrounding area. Experienced netizens know to log out immediately when lag shows up. If a sector starts lagging, a Whiteout’s on the way. Rolling the Whiteout In game terms, a Whiteout functions like any other Paradox backlash. For details, see the Paradox entry in Chapter Ten. The scale of a Whiteout, and its effects on the characters involved, can be found on the nearby Web Systems chart. The associated effects and duration of the Whiteout depend upon the Paradox Pool of the person who provoked the backlash. The bigger his Pool, the longer the Whiteout. A netizen can invoke the Whiteout when he accumulates five Paradox points or more, especially if he accumulates them all at once. The Storyteller usually rolls the dice for a backlash – one die per point in the Paradox Pool, rolled against a difficulty of 6. If the characters have been throwing around a lot of Forces or Prime magick, the difficulty may be 4 instead of 6. Fortunately, that option doesn’t apply to Warzone sectors, which are set up to handle lots of force. Thankfully, Paradox doesn’t carry over between Earth and the Web unless the offending mage has climbed up into the Web from some other area of the Umbra. Going offline dumps a mage’s net-based Paradox; he can return a minute or so afterward with no ill effects. Getting Outta Dodge A large-scale Whiteout – that is, one involving more than 10 points of Paradox – signals its approach with lag. Every character nearby, except the one who provoked the backlash, gets one action in which to ditch out and avoid the blast. In game terms, this involves a roll of Wits + Computer, difficulty 8. Success means that a character was able to drop offline in time to escape the Whiteout. Failure means that character gets hit with half damage as well, and a botch means the character takes full damage. If a bystander plans to stay online and ride out the backlash, then she takes half damage from the Whiteout. The person who triggered it, however, has no such options. He’s stuck. It’s worth mentioning that folks who court Whiteout aren’t terribly popular online. Digital Damage Despite the transhumanist ideal of leaving one’s imperfect body behind, most netizens visit the Digital Web through projected minds, not physical forms. So what happens when they get hurt or die online? That depends… Bashing, Lethal, and Aggravated Damage In the Digital Web, combat follows the usual rules. Characters still use their Stamina to soak damage. Although the settings may be bizarre – adding to or reducing dice pools and difficulties – the physics play out in the usual way. The primary difference between them comes through in the damage suffered through such attacks. For sensory or astrally immersed netizens, most injuries involve bashing damage. System shock (headaches, nervous twitches, fatigue, etc.) may affect the end user back home, but with a few exceptions, those injuries clear up quickly. Netizens refer to such injuries as egg-frying: your “egg” (head) gets a bit fried when you tangle with folks online. Holistically immersed people, on the other hand, suffer damage as if Netspace were normal space. A punch inflicts bashing damage, and a gun deals out lethal damage. Because there’s no icon to take the punishment, an HI visitor suffers the consequences. That’s the primary reason folks still prefer astral visitation over full-on immersion.
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 471 Aggravated damage is, fortunately, rare. The only attacks that inflict such damage involve viruses, chaos dumps, Whiteouts, and feedback programs. Among netizens, agg damage manifests as burns, internal bleeding, brain hemorrhages, and the occasional exploding head. Really badly injured netizens tend to die offline, their icons sizzled and their bodies suffering aftershocks that leave their meat cooked or rotting in front of their computer gear. Net Fatigue Strenuous activity online leads to fatigue offline. Most netizens know all too well the headaches, backaches, joint pain, nightmares, fading vitality, and chronic obesity that plague people who spend most of their lives in front of computers. Game-wise, such effects are simply left to narration and roleplaying. Although a player might have to make a Willpower roll after some especially traumatic or exhausting experience (failure results in a nasty case of fatigue, neurosis, or Quiet), net fatigue is just part of life on the Digital Web. It’s been said that the Web feeds on its human occupants, and net fatigue may be the end result. Virus Infection VR VD affects netizens the way herpes infects swingers: frequently, pervasively, and with annoying and sometimes serious results. One of the more infuriating forms of online virus involves the adware infection that causes netizens to suddenly talk like commercials at unexpected times. (Make a Willpower roll to resist the effects.) Although security software for an icon allows a netizen a soak roll against virus attacks, most netizens get infected at least once. On a more ominous note, hackers, crackers, and security programs often pass off deadlier forms of virus. Such attacks can follow a traveler back into Meatspace, eroding his physical and mental abilities like a physical illness or poison. The Environmental Hazards section, earlier in this chapter, details the effects of various toxins. The Storyteller determines how nasty a particular virus will be. Soft De-Rez The most common fate for errant travelers, a soft derez instantly pops the traveler into some other part of the Web… typically a dump site or respawning ground. There, the icon and its user wind up stunned for several minutes, then get up and start over again. In game terms, a soft de-rez is typically an automatic effect triggered when someone goes where she’s not supposed to be or dies in a sector that’s been dedicated to computer games so that death is not as dangerous as the more serious forms of icon destruction detailed below. The dump automatically inflicts one to three levels of bashing damage (no soak roll), depending on the severity of the attack. For holistically immersed travelers, a soft de-rez inflicts between one to four levels of bashing damage but allows for a soak roll. The de-rezed character also suffers a penalty of +2 to all of her difficulties for an hour or two, thanks to the system shock of having her mind and body booted to another part
472 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Web Systems Access Sensory: VR gear; +1 to all difficulties; Intelligence = Strength, Wits = Dexterity; no physical presence in Web. No magick necessary. Astral: VR gear; Correspondence 2; Intelligence + Computer, difficulty 7, three successes minimum; Intelligence = Strength, Wits = Dexterity; astral presence in Web. Coincidental magick. Holistic: Trinary computer; Life 4/ Correspondence 2/ Forces 2; Intelligence + Computer, difficulty 7, five successes minimum; normal Traits, full physical presence in Web. Vulgar magick. Icons Basic Creation: Intelligence + Computer, difficulty 5. Three successes minimum. Changing Icons: Manipulation + Computer, difficulty 5. Appearance or Intimidation: One dot added per success. Whiteout Severity Successes Effect One The mage responsible for the crash suffers a soft de-rez. Two The responsible mage suffers a hard de-rez. Three That mage and all icons with 20’ of him get booted to another sector (soft de-rez). Four Every icon within 50’ suffers a hard de-rez. Five Every icon in the sector gets a soft de-rez; the responsible party suffers a hard de-rez. Six All icons within the sector endure a hard de-rez. The sector itself fuzzes and goes offline, as per Duration, below. The offender gets booted to a lost sector (Corrupted Web, Hung Sector, etc.). Seven+ The entire sector crashes, goes offline for the duration, and suffers long-term damage. All icons within the sector get de-rezed hard; offender may be chaos dumped. 10+ Sector trashed forever. Everyone inside that sector suffers hard de-rez. Offender disappears. Paradox Pool Duration 1-3 Less than a minute. 4-6 One to five minutes. 7-10 One to six hours. 11-13 One day. 14-16 One week. 17-20 A month or more. 20+ Trashed forever of Netspace. If she happens to be in a Restricted sector when she gets de-rezed, then the character also loses one dot from a Mental Attribute for the same length of time, to reflect the mental fogginess that comes from getting slammed around the Web. Hard De-Rez Heavier attacks throw the visitor right offline. The icon gets blasted out of existence, and the user winds up back in his chair, head throbbing and senses boiled. Story-wise, a hard de-rez strikes someone who violates a major protocol in a Restricted sector, crosses the wrong netizen, provokes a minor Whiteout backlash, or sustains enough damage to take him to Incapacitated while online. The effect boots him out of Netspace and leaves his physical body and consciousness scrambled and hurt. In game terms, a hard de-rez inflicts two automatic health levels in lethal damage. A sensory or astral netizen gets a soak roll against this damage (difficulty 7, not the usual 6) because
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 473 of the distance between his icon and his physical form. A holistically immersed visitor does not get that roll, however, as his body takes the full effects of the dump. In either case, the player must also make a Stamina roll, difficulty 7, or else lose two points from a Mental Attribute. These lost points heal like health levels lost to lethal damage and reflect the egg-frying intensity of a hard de-rez. Icon Death The fate of netizens who get cacked in sectors that haven’t been designed to protect them from the consequences of mortality, icon death fries the icon and boots the traveler back into Meatspace. Story-wise, the icon explodes in a shower of screaming pyrotechnics or CGI gore while the person on the other end wakes up back in material reality, probably suffering minor burns and a major headache… and possibly suffering a lot worse than that. (For the record, a holistically immersed traveler who gets killed in Netspace dies. That’s that.) From a rules perspective, icon death strikes a character whose icon falls below Incapacitated or who’s caught in a major Whiteout backlash. The Storyteller calls for a Stamina roll, difficulty 7. If the player succeeds, the traveler gets knocked unconscious by the shock; waking up several minutes later, she’ll be hallucinating her way through a crushing headache. Any injuries the icon took in Netspace manifest in Meatspace as bashing damage, although each success on the Stamina roll reduces that damage by one health level. The player can heal the remaining damage by spending one Willpower point per health level lost. Even then, however, the character remains haunted and scrambled for some time afterward; in game terms, she suffers a penalty of +3 to all difficulties for a day or two after the dump. If that roll fails, the consequences become more severe. In this case, the damage is lethal and the character falls into a coma. A botched roll inflicts aggravated damage, frying the character in her chair; if by some miracle she survives, she’s still in a coma and will suffer permanent impairment if she ever wakes up again. A character who dies in a Restricted sector endures a profound mental breakdown. Even if the roll succeeds, that character loses two dots from each Mental Attribute, which heal back as if they were health levels of aggravated damage. If the Stamina roll fails, then that character undergoes… The Chaos Dump The dread of every netizen alive, a chaos dump blasts both the icon and its user’s consciousness into fractals. The meat and the mind remain connected through the process, which results in an awful kind of Internet oblivion. An Arete roll (difficulty 8) sends the traveler’s consciousness into an immediate Quiet, from which he may eventually escape. Success inflicts aggravated damage on the body as above. Failure or a botch on this roll cooks the mage from the inside out… the awful fate of many netizens on the day of the Great Whiteout. From that fate, no resurrection is possible. Fortunately, chaos dumps are rare – typically the result of a huge Paradox backlash in the web. Among netizens, deliberately inflicting a chaos dump on someone is like using nerve gas on a crowded subway – the unforgivable act of someone too far gone for salvation. This is not to say, of course, that people don’t do such things; those who do, however, are hated and hunted by almost everyone. The Digital Web and the Avatar Storm To the great relief of its netizens, the Digital Web appears to be immune from the effects of the Avatar Storm. Whereas other Otherworldly Realms have been scattered, cut off, or otherwise rendered unreachable by that Dimensional Anomaly, Netspace remains a haven for would-be world-builders and posthuman pioneers. And if the Storm never happened? In that case, the Digital Web mirrors both the IT revolution and the Otherworldly aspirations of people who have neither the Arts nor the inclinations to take the more *ahem* Traditional path to the Worlds Beyond. Unlike the weird Three Worlds and the uncertain Horizon Realms, the Web reflects the dynamic fusion of imagination and technology – a living embodiment of new-millennial Ascension.
474 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Part VII: The Otherworlds Beyond this world, an adventurous mage can find infinite numbers more. Although these Otherworlds are rarely easy to find or explore – especially in the age of the Avatar Storm, which might or might not still make passage hazardous – a courageous traveler can unlock heavens, hells, dream worlds, and that ever-growing Digital Web. Chapter Four goes into extensive details about these many layers, Realms, Zones, and so forth. Whether or not your Mage chronicle reaches into these Otherworlds depends upon the focus of the chronicle and the plans of your Storyteller. Although the earlier editions of Mage dealt extensively with Horizon Realms and off-planet excursions, the later books concentrated more on adventures in the material world. Either option works, and both of them feature a wide range of possibilities. As detailed throughout Chapter Four, the various Otherworldly Realms have different paths of access. A mage can turn into spirit-stuff, project her consciousness into the Astral Reaches, experience a “little death” and pass into the Shadowlands, or step through a portal and into a distant Realm while sidestepping the distance (and possibly the Avatar Storm) entirely. With or without an “avatar storm,” the Otherworlds remain forbidding, unpredictable territory. Even their most familiar aspect – the Penumbra that reflects the spiritual nature of the human world – is changeable and strange, filled with eerie sights and vivid sensations. From a Storyteller’s perspective, each excursion past the Gauntlet should be different – an invitation to the weirdest corners of your imagination. For all the rule systems presented below, the most vital rule regarding the Otherworlds is that there are no hard-and-fast rules about the Otherworlds. These guidelines merely lay a foundation for your own interpretation of What Lies Beyond. Means of Access Entering the Otherworlds involves stepping outside of everyday reality… or whatever passes for everyday reality to a mage… and literally entering a new state of being. With a few exceptions, a physical being does not enter the Umbra without undergoing some sort of transformation – projecting an astral self into the High Umbra, becoming spirit stuff for the Middle Umbra, and dying in order to become a sort of ghost for the Low Umbra. A physical person might step through a portal and enter a Horizon Realm, but to walk through the three Umbrae, a mortal has to become something beyond mortality. Theoretically, a person retains her material form when she walks into the spirit world through a Shallowing. Thing is, as certain mages claim, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle may be at work in such situations: is that person still material because she thinks of herself as material, or is she transformed into spirit matter, simply believing she’s still material while the rest of Creation views her as a spirit? Snarky folks refer to this as the Schröndinger’s mage theory: a mental puzzle with no practical utility beyond its ability to provoke arguments. For all game-system purposes, the traveler remains material, though she can think of herself as whatever she wants to be. Peeling the Onion Unless it involves a direct portal into a Realm, every journey through the Otherworlds works like peeling an onion from the inside out. The traveler begins at the core (the material world), perceives the bigger picture (the Periphery), steps through first layer (the Gauntlet) and into the next layer (the Penumbra). From there, she travels outward, following omens and instincts into other layers (Realms), the skin of the onion (the Horizon), and freedom beyond that. If she ever makes it beyond the first Horizon, there’s said to be another one waiting out there in the stars. The question as to whether that second true Horizon is the true skin of the onion or the skin of whoever’s peeling that onion is a puzzle best left to philosophers. The Periphery As depicted in Chapter Four, the Periphery is less a place than a perception. The visitor perceives the deeper levels of existence through the Vidare – the perspective – that he expects to see. In game terms, this heightened perception involves either the Awareness Talent (described in Chapter Six), or the first dot in any Sphere (described in the Sphere entries of Chapter Ten). Essentially, these abilities reveal the shadows of the Otherworlds, although those perceptions don’t actually involve travel as such into those realms. After the Storm? In the Reckoning metaplot, the Avatar Storm shook things up beyond the Gauntlet. Realms were displaced, transformed, and destroyed; paths between the worlds got switched, scrambled, and obliterated. Even the most familiar travelers found themselves lost in the Otherworlds. Although the decade and a half since those events might have settled things back to their old configurations (as detailed in Beyond the Barriers: The Book of Worlds), it might instead have established an entirely new order… or, more fittingly, a general lack of predictable order (as depicted in The Infinite Tapestry). If the Storm never happened, things may be very much as they had been back in the old days; then again, the Otherworlds are ephemeral, mysterious, and unbound by conventional excuses for human logic. Even without an Avatar Storm, the various Realms and pathways can change between visits… even change during visits. May the traveler beware!
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 475 The Gauntlet Unless your characters step through a portal, discover a Shallowing, or are among the very few people who know how to find and employ the Paths of the Wyck, they’ll need to pass through the Gauntlet – that metaphysical barrier that separates the physical and spiritual worlds. True, a perceptive person can sense the Periphery without stepping through the Gauntlet, getting feelings or catching glimpses of the Worlds Beyond. To actually enter those Worlds, however, your characters must penetrate the Gauntlet. And in our modern era, that ain’t easy. Rules-wise, you need to roll a certain number of successes in order to penetrate the Gauntlet by any method. Unless your mage’s Arete is outrageously high, that also requires an extended roll. Time-wise, that roll reflects a certain period of time in which the character focuses on getting through the Gauntlet – anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or more per roll. (Storyteller’s option, based upon circumstances.) Botching at any point while making those rolls has awful consequences; the mage gets stuck helplessly in between worlds, and needs another party with Gauntlet-crossing skills to push or pull him through to the other side. If the Avatar Storm’s still in effect, then getting stuck can be excruciating and possibly fatal… (See the nearby sidebar, Optional Rules: The Avatar Storm.) Playing Out the Crossing The game systems for crossing over and moving around can be found on the Traveling the Otherworlds charts, (p. 484). In story terms, this short journey involves some sort of ritual or process: focusing on a mirror, drumming and chanting, activating a trans-dimensional flux-capacitor, or whatever else suits the mage’s practice and beliefs. While the character concentrates on passing through, the player rolls dice against the listed difficulty until the character phases through and winds up on the other side. Whether or not the character has to face the dreaded Avatar Storm is up to your Storyteller. Even without the Storm, however, the process can feel quite disconcerting. The way a given character perceives his passage through the Gauntlet probably depends a bit upon the character and a lot upon the location and circumstances. An Akashic Brother meditating in a harmonious grove might feel a misty fog slide over him and then subside, leaving him in the Otherworlds. A dimension-hopping scientist could hear the turbines on her trans-dimensional flux-capacitor roar as a blinding light rises, fills the room, and explodes into a brilliant flash, shattering the dimensional wall. A High Ritual Magus could hear the music of the spheres as he cuts complex designs in the air with his thrice-consecrated blade; meanwhile, a desperate warrior in the combat zone cuts runes into the dirt, bathes them in her own blood, and prays to Odin or Sif as the distant blare of horns alerts her to the crumbling of that barrier between worlds. Both the player and the Storyteller should have fun describing the crossing of that Gauntlet. And given the odd nature of the Otherworlds, it might never happen the same way twice. Whatever the method and location involved might be, a Gauntlet passage should reflect the ease or challenge of getting across. Penetrating the thick Gauntlet of a high-tech lab should feel different than sliding through the thin Gauntlet of a windswept mountain peak. From a Storyteller perspective, make that crossing as dramatic as possible… eerie, calming, terrifying, even sensual, depending on who’s traveling where, how they’re doing it, and under what sorts of circumstances they’re traveling. Crossing the Gauntlet, ideally, should be more than just a series of dice rolls until you hit the target numbers. Even for people who spend lots of time in the Otherworlds, crossing between realities ought to be a memorable experience. Stepping Sideways The simplest way to travel to the Otherworlds, other than a portal, has traditionally involved stepping sideways. Whether or not that’s still simple depends upon whether or not the Avatar Storm occurred. As we’ve seen elsewhere in this book, that Revised-era cataclysm is optional in your chronicle. Perhaps it happened in 1999 and is still going full force today. Maybe it happened but has since subsided, either to a lesser storm (see the sidebar) or to the relative calm of an earlier era. Your Storyteller could decide that it never happened at all and simply assume that stepping sideways is still as easy as it was in the mid-‘90s. As any Umbral traveler can tell you, though, that trip was rarely as easy as it might appear… Becoming Ephemera To start with, a mage who steps sideways must use a Spirit 3 Effect to step sideways, employ Spirit 4 to open a gateway in the Gauntlet, or travel with someone else who opens that gateway for him. Certain powerful spirits can bring a mortal over to their side as well. Whichever way, the traveler becomes ephemera: the material of the spirit worlds. He might feel like flesh and blood, but he has become like the spirits around him. In game terms, there’s no change between matter and ephemera. The character still uses all of his Traits the same way on both sides of the Gauntlet. Once he’s in the spirit world, however, that traveler cannot affect the physical world without using Spirit Sphere magick to reach the other side. He may, however, see and address spirits as if they were flesh and bone – something he can’t do when he’s in the material world. Even so, he needs at least two dots in the Spirit Sphere before he can actually touch them, and Life and Matter magick have no effect on spirits at all. (For details, see Part VIII: Umbral Spirit Entities.) When the traveler crosses back to the mortal world again, the process works in reverse; he becomes material flesh again. On both sides of that crossing, the experience can feel pretty weird – after all, the traveler’s exchanging one kind of form for another. (See Disconnection, below.) Possessions Traditionally, a person can step sideways carrying whatever they happen to be wearing at the time. Also traditionally, certain things just won’t make that passage, or they malfunction if they arrive at all. High-tech materials and gadgets, sophisticated non-mechanical machines (like computers and so on), and
476 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition instruments that depend upon complex material physics to work (like guns or explosives) tend to be iffy, especially in the Middle Umbra’s Spirit Wilds, where the principles of capital-N Nature take precedence over the vanities of men. Wonders, however, work just fine. Any item with an effective Arete (see The Toybox in Appendix II) functions in the Umbra, although high-tech Devices might fail in certain specific areas of the Otherworlds that emphasize the essence of primal nature. Thus, a Technocrat’s Alanson Hardsuit might function in places where an Uzi jams, but it could still fail – or entirely bar the Technocrat from entry – in places like the Hollow Earth. Benefits and Limits Stepping sideways involves getting your feet dirty, so to speak. Unlike the cleaner disembodied astral traveler, a mage who steps bodily through the Gauntlet becomes a part of the Otherworlds when he enters. As a result, he can visit the MiddleUmbra Spirit Wilds, where some sort of physical presence is essential… a feat astral travelers cannot match unless they spin a body out of Quintessence (see below). Sadly, stepping sideways is vulgar magick; the person fades away into nothingness, and that’s clearly not a natural thing! Beyond the effects noted above, a character who steps sideways is essentially himself. He cannot fly unless he uses magick to do so, walks to get wherever he’s going, and can use whichever items he holds in his possession, assuming they still work where he goes. A traveler who employs astral travel, on the other hand, has some very different capabilities, both pro and con… Astral Travel For astral travel, a person enters a deep trance, meditates her consciousness outside of her body, and projects that astral self toward her destination. Normally, this requires Mind 4 or 5, although certain Night-Folk and talented Sleepers can do it too. As the physical body remains behind in a trance, the astral body flies off, attached to that body by the umbilicus argentus, or silver cord, that unites both body and consciousness. An astral character can travel into the Periphery, journey through the High Umbra, or skim along through the material world if she chooses not to go into the Umbra at all. Because she’s consciousness, not a physical body, the astral voyager can fly as well as walk. In either case, she cannot affect, or be affected, by physical beings – only by spirits or other astral entities (mummies, ghosts, astral travelers, etc.). For the cost of a Willpower point, she can manifest in the material world for one turn as a hazy vision of her idealized self. Even then, however, she can’t interact with the material world except by using magick. It’s worth mentioning that technomancers, even Technocrats, can still employ astral travel. To them, it’s not mystical – it’s a science, a technology of the mind in which one’s consciousness steps beyond this dimension and enters another one. Although such feats are beyond the reach of accepted Sleeper science (for now, at least), Enlightened scientists
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 477 understand that the mind transcends the body. Though the concept of a soul might seem absurd, the techniques of astral travel are perfectly acceptable to technicians of the mind. Astral Traits In game terms, a character who’s traveling astrally uses her Mental and Social Traits as her Physical ones. Manipulation becomes Strength, Wits becomes Dexterity, and Intelligence becomes Stamina. Willpower takes the place of health levels, and so when an astral character suffers damage, she loses Willpower points instead of health. Intelligence can soak bashing and lethal damage but not aggravated damage, which attacks the mage on an essential level. If an astral character loses all of her Willpower, her silver cord snaps and she winds up disconnected from her physical body. Unless she can catch the cord and ride it back home soon, she’ll be lost. (See Going Adrift, below.) Possessions Normally, an astral traveler cannot bring material possessions along with her. The default astral form is naked, although the traveler can will imaginary clothing around herself by spending a Willpower point to do so. (That’s not often a good idea, however; in astral travel, you’ll want all the Willpower you can get!) Certain objects can follow the astral form if they have been metaphysically bound to the mage by a ritual and a Prime 2 Effect. In that case, the player spends a Willpower point and then rolls her Arete, striving to get at least five successes. A successfully bonded object can travel into the astral realms as well, although if it depends upon complex physics to function (like a gun or computer), it probably won’t work. Theoretically, it’s impossible to do this with objects that have more mass than the mage herself. The existence of certain astral devices, however – like ghost trains and phantom cars – makes that theory rather debatable. At the Storyteller’s option, certain high-level Wonders – those with an effective Arete of 5 or higher – may have their own form of astral substance. In that case, a traveling mage might be able to take the Wonder with her. An allied spirit or familiar can accompany the astral traveler too, if the character has the appropriate Background Trait. (See Chapter Six.) Otherwise, an astral traveler is on her own. The Astral Sojourn’s Body of Light Simple astral travel – the type you get from using Mind 4 alone – cannot push outside the High Umbra, Periphery, or material world. To go further, the traveler must employ the advanced Astral Sojourn ritual (Mind 4 or 5/ Spirit 3/ Prime 2). This high-level act of magick allows a traveler to project her astral form into any layer of the “living” Otherworlds. Entering a deep and helpless trance, the mage weaves a metaphysical body of light for herself out of Prime energy, duplicating her Earthly body out of ephemera and Quintessential force. Once that body is completed, the traveler can use it to step sideways, carrying the traveler’s consciousness with it. In this case, the astral body has its usual Physical, Social, and Mental Attributes, as well as its usual health levels. If that body should lose all of its health levels, however, the body disintegrates and the consciousness finds herself adrift in the Umbra… not an especially pleasant fate. The Silver Cord The mystic umbilicus argentus that connects an astral traveler to her physical form is as strong as that traveler’s Enlightened Will. To snap it, an attacker has to break the traveler’s Will, either by reducing her to zero Willpower or by proving himself superior through raw metaphysical force. Snapping a silver cord is difficult. In game terms, it requires Mind 5 and a direct psychic attack aimed at disconnecting body and mind. In a resisted roll, the attacker tries to roll more successes than the target, with the target’s Willpower as the difficulty of both rolls. Obviously, a strong-willed person can break that connection more easily on a weaker-willed opponent than he could with an opponent whose Willpower is equal to, or greater than, his own. A traveler whose astral cord gets snapped still has an astral form. By spending a Willpower point, she can grab onto that fleeting silver cord and ride it back to her physical body. Otherwise, she winds up disconnected… and adrift. Going Adrift, Astral Beacons, and Spirit Allies An astral traveler who dies has a short time to find her way back to her body before the consciousness drifts and the body decays. In game terms, she has up to one week for each point in her permanent Willpower; after that, her consciousness dissipates into the High Umbra and is essentially gone forever. To find her way back to her body, the player for that drifting mage must make a successful Wits + Occult roll, difficulty 9. Each roll reflects six hours of time spent searching. Various obstacles – Umbrood jailers, astral storms, and so forth – can interfere with this search, although because the consciousness has no body left to attack, she’s essentially drifting around the Otherworlds. To attract the attention of a drifting traveler, an ally back in the material world can set up an Astral Beacon spell in order to draw her back toward her body. Game-wise, this requires a Mind 2/ Prime 2 Effect. The Beacon lasts one day per success, and it gives the lost traveler the ability to roll Perception + Occult (or Wits + Meditation, Perception + Meditation, or Wits + Occult, whichever is best) to find her way home. That roll’s difficulty is 9, minus the successes rolled by the ally; an ally’s roll of four successes, for instance, would give the traveler’s roll a difficulty of 5. If the traveler has the Totem or Familiar Background, then that entity can try to lead her home. In this case, the traveler rolls Perception + the appropriate Background Trait, with a difficulty of 9 minus the Background’s rating (Totem 3, for instance, would make the difficulty 6). In all cases, the journey of a lost astral soul back to her physical body should involve vivid narration and roleplaying that deal with the cosmic side of Mage and an Awakened person’s identity. (See Seekings, Chapter Seven.) A drifting soul with sufficient magick can try to possess a different body. In this case, the traveler needs to use a Mind 4 Effect and overcome the target’s Willpower. (See the Mind Sphere
478 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition description in Chapter Ten.) If that body lives on the other side of the Gauntlet from the drifting traveler, then she’ll need to be able to see him (Spirit 2) before she’ll be able to possess his form. The Meat Unless she uses Correspondence 2 to retain connection to the meat back home, an astrally projected traveler cannot sense the body she has left behind. Hopefully, she’s stashed it in a safe, secure location, protected by allies, wards, locked doors, and so forth. While the traveler’s away, the physical body remains vulnerable to pretty much everything. It continues to live in a biological sense but is effectively brain dead. If the astral consciousness gets lost, the body remains in a coma… and, unless there’s someone around to take care of it, eventually dies of thirst. (For rules, see Starvation and Thirst in the Environmental Hazards section, pp. 435-436). Benefits and Limits In many respects, astral travel remains an ideal method of exploration. Immune to the Avatar Storm, that astral self can fly from the physical world to the Penumbra, the Vulgate, and the High Astral Realms. A sufficiently skilled traveler (Mind 5) can even leap beyond the Horizon and venture into the Deep Umbra. Astral travel provides the natural way of entering the Maya and the primary method of entering the Digital Web. Unlike stepping sideways, astral travel is usually coincidental, too. Unless the traveler crafts a body of light, the only thing a witness would see is the traveler meditating in a deep trance. Still, such journeys have inherent hazards and limitations. The hazards have been outlined above. As far as limits go, an astral traveler cannot explore the Middle Umbra beyond the Penumbra layer unless she employs the Astral Sojourn method and creates a body for herself from Quintessence. She can’t go into the Low Umbra at all unless she has, in a sense, died. And although she may pass through a portal and enter a Horizon Realm in astral form, she’s confined to the usual limits she would have in the material world. On a meta level, astral travel breaks the connection of that person as a united self. The mind and body clearly become separate entities during astral flight, and that fact can mess with the traveler’s head when she comes back to herself in the material world. In some regards, this cultivates the ideal of unattachment that certain mages and philosophers prize; on the other hand, it can leave a person feeling disassociated and remote. Having disconnected her body and her mind (possibly her soul as well) from one another, that traveler may face existential questions that have no easy answers, in this world or any other. The Agama Sojourn And then there’s the place you have to be literally dying to get into. As mentioned elsewhere, a traveler to the Low Umbra must be dying or dead in some fashion in order to enter the Shadowlands. Even then, depending on the metaphysical situation, there might not be much to see there at all. Although it’s likely that the Shadowlands have been rebuilt over the last 13 years even if there had been a titanic Maelstrom, living mages might still be forbidden from entering the Dead Realms these days. Given the business with that spirit-nuke, it would certainly make sense to have the living barred. Living Death A mage employing the Agama Sojourn ritual (assuming it still works) must pass through the Gauntlet using a combination of Entropy 4/ Spirit 3/ Life 2 for her own passage – the Agama Re rite – or Entropy 4/ Spirit 4/ Life 3 in order to send someone else through and keep them tethered to the living world enough to return – the Agama Te rite. Considering that the Sojourn is a time-honored method of initiating Chakravanti mages (and, under other names, initiates from several shamanic cultural traditions as well), we recommend that Storytellers still allow the short, sacred initiatory experience to exist even if longer trips are no longer possible. An Agama Sojourn essentially divides the mage’s soul between the worlds of the living and the dead, keeping her body just alive enough for a return trip to material reality. Although there’s no silver cord connecting the two aspects of the traveler’s being (as there is in astral travel), the journeying character simultaneously becomes ghostly ephemera in the Shadowlands and a clinically dead (though not fully dead) body in the material world. As mentioned in Chapter Four, it’s an extremely perilous trip, one many travelers can’t return from. That edge of danger remains a vital part of the Sojourn’s importance. If it was easy, after all, then it wouldn’t be the transformative event that it is. Agama Traits That spiritual body – often referred to as the corpus – has 10 health levels and sometimes manifests features from the mage’s Avatar as well as her physical self. Thus, a Sojourning mage might appear as a combination of her familiar physical person and her metaphysical Awakened Self… which can be a rather revealing and enlightening, if terrifying, experience. Life Sphere magick means nothing to a corpus, as the traveler’s life remains behind in her physical form. If she suffers damage in that form, then, only Spirit 3 magick can heal it. True ghosts can sense that traveler’s spark of life with a Perception + Awareness roll (or, for Umbrood spirit beings, a Gnosis roll), difficulty 6. That spark makes the traveler extremely attractive for all the wrong reasons. Certain ghosts will want to strike bargains with the traveler, some will try to eat or corrupt her spirit, and some will try to destroy her simply for being what they can never be again: alive. Unlike living things, a ghost or corpus suffers no wound penalties; after all, she’s got no physical body, and thus cannot be physically crippled. A traveler who loses all of her corpus health levels, however, reaps two awful consequences: a permanent point of Jhor (death Resonance – see Chapter Ten, pp. 560- 561), and a trip into a Harrowing. The Harrowing Essentially an Underworld Seeking, a Harrowing brings up the traveler’s worst fears and then forces her through a maze of horrors drawn from her own psyche. Split into a helpless Avatar-self (robbed of most, if not all, of its most powerful features) and a naked victim self, the traveler confronts the embodiments of her innermost
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 479 Optional Rules: The Avatar Storm As revealed in previous chapters, metaphysical concussions from 1999 turn the passage between worlds into a danger zone for mages. The shredded Avatars of dead souls rip through the Patterns of human travelers. Although spirits and shapechanging monsters can apparently pass through the Gauntlet without trouble, mages who step sideways suffer devastating harm… and the more powerful the mage, the more severe that harm can be! Does the Avatar Storm still exist, has it since subsided, or did it ever happen to begin with? That’s your call. If you choose to keep the Storm in force, however, the following optional rules apply: • Shredding Winds: When a mage steps sideways into the Umbra, ferocious winds scour his Avatar with the screaming fragments of lost souls. Even if he merely reaches into the Umbra, this effect still applies. The player rolls his permanent Paradox + Arete against difficulty 6; each success inflicts one health level in aggravated damage as the howling gales tatter his ephemeral form and rip gashes in his soul. If your Storyteller decides that the Avatar Storm is receding but has not yet completely dissipated, that damage may be lethal or bashing instead. In either case, that damage is automatic unless the traveler has somehow insulated himself from its effects. • Bodily Protection: Magickal, and perhaps mundane, methods of protection from aggravated damage might help a traveler soak the damage from the Avatar Storm. Life Sphere magick, technomagickally enhanced armor, protection conferred by Wonders, and so forth can all add to a character’s soak roll. Because the damage is metaphysical, however, it’s a Storyteller’s call as to whether or not normal armor will protect someone. Can Kevlar deflect raging soul-shards, or will they go straight through it? The answer depends on each Storyteller’s judgment. • Gauntlet Spell Damage: A mage who tries to set a spell inside the Gauntlet – like a Spirit 4 ward – can still take damage from the Storm, as described above. An Effect that has been designed to penetrate the Gauntlet (like a Mind-based message) gets distorted while passing through the Storm; the Storyteller rolls the usual Shredding Winds damage dice based on the caster’s Arete, and each success removes one success from the caster’s original roll. (A three-success Mind message, for example, that takes two levels of damage going through the Storm would have only one success left and would thus wind up distorted from its original intentions.) Low-level Spirit Sphere Effects, like the ones that allow mages to see or contact spirits, remain immune to Storm damage or distortion, although mages who step sideways into the Umbra to use them suffer damage as usual. Also, Effects that travel only a short distance – say, a bolt of lightning cast from the physical world into the Umbra – arrive more or less intact; long-distance Effects, however, may be badly warped or often lost completely. • Wonder Damage: Enchanted Wonder items take damage as well. In this case, roll the Arete of the object crossing the Gauntlet and apply damage as above. If that object takes more than double the object’s Arete, that Wonder gets destroyed by the Storm. A spirit bound into a Fetish might escape both the Storm and the Fetish unharmed… but if that spirit had been bound into the fetish unwillingly, the mage might have a whole new problem on his hands… For details about Wonders, see the Background of that name in Chapter Six and The Toybox in Appendix II. • Spiritual Immunities: Spirit entities, shapechanging Night-Folk, and unAwakened sorcerers remain unaffected by the Avatar Storm. Although passing through it hurts a bit – like an exceedingly hot or icy shower – such beings do not take damage from it the way that Awakened mages do. • Astral Immunity: Travelers who employ Mind 4 or 5 to project their astral consciousness may bypass the Avatar Storm. This method, however, can access only the High Umbra – not Horizon Realms or the Middle and Low levels. Such travelers also have a silver cord connecting them to their Earthly bodies; if that cord gets damaged, the traveler is probably lost. (See the Astral Travel entry for details.) • Paths of the Wyck: For the few people who can find and navigate them, the Paths of the Wyck remain free from the Avatar Storm’s effects. Those who stray from those Paths, however, may find themselves in the middle of the Storm… or worse, somewhere beyond the understanding of even the wisest of Verbena! • Shield of the Soul: Mages with the Familiar or Totem Backgrounds may ask their companion spirits for a favor… the favor of taking them across the Storm without harm. In this case, the mage creates what’s called the Shield of the Soul (a Prime 3/ Spirit 2 spell) between herself and her allied spirit. Successfully cast, this Shield disguises the mage’s spirit within the mantle of her spirit friend. With that Shield in place, the mage suffers damage only from her Paradox Trait, not from her Arete. Naturally, the spirit in question must be favorably disposed toward the mage on both ends of that journey; if not, the results could be rather painful. • Bridging With Blood: Speaking of painful, the abhorred Bridge of Blood ceremony (Spirit 4/ Prime 3) forces a spirit to serve as protection. Offering up that spirit as a sacrifice, the mage essentially fakes out the Avatar Storm by filling the spirit with her own Quintessence and then using it as a decoy while stepping sideways. System-wise, this requires a roll of at least one success for each point in the mage’s Avatar Background rating and puts all that mage’s Quintessence into the spirit before pulling it through the Gauntlet as a light snack for the Avatar Storm. Such behavior is considered extremely bad form and may put the spellcaster on the shit list for other mages as well as spirits allied with the unfortunate entity.
480 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition • Stormwarden: A rare but precious birthright, the Stormwarden Merit – described in Appendix II – reflects a total immunity to the Avatar Storm’s effects. See that entry for details. • Peeling of the Soul: A botched roll while a mage steps sideways through the Gauntlet locks that mage in place – half in the material world, half in the raging Avatar Storm. That traveler remains stuck until some other party pulls him through to one side or the other. Each turn that he remains in this netherspace after the initial botch, the winds peel one point of Avatar away from his Avatar Background Trait. If he loses every point in his Avatar Background, plus one, then he’s effectively Gilguled until and unless he finds a way to heal his spirit. The mage might be able to undergo a Seeking to retrieve the missing bits of his soul, but until then, he remains spiritually crippled from the Storm. • Quiet: A mage who takes more than four health levels in damage from the Avatar Storm might have to make a Willpower roll or fall into a Quiet from the trauma. That roll’s difficulty would be 3 + the amount of damage the mage suffered from the Storm. If he drops to Incapacitated, the Quiet is automatic – a refuge from the horrific torment of his soul. For details, see Quiet in Chapter Ten (pp. 554-561). Roving Storms Even if the worst of the Avatar Storm has passed into troubled memory, occasional Roving Storms roll through the Realms at various inconvenient times. In such moments, a roiling cloud of shrieking voices and tortured faces appears in the distance, flowing across the landscape and rearranging things into chaotic and often terrifying forms. For obvious reasons, anyone and everyone nearby should run for cover or suffer the consequences. The full effects of getting caught out in a Roving Storm are left to the Storyteller’s twisted imagination, but they should include the usual type of damage (perhaps lowered to lethal damage, for survivability’s sake), the potential for Quiet, and the certain annihilation of familiar landmarks in the Realm. An awful embodiment of metaphysical decay, the Avatar Storm – in all of its guises – upends expectations and tears predictability apart. Optional Rules: The Avatar Storm (Continued) nightmares, comprised of a tormentor self that comes from the mage’s repressed elements. Everything she fears, hates, or tries not to recognize about herself becomes part of the Harrowing. Through the course of this timeless torture, she’s driven away from Ascension and towards despair. Unless she drags up the most determined and yet compassionate aspects of herself, that nightmare may consume her. System-wise, a Harrowing becomes a Seeking of the most intense kind that your troupe and boundaries allow. (See Seekings and Triggers, Limits, and Boundaries, both in Chapter Seven.) Even if only one mage character’s involved, other players might take the roles of spectral tormentors in that ordeal. If the character can hold true to her vision of integrity and Ascension, then both the Harrowing and the Agama Sojourn end with the traveler back in her living body. If she falters or fails, the player should roll Willpower, difficulty 9. A successful roll brings her back to her body in a state of deep panic or despair, whereas failure brings her back with one fewer point of Arete (after all, she failed an important test), an additional point of Jhor, and possibly other lingering effects of that ordeal. (See Flaws in Appendix II.) A botched roll at this point turns the character into an Oblivionconsumed monster – a Nephandus, possibly, or a demon-ghost spectre. Such a fate, however, should be inflicted only on a character whose soul is already in doubt and whose player seems ready to handle either losing her mage or playing out the corruption. One bad die roll should not annihilate a character. Possessions A mage on an Agama Sojourn brings nothing with her. Whether or not this includes clothing is a Storyteller call, although ghosts do tend to manifest wearing either the clothes they died in or else some other significant garb, like a wedding dress or military uniform. In any case, those clothes are projections of the person’s self-image, not material items. They don’t have useful things in the pockets unless those items have been imbued with Entropic energies from an Entropy 3 Effect and then bound to the mage with a Prime 2 ritual as in the Astral Travel entry, above. Agama Travel Beyond the Underworld Although few mages can accomplish this feat, it is possible for an Agama voyager to move from the Low Umbra to the other layers. Doing so requires either powerful magick (Entropy 5/ Spirit 5, plus the usual Agama requirements) that can open a gateway between the Shadowlands and the Middle Umbra, or a high-end astral projection (Entropy 5/ Mind 5, plus the usual Agama requirements) that can take the dead consciousness up out of the Shadowlands and raise it into the Vulgate region of the High Umbra. Note that only an Agama Sojourn voyager can cross between the Low Umbra and other layers. A Middle Umbra traveler or High Umbra astral visitor cannot cross down into the realms of death unless he is already deceased. The only possible exceptions involve Shallowings, portals, and the World Tree, all of which – according to legend – can take a living person to the Realms of the Dead. Benefits and Limits Self-recognition and a deepened understanding of morality are perhaps the greatest benefits of an Agama Sojourn. It’s a
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 481 risky, morbid trip that leaves a part of the Shadowlands lodged within the traveler’s psyche. Since the Avatar Storm, that journey has also forced travelers to face the very real prospect of a permanent death. Unlike an astral traveler, a visitor to the Low Umbra has no protection from the Storm’s lashing winds. In fact, that Storm, if it still rages, may reach its most chilling aspects in the realm where it originated. The Underworld also imposes certain limits upon visiting mages and their Arts. For details, see Magick in the Otherworlds, below. Even for successful voyagers, a trip to the Low Umbra is an ugly look at cosmic fatalism. With or without the Storm, a Harrowing, or other screaming horrors, such trips mark a traveler in ways she cannot truly comprehend until she has faced them and returned. Travel Between Layers Portals, moon bridges, and other passageways allow a traveler to move from one place to another within the Otherworlds. Human travelers usually need spirit allies to open up moon bridge routes – such paths are not intended for human feet, especially not in the modern era. If a voyager wishes to cross from the High Umbra into the Middle Umbra without a portal or bridge, then he’ll need to either return to the Penumbra, climb the Pattern Webs, or else find and scale the World Tree (or Mount Qaf) that supposedly rises and descends between every layer of the universe. In any case, a traveler to the High Umbra may rise only as far as the Courts and Afterworlds unless he has taken astral form. A character who has stepped sideways or who’s risen up from the Underworld cannot ascend to the Spires or Ephiphamies except through astral projection or the embodied Astral Sojourn form. Climbing From World to World Scaling the World Tree or Pattern Webs is a rigorous, risky feat. Such a journey should be an adventure in itself, with various spirit critters (Pattern Spiders, titanic insect spirits, giant creatures, Bane spirits, etc.) interfering with the climb. Rules-wise, that feat should involve many Dexterity + Athletics and Perception + Cosmology rolls, with horrible penalties for failing or botching a roll – nightmarish falls, detours into other Realms, cosmic vertigo, and so forth. According to legend, the Paths of the Wyck and the “backstage at the universe” corridors also lead to pretty much everywhere within Earthly reach. The truth behind that contention… and the truth behind the rumor that these two passageways are the same thing after all… is left for the Storyteller to decide. Midrealm, the World Tree, and Mount Qaf Chapter Four describes the legendary Midrealm, from which the Alder Bole, or World Tree, rises and spreads between all of the Three Worlds. Certain accounts also liken this Tree to Mount Qaf, the center of the universe, although Mount Qaf also supposedly resides within the Digital Web. (Damn conflicting metaphysics…) According to legends, a person can supposedly scale the World Tree and/ or Mount Qaf. In order to climb them, however, mages first have to find them. An intrinsically primal Realm to begin with, Midrealm might remain completely hidden from all but the most primal of travelers: shapechangers, shamans, witches, ascetic monks, religious primitivists, and other mortals whose ties to Nature remain untarnished by modern technology. In game terms, locating Midrealm requires an adventure, possibly begun with several Perception + Enigmas or Perception + Empathy rolls as the travelers read the vibe of their surroundings. IF (big if) those travelers manage to find the rainbow and step beyond its brightly colored borders, they might be able to climb the Tree (or, if it appears as Mount Qaf, the mountain) into other Realms and layers of the Umbra. Even then, however, they’ll be able to rise only as high as the Courts or sink only as low as the Shadowlands. The Tree might reach higher and lower than that, but mortals remain limited by their own innately flawed nature. Finding Your Way All layers of the Otherworlds defy normal geography. Their paths and landmarks shift in unpredictable ways, and traveling is more a matter of instinct than of memory. In game terms, an Otherworldly traveler uses the following dice pools if he tries to navigate his way around these puzzling Umbrascapes: • The Penumbra: As per travel in the material world. • The High Umbra: Intelligence + Cosmology in most areas, Intelligence + Enigmas in the Ephiphamies. A traveler thinks her way through the High Umbra. • The Middle Umbra: Perception + Cosmology in the Spirit Wilds, Wits + Enigmas within the Realms. A traveler feels her way through the Middle Umbra. • The Low Umbra: Wits + Enigmas or Occult. A traveler puzzles her way through the Low Umbra. • Most Realms: Mental Attribute + Cosmology or Enigmas… or, in wilderness Realms, Mental Attribute + Survival. • Old Roads/ the Paths of the Wyck: Perception + Survival, plus at least two dots in Cosmology, Enigmas, or both, and the proper background (that is, intense witch or shamanic training) to understand those Paths at all. (These methods of navigation differ somewhat from those presented in The Infinite Tapestry and The Book of Worlds. If you prefer, use the older systems instead.) For other routes and methods of travel, see Chapter Four and the Digital Web section above. Optional Rule: Verbenae and the Old Roads The Verbena Tradition was formed, in large part, because of the Paths of the Wyck. That group’s founders, Nightshade and
482 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition William Groth, used those Old Roads to travel to unknown lands and bring back mages from distant regions. As a result, the Council of Nine was born, and so those Paths are considered a sacred inheritance to that Pagan Tradition. Trusted members (that is, people who have spent several years in the group and whose deeds have graduated them beyond initiate status) are told the secrets of the Path, which they swear to protect with their lives. Thanks to the secrets handed down to them through the Tradition and its teachings, Verbena characters – and only those characters who have been trained by, and who’ve earned the trust of, the Verbena Tradition – may use Correspondence 1 in order to locate an entrance to the Old Roads near a Node. A successful Arete roll, used as part of a search for that entrance, can locate a Path if one exists in that area. The difficulty of the roll, in this case, is the local Gauntlet rating, not the difficulty of a coincidental Rank 1 Effect. It’s harder to find entrances in high-tech places, assuming that such entrances exist there at all. In many areas, even around Nodes, there are no entrances to find. The Paths are elusive, especially in this age of diminished mysticism and technological dominance. Other Paths lead nowhere – a few yards, perhaps, before dead-ending in a tangle of thorns, a stone wall, or a cliff. It’s the Storyteller’s call as to whether or not the Old Roads found by a given character lead anywhere useful. Still, a very successful roll – one with three successes or more – should yield a Path of some significance. As mentioned in Chapter Four (p. 86), the Old Roads can be found in, and can lead to, urban areas as well as wilderness. That said, they tend to favor primal nature over technological constructs. On many levels, it’s as if such Paths are living things that don’t want to be found except by their ancient caretakers, so again, this optional rule applies only to Verbena witches who have bound themselves to that ancient role and who can be trusted to protect those Old Roads from would-be trespassers. Acclimation In another optional rule rooted in the Reckoning metaplot, mages who spend time in the Otherworlds have to readjust, or Acclimate, to the material world after being away from it for a time. Until the traveler reorients himself to Earthly reality, he feels disconnected and awkward, as if he were balancing between two worlds but not fully part of either of them. In game terms, a traveler without the Umbral Affinity Merit suffers penalties to his rolls when he returns to Earth. Longer trips inflict higher penalties and greater recovery times, as shown on the Acclimation Periods chart. Full details about Umbral Affinity can be found in Appendix II. Before the Avatar Storm appeared, acclimation wasn’t really an issue. Even if the Reckoning metaplot doesn’t come into play, however, the Storyteller may
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 483 impose a +1 penalty upon Earth-bound physical actions for several days after a long trip in the Otherworlds. Our world can be emotionally and physically disorienting when you’ve been somewhere else – physically, as on an extended wilderness hike; mentally, like being immersed in a long session of a roleplaying game; or spiritually, journeying through the Otherworlds – for a while. Disconnection and Disembodiment Unless they have shapechanger blood, human beings hold only tenuous ties to the Otherworlds. Over time, their ties to the material world begin to fade. A traveler who does not return home within a given period of time will grow increasingly disconnected from Earth, gradually becoming spirit-stuff. Once it happens, that’s a one-way trip. Many spirit entities supposedly began their existence as human beings who lost touch with their former lives and became roving Umbral denizens. (See Disembodiment and Void Adaptation in Chapter Four, p. 88-89.) How long does that take? That depends on the travelers and the metaplot. In the days before the Avatar Storm, the average person could spend between one and four months in the Otherworlds, depending on their ties to the mortal world and the nature of their travels. Exceptionally primal mages, however, could wander the Spirit Wilds for up to a year without losing their ties to the material world. In the Avatar Storm metaplot, the upheaval between worlds cuts this time shorter. If you use that metaplot element in your chronicle, then a traveler can spend up to three cycles of the moon (three months) in the Otherworlds. After that, he loses touch with his old home and joins the Umbrood hosts, possibly becoming a strange phantom of his former self. If the Avatar Storm did not happen, or if its effects have faded since that time, then the old rules for disconnection apply. Horizon Realms and the Reckoning In Horizon Realms, this spiritual disconnection has been suspended. A person can live for years in a Horizon Realm and then return to the material world… a bit unsteady, perhaps, but still human. (See Acclimation Periods, above..) In the Reckoning metaplot, however, the Avatar Storm severs ties between most of the Horizon Realms and Constructs outside material reality. Sealed off from their old world, the people in those Realms became disembodied spirits – still conscious, but no longer human, and exiled from the mortal world by the Avatar Storm. Presumably, their weird blend of Awakened mortality and Disembodied spirit essence leaves them vulnerable to the Storm, which does not normally affect spirit beings. In any case, these people have been lost. Now they populate the Ghost Realms, literally shades of their former selves. Again, the truth behind the situation depends on your individual chronicle. Perhaps the Storm did come, did sever Realms from Earth, and their residents did wind up as spirit beings. Or maybe not – perhaps Horizon is still whole and the old Masters are still fully human. Maybe it happened and those people are lost, but new Realms have been built since then. Ultimately, the only way to know for sure is to find out for yourself. Magick in the Otherworlds Mages being mages, your characters will want – and often need – to use magick in the Otherworlds. Such Arts can vary wildly in their effects, depending on where the characters are, who’s doing what, and how they’re doing it. The specific rules for certain locations are too involved to feature in Mage 20, and can be found in the sourcebooks The Infinite Tapestry and Beyond the Barriers: The Book of Worlds. As simple guidelines for such situations, however, a Storyteller can use the following rules: Unfamiliar Ground Being accustomed to the material world, most mortal visitors suffer a +1 difficulty penalty to their attacks in the Umbra. Characters with the Umbral Affinity Merit doesn’t suffer this penalty, nor do characters who’ve spent a few days Acclimation Periods Journey Penalties Up to One Week None except for mild disorientation. Two to Three Weeks +1 to difficulties for physical tasks; lasts one or two days. Four to Five Weeks +1 to physical difficulties and +1 to the difficulty of all Pattern magicks (Forces, Life, and Matter Spheres) for one or two days. Six to Seven Weeks +2 to physical difficulties for two days, lessening to +1 for a week afterward; +1 to the difficulties of all Pattern magicks for three days. Eight to Nine Weeks +2 to physical difficulties for four days, lessening to +1 for a week afterward; +1 to Pattern magick difficulties for a week. 10 Weeks+ +3 to physical task difficulties for four days, +2 for an additional week, and +1 for an additional week after that; +2 to all Pattern magick difficulties for three days, then +1 to those difficulties for an additional week.
484 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition in (or have made several voyages to) the Otherworlds. By that point, they’re acclimated to the weird rules of the Umbra and its Realms. The Shining Ones Mages in the Otherworlds tend to reflect the nature of their magick, often shining or shadowed with the radiance of their Truest Self. In the Otherworlds – particularly along the passages between Realms, out beyond the Penumbra – a traveler looks like an exaggerated, idealized, version of the person that, for better and worse, she is. Echoes of Resonance manifest more obviously in the Umbrae, too. A vibrant and generous Hermetic magus may glow with cheerful light, making plants thrive simply by walking past; a dour priest, on the other hand, may slouch over his exaggerated crucifix, a perpetual scowl etched across his stony face. Powerful mages radiate the aura of their strongest Spheres too, and almost everyone displays at least a hint of their affinity Sphere. A Forces-dedicated witch may crackle with electricity, while a Time-focused cyborg seems to flicker in place or move with clockwork precision. Such manifestations come through in roleplaying, narration, and general description, without hard-and-fast rules deciding their effects. In many cases, though, it’s easy to tell a lot about a traveler simply by looking at him. Unless that traveler makes an effort to conceal his true nature with magick, a successful Perception + Awareness roll will almost certainly reveal interesting details about who he is and what he does. Coincidental Magick As a general rule, all forms of mystic magick are coincidental in the Umbra as a whole. Certain Realms, however, may be more or less attuned to certain paradigms, accepting one type of magick as coincidental (say, High Ritual Magick) while rejecting others (like weird science or martial arts) as vulgar. In the High Umbra, technomagick tends to be as coincidental as mystic magick is. Science and technology, after all, are products of rarefied thought. In the Middle Umbra’s Spirit Wilds, on the other hand, technomagick is often vulgar, and fails completely in the Aetherian Reaches. Again, certain Realms flip that around, recognizing technomagick (or at least certain forms of it, anyway) as coincidental while rejecting mystic practices as vulgar. As for the Low Umbra, techomagick tends to be vulgar there, while primal, ritual, and sacred magick is coincidental. Perhaps the disastrous effects of the spirit nuke added a spectacular Paradox Effect on top of the usual conflagration… The Spheres Certain Spheres work better or worse in the Otherworlds than they do in the material world. Although the following guidelines may not apply in various Realms, they hold true for most of the Umbra at large: • Prime and Mind Sphere Effects work normally, perhaps even at a -1 difficulty in certain situations. Traveling the Otherworlds Gauntlet Ratings Area Difficulty #1 Successes Needed Node 3 One Deep Wilderness 5 Two Rural Countryside 6 Three Most Urban Areas 7 Four Downtown 8 Five Technocracy Lab #2 9 Five Notes An area’s Gauntlet Difficulty may vary with time and circumstances; a dark alley on Halloween night might have a Gauntlet of 6, while a rigidly cultivated garden at noon could have a Gauntlet of 8. #1 = If using the Technocratic victory metaplot, add +1 to the Gauntlet Rating when in industrial culture zones, whether or not the Avatar Storm is still in force. #2 = Treat as a Node when using Dimensional Science. Methods of Travel and Navigation Method Spheres Stepping Sideways Spirit 3 or 4 Astral Projection Mind 4 or Mind 5 Astral Sojourn Mind Mind 4 or 5/ Spirit 3/ Prime 2 Agama Re Entropy 4/ Life 2/ Spirit 3 Agama Te Entropy 4/ Life 3/ Spirit 4 Astral Agama Entropy 5/ Mind 5/ Spirit 3 Climbing Dexterity + Athletics Region Dice Pool to Navigate High Umbra Intelligence + Cosmology (or Enigmas) Middle Umbra Perception + Cosmology (or Survival) Lower Umbra Wits + Enigmas (or Occult) Old Roads Perception + Enigmas (or Survival) World Tree Perception + Cosmology
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 485 • Time and Forces suffer a +1 difficulty to their associated Arete rolls. • Life and Matter don’t work on Umbral creatures or objects unless those targets originated in the material world. Life would work on a Black Suit, for example, but not on a stag spirit. • Spirit makes the user shine like a beacon, and acts like Life against creatures and Matter on objects. As noted elsewhere, a mage needs at least two dots in the Spirit Sphere before she can physically touch a spirit being; otherwise, her hand just slides right through its ephemeral form, even though she’s ephemeral as well. • Correspondence is downright weird. Although Correspondence-based senses function more or less normally in a single Realm or area, they cannot reach into other Realms or areas. Co-location and teleportation are hazardous, dumping the traveler into random and often dangerous areas unless the player scores three successes or more on her roll. • The Data Sphere does not function in the Three Worlds at all. Its metaphysical properties are drawn from, and limited to, the Digital Web. • Entropy works normally in most regions. In the Underworld, however, Entropy-based spells have a -2 difficulty but unlock the darkest side of every ghost in the vicinity. For details, see Spirit Combatants (pp. 417-418), Umbrood Spirit Entities below. • In the Low Umbra, all Arete rolls suffer a +2 difficulty penalty. Life and Prime are always vulgar, Forces and Matter do not work at all, and Paradox manifests as storms of screaming specters that tear holes in the world to let Oblivion through. Time and Correspondence manifest unreliable and inaccurate Effects. Entropy magick works as above (often drawing unwanted attention by its very presence), and only Mind and Spirit function normally… although with the increased difficulty on the Arete roll. • Characters can use Spirit 3 magick to step sideways through the Pericarps (Gauntlets) between Realms, although certain Realms might require Spheres other than Spirit (say Mind, Forces, or even Time) instead of Spirit, at the Storyteller’s option. • Magick cast in Paradox Realms tends to backfire in awful ways, especially if the magick cast is related to the magick that got the mage sent into time out in the first place. See Reality Among the Realms under The Paradox Effect in Chapter Ten (p. 553). As an overall rule, assume that most rules, within the Otherworlds, are optional. The unpredictable nature of the Otherworlds remains one of the few predictable constants in the notoriously inconstant Realms beyond Earth’s material reality. Example of Umbral Travel Lee Ann Milner meditates in a darkened room, sinuous drifts of nag champa incense drifting past her face. Focusing on a faint bell only she can hear, she slides into a trance and sends forth her astral self… At the gaming table, Lynn picks up her dice. “No one can see you leave your body,” says the Storyteller, “so you don’t need to worry about Paradox.” Unlike the act of stepping sideways, astral travel is invisible to the naked eye, and thus it’s coincidental. Lynn rolls Lee Ann’s Arete Trait against the local Gauntlet. Here in Lee Ann’s Chantry, that barrier’s pretty thin. The difficulty of the roll, therefore, is 6, with three successes necessary. Lee Ann’s Arete of 8 makes this a simple roll; even so, Lynn gets only one success with her first roll, and two more with her second. It takes a minute or so of meditation, but Lee Ann’s astral self slips into the Penumbra. Later, during a wilderness hike, Lee Ann steps sideways to venture into the Spirit Wilds. Bracing herself for the awful Avatar Storm, she’s relieved to find that while the shrieking spirits still grimace and gnash their teeth at her as she passes through the barrier, the soul-scouring agony of past trips has faded. “Mark off a level of Bruised damage,” the Storyteller says to Lynn. “It stings a bit, but there’s no serious harm done.” Following her instincts and the strange signs of this vivid landscape, Lee Ann heads off into the mist. Lynn rolls the character’s Perception + Cosmology against a difficulty of 7 to see what Lee Ann finds… Part VIII: Umbrood Spirit Entities Infinity wears infinite masks. And for simplicity’s sake, we call those masks spirits. Rooted in a word meaning “breath” – and, by extension, “life” – spirits embody cosmic and Earthly principles, giving recognizable identities to things beyond comprehension. In plain English, then, spirits give character and personality to natural forces and psychic ideas. So in game terms, they’re characters who are far more transcendent than they might appear. In the World of Darkness, spirits inhabit the Otherworlds and occasionally venture into material space as well. Some folks view them as gods or demons, totem allies or elemental forces. Mages catalog the spirit hosts with a bewildering array of names and titles, the most basic of which can be found in the sidebar nearby. And yet, as any mage worth that title understands, a spirit is more than a name or a set of powers. Each spirit is a principle or force incarnate – the essence of ideas given a relatable form. Folks familiar with the spirit world… most especially those who study the Spirit Sphere… know that
486 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition the entity you’re dealing with is like the tip of an iceberg you never totally see. For the Technocrats and other technomancers who insist on a materialist perspective, spirits are puzzles. The comforting term aliens comes up a lot in conversation, and most Technocrats view spirits as alien beings from alternate dimensions. This perspective isn’t wrong, exactly, though it’s limited. The word alien means “other,” and that’s what spirits are: something other than humanity. To slap a different handle on such entities, some mages call the spirits Umbrood – a bastardized term meaning “the offspring of shadows.” Again, that term’s not wrong, though many spirits find it insulting. The term “brood” suggests children, and when mages use it, that suggests that mages feel parentally superior to spirits. It’s not hard to understand, then, why spirits would get a bit hacked off at a presumptuous mortal who regards himself as the father of a cosmic entity. No wonder that so many mages find themselves in hot water with the spirits! Ultimately, spirits are Other. As recognizable as they might seem, they should never feel too familiar. Although werewolves deal with spirits on a first-name basis, and many mages think they do the same, there should always be a sense of the ineffable – the sacred and indescribable – about even the most common spirit entities. You See What You Expect to See As mages throughout time have noticed, the appearance of a given spirit depends on what the viewer expects to see. In yet another example of the Rashomon Effect at work, a single spirit can look different ways to different people. Each mask of that spirit depends upon the expectations of the viewer. A classical Hermetic magus could behold a trickster spirit as an aspect of Hermes the Thief, laughing god of misdirection. His Apache counterpart views the ever-shifting face of Coyote, the lustful shapechanging beast-man whose pranks undermine stability but backfire on him in the end. To the media-hyped Virtual Adept in their company, that spirit is Bugs Bunny on crack. Their Scandinavian rune-keeper glances sideways at Loki, the grand liar… perhaps even the Marvel Comics version as portrayed by Tom Hiddleston! One spirit, four faces, all of them true, and yet none of them the real image of that Umbrood entity. From a game standpoint, this offers lots of possibilities and keeps spirits from being just another set of Traits to throw fireballs at. As a general guideline, assume that spirits are always more than they appear to be. The more powerful the spirit, the more varied its appearance. A simple earth elemental might appear more or less the same to everyone, whereas a tempter demon wears a multitude of masks. As an overall rule, assume that High Umbrood can manifest a variety of appearances, and Lower Umbrood retain a fairly consistent form. At the core, a spirit IS what that spirit IS. A trickster spirit pulls tricks. An earth elemental will not burst into flame. A tempter demon offers enticing but ultimately malicious treats because that’s what that spirit DOES. In the World of Darkness in general, and in Mage in particular, each spirit has a particular identity. Under all the masks it might wear, that identity remains firm. And that’s the secret that a Master of Spirit – regardless of practice or affiliation – understands: the identity of a spirit comes through in the things it does, in the masks it wears, in the deals it makes. If you understand who and what you’re dealing with, the masks aren’t important. The core of the spirit comes through in its behavior. Spirit Types To get a common grasp on such elusive entities, Mage groups Umbrood into a handful of general but recognizable categories. The characters might not use this terminology, but the game rules do, simply because it’s easier for a Storyteller to gauge the difference between an Incarna’s abilities and the abilities of a Gaffling than it is to simply say, “Just make it all up as you go along!” Of course, a Storyteller who wants to just make it all up as she goes along is encouraged to do so, as long as that doesn’t reduce her chronicle to a bunch of arbitrary garbage and her mind to a bowl of lukewarm soup. An Umbral Powers Hierarchy As a rough guide to common terminology, the Council of Nine Traditions agrees upon an Umbral Powers Hierarchy that its members use in common conversation. A Kha’vadi shaman might refer to such-and-such-entity as “a Gaffling servitor of the Raven Incarna,” if only for clarity’s sake, when she’s speaking to some High Hermetic so-and-so. Even so, that shaman will have her own name for that spirit, and you can bet that the Hermetic has placed it somewhere on the Grand Celestial Roll of Cosmological Hierarchies. Other groups, of course, have their own ways of looking at things. A Border Corps Technocrat, when confronted with the same Gaffling, would run it against a program of Cataloged Alien Anomaly Manifestations, looking to profile that creature’s capabilities. A Hollow One might see a playful raven girl; the Templar at his side beholds a crow demon from Satan’s hosts. A Bata’a houngan welcomes Brother Crow, an ally of Erzuli, but a Progenitor sees some extraphysical mutant entity worth experimenting on. In Mage, as in life, the truth of that spirit is in the eye of the beholder. Essential Divinity, Godheads, and The Adversary One of Mage’s thorniest elements, both in and out of the fictional world, involves the question of God and other spirits. To be blunt, where does God rank on the Umbral Hierarchy? What about Krishna? Is the Goddess somehow lower than God, or is Her consort a Horned God in a cosmos where the Christian God does not exist? How can someone wrestle with God, as Jacob does in the Bible, and does the existence of Raven preclude the existence of Allah or the Buddha? Where does Satan fit in there, if Satan even exists at all? After all, Mage posits the existence of a spiritual world filled with spiritual truths. Which god is God, and are there many gods or only One? Ultimately, the capital-T Truth depends on what you want it to be. If your Mage chronicle favors your own Muslim, Baptist, Wiccan, or Tibetan Buddhist creed, then by all means decide that all roads lead to your Divinity of choice. If you’re an existential atheist, then maybe all of this is just delusion. We’re not here to
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 487 Greater Spirit Entities • Essential Divinity (God/ Goddess/ The Great Spirit/ The One) • Godheads/ Celestines/ God-Avatars (Zeus; Inanna; Jesus; Krishna; Satan; Grandfather; the Wyrm; Maiden, Mother, and Crone; etc.) • The Adversary (often seen as Godhead, occasionally regarded as the Dark Twin of Essential Divinity, frequently not recognized at all) Lesser Powers Aeons/ Incarnae/ Godlings Lords and Ladies/ The High Umbrood Totem Avatars Archangels Demon Lords Greater Courtiers Bodhisattva Manifestations Praeceptors/ Demigods Seraphim Greater Demons Oracles Jagglings Greater Court Servitors Minions/ Lower Umbrood Cherubim Guardian Angels Demon Hosts Gafflings/ Epiphlings Lesser Courtiers Djinni Loa Saints Miscellaneous Spirits (exist outside the Hierarchy; power ranges from Incarna to Minion) Elementals (manifestations of Earthly forces) Banes (a.k.a. Wyrm spirits) Chaos Manifestations (Wyld spirits) Pattern Entities (Weaver spirits) Naturae/ Kami (Nature spirits) Ghosts (the Restless Dead) Ancestors (the Honored Dead) Bygones (mythic creatures) Paradox Spirits (manifestations of metaphysical retribution) Legends (personifications of mythic figures) Abstracts (quantum astral enigmas) Web Spirits (entities native to the Digital Web) Sendings (weird psychic emanations) Cthonic Entities (primal enigmas that defy understanding) Those Beyond (alien entities, theoretically of malignant or indifferent disposition) Indented and italicized entries reflect entities that do not fit comfortably into the hierarchy’s ranks. For examples of different spirit characters, see Appendix I; the Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Wraith: The Oblivion lines; and a variety of Mage sourcebooks. tell you how to believe or to force a religion (or the lack of one) down your throat. Maybe all spirits really are aliens or angels or demons or archetypes. That’s your call to make, not ours. Within the Mage world, the various Traditions have been arguing these points for centuries. The Technocracy discarded an official creed beyond Enlightened Science, and the Disparates have left that question off the table, definitely for now and probably for good. The Umbral Hierarchy represents an uneasy compromise with lots of room to move. It’s certainly not definitive, and it neither demeans nor demands a single point of faith. At the top of that Hierarchy, however, the terms Essential Divinity, Godhead, and The Adversary deserve some explanation: Essential Divinity is the name given to That Which Cannot Be Named – the I AM THAT I AM at the core of sacred mysteries. An indefinable essence that pervades Creation, it transcends names and identities. As ineffable things go, this one scores the top of the list. Godhead is what you get when you assign Divinity a face, personality, and name. Sometimes that Divinity incarnates itself in an avatar: an identity that humans can relate to (Krishna, Mary, Old Man, and so forth). Other times, it remains a transcendent yet still relatable force… a Holy Spirit, if you will, understood by certain people in certain terms. The Adversary is the cosmic Antagonist, the force of Opposition that may or may not be another aspect of Divinity. Some folks see it as an evil anti-god, others view it as a rebellious lesser creation, and still others view it as a shadow of Essential Divinity. Many people refuse to recognize it at all or theorize that it exists because people think it exists. In any case, the Adversary is godlike… and might, as the Nephandi believe, be
488 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition that summation of cosmic Absolute against which god is the rebel who will eventually be consumed. Compared to these Greater Powers, all other spirits are functionaries – courtiers, servants, embodiments of principles, or incarnations of ideas. They’ve got their own identities, even though such identities often remain unclear to human witnesses. At the top of the Hierarchy, however, the Greater Powers defy easy categorization, transcend game Traits, and command powers far beyond any human reach. What that means, in the long run, is up to you. Spirit Traits As mentioned earlier in the Combat section, spirits don’t use the same rules that mortal characters do. Ephemeral entities of Will and Essence, these beings use distinct Traits that work in certain ways: Willpower Essentially the physical Trait for spirit beings, Willpower allows Umbrood characters to fly, chase, attack, climb, escape, and perform most other activities that a human character’s Dexterity or Stamina can do. When a spirit struggles with another spirit, those characters resolve their issues with a resisted roll of Willpower against Willpower. If the spirit’s trying to accomplish something on its own, the Storyteller strives to make a successful roll on its behalf, just as any other player would do. In either case, the difficulty of that roll depends on the task, as per the chart nearby. Spirit Tasks Difficulty Action 3 Easy 5 Simple 6 Straightforward 8 Difficult 10 Virtually impossible Rage A reflection of a spirit’s determination and wrath, Rage handles those tasks that would normally require Strength: breaking things, hurting people, throwing force against an opponent. When a spirit attacks another character, the Storyteller rolls one die for each point of Rage against difficulty 6. Each success inflicts one health level of lethal damage. Mages – thanks to their Awakened Avatars – can try to soak this damage by using the Avatar Background as a soak roll. Night-Folk with the proper Disciplines or Gifts can try to soak this damage as well. Most mortals, however, cannot endure spiritual injury, and normal armor (that is, armor that hasn’t been enhanced with magick or technomagick) means nothing to a spirit’s Rage.
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 489 (Note: In Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition, spirit-based Rage damage is aggravated. Because mages don’t regenerate aggravated damage, however, this option may be too fatal for a Mage chronicle. If the Storyteller decides to let the Avatar Background soak aggravated damage, then the usual Werewolf rule may be used instead. Using the agg-damage option, however, can send the average mage straight to the cemetery.) Gnosis The sublime knowledge that spirits understand, Gnosis allows a spirit to perceive and communicate with the world around it. Most tasks that would normally involve Social or Mental Traits – as well as feats or attacks that involve certain Charms (see below) – employ the Gnosis Trait. Essence Representing the raw energy of an Umbral being, Essence is the stuff from which spirits are made. In game terms, each point of damage scored upon a spirit, after that spirit’s soak roll, removes one point of Essence. When that spirit casts a charm, it often spends Essence in order to do so. Typically, the Essence comes from the total of that spirit’s Willpower + Rage + Gnosis. The Storyteller, however, can always add or subtract from that base essence in order to reflect especially strong or weak spirits. As a spirit starts to lose Essence, it begins to look haggard and translucent. Damage wears away that spirit’s being until its ephemeral form gets dispelled. Once it dies, the injured spirit dissipates into the Umbra and remains gone for several hours. (Storyteller’s judgment, although as a rough guideline you could figure 20 hours, minus one hour for each point of that spirit’s Gnosis Trait.) After that time, the spirit re-forms with a single Essence point, then flees to some secluded spot where it can safely recharge itself in a state called Slumber, described below. Spirit Feats Although they might occasionally assume human form, spirits aren’t mortal beings. As creatures of ephemera, they handle certain things differently than other characters do. Communication Umbrood entities communicate through impressions and feelings, rarely through words as people understand that term. The spirit tongue is more a matter of reading and sending such impressions than it is a language of words and sounds. Even so, many of the more intelligent spirits – especially totems, demons, angels, courtiers, and godheads – can speak and comprehend human languages when they choose to do so. Until and unless these entities decide to communicate this way, a mortal needs Spirit 2 in order to share a conversation with the Umbrood. Without such magick, a human might use Perception + Awareness or Enigmas to try to puzzle out a spirit’s feelings and attempt to communicate with it; this method, though, is crude and imprecise – kind of like trying to mime a conversation with someone from a vastly different culture and social class than your own. (The roll’s difficulty depends on the alien-ness of the spirit in question, but it is rarely less than 7.) Movement All spirits can fly or float through the Umbra. At top speed, an Umbrood entity can move at (20 + Willpower) yards or meters per turn. It’s worth mentioning, though, that time and distance work strangely in the Otherworlds, often warping in unpredictable ways when viewed by human beings. Slumber A weakened spirit retreats to a secluded region where it can safely restore its Essence to full strength. Godheads, totems, kami, and ancestor spirits often go to temples or shrines where mortal belief and reverence nurture their recovery and provide sacred ground where such spirits feel safe. Other entities flee to hidden Glens, Courts, or Afterworlds. Spirits of malaise might retreat to Blights, hells, or even the Umbral side of crime scenes and atrocities. During its recovery, the spirit floats in a state of Slumber, dreaming whatever passes for dreams in a spirit’s mind. Binding Spirits Into Fetishes While Slumbering, an Umbrood entity may be bound into a Spirit-fueled Wonder – a Fetish – by a person with Spirit 4. That Fetish won’t be usable, however, until the spirit returns to its full Essence – the item draws off of the imprisoned spirit’s Essential self. Even so, it’s the Fetish’s user, not the spirit itself, that activates that Fetish… and the spirit is very much a prisoner inside that item. Although certain spirits strike bargains with mortals who craft Fetish Wonders, most entities get VERY annoyed if they wind up being held prisoner inside some presumptuous human’s toy. Considering that spirits are more or less immortal, it’s not wise to court a spirit’s anger by imprisoning it within a Fetish unless you’re some sort of badass… like, say, a werewolf or master shaman. Spirits in Combat As detailed earlier in the Spirit Combatants section (pp. 417-418), spirits attack with Willpower and inflict damage with Rage. They also soak damage with Willpower, possibly augmented with the Armor Charm, below. All forms of damage – bashing, lethal, and aggravated – are the same to spirit entities. Any damage a spirit doesn’t soak gets deducted from its Essence Trait. Most mortal beings cannot touch spirits unless there’s magick involved. A human character needs Spirit 2 in order to make physical contact with a spirit that has not employed the Materialize Charm (again, see below). For other details, see Spirit Combatants and the Spirit Combat section of the Order of Battle chart (p. 445). Spirit Charms Every spirit commands a certain number of metaphysical powers called Charms. Innate extensions of a spirit’s self, Charms typically cost Essence to employ. Certain Charms (like Feedback) are rather specific, whereas others (Armor, Blast) are open to all kinds of Storyteller creativity. Because all Umbrood are
490 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition embodiments of natural forces and principles, Charms do not invoke Paradox on either side of the Gauntlet. Several of the following Charms invoke destructive natural forces – fire, electricity, floods, and so on. For the larger effects of such forces, check out the Environmental Hazards section of this chapter (pp. 435-441). • Airt Sense: A natural ability of all spirit entities, this Charm allows spirits to find their way through complex Otherworldly non-geography. To find a particular place, or to locate a given creature or spirit among the realms, the Storyteller may roll the tracking spirit’s Gnosis against a variable difficulty – 6 in most cases, 8 or 9 in the cases of obscure locations or powerful spirits. As an innate ability, this Charm costs no Essence to employ. • Appear: Revealing itself in an immaterial form, an entity can use this Charm to manifest on the physical side of the Gauntlet, unable to touch but also immune from being touched. Doing so costs 10 Essence when the spirit appears in a high-Gauntlet area, although it may cost fewer points (Storyteller’s option) in places or circumstances with especially low Gauntlet ratings (3 or less). • Armor: By spending two points of Essence, the spirit gains a dice pool equal to its Gnosis rating; that soak pool applies to bashing and lethal damage. For one additional point per die, the Armor Charm may protect against aggravated damage too. Either way, the protection lasts until the end of the scene in which it is invoked. The spirit may invoke its armor at any point before an attacker rolls her damage against the spirit. • Blast: An all-purpose attack Charm, this power projects damaging energies against the spirit’s opponents. Those energies cost one Essence per die of bashing damage, two Essence per die of lethal damage, and three Essence per die of aggravated damage. (For a deadlier option, the spirit may simply spend a point of Essence and roll the spirit’s Rage as aggravated damage, as seen in Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition. As noted above, however, this option may be too lethal for Mage chronicles.) Whatever type of damage it inflicts, the form of the Blast depends on the nature of the spirit; a fire elemental could breathe flame, a frost spirit might spin frost, a shrieking horror from beyond space might warp its target’s bones, and so forth. The spirit does not need to hit, and the attack cannot be dodged, although the Spirit Sphere can be used as countermagick against the Blast. As a rough guide to range, assume that this Charm can reach one yard for each point of Essence in the spirit’s permanent Essence Trait. An Essence 20 entity, then, could Blast an opponent from up to 20 yards away. Spending Essence does not decrease this range; that same entity could still Blast its opponent from 20 yards away even when its Essence has dropped to 5. • Blighted Touch: Invoking the essence of corruption, a demonic entity can bring out a target’s worst qualities. If the spirit successfully inflicts damage upon its opponent – including damage at range, via the Blast charm –the target must make a Willpower roll, with the difficulty being the spirit’s Rage. If the target’s roll fails, the character’s worst qualities surge to the surface, making him aggressive, arrogant, lusty, depressive, or whatever else fits his personality. That change of personality lasts for several hours – generally an hour or so per point in the spirit’s Rage. If the player botches that Willpower roll, then the blight upon his character’s personality becomes more-or-less permanent. • Brand: Certain spirits of the Digital Web use this Charm to brand netizens or other spirits with tags that identify the target even if she changes into some new shape. Three Essence inflicts a brand that lasts until the target leaves Netspace, and five Essence tags her with a brand that lasts indefinitely. (Storyteller’s discretion about how long the brand lasts and what it takes to remove it.) Typically employed by Free-Ranging Electronic Encroachment Kill Systems (FREEKS) and other countermeasure and security programs. • Break Reality: The hallmark of a chaos spirit, this Charm changes the Umbral form of an object into some other – maybe radically different – form. A wall becomes mist, fire might become ice, a tree could become a fountain of water. To transform a given object, the Storyteller rolls that spirit’s Gnosis; simple transformations would be difficulty 4 or 5, with radical changes rated at difficulty Optional Rule: Umbrood Magick Although Umbrood beings do not use Awakened magick the ways mortals understand that term, the truly powerful ones have mystic abilities that, in game terms, work very much like magick. And so, under this optional rule, a handful of spirit entities have Arete and Sphere ratings to reflect their godlike talents. Unlike mortal mages, these beings don’t use a focus or gather Paradox. On the Earthly plane, however, an Umbrood character who suffers a botched roll when casting a vulgar Effect is immediately banished to the other side of the Gauntlet for at least one day for every point of Arete that character possesses. Thus, powerful Umbrood avoid flashy magicks in the world of men.
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 491 8 or 9. Success transmutes the object into its new form, failure costs the spirit one Essence, and a botch costs the spirit a point of Gnosis as well. • Calcify: With this Charm, a Pattern Spider binds its target into its Pattern Webs. To use the Charm, the Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Willpower in a resisted roll against the target’s Avatar Background (or against the target’s Rage Trait if that target is one of the shapeshifting Night-Folk). Each success subtracts one dot from a Physical Attribute of the spirit’s choice; when that Attribute has been reduced to zero, the target is stuck in the Pattern Web. From that point onward, the target must be freed by his companions – he himself remains physically helpless, although he could use Mind magick if he does not have to move in order to do so. This charm does not work at all on Marauders, Nephandi, or mages with an Entropy Sphere of 4 or higher… the Dynamic or Entropic energies around such mages are simply too potent to contain in the Pattern Web. This Charm costs no Essence but requires a turn of web-spinning for each point of Physical Attribute drained. Once he’s freed, the character’s Traits return to normal. • Call for Aid: With an expenditure of five Essence, the spirit calls upon other entities of its kind. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Willpower, with the difficulty based on the likelihood of other spirits being nearby at the time: difficulty 3 if the other spirits are within sight, difficulty 6 in an area where such spirits are common, difficulty 8 for unusual spirits within that region, and difficulty 9 for rare spirits outside their normal habitat. • Cleanse the Blight: With a wave of purifying energy, a nature spirit, angel, or other benevolent entity can purge spiritual corruption from its immediate area. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis against a difficulty based on the level of corruption – from 4 or 5 for an area with mild taint to 9 or 10 for areas of massive abuse and sickness. This Charm costs 10 Essence. • Cling: Using this Charm, an entity can cling to an object or another creature. The spirit must first make a successful grappling attack in order to hang onto an unwilling target. After a successful grappling roll, the spirit gains five extra Willpower dice for the purposes of hanging on and resisting other grappling attacks. Once the spirit latches on, the target can free himself only by reducing the Spirit’s Essence to zero, pulling it free with a successful grappling attack, or else binding the spirit into a fetish. This Charm costs one Essence point per use, but it lasts until the spirit lets go or is otherwise removed. • Control Electrical Systems: Engaging its bond with technology, an electricity elemental or spirit of electrical tech can seize control of an electric device and run it according to the spirit’s desires. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis against a difficulty based upon the complexity of the machine or system – from 3 to control light bulbs to 9 to control a HIT Mark or cybernetic gear. The Essence cost likewise depends upon the sophistication of the device, from one Essence to control simple objects to five Essence to command complex machinery. • Corruption: As a demon or other spiritual temper employs this Charm, the Storyteller spends one Essence point. The spirit whispers foul suggestions in the target’s ear (perhaps in a voice only that victim can hear…), and the victim must make a Willpower roll or else act out the corrupting spirit’s suggestions. If that character might be inclined to act on the suggestion to begin with (like, say, a bank teller facing a bunch of money that hasn’t yet been logged into the system), she might not even try to resist it. • Create Fire: With a successful Gnosis roll, the spirit can ignite a fire. The difficulty depends upon the size of blaze – from 3 for small fires to 9 for an inferno. The Essence cost also depends upon the size of the fire, ranging from one point for a simple flicker to five for a conflagration. • Create Wind: Elemental air command conjures windstorms. Essence cost ranges from one for a light breeze to 20 for a tornado. • Death Fertility: Is something already killing a living thing? If so, a spirit can use this Charm to accelerate the process. Assuming that the target’s already suffering from some malady – injury, infection, starvation, freezing, disease, poison, etc. – an expenditure of five Essence and a Rage roll against the target’s Willpower Trait will inflict further damage upon the target. Each success causes one health level of lethal harm, and the spreading sickness or wound might have other effects as well – see Health and Injury, Harsh Weather and Environments, Starvation and Thirst, and Drugs, Poison, and Disease for possible effects. • Digital Disruption: Deployed only by Digital Web entities, this Charm inflicts either a soft de-rez – that is, one that dumps the target out of the Web and back into Meatspace without hurting him – or a hard de-rez, which inflicts two automatic health levels in lethal damage and deducts two points of a Mental Attribute unless the target makes a Stamina roll, difficulty 7 (the damage and Trait loss heal as lethal damage). The entity must hit the target with a Willpower-based attack roll, but success automatically dumps the target out of Netspace. A soft de-rez costs three Essence, and a hard one costs five. • Disable: This stunning Charm can paralyze a single victim. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Rage against the appropriate difficulty (target’s Stamina + 3, or Rage if the target is another spirit). Cost is one Essence point for each level of the target’s current health or one point per Essence point if the Charm gets used against a spirit
492 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition entity. Minimum cost is 10 Essence. The paralysis lasts one turn for every Essence point spent… and yes, the spirit can spend extra Essence to disable its opponent for longer periods of time. • Disorient: By altering both nearby landmarks and the target’s sense of direction, the entity confuses its opponents on either side of the Gauntlet. To do so, the Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis against difficulty 6 or the local Gauntlet rating, whichever is higher. Possessed only by spirits of confusion and the raw Dynamic energies often called Wyld spirits, this Charm costs no Essence. • Dream Journey: For 10 Essence points (15 if the spirit wants the target to remember it in the morning), an entity may intrude on a sleeping subject’s dreams. Although the Charm has no lasting effects beyond the emotional pain or comfort involved in that dream, the spirit can do whatever it damn well pleases within the confines of the dream realm. Of course, if the subject is a lucid dreamer with a Demesne, the intruder might get more than it bargained for… See the Lucid Dreaming Talent (p. 294) and the Demesne Background (pp. 310-311) in Chapter Six for details. • Ease Pain: By spending one Essence, the spirit may ease another creature’s pain. In game terms, this alleviates all wound-based penalties except penalties to movement. The Charm doesn’t actually heal the injuries, however – it merely soothes the pain involved. Each Essence point removes the subject’s pain for roughly one hour. • Element Sense: Through instinctive contact with its native element (earth, fire, etc.), an elemental spirit can sense things that happen to be touching, or happening near, sources of that entity’s element. When activated, this Charm extends in a circle roughly 500 feet around the elemental itself and lets the entity perceive things that occur within a yard or two of its element, so long as the source of that element lies within the area affected by the Charm. A fire elemental, for instance, could sense things within a yard of a candle flame or fireplace if that flame flickers within 500 feet of the elemental itself. Each use of this Charm costs five Essence and lasts roughly an hour. • Feedback: Possessed only by certain aggressive Digital Web spirits, this Charm fires off a shattering wail of sonic or electronic feedback. Every two points of Essence put into the attack inflics one health level of bashing damage in the form of headaches, scrambled senses, mental trauma, and misfiring nervous systems. Every five points in the attack inflict a level of lethal damage – cooking organs, killing brain cells, electrocuting flesh, and disrupting muscular control. This Charm affects only travelers in the Digital Web, but it can kill their meat back home. • Flee: With this Charm, the spirit can temporarily boost its Willpower to 15 for the purposes of escaping danger. This bonus does not actually raise the Trait with regards to activities other than escape, although it might aid a spirit who’s trying to avoid or hide from a confrontation. Costs two Essence per turn. • Flood: A typical trick for storm spirits and water elements, this Charm raises the natural water level to flood a given area. The size of that area depends upon the power of the spirit: a Gaffling-level entity could flood a small building or a short city block, whereas a Jaggling could flood a small town. (Don’t ask how much an Incarna could flood with this Charm…) The Charm normally costs one point of Essence per turn to use, and it generally takes several turns to flood a significant area. If there is no water around, the spirit would have to import some via storm clouds, broken water mains, or other potential sources of a flood. • Freeze: A sudden drop in temperature frosts the immediate area. The spirit’s Rage Trait drops by one, and every character within that area suffers one health level in lethal damage for every point in the spirit’s new Rage Trait. (Rage 6 would drop to Rage 5, inflicting five dice of lethal damage, for example.) The range of this Charm is roughly 20 feet (three meters) for every dot in the spirit’s permanent Rage Trait. That sharp drop in temperature could have other effects too – see Harsh Weather and Environments under Environmental Hazards. • Healing: With a surge of spiritual energy, the spirit can heal an injured physical being. To do so, the Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis – difficulty 6 for lethal damage, difficulty 8 for aggravated damage. That spirit can heal one health level for each point in that spirit’s Gnosis Trait and may use this Charm only once on a character per scene. The spirit could heal each of six characters, for example, but it could only do so once. The Charm costs no Essence, but the spirit will probably want some sort of favor in return for the healing. • Illuminate: Suffusing itself with light, the entity illuminates an area roughly 20 yards or meters from its body or changes the color and intensity of existing lights in the area. This Charm requires no roll or Essence cost. • Influence: For three Essence points, the spirit can gradually shift a subject’s mood in whichever direction that spirit desires. A successful roll of that entity’s Gnosis against the subject’s Willpower sets the Charm in motion; the spirit can then influence that person from a distance, with no words or obvious contact between them. • Inhabit: A lesser and more benign version of the Possession Charm allows the spirit to briefly inhabit a living creature or inanimate object. That spirit slips into the subject, speaking with her voice and perceiving through her various senses. The Storyteller makes a Gnosis roll, difficulty of the subject’s Willpower (for a living target) or the local Gauntlet (for an object). If the subject consents
Chapter Nine: Dramatic Systems 493 to be inhabited, no roll is necessary. This Charm costs five Essence and lasts for one scene. If the spirit tries to compel its host into any sort of harm or danger, the spirit is immediately ejected from that host. • Insight: Through this Charm, an entity can puzzle out one hidden element of a target’s identity, history, or personality. If the spirit tries to uncover a specific piece of information, the Charm costs 10 Essence; if the entity simply attempts to find something worth using, the cost is only five Essence. • Iron Will: By deciding upon a single, specific course of action (guard this place, watch this child, find this book, and so forth), a spirit may invoke this Charm and add five extra dice to any roll that helps it meet that purpose or resist being driven away from the task. Costs one Essence per hour. • Lightning Bolt: With a surge of power, the entity hurls a thunderbolt. Costs two Essence for each die of lethal damage inflicted. (See also the Blast Charm and Electrocution under Environmental Hazards.) • Materialize: This Charm allows a spirit to assume physical shape in the material world… a dangerous thing, especially in the age of machine-gun fire. To do so, the spirit’s Gnosis must be higher than the local Gauntlet rating. Once materialized, the spirit can go wherever it wants to go, provided that the local Gauntlet rating is no higher than the spirit’s Gnosis -2, and assuming that no one has bound that spirit in a mystic pentacle or hypertech spirit cage (in game terms, a Spirit 4 Effect; see the Spirit Sphere entry in Chapter Ten.) If the entity gets killed in the material realm, its form is dispersed and the spirit winds up banished to the Umbra in Slumber, as if its Essence had been dispersed in the spirit realm. Under the old World of Darkness rules, a materialized spirit had to buy its Physical Attributes, health levels, and Abilities per the chart below. (A materialized spirit still uses its Gnosis for Social and Mental Attributes.) This approach allows a spirit to expand its capabilities, so long as it has enough Essence to do so. Alternately, the spirit can simply manifest and use its Willpower, Rage, Gnosis, and Essence as usual, without bothering to generate Attributes and Abilities, as per Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition. In that case, however, the spirit remains bound to a single form in the Earthly realm and cannot adjust its size or capabilities. The spirits in Appendix I have been built using the physical forms suggested by the older rules. Typically, a spirit soaks damage with its Willpower Trait, plus the Armor Charm if it has that power. When a materialized spirit gets hit, however, the Stamina Trait (plus armor) soaks damage if that Trait is higher than Willpower. To a materialized spirit entity, bashing, lethal, and aggravated damage are essentially the same – all three drain Essence points if they manage to inflict damage against the spirit’s body. If that spirit takes damage, its materialized health levels absorb the damage first; once those health levels are gone, the spirit can take up to five more health levels in damage before its Essence dissipates back into the Umbra. Whether or not the dead materialized husk remains behind after the spirit’s Essence has departed is a Storyteller call. Given the long histories of “demon’s blood,” “angel feathers,” and “dead alien bodies,” however, tradition suggests that a corpse should remain behind. Essence Cost Trait 5 Initial manifestation (Paradox spirits do not pay this cost). 1 Per one Physical Attribute level. 1 Per two Ability levels. 1 Seven initial health levels. 1 Per additional health levels (each extra health level also increases size). 1 Weaponry; per die of aggravated damage above Strength damage. 1 Per physical health level healed. • Meld: Elemental spirits can merge with their native element by using this Charm, simply disappearing into the element in question. This trick works only for the spirit’s native element, however – an air elemental cannot meld into wood. The charm costs two Essence and one turn to employ. At the end of that time, the element may be disturbed by the spirit’s passage, but the spirit itself cannot be seen or affected. Obviously, this Charm requires a decent amount of the element in question. • Mind Speech: For three Essence, a spirit can project images and impressions, or speak directly into a subject’s mind, using a form of telepathy. The subject understands the spirit in whatever language she considers her native tongue. If the subject resists the message, the spirit could spend three Essence per die to try to win a resisted roll against the target’s Willpower (difficulty 6 for both parties). • Open Moon Bridge: A willing spirit with this Charm may open up a moon bridge from one Umbral location to another. For such service, of course, that entity will want a significant favor. The Charm costs no Essence, and the moon bridge can reach up to 1000 miles (1600 km) from the spirit’s current location. • Peek: The entity peers through the Gauntlet from the Penumbra to the physical world. Costs no Essence. • Possession: The awful power of demons and other corrupting entities, this Charm allows a spirit to enter and command an object or living thing. As with the Inhabit Charm, Possession allows the spirit to see, hear, speak, and
494 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition otherwise interact with the world through the target’s body; in this case, however, that body may be warped in horrific ways through the spirit’s influence… becoming, in many cases, a freakish fomor (see Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Infernalism: The Path of Screams for details). It’s an article of faith that a possessed person has to bear some previous form of corruption in order to open the door for demonic possession. Whether or not this is true remains a Storyteller call. In any case, the possessing entity finds a secluded spot in the Umbra (often protected by other allied entities) and then begins the possession process. In game terms, the Storyteller spends 10 Essence and then rolls the spirit’s Gnosis against a difficulty of the target’s Willpower (or, for an object, difficulty 4). The better she rolls, the faster the possession takes place: Successes Time Taken 1 Six hours. 2 Three hours. 3 One hour. 4 15 minutes. 5 Five minutes. 6+ Instantaneous. Until the possession is complete, the entity may be attacked in the Umbra; any successful attack on that entity breaks the Charm. Once the possession has taken hold, however, the corruption is usually permanent. A successful exorcism using Spirit 4/Life 3/ Prime 2 magick can eject the spirit from its host, as can a successful attack through the True Faith Merit (see Appendix II). Until and unless such exorcisms have been performed, however, this Charm and its effects tend to last until the spirit departs its host. • Quake: This elemental power allows the spirit to literally shake the material world. For five Essence, the entity can cause the earth to shake, rattle, and roll within a one mile radius of that spirit’s presence on either side of the Gauntlet. Each additional five Essence escalates the intensity of the quake, from a notable tremor at five to a devastating catastrophe at 30. • Re-form: For 20 Essence, the spirit may instantly disappear from its current location and appear somewhere else in the spirit realms… usually far away from its enemies. • Shapeshift: With a five-point expenditure of Essence, the spirit can look like whatever it wants to look like. That new form doesn’t have any additional powers or abilities, though spirits tend to be fairly protean when it comes to things like image, limbs, or size. • Short Out: Three Essence allow the entity to short out nearby electrical systems with a Gnosis roll, difficulty 6. Some systems, however, are harder to disrupt than other ones are, especially when hypertech is involved – see the Control Electrical Systems Charm for details. • Shatter Glass: Flexing its will, the spirit breaks all the glass in the area. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis, difficulty 6. The base shatter area is roughly 10 yards, and each success makes the affected area 10 yards larger. Costs no Essence. • Solidify Reality: A Charm for Stasis spirits only, this power allows the entity to spin a Pattern Web, bringing a choking form of order to its surroundings. With a successful Willpower roll, the spirit may craft a spiritual wall so thick that no method short of high-powered Entropy or Spirit magick can bring it down. The difficulty of that roll depends on how large, thick, and potent the Pattern Web will be; a small boost for existing Stasis would be 5 or 6, whereas a vast web spun across a chaotic place would be 9 or 10. The Essence cost also depends upon the difficulty of that Web’s construction – from one for a small and simple Web to 20 for a large and static barrier. For other details (including the use of a Pattern Web as a weapon), see the Calcify Charm entry. • Soul Reading: A common trick for demonic or aristocratic entities, this Charm allows the spirit a brief but revealing glimpse of a mortal’s passions and temperament. It’s not mind reading, per se, but a fairly accurate gauge of who a mortal is, what she wants, and how she feels in that moment. Costs three Essence. • Spirit Away: The awful talent of Paradox entities and other dreaded spirits, this Charm allows the spirit to snatch a creature or character from the material world and then bring him to its personal Realm. For 25 Essence and four or more successes on a Willpower roll, difficulty 7, the entity can grab someone; if that grab succeeds, the spirit and its prisoner go directly to that spirit’s Realm – no stops in between. The very next turn, both beings wind up in the Realm. The prisoner can try to escape, of course, but unless she manages to counter the grab with a successful dodge, she’s goin’ down… or up… or wherever… • Spirit Static: A spirit of order and Stasis can raise the local Gauntlet rating by one level with this Charm. Up to three entities can cooperate on this task, raising the Gauntlet by three. To harden the Gauntlet, the Static spirits must focus on the task, lowering all of their dice pools by two for the duration of the static effect. This Charm costs no Essence, only concentration. • Swift Flight: By spending one point of Essence per turn, the spirit can fly at three times its normal speed, up to ([60 + Willpower] x 3) yards or meters per turn. • System Havoc: A Charm employed by Digital Web spirits and electronic elementals, this power allows a spirit to