DISCIPLE ROTES

Prerequisites: Occult ◉◉ Arete  ◉◉ Relevant sphere rank ◉◉

SUCCESSES REQUIRED ◉◉ (however you may need other successes to allocate where appropriate)

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COROSPONDENCE

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

Correspondence Sensing 
Correspondence ◉◉
The ancient arts of scrying take many forms. The mage might use a tiny camera, a reflecting bowl, a magic mirror or any number of means. The end results are the same: the mage draws a connection between her senses and the desired location. The mage can use her normal senses there, and thus she can watch events unfold, listen in on a conversation or perform similar feats. With Time or Spirit magic, the mage can even look into other worlds or ages, although such Effects are substantially more difficult and prone to interference or unusual results.
Correspondence Sensing can follow the traces picked up with a more basic Sense Connection, allowing the mage not only to determine if something's a gate or if someone's scrying on an area, but to trace back to the location at the other end. This Effect lets the mage determine where a gate goes before passing through, or find out where a spy is lurking and look back. Spirit magic is also required if such a connection crosses the Gauntlet or into certain protected Realms. Once the mage knows how to sense an area, she can defend against such senses, performing countermagic against other spies by using her Correspondence knowledge — her own knowledge of scrying techniques — to block the perceptions of the spy.

Ward 
Correspondence ◉◉
Just as a mage can sense distant locations, the mage can also defend against such perceptions. A ward prevents sensory intrusion from most varieties of supernatural perception. The mage simply creates a bar against the connections of space that would form with Correspondence Sensing. Such an Effect pits its successes against the successes of any scrying attempt, so a well-built ward can keep out even determined spies while a hasty one just makes scrying a little blurry. The ward's successes subtract from any scrying attempt's successes, but the spy's work of battering down the ward is noticeable unless the spy is also careful enough to rebuild the ward while worming through it.
With the proper conjunctional Spheres, a ward can be set with specific conditions or blockades. A ward with the right Mind magic might let through certain viewers or certain people in a particular state of mind, or who know the right password. Time magic can key a ward so that it's penetrable to viewers in a specific range of time. Matter or Life magic allows wards to be woven directly over such Patterns, and it makes scrying on the objects themselves difficult. Once the mage can actually pierce or strengthen space (Correspondence 3), a ward can be built as a ban, an actual barrier to passage. The ban might appear as a force field or a set of glowing runes, or it might have no visible manifestation. The Spheres used in the creation of the ban determine what it keeps out. A Matter ban could be keyed to resist intrusion by bullets, iron or radioactive material; a Forces ban might block certain energies; a Life ban can keep out specific creatures or types of creatures; a Spirit ban naturally protects against demons and spirit entities. The ban strengthens space against the creature, combined with the power of the appropriate Pattern Sphere, to hedge it out, though anything not keyed to the ban passes through normally. Thus, a ban against spirits would still let a spirit's spells and thrown weapons through, so be careful! Bans must usually be cast over an area, and unless the mage spends a lot of time adding to the duration and conjunctional Effects, they aren't likely to last for too long.

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ENTROPY

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Beginner's Luck
Entropy ◉◉
There is a statistical possibility that any random attempt to do anything will actually succeed. You can get a hole-in-one the first time you pick up a golf club or hit the bull's eye at a rifle range on the first try. The trouble is doing it the second time, as the chance gets exceedingly improbable. One lucky shot is in the realm of possibility, but five holes-in-one from a rank amateur is beyond belief.
Most mages agree that skill and practice will beat blind luck any day. When faced with any feat that she has never attempted before (or at least succeeded in), however, a mystic may use the Effect to call on the force of beginner's luck and do the impossible.
For each success with this Effect, the Storyteller may add one success to any non-magical Skill roll that a mage's player has two dice or less to attempt, in addition to any successes that the mage makes on her own. The "automatic successes" from this Effect last until they are used in some spectacular success, at which point the magic expends itself.
Each future attempt to use this same magic for the same feat adds one to the difficulty, reflecting diminishing returns. Mages who wish to continue to make spectacular successes should learn additional levels of the Skill in question. No one stays a beginner for long.

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

FORCES

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

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

LIFE

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Alter Simple Creature
Life ◉◉
By grasping a Life Pattern and molding it metaphysically, the mage learns to heal or change it as desired. Euthanatos use a version of this called "Little Good Death" to learn how to tear simple Patterns, bringing death to plants or small creatures as a stepping-stone to greater skill. Verbena use this skill to mold their trees and pets into pleasing and healthy forms, and to cure disease or injury in such. Healing or injuring a creature uses the damage chart on p. 163. Causing a change to the Pattern relies on the Storyteller's judgement of the power of the feat and severity of the change.

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

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MATTER

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

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

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MIND

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Empathic Projection
Mind ◉◉
Emotions carry great weight. By focusing her emotions and casting her attention to a subject, the mage can send a sudden impulse or feeling. The target can be made to experience the mage's own feelings, or the mage can strike an emotion into the subject. The successes scored indicate the intensity of feeling. With two or three successes, the subject just has a slight sudden urge or quaint moment of queasiness, while five or six successes would cause a sudden blast of emotion to scream into the forefront of the target's mind.
Obviously, a sudden influx of emotion can startle a person or cause her to act strangely for a moment (or longer, if the mage places a duration on the Effect). The target may suddenly laugh inexplicably, drop something or flee the area in panic. Stronger-willed targets are harder to affect. The target can spend a point of Willpower to resist the urges, as with any sudden impulse. If the subject has reason to suspect the mage's intrusion, a Willpower roll can be used to resist, so an extended ritual may be required to affect a wary subject. In some cases, a sudden blast of pure, heart-stopping emotion can paralyze or shock a subject (inflicting standard bashing damage).
The mage cannot send actual pictures or words through this method, but a sudden feeling of danger or need can often be a useful missive when in trouble. Of course, other Mind magicians in the area may well sense the panicked empathic projection.

 

Psychic Impression
Mind ◉◉
The mage leaves a Mind imprint on a given place or object, thus imbuing it with a particular emotion. Most often, this impression is some Resonance Trait of the mage, but the mage may imbue the target with a strong emotional Resonance under circumstances of great stress. The object carries the Resonance for as long as the Effect lasts. If the object is used in conjunction with an Effect, its Resonance may assist or hinder the Effect (see p. 162). Thus, the mage can cause an item to feel his own hate, elation, curiosity, joy or rage. A bullet used in hate would carry greater mystical weight, as would a bandage infused with compassion or a bottle of wine infused with camaraderie.
When a mage places Resonance in an area, that place gains a certain "emotional weight." A house could be made to seem creepy, a nightclub might have a dance floor that brings out anger or lust, a church could be peaceful. Such an Effect can be felt by anyone who enters the area, though generally only those with Awareness will recognize it as supernatural. Normal people will just find the place relaxing, agitating or whatever.

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PRIME

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Body of Light
Prime ◉◉
At this level of Prime, the mage may use his control over the ether to weave what is known as a Body of Light. A Body of Light is a purely etheric construct that typically takes the form of a person's idealized self, but it may take any form the mage devises. There is no mental or emotional content to such a creation. It is merely a useful empty shell typically used to house the astral form of a mage using Mind to travel. Without one, the psyche is essentially naked for its journeys through the Astral.
The Body of Light, however, is more than just a work of vanity. The form serves as armor, as well as a physical form for travel within the Middle and Lower Realms of the Umbra. Astral travelers who wish to perform shapeshifting or other feats in places where they do not have a spiritual body — like Dream Realms — must use a body of light. Also, without such a body, an astral traveler is invisible to those in the physical world, even to those who can sense spirits or magic (Spirit 1, Prime 1). While those sensitive to mental emanations (Mind I) will be able to sense the mage's presence, he will not be able to communicate without further use of Mind magic.
The Body of Light is also commonly used in conjunctional Effects with the Pattern Spheres to allow a mage to materialize his idealized form as an illusion of light, as living flesh or even as a golem of living stone, while his true body and spirit lie protected elsewhere.
The technique of Grafting the Body of Light is also used to create things of ether which are then transmuted to physical substance via Pattern magic. It may also translate things of the base elements into pure ether which may then be used as adjuncts to a Body of Light.

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Enchant Weapon
Prime ◉◉
A mage now leams to reweave the underlying Quintessence so as to clarify and intensify existing forms, enchanting objects and creatures. Weapons treated in this manner — while doing no more damage than their mundane counterparts — strike directly to the Patterns of their targets, inflicting aggravated wounds. The etheric form may also be made different from the physical, so that a dirty denim jacket may have the underlying structure of a Kevlar vest, or a broken talismanic dagger may still have a whole blade with regards to magical structure. Such structures are still what they appear to physical reality — the denim jacket would not stop bullets, nor could the nonexistent dagger cut butter — but to etheric, spiritual and astral reality, they are quite real. The jacket could stop spirit darts while the dagger could stab wraiths, or even perform whatever magical or ritual functions it did before.
Note that a mage cannot yet imbue Life with static seething Prime energy at this level, so he cannot cause his own Pattern to tear into other Patterns — but a clever mage could easily wear enchanted gloves for combat. Enchanting a Pattern in this fashion typically requires energizing it with a point of Quintessence (the enchantment lasts for the duration scored, but is almost never permanent without a greater supply of Quintessence).

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

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SPIRIT

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

The Spirit's Caress
Spirit ◉◉
A mage can reach across the Gauntlet briefly to touch a spirit on the other side. The mage could strike a spirit or just interact with it while remaining otherwise physical. This Effect is a perfect means of conflict if the spirit has no way to manifest in the material world to return the insult. Of course, the Effect just allows the mage to affect the spirit; it doesn't guarantee the results of any of his physical actions (the mage might pierce the Gauntlet and reach across, only to miss the spirit with a punch).
Combined with the Prime Effect Bond of Blood, the mage can share Quintessence with the spirit, or ask it to give up Power in exchange (treat them as interchangeable resources). This tactic doesn't work as well with ghosts although some wraiths have their own means of granting power to a mage, as the ancestor-spirits of the Wu Lung can attest. Note that Quintessence drawn from a spirit takes on the spirit's nature as its Resonance, so it's best to deal with a spirit that does the sorts of things that the mage wants to do!

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TIME

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Divinations
Time ◉◉
Scrying-bowls, speaking mirrors, uncontrolled cryptic pronouncements or songs, and visionary trances are staples of magical divination, and they are keys to understanding the past and future. Although both ends of the spectrum are clouded by possibility, Time magic can at least draw back the curtain for a moment to snatch glimpses of what might become or might have been. The vision seen or described may be hazy or indeterminate; the further from the present, the more clouded the vision.
Successes rolled on such an Effect are split up to determine both the duration to which the mage can look into past or future, and the accuracy of the divination. Such visions are almost never totally accurate, but they can sometimes paint a useful picture. Beware the mage who sees visions of disaster, though... that way lies insanity.

Time Wards
Time ◉◉
Any sort of mucking about with time "muddies the waters," so to speak, and although a novice mage can't perform fine manipulations with time, she can at least lay about with random Time Effects to make the surrounding time-stream disturbed and impenetrable to Time perceptions. Other mages trying to look into the past or future get only a blur of possible visions and confused images, and Time Effects tend to run into the rippling temporal currents and get dispersed into the rapids. With enough force and work, the mage can completely block off an area from time sight and render it totally opaque to temporal scrying.
Unless the mage uses other Spheres in conjunction, an Effect of this sort just blocks out a small area of time in her own location. The exact duration warded is determined by the duration chart, although the mage can determine how far the ward extends to past and future by splitting up the duration. Successes rolled are also used to generate the ward's strength; a persistent or powerful mage can break through Time static with enough will. In other respects, these wards are similar to the more familiar wards built with Correspondence 

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