MASTER ROTES

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

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

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CORRESPONDENCE

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

Spatial Mutations
Correspondence ◉◉◉◉◉
With true Mastery of Correspondence, the mage can alter distance and direction as desired. Though the mage can't really "create space" per se, she can easily cause a perceived distance to change without affecting the relative outside world. She can bend space around to make strange shapes that don't hinder objects or creatures inside. To those on the inside, the space seems normal while the outside appears distorted. She can cause things to appear shrunken, grown or distorted, though such magic does not actually affect the subjects directly — it just makes them appear different relative to the rest of the world.
Since the mage can change distances or directions, she can cause an object to become very small relative to herself, but it would still have the same mass and strength. She could make something larger but it would not become any more resilient. In effect, the material properties of various Patterns don't change, just their appearance in three-space.

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ENTROPY

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Binding Oath
Entropy ◉◉◉◉◉
The most powerful Fate magicians can call destiny itself to witness the oaths and pacts that they oversee. The skein of Fate takes chart of the subject and marks him. Such an oath brings the weight of fortune to bear on any who break it. Even without any additional compulsions or bindings, the oath has power due to the simple weight of destiny hanging over the subject.
A Binding Oath doesn't necessarily lay actual prohibitions on the subject. The individual retains his free will. However, should he choose to break the oath willingly, he reaps the full weight of consequence. Fate's tapestry bends to ensure that disaster befalls the oathbreaker, and he's clearly marked to any who can sense the weight of destiny.
Laying a binding oath is a difficult task, since it must be made to last long enough to have any meaning — typical oaths last for a cycle of the moon, a year and a day, even an age or an eternity. Placing a prohibition on an unwilling subject is even more difficult, especially if the victim is already marked for a great destiny. Thus, such oaths are usually saved for situations of the greatest weight and consequence, like ceremonial initiation into the mysteries of a Tradition or the foundation of a new Chantry.

Mutate Ephemera
Entropy ◉◉◉◉◉
The vagaries of chance can take effect even on time, space and thought, and Masters of Entropy can pull on these threads as well. Most often, this Effect is used in conjunction with constructs of thought and mind. Without even using the Mind Sphere, the Master can cause someone's mind to wander with a glance, lead her down a new chain of thought with a few well-placed words or change her mind about something with a simple warning. The Master of Entropy can also reweave destiny to take note of someone or to ensure that a particular place or time will be a conjunction of great import. As with other manifestations of Entropy, the magician is not guaranteed of the final outcome, but he can make certain that something comes to pass, for good or for ill as he determines.
A simple bending of ephemeral chance can cause someone to change his mind about a whim or thought, or it might lead him to a new conclusion. Actually shifting someone's weight of destiny or placing a powerful curse or blessing, making a cryptic prophetic pronouncement or designating an area as a center of unusual happenstance is much more difficult. Placing a bond of fate over an area or for a large span of time requires that the mage address the difficulty of that distance or duration.

FORCES

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

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

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LIFE

Animal Form
Life ◉◉◉◉◉
Although the mythical Circe's transformation of men into pigs is perhaps one of the better-known examples of this power, Verbena and Hermetics still have a history of changing offenders into various sorts of animals. The subject must retain a similar general size, although the mage can induce the Pattern metamorphosis to cause the victim to shrink into a mouse or grow into an oak tree with enough work. The subject's consciousness remains, but it will eventually fade into the hew form, as with Mutate Form.
Animals can also be changed into humans with this power — although they retain their animal instincts, they may slowly become more human. Whether an "uplifted" animal could Awaken is unknown.

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

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MATTER

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

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

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MIND

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Create Mind
Mind ◉◉◉◉◉
The penultimate mastery of Mind allows the mage to create an entirely new consciousness. The mage can determine the personality, intellect and foibles of the consciousness. If left unattended, such minds tend to drift into the Astral Umbra, where they float away, dissipate or go insane. With a proper housing (like a newly created body, a computer or a section of Umbral space), the mind can stay and perhaps even achieve a level of independent sentience. Unless built as little more than instinct, such minds do tend to grow beyond the initial parameters of the creator.
Virtual Adepts use this Effect to create machine intelligences, computers that can think and take on human roles. Such machines can be dangerous — many become unstable or resent their servitor roles — but they are also the most effective forms of computers available.
Of course, if a created mind is not also given a soul (with Spirit magic), then it has no existence beyond its own memory. Should such a persona "die," it will never reincarnate and it is gone forever. If a mage uses sufficient magic to create a new mind, body and soul, then perhaps it would be possible to create true life... but the Master capable of such a feat has not walked Earth for decades, if not centuries.

 

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PRIME

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

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

Master's Enchantment
Prime ◉◉◉◉◉
This catch-all describes the greatest enchantments known to Masters of Prime — the enchantment of a living being, place or time with the power of Prime. Enchanting a living creature enables the mage to create a Relic, a magical being or blessing on a person. Enchanting an area, often by bending ley lines or channeling natural energies, creates a Node. By consecrating a specific time with adherence to rituals and patterns, the mage can create Junctures where regular surges of Quintessence spring forth.
Naturally, such-superlative enchantments represent the pinnacle of the Master's craft. Few mages even attempt such vulgar feats any more, and the number of mages who could complete such a task — or even know that it's possible — dwindles every day.
A mage who creates a Node or Juncture essentially makes a temporary ripple in the Tapestry, where a specific space (with correspondence) or time (with Time magic) surges with Prime energy. The mage must meet the full requirements of the area and the duration, and such a task qualifies at least as an outlandish feat (requiring 10 or more successes in addition to the duration and area). Creating a new Node permanently is a job for an entire circle of Masters, and it can backfire and blow all of the mages into oblivion. As rare as they are, Nodes are easier to find than create.

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SPIRIT

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Break the Dreamshell
Spirit ◉◉◉◉◉
The Dreamshell is the Dreamspeaker term for the Horizon. To enter the Deep Umbra, a mystic must break through this Dreamshell, just as she must break through the Gauntlet when stepping sideways.
Ten successes or more are required to pierce the Earth Mother's Dreamshell. Other Realms might have weaker or stronger Horizons. If the mage uses an Anchorhead (a special Domain set amid the Dreamshell), the passage becomes easier and requires only five successes.
Fortunately, the Dreamshell is not overrun with flaying spirit energies, and crossing it does not carry the same inherent dangers as Stepping

Sideways.

Deep Umbra Travel
Spirit ◉◉◉◉◉
Surviving the utterly barren spiritual environment of the Deep Umbra requires a membrane of spirit magic. This spiritual essence creates a sort of bubble around the mage, protecting him from the ravages of the Deep Umbra. The traveler must reach and enter another Near Umbra before the duration rolled for the field elapses, or he will die a cold death in the void.
Deep Umbral travel is a dangerous affair. Most distances are great but highly subjective. Mages often experience hallucinations or visions in the Deep Umbra, and they can encounter strange entities that make their homes there. Such creatures are rarely friendly to humanity.
A few bold mages actually build giant ships that travel the various dimensions, not only skirting space but piercing into the primordial Void itself. The Void Engineers are foremost among such, of course, but Sons of Ether also build great and fanciful Etherjammers to carry them to distant places. In the Deep Umbra, they look for other worlds, spirit realms beyond any known place, and clues to the formation of the Tellurian.

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TIME

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

Time Travel
Time ◉◉◉◉◉
Physics aside, the mage simply vanishes from one point in the time-stream and reappears sometime else. Although scientists would argue that a mage doing so would wind up in the void of space (the Earth having moved far from its position in the time jumped), the mage's Pattern obeys metaphysical laws, so the mage reappears in the same place from which she left. The successes scored indicate how far the mage can travel through time, and how many people she can bring along, if desired.
Traveling through time generates a significant temporal disturbance, and many time travelers find that there are already groups of other mages waiting to find out what's going on when they arrive.
If the mage leaves an "anchor point" in her present, she can pull back on that thread and return to the time that she left. Otherwise, the trip is one-way. Likewise, the mage can try to send a subject into the future, but he may discover that the individual has taken steps in that later future to find the mage and deal him!
Trips to the future tend to be fairly easy, but unpredictable. The mage simply scries an appropriate time, or even jumps blind, and reappears in some future point. Past travel is much, much more difficult and dangerous, primarily because the weight of memory causes reality to assert itself against the mage directly. Past travelers tend to vanish into the time-stream, destroyed by Paradox or other forces, and never seem to make significant changes to the timeline (not that anyone would remember, though). Some mages maintain that a sort of "time police" group prevents other mages from traveling too far through time, or from manipulating the time stream overtly.
It's rumored that Archmages have a more effective form of time travel, even permitting them to alter the past in a limited fashion, but who would know?

 

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