Mage House Rules

This serves as a compiled list of active rules for Mage the Awakening, and Mage players venturing into other threads. These rules are a product of conversations between the STs and moderators, and a consideration of player suggestions.

These rules are a work in progress as we continually try to ensure that the game is fun for everyone, and play between different Splats is facilitated.

General Rules of Twilight Valley

• These rules supersede Mage-specific rules.

Character Creation

General

• Please confer with the Mage ST or Moderator regarding your concept.
• No 'newly' Awakened characters. All characters must begin with knowledge of Mage society and the Lex Magica.
• Legacies: Beginning play with a Legacy will require 12 XP. This XP can be represented as either a Legacy Mentor 3, or as Legacy XP paid that Mentor, or both.
• Nimbus: Have a clearly detailed Nimbus in mind for your Mage, and submit with character.

Restriction List

• No Banisher or Seer characters
• No Summoners material

Legacies:

• No Left-Handed Legacies, or nearly Left
• No Celestial Masters

Optional Rules:

• No Spatial Command (TotM)
• No Temporal Command (TotM)
• No To The Limit (TotM)

Source Material:

• Armory Reloaded (Some Material may be allowed, please check with your ST)
• Ancient Bloodlines
• Inferno
• Slasher
• Geist: the Sin-Eaters material
• Hunter: The Vigil material
• Promethean: The Created material

Systems

• A Mage only needs a single Magical Tool. There are no Path, Order, etc. Just one.
• Gain Skill type spells must first reduce the Untrained Penalty to zero before adding 'dots'. If you want to boost a Mental Skill which you have no Skill in, it will require four successes (-3 penalty) to gain a single 'dot'.
• Scouring for Mana is extremely painful; repeated attempts in close succession may lead to a Derangement.
• Scrutiny dice roll limit is equal to a character's Gnosis per scene.
• Meditating does not give +1 to degeneration rolls.

Mana

• Each character begins each Scene with 0 Mana.
• Add 1 Mana if the Character is fulfilling a Dedication.
• Add 3 Mana per dot of Hallow. Mana gained from Hallow dots can be in Tass form instead of held in the character's Pattern. This is to be requested at the beginning of each scene, otherwise it will be assumed that all Mana is held in the character's Pattern.
• Add 3 Mana if an Oblation Mood was written in the past month. Obviously an Oblation requires a Hallow or Legacy.

Oblation Moods I know, I know, it gets tiresome, and it's hard to keep being original. I hear you. Once a player has written six good Oblation Moods, they're done. They will always enter a Scene with a base of 1/2 your character's Mana pool instead of 0.

via:http://nwod.org/wiki/index.php/Playing_Mage

Ritual Casting

• Extended casting dice roll limit is equal to a character's Gnosis.
• Relinquishing a spell can only be done by paying the Willpower dot. No alternate methods/spells from TotM are allowed.
• Rituals do not require sacraments.

Rotes

• Rote dice pools are determined by a character's natural stats. Attributes or Skills altered by magic may not increase spell dice pools.
• Rote Factor Bonuses (TotM) don't exist.
• Rote Mudras are noticeable hand gestures.

Rotes will be readily available from your Order -- if you are in good standing. Similar to Changeling: the Lost, you have free access to learn Rotes equal to your Status (Order) + 1. We will also add the Goodwill (Order) Merit, which will allow you access to other Order's Rotes equal to your Goodwill (Order) -1. Therefore, a Disciple Level Rote would require Status 2 -or- Goodwill 4 to learn. Goodwill will be just as volatile as Status, so keep that in mind.

Also, these Merits are not required to learn Rotes. They simply preclude the necessity to find a teacher. All Rote purchases -must- be approved by the ST (as any XP expenditure), so let an ST know what you're after before pumping up your Status or Goodwill to avoid potential problems, as some Rotes will not be available.

Goodwill will work somewhat like Contacts -- after character creation, what you do IC will justify whether or not you can 'up' this Merit. You can't suddenly be the Mysterium's best buddy overnight, you know

Willpower

Per WoD core, WP refreshes once a Story ends; otherwise, it's through four means:

• fulfilling your Virtue
• fulfilling your Vice
• small 'triumphs'
• a night of rest

Willpower pools will not refresh every Scene. They will be a constant, and must be tracked in your signature lines. For every New Scene a character enters (which is not linked to another same-day Scene) the character adds 1 WP to their total. This is to simulate the night of rest.

Otherwise, it can only be regained through Virtue/Vice & possible triumphant acts.

Scene-hopping to abuse the system will be Not Good (tm).

Rituals (Wards, Bans, Prepared Spells, etc) which are cast with a Duration less than a month will need to be re-cast and noted out of character, with this taken into account.

Sympathy Clarifications

No spells are inherently Sympathetic, Spatial or Temporal. This includes spells like Scrying, Portal, Teleport, Postcognition, and the Augury-line. Casting any of these spells (or any other spell listing or directly mentioning the Sympathy table) at non-Sensory range adds all applicable penalties (such as +1 Mana, Vulgarity if normally Covert, and requiring +1 proficiency in the Arcanum if affecting a Pattern directly) as listed in M:tA p. 114-116.

Also, Spatial and Temporal Sympathy penalties stack additively for those times when casting spells like Postcognition or Augury remotely. This usually will mean a doubling of the penalty (or required successes in the case of rituals) and an additional Mana, but not any additional proficiency requirements.

Temporal Sensory Range

We will be using the following options to define what Sensory range is with regards to Time:

• The Target(s) is/are (all) in Spatial Sensory range and the Time being asked about is "Now".
• The Target is the caster, himself, and the caster was, is, or immutably will be at the center of the affected area at the time and location being inquired about.
• Locations and things are only Temporally in Sensory range in the present.

Note that, for the spell to remain Spatially Sensory, you must still sense the area you wish to target.

Nimbuses

You can auto ignore a character's Nimbus if you choose, but you don't see what it's about at all.

Basically, think of it like this: your character gets a sixth sense about when Nimbi are about to flare and can choose to block out or experience all the effects, but it's all or nothing. In no way do Nimbi force you to feel anything that your character wouldn't normally feel. However, by not experiencing the effects, you are choosing not to be able to identify someone via their Nimbus. You can still Identify someone via their Resonance Signature even if you choose to not experience their Nimbus.

If you do choose to experience the effects, these feelings and sensations come to you as a sort of ghost sensation, an illusion of the actual feeling. There is no real intensity about them except if you choose to embrace the feeling, but that is an active decision that you are allowed to make.

Nimbus Etiquette

Etiquette regarding a mage's Nimbus differs from Consilium to Consilium and from Order to Order and even Mage by Mage. In some places it is regarded as uncouth, to be hidden whenever possible. In others, it is used as a way to identify mages to each other.

Alchemy

The rules for Alchemy are going to instead be treated similarly to how Prepared Spells (Time 2) work. The only requirement to make an Alchemical product is that the Mage have Matter 2, so they do not have to worry about creating Gross Matter. Unlike Prepared Spells, Alchemical products will retain the part of the rules listed in TotM stating that having them on your person will not count against Spell Tolerance (normal Active Spell limits apply, though) to offset the limitation of being breakable/losable/etc.

Other considerations:

• Only the Mage with Matter 2 can place spells into an Alchemical Item, though they can then give Alchemical Items to others after they have been imprinted.

• Prepared Spells and Alchemical Items stack for the limit of how many of either you can have active at once (Gnosis).

• Like Prepared Spells, a spell in an Alchemical Item is held only for as long as listed on the table on p. 261 of M:tA, after which the spell dissipates uselessyl. At the time of casting, you can similarly extend the duration that the spell is contained by the Alchemical Item as listed on those tables.

• It costs an additional 1 Mana to imprint a given spell into an Alchemical Item at the time the spell is imprinted, similar to what you would do to make a spell be Conditionally Triggered (Fate 2 + Time 2; M:tA, p.151).

• The actual specifics of a given Alchemical product are up to the player (like whether it is a potion, oil, or salve), though the STs suggest following the guidelines laid out in TotM for what spells can be placed in what types of Alchemical products if you need ideas.

Skills

Occult

Occult encompasses a very broad and general knowledge; some things you may not know without a relevant specialty. What I'd like to do is outline here what you can expect to know at the different levels, and what Specialties and/or Penalties you might expect. This is from the MtA perspective only. This is also a guideline -- IC experiences override this.

Remember: Mages can cast and grow in power without *ever* having 'book' knowledge of magic. Just because you're an Adept doesn't mean you know what the Quicksilver Spear is.

• 1 - Nothing of Awakened Magic
• 2 - Arcana, Practices, Proficiencies
• 3 - Consilium social structure; your Order's social structure; awareness of other Supernals
• 4 - Imbued/enhanced Items; other Order's social structures; your Order's Legacies; obscure esoterica (Souls, Cycles)
• 5 - Artifacts; your Path's Legacies; Ancient & Sublime Legacies; Realms Invisible; Very Bad Things

Many of these checks will run the range of penalties, whereas some information will require a Specialty. Please remember, this is also a cross-venue board -- even with a Specialty, a lot of information regarding other splats simply won't be available until you gain it IC.

Examples of Specialties which might serve you well: Resonance, Abyssal Intrusions, Legacies (per Path/Order/Left-Handed), Realms Invisible (per Realm)

Merits

• No Banisher or Seer Merits
• No Merits from Tome of the Watchtowers except Daimon

Allies & Contacts

Merits which allow information or assistance from non-Mage supernaturals (ex. Werewolf Contacts, Vampire Allies, etc.) require approval from the appropriate venue's ST.

Mentors

Mentors are being given mechanics to make them an alternative to Status and Goodwill. Each dot in Mentor must be allocated to one of the following options. The maximum dots allowed in a single Mentor is still 5.

• Fighting Styles (1-3 dots per FS)
  • The first dot allocated to a given Fighting Style allows the Mentor to teach you up to the 3rd dot in that Fighting Style. Allocating additional dots to the same Fighting Style increases the highest dot level of the Fighting Style that the Mentor can teach you (e.g. 2 dots allows teaching of up to the 4th dot, and 3 allows up to the 5th).
  • For a Mentor to teach Fighting Style: Adamantine Hand (AA, p. 53), 2 dots must first be allocated to Mage below (and the Order chosen must be Arrow) before dots may be allocated to this Fighting Style.
• Mage (2+ dots)
  • You must select a Path and Order (including Apostate) when choosing this. The first two dots give the benefits of a basic Mage Mentor:
  • Access to up to 6 dots of Rotes, plus another 3 dots for every dot beyond 2 allocated to Mage. The maximum dot level of any given Rote is either [dots allocated to Mage] + 1 if in the Mentor's Order or [dots allocated to Mage] - 1 if not in the Mentor's Order. Apostate Mentors use the latter for all Rotes.
    • Rotes do not need to be selected when buying a Mentor. We will keep tabs of how many dots of Rotes your Mentor has taught you.
  • The Mentor's Path Arcana are available for tutelage for the purpose of increasing the maximum number of dots the Mage can purchase in the Arcana. For every dot beyond 2 allocated to Mage, you may select another Arcanum that the Mentor will teach you for this same purpose.
• Legacy (1 dot, requires Mage): Allocating a dot here allows access to a Legacy. It also counts as a dot of Mage for the purpose of Arcana tutelage, only.

Imbued Items

See Imbued Items.

Familiars

Familiars start each scene with half their Essence pool in points of Essence.

Artifacts

Artifacts start each scene with a Mana Pool of 3 * their dot level. Any Mana above the maximum for the Artifact's pool cannot be placed anywhere else and just bleeds off uselessly.

Extemporaneous Affinity

This Merit is allowed to PC's with the following addition:

• Drawback: Rotes will be harder to learn; each level of ExAff will add +1 to the XP multiplier. At ExAff 1, Rotes will be 3x; at 2, 4X, at 3, 5X. It will also be Character Creation Only, and only purchasable with starting Merit dots. Costing will also change to •••, •••• or •••••, keeping the same numerical bonus.

Hallow

Ambient Mana is limited to an amount equal to a character's Gnosis per day.

Status

Beyond your personal status in an Order determined by Merits, a character has a relative social status in Sacramento. This status is based off of the opinions of other Mages, including other player characters.

Final status is a function of the opinions of other Mages, weighted by the number of opinions and the importance of the ones who hold that opinion.

I ask of you that you contribute to the evaluation of the status of other player characters (and perhaps even NPCs) by evaluating them with a public opinion (the opinion you might share with others) vs your character's private opinion (the one they mostly keep to themselves, or close friends). If your character does not have relevant knowledge of someone, it is entirely appropriate not to write an entry for them. Only write an entry if you have heard of or met another character.

Legacies

• Reality Makers ^[1] have the optional Winds of Chance effect removed.

See Also

• Playing Mage
• Spells: A list of canon Spells which have been House Ruled/adjusted.
• Creative Thaumaturgy: A list of fan Spells which have been approved for usage.