Post by Phsycodelic on Feb 9, 2017 1:00:53 GMT
Life
Specialties: Cloning, Creation, Evolution, Healing, Improvement, Injury, Shapeshifting, Transformation
Specialties: Cloning, Creation, Evolution, Healing, Improvement, Injury, Shapeshifting, Transformation
Many mages posit the existence of an additional Sphere or Spheres. Each Tradition has its pet theory as to a " 10th Sphere," and the Technocratic Union seeks a Grand Unification Theory. Still, despite years of study, no one group has been able to find an over-Sphere or a missing element to fill this mythical role. Like some posited Northwest Passage, the "10th Sphere" draws students but never reveals itself.
The levels of Sphere expertise feature five advancing steps:
Perception (Sphere Rank 1): An initiate grasps the essential principles and begins to perceive the ways in which that Sphere behaves. A Correspondence initiate learns to spot connections and reckon distances; a Forces initiate notes elemental phenomena; and a Time initiate achieves an uncanny sense of the ebbs and flows of time. The mage can't alter anything just yet, but she can put her observations to good use.
Manipulation (Sphere Rank 2): The mage begins to use the Sphere to make small alterations in her local reality. The Correspondence student can look across distances or pull small objects from "nowhere"; the Forces student can make burning candles flare or go out; and the Time student gains limited pre and postcognition. Although not yet able to perform dramatic Effects, the mage gains a small degree of control over the Sphere's principles... but for many tasks, a small degree of control is all you need.
Control (Sphere Rank 3): Achieving a greater level of accomplishment, the mage can make notable changes to elements connected with the Sphere. Our Correspondence devotee can step through intervening space; the Forces devotee could conjure winds or make fire leap; the Time devotee might speed up or slow down her speed relative to her surroundings. Remarkable feats become possible, and the mage approaches the realm of true wizardry.
Command (Sphere Rank 4): An impressive command of the Sphere in question allows the mage to perform dramatic feats. The Correspondence adept might appear in several places at once, the Forces adept conjures storms, and the Time adept can literally stop time in her vicinity. Even when such Effects aren't obviously magic, the mage attains significant influence over the principles associated with that Sphere.
Mastery (Sphere Rank 5): Magnificent feats become possible with such dominion within the Sphere. Our Correspondence master can stack several places into a single location; the Forces master commands vast phenomena - firestorms, blizzards, even nuclear blasts; the Time master can step outside of time, achieve limited immortality, or travel back and forth through time. Literally godlike miracles greet the master of a Sphere, and Reality literally shapes itself to her whim.
Rumor has it that levels of Archmastery exist for each Sphere, granting abstract powers that even gods might envy. In game terms, these would be the extremely optional Sphere Ranks 6-10. Such powers are beyond almost every mage alive, take centuries to attain, and turn chronicles into blasted wreckage. Groups that want to bring such powers into play can find them in the sourcebook Masters of the Art. We cannot, however, overemphasize the destructive potential of these, again, optional Sphere Ranks. Though technically canon, they should be avoided for all but the most outlandish Mage chronicles.
Quick Terminology Reference
Arete: The Trait rolled to cast an Effect. Enlightenment is the same Trait by a different name.
Coincidental Magic: An Effect that an average person would consider possible within the prevailing beliefs. Examples: Using a GPS to find something, making a lucky guess about something you shouldn't be able to know, employing karate to bust a hole in a wall, etc.
Conjunctional Effect: An Effect that uses two or more Spheres, combining their powers in order to do something that neither Sphere can accomplish on its own.
Effect: Game term for the effect you have on reality when you use magic to make things happen; also, Spell or working.
Focus: Game term that summarizes the belief, practice, and tools that a Mage character uses in order to craft Effects.
Mage: All characters who employ Sphere-based magic, regardless of their practices or affiliation.
Magic: Freeform reality alteration; done with Spheres and Arete. The word magic applies to making things happen by using the Spheres. Certain characters don't consider what they're doing to be magic.
Paradox: The reality backlash associated with Sphere-based magic.
Pattern: A material substance, filled with Quintessence energy.
Pattern Arts: The Spheres of Forces, Life, and Matter, which can create, adjust, and alter physical Patterns. Spirit is an "unofficial" Pattern Art which does not deal in physical materials or elements.
Quintessence: The energy that creates and fuels all things.
Rote: A pre-prepared Effect; called an Adjustment or Procedure by the Technocracy.
Sphere: One of the nine Traits that define what a mage can do with magic.
Vulgar Magic: An Effect that the average person would consider impossible by the prevailing beliefs. Examples: Turning into a housecat, stepping out of thin air, snapping your fingers to make someone's bones snap too, etc.
Working: Another name for an Effect; also, effect or spell.
Life grows, transforming over time until some final incident renders it into inert matter. Mages who specialize in Life, therefore, master the complex principles of organic transformation. Beginning with the simplest Patterns, he evolves his understanding toward godlike ends. A true Master, therefore, may end life, but he may also create it from pure energy (that is, from Quintessence) or turn it, literally, to dust.
Whereas other Spheres grapple with abstract theories, Life focuses on literally bone-deep facts. As a Life mage knows, however, those facts remain susceptible to change. In conjunction with other Pattern Spheres (Forces, Matter), lifeforms can be changed into elements, turned to stone or metal, or else created from such substances. Even without additional Spheres, however, Life allows a mage to transmute those lifeforms in startling, even apparently impossible ways.
As a whole, this Sphere embraces everything that has living cells within itself, even if that object is technically dead. As a general rule, assume that anything that's still alive enough to transplant, preserve, or cultivate is governed by Life Arts. If it's inert enough to be irrevocably dead, then it's governed by Matter. Thus, preserved blood and organs, still-living plants, live-culture cheese, and so forth contain Life, but corpses, cotton fibers, withered organs, or cut wood become Matter.
When used to inflict or repair damage, Life deals out aggravated damage because it works directly upon the Patterns of living things. As a result, an organism that has been radically altered by Life magic (given new limbs or other characteristics that are not part of the creature's original Pattern) suffers Pattern bleeding: an inexorable Quintessence leak that inflicts one level of lethal damage per day. Unless the caster uses Prime magic to refill that Pattern with fresh energy, or alters that Pattern permanently, the damage continues until the subject dies.
Given their ability to heal illness, age, and harm, Life-skilled mages enjoy great health and vibrant beauty. Truly accomplished ones understand the mutable potential of organic existence and work to correct - or exploit - its ever-changing states.
[ 1 ] Sense Life [ Mage: The Ascension (20th Anniversary) - Page 516 ]
Description 1: Basic Life knowledge allows a person to read the presence and health of nearby life-forms. With such knowledge, the mage can discern a living being's age, sex, and overall health. By combining those perceptions with other Spheres, he can also sense distant organisms (Correspondence 2), guess their potential for sickness or misfortune (Entropy 1), perceive them through past or future states (Time 2), or read the streams of Quintessence that bind them to the universe (Prime 1).
Description 2: The most basic principles of Life magic involve the study of living Patterns and their motions. The mage starts by learning to feel the flow of life energy. From that point, the mage can sense injury or sickness, and he can feel the potency of vibrant health. Given experience, the mage can easily learn to sense nearby living creatures, to determine their nature, health, sex and age, and to sense any tears or imperfections in her own Pattern.
With the other Pattern Spheres, Life senses allow a mage to tell not only if there are people nearby, but what they wear or carry and whether the forces and objects around them cause injury. Entropy with Life tells- whether they will suffer from disease or mischance and what form it will take. Time and Correspondence magic lets the mage sense the living Patterns of far-away individuals or people in the past or future. With Prime, the mage can actually see the stream of Quintessence that bonds all living things to the cosmos.
[ 1 ] Life Scan [ XXX - Page X ]
A simple attachment to a computer can search for the bio-fields of nearby living creatures, allowing a Virtual Adept to determine the locations and conditions of such targets. Although such scans require additional work (and Correspondence) to reach over a great distance, they can be helpful in targeting friends or enemies, since the Virtual Adept can recognize individual Patterns that have been detected and logged previously. Most Virtual Adepts also include special filter programs to cut out undesired life-forms from the scan, like microscopic organisms or simple vermin (aside from Technocrats).
Many other Traditions can perform a similar Effect with an appropriate scrying tool. A Verbena might use a mirror that shows images of nearby creatures, while a Euthanatos sniffs for the distinctive scents of various creatures.
[ 1 ] Prayer Of Healing Revelation [ XXX - Page X ]
The Celestial Chorus studies Life magic to detect illness and injury. These Disciples learn to identify flaws that indicate various diseases, injuries, poisons and parasitic infestations in a life form's Pattern. The mystic must usually make a Perception roll when scanning the Pattern. The more successes scored on the Effect, the more specific the information she receives. One success might reveal poison, two might reveal that the poison is affecting the respiratory process, and three successes might determine the poison to be arsenic.
[ 2 ] Alter Simple Life-Forms / Heal Self [ Mage: The Ascension (20th Anniversary) - Page 516 ]
Description 1: Simple organisms - viruses, mollusks, insects, plants, etc. - become clay in the mage's hands. He learns to adjust their Patterns (giving a crab wings, for example), and heal or kill them. Although he can't yet transmute them into other states of being, he can cause flowers to bloom or wither, help trees bear fruit, and so on. Focusing on his own Pattern, he can also heal himself or perform small alterations (hair color, skin tone, height, weight, and so on) to his basic form.
Description 2: A mage's manipulation of living Patterns begins with the most rudimentary ones, and with the ones most familiar to her. The budding Life mage learns to affect sessile Patterns and ones that make up very simple creatures. She also learns to recognize her own innate Pattern's form, to help it in the process of restoring itself.
A novice of Life magic can heal herself, restoring her Pattern to its original form and closing wounds or removing alterations. She cannot actually transform herself into new forms or change her Pattern from its original base nature yet, but she can at least defend herself if others do so. She can determine if her Pattern has been affected in some way, sensing disease or imbalance long before any symptoms manifest.
With control over simple Life Patterns, the mage can also influence rudimentary life forms like bacteria and plants. Any plant, invertebrate, algae or fungus is within her purview, and the mage can harm or change them as she desires, perhaps shaping them to grow in certain ways or striking offending creatures dead. The mage can't totally transform them yet. Such Patterns must retain their original nature, but they can be coaxed into moving, growing and changing in certain ways.
In conjunction with other Pattern Spheres, the mage can imbue herself or a living being with resistance to certain objects or forces, or she can cause such other Patterns to influence the growth and development of simple creatures. She can set up Effects to heal herself upon the receipt of injury (with Time magic) or use Correspondence to sense and alter life anywhere in the world.
[ 2 ] Alter Simple Creature [ XXX - Page X ]
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.
[ 2 ] Heal Self [ XXX - Page X ]
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 (p. 163).
[ 3 ] Alter Self / Heal Others / Transform Simple Life-Forms [ Mage: The Ascension (20th Anniversary) - Page 516 ]
Description 1: Advanced understanding allows the mage to radically alter simple organisms (turning a tree inside-out); transform one into another (changing fruit into insects); or - with Prime 2 - conjure them from raw energy.
Working with his own Pattern, that mage can work substantial alterations on himself, growing gills, claws, armor and so forth. He remains essentially human, but begins to master the definition of "human." Meanwhile, he also gains the ability to heal damage to other complex organisms, put them to sleep, or inflict harm upon their living Pattern forms.
Description 2: By the time the mage reaches a significant understanding of Life, she unlocks the keys to transformation: the means to turn a life Pattern away from its original nature and into something different. She can change her own Pattern in startling ways, and she can exert mastery over simple living things. To more complex creatures, she can exert change, causing the entity to grow or change as she desires.
By working with her own Pattern, the mage can take on new qualities or change old ones, perhaps giving herself unusual features. She can grow claws or suspend briefly her need to breathe. She must remain fundamentally human, but she can stretch the limits of her own capabilities and surpass her normal limits of mortal flesh.
With total mastery of simple Patterns, the mage can transform them into new shapes, turning a crawfish into a cedar tree (albeit a very, very small one) or reweaving a simple bacterium into a deadly killer. Her understanding is sufficient to create and destroy such Patterns utterly, and to cause them to grow, change or die as she sees fit.
By using simple Pattern-transformation in conjunction with other Spheres, the mage can create simple living things out of nothingness, or turn nonliving matter or forces into living creatures, although such creations have no minds of their own unless the mage uses the Mind Sphere. She can also alter creatures across a distance or push or pull such beings into other places, even the spirit worlds, with the proper Spheres. She can cause a change that will not affect a creature for some time, such as causing an apple tree to suddenly blossom in the middle of winter some years later, or she can render plants and simple animals safe from disease and injury.
[ 3 ] Better Body [ XXX - Page X ]
Mages who rely heavily on Life Effects use this power to alter themselves. A mage can take on various forms to her advantage: Claws, gills, increased Physical Attributes or Appearance, body armor and more. The only limits are imagination and what the mage believes that he can do within his paradigm. Successes scored indicate the limits of the change: One success would be good for an extra dot on one Attribute, for instance. Additional successes can maintain the Effect or generate larger changes.
If a mage changes a Pattern beyond normal limits - increasing Attributes to legendary levels (six or more), adding totally inhuman features, fortifying to soak against aggravated wounds, etc. - the subject gains permanent Paradox as long as the changes remain. Usually Paradox is a problem only for mages, but other victims can suffer as well, especially when Paradox erupts near them. Such gross changes always cause Pattern bleeding as well.
Simply altering a Pattern within its normal range of forms - swapping two Physical Attributes, for instance, or changing eye color - is a much simpler and less danger-prone use of this Effect.
[ 3 ] Rip The Man-Body [ XXX - Page X ]
With this Effect, a Euthanatos can rend the Patterns of complex life forms. As the mage lacks detailed knowledge of such complex Patterns, she cannot unravel the Patterns quickly. Damage is inflicted using the table on p. 163. This damage often manifests as lesions and internal hemorrhaging.
[ 4 ] Alter Complex Life-Forms / Transform Self [ Mage: The Ascension (20th Anniversary) - Page 517 ]
Description 1: At this Rank, the mage may enact radical changes on any complex organism - people, dogs, horses, and so forth. He can uplift other species with new limbs, opposable thumbs, increased brain capacity, etc., so long as he doesn't change their intrinsic nature.
Working with his own Pattern, that mage can transform himself into other life-forms of similar size and mass; he could become a Great Dane, for example, but not a hummingbird. Special abilities of that form (flight, water breathing, and the like) do not carry over, however, unless he builds them into that new form with additional Life Effects, and the new body might require an adjustment period before the mind and reflexes reflect the new form.
Description 2: The Patterns of all living things are accessible to the Adept of Life. The mage can not only rewrite her own Pattern as she desires, but she can shift and change the Patterns of nearly any other creature, including sentient beings. She can heal with a touch, gift someone with great strength, cause wounds or make a being manifest robust youth and vitality.
With self-transformation, the mage can reshape her Pattern in any form that she desires. She can take on new characteristics, become an entirely different creature of the same rough size and mass and even bolster her natural capabilities beyond human levels. However, such gross manipulations often lead to difficulties. It may take some time to get used to a new animal form, and the form itself may not have the capacity to store the mage's human knowledge and intellect. Animal forms often come with instincts as well, and the mage risks losing her identity over time. The Pattern itself usually has a tendency to grow back into its natural shape, too, so a mage who alters her own Pattern too radically may suffer injury as her Pattern fights against the confining magic.
By altering complex Patterns, a mage can heal people or animals and perform small manipulations to them. She cannot yet create duplicates of them or totally change their true nature, but she can guarantee health or instill weakness or injury.
In conjunction with other Pattern magic, the Adept of Life can assume various supernatural properties: becoming a fire-breathing dragon or eating metal, for instance. She can make wounds that will not heal or set transformations that will revert at a set time, or even stretch out to heal or harm people that she cannot see.
[ 4 ] Mutate Form [ XXX - Page X ]
The mage can alter the form of any living creature, changing its appearance and function much like the Better Body Effect. Disguises and beneficial alterations are popular among Tradition mages in varying degrees - Verbena sometimes give their pets unusual capabilities, Euthanatos might change the appearance of their confederates and Hermetics would just deform people with whom they became irate.
The mage can also transform himself, taking on animal form, changing shape and generally screwing with the basic nature of his Pattern. In this case, the mage can actually turn his Life Pattern's true nature into that of another creature; he can become a true cat, for instance, and thus avoid the problem of Pattern bleeding due to internal conflict. On the downside, the mage fundamentally is whatever form he assumes. He must spend a point of Willpower each day to retain knowledge of his former self, his intellect and human instincts; he may also need time to adapt to his new form (as adjudicated by the Storyteller - two experience points is a good measure). Certain Mind magic can help the mage to get around some of these problems, which is fortunate, because if the mage runs out of Willpower in his animal form, he completely loses his identity and believes himself to be a normal animal of that sort.
The successes rolled determine the scale of change possible with this Effect. As with any gross physiological change, there is a risk of Pattern bleeding if the true nature of the Pattern isn't altered.
[ 4 ] Physiological Emotion Control [ XXX - Page X ]
Many Virtual Adepts view human beings as biological computers. By inducing certain reactions within the physical body, the Adepts can "reprogram" a person's behavior. Emotions like anger or fear can be induced by causing the body to release adrenaline, while endorphin stimulation can bring on intense pleasure. Even depression has biological causes. This "tyranny" of the physical body over the mind is one of the reasons that the Virtual Adepts wish to attain a virtual reality state, where that body is left behind and the mind is no longer a slave to the body's desires.
Any Adept of Life can induce emotions in a subject by causing the person's body to release or stifle the correct hormones. More successes on the Effect roll make the emotion more severe.
[ 5 ] Perfect Metamorphosis / Transform And Create Complex Life-Forms [ Mage: The Ascension (20th Anniversary) - Page 517 ]
Description 1: Now the Master of Life may adopt any form he wishes to achieve and may transform other complex organisms the same way. His expertise allows him to make permanent changes to life-Patterns, create complex life-forms from energy (with Prime 2), give them consciousness (with Mind 5), transmute them into other elements (Forces or Matter 3) or raw energy (Prime 5), radically age or de-age them (Entropy 4 or Time 3), or instill them with spirits (Spirit 3 or 5). Without such measures, however, his creations remain mindless, soulless sacks of life - alive, but nothing more.
Description 2: All living things become as putty under the sculpting hands of a Master of Life. Her command of life is flawless, bringing her into perfect harmony with the flow of life energy. She can change all life at her whims, and she can heal or harm as needed and desired.
The mage can rework a creature into any form as long as the mass and size remain similar, thus turning a man into a tree or raising up a small dog into a human child. Such transformations are difficult, of course, but spectacular. The mage could reduce a group of enemies into large, flopping fish, for instance. She can also smooth out Pattern defects and deformities completely, and she can mutate the Pattern into any sort of natural or unnatural change.
With her total control of her personal Pattern, the mage can immunize herself from the rigors of age, disease, hunger or injury. She can regenerate nearly any damage, although direct Pattern damage may take time and effort. Better still, she can surpass many of the usual limits of Pattern transformation. She no longer needs to worry about the problems of losing her identity to animal instinct, for example. She can even cause her own Life Pattern to grow or shrink as needed, allowing her to change her size.
Most phenomenally, a Master of Life can combine her powers with other Spheres to create complex living creatures from Quintessence or from other Patterns. She can make clones of existing beings, make mythic monsters or let her creative whims take her as far as her resources allow. She can gift such creations with their own minds and spirits by use of the appropriate Spheres, or leave them empty, perhaps as homes for a disembodied spirit. She can even create a new body and move her consciousness into it, or reincarnate into a successive body that will be born in the future. With access to Prime and Correspondence, the mage can open her awareness to the entire vast glory of life and touch any living thing.
[ 5 ] Animal Form [ XXX - Page X ]
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.
[ 5 ] Perfect Metamorphosis [ XXX - Page X ]
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.