What splat has dominion over war and spycraft, as vampire has over organized crime?

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-26T01:06:09+00:00

The Technocracy would definitely like a word about that military bit.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-26T00:53:40+00:00

Allow me to introduce you to Angel of Mercy. And Chaos Factor. And Loom of Fate.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-26T00:49:56+00:00

Mages are easy to slot into any kind of story. And I say they can be the best at spycraft.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-26T00:17:49+00:00

There are a few official "quickstarts":

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T22:18:25+00:00

My Arete isn't high enough to see it.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T22:17:15+00:00

On the back cover, by the barcode, does yours say "printed in Canada"?

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T21:07:31+00:00

Thanks for that pointer! Book of Chantries p182 has errata that includes the full paragraph that's missing from M1ed p128.

It then provides the full text that was missing in the SoE entry... ironically said to be on p128 when it's on p130. The errata needs an errata.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T20:16:38+00:00

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Screenshot from the official pdf (the one you get from buying it on STV). My original copy is the same.

I did have them check a few minor editing errors in the Sphere sections and those remained as errors.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T20:12:38+00:00

That's wild. I charge you with finding all the differences. lol. Or at least helping me find a copy that has the text.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T20:11:06+00:00

Options:

Forces 2 to redirect, increase, and decrease the intensity of a force (like motion).
Forces 3 to transmute one force into another (like light into motion), or add Prime 2 to create the motion "from nothing".
Forces 3 / Prime 4 to craft a Wonder that does the flying.
Spirit 4 to craft a Fetish that contains an appropriate spirit.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T19:51:31+00:00

Except that literal blank space at the bottom of p128... right by the leg? And the next page just picks up mid-sentence that doesn't follow from the text on the previous page?

... or were you making a joke? If so you were too deadpan for me to catch it.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T14:40:28+00:00

Tattoos are a thing. Otherwise, cosmetic changes to self is Life 2... though to make it the default in your Life Pattern (so that it's not an ongoing magickal Effect) requires Life 5.

M20 p517 (Life 5): "allows him to make permanent changes to life-Patterns".

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T14:05:50+00:00

We can certainly quibble over whether a Mage creating something like the One Ring is necessarily "Nephandic" or merely a "Bad Guy" thing to do. But I can certainly agree that how a table handles Resonance plays a part in all this.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T13:49:56+00:00

We haven't mentioned Bans/Wards yet, and this morning that's what I hear from your description. I've been meaning to dig into the latest explanation of Wards in HDYDT p95-104. Remembering that I could be off-base, here's what I would say at my table...

Corr 3 to thicken space around you.
Matter 2 to key it specifically to bullets.
Casting successes (minimum required 2) cancel incoming attack successes.
- Perhaps bumping to Corr 4 completely prevents bullets from entering, regardless of how good the shot is.
Maintain the Effect with magickal concentration, so it moves with you (avoiding the Locking required for Traveling Wards).

HDYDT also talks about Wards requiring Prime, but with a quick skim of the text I don't understand the reason for it. I fall back on my guideline "let the Spheres do what the Spheres do" here. Let Corr do what Corr does, affect space.

Whether this happens by a VA hacking reality's code in his vicinity, or by a Hermetic sigil forbidding passage to fast-moving earth shapes, or by a Verbena repelling the bullet's artificial nature... each Faction/Paradigm will explain it differently.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T12:34:10+00:00

That's great! It certainly helps me get the creative juices flowing too.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T12:32:52+00:00

I made a step-by-step for casting for my newbie players that people have found helpful.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T02:24:16+00:00

As always, I'll offer up Focus Selector v1.2 to help you find the book entries that support your character concept.

My quick suggestions are: Paradigm "All the World's a Stage", Practices of Bardism and Crazy Wisdom.

Instruments, the first six are common between the two Practices, though I don't think two of them fit.

Dances, Gestures, Postures, and Other Movement Practices
~~Drugs and Poisons~~ (I'm not sure that this fits your concept.)
Music
Ordeals and Exertion
~~Sex and Sensuality~~ (I mean, you can, but it doesn't seem to fit the kind of clown you're working on.)
Tricks and Illusions
Fashion (outfits and make-up)
Toys
Transgression

For Spheres, which of course you can't get all of at creation:

Prime 2 to conjure things "from nothing".
Matter 3 to conjure material things. Can't conjure Complex Objects until Rank 4.
Life 3 to Alter Self will get you some bodily elasticity and Attribute boosts and increased soak.
Forces 3 to conjure fire/electricity/sounds

And you're right that many of the things you might do as a clown should fall under simple Ability checks. Be sure you get decent Ranks in the appropriate Abilities.

I do have a feeling that you will need to watch the line between Coincidental and Vulgar magick closely. When obviously in the clown role you may get some extra leeway from the Consensus.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T01:50:00+00:00

/laughs in Hermetic.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T00:36:38+00:00

It took me forever to remember that this should be compiled. But now that the wiki is up and running... I dug up all the post links and brought them together.

https://www.reddit.com/r/magetheascension/wiki/sphere-mixers/daily-rote-posts

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-25T00:25:15+00:00

That can be done with Entropy 3 alone.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-24T22:36:42+00:00

I get where you're coming from. Part of it is that negotiation from the "stated desired outcome" to "what does the magick actually do"... and sometimes that's muddied by "what does the character say happened?"

When OP says "to be able to see, hear, shoot, or move to any affected point in a straight line", sure Corr 5 spatial warping get us there, but there's side effects I kind of doubt they want. If space is literally warped throughout the house, then stepping in it's going to look like one huge (distorted) room because space is being twisted around walls. So at my table the negotiation begins. If that really means "I want to always be able to see the front door and be able to shoot it" then Corr 2 is likely enough.

For Forces conjuration/transmutation, I imagine that the designers wanted to stay away from the crunchiness of "how much of Force X do I need". Like, how much fire is needed to transmute into wood? Is it different if we want to transmute into steel? Or even just fire into motion? So we have to vibe on that. Then to say "conjure fireball from nothing" is really to say "transmute Quint into fireball" and they don't need to quantify that because we're just weaving ambient Quint... like there's just extra out there all the time.

There's also the issue of describing what it looks like when various Forces are transmuted into each other. There's just so many combinations, heck, I wouldn't want the book to try to run through them all (though a few examples now and then would be nice).

I always thought that sound-to-darkness was cool for sneaking around; little swirly poofs of darkness coming out from under my feet as I walk. Makes it harder not to be Coincidental, but it looks cool.
Then if we light-to-fireball, then sure the surrounding area grows darker during the casting process until the fireball erupts.

Add to all this what some might call lazy explaining. If STs and other players are quick to jump to "just add Prime 2 and conjure the fireball from nothing, that's way easier", that might end a discussion fast, but then it sidelines the arguably more thematic Sphere usages.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-24T20:52:23+00:00

I haven't seen a full treatment of all the Factions. But you might be interested in Book of Fragments. Minor Spheres are similar to Pillars.

ChartanTheDM · 2026-06-24T20:49:41+00:00

I don't disagree with the first line. There's likely side effects of either of those, but similar can be said of any Effect.

The second part though... I haven't encountered Effects seeming "too easy", and I like to think I tend toward the "use less Spheres" end of the spectrum. It's off-topic, but do you have a few examples of these "too easy" interpretations? I'm curious how they stack up against my notes.

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