Alchemy

Alchemy is the science, art and study of the transformation of the base and profane into the pure and the sacred. At its h eart are the disciplines of the Hermetic student, the holy words of the Kabbalah and the Koran, mystic secrets from Asia and China and an inherent assumption in the perfectibility of all things - often tied up with a healthy dose of Christian beliefs and heresies. Although thought by many to be Western magic and to date from the Renaissance, its ties and history trace themselves throughout Asia Minor and Europe, and even to China, where it is known as Tan, is closely tied with the We Keng and dates back at least 2,000 years.

The alchemist believes that all things in nature can be transformed, or purified, into a higher essence. At it's most basic, Alchemy is the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone (which, depending on the alchemist you listen to, is either a tincture [usuall red], a glowing stone of beauty, a powder, a solvent (a waxy substance or some other form), which can transform lead into gold (from the basest metal to the highest), grant immortality, raise the dead and perform a host of other miraculous deeds (excactly which deeds are, again, rather hard to pin down).

An alchemist could spend a lifetime trying to separate truth from the legends, lies and myths that are wrapped up in alchemical lore and still not get very far (especially because in a practice that wanders the line between art and science, one person's lie is another's solid truth). So most alchemists don't try, instead spending their lives experimenting and analyzing what has worked for them, painstakingly measuring the results of each test for any new insight or path forward on the way to their Philosopher's Stone or spend years apprenticed to another, more knowledgeable alchemist, learning his craft by rote. A few recognize the underpinning truth of alchemy: The process of purification leads inevitably to the purification of humanity, the pursuit of spiritual perfection.

Herbalism and Brewing is the art of using the natural properties of various plant and animal parts (ranging from St. John's Wort and dried bear gonads to even more exotic ingredients) to enhance the natural processes of the human body. In so doing, the herbalist can also induce effects that may seem magical to others but are (in the herbalist's eyes) merely examples of what the human body can do when properly motivated and reinforced with the power of nature.

Advanced Chemistry is a science, and its practitioners don't even think of it as being magic at all (although some of its effects, they admit, may seem magical if you don't understand the science behind them). Advanced Chemistry is similar to the more mundane chemistry studied in high school labs around the world but is more impressive in it's application thanks to the advanced understandings that are its foundations. Some Advanced Chemistry relies on chemical formulae and processes as yet undiscovered by more mundane scientists or on new and unique implementations of already existing knowledge, while other advances require the use of basic nanotechnology and DNA/RNA resequencing.

System

Roll: Intelligence + Alchemy (Alchemical Procedures)
Intelligence + Herbalism (Herbalism Procedures)
Intelligence + Science (Advanced Chemistry Procedures)
Cost: One Willpower per operation.
Modifiers: -1 difficulty if ritual is known.

Time: Default is one day per level of effect. For each dot of knowledge the alchemist has that exceeds the level of the effect, reduce this by one day (So an alchemist with four dots of Alchemy can do a Level Two operation in a few hours). Rarely less than an hour.

Duration: Varies, but normally one scene.
Each dot in this Path represents an overall knowledge of the chosen specialization (Advanced Chemistry, Alchemy or Herbalism); more dots indicate that the sorcerer can make more advanced or difficult compounds with greater effects. The rituals are examples and can be undertaken by anyone with the appropriate knowledge (most rituals have a counterpart in the other branches of study; an alchemist's Dus of Revealing the Unseen is a technosorcerer's Radioactive Tracking Powder or Etheric Interference Detection Gast).

An alchemist may spend one experience point (or one freebie point during character creation) to master a particular ritual. This gives the caster -1 difficulty on all rolls for that ritual, and lets him use it as if he had one more level of Alchemy when determining the brewing/casting time.

Effects
Note that Alchemy does not have "aspects" as such. The caster need only score basic success to make a given elixir as listed below. However, the elixir may lose its potency or work with only partial strength if the player does not score three or more successes.

1. The alchemist can create compounds and substances that are simply more advanced and potent versions of chemicals that already exist. These compounds don't appear magical in any way. Painkillers, soporifics, poisons and glues are common examples.

2. More advanced versions of what is available already with on dot. Some of these substances might allow the imbiber to exceed his normal physical limits or to gain access to more mystical senses, in dreams or hallucinations. You can raise one attribute by one dots (up to the normal maximum of five dots) for up to a scene.

3. You can make substances that enhance their target to superhuman levels or create materials that exceed normal limitations (supernaturally strong alloys, etc). Some of these substances can temporarily invest their imbiber with some low-level psychic ability (see Chapter Five) for a limited period of time (no more than one hour or so).

4. You can create substances that will enhance Attributes by up to two dots for a scene (one dot if affecting multiple Attributes), even beyond normal human maximums, or minor items with some potent effect.

5. With this level of knowledge, you can duplicate the powers of supernatural creatures, including Gifts, Disciplines and other abilities of up to the third level. you can also duplicate the innate powers of those creatures (the powers of the fae, wraiths and the imbued, cannot be duplicated). These potions will normally require some sample from the being in question (Vitae, powdered dragon fang, hair from a werewolf, etc.) or extended close up and personal study of the subject (this is usually only appropriate for students of Advanced Chemistry and may still require tissue samples). Such concoctions often have nasty side effects as well (the more powerful the Gift or Discipline, the more pronounced the side effects).

6. The pinnacle of alchemical tradition; transmutation of materials from one form to another, immortality regimens, the Philosopher's Stone. In theory an alchemist of this level might even be able to concoct a potion that causes Awakening, transformation into a vampire, mummification or true immortality.

Sample Alchemy Rituals

1. A powder that, when mixed with alcohol, induces slumber almost immediately. The target must roll Stamina (difficulty 8) or spend a point of Willpower to stay conscious; he must remake this attempt (at a -1 Difficulty each time) every round until he succumbs or the drug no longer has a chance of success. Unconsciousness lasts for (10 - Stamina) hours, during which they cannot be roused. Vampires are almost immune to this drug (+2 to Stamina, add Fortitude, and effects, if they succumb, last 10 - (Stamina + Fortitude) minutes), but werewolves in their "normal" form (Homid or Lupus) are susceptible (+2 to the roll).

1. A pill that removes all side effects from a minor cold or flu for 24 hours when taken and reduces the recovery time for the illness to one half.

2. A form of prophecy-bearing super-LSD. When ingested, the user will be able to see things that were not previously obvious to him or will be granted a vision of the future. These messages will always be cloaked in symbolism and analogy, but will be correct... to the limits of the user's understanding.

2. A potion that doubles the user's running speed for one scene. After using this potion, the user must make a Stamina check (difficulty 6) or be totally out of breath and shaky (-2 on all physical die rolls) for the next hour.

3. A metal alloy that is lighter and stronger than titanium (but easier to work), retains an edge almost forever and stays more resilient than the finest blade. Armor produced with this alloy gets an extra dot of bashing and lethal soak, and melee weapons made of it do one more die of damage and are -1 difficulty to hit with (due to their light weight and fine balance).

3. A fine metallic dust that reveals hidden, disguised or invisible things for what they truly are or disrupts illusions.

4. A chemical compound that raises the user's Physical Attributes for (Stamina +3) hours. During this time, the user will be very hungry, due to the excess strain being placed on her metabolism. This chemical may raise user Attributes to 6 dots or higher.

4. A regimen of drugs and potions that extends the user's life (though not indefinitely). While on the regimen, the user ages at the rate of one month for every year. If the regimen is halted, these years come back upon the user at the rate of one month per day, until the regimen is started back up or the user dies of old age.

5. A compound that werewolves find anathema. When spread on the skin, no werewolf (or other Changing Breed) can approach within striking range of the user; they can throw things or use ranged weapons but will not willingly get within 10 feet of the wearer. Of course, the substance smells so bad that most humans won't want to either....

5. A potion that gives the user the Stamina, Strength and speed of a vampire for a single scene. The user has one extra action per turn, one automatic Strength and success and one extra soak die versus all attacks for the scene following ingestion. The user will also have an unnaturally high temper and a thirst for blood.

Cost of Failure

Beyond the inevitable ruined glassware and loss of ingredients, a simple failure also normally means a nasty, smelly and hard to clean up mess in the lab. Botches can be much more severe; the substance may look okay but really have very different effects (and a simple toxin is the best that can be hoped for, in many cases), the substance may catch fire and explode, or something totally different from what was expected or anticipated may happen, which is almost always a bad thing.
 

Conjuration

The master conjuror can move items (though not himself) through space; scientists cal this ability apportation or telekinesis (depending on whether or not the item passes through the intervening space between where it is and where the conjuror wishes it to be), while those knowledgeable in Sphere magics claim that this is a limited application of the Sphere of Correspondence.

Many sorcerers who choose to practice their Arts openly, or somewhat openly, master Conjuration, if only to earn a living from their studies. With it, all manner of parlor tricks and stage magics can be emulated - of course, when a conjuror claims that there's nothing up her sleeves, there really isn't!

For the best effect, an object must be prepared ahead of time, in a ritual designed to bond the item to the caster, making it easy for her to latch onto and command later on. This doesn't mean that the Conjuror has to do this; theoretically, a conjuror can take control of anything that she can see, although in practice this is very difficult to do and much more draining.

The more experienced the conjuror is, the more she is able to move and the farther and more precisely she can move it; an experienced conjuror can thread needles, summon a rabbit into a hat from miles away or move an elephant across a room. The skilled conjuror can also manipulate mutliple objects.

It is very difficult to use conjuration offensively (even beyond the length of time it normally takes to effect a change). A willing subject, properly prepared (which usually involves at least a low level of mesmerism) can be the subject of a conjuration, but the least resistance renders the effect almost impossible. With enough luck (and Willpower), a sorcerer might be able to conjure a weapon out of the hands of an apponent, but attempts at this are dreadfully prone to failure.

System

Roll: Dexterity + Occult
Modifiers: +1 for working against an object in the hands of someone who is resisting.
-1 for an object that is well known to the caster (Storyteller's discretion).
+2 to work against a resisting, living, target.
Cost: None for prepared object, one Willpower for object that has not been prepared.
Duration: Instantaneous. For lasting effects (a set of puppets dancing without strings, a whirling dervish of knives, etc.) pay one Willpower for every turn you want it to last.

Aspects

Weight
1- Less than an ounce. A coin, business card, penknife, etc.
2- A few pounds, a hardcover book. At this level, very small or simple lifeforms (insects, snails, etc.) can be manipulated as well.
3- A largish object (computer monitor, telephone) weighing up to 100 pounds. Living beings can be moved as well, although the conjurer cannot manipulate humans.
4- Something as large as an armoire, weighing 1,000 pounds or so can be moved. Humans can be manipulated, so long as they are willing, unconscious or hypnotized.
5- At this level, the conjuror can move a car or an elephant around. An unwilling human subject could also be moved, although this is very difficult.
6- The height of conjuration allows you to move things as large as a city bus or a loaded 18-wheeler. Feats of this magnitude must be carefully arranged and prepared for ahead of time, and the cost of failure is exceptionally high.

Distance
1- No more than a couple of feet.
2- Objects can be moved 20 feet or so.
3- The conjuror can summon an object from over 100 feet away.
4- The object being manipulated can be summoned forth from (or sent away to) a location up to half a mile away.
5- Summoned objects can be made to appear from five miles away.
6- The conjuror can bring forth items from almost anywhere within the city limits and even farther; maximum range is about 50 miles.

Accuracy
1- Almost none; the objects quiver in ways you want.
2- Rough motor control, about equal to being shoved around with an elbow or fist. Things pretty much go where you want them to but without much finesse.
3- Some fine control; equivalent to an object in hands but slow and unwieldy. Clumsy attacks (+1 difficulty) can be made with this level of accuracy.
4- Fine motor control. Equivalent to a normal pair of hands, able to perform fine tasks (opening locks, slowly threading a needle, etc.)
5- Extreme control. The item(s) will do whatever you ask, quickly and efficiently.
6- Objects do things you don't ask them to but in keeping with what you want done.

Number
1- One item
2- Two items
3- Three items
4- A small group (under 10) of near-identical items, or three items that aren't closely related to eachother.
5- 10-20 items of similar nature, or a lesser number of non-similar items.
6- Up to 100 similar items, or 25 or so unrelated objects.

Rituals

Sword of Summoning (3)
Although more often used to draw forth loaded shotguns than long swords in these modern times, many Templars are taught this ritual so that, in extremis, they are never without a weapon. This ritual is almost always hung - the Templar ritually prepares the weapon before entering some situation where he thinks it may be necessary, and keeps it always in his mind as he works. When he needs the weapon, he finishes the ritual and draws the weapon forth from some convenient shadow or out from underneath a trenchcoat. The difficulty is 7 (6 if the weapon or tool is well known to the user), and the device must normally be within a mile or so of the user and no larger than a shotgun or long sword. no summoning light machine guns with this ritual! If attempted in plain sight of unbelievers, this ritual will almost always fail (difficulty 9).

Shitstorm (4)
This ritual allows the sorcerer to take a large number of small objects and spin them about himself in a deadly whirlwind of flaying debris. The difficulty of this ritual is 7 (8 if cast under duress). Each success gained increases the number of items in the cloud; the base whirlwind is two yards in diameter (usually centered on the caster), plus one yard for each success gained. Anyone caught in the whirlwind takes (successes) dice in bashing damage; in some cases this might be lethal damage (if the caster is in a room filled with glass breakables or cutlery or other small sharp objects...).

Price of Failure
A simple failure means the object fails to move at all, disappears never to be seen again or drops to the ground at an embarrassing or dangerous moment (like the keys falling right behind the lecturing guard...). Botches can summon the wrong object (or person...), put it in the wrong place or destroy it in some particularly messy fashion. Botches with living targets are generally very bad; stories tell of magicians assistants that disappear never to be seen again or, worse, show up in the disappearing booth days later, hideously mutilated. And few want to consider the fates of those magicians who have failed some tremendous feat of Conjuration, only to disappear themselves...

Conveyance

Seven league boots, flying carpets, witches brooms, demonic chariots pulled by skeletal fire-breathing steeds, teleportaion gateways; myth and legend are full of stories of those who could bypass the hazards and annoyances of long journeys, spanning the lengths of countries in hours or seconds. At least some of these stories can be laid at the feet of sorcerers practicing the Path of Conveyance, avoiding the hassles of the road by flying over it, riding it at speeds no other could manage or bypassing it altogether.

"Conventional" Conveyance requires some sort of steed; this may be a broom, four-poster bed, bicycle, Oriental rug, giant cauldron or a fiery coach-and-four. More technologically oriented sorcerers use jet packs or impossibly fast Lamborghinis and Prowlers (the deluxe version has stealth capabilities, to avoid police rader, but this is superfluous in general; few troopers will believe that they saw a Ferrari doing over 500 kph down a busy thruway... especially when it looks like the car isn't actually touching the ground).

With enough understanding of this Path, the sorcerer need not bother with a vehicle at all, merely willing herself to be where she wants to be without actually crossing the intervening distance. Technosorcerers may refer to this as teleportation, using some kind of booth, apparatus or even phone lines, while a more classical sorcerer may summon up a friendly spirit to do the work for him.

Conveyance can be used on other people, although only teleportation effects can be used offensively and only with very great difficulty.

System

Roll: Stamina + Occult
Modifiers: +2 for working against a resisting object/target, -1 for a location that is well known to the caster (Storyteller's discretion). +1 -2 if traveling somewhere while being observed.
Cost: One Willpower.
Duration: The length of time it takes to pass from point A to point B.

Aspects
Traveling to a place you have never been to adds one success to the total. Teleporting requires two additional successes. (Teleportation is not necessarily intantaneous; you must still assign a rating to Speed.) Crossing through barriers in your way requires one success per barrier (and it must be something that you could actually find a way around; a hermetically sealed chamber is safe from your powers).

Range
1- 10 feet or less (across a room)
2- 100 feet (across a warehouse)
3- About a mile
4- Up to five miles
5- Approximately 10 miles (across the city)
6- 100 miles

These ranges are guidelines and assume a relatively inhabited environment; passing through deserted prairies or arctic wildernesses is much easier, and ranges might be doubled or even tripled in such terrains.

Speed
1- About three times what you could manage on foot.
2- You get there about as fast as you would if you had driven, red lights and all.
3- As above, but you ignore speed limits and red lights and traffic; about 45 seconds per mile of distance traveled.
4- You can cover miles in seconds.
5- Instantaneously.
6- You can, when you have to, get there before you left... or that's the way it seems.

Number
1- Yourself, and if you're lucky, your clothes come with you...
2- Yourself, some clothes and up to 20 pounds of stuff.
3- yourself and one other person or a couple hundred pounds.
4- Two passengers
5- Three passengers
6- Up to five people can come with you.

Rituals
Teleport Ward (2)
Even a novice student of the Path of Conveyance can create wards against unwanted intrusion by others using this Path. To ward a room or building against teleporting intruders, the sorcerer must first mark the limits of the ward he is going to place. (technosorcerers, for example, will set up electromagnetic interference waveguides, subspace harmonic oscillators and other equipment, while a sorcerer trained in the Hermetic Arts would scribe sigils of protection on the walls, doors, windows, floor and ceiling of each room he wanted to protect). Once this is done, the sorcerer rolls Stamina + Occult against a difficulty of 7. Each success rolled is an additional success needed by someone trying to teleport into the warded area without knowing how to bypass the ward. This protection degrades by one success per month; it can be maintained, however with the expenditure of a point of Willpower and a single success on a Stamina + Occult roll (difficulty 6).

Get Me The Heck Outta Here! (3)
Often cast as a hanging ritual by those more interested in avoiding fights than finishing them, this ritual carries the user back to a home location (this can be any location the caster knows well but must be specified when the ritual is performed) instantaneously, as long as the locale is withing range (no more than 50 miles). This ritual costs one Willpower, and the user must achieve at least 4 successes on a Stamina + Occult (difficulty 8) roll; additional successes scored can aid in the necessary range (20 miles per additional success). If the home location is out of reach, a Wits + Occult roll (difficulty 6) will allow the caster to retarget the ritual to another, closer point.

Teleportal (5)
Master sorcerers can build permanent gateways between locations. These gateways through space allow anyone who knows the opening phrase or command to travel swiftly from one end of the passage to the other. This ritual takes days of preparation, some of which must be spent at both sites (making this unsuitable for stealthy infiltration of a location... most of the time). Once these preparations are done, the sorcerer makes an extended Stamina + Occult roll against a difficulty of 8; each success adds either 10 miles to the range (the total distance between the two gateways of the portal must be gathered before the ritual can be completed), five uses to the portal or some kind of specification to the gateway (at either or both ends; for example, a gateway could be designated as one-way, could be restricted to women only, only the sorcerer who created the gate or only those who have a special code word or amulet). Assistants can (and should) be used for this ritual. A Teleportal costs one permanent point of Willpower to create.

Price of Failure
The Path of Conveyance is fraught with peril. Beyond any risks of being noticed and the problems inherent to a particular mode of travel (flying brooms are uncomfortable, especially at high speeds, flying carpets are fragile, flying ointments are a hassle to apply and usually smell funny, Teleportals often bring with them nausea and dizziness), those who travel in this fashion can draw the attention of... beings in the realms they travel through. Any journey of more than a mile or so will bring with it the risk of an accident or misstep. Storytellers should feel to ask for a check midway through the journey to make sure that it is without incident (typically, a single additional success will be sufficient to avert any kind of disaster).

Normal failures simply mean that the spell does not go off at all; a botch, however, can range from calamitous to disastrous, depending on the method of travel and the distances involved; flying brooms may end up plummeting out of the sky, while teleportation botches give the Storyteller a perfect opportunity to recreate their favorite Star Trek transporter mishap or perhaps some choice scenes from The Fly. About the best the sorcerer can hope for is to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with no idea what has happened.
 

Divination

Lucky numbers for the lottery, whether happiness will be found in marriage, the outcome of a crucial battle - for as long as their has been a concept of "tomorrow," people have wanted to know what would happen in the future. Rulers, merchants, generals and wizards have all said they wanted to know their fate, although they have just as often rejected that fate when apprised of it; Cassandra's fate is one that no seer worthy of the title easily forgets. Despite the perils involved, this Path is a well-traveled one.

System

Roll: Perception + Fortune Telling
Modifiers: +1 if using extraordinary science style (but the answers will be more precise)
Cost: None
Duration: Irrelevant
*Note: The Storyteller makes all rolls for divinations. A sorcerer rarely knows how accurate her forecasts are.

Aspects
Time Period
1- One week
2- One Month
3- One Year
4- 10 years
5- 20 years forward, up to 100 years backward
6- Almost unlimited, in either direction

Accuracy
1- Incredibly vague at best
2- Generally accurate, but deeply cloaked in symbolism
3- Accurate, but not always explicit
4- While still cloaked in symbolsm, the truth is in there, and digging it out shouldn't be too hard
5- Your results are almost always accurate and usually easy to understand
6- You know what will happen, when it will happen and who it will happen to, without question... unless you're wrong, of course

Question
1- A very simple question (can be answered with Yes or No... but don't expect to get that simple of an answer!).
2- A specific question that can be answered quickly: "Is this bridge safe?" is okay. "How are the bad guys going to attack us?" is not.
3- a query that is somewhat detailed but could be answered using publicly available knowledge, if you knew where and how to look and had the time.
4- A detailed question that requires information or details that have been hidden by time, distance or deliberate obfuscation but can still be unearthed with effort.
5- A very detailed question or one that would need access to information that has been actively guarded and hidden.
6- No question is too complex, no information too obscure.

Price of Failure
Prophecies are fraught with mischance. A failed roll could mean something as simple as "Future cloudy, try again later" or a false reading. A botched roll indicates an omen that is dangerously flawed or inaccurate in some fashion. For example, telling someone that the guards are unwary and slothful when, in fact they are an elite force of highly trained professionals.

Enchantment

Enchantment is the art of creating (minor) magical Talismans. An enchanter imbues each of her creations with a small part of her essence and spends much of her time locked up in a workshop crafting each new piece, tracking down esoteric and mundane ingredients, putting out fires, researching new procedures and figuring out why the copper wire in the iron mixture didn't help the blade's temper. For those with the time and patience, though, Enchantment provides the abililty to forge useful magical tools - most especially, devices that store magical energy for later use or empowered to function on their own, usable by anyone.

Creating a Talisman first takes talent; an enchanter must usually handcraft the object to be enchanted, whether it is a blade, a ring, a pair of shoes or a book. (This is not always the case, especially with items that have a close personal attachment to the enchanter.) Many enchanters choose one field of study and specialize in it, creating pieces of art for sale when the aren't working on pieces to be enchanted (after all, a sorcerer has to earn a living somehow). Others develop enough skill to create serviceable tools that can be enchanted in a number of different Crafts, relying on their magical abilities to suffice where their craftsmanship does not. Every ritual, therefore, starts with a Crafts roll to determine the quality of the item being enchanted; an exceptional result on this test may make the actual Enchantment easier. Depending on what is being made, this may take anywhere from a day or so, to months of careful crafting.

The next part of the process is the Enchantment itself. This normally takes one to three days per level of the item, depending on the Tradition of the enchanter and the particulars of the Enchantment (the more complex the Enchantment, in terms of who can use it, how many times it can be used, and when it can be used, the longer the initial work). At the end of this period, make an Intelligence + Occult roll (difficulty 4 + level of the Enchantment), spend a point of Willpower and the Enchantment is completed.

Enchantments are never a matter of numberes and creation systems; they should flow from the story and roleplaying, not die rolls. While we've given some examples, a smart enchantress can come up with many more.

System

Roll: Intelligence + Occult (Intelligence + Science for Technosorcerers)
Cost: 1 Willpower
Modifiers: -1 Difficulty for Enchatments that have been mastered
Time: 1-3 days per level of the Enchantment, plus the time to craft the item

Duration: See following
1- Minor items that have a very limited utility and very limited effects that will never be seen as magical by any who don't know what to look for. They might add one (or, less frequently two) dots to an Attribute or Ability, grant a bonus to an attack or skill (never more than a +1) or some other boon.
-An army surplus jacket that adds two dots to Arcane whenever the character is in a crowd.
-A custom made handgun that subtracts 1 from the difficulty of all aimed shots made with the weapon (or, alternatively, subtracts 1 from the difficulty of all wild shots made with it).
-A small stuffed animal that brings restful sleep, no matter the recipient's state of mind or state of intoxication; anyone sleeping in the same bed as the toy will sleep like a baby.
-A small medallion with a chrysoprase in the middle of it, carved in the shape of a hawk's eye, carried on a fine silver chain. Once a day, when rubbed, it will give the wearer the vision of a hawk for a space of one scene. (This adds 2 dice to Perception, for purposes of seeing things at long distance or noticing movement).

2- A more powerful version of a Talisman that could be previously made (adding +2 to an Ability or Attribute or +2 to some task), or a Talisman capable of changing reality in some subtle but more noticeable or magical fashion.

-A liquor flask that, when carried in a breast pocket, will unerringly attract the first bullet that would hit the carrier to itself. This provides three dice of lethal soak. After', the flask is useless. (Apparently this Enchantment was very popular with Allied sorcerers during World War II).
-A handful of bullets (1 per success rolled on the Enchantment) that do an additional 2 dice of damage to whatever they hit.
-A silver ankle bracelet, with many hanging baubles, that gives the wearer an additional two levels in Dancing whenever it is worn, if it is plainly visible.

3- These items perform functions that are obviously magical to those looking for such things and that will be considered very weird by those who aren't.
-A pair of running shoes that doubles the running speed of the wearer. This ability only works when the wearer is trying to evade pursuit.
-An amulet inscribed with arcane symbols, on a leather thong. When grapsed it will act as a personal ward against sorcery, up to three times a day (number of dice subtracted equals the successes rolled on the Enchantment). This amulet must be kept in a jewelry box carved out of a single crystal when not worn or the Enchantment will fade (one success per night) until it becomes a simple piece of jewelry.
-A sword with a core of liquid mercury that does aggravated damage against the Risen and lethal damage to wraiths (if they can be seen; it provides no inherent ability to see the Restless Dead). A priest must bless the sword every fortnight, or the magic fails.

4- Talismans of this power can defy reality to a large degree, as long as they work within certain restrictions. They can increase Attributes and Abilities past normal human maximums, dupliate low-level supernatural abilities (no more than the second dot of Disciplines, Gifts, etc.) and otherwise work wonders.
-The fabled Heartseeker - a stiletto that aims unerringly for the heart when drawn and used in rage. This inflicts Strength +5 dice of lethal damage, and the dagger may be thrown. It must be bathed in the blood of those it has killed after each combat or lose its potency.
-A solid silver torc that, when worn, grants the wearer superhuman Strength. The wearer's Strength rises to 5 when the torc is worn. In addition, a number of times per day edyal to the successes rolled on the Enchantment, the wearer may boost his Strenth past normal, gaining 3 automatic successes on all task rolls involving Strength (these successes are added directly to damage rolled, etc.). The torc must be kept in view of the moon whenever it is not worn, if the moon is visible.
-The skull of a long-dead wizard, which can be used to contact him for assistance. The sorcerer using this Talisman must donate a pint of blood and can ask the wizard as many questions as successes rolled on the Enchantment. These do not have to be yes/no questions, and follow up questions on the same immediate topic are allowed without using up a question (the Storyteller is the final arbiter of what is or isn't a question). This Talisman can only be used during the new moon, and the sorcerer must make a Willpower test (difficulty equal to the number of times the Talisman has been used +4) or the skull crmbles to pieces after the final question is asked.
-A byrnie of silvered mail that converts up to 4 dice of lethal damage taken in a turn of combat into bashing damage. Each time this ability is used, a few more links fall out of the coat, until, eventually, it falls apart, unusable. The mail can never be cleaned or repaired, or it automatically loses its abilities.

5- Items made with this level of skill are almost mythic; their powers are sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant and always unpredictable. When they work, they can perform minor miracles.
-A money pouch that will always have five dollars in quarters (or 6 Canadian loonies or three pounds sterling or whatever - always in small, but not annoying, sums) in it, as long as at least one quarter is left in the pouch. It can only be drawn from four times a day, or it will lose its power forever.
-An amulet that, when worn, renders the user almost immune to any kind of physical harm (granting the user five dice of lethal soak that is also usable against aggravated damage). Every time this ability is used, it subtracts five years from the user's life. The user evinces no outward change, but when he finally expires, he will appear to be an old man internally.
-An amulet that wards the user against all magical detection. The amulet adds 4 successes to the number required to find the user with any kind of magical ability (Auspex, Divination, Sphere magic, etc.). The sorcerer wil be presented with a different riddle, puzzle or other enigma she must solve before the amulet will activate. Once activated, the amulet will be effective for a number of weeks equal to the number of successes rolled on the Enchantment.

-An animated servant. This might be the classical golem from Jewish mythology, a homunculus or some kind of robot. A servant like this is created like a character, but has only 10 points to spend on Attributes and 7 to spend on Abilities. It has human senses, Health levels equal to a normal human (but does not suffer wound penalties) and does not need to eat or sleep, though technologically based servants will usually need recharging.

6- Talismans of this potency are more rumor and myth than they are quantifiable fact. If items of this power still exist or anyone can still make them, they would be capable of feats that would be impressive even to the most powerful sorcerer.

Rituals
Although this entire Path is composed of various rituals, there are some that are more standardized than others. These include:

Eldritch Mark (1)
The sorcerer scribes a symbol or mark into an object or onto the forehead of an individual. This mark then fades from view, but any student of the mystic Arts who looks at the object or individual will be able to discern the mark and will know the name of the sorcerer who marked it. This ritual takes five minutes to cast and has no cost in Willpower.

Enhance Craftsmanship (2)
The enchanter uses his power to enhance the craftsmanship of an object he is making (something enhanced in this fashion can not be further enchanted). Thus, he can forge a blade that will never break, knit a sweater that will never unravel or ensorcel a mirror so that it will never crack.
An object made in this fashion is not inherently magical in any way, but an alchemist or another enchanter can discern the methods used to enhance it with a Perception + Occult task (difficulty 6). This ritual takes as long to cast as it takes to make the object (15 to 20 minutes for something that is being ensorceled after the fact) and costs no Willpower.

Price of Failure
The best a sorcerer can hope for on a failure is that his time and effort will be wasted. It is more likely that the sorcerer will end up with a cursed item, one that has some side effect that was not anticipated, an accident that blows the workshop to bits or worse. Botching a creation roll is never a good idea: Enchanters have been engulfed in conflagrations or have simply disappeared, along with their workshops.

Facination

Roll: (Social Attribute) + Occult (This is unusual; the character can choose any of the three Social Attributes to use with this path.

Modifiers: +1 if trying for some emotion other than attraction/interest
+1 if target's WP is 5+
Cast Time: 1 per level of effect.
 

Like most Revised Sorcery Paths, Fascination has multiple Aspects--the first level in each Aspect can be had for a single success; increasing any of them beyond the first costs an additional success for each rank.

Aspects:
Level of Influence (The character should select a single Social attribute to gain the bonus for any particular use of the Path):
* Minor: You stand out in a crowd, and individuals find you interesting. Add 1 die to social dice pools.
** Stirring: You aren't the center of the party, but you are listened to. An individual will make it a point to hang out with you. Add 2 dice to pool.
*** Life of the Party: A subject will go out of their way to be with you; add 3 dice to social rolls.
****Major: You are throwing this party, aren't you?: What you do, others pay attention to; Individuals will sacrifice quite a bit to earn your approval. +4 dice
***** Trendsetter: Unmistakable influence. An individual will kill for you, or even die themselves. +5 dice.
***** * Legendary: A smitten target becomes your virtual slave.

Number (this is the number of people affected by your charms)
* One Person
** Two People
*** Small group (10 or less)
**** Small party (up to 50)
***** Crowd (hundreds)
***** * Stadium full of thousands of people

Duration
* A Short While--a few minutes or so
** One scene
*** A day or so
**** A couple weeks
***** Several Months
***** * Indefinitely

Fortune

Fortuna, both Buona and Mala, flows from the hands of the sorcerer who studies this path. By his will, probabilities alter, events realign themselves, and his target's future is changed. The superstitious ascribed this power to all witches (untrue), and call it the Evil Eye, scientists speak of altering probabilities and chaos math, and priests call it the Hand of God, but in every case, in the end, the effects are only partly in the hands of the sorcerer. Some mages look on this as being a set of interrelated effects linked closely with a rudimentary understanding of the Entropy Sphere. Sorcerers gifted in the Path just smile, nod and continue on their lucky way.

Supernatural beings can be cursed but get to resist the effect, if they are aware of it, with a Willpower check (difficulty = 4 + the magician's Path rating). Most curses will need only a single success, but very powerful or long-lasting curses can require more in order to be removed completely. Short curses normally won't be discovered unless they are announced ahead of time; a skilled user of Entropy or Prime might detect a curse looming over someone, or someone with auspex might see it in their aura, however. A character's Arcane rating subtracts from the total successes scored on a one for one ration (and could well cause the curse to fail utterly).

System

Roll: Manipulation + Intimidation (Manipulation + Mathematics for Technosorcerers)
Cost: One Willpower
Modifiers: -1 Difficulty if some sorcerer has some item closely linked with the target
Duration: See below

Aspects
Target
1- One specific, named, target
2- Two targets, or one poorly defined one.
3- A small group (no more than four) of closely linked individuals (a clique or family)
4- A midsize group of people with some kind of relationship (an extended family, a football team, etc.)
5- A large group of people (no more than 100): all of the patrons of a particular bar, a small company, etc.
6- An entire town or corporation or military unit (like a battalion).

Duration
This is how long the effect will last; whether it coils, strikes and disappears or hangs about to discomfit the recipient for months or even years. At their most powerful, effects can last for generations, striking at a specific target in each generation (first born son, for example).

1- One shot. The effect waits for an opportune moment, wreaks its vengeance (or benefits) and then dissipates.
2- The effect lasts a day, inconvenienceing the target whenever possible.
3- The effect lasts for a week or more (up to three), helping the target when appropriate.
4- The blessing (or curse) lasts for several months.
5- The curse affects the target for years, blighting his very existence.
6- "...And unto the seventh generation shall the family of Hedley-Smythe be cursed with madness, and terror shall follow them all their days!"

Severity
The severity of a Fortune effect depends in large part on what the sorcerer wants to do, but the specifics of the effect are never completely under the control of the sorcerer; the caster can suggest, but in the end, every curse or blessing takes its own way.

1- A brief inconvenience, or a minor weal; dropping something, saying something utterly stupid (or perfectly brilliant), smashing your shin into a table, catching a bus at just the right moment.
2- Something that results in a lasting inconvenience or injury or some minor advantage. Sprains, bad cases of the flu (or other annoying, but not life threatening, diseases), breaking something difficult to replace and commintting some major faux pas are all possible curses, while blessings might convey some minor advantage in battle, render the target immune to some sickness or misfortune or prevent some difficulty that might hinder her path.
3- A serious, but not normally life-threatening injury or illness, or some permanent social setback. This kind of curse should be a major setback for the short-term goals of the target. As a blessing, this level conveys some major advantage. An additional die in combat dice pools, continuing minor luck with dice (or women) or the good fortune to always get the person at the DMB who actually wants to help (and always getting there when there aren't many people in line) are all possible effects.
4- A permanent, debilitating injury or illness, or a major turn of events socially or financially. Bankruptcy, spinal injuries, psychosis, blindness, an accountant taking off for Barbados with all of your savings and indictment on tax evasion are all possibilities. Blessings of this magnitude include things like winning the lotter, excellence in battle in some critical fight or overcoming incredible odds against some major social endeavors.
5- Normally, a death curse (and usually not a pleasant death; decapitation, wasting diseases, mangling car accidents and worse), although some incredible turn of events might fulfill a curse of this magnitude. Blessings at this level of power involve cheating some inescapable death or misfortune: a last minute reprieve from the governor, landing in the only pond deep enough to cushion your fall after a parachute failure or being saved by the Queen's Gurkha Rifles just as the cultists start to lower you into the boiling lava are all possibilities.
6- If there is a fate worse than death or a way to cheat death forever, it would take a curse or blessing of this power to do it.

Ritual
Death Curse (1)
A magician skilled in the Path of Fortune may invoke a Death's Curse. The magician spends all of her permanent Willpower, adds it to her dots and then spends them as she likes in a final curse 9or blessing, although this is much less common), just as if they were automatic successes. For the purposes of this spell alone, the magician can buy aspects two dots higher than they would normally have access to; while a lesser magician might only be able to inconvenience a single person, a powerful one could lay waste to an entire family or wither an entire small town! Once this effect is cast, the character then falters and quickly dies, burned out by her rage or taken by her weal.

Price of Failure
Messing with destiny and the future is never something to be undertaken lightly. A failure on the dice roll results in nothing happening (of course, if the target is unlucky enough, the caster may not be able to tell if the curse took effect or not!). A botched curse might boomerang back onto the caster, as the hatred-fueled power feeds back into the source of the bile, rather than the target. Alternatively, it may twist itself into a perverse sort of blessing, something that at first appears to be a curse but is, instead, beneficial to the target in a strange sort of way. (This is especially appropriate if the caster's hatred of the target is not pure and savage enough - half-hearted curses are better left alone, especially pwerful ones.)

Botched blessings can be just as bad, if not worse. A botched blessing might twist itself into a curse (especially with very powerful blessings), targeted either on the caster or on the target (once again, blessings where the motives of the caster are not pure are most likely to do this). More commonly, however, the blessing takes effect but in such a way that it might as well be a cruse. This kind of monkey's paw can be particularly devastating. A blessing for long life might twist itself into immortality itself... but immortality without vitality is a prison suitable only for the most evil.
A sorcerer can use the Path of Fortune upon herself if she wishes but runs a terrible risk. Any Botched roll means that the sorcerer will suffer the full effects of the worst kinds of backfire that she might accidentally inflict upon others. Worse, while the sorcerer can try and unweave even a botched curse or blessing upon another, she is totally incapable of lifting or unweaving an effect that she casts upon herself. Since a sorcerer may not know the full impact of her casting for some time, the Storyteller should roll the dice for any use of this Path she works upon herself.

Healing

Since the earliest days, those whose touch could heal have been held in highest regard. The laying on of hands by a saint, the witch's poultice, the intercession of a houngan with Legba and the caring touch of a general practitioner have all been seen as a kind of miracle. When practitioners of this Path are involved, this appellation it is not far from the truth.

The Path of Healing takes time; there are no miraculous cures, no instant regeneration of wounds and no sudden recoveries from fatal illnesses. Even the most experienced healer can only force the body to do so much; a healer normally works by accelerating the body's natural processes, by helping it do what it would normally do anyway, only faster and better. Worse, use of this Path saps the user; overuse can lead to burnout and even death. A master of the Path can bring someone back even from death's door... but the cost is often more than he can bear.
Although not absolutely necessary for the use of this Path, most healers have at least some knowledge of medicine, although this may not be traditional Western medicine: Acupuncture, homeopathy, herbalism or knowledge of which spirits to propitiate and which to exorcise can all be effective to a healer who believes.

The Path of Healing can relieve pain, cure diseases, speed recovery from injuries (and heal some injuries outright), even restore sight to the blind. It cannot, however, do anything to alleviate aggravated injuries... fire, Pattern magic and acid all do things so heinous to the human (or inhuman) body that it cannot be healed in this fashion. For reasons that should be obvious, the Path of Healing cannot be used on the dead (or undead).

A sorcerer may attempt to heal any given injury, disease or condition once; if she fails or achieves only a limited success (due to skill), she may not go back and attempt to improve the situation later.

System
Roll: Manipulation + Intuition
Cost: one Willpower per injury or disease
Modifiers: -1 Difficulty of Medicine, or appropriate Lore is equal to or higher than rating in Path.
Duration: Permanent

Pain
You can relieve the pain of an injury, even if you cannot heal the injury itself. With 4 successes, you can reduce the task penalties from injuries by -2; with 5 successes, the patient can ignore most penalties that don't involve actual amputations - and even then, the penalties are because of the missing limb, not because it hurts.

Toxins and Diseases
With a single success, you can virtually guarantee that a patient will not suffer from secondary infections or problems as a result of disease. With greater numbers of successes, you can cure diseases or counteract exposure to poisons of a Toxin Rating equal to or below the rating listed and alleviate the symptoms of diseases one level higher (the disease is still present and could still kill the patient, but the patient gets +1 on all survival rolls and at least won't be miserable as he dies...). Recovery time is dependent on the virulence of the disease or poison, how massive the exposure was and how long the patient has already been afflicted.

Bashing Damage
The healer can close up minor contusions, scrapes, etc. with but a single success; the injuries fade over the course of 10-15 minutes or so. For every 2 successes spent on dealing with bashing damage, the healer can reduce the damage taken by one level (from Wounded to Injured, for example). Bashing damage that has been converted to lethal damage cannot be cured in this fashion.

Lethal Damage
Two successes lets the healer stabilize even a critcially wounded patient; the patient will not regain any levels of Health but will be safe to transport and may even be able to move about under her own power, at least a little (dependent on injuries). More successes do not actually remove health levels of damage but do cause the patient to heal at an accelerated rate; this is in addition to any benefits gained by regular medical care (so an Incapacitated patient who is being treated in a hospital by a doctor who also happens to be a healer who scores 4 successes on healing lethal damage would recover completely from her injuries in 51 days, instead of 102 (or the almost a year that it would take with no medical attention or healer intervention).

Other Injuries or Debilities
With great effort (a minimum of 4 successes needed), a healer can correct congenital defects or problems incurred after birth. Many problems are beyond the ability of even the greatest healers to cure (they cannot regernate limbs, etc.), but they can cure bad vision or tone deafness (with 5 successes) and even some neurological conditions (6 successes). Exactly how many successes are needed, and what is beyond the scope of the leaer, is up to the Storyteller.

Rituals
Healing Sleep (1)
The healer can place a patient in a deep, restful sleep that relaxes and revitalizes. The patient wakes from even a few hours of sleep refreshed and alert, with a clarity of thought and purpose. In game terms, the player rolls Manipulation + Intuition versus a difficulty of 6; if more than one success is rolled, the (willing) patient falls into a deep slumber. This ritual normally results in 9 hours of sleep; subtract one hour for each additional success. At the end of that sleep, the patient awakens revitalized; all bashing damage is healed, and the patient regains a point of Willpower.

Mike's Cure-All (2)
Although the exact version referenced here appears to date from the Chicago speakeasies of the 1920s, versions of this ritual have been around for centuries. When cast on a patient who has been drugged, poisoned or merely over-indulged, the patient immediately begins to flush any toxins in ther system; depending on the length of time it's been since the toxins were introduced and the method of introduction, they might be expelled through sweat, vomiting or diarrhea, tears or some combination. This is rarely pleasant for the patient, but in the end, the toxins are removed, and any effects they may have on the patient are negated (already existing damage will not be healed, but any side effects or further damage will cease). The difficulty of this ritual is 6, and the healer must score more successes than the Toxin Rating of the drug or poison that the patient has in their system (or the highest Toxin Rating, in case of multiple drugs or poisons). This ritual can be cast as an extended task, and while it will flush out even alchemical concoctions and oisons, it does not affect vitae in any way; a ghoul will not have the vitae in his bloodstream forcibly removed, nor does it remove a blood bond.

Wakey-Wakey (2)
With this rutal, a Sorcerer can revive anyone from even the deepest sleep. Even magically induced slumber can be broken with this ritual, although the caster must generate more successes than the originator of the sleeping spell did. The base difficulty of this ritual is 6; normally only a single success is needed, although someone who is drugged, is a naturally deep sleeper or is incredibly exhausted may require more successes. This ritual costs one Willpower to cast.

Revive (6)
The pinnacle of understanding in the Path of Healing is the ability to bring back one that has traveled beyond Death's Door. Even masters of the Path can only call back those who have very recently died, and survival is never assured; more than once, a patient has been revived, only to succumb once again to his injuries. The healer burns two permanent Willpower and rolls against a difficulty of 9; she must achieve at least 3 successes, plus 1 additional success for every three minutes the patient has been dead (not counting the length of time the ritual takes to cast). If successful, the healer loses any remaining Willpower they may have (these points, unlike the initial two, can be regained over time), is physically exhausted and at -2 dice on all dice pools for the next week. The patient, while revived, still suffers from whatever ills killed him in the first place; if immediate medical attention is not forthcoming, he will quickly die once again.

Price of Failure
A simple failure merely means that the healer has no effect; she cannot work on this injury or disease for whatever reason. A botch, however, can be particularly horrifying in the case of this Path; stories tell of tissue surrounding a wound going hypercancerous, orifices like the mouth, nostrils, etc. suddenly "healing" themselves over, diseases going berserk and worse. The healer can also backlash the injuries of the patient onto herself or subject herself to the poisons or diseases she was trying to cure.

HELLFIRE

Thought by many to be at least tainted by darkness, if not outright of evil origins, the Path of Hellfire taps into the deepest, most primal, and destructive of forces. legends ascribe the beginnings of this power to the infernal realms, pacts with malevolent elemental spirits, and bargains with beings better left alone. The master of the path of hellfire can demand, and receive respect; he will also receive suspicion and fear, whether he demands them or not.

A student of the Path of Hellfire learns to summon and control powerful elemental attacks; blasts of lightning, bolts of fire or mystic energy, clouds of poison gas or other deadly effects. Unsubtle and direct, these powers, utilized properly, can obliterate even the most deadly of foes, in the hands of a master. Students of this Path should remember that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing; they are not immune to the effects of their own powers, and using this power in combat normally requires planning beforehand.

Hitting a target with a blast of Hellfire requires a successful Dexterity + Melee roll (difficulty 7). Striking at an area lowers the difficulty to 5 but allows those in the area a chance to escape (see Dodging and Resistance in Mage Revised, p. 152).

System
Roll: Manipulation + Occult
Cost: One Willpower
Duration: Instant

Aspects

Damage
Two dice of lethal damage per success spent. Although the basic form of Hellfire is a gout of flame, Hellfire does not do aggravated damage by default; for aggravated damage, spend 2 additional successes (some special effects preclude aggravated damage). Total number of successes spent on damage (including to buy aggravated damage) cannot exceed the dots the caster has in Hellfire.

Range
* Touch only. The sorcerer must make a successful Brawl attack in order to hit his target and deliver damage (which is in addition to normal melee damage).
** Less than 10 feet
*** Less than 25 feet
**** About 50 feet
***** Any target within 150 feet
****** A target within 200 yards or so

Area
1- A single target
2- A small area; 3 square feet or so
3- No more than a couple of square yards or so
4- 10 square feet (which can be arranged as a wall, circle or whatever).
5- 20 square feet
6- Approximately 50 square feet

Special Effects
All special effects are optional and, in fact, must be purchased (using freebie or experience points; cost is equal to the cost in successes +1), as each is a separate study in destruction. Each could be considered a separate destructive Path, of which Hellfire is simply a generic sampling.

2- Earthquake: The ground cracks open, engulfs the target and crushes him before subsiding. The target will then have to dig his way free (Strength roll against difficulty 6, need as many successes as health levels suffered, extended task). Lethal damage only.

2- Lightning: A bolt of electricity fries the target. If the target is touching any conductive material (water, a suit of plate armer, wires, etc.) and anyone else is touching that material, they suffer the same damage the target did. Can be aggravated.

1- Decay: Does no damage to living targets, but anything they are wearing or carrying begins to rust, decay, warp and generally fall apart at a high rate. Within 2-3 turns, anything they are wearing or holding will be junk. This effect destroys three pounds of material per point of damage that would be scored (some substances and anything that has been enchanted, will be resistant to this effect).

1- Dust Storm: A blinding, stinging cloud of fine dust whirls through the area, scouring everyone in the area. Must be bought with at least three dots worth of area. All beings in the path of this cloud are blinded for the duration of the cloud (one turn per health level of damage inflicted).

1- Sleet: A blast of freezing water and ice cuts across the target. Not only does this inflict damage, but it can also obscure vision (at least momentarily), and the ground surrounding the target is at least wet and may be rather slippery. Lethal damage only.

1- Smoke: A thick cloud of poisonous smoke billows forth from the caster, enveloping the area. (This effect must be bought with an Area of at least 3 dots). Everyond within the cloud takes on health level of lethal damage per turn, unless they have some kind of protection (a gas mask buys 2 turns of exposure but is then rednered useless) or do not need to breath (like vampires). Vision is totally obscured (even advanced vision, like thermographic or night vision) while within the cloud. Can be aggravated.

2- Tanglewood: nearby plants lash out, throwing storms of splinters, thorns, etc. at the target. A truly lucky magician might be able to stake a vampire this way, but don't count on it (difficulty 9, at least 5 successes needed). If the target is actually standing among any kind of dense undergrowth, the plants will envelop him (extended Strength roll against difficulty 7, need as many successes as health levels suffered to break free). Lethal damage only.

4- Drowning Tide: This effect requires a large body of water to work (an Olympic size swimming pool is sufficient). A sudden wave or undercurrent reaches up and drags the target under the surface, smashing her body and causing drowning damage. (See the rules on drowning in Mage Revised, p. 249). To escape, the target will have to get to "shore" and drag himself out of the water (Strength roll, difficulty 8, number of successes needed depends on how long he is in the water and how far he is from safety, but at least 2 successes necessary). This continues until the target escapes or dies. Drowning damage only.

Rituals
Fire's Weal (2)
This ritual allows the user (or whomever they cast the ritual upon) to resist natural flames, and provides at least some protection against even mystical flames. Roll (Manipulation + Occult) against difficulty of 7; if you score mroe than 2 successes, you can soak fire damage as if it were bashing damage, instead of aggravated; more successes reduces the soak number needed (so 5 successes on this check would result in the recipient being able to soak fire damage as bashing, with a -3 on the soak difficulty). This ritual costs one Willpower and lasts one scene.

Hellblade (3)
This simple ritual attunes a weapon (normally some kind of bladed weapon, often a dagger or sword) to the powers of this Path. By spending one Willpower, you may engulf the blade in mystical fires; while burning, the weapon does aggravated damage and does 2 additional dice of damage. These fires last for up to one scene, unless the magician tries to hand the weapon to another user, at which point the flames die out. Requires a Manipulation + Occult roll, difficulty 7, with at least 2 successes rolled to take effect.

Price of Failure
The price of failure ought to be obvious... the powers you are trying to wield rise up and engulf you! A simple failure just indicates that nothing happened, but a botch typically means that the attack backlashes onto the caster, inflicting whatever fate was intended for the target back on the attacker.
 

MANA MANIPULATION

Nearly every sorcerer recognizees the flow of some sort of power: mana, sekhem, chi, vis or some other representation of magical potential. Most magicians learn to feel or describe the energies that course through them during the casting of spells. Some, however, learn to direct these power sources in order to reshape the fundamental mystic energy about them. Geomancy, ley line channeling, feng shui - all of these sense and redirect the power of raw magic energy into new directions and shapes.

Mana Manipulation is an esoteric Path, and few sorcerers would describe it in such abastract terms - rather, most see it as an exercise described by their specific magical style. A magician used to feng shui and chi kung, for instance, will channel chi energies with special mirrors or moxa burning. A sorcerer who relies on incantations and wands will use those tools to direct Mana and store it. Spirit-talkers and shamans may rely on elaborate designs to trap and hold energy or paintings that ward off negative energies.

System

Roll: Manipulation + Occult
Cost: 1 Willpower
Modifiers: -1 for areas of strong Mana (Nodes and the like)
Time: One turn per effect level
Duration: Varies

Instead of aspects, this Path offers certain feats that may be performed at each level.

1- The sorcerer can sense Mana energies. In simple terms, a quick meditation or invocation allows the sorcerer to determine if an area or item is charged with power (Quintessence, Mana, vampire blood, what have you). With three or more successes, the sorcerer can tell if it has a specific Resonance - recognizing a sacred groove as a place holy to nature and growth or determining that some sort of stored Mana is actually flavored with a destructive, poisonous Resonance, for instance.

2- While an initiate can sense magical energy in places or objects, a sorcerer with this level of Mana Manipulation can see the magical energy in and around creatures. The sorcerer's perceptions let him determine if someone is using magic and allowing him to see obstructed or occluded magical flows (like blocked chi energies or curses). The sorcerer can also make a rough estimate of the potential magical energy held by an individual, though this does not guarantee separating a supernatural creature from an otherwise normal human.

3- Skilled sorcerers can displace or alter the flow of Mana around an area. The sorcerer can briefly block a Mana flow (each success causes a Node or other wellspring of Mana to become dormant for a turn) or push it in a different direction (again, for one turn per success). The sorcerer can cause Mana to become trapped in a simple object, though a given object can only hold a single point of Mana through a brief spell of this sort.

4- Manipulation of personal Mana energies allows a sorcerer to store additional Mana (temporarily), draw from a place of power to fuel his magic or even disrupt a person's Mana flow to cause injury. The sorcerer can draw Mana out of a place of power; each success allows the sorcerer to channol one point of Mana (to the limit of the area's power), which must be used in the next turn. Striking at a person to destroy Mana allows the sorcerer to strip Mana from the individual's pool at a one-success-for-one-point rate; this can also discharge the power in other magical pools (like Gnosis) on a two-successes-per-point ratio. Mana Manipulation at this level can cause injury or healing by altering the flow of life energy through a subject, essentially promoting health or disease. (This has no immediate effect, but over time may cause degeneration or better health; long-term or powerful alterations are better performed with the Healing Path.)

5- The master of Mana can not only sense and redirect Mana, but can us Mana to infuse countermagic (creating a magical "shield" that allows him to add Mana to a countermagic dice pool), block another sorcerer's use of Mana (each success stops an opponent's point of Mana from empowering an effect) or even change the Resonance of Mana (turning poisoned Mana into neutral, "clean" energy that could be used with helpful spells or bending otherwise passive Mana to a more active, fiery Resonance for use with destructive magic), with successes dictating the level of change - one success would alter the Resonance slightly, three would cancel out a characteristic and five would reverse it.

6- A legendary sorcerer can briefly cause an area to become a nexus of Mana energy. With a spell of this level, the sorcerer creates a flow of Mana for a few moments, turning himself into a sort of magical magnet. Successes garnered on such a spell are split between duration (in turns) and power (in Mana per turn). The sorcerer or others present may channel this Mana normally. Doing so, however, can be very debilitating; such magic often has side effects or burns out the caster (score one level of bashing damage for each success rolled).

Rituals
Mana Manipulation rituals allow a sorcerer to extend his power over Mana to cover wide areas or long durations.

Infusion (2)
The sorcerer takes an otherwise normal potion or other consumable object and places some of his own Mana into it for later use. The successes scored determine how much Mana can go into the item. Energy usually "leaks" during this process; every two points of Mana spent by the sorcerer channel one point into the storage receptacle.

Shape Mana (3)
With special mirrors, diagrams, carvings or the like, the sorcerer turns the flow of Mana in an area so that it changes direction and intent. The sorcerer could cause "bad" energies to become wholesome, alter a spell effect or turn a ley line so that it runs through his residence. The level of success guides the feat: With one success, the sorcerer could dissipate some unlucky energies so that a place does not attract evil spirits or ill fortune. With three successees, the sorcerer can channel joss so that a location has good fortune (lowering by one the difficulty of all commerce or practices of the area - a store would facilitate business, a hospital would encourage healing, and so on). With five successes, the sorcerer can reshape a magic effect already in the area to the limits of his own knowledge (turning, say, a ward so that it wards against a different creature type) or even cause a Node or other source of power to channel its energy to a location of his choosing. Mana reshaped in this form typically lasts until some force "snaps" it back to normal, though some places may require specific maintenance (yearly for simple effects like good luck, perhaps daily rituals for bending ley lines).

ONEIROMANCY

It is a frequent theme in tales of the fantastic and the magical that odd things often happen in dreams. Omens of the future are sometimes seen, messages from gods or wizards are passed on. There are tales of lovers who have not yet met, destined for each other, dreaming of their first meeting. The Dream Realm is infinitely malleable, responsive to the conscious and subconscious of the dreamer. A skilled dreamer can impose his will upon the Dream Realm, creating new images and altering the behavior of old, banishing nightmares or crafting new horrors with which to terrorize other dreamers. It is said, too, that there are world and beings that exist wholly within the world of dreams and nightmares, from the realms of the fae to the strange worlds described in the writings of Burroughs, Lovecraft and Poe.

Nearly everyone dreams. The oneiromancer walks among those dreams. Like the dreamweavers of horror movie fame, she can craft images so realistic that it is hard to tell the difference between them and reality. Still, they are "only" dreams. Or are they? An overly imaginative subconscious can quite literally dream itself to death, though this is rare. More common are the tales of wicked men who dreamed of their ultimate fate and heeded the warning to reform their ways. Such messages are a fine and subtle weapon of those who walk the dreaming night. And sometimes, dreams can walk amongst men....

System

Roll: Wits + Occult
Cost: None

Aspects

Distance
In order to affect a dreamer, the oneiromancer must have some sort of contact with her target. Physical contact is the best, obviously, but the principles of Sympathy and Contagion allow the use of other means.

1- Direct physical contact
2- True Name
3- Body part/secretion*
4- Prized possession
5- Other possession**

* Blood, hair, nail clippings, saliva, urine, etc. It must be unmixed with other materials.
** Any item that is in frequent contact with or use by the target, such as clothing.

Effects
1- The first step the dreamwalker must master is the ability to reach out and touch the dreams of others. They come to her as do most dreams, in flashes of imagery, often highly distorted by the subconscious. The dreamwalker can, with considerable thought, interpret parts of these shattered fragments, perhaps giving her some insight into her target's nature or history.

2- Working out the methodology to enter and take part in a dream is the next step. Entering the dream renders you temporarily a part of it; the oneiromancer's dream-self takes on an appearance and initial role in the dream provided by the dreamer's subconscious (and the Storyteller's feel for what is appropriate). It is not hard to make small changes in the dream (conjuring a small item from nowhere, say), a Wits + Dreamcraft roll at difficulty 6 suffices. Larger changes are very difficult, and the basic theme of the dream sequence is unalterable. Any change which violates it will be at a minimum difficulty of 8 and require multiple successes - and will tend to undo itself unless the dreamer pays constant attention to maintaining it.

3- Eventually, the dedicated dreamwalker will learn to isolate himself from his subject's dreams. This allows observation of the dream images without being drawn into (possibly quite dangerous) direct participation. A greater degree of control over the dream is also possible now, the dreamwalker banishing or creating nightmares and fantasies. It is possible, for example, to guide a dream to images supporting the self-confidence and surety of the dreamer, helping him to regain a point of temporary Willpower or to cast horrible terrors that mimic the effect of the Nightmares Flaw.

4- Once she has achieved sufficient control over the dream, the next step is to master dream sendings. The oneiromancer can craft a specific, detailed dream sequence and send it off to the target, to be repeated as many times as the caster gains successes on his casting roll. The prudent dreamwalker keeps these to one or two repetitions a night; any more and the subject may grow suspicious.

5- A master of the Dream Realm is a powerful individual; she walks freely in the dreams of others and is capable of melding the dreams of several folk into one (she can bring one person into the dream for each success on the casting roll). Of course, she has no control over the dreamers' actions, and the initial environment will be a mix of their subconscious influences, but careful nudges can send the group into a suitable dream with a bit of effort.

6- The greatest and most legendary power of Oneiromancy is the ability to make the dream real: physical entry into the Dream Realm. One who accomplishes this incredibly difficult feat can walk from dream to dream almost at will and may even be able to bring items (or even living things) out of the dream into the real world - for a time.

Price of Failure
A botched dreamweaving typically casts the sorcerer into a Nightmare REalm as his own subconscious takes control of the dream. Storytellers are encouraged to reach deep into their bags of tricks. Use the character's fears and memory of past disasters against him. The descriptions of Harrowings in Wraith: The Oblivion can be quite useful in this. Note also that stepping into the dreams of a person who suffers the effects of the Nightmares Flaw can be a disaster all by itself, their dream images are powerful and frequently painful.

SHADOWCASTING

With mastery of this Path, the shadows become your tools, the darkness your ally, and the night your friend. Despite the accusations of those who claim that the Path is, if not actively infernal, at least tinged with an ineffable darkness that can corrupt the unwary, the Path of Shadows is no more inherently evil than most other Paths. Whatever evil a sorcerer finds on the Path of Shadows, he brought himself.

A shadowcaster learns to manipulate and conjure shadowstuff - at first, mere simple shade but, with experience, near-tangible blackness or total nightfall. Color and light are absorbed and extinguished by these shadows, which dance and caper at the sorcerer's beck and call. Needless to say, such displays can be quite unnerving, even a novice sorcerer can conjure effects that will frighten the wits out of most normal humans.

System
Roll: Manipulation + Occult
Cost: 1 Willpower
Modifiers: None
Time: One turn per level of effect
Duration: Varies

This Path does not have aspects per se; rather, its effects are limited by raw level.

1- The caster can deepen and darken shadows and darkness in a room or area. The overall lighting doesn't alter, but those shadows that do exist will be much darker than they ought to be. If you desire, those shadows can carry with them a feeling of unease and spookiness. Exact effects depend on the situation (using this ability in a brightly lit office will have little effect, while doing it in a shadowy warehouse would give a sorcerer (and others) the effect of an extra dot of Stealth).

2- By shaping the shadows in his area and muffling the sounds he makes, the sorcerer can become almost impossible to discover. He can make his appearance indistinct, his voice eerie and creepy and the shadows deep and dark around himself. Add 2 dice to dice ools involving Arcane, Disguise (for purposes of hiding your appearance, not for taking on the appearance of others), Intimidation or Stealth. If the sorcerer casts the shadows on another, the victim will begin to see things out of the corner of his eyes, horrible shadowy forms that dissolve when the head turns. Strange creaks, ominous footsteps and hollow laughter will inhabit his hearing, and a rising sense of dread will occupy every spare thought. A Willpower roll (difficulty equal to the number of successes rolled) is necessary to avoid fumbling and hesitation; while not enough to cause penalties, this will cause someone to reconsider whether or not they should be here, instead of safe at home in his well-lit living room....

3- The shadows rile and coil about the shadowcaster. Color fades from the area, and sounds become mere whispers and murmers... or sudden piercing laughs, screams and other sounds of terror. Panic rises in all but the most stout hearted (Willpower roll, difficulty equal to the successes rolled +2; failure indicates either a sudden, near irresistible urge to be elsewhere or a -1 to all tasks). You may add 3 dice to your attempts to conceal your character (or another).

4- The shadows are the sorcerer's allies in all ways. Those who oppose him must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) or be struck down in near-terror (-2 on all tasks - fear this great may drive some to frenzy). Add 4 dice to your dice pools for Intimidation, Arcane and Stealth. Cameras and other electronic recording devices will fail unless the operators succeed at an Intelligence + (appropriate skill: Computers, Investigation, Photography, Science) roll (difficulty 8, generally, although very simple equipment might need only a 6).

5- The shadows reach out and engulf the caster's opponents; what they see there is enough to reduce even the greatest to shivering wrecks. Used offensively, the opponent must make a Willpower check (difficulty 8, 3 successes needed) or be reduced to uselessness for several turns; a victim that was already afraid of the dark or enclosed spaces will probably require psychiatric attention before recovering. Those shrouded in the darkness will be totally invisible to those outside it (and to eachother). Naturally, the caster can see in his own darkness. Any recording device brought into the darkness fails immediately (no roll allowed); any pointed at the darkness see only roiling masses of... nothing. Inky blackness. Shadows.

6- The legendary sorcerer can give the shadows a physical form, shaping them into chains or tentacles to grab and hold those he wants stopped. The number of successes scored represents the total amount of Strength that can be brought to bear against opponents; you can divide these points up as you want. Bright light will weaken these shadows; sunlight will destroy them. Alternatively, the caster can use this power to dim even the brightest lights; even the sun will dim, although only temporarily, and only in a small, well-defined area (an alley way or courtyard, for example).

Price of Failure
The shadows are cruel servants... or are they masters? In any case, botches with this Path are certainly undesirable. Sorcerers can end up befuddling themselves as much (or more) than their opponents, drawing the shadows they intended to inflict on others upon themselves. Rumors speak of shadowy forms coming out of shadows that didn't exist... couldn't exist, in broad daylight, to draw a sorcerer who has badly botched into the darkness, never to be seen again. Others speak of things drawn forth that have forever pursued students of this Path... and those caught by them are never quite the same again.

SHAPESHIFTING

While the World of Darkness is indeed home to some shapeshifting monsters, a few sorcerers learn to alter their bodies through magical practice rather than inborn heritage. Perhaps it's a spoken word that calls to the primal animal within or the intervention of an animal-spirit or even a little judicious genetic engineering. This Path is very elemental, often calling upon instinctive knowledge, and many sorcerers have lost their personalities to the beast-side conjured up. Others lose their identity in malleability. For a few, shapeshifting is less an art than a natural talent, but one unchanneled by the callings of the true Changing Breeds. It seems that Shapeshifting comes in as many forms as its practitioners.

System
Roll: Stamina + Animal Ken (mythic sorcery)
Intelligence + Science (extraordinary science)
Cost: One Willpower per use
Modifiers: None
Duration: One scene

Aspects

1- A minor cosmetic change: The sorcerer can change eye colors, grow hair, etc.

2- Noticeable change: The sorcerer grows small claws, sprouts scales on the hands or the like.

3- Significant change: The sorcerer replaces some body part with an animal feature - a full clawed paw, a nasty shark jaw or an externalized digestive system.

4- Half-shift: The sorcerer can shift half of his body into another form or find some halfway point between human and animal with significant traits of each. The sorcerer might resemble a bipedal wolf (of size somewhere between human and wolf) or could have bird wings and a beak with human legs.

5- Full shifting: The sorcerer can change completely into animal forms.

6- Mythic shifting: Not only can the sorcerer take on animal forms, he may turn into forms that he only imagines.

Subject
5- The sorcerer can only affect himself.

4- The sorcerer can affect a different subject instead of himself.

5- The sorcerer can affect two subjects at once.

6- The sorcerer can affect up to three subjects at a time.

Disparity
1-3 The sorcerer can only affect himself and must take only one animal feature.

4- The sorcerer can make two unrelated shifts: having a wolf claw and a raven's head or changing himself to have fangs and an opponent to have whiskers.

5- The sorcerer can make three unrelated shifts.

6- The sorcerer can freely mix and match shifting traits.

Price of Failure
Shapshifters have a tendency to lose control over their shifting processes; a sorcerer who botches might trap himself in an animal's body or accidentally give an enemy useful advantages. The sorcerer could replace his mental acuity with animal instincts, or his body might start shifting out of control.

SUMMONING, BINDING AND WARDING

Perhaps the most ubiquitous among legendary sorceries is the abililty to bind and control various natural or supernatural entities. Sorcerers can use their powers to command ghosts, demons, animals - even other people. With protective circles the sorcerer hedges out enemies, while with summoning spells, he calls the subjects to him.
Summoning, Binding and WArding are perhaps the most dangerous of spells. Attempts to bind creatures almost inevitably makes them hostile. A sorcerer may not know that a ward is unsuccessful until an enemy attacks! And, or course, many hapless sorcerers learn to summon creatures long before learning to bind and control them. Worse still, many extradimensional beings possess will too strong to be easily bound.

All Summoning, Binding and Warding powers are rituals; the sorcerer must properly prepare and incant to make the effect happen. The aspects determine the sorts of creature that the sorcerer can summon and for how long. Each type of creature requires a separate ritual: Summon Rats, Bind Rats and Ward Against Vampires are all separate rituals.

Summoning, Binding and Warding covers many different areas of study. Material Summoning refers to physical creatures, like the summons of rats or bats. Daimonic Summoning affects angelic or demonic entities. Ephemera refers to the practice of dealing with spirits in general; Necromancy covers dealings with ghosts of the dead. Coiling or Technomantic Summoning refers to the practice of summoning or binding technological items - some modern sorcerers might even call their cars to them or ward their computerse against viruses!

System
Roll: Intelligence + Occult
Cost: One Willpower
Modifiers: None
Duration: See below

Aspects
Creatures Affected
A creature compelled by a Summoning must appear to the sorcerer. Thus, the sorcerer can see spirits or the like that are brought forth, vampires are forced from hiding, etc. Note that the creature must move under its own power; the spell does not teleport it into the location. Thus, Summoning a toaster does little good unless it has wheels.

1- Simple creatures: The sorcerer can affect small, unintelligent animals, like rats, bats and insects. This also functions upon simple nature spirits or basic technological devices.

2- Large creatures: The summoner may affect large animals like wolves. The summoner may also affect ghosts of the dead or larger technical devices like televisions.

3- Humans: The summoner's magic functions upon normal humans or upon self-willed natural spirits. Computers and complex electronics may be affected.

4- Paranatural: The summoner can affect ghouls, other sorcerers and similar supernatural entities. Technomagical devices may be affected.

5- Supernatural: The summoner's powers reach beyond to affect truly supernatural material beings such as vampires, werewolves and the like. The sorcerer could use technosummons against airplanes, wards across entire buildings and soon.

6- Celestial: The summoner can invoke his powers against gods, demons and angels.

Number
Each dot of Summoning allows the sorcerer to summon one creature of the appropriate type or one swarm for small animals and insects.

Warding Strength
Each dot causes the subject to lose one die from all actions against the sorcerer.
With Warding at three or above, the sorcerer may create a Warding Circle; unless the creature scores more successes on a Willpower roll than the sorcerer's player scord on the Ward roll, the creature cannot pass into or out of the circle.

Binding Intensity
Binding levels are cumulative. Note that a creature may expend a point of Willpower to resist a Binding, though the sorcerer may recast it.

1- The creature cannot act against the sorcerer.
2- The creature must truthfully answer any single question put to it.
3- The creature truthfully answers questions and must perform any one service demanded, though it may twist the intent of the service.
4- The creature performs a task for the caster as directed, following the orders closely.
5- The sorcerer may command the creature to perform one task on behalf of another person and order it to answer any questions put to it by others.
6- The creature follows the spirit as well as the letter of the sorcerer's commands.

Duration
1- One turn
2- Three turns
3- One scene
4- One day
5- One story
6- Permanent (?)

Price of Failure
The price of failure should be self-evident for Summoning, Binding and Warding. Those who meddle in the affairs of demons eventually get what they deserve. A creature may arrive and pretend to be under control; a warding circle might hedge against the sorcerer; a binding may simply enrage the target and even make the subject resistant to the sorcerer's spells.

WEATHER CONTROL

Weather witches have always been among the most revered and feared members of the sorcerer community. In ancient time, a witch could doom a community to a slow death by withholding the rain the crops needed... or could wreck it quickly by bringing on storms that flood the fields, destroy homes and kill the unwayr. On the seas, those who could call the winds were lifesavers in truth, for a becalmed vessel was one that would die.

Most cultures consider weatherworking to be a woman's art, drawing on the ties between her fertility and the bounty of the land and the elements, but this is far from universal; in some African tribes, weather magic was men's magic, for example. Technosorcerers make no such distinctions, of course, but then, their mastery of this Path is thought by most to be limited at best. (Whether this is true is a question of some debate, however, as there are a few who always seem to have the wind at their back, cloudy skies and convenient fog banks when they need them.)
Weather magic can be terribly powerful but is also usually very slow to take effect. Changes in the weather are usually measured in hours or days; you can speed these processes up, but you cannot summon tidal waves out of nothing or storms from clear skies. When given time to work, however, weathercraft can command forces that are truly awesome and terrifying to behold, but not without cost. Even simple changes can leave a sorcerer drained; major workings can demand terrible sacrifices or even the death of the caster.

System
Roll: Manipulation + Willpower
Cost: Weatherworking is expensive. An effect costs one Willpower per 2 dots in Intensity, plus one for every 3 dots of Duration, Speed and Scale (or fraction thereof).
Modifiers: None
Duration: See below
Note: Because of the nature of weathercraft, the sorcerer does not gain the benefit of Path dots as freebie successes; almost allw eathercraft casting will be performed as extended task checks.

Aspects
Intensity
1- You can make small changes in the environment: a sudden cold breeze, a slight drop in room temperature, a softening of the light in a room, the sudden flaring of candles.

2- Minor changes to the environment are possible; you can summon up a dense fog, ensure that skies are cloudy or create favorable winds.

3- The rains and winds are at your command. Rainshowers come when you call them, and strong winds blow where you will. You can change the local temperature by as much as 30 degrees in either direction and can calm strong seas or currents.

4- Storms move and surge where you will; powerful rains, gale force winds, heat waves and cold snaps (changes of up to 40 degrees in temperature), and powerful tides and undercurrents are all at your command. You can also take control of existing weather patterns; an additional Manipulation + Occult roll (difficulty 7) allows you to direct some phenomenon of the storm (hailstones, powerful waves, lightning bolts, smashing winds, etc.) at a specific target. These attacks do (4 health levels + the caster's successes); a new roll must be made for each attack. Lightning bolts do lethal damage (aggravated if the subject "botches" the soak roll), other attacks do either lethal or bashing damage depending on their exact effects.

5- Your control over the thunderstorm is absolute. Great waves surge and crash when you command, and no man can stand when you send the winds against him. The blizzard and the drought are your weapons. Elemental attacks sent against others do 6 health levels + your successes on a Manipulation + Occult roll.

6- You can summon the most destructive of weather patterns: tornadoes, hurricanes and monsoons, killing frosts, dust storms, lethal heat waves and raging thunderstorms. Their elemental attacks can kill even the most powerful of men; attacks do a base of 8 health levels + successes rolled. Storms of this magnitude will disrupt local weather patterns for weeks or even months after the storm itself fades away; the faster the storm is summoned the more extreme the aftermath and disruptions.

Speed
1- The changes you request will happen... eventually. Depending on the severity of the change, it might take anywhere from minutes to a week or more for the weather you summon to arrive.

2- Minor manipulations of the local weather occur within a few seconds or minutes of your enacting the change. Major changes still take long periods of time to take effect, depending on the severity of the shift.

3- Small changes take effect within a minute of your calling them, and larger changes require only a few hours to a day to take effect. The most extreme of shifts in weather, however, still take several days to set up.

4- Minor changes are almost instantaneous, larger changes occur within a few hours, and extreme changes happen in a day or two.

5- Minor changes occur when and how you ask them to, larger changes happen in an hour or so, and even extreme changes usually take place within a day of you asking for them.

6- Even the largest of storms come within an hour or two of your calling them. Summoning a storm with this kind of speed is guaranteed to mess up local weather patterns and will certainly attract large amounts of attention from those who watch the skies... not to mention weirding out every meteorologist on the same continent as you are.

Duration
1- A few seconds, no more, and only for minor changes.
2- A minute or so. Major changes cannot last this short a period of time.
3- A few minutes, maybe half an hour at most.
4- An hour at most
5- Several hours, maybe a day.
6- Up to a week.

Scale
1- 50 square feet or so. Minor changes only.
2- Affects about a half-mile area.
3- A mile or two in size. Extreme changes cannot take place in this small an area.
4- An area roughly five miles in diameter. All but the most extreme changes are possible.
5- An area 20 miles in diameter. Any kind of changes are possible.
6- An area nearly 100 miles in diameter.

Price of Failure
Even a simple failure at Weather Controll will result in weird shifts and changes in the local weather patterns; a botch can disrupt the local weather almost beyond recognition (snow on the Sahara, droughts in the rain forests, etc.) or muck up the weather patterns for an entire region to a lesser degree. A sorcerer could find himself summoning up the mother of all hurricanes when he was trying for a ismple thunderstorm or fried in her own thunderbolts.

Psychic Numina

ANIMAL PSYCHIC

While most psychic abilities affect other humans, some psychics use their talents on the "lower" animals. The actual method of communication may vary. Some psychics bark or growl at the animal. Others use dressage gestures, even if the animal has never even seen a trainer before. A few simply speak their native language (or even an imaginary one) and hear the animal speak it back to them. Animals may communicate with the psychic, though the information they relate should be limited by their intelligence and perceptions.

Animal psychics may use their power on any mammal, lizard or bird with no change in the difficulty. In fact, highly intelligent animals (chimpanzees, dolphins, gorillas) or well trained animals (dogs, horses, circus or show animals) are more susceptible to Animal Psychics. The difficulty is reduced by one. Fish are harder to control; increase the difficulty by two. Insect minds are too simple (or perhaps too different) for the psychic to affect.

Roll: Charisma + Animal Ken

* Communication
The psychic may "speak" with a single animal, allowing two-way communication with the beast. The communication does not give the psychic control over the animal, though misunderstandings may be explained away. Roll at difficulty 6.

** Command
The psychic can command the animal to perform for him. The animal will not endanger itself for the psychic. However, it can do any trick the psychic can adequately describe to it. Under some circumstances, an animal will attack for the psychic, though it would be under circumstances where the animal had some proclivity toward attacking in the first place. A police dog might bring someone to the ground, or a hungry tiger might go after a hunter. Roll at dif. 7, with modifiers depending upon the complexity of the command (plus 1 for a rather complex command or one to which the animal is ambivalent; minus one for something it would do anyway).

*** Mass Communication
This power works like the Communication power, though it now works on all animals within earshot. Additionally, the psychic may communicate with multiple types of animals simultaneously. Roll at difficulty 6, plus one for each additional species of animal in the area of communication.

**** Mind Link
With this power, the psychic joins his mind with that of a single animal. Once the link is established, the psychic's and the animal's minds are linked until the psychic drops the connection. While linked, the psychic can perceive whatever the animal perceives. She can also communicate with the animal using any of the lesser Animal Psychic powers, with the difficulty reduced by 1. The drawback to this power is that if the animal is injured, the mental feedback injures the psychic. For every lethal wound level the animal takes, the psychic takes one bashing wound level (soakable normally). Difficulty is 8.

***** Domination
This ability gives total control of an animal's mind. It will do whatever the psychic wishes, even at the cost of it's own life. Roll at difficulty 8 and spend 1 Willpower. The animal will explicitly follow 1 command. The command may be conditional ("if somebody attacks me, then kill him") but it cannot be conjunctional ("follow the scent of this shirt and attack him").

ANTI-PSYCHIC

Anti-psychic is the rarest psychic talent yet observed. The psychics' very presence makes even reliable psychic talents weaken or fail. Sensitives, before their powers fail them, describe the anti-psychic as generating a "static" in the mental plane. An anti-psychic cannot purchase additional psychic powers. Due to the subtle nature of their powers, most anti-psychics remain unaware of their talent until approached or even attacked by other psychics. Anti-Psychic is useful against all psychic abilities, as well as the Mind Sphere (though it provides only a single level of defense against the latter, regardless of the anti-psychic's power).

The stronger the anti-psychic, the larger the radius affected. Anti-Psychic isn't "activated" in the fashion of other powers; rather, it always clouds those around the anti-psychic, adding its level to the difficulty of all psychic powers in the area. (As usual, pushing a difficulty past 9 generates a threshold for successes.) With a roll of Intelligence + Meditation (difficulty 7) an anti-psychic may dampen this aura down one level per success rolled; this allows the anti-psychic some attempt at controlling the power.
 

ASTRAL PROJECTION

The power of Astral Projection allows the psychic to split his spirit off from his body. The discarnate spirit can travel very quickly in this form. The spirit intangibly travels across planes of thought while still able to look in on the physical world. While in astral form, the psychic cannot physically affect the real world, though he may use other psychic abilities (the difficilty numbers for doing so are increased by two). However, while away from his body, he cannot perceive what is happening to it. Many out-of-body travelers have nightmares about someone moving or harming their physical self while their spirit is roaming free. Two astrally projecting characters may affect each other, though for purposes of astral combat, they substitute their Wits for Dexterity, their Intelligence for Strength and their Perception for Stamina. Some astrally projecting psychics could once perceive ghosts and certain spirits, but most such spirits now appear as blurry forms, barely in the realm of perception. In general, an astral spirit can see the material world or other abstract spirits in the realm of thought; ghosts of the dead and the like usually remain imperceptible except to those psychics who also have some mediumship abilities.

To release the astral form, the player spends one point of Willpower and rolls for the power. Should the player botch while attempting to have his characters step outside his body, the psychic is unable to leave his body for 24 hours. Psychics who frequent the astral plane whisper that other entities sometimes intrude there, human or otherwise, and on some occasions find their souls drawn to strange spirits worlds far removed from the mortal plane. A few never find their way back. Caution is the rule when exploring planes unknown to humans.

Roll: Perception + Meditation (difficulty 8)

* With only rudimentary awareness of astral existence, the psychic can shift her senses to feel the astral realm but cannot quite enter it. The psychic sees the astral realm overlaid upon the normal physical world. There are psychics who prefer to close their eyes and visualize the astral plane, while others have no difficulty watching both. A psychic may view the astral realm for so long as she maintains her concentration upon it.

** The psychic practitioner can leave her body for one minute per point of Stamina. While in astral form, she can only perceive things by sight. She is also limited to traveling approximately one mile away from her body.

*** The character can leave her body for up to ten minutes per point of Stamina. She gains the ability to hear in astral form and can travel up to 100 miles from her body.

**** The psychic can now leave her body for up to an hour per point of Stamina and travel up to 1,000 miles away. Each additional hour out of her body after the first requires the expenditure of a point of Willpower. If the player succeeds on a Charisma + Occult roll (difficulty 8), the psychic can manifest visually to observers as a translucent, ghostly apparition, though the projector cannot communicate verbally with observers.

***** The psychic may astrally travel anywhere in the world, so long as her body remains healthy, and she may use all of her senses normally. The psychic's form (should the character choose to manifest, using the same roll as previously noted) appears as a blurry and translucent version of her usual physical form but somewhat idealized. While manifest, the projection can speak, though only in a soft whisper. Like her visual appearance, the psychic's speech does not appear on recordings.

BIO-CONTROL

Most psychics turn their paranormal abilities outward, sensing things beyond normal perceptions or controlling them with their wills. Other psychics turn their powers inward. Psychics with Biocontrol regulate their autonomic nervous systems with the ease that others tie their shoes. Proper use of Biocontrol allows a psychic to shut down pain, regulate his internal organs or even direct the flow of blood and glandular secretions at will. While some otherwise normal people learn basic techniques of biofeedback, the truly talented psychic can perform marvels beyond all but the most dedicated meditative disciple.

Roll: Stamina + Meditation

* Self-Control
The psychic has power over his body to a basic degree. By entering a self-induced hypnosis state, he controls basic functions. He can stop a small cut from bleeding, ignore small amounts of pain or hold his breath longer than he would be able to under normal circumstances. Roll at difficulty 6 for the effect to succeed. While in this self-imposed trance, the character can do nothing else but focus on his body. He remains peripherally aware of his surroundings but can bring himself out of the trance at will.

** Self-Healing
By maintaining his internal focus over a long period of time, the character accelerates the healing process. Psychics with self healing recover at a vastly accelerated rate, as their bodily controls allow them to more efficiently reknit flesh and fight off infections. Roll at difficulty 7, though the current wound penalty does apply to the dice pool. Every success reduces the time for the wound to heal by one stage on the healing chart. The character must spend his time resting comfortably (preferably under some sort of medical care) for the power to work. For instance, if Raymond was Mauled, he would roll his Stamina + Meditation minus 2 dice. If he scored three successes, he would heal from Mauled to Wounded in three days. He could then roll again to heal from Wounded to Injured.


*** Hysterical Strength
The psychic gains control of his adrenal glands, allowing brief periods of hysterical strength and speed. The player rolls at difficulty 8. Every two successes on the roll gives the character one additional point to Strength, Dexterity or Stamina, up to a maximum of five dots in any characteristic. The effect lasts one scene, after which the player must roll again at difficulty 6 to "soak" these successes in bashing damage--as the psychic "comes down" from the hysterical episode, his body responds to the excessive stress and pain. (Some psychics see this more as a form of channeled energy than as a scientific methodology and might well have Hysterical Strength without any glandular response. The results are the same.)

**** Ignore Pain Response
The psychic has the ability to shut off his pain centers for a brief period of time. This does not heal any damage, though it does let him function while injured. Roll against difficulty 7. Every success allows the psychic to ignore one die of wound penalties for one scene. At the end of the scene, the wound modifiers return, and the character cannot deflect away the pain again until he has healed at least one wound level.

***** Mind Over Matter
The character's control of his body is complete. At will, he can stop his heart, control the immune system and accelerate or suppress cell growth, generation or processing. In effect, the pyschic can direct his body consciously to perform feats of biology almost as if cells responded individually to his mind. The psychic can nullify most toxins with a difficulty 8 roll, though sufficiently large doses (like a quart of mercury) would overwhelm his system. He can fight off just about any mundane disease, allergen or irritant and can even try to counteract severe diseases like HIV or cancer (again, at difficulty 8). With pain control (previous), he can flex and contort his body into unnatural positions and slip out of bonds or into tight spaces. He can hold his breath for minutes at a time while remaining active and, if necessary, can actively redirect toxins to other parts of the body--so he might be able to keep his mind and hands working by shunting the effects of poison gas all into his legs. The psychic can, if he prepares his body against trauma, gain a normal Stamina soak against any sort of damage, even aggravated (difficulty 8; successes determine the maximum number of dice that the psychic can use to soak lethal or aggravated damage for the scene, not counting armor or other external modifiers).

CHANNELING

Some psychics have the ability to draw upon the knowledge of those who have passed on. Channelers tap the knowledge and experience of the dead, briefly obtaining skills that they personally lack. Some psychics have a repertoire of spirits they can call on for help and assistance. Others claim that they tap the collective unconscious.

While the source of knowledge varies, the effects remain the same. The player rolls the Channeling pool (difficulty 7); every success gives the character one dot of the Talent, Skill or Knowledge desired for the remainder of the scene. On a botch, the channeler has opened herself up too widely to the spirit planes; she may summon a malevolent entity that tries to control her actions, lose some of her usual abilities as her personality is lost int he influx or simply find herself unable to reach her usual channeling talents for a day, sometimes more. Note that only one personality may be channeled at a time. Thus, a channeler cannot "stack" additional dots by channeling multiple personalities at a time.

Roll: Perception + Awareness

* The psychic can channel once per day. She has a vague sense of other personalities floating about and of the existence of some sort of consciousness beyond the body, but that's about all.

** The character can channel two times per day. She also can, against a difficulty equal to the Gauntlet, see briefly into the Shadowlands where ghosts live. She can communicate with ghosts for one minute per success rolled.

*** The psychic practitioner can channel three times per day. She can also see into the Shadowlands for an entire scene by rolling against a difficulty of the Gauntlet.

**** At this level and beyond there is no limit to how often the character can channel, though the difficulty increases by one for each time after the third until the character sleeps. The psychic also can let ghosts skilled in the arts of possession (called "Puppetry" by wraiths) easily enter her body to use all of her skills. The medium retains full awareness of the wraith's actions. She can also eject a possessing wraith by winning a contest of Willpower against the ghost in question; each attempt costs one Willpower point and takes a full turn of struggling.

***** The psychic can channel two disparate personalities at once (and thus the player can roll Channeling twice and add to determine Abilities dots gained). As before, there's no effective limit to how often the character can channel at this point, though successive attempts become more difficult until the psychic has a full sleep cycle. When possessed by a ghost, the channeler often gains memories from the ghost, beyond what the possessor might do or tell--while a weaker channeler might hope the ghost says or does something significant, the master channeler can access some of the ghost's memories and passions (in game terms, the channeler gains a sense of the ghost's Nature, Demeanor and driving concerns).

CLAIRVOYANCE

A clairvoyant has the ability to cast his senses away, allowing him to perceive people, places or things at great distances. Though, technically Clairvoyance refers specifically to remote sight, some psychics can also cast forth their hearing or other senses as well. Unlike astral projection, the clairsentient does not separate his consciousness from his body; he remains aware of what's going on around him (though this can be very confusing if the psychic tries to concentrate upon two locations at once). Similarly, the clairvoyant does not travel through the intervening space he simply perceives whatever happens at the target site as if he stood there.

The degree of familiarity the psychic has with the target may raise or lower the difficulty (by plus or minus one or two). Once the clairvoyant "locks on" to a target, he can then "pan" his view around, allowing him to see just about anything in the immediate area. The limits of their perceptions are the immediate area in question. If the character wishes to see beyond that area, he must refocus, and the player must make a new roll. For example, a character looking into a room in another house could see anything in that room. However, to switch perceptions into the hall outside would require a second roll. The clairvoyant cannot perceive anything he could not perceive with his normal senses. Thus, if the target area is completely darkened, remote sight does no good.

Roll: Perception + Awareness (difficulty 8)

* The psychic can see things, though the images are hazy and dreamlike. The character can extend his senses into just the immediate area, approximately a mile from his body.

** The psychic can see clearly through remote sight and can faintly hear. The range of perception is now anywhere in the immediate five to 10 miles, depending on the number of successes (1 success = 5 miles, 2 successes = 6 miles, etc).

*** The character can see and hear clearly at a distance. He can also "touch" things at the remote side, though his sense of touch is vague, as if he were wearing heavy gloves. (He cannot move things, naturally). The character's range expands to 10 miles per success rolled.

**** The character can clearly see, hear and touch at range. Additionally, he can detect strong odors. The range is 100 miles per success.

***** The character can use all five senses clearly and can perceive things up to 1000 miles away per success rolled.

CYBERKINESIS

A relatively new talent, Cyberkinesis is the ability to control electronic machinery with one's mind. Paranormal researchers believe that Cyberkinesis is a specialized application of telekinesis. The cyberkinetic generates small-scale electromagnetic fields that alter the operating systems of computers and other electronic equipment (stereo systems, burglar alarms, etc). However, while the psychic can control the machine, he cannot "read its mind." That is a separate power: Cyberpathy. For all powers above Level One, he must be able to see what he is doing, generally through a monitor or display readout. In effect, a cyberkinetic can send information to a machine but must read it back normally (or with Cyberpathy).

Roll: Manipulation + Computer

* Switch
The cyberkinetic possesses the ability to switch computers or easily operated electronic equipment off and on. Roll at diff. 6 for machines switched by electronic relays, difficulty 8 for switches that rely on physical relays.

** Link
The cyberkinetic may operate the electronic equipment without touching it, as if by remote control. This does not give him any override codes or passwords. He could enter a password without it at the keyboard, but he could not login to the machine without a valid password. Roll against difficulty 4 or 5 for simple acts like programming a VCR or entering data into a word processor. Very complex actions require higher difficulty numbers, such as 7 for driving a car with power steering or 9 for a computer controlled factory.

*** Scramble
The psychic possesses the ability to send microscale power surges through computers, giving them the equivalent of an epileptic seizure. Computers lock up, video equipment displays snow, and recording equipment picks up nothing but static. The scrambling effect lasts as long as the cyberkinetic concentrates upon it. When the effect lapses, the machines return to normal operation, though some less robust operating systems will crash. Roll against difficulty 7, though complex systems may require an 8 or 9.

**** Password
The psychic overrides the operating system of computers, essentially giving himself any password or code he desires. He can force the computer to do anything the normal operating system is capable of performing. He could, for instance, create administrator access for himself, erase data or forge e-mail from anyone with an account on the system. Roll against difficulty 7 for ordinary desktop machines, difficulty 8 or 9 for machines with high degrees of security or other intrusion countermeasures.

***** Run Hot
The psychic has such control of electronics that he can effectively "reprogram" the computer to exceed its normal abilities. A computer calculates faster, a robot arm lifts more, a laser burns hotter. Roll against difficulty 8. Every success gives the psychic an extra success to apply to his next use of a machine. However, every success also does one "health level" of damage to the machine. Apply the wound penalties to the device's subsequent functions until repaired.

CYBERPATHY

While a cyberkinetic possesses the ability to control electronic equipment, the cyberpath can read the data stored on the computer. Researchers believe that the method for reading magnetic patterns in a computer's memory or on a hard drive resembles the way telepaths read the electrical impulses of the human brain.

All uses of Cyberpathy require the psychic to be within sight of the computer. Characters using Remote Access do not have to be able to see the remote computers they are linking to, but they must be able to see the machine they're using as an entry point. In all cases, the difficulty depends upon the system of complexity: difficulty 6 for standard desktop computers to difficulty 9 for heavily encrypted systems. This ability can also be used to read the data stored on diskettes, tapes or other digital media. Difficulty 6 for ordinary storage media, 8 for encrypted data. Generally speaking, these powers take 10 to 15 minutes to use, though the cyberpath can use successes from the roll to reduce the time by a minute per success.

Roll: Perception + Computer

* Analyze Structure
At this level, the cyberpath possesses the ability to examine the directory structure of the computer. He can see what files are stored on the hard drive but cannot access them. This can be useful to cyberpath hackers looking for a specific piece of data.

** Read-Only Mode
The cyberpath practitioner not only can travel the directory structure but can read the files. Simple text and graphics files are easy to comprehend. Additionally, he can grasp the functions of executable programs. Unscrambling encrypted files remains beyond him at this level.

*** Download
The psychic can "copy" a file from a computer to his mind, writing the data in unused sections of his brain. While he can read text files, observe graphics or sound files and understand the nature of executable program, he cannot "run" the program in his brain. With the Level Two Cyberkinesis power Link, the cyberpath can upload the data back onto another computer. The cyberpath can download one program or file into his mind for every dot in Mental Attributes he possesses. (Example: Sridhar has Perception 3, Intelligence 4 and Wits 3. He can keep up to 10 files in his head.) The Storyteller should decide how much data constitutes a single file. Some large files such as operating system kernels, large software packages or large movie files may take up more than one "file" in the cyberpath's head.

**** Remote Access
With this power, the psychic connects to any computer that his local computer connects to. The cyberpath has no additional powers beyond the ability to treat a remote computer as if it were sitting on his desktop. For every "hop" between computers, the cyberpath loses 1 die off his pools.

***** Decrypt
The cyberpath's understanding of computers progresses to the point of where he can decrypt encrypted data. The data can be on a computer (either locally or one connected to via Remote Access) or Downloaded into the psychic's mind.

ECTOPLASMIC GENERATION

Among the more freakish psychic phenomena, Ectoplasmic Generation coalesces the stuff of spirits plasm into a tangible form. Through force of will and personality, the psychic tugs on ghostly energies and makes them solid. Most often, this manifests as a mucusy gel, though skilled psychics can disperse it or concentrate it to make oddly glistening webs, sticky vapors and the like. Such creations are rather disturbing and correspond to no known physical chemistry; indeed, ectoplasm tends to "dissolve" into the nothingness of the Underworld after a short time and defies scientific analysis.

For wraiths, all ectoplasmic creations are solid. They cannot pass through ectoplasmic mists. Psychics who attack wraiths with ectoplasmic entities do full damage to the ghosts, although they would need some way of perceiving the dead in their "Shadowlands".

Roll: Charisma + Occult

* The Big Sneeze
The psychic can summon up some strands of snotty material. The ectoplasm created by this power wells out of the psychic's orifices or follows in the wake of her touch, leaving slimy, glistening trails. Each success scored causes the psychic to leave a slime trail that lasts for one turn. This goo is disturbing and nasty but has no deleterious effects. Summoning up this goo only has a diff. of 5. The psychic can also vaguely summon ectoplasmic fog. The thick, white mist boils out of the psychic's eyes, nose and mouth. This cloud generated is vaguely spherical and has a diameter of about five feet, plus one foot in diameter per success rolled in generating it. The cloud hangs in midair in front of the psychic and does not move. The cloud slowly dissolves, leaving oily, viscous goo behind. In still air, the cloud lasts two turns, plus one turn per success rolled. A stiff wind will disperse the cloud in half the time. The difficulty to raise such a cloud is only 6.

** The Mists
The psychic's control of the ectoplasmic cloud coalesces and the cloud begins to obey the commands of the summoner. The Cloud no longer disperses in wind and lasts as long as the summoner concentrates on it. If kept in a sphere, the fog would have a radius of five feet, plus one foot per success rolled in generating it. However, the psychic has rudimentary control over the shape of the fog, though it is merely basic control. No complex shapes can be formed, yet. The cloud initially appears in front of the psychic, though the cloud can move five feet per round, if the summoner desires. Once the psychic's concentration lapses, the cloud dissolves in five rounds. Difficulty is 7.

***  "A Fog So Thick"
By investing a greater portion of her will in the ectoplasmic cloud, it becomes solid to the touch. The cloud itself feels like cotton candy and requires a Strength roll (difficulty 6) to pass through. If the roll succeeds, the character travels at one-quarter of normal speed. Attacking the fog with normal weapons rarely does any good. Bullets, blades and fists may shift the solid ectoplasm, but cannot break it down. To generate the fog, the player rolls against difficulty 8. The fog appears in front of the summoner and does not move. The psychic shapes the ectoplasmic wall at the time of creation, though the total volume of ectoplasm would be a sphere with a radius of five feet plus one foot for every two successes rolled. The cloud remains solid so long as the psychic concentrates upon it. When concentration lapses, the cloud remains (though no longer solid) for three rounds.

**** Dream Shaper
The psychic's greater control of her ectoplasm allows her to mold it into complex shapes. The ectoplasmic creation may look like anything the psychic wishes, though the ectoplasm remains a dull white color. The summoner creates the shape near her. Roll against difficulty 8. Once created, the shape moves at 10 yards per turn. During creation, the psychic gets one point for every success rolled to divide among the creation's physical characteristics.

(Example: Matthew gets 4 successes to generate the ectoplasmic creature. He has four points to divide among the three physical characteristics. Because he wants the creation to pick up and carry his groceries, he gives it two points of Strength and two of Dexterity. It has a Stamina of zero, so any damage, even bashing damage, causes the creation dissipate.)

The dense ectoplasm takes bashing damage from bullets and cutting weapons and lethal damage from impacts and fire (or other environmental effects). Its bashing soak is determined by its Stamina, and it has no lethal soak. It has 3 bashing health levels. If the creation takes any lethal damage (including lethal damage from bashing overflow), it disappears. The creation is a puppet, controlled by the will of the psychic. It cannot travel outside of the psychic's perceptions or perceive anything the psychic does not perceive. If the psychic's concentration lapses, the creation vanishes in a puff of smoke.

***** Tulpa
By a powerful investment of mental energy, the psychic creates an ectoplasmic extension of his will. Unlik the Dream Shape, the Tulpa possesses rudimentary intelligence. The character spends a point of Willpower and rolls Charisma + Meditation (Difficulty 7). The psychic can spend additional points of Willpower and create the Tulpa as an extended action. Every success generates 3 points. The points can be spent as:
Dot Of Physical Attribute..................
Dot Of Mental Attribute....................
(Cannot Exceed Creator's Mental Attribute.)
Health Level...............................
Extra Senses...............................
(The creation gets one sense at creation if given any Mental characteristics)
Extra Movement.............................
(The creation flies as fast as a person can run, based on its Dex. without an investment of points)

Electrokinesis

Like other psychic manipulations of the raw elements this power consists of creating and manipulating an element – in this case, electricity – with one’s mind. Being that this was not covered in the core book for psychics, let’s just say that, though potentially useful, this ability is considerably more rare than pyrokinesis, and less documented.

The psychic is not immune to their created electricity – they can be shocked, electrocuted, or killed by their own powers. A botch could result in physical injury, or electricity shooting wildly about, crackling through the scene and becoming a danger to friend and foe alike.

Roll: Manipulation + Science (For virtual adepts, Sons of Ether, or Techno Sorcerer)
Manipulation +Meditation (For any other type of Sorcerer)

* Static
At this level, it’s really just a spark of electricity. It can shock somebody or mess up delicate machinery, it can even startle somebody if used correctly.  The Psychic must be able to touch the intended person of the shock, or item in which they wish to shock.  This does not cause any actual damage to people, to electrical things though you may need to replace them. 

** Spark
The psychic can create a crackle of electricity – to shock somebody, power a device, or potentially really screw up a machine. Surge protector, my ass.  At this level the Psychic must once more be able to touch the person or object they wish to cause damage to. 
Damage from a successful shock is considered bashing and can be soaked.

*** Shock
The psychic can manifest sparks and electric surges out of thin air now.  At this level the power of the Psychic is a bit more controlled, but still is not perfect.  The Psychic can create and control the electrical currents, up to a radius of 30 Feet( or 10 yards).  Damage inflicted at this level is lethal. 

**** Ka-Zap
The Psychic, at this level, has a greater control over both electricity that is already there, and the electricity they can 'create' or pull out of the air.  Keeping in mind that electricity is not a stead and placid type of thing, wild surges, can happen even under the best of control.  Damage at this level is still lethal, but the Psychic has a greater radius in which to pull or be able to effect things in,  A radius of 60 feet (or 20 yards).  Should the Psychic attempt to use their abilities with such things as a downed power line, the difficulty is at diff 8. 

***** Make The Hurting Stop
The Psychic can at this level, has a supreme control over their ability to control electricity.  As long as their target is within sight (including mundane or magical means), they can create an electrical surge through a building (Diff 7), in a small area (Diff 8), or cause a massive almost bolt of electricity at someone (Difficulty 9).  Damage, if applicable, becomes aggravated.

Optional Merit
Battery - (3 Pt Merit)
Electricity isn’t quite as likely to fry a character with this merit.  A botch is still a botch, but a character with this merit can pass an electric current through themselves – to store, absorb, or immediately  release electricity from one source, through themselves, and into another. They are allowed to roll soak when damaged by electricity, unless of course there’s been a botch.

EMPATHIC HEALING

This ability is both beautiful in its own way and quite dangerous to its practitioner.  The healer, in effect, joins her mind and boy with that of the sick or injured subject.  She then absorbs his hurts into her own body, where they heal normally (i.e., the healer takes the same number of Health Levels she heals as damage to her own body).  Empathic healers can repair the most horrible aggravated wounds, which makes such practitioners quite valuable among Kin and werewolves alike.  The drawback is, of course, that it may take months before the healer is able to function after using her powers.  Usually, the healer will have an assistant or friend who can watch over her during the healing process.  Most practitioners push themselves past their own limits in using this power to help others, though Gifts such as Mother's Touch can help them recover more quickly.

Each level of Empathic Healing requires a minimum of three successes (Charisma + Empathy) to be effective;  successes can be cumulative, though the strain on the healer is harder to bear.  The base difficulty is 6, but increasses by 1 per level of Empathic Healing beyond soothe the Spirit.  Thus, Knit Flesh is difficulty 7, Mend Bone is Difficulkty 8 and so on. 

Roll:  Charisma + Empathy

* Soothe the Spirit
The healer absorbs minor bruises, simple depression and grif.  She can heal damage of the Bruised Health level.  Her own body recovers in about a day.  Difficulty 6.

** Knit Flesh
The psychic can heal deep cuts and stop blood loss; Hurt and Injured Health Levels heal, though it takes about a week for the psychic to regain her strength.  Difficulty 7

*** Mend Bons
Wounded and Mauled Health Levels disapear from the subject, as the empath mends shattered bones and torn connective tissue.  At best, she can hope for her own recovery after several months.  Difficulty 8

**** Organ Repair
The healer can repair severe internal injuries and even bring back patients from the brink of death.  Crippled and Incapacitated Health Levels are healed.  Minimum recovery time for the healer is a year.  Difficulty 9.

***** Pacify Madness
Only the most able psychic ever reach this level of training, for it requires strict mental discipline and great courage.  The healer actually absorbs the most severe forms of mental illness (Including Harano) into her own mind and falls into the same state of psychosis she alleviates in her patient.  Some healers never recover , at the least, it usually takes many, many months of rest.  Difficulty 10

MIND SHIELDS

Some psychic's possess shields that protect their minds from mental attacks, be they psychic assaults, vampiric Domination, magic spells or other ensorcelment. The discipline of the psychic's mind, the confusion of his thoughts or just some innate talent makes him resistant to outside influence.

This resistance only affects assaults on the psychic's mind. It would not, for instance, keep a telekinetic from lifting her or a pyrokinetic from burning her. The psychic can lower these defenses, though opening them to a friendly psychic leaves her just as open to a simultaneous mental attack. At Level Three and above, the psychic may differentiate between "friendly" and "hostile" contacts and use the shields against some while allowing others to penetrate.

When someone mentally attacks a psychic with Mind Shields, the target gets to roll a number of dice (difficulty 6) as a counter-roll. These successes subtract from the effect. If the defender gets more successes than the attacker, the attack fails. If a psychic assault normally gets a defense roll (such as attacks using the Mind Sphere), the psychic adds the dice in Mind Shields to her defense pool instead.
 

PRECOGNITION

One of the rarer psychic talents is that of precognition, and only the singular talent approaches the clarity of vision for accurate prediction. Seeing the future is difficult, as the probabilities shift with each action. The best psychics travel the most accurate probability tracks, but no seer (except for the fabled Cassandra) has seen the future with 100 percent accuracy.

Roll: Perception + Awareness

* Intuition
The character has yet to develop a clear view of future events. However, the psychic's perception of what is yet to come begins to take shape. Generally speaking, the power gives him a bit more luck than the average person, making him a good guesser. Predictions for random events (lotto numbers, roulette numbers) can be quite accurate. Additionally, the character's guesses on other situations can be equally accurate. He could choose the shortest route to a place or know that one person is "right" for another. Roll Perception + Awareness (difficulty 7). The more successes, the better his guesses will be. Predictions will rarely be 100 percent accurate, even with five or more successes on the roll.

** Insight
The psychic possesses the ability to induce precognitive dreamlike visions. These visions are never literal interpretations of the future but metaphoric impressions of what is to come. An enemy might be revealed as a black knight or an evil gunslinger. A new friend might appear as a guide dog. The form of the dream generally depends on the mindset of the psychic. A New Age crystal reader's visions would differ from those of a Wall Street financier. The detail of the vision depends on the number of successes the player rolls on a Perception + Awareness (difficulty 7) roll. The more successes rolled, the more accurate the vision is, though it remains a metaphor.

Example: Chase, a financial counsellor for Insight Investments attempts to see if a certain tech stock is going to do well in the upcoming quarter. He rolls three successes on his Perception + Awareness roll. That's a "complete success" so the vision should be accurate. The Storyteller decides to tell him that he sees a robot with the company logo climbing a silicon mountain. The robot loses its grip at one point but then continues up the mountain. The stock is going to dip in value in the future but will rally back and continue to increase in value.

*** Danger Sense
The psychic's perceptions of the future give her a psychic early warning system. This manifests as raised hackles, tingling sensations, flashes of violence or some other system, but it's usually consistent for a given psychic one might have flashes while another has cramps, but they both always have the same sign.

This ability remains up all the time, though Anti-Psychic (or certain Time and Mind magics) can suppress or subvert the talent. If the character is about to be in danger (perhaps someone is laying in ambush or a weak link holding an overhead chandelier is about to snap), the Storyteller (or player if no Storyteller is present) rolls Perception + Alertness (difficulty 6) and consults the table below.

Botch: The character remains unaware of the danger and is distracted by a hunch or feeling that places the character in an inconvenient situation perhaps hesitating right in the perfect line of fire for an ambusher or the like.

None: The character's danger sense simply fails. No special intuition warns the character this time.

One: The character knows she is in danger, but none of the details of the specific danger.

Two: The character knows she is in danger and what she should do to avoid it. (Duck, dive for cover, etc.) This allows the character a dodge even against an ambush.

Three: The character knows she is in danger, how to avoid it and the exact source of the danger. This allows a dodge with a one point bonus on the difficulty and gives the psychic a "feeling" of the direction of the trap or attacker for a moment.

Four: The character knows the details of the danger and has an extra turn of warning. In effect, the danger actually happens one turn later. This gives the psychic a turn to act, prepare, fall back, whatever.

Five: The character also gets a psychic impression of the person responsible for the danger, if any. She would recognize the person should she see him.

**** Show Me the Cards
Though accurate predictions of the far future remain out of the character's grasp, she does have an almost perfect view of the immediate future. Roll the usual Precognitive ability (difficulty 8), every success allows her to see one turn into the future. All other players and the Storyteller must announce their general future plans and goals for as many turns as the precog rolled (in translation, insight in future events). If, by knowing the future, the precog changes her plans, then the future is changed, and thus, the character would have to try again to see what new plans would be made. For instance, in the middle of a firefight, the precog ducks behind cover, no longer making herself a target to a sniper. The sniper had announced his intent to shoot at the psychic, but since she is no longer a target, the sniper does not have to keep shooting at an impossible target the future diverges to a different possibility due to the psychic's interference.

***** Clear Vision
Few precognitives progress this far in their ability to see the future. (Consequently, this level may only be taken on a case-by-case basis with the approval of the ST) With Clear Vision, the psychic can accurately predict the most probable one. The player rolls Perception + Awareness (Diff. 8). The future as seen is likely to happen but can be changed by the actions of the precog. The psychic can elect to see her own future, the future of the immediate surroundings or the future of a person or object touched. The distance into the future perceived is:
 

Obviously, giving concrete information about the future can be difficult for the ST. Instead of giving vague information about the story, the ST may choose to give the precog's player the chance to re-roll tasks--one reroll for the story for each success scored on the Precognition roll. This represents the psychic foreseeing the future and preparing appropriately. Naturally, this power is usuable only once per story.

PSYCHIC HEALING

Psychic healers are a rare breed, even among the gifted. The ability to heal is both a blessing and a curse. These powers can become a problem for the psychic, though, as she becomes a target to people seeking her miraculous aid or becomes hunted by the medical establishment for practicing medicine without a license. Still, psychic healing does accomplish incredible feats; with contact, the psychic has banished pain or directs the body to speed its natural recovery or even to fight off infenctions or diseases with intelligent direction. Many psychics with this talent have a great deal of medical skill, though rarely via formal training. Most also have a strong empathy with other humans and a tendency to feel the pain and suffering of others.

Should the player botch while the psychic heals someone, the character may heal the wound improperly (fusing bones out of alignment, requiring that they be re-broken) or may inadvertently transfer the injury or disease to himself. The victim might even suffer a worse condition brought on by the psychic misdirecting the body's healing properties and causing cancerous or poisonous results.

Roll: Perception + Empathy

* Diagnosis
Though unable to heal at this talent, psychics with this power possess the ability to instantly diagnose disease and injury in a person. This ability to sense what is wrong does not give him the ability to cure the problem, but it does allow psychics with medical training (formal or otherwise) to suggest the most efficient cures. A psychic healer without medical training finds it difficult to explain to doctors what the problem is; for instance, he might see AIDS as "the body does not want to fight the sickness anymore." Roll Perception + Empathy (difficulty 6). The number of successes determines the accuracy of the diagnosis. If the psychic has medical training, the player mat add any Diagnosis successes to the dice pool of a subsequent Medical roll.

** A Good Night's Sleep
The psychic has the ability to accelerate the body's natural healing processes with a touch. This takes approximately a minute, and the psychic generally lays hands on the subject, "aligning charkas" or simply massaging the injured area. At the end of the minute, the player rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty 7). If the player succeeds, the subject is considered to be treated by a "highly skilled physician (4 + dots in Medicine)" for the purposes of healing times. If the player scores more than 3 successes, the subject also recovers a point of Willpower.

*** Basic Healing
The psychic's ability to knit wounds and cure disease has expanded. The healer can heal bashing damage and cure simple diseases or poisonings (Level Three toxins or less). Roll Perception + Medicine (difficulty 7). Each success cures one level of bashing damage. Every two successes reduce the effects of a toxin by one level. It takes a turn per wound level for the healing to take effect.

**** Triage
At this level, the psychic can knit broken bones, close serious wounds and cure potent diseases. Roll Perception + Medicine (difficulty 7) and spend 1 point of Willpower. This is spent before the roll. Each success heals one lethal wound level or reduces any disease or poison of toxin rating 4 or less by one level. This takes 10 minutes per wound level; such recovery is noticeably swift and unusual, though in the case of a seriously injured patient, it might simply stabilize a critical wound and prevent death.

***** Psychic Surgery
The psychic empathically reaches his hands into the body of a person, allowing him to remove cancers or infections from the body. The psychic can cure diseases up to toxin rating 6. Roll Perception + Medicine (Difficulty 8). The process takes 10 minutes times the toxin rating of the disease. The healer can also use this talent to harm as well as heal. This power cannot be used in combat as it takes too long, but the psychic can reach into a healthy body and remove healthy tissue. Roll Perception + Medicine (Difficulty 7). Each success causes a level of unsoakable aggravated damage. The psychic simply places his hands against the subject's flesh and concentrates; in some cases, blood may well out of the flesh or the psychic's fingers may appear to dig into the body itself. At the end, the psychic is typically left with a handful of bloody tissue.

PSYCHIC HYPNOSIS

Many hypnotists promise results. Some even produce them. Psychics with hypnotic powers dwarf the abilities of the best carnival hucksters. Though their abilities lack the speed of a vampire's mental commands or the effects of the Mind Sphere, hypnotic psychics achieve many of the same results, with enough time and effort.

Roll: Manipulation + Expression

* Trance State
The hypnotist can place a willing subject into a hypnotic trance. While in the trance, the subject's memories become clearer. He may also exhibit greater control of his physiology. Though the hypnotist cannot command the subject, the person in the trance automatically becomes relaxed and restful. He may (at the Storyteller's discretion) regain one point of Willpower for every two successes the hypnotist achieves. The psychic may, if she chooses, hypnotize herself. Roll against difficulty 6 in either case. Placing the subject in a trance takes five turns. The subject will come out of the trance of shaken or disturbed.

** Sideshow Suggestion
After placing the subject in a deep trance (which takes the usual five turns), the hypnotist may command the subject to perform actions while in the trance state, each command taking a round. In the trance state, the subject will perform any action he would not be opposed to doing. Additionally, the entranced subject has far greater control of his autonomic responses. A hypnotized person could walk on hot coals, require less oxygen to breathe or even ignore wound penalties. The hypnotist could also cause the subject to forget previous actions that happened in the trance state. Roll difficulty 6 for simple commands, difficulty 7 for embarrassing commands and to forget actions that happen while hypnotized, difficulty 8 for controlling pain response. The subject will not come out of the trance until the hypnotist commands.

*** Delayed Action: The subject of the hypnotist's powers now performs actions commanded once the trance has been broken. The psychic implants any command or improved memory recall from the lower levels of hypnosis, but this time, it is programmed to happen at a certain time. The commands are implanted as with Sideshow Suggestion, but the difficulty is raised by one. Every success on the roll gives the hypnotist one command to implant. Each extra condition requires a success as well. It takes five turns to hypnotize the object, plus one turn per command to program them. The hypnotist can make one of the commands to be to instantly fall into a trance at a later time.

Example: The Amazing Steve hypnotizes Denise, a member of the audience. He rolls three successes on his attempt to hypnotize Denise. He then orders her that, when someone says the word "rabbit" she will jump on one foot (the first success), say the word "duck" (the second one) and then fall back into a trance (the third one). He could also have told her to jump on one foot when someone says "rabbit" (the initial success) and then when someone says the word "carrot" (a second condition, requiring a success) to spin in the place (the third success).

**** Fast Trance
At this stage, the hypnotist has become so adept  at inducing trances, that he, by a powerful act of will, may do so with a glance.  This costs one Willpower, and the player must make the normal roll at a difficulty of the subject's Willpower.  If the effect succeeds, the subject is entranced for one round per success.  While the target is in a trance, the hypnotist  can then use any of the other lesser hypnotic powers on the subject.

***** Manchurian Candidate
With this ability, the psychic can preform major amounts of brainwashing on the target.  With this level of deep programming, the subject will do anything the hypnotist commands, even to the point of death.  The target must be placed in a trance, which takes 10 minutes (And may not be done with a fast trance).  After that, the hypnotist spends an hour per command implanted programming the subject.  Spend two Willpower and roll Manipulation + Leadership (Difficulty 7 for that are simply against the target's morals, Difficulty 9 for commands that lead to the subject's death).  As in the Delayed Action power, the number of commands and the number or of conditions attached to them depend on the number of successes. 

PSYCHIC INVISIBILITY

Psychic Invisibility could be considered a form of mass hypnosis. The psychic broadcasts to everyone nearby the simple subconscious command "don't notice me." This effect does not apply to electronic or other recording media, though people in the area but observing through electronic means (like a TV cameraman looking through the viewfinder of the camera or someone wearing a night-vision goggles) will not see the invisible psychic.

This is not true invisibility. If an invisible psychic stands in front of something, people in the area will not be able to see what is behind the psychic. Those who expect to see something in a specific area but discover that they can't might start to notice that something is wrong or their minds may give up completely and change their attention to a different subject! Animals, whose minds work on a different level than humans, are unaffected by the invisibility effect unless the character also has Animal Psychics. Beings with heightened perceptions actively searching for the psychic may attempt a contested roll to perceive the psychic with their talents.

Typically, the player's roll for this talent determines the strength of the concealment. With only one success, the character is still noticeable but people tend to avert their eyes or have trouble focusing on him. With three or more successes, the psychic is completely unnoticed by most onlookers. Note that Mind Shields do protect against this very specific form of mental control.

Roll: Wits + Stealth

* Hide
The psychic's "don't notice me" broadcast keeps him from being seen so long as he remains completely still. Under normal circumstances, no roll is required. However if someone is searching the area where the psychic is hiding, he rolls Perception + Stealth (difficulty 6). If he succeeds and the target has no special senses, the psychic remains invisible. If the psychic moves, speaks or does anything to give away his position, the effect is broken.

** Slow Movement
The psychic has enough control of his growing talent to attempt to move while maintaining the invisibility effect. Maintaining the effect counts as an action in terms of splitting dice pools. He also cannot do things that would draw attention to him without losing the effects of the power. The psychic could walk across a room, but he couldn't punch someone. The act of interacting with the rest of the world cancels the effect. To avoid the notice of people searching the area, the psychic's player rolls a contested roll Wits + Stealth (difficulty 6) versus the targets' Perception + Alertness (difficulty 6). Ties go in favour of the invisible psychic. If the targets accumulate more successes than the psychic's player, they know vaguely where the psychic is by noticing the absence of perception in that area ("something's funny in that corner"), but they still cannot directly see the psychic.

*** Invisibility
At this level, the psychic's ability to walk about unnoticed is such that he can walk around and behave normally. He can even perform actions that would normally draw attention to him. The only limitation to the power is that he cannot vanish from view while being observed. However, he could create some sort of distraction that would draw another's eyes away momentarily, giving him that split second needed to vanish. People with mundane perceptions searching for the invisible psychic must roll Perception + Alertness (difficulty 9), opposed by a Wits + Stealth (difficulty 6) roll on behalf of the psychic. Those with supernatural perceptions (the Auspex Discipline, the Heightened Senses Gift, etc.) can attempt to use them, though the power is again resisted by a Wits + Stealth (difficulty 8) roll.

**** Selective Invisibility
The psychic now has enough control of talent to allow select others to see him while invisible. The character is invisible as in the previous level of the power. However, if the player succeeds on a Wits + Empathy roll (difficulty 7), the psychic can selectively allow one person per success rolled to perceive him while the rest of the world ignores his presence.

***** Forget You Ever Saw Me
The psychics power for going unnoticed is powerful enough to not only "vanish" while in plain sight, but those who did see him forget the psychic who was there in the first place. The psychic rolls Wits + Stealth (Difficulty 7) opposed by the highest Perception + Alertness (Difficulty 7) total in the group. A tie goes to the observers, who continue to see the psychic. If the psychic scores a single net success, he vanishes from view. (This certainly should unnerve the observers) If he scores 3 or more successes, he vanishes from view, and people who had seen him forget his presence for one previous turn for every two successes scored, in effect losing track of the psychic's location completely.

Psychic Manifestation

It could be argued that most psychic powers are manifestations of psychic energy. Notably Ectoplasmic Generation. It could be argued, yes. But for lack of a better term, this is what it’s dubbed for now – the ability to physically manifest psychic energy into a desired form. Psychic Manifestation. This differs markedly from the manipulation of ectoplasm in that is doesn’t affect ghosts. This is a physical manifestation, and differs in appearance and sometimes method from psychic to psychic. One may choose to manifest a glowing white sword – another might manifest a rope, stairs, or method of quick escape. The rare psychic may manifest their power invisibly, and another might come with a pulsing green light. It varies by talent and imagination.

 Roll: Manipulation + Crafts

 Successes rolled indicate not only how finely this psychic energy is brought in to the physical reality, but also how many turns it can last. Note that the psychic can cancel this at any time, and the manifestation will disappear.

1 success will last for a turn, and though functional in a base way, is far from ideal.
2 successes will allow the manifestation to last for a minute per level, and is adequate for the necessary task.
3 successes and the manifestation lasts for the duration of the scene, and is exactly what the psychic had intended to create – no more, no less.
4 successes grants the psychic access to this creation for an hour.
5 successes manifests the vision in perfect clarity, and lingers for up to a day.

It should be noted that if the manifestations are destroyed or broken physically, the psychic must roll Wits or be stunned for the next round under minor psychic backlash – a sharp headache is common with this sort of circumstance.

*: Manifesting
This is a rudimentary ability, clumsy and inarticulate. There is material generated, but as far as style, form and durability go, this is rather the equivalent of a five-year-old’s finger painting. There could be formless lights at this stage, or a glob of material that can be physically worked, but it’s nothing to write home about.

** Impression
The psychic begins to articulate their mental impressions into the physical world – base shapes begin to take form. Stair, stick, ball, tool. They are capable of making a flat surface to hold something up, for instance.

***: Control
Things are shaping up – there’s finer control now, but no moving pieces to the manifestations. At this stage people might find some detail in the manifestations, and they tend to last a little longer as the psychic becomes more accustomed to pouring their impressions out into the world.

**** Art
At this stage, many things are possible. The psychic could feasibly write or put a mental image onto paper, or create an image of it in the air. ‘Light shows’, hypnotic patterns, physical shields and more are all possible.

***** Function
The psychic is capable of creating a fully functioning thing of intricate detail and artistic expression limited mostly by the imagination, and the threat of MiB’s.

PSYCHIC VAMPIRISM

Most psychic talents are tools. They can be used for the benefit of others or to harm, depending on the moral character of the psychic. Psychic vampirism is the exception to the rule. Whether the talent shapes the psychic or the psychic shapes the talent is the subject of many a late-night discussion among the gifted, but psychic vampirism tends to bring out the worst in people. In addition to the debilitating effects it has on the target, it produces a euphoria in the psychic, a mental rush that nothing else compares to. The psychic literally drains away emotion his victims, or in some cases, actual living energies, converting them into energy for himself. The psychic vampire often becomes addicted to the sensation - feeling a rush from the draw and desiring the extra energy, vibrance and emotion granted.

Roll: Manipulation + Empathy

* Rush
The psychic vampire feeds off strong emotion. The emotions can be positive (joy, happiness, love) or negative (fear, hatred, greed), though the vampire tends to find it easier to generate negative emotions. The vampire rolls Manipulation + Empathy (difficulty 6) to "feed" off the emotions. This provides no concrete benefit to the vampire, though it provides a rush of power. Depending on the Nature of the character, this may allow him to recover lost Willpower, though it is recommended that the player score at least 3 successes on the roll for that to occur. The psychic must be close to the target (within 10 yards) and able to sense her to feed. The target may be unsettled by the process, as the effect tends to mute her emotions. However, it does not remove the emotion itself and could not be used for instance, to calm down an angry person. The vampire can use this ability to monitor the emotions of the subject, though he doesn't have an accurate gauge of the subject's emotions until he starts to drain.

** Sapping the Will
The drain effect sharpens here. The vampire's leeching of life energy saps the will of the target while invigorating his own will. The psychic rolls Manipulation + Empathy (difficulty of the target's current willpower), and the target rolls a reflexive willpower roll (difficulty 6). If the psychic vampire succeeds, he drains one point of temporary willpower from the target and adds it to his own store of temporary willpower. The extra willpower can exceed the psychic's normal maximum Willpower (up to 10 total temporary Willpower). While the character has more than normal Willpower, he feels invigorated, akin to a drug high. The excess Willpower fades at one point per hour. This talent can be used at a range of up to 10 yards.

*** Energy Transference
The vampire's ability to leech life energy now allows him to invigorate himself and to heal minor injuries with stolen life force. This requires the vampire to touch the subject for a turn. The psychic's player then rolls Manipulation + Empathy (difficulty 7). Each success causes a level of bashing damage to the target and heals a level of bashing damage that the psychic has taken. If the psychic is fully healed when this occurs, each bashing level absorbed restores 2 points of Willpower. The subject does get a soak roll, and soaked levels of damage do not benefit the psychic.

**** Life Leech
This dangerous talent allows the psychic vampire to leech away vital life energies from the target, healing any damage the psychic may have taken and giving an emotional high without compare. The psychic must maintain physical contact with the target for one turn per damage level absorbed and then rolls Manipulation + Empathy (diff. 8). Each success does one level of lethal damage to the subject. This will heal one level of damage (bashing or lethal) or turn one level of aggravated damage into lethal damage. If the character is fully healed when he leeches life energy, each damage level absorbed provides the character with 3 points of Willpower.

VAMPIRES VS. VAMPIRES

Psychic vampires find actual vampires (the bloodsucking creatures of the night) tasty treats. The strong emotions and hungers of the vampires provide a sharp, almost hallucinatory experience. The difficulty to use any Psychic Vampirism effect on an actual vampire is reduced by two. However, vampires are a dangerous form of prey, and only the most powerful (or foolish) of psychic vampires hunt the blood-drinkers. Many vampires have a supernatural awareness of their own and won't hesitate to feed very literally on someone who assaults them physically.

***** Emotional Vortex
The psychic vampire's ability to absorb energy has progressed to the point where he can affect multiple targets at once. The psychic must have used one of the lesser powers (or a form of Empathy or Telepathy) on the target once to make the link to the target's emotional template. After that, the psychic can use Level 1 or Level 2 powers on the target at will. The range at which the psychic can drain the target depends on the number of successes the player scores on the power roll:
 

PSYCHOKINESIS

Psychokinesis (also called "telekinesis") is a powerful and potent psychic ability. The ability to move things without touching them has endless possible uses. Though few psychikinetics possess the strength to do more than manipulate small objects, a skilled psychic can remotely exert terrific force or delicately perform various operations. (Unskilled psychics, like those with certain Flaws, may not be so lucky...) If she has sufficient strength to lift a living creature, the target can (if it's aware of the psychic's intent to lift it) hold onto something sturdy to anchor itself and then roll Strength versus mental Strength. If the target has nothing to grab, it cannot resist.

A psychokinetic must be able to see the object she wishes to manipulate and must use a modicum of concentration to manipulate an object. However, she can split her attention and lift multiple objects, so long as she dedicates an action for each object lifted. The total weight lifted cannot exceed the psychic's usual lifting capacity.

If the psychokinetic attempts to wrest an object from someone's grasp, make a contested roll pitting psychokinetic Strength versus the target's physical Strength (difficulty 6). On a tie, both hold onto the object but neither has control enough to wrest it away from the other. If the psychic attempts to manipulate object in a specific way, use Wits for purposes of accuracy or fine manipulation.
Thus, a psychokinetic who remotely fires a gun uses Wits + Empathy to pick up and manipulate the gun, then Wits + Firearms to fire it.

Roll: Wits + Empathy

*. The psychic has an effective mental Strength of 0. She can lift only a few pounds. She can move the object 5 + Wits yards/round.

** The psychic's mental Strength is now 1, and she can move the object at a velocity of 7 + Wits yards/round.

*** The psychic has a mental Strength of 2, and she can move objects at a velocity of 9 + Wits yards/round.

**** The psychic's mental Strength is 3, and she can move a levitated object at 11 + Wits yards/round. At this level, the pyshic can levitate herself, regardless of weight. Due to the concentration required to fly in this fashion, she may only move at walking speed (7 yards/round).

***** The psychic has a mental strength of 4 and can move objects at 13 + Wits yards/round. At this level, she also gains a free "extra" object that she can move without splitting her concentration.

PSYCHOMETRY

Psychometry is the ability to pick up psychic residue left on objects, places or people. Things exposed to strong emotional signatures hold flashes of information that a psychometric can "read" by touch. Particularly strong or violent emotions, like murder, may even cause sympathetic reactions in the psychic a feeling of rage, dread or other emotions imposed by the incredibly strong psychic Resonance.

When using Psychometry, the player's successes indicate the level of detail achieved. With many successes, a character will have longer, more vivid impressions and emotions. On a botch, a psychic may become lost in a dreamlike reverie or even become overwhelmed by emotional Resonance, suffering injury or temporarily losing her personality and repeating the actions surrounding the object or place touched.

Roll: Perception + Empathy

* The character gets vague, dreamlike impressions of recent activities involving the object or more distant activities that involved strong emotions. In many cases, the reading gives just the feelings involved with the incident, instead of actual imagery. When imagery does appear (generally with 3 or more successes), it is figurative and dreamlike.

** In addition to the previous information gathered, the psychic gets an accurate mental image of the person most closely associated with the object.

*** The psychic receives impressions of the strongest emotional incident involving the object. With 3 successes, she receives a dreamlike image of the incident, including the number of people involved and a description of the area. If concentrating on the object's owner, she can determine the person's approximate age, emotional state, hints of personality, and exactly what the individual felt at the time.

**** The psychic can clearly visualize the event in question, as well as gathering general impressions of what happened to the object's owner during the day the incident occurred. As an alternative, the psychic can simply replay the past day of the object, even if there were no strong emotional events concerning the object of that day.

*****: In addition to a clear picture of the event, the psychic receives clear emotional impressions of the other people at the event, and gains insight into what they were feeling. She receives clear images of the people present. She also can use the object as a psychic link to the owner, allowing her to gain a general impression of where the owner is currently.

PSYCHOPORTATION

Psychoportation is the ability to teleport oneself and one's immediate possessions over short distances without physically crossing the intervening space. The psychic simply "disappears" from one place and "reappears" in another. Whether the psychic disassembles and reassembles, warps space, travels astrally or finds some other form of motion, nobody knows but here one moment, gone the next, the psychic can often leap without a care for the laws of physics.

The teleporter can carry himself and a small amount of personal possessions. No psychic has yet been able to jump with more than about 100 pounds of carried material those trying to carry more tend to suffer some sort of psychic feedback (as a general rule, inflict six levels of bashing damage and go from there).

A botch during teleportation means that the psychic may land inside a solid object. This does 8 dice aggravated damage to the psychic and the object he accidentally teleported into. Alternately, the psychic may poof away into a more dangerous location, somewhere completely unknown or even without his clothes!

Roll: Perception + Alertness

* Short Hop
The teleporter can teleport 12 + Intelligence yards in a turn. He must be able to see (with his own eyes or mystical senses) the destination.

** Simple Jump
The psychic's range for teleportation increases to 20 + (3 x Intelligence) yards.

*** Long Jump
The teleporter can "jump" 40 + (6 x Intelligence) yards in a turn. He can double this distance by spending the previous turn concentrating and succeeding on a Perception + Meditation roll, difficulty 7.

**** Very Long Jump
The teleporter's range has increased to 80 + (12 x Intelligence) yards. He can double this distance by spending previous turn in concentration, as described previously.

***** Blind Jump
Though the jumper's distance does not increase at this level, he no longer needs to see the destination. He can teleport to a place familiar to him. To memorize a location, the teleporter spends one scene in the place, and the player expends a point of Willpower. The location must be a stationary one. One cannot memorize a location in a moving train, for instance.

PYROKINESIS

Pyrokinesis is, quite simply, the ability to start fires with one's mind. The talent may well be an extension of psycokinesis--some ability to finely accelerate huge masses of molecules--or perhaps some sort of energy-transfer power. The pyrokinetic simply concentrates, and the temperture goes up....and up...and up....until the object melts or bursts into flames.

Pyrokinetics are not immune to their own flames and burn as easily as anyone else. Botches with Pyrokinesis tend to be singularly spectacular, as the psychic self-immolates or sends flame shooting wildly about.

Roll: Manipulation + Meditation

* Matches The psychic can produce tiny sparks of flame, generally only enough to light highly flammable items (paper, dry wood, gasoline, etc.). These sparks of flame tend to come from the psychic's fingers, though some pyros create the sparks in different manners. The sparks light anything the psychic could physically reach, though the psychic does not have to actually touch the flammable material. The sparks are not hot enough to seriously burn people, though having a spark of flame appear can startle people. If a pyrokinetic wishes to startle someone with a spark, the players rolls Dexterity + Athletics (difficulty 6) roll. If the pyro hits the target, the target's player rolls Willpower (difficulty 6) or else the victim loses his next action from the surprise. The target can spend a Willpower point to avoid this reflexive aversion to being burned.

** Ignite
By concentrating, the pyrokinetic causes flammable materials to burst into flame. The psychic can affect anything within a short range (less than 10 yards), though some materials are easier to ignite than others. The difficulty is:

Diff 4 Very easily lit materials (paper, gasoline, vampires)

Diff 6 Flammable objects that normally require minor assistance to light (wood, charcoal)

Diff 8 Objects that do burn with the aid of accelerents (clothing)

Diff 9 Materials that do burn, eventually (people)

Once ignited, items continue to burn naturally. The fire created is as big as a torch, though it could easily spread with the proper materials around. If the psychic tries to light a person on fire, the target may dodge the effect by rolling Dexterity + Dodge (diff. 6).

FIRE DAMAGE
HEALTH LEVEL/TURN
One
Two
Three

SIZE OF FIRE
Torch: A Limb Or Similiar Sized Part Of The Body Is Burned.
Bonfire: Half The Body Is Exposed To Flames.
Raging Inferno: The Body Is Engulfed In Flames.
 

SOAK (Also See Vampire: The Masquerade Pg. 227)

HEAT OF FIRE
Heat Of Candle (1st Degree Burns)
Heat Of Campfire (2nd Degree)
Heat Of Bunson Burner (3rd)
Heat Of Electrical Fire
Heat Of Chemical Fire
Molten Metal Or Lava

*** Fireworks
The psychic's control of flames has expanded. Now he can create small bursts of flame out of thin air. Psychic researchers believe that these bursts are made up of super-excited air molecules. Tiny amounts of the air molecules become plasma, which will ignite just about anything that can burn, and create bonfire-sized fires. The psychic can create these plasma bursts at a range up to willpower x 10 yards away. To create the plasma roll Manipulation + Meditation (difficulty 8). Targets roll Dexterity + Dodge (difficulty 7) to dodge the fire bursts. The bursts do two health levels of aggravated damage per turn (difficulty 8 to soak, for those with some sort of supernatural resilience). To extinguish himself, the target must first roll Willpower (difficulty 5) to avoid panic and then Dexterity + Athletics (difficulty 5) to put himself out. Highly trained operatives or supernatural creatures can usually avoid panicking automatically (barring a fear of fire--Rötschreck, for instance).

**** Pyrotechnics
At this level, the pyrokinetic can not only generate fire, but can control the path and shape of the fire. The difficulty depends on the size of the flame (4 for a torch, 6 for a bonfire, 8 for an inferno), modified by the complexity of the action attempted (0 to shift the direction, +1 to create gaps in the fire or spread an existing fire, +3 to diminish the flames). Roll Manipulation +Meditation. This can also be used to create shapes in the flames (difficulty 5 for simple forms, up to 9 for very complex shapes).

***** Inferno
The pyrokinetic has immense and exacting control over all forms of flame. He can create large fires at a distance. The fires appear up to a Willpower X 15 yards away. The player rolls Manipulation + Meditation (Difficulty 8). With one success he creates a small fire in the target area. With two successes, the fire is the size of a bonfire, and with three successes, the fire fills up a large room. Everything in the area must soak the damage. People on the edge of the effect can dive out of the fire. Roll Dexterity + Athletics (Difficulty 6) to escape the flames. The fire starts out as hot as a bunson burner, though every additional success after the third increases the heat of the fire by one catagory. The Inferno spreads rapidly, consuming as much as it can before being extinguished.
 

SOUL STEALING

This terrifying Phenomenon allows a psychic to invade a victim's subconscious and destroy essential elements of personality. Soulstealing doesn't cause madness; instead, it renders its targets mere shells.

Victims generally don't remember the incident; however, the ST may allow them a Perception + Enigmas roll to notice the Soulstealing in progress. Soulstealers can attempt the Phenomenon once per scene on any living being. A Psychic Soulstealer usually avoids targeting vampires and ghosts for fear of losing their own minds.

Roll: The Psychic makes a Willpower roll and spends one Willpower point; the difficulty is the target's Willpower + 2 (maximum of 10) and the victim must be in the line of sight.

* Dream Invasion
The psychic can enter the dreams of the victim and interact with subconscious. She cannot plant or steal memories, but she can take part as an "actor" in the dreams and remembers what she sees.

** Will Sapping
With each success, the psychic drains away a temporary point of the victim's Willpower. The victim recovers Willpower in the normal manner.

***. Drain Vital Essence
Each success by the psychic drains away a Health Level from the victim. These wounds aren't aggravated, however, and the victim recovers normally. No physical marks appear of the victim; rather, this is "mental" damage.

**** Shift Life
For every two successes, this variation of Drain Vital Essence lets the psychic transfer one of the vitims Health Levels to her own body as an extra bruised Health Level (or to Heal one of her own lost Health Levels).  She may add extra Health Levels up to twice normal (ie. up to 7 extra Health Levels).

***** Gnosis Thief
For every two successes, the psychic may steal and keep one point of gnosis for her own.  Even if the Psychic does not posess the merit: Gnosis, she may use this numina to empower Gifts or fetishes - but once spent she does not recovert the Gnosis as a Garou would.  She must steal more. 

SYNERGY

One of the rarest psychic abilities is the talent of psychic Synergy. Two or more psychics combine their abilities, giving combined psychic gestalt more power than the psychics using their talents individually. The synergist can link together twice as many psychics in mental metaconcert as he has dots in Synergy. The combined psychics must be touching each other to form the link.
Successes on a Synergy roll determine how many additional people may be linked in a psychic task. Botches tend to cause psychic feedback headaches, capillary bursting and the like. Sometimes psychic powers may activate uncontrollably in such situations (imagne a reflexive blast of Pyrokinesis as the psychic's subconscious defends against a botched Synergy!)

Roll: Perception + Awareness

* Psychic Sense
The psychic has the ability to sense other psychics. This sense triggers automatically when the psychic touches another psychic, or she can concentrate and use it to sense other psychics in her line of sight. Roll Perception + Awareness (difficulty 6). With more than 3 successes, the psychic also has a sense of the strength of the psychic and the nature of his powers. This does not detect mages with the Mind Sphere or other supernatural creatures who possess mental powers.

** Share Will
At this level, the psychic can form basic psychic links. By acting together, a group can use any psychic power of any participant. The player with the Synergy psychic character rolls the other psychic ability as normal. However, the other members of the gestalt can each spend a point of their Willpower to boost the effectiveness of the talent. The gestalt can only generate one shared effect at a time. If the gestalt is using some sensory power
(Telepathy, Clairvoyance, etc.), the entire group receives the result of the power.

*** Group Effect
The psychic network has grown such that, in addition to sharing Willpower, they can more effectively combine their wills, so that when the effect is rolled, the highest Attribute and Ability are used, even if the contributing member lacks the power itself. Additionally, as before, each member can contribute a point of Willpower to add extra successes.

Example: Bruce (who has Precognition 2, Perception 3 and Awareness 2), Deidre (who has Telepathy 3, Perception 2 and Awareness 3) and Andrew (who has Synergy 4, Perception 4 and Awareness 2) combine their abilities to use Bruce's precognitive abilities. The group will use Bruce's Precognition, Deidre's Awareness and Andrew's Perception. One of the group rolls the 7 dice, and each of them may contribute Willpower for extra successes.

**** Share Powers
The psychic gestalt now allows the group mind to use multiple powers at once. Each member of the group can donate any two of the following to the effects: A power, an Attribute and Ability. Each member of the group can spend one point of Willpower for an extra success, though they can only spend one point of Willpower a round.

Example: Andrew (from the previous example, who also has Meditation 4) is travelling with Michael (who has Meditation 3 and Mind Shields 4) and Mira (who has Psychokinesis 3 and Wits 4). They are attacked by a vampire who attempts to entrance the groups. Andrew forms the gestalt. Michael donates his Mind Shields to the group. Mira donates her Psychokinesis ability and her Wits. Andrew adds his Meditation to the group. Now all of them have the Mind Shields of 4 protecting them and can resist the vampire with a Wits + Meditation pool of 8 dice.

***** Power Gestalt
Not only may the group use multiple powers at once, they can combine powers. Each member combines powers as before, but they can now combine two or more powers into a single, shared power. For example, allowing them to view a person by clairvoyance and read the subjects mind at the same time.

TELEPATHY

In simplest form, Telepathy is the ability to read minds. The telepath must be able to see the target to read the target's mind. The power is rarely so simple as reading text from a book, though rather, a telepath senses impressions and, with experience, learns to pick out subtexts, streams of consciousness, motives and eventually the sort of inner monologue or impulse that often drives a subject.

Some skilled telepaths can not only read minds, but can plant suggestions or speak with a "mental voice" in the mind of a target. Successes scored on Telepathy generally determine the duration and accuracy. With one success, a psychic might grab a few words or impressions that relate in some way to an interesting topic. With three successes, the character can easily read a good several turns of useful information, and at five or more successes, the character could cast about for specific thoughts or memories. The difficulty typically equals the subject's Willpower, and Mind Shields offer defense, as one might expect. A victim can generally spend a point of Willpower to resist a telepathic compulsion.

Roll: Intelligence + Empathy

* At this level the telepath can feel basic emotions and sense the current mood of the target. The telepath may be able to send a simple impulse or rudimentary thought to the target. A target could be induced to twitch or make a simple or habitual gesture.

**: The character can now read the surface thoughts of people, generally what they're thinking about at that moment. The telepath can project a single word or simple idea to a person or cause the subject to make one short motion.

***: The character can read recent memories or plans for the near future from people's minds. At this level, the telepath can send full sentences, strong, complex emotions or even streams of memory; with enough successes, a telepath might be able to implant false memory. The subject might be forced to believe false input from his senses or caused to take one unusual action in a turn (like dropping a weapon or ducking for cover instead of running away).

**** The character can read deep thoughts and distant future plans. The amount of information he gets depends on the number of successes. Similarly, the psychic can send several sentences of information, implant memories, cover up a memory or even temporarily seize control of the subject's body for a turn.

*****: The character can discover the deepest secrets of people, even things unknown to the target or repressed by him. So long as the telepath can somehow sense the target, he can send his thoughts with complete clarity. With enough successes, the telepath can sieze control of the victim, completely dominating his senses or physical actions, rewriting memories, altering personality and the like.