The Spheres

CORRESPONDANCE

Manipulation of space and distance is the purview of Correspondence. With this Sphere, the mage can sense, stretch or distort space, teleport from place to place or extend the range of his other senses or magics. This Sphere also covers mystical connections, so Correspondence helps create sympathetic magics, like breaking or strengthening the ties between an object and a person.

Theorists espouse the idea of the Correspondence Point and argue that all of space is an illusion. They argue that all things exist simultaneously in the Tapestry. Through the Correspondence Point theory, they defy distance and even step outside of space itself.

Normally, a mage can send Effects only to the distance of his normal senses. If you allow conjunctional Effects, though, then the mage can work Effects at the distance of his Correspondence scrying. However, no other Sphere added to such an Effect can exceed the level of the Correspondence power.

ENTROPY

The command of Entropy affects death, decay and rebirth. Masters of Entropy command the very fates and dance the outcomes of fortune on their fingers. Randomness shudders and takes the forms of order, or structure dissolves into chaos.

A student of Entropy recognizes points of flux and probability, and he spots uncanny coincidences. By focusing on order, the mage can detect patterns and progressions. By focusing on chaos, the mage senses dissolution and decay.

Entropy Effects can change luck or fate, but only uncontrollably. Fate is fickle. A mage can’t cast a good-luck Effect and specify the form that the blessing will take. Only time and destiny will reveal the nature of the good luck that was invoked.

FORCES

The most vulgar and dynamic mages are those who study Forces. Every universal power and energy is the bailiwick of this Sphere. Through Forces, a mage manipulates fire, light, electricity, sound and their opposites cold, darkness, stillness and silence. Every force is essentially a Pattern of Quintessence in motion. With this magic, the mage senses and manipulates those Patterns.

Different forces have different Effects. If you hit someone with electricity, the damage is bashing, but it penetrates most armor. You will usually incapacitate a foe before killing. Kinetic damage can be bashing or lethal at your choice, depending on whether you spread it over an area or strike in a point or edge. Extreme cold inflicts lethal damage. Fire damage is aggravated. Silence or darkness “damage” causes the subject to lose the sense in question for the duration of the Effect. The Forces Sphere tends to inflict a lot of damage compared to other Spheres,and it has other special combat Effects as well (such as setting things on fire or crushing them).

LIFE

All living, growing things undergo constant change. The Patterns of Life take in and give out Quintessence in a dance that connects them fundamentally to the universe. With Life magic, the mage can sense and guide these beautiful and resilient Patterns. At first, the mage has only rudimentary awareness of the most fragile Life, but with time and experience,she learns to seethe deeper secrets of complex and self- aware Patterns, until she becomes able to shape the experience of Life to her desires. She learns to create new beings, to change living creatures or to spur an early death.

Life magic that is used to harm often manifests as lesions or hemorrhaging. Such attacks often strike as mystical black energies or as “coincidental” diseases or injuries. Using Life magic to heal is vulgar if the Effect heals aggravated wounds. Plus, after a subject is healed with Life magic, further Life healing magic cannot be used on it - again until it has suffered new injuries. Typically a mage is better at healing himself than at healing or harming others. With the Basic levels of power, the mage can heal a one health level of personal injury. With intermediate power,he can heal two health levels. With Advanced power, he can heal three health levels. All of these limits I decrease by one level when the mage uses them on someone else.

Altering another Life Pattern generally requires a magical attack, be it a hurled spell or a hands-on manipulation.

MATTER

Base matter may be crude and simple, but it forms the vast stretches of the inanimate world. Any Pattern that is sedate and without living qualities or energetic characteristics is the purview of Matter, which encompasses a large quantity of things that a mage might manipulate.

MIND

Will focuses magic, and thought leads to Pattern, but where does the mind begin?Mages may not know the answer, but many study the secrets of consciousness intently. Even divested of physical form, the Sphere of Mind carries potent secrets. A skilled mage can manipulate thoughts, project emotions, command others and even send his awareness reeling through the cosmos to pluck secrets from places where the material body cannot go.

PRIME

All things spring from Prime, the Sphere of essential creation. Quintessence, the very energy of the cosmos, is the energy of Prime. Naturally, Prime is at once an intangible and very difficult Sphere to understand, but it is also a keystone of magic. Only by use of Prime can mages channel the energy necessary to create true Patterns or empowered magical Effects.

SPIRIT

Reflected in myriad mirror worlds are the realms of Spirit. The Spirit realm holds ephemeral counterparts to objects, creatures and places. The entities that flit about often serve as perfected ideals of some concept, while emotions play such a strong part that they shape the very landscape. The realms of Spirit encompass every hope, fear or ideal of humanity, and much more besides.

Mages who intend to deal with Spirit have a daunting task ahead. Travel into the spirit realms became difficult long ago. In the modem age it’s nigh- deadly. An unprepared mage who travels into the Umbra may well injure or kill himself. Even those who are cautious learn quickly that the Umbra is a volatile place, ever-changing and too large to be mapped or cataloged, no matter how much mages might try. Only those heroes who would risk forays into the unknown through perilous gates dare to walk the Umbra itself.

Even without traveling to the Umbra, though, a mage with command of Spirit has potent power. Spirits themselves manifest in a multitude of forms, and an experienced mage can coax, cajole and deal with many of them. Since a spirit’s power does not stem from vulgar magics, the entity can often create mystical Effects that might be beyond the capabilities or daring of the mage. This property of the Sphere allows a mage a great deal of flexibility, for the many spirit allies of a diplomatic mage can provide a great deal of variety in their assistance.

A mage who crosses into the Umbra, or who reaches through to affect a spirit there, must suffer the effects of the Avatar Storm. This hazard causes one level of aggravated damage for every two Arete Traits the mage has (rounded up).

TIME

The inexorable march of time counts out the seconds, days,years and millennia until the end of the Tapestry. But does it truly ever end?& is all time just a recursion of histories and a group of moments with nothing more than arbitrary causality making them discrete?Mages who study Time recognize that the flow of time itself is mutable, and that it’s not nearly so hard and fast as people often believe.

Science and magic alike balk at actual time travel, but limited alterations of such a sort seem possible occasionally. Still, the mechanics of doing so are mysterious and perhaps even more dangerous than spirit travel. The clever mage restricts his use of Time to scrying and to the occasional boost of his reaction speed. Those who actually walk the halls of time report time-policing entities, strange temporal beasts, time anomalies and the like, if they return at all.