Everything

A group of mages may work together when crafting a Wonder; especially in workshop-type situations – as in the Technocratic Union – collaborative craftwork is more the rule than the exception. From a game-system perspective, this sort of process is handled as Acting in Concert, as described in Mage 20, pp. 542-543; the mage with the highest Arete is essentially the “designer” behind the process, with the other characters assisting in whatever ways they can manage.

Story-wise, the creation of a Wonder involves elaborate craftsmanship, precious materials, exacting specifications, and a trail-and-error process that requires weeks, months, sometimes even years of effort before the final miraculous results emerge.

The details of that process depend upon the mage, his practice, and the power of the item he’s creating. When Jennifer Rollins crafts an item, she employs her artistic skills to shape raw materials into masks or paintings based on sketches and brainstorming inspiration; once she settles upon a design, the

witch spends days of constant work channeling her inspiration and intents into the physical object, imbuing it with literal sweat and blood in addition to the time and energy employed. Dr. von Roth, on the other hand, slaves over experiments in automotive excellence and temporal /mass theorems; working up schematics, he tinkers with expensive machines, casting and chopping the pieces until his brilliance manifests. Jennifer makes shamanic works of art, Dr. von Roth makes amazing machines, and both of them – in game terms – use different techniques to get similar results. Wonder-crafting, then, is an elaborate form of roleplaying and story-telling in which the player decides how her character would create the object she desires, the Storyteller narrates the most significant elements of that process, and a few die-rolls determine the success or failure of that task.

Regardless of the Wonder or procedure involved, every Wonder requires the following steps, all of which get detailed below: