Everything

Quintessence Points per Body

15-25

Everything is energy. The tangible illusions of material reality simply forge the essence of the universe into quantifiable properties and dimensions. At the core of those Patterns of form and function, that invisible eternal energy crackles and coils. To the mage who understands them, such energies present the true face of Creation: not people nor places nor even empty space, but a cauldron of sublime essence from which all things are drawn and to which all things inevitably return.

Take my hand. No. What are you afraid of? Nothing. There’s no reason to be afraid then, is there? I guess not. Here… Now close your eyes. Okay. Now open them. ohmygod… See what I mean? I never thought it could be like THIS before…

Crystal balls. Tarot cards. Aura vision. Night-sight bin-oculars. Heat-scans. Clairvoyance. Prophecy. Seeing through someone else’s eyes. Magick opens up vast new possibilities when your mage begins studying a Sphere. For the Awakened, the usual “five senses” are simply the beginning of a much broader spectrum of enhanced perceptiveness…

Sensory Effects offer excellent opportunities for vivid narration and imaginative roleplaying. Rather than simply going “I turn on my Matter 1 sight, so what do I see?” you could describe what your character’s doing in order to boost her awareness of the world (putting on ethergoggles, taking deep breaths, praying to Allah for guidance, and so forth), and then describe the world as your character perceives it now – the altered sights, sublime sounds, and rich tactile sensations that come with a heightened perception of your world.

The Storyteller, meanwhile, can go wild describing the new sensory experience. With magick, everything looks brighter, or darker, or more vivid and surreal than usual. Check out the descriptions in Mage 20 Chapters Three and Four, plus the Preludes for Mage 20 and this book, to catch some hints about the “altered state” of a mage’s perceptions… and, if

you’re the Storyteller, describe them to your players with as much imagination as you can spare.

(Films like The Fountain, Koyaanisqatsi, Under the Skin, π, Antichrist, the Guy Ritchie/ Robert Downey jr Sherlock Holmes films, and especially Lucy also offer fantastic examples of magickally boosted perceptions, and we highly recommend those movies to Mage players and Storyteller… although we also offer VERY strong trigger-warnings for Under the Skin and Antichrist, which are not, shall we say, suitable for all viewers.)

Story-wise, these perceptions can be, but do not have to be, visual. If Jinx chooses to use her Entropic perceptions, then she might see currents of potential, or spot cracks and flaws that no other person would notice. Perhaps, however, she perceives them differently; maybe she hears whispers of potential events, notes a crackling sound near flawed surfaces, or catches the tremble of possibility just before something significant occurs. Rank 1 perceptions can affect any sense, and the way your character perceives them will depend upon your character, her perspective, and the ways in which she views her connections between magick and her world.

Most sensory Effects take only one turn to “activate.” Once on, they tend to last the duration of the scene… or, if you’re going for the long haul, the duration of the Effect, according to the Base Damage or Duration chart. Either way, a mage can “turn off” her perceptions at any point… although, in some cases, that might not be fast enough to un-see something that she’s seen.

• Each Sphere, at Rank 1, allows the mage to perceive the core elements of the Sphere in question.

• Those perceptions often extend beyond mere sight, allowing the mage to (if possible) smell a person’s state of health, feel the flow of probability as a tactile sensation, or otherwise note appropriate phenomena if the sensation fits the mage and his personal focus. You can’t, for example, smell a spirit’s presence if your hypertech Ectoplasmic Signature Scanner has only a

visual sensor array, although you might well be able to do so if you’re a shaman skilled in the Old Ways.

• To look through time, view auras, and use other arcane methods of perception, see the entries below.