Conjuring or Purifying Nourishment
Rote · Mage
As shown in the Starvation and Thirst entry in Chapter Nine of Mage 20, safe sources of nourishment are essential parts of a magickal breakfast. And because supermarkets tend to be a developed-nations luxury, mages throughout time have specialized in purifying fouled food and water, transmuting inedible objects into food, or conjuring food and drink from nowhere.
Magick-wise…
• Matter 2 can purify inorganic toxins out of food or water.
• Life 2 can purge food of microorganisms, and restore food to an edible status from the early stages of rot.
• Life 3/ Matter 3/ Prime 2 can conjure edible food or water from the proverbial thin air.
• A street-mage might be able to retrieve crappy leftovers or “edible” fast food by combining a Dumpster-diving Urban Survival roll with Life 2/ Matter 2/ Prime 2.
Whether or not such food is palatable depends on the mage; conjured food probably tastes bloody awful unless the mage already knows something about food-preparation, which is where Crafts specialties like Cooking or Farming come in handy.
To a point, Life 2 magick or the Esoterica specialty of Body Control can limit the effects of hunger for the mage, and Life 3 can limit them for another character. Assume that a character with such resources can go an additional day without water and one additional week without food for each success rolled with the Effect or Ability. Eventually, though, even an enchanted body starts to break down without nourishment. After the initial roll, no other rolls are possible. Once those successes have been exhausted, the character’s body craves new energy and begins to starve.
To recover from thirst and starvation damage, the character has to drink and eat. Assuming a regular supply of nourishment, he can recover normally; if that supply goes away, however, that recovery period ends and the character begins taking damage again the next day.