Time

Tricking the Flow

Specialties: Perceptions, Prophecy, Triggers,

Time Travel, Temporal Control

The esoteric Arts of Time demand a flexible mindset. Possibly the most confounding Sphere, Time involves dizzying temporal metaphysics that defy the most apparently determined

aspect of reality: time itself. And yet, initiates of this Sphere understand that time is fluid… difficult to manipulate, but not as rigid as it might appear.

In conjunction with other Spheres, Time allows a mage to set triggers on other Effects, stretch out their duration, see into other times and places, or otherwise warp the threads of time. When employing the Time Sphere to look or reach through time, a player checks the Time Sphere Timelines chart; when prolonging an Effect, she could either spend successes on increased Duration (see the Optional Dividing Successes Rule chart), or else add Entropy 3 in order to hold the Effect until a certain circumstance occurs.

It’s been said that time travel is impossible; however, that’s not entirely true… it’s just extremely difficult. Effects that involve going backwards in time add +3 to their difficulty, are always vulgar, and stack the effects of Paradox. A character who rewinds time by turns adds one layer of Paradox per turn; going back three turns, for instance, incurs three times the usual Paradox – three points for each point that might otherwise be earned by an Effect at that Rank. And a mage who travels backward according to the Time Sphere Timelines chart gets two layers of Paradox for each interval on that chart; going back 50 years (or four intervals), for example, nets eight times the usual amount of Paradox – eight points for each point normally earned. No wonder people who go back in time rarely return to speak of it!

As one might expect, a mage who manipulates the Time Sphere tends to appear distant from the moment at hand. Although she might have excellent timing, her sense of the importance of past/ present/ future events seems to be a bit more… fluid than usual for a person living by the clock in today’s world.

● Time Sense

Temporal understanding begins with the mage’s own perceptions of time. At this stage, she develops a precise internal clock and can spot the temporal ripples left behind by (or, in many cases, developing ahead of) Time Effects. Other phenomena, too, leave disturbances in the time-stream, and the mage can notice them as well. Combined with additional Spheres, this Rank allows the mage to detect the influence of the Time Sphere on other spells or Patterns too.

●● Past & Future Sight Thicken the Walls of Time

Now the mage can look forward or backward through time. Although those impressions are fleeting, hazy, not entirely accurate, and bound by the limitations of that time and place (that is, what a bystander in that specific time and location could sense under the circumstances), they allow the Time-seer to catch glimpses of the past or future.

By itself, this Effect allows the mage to see in her present location only. By combining Past/ Future Sight with other Spheres, however, she could read the probable past or future impressions of objects or places (Matter), living things (Life), and alternate locations (Correspondence). Entropy 2 even

allows her to glimpse multiple futures and pick out the one most likely to occur.

Reversing her powers of perception, that same mage can thicken the walls of time, which makes other Time Effects more difficult. Each success she rolls deducts one success from the attempts of other Time-savvy characters.

●●● Time Contraction or Dilation/ “Bullet Time”/ Rewind Time

Speeding or slowing her relationship with time, the mage can now gain multiple actions, slow other characters or phenomena, or rewind small snatches of time. In game terms, every two successes allow the character to take one additional action that does not involve casting magick (only one Arete roll may be made per turn); or else slow another character, object, or even herself down by one increment per success. (Four successes, for example, would slow a person down to a quarter of his normal speed.)

By rewinding time, the mage can also move her immdiate surroundings back one turn for every two successes – an Effect that pulls her out of the normal flow of time and allows her to retcon an action or two. (See above.)

Combining this Rank with other Spheres, the mage can affect other Patterns (Forces, Life, or Matter 2), cast Effects across distance and time (Correspondence 3), move back in

time while recalling events from the future she just left (Life 3/ Mind 1), or even invoke multiple probabilities (Entropy 3). Again, such attempts are Paradox magnets with awful long-term consequences.

●●●● Time Determinism/ Trigger Effect/ Time Bubble/ Anchor Point

Now the mage learns to withdraw herself from the normal flow of time, hold Effects until they get triggered by events, or – by adding in Correspondence, Forces, Life, Matter, and/ or Spirit – capture other beings or phenomena in bubbles of time. Thus, a mighty (vulgar) Time/ Forces/ Entropy Effect could capture a tornado and shunt it off into no-time space until some trigger sets it free. At this level of expertise, the mage can also set a temporal anchor point for herself for when she dares to travel through time at Rank 5.

●●●●● Temporal Travel/ Time Immunity

The “Dr. Who Effect” allows the mage to exist outside of time; immunize people, places or things from time’s passage; or travel forward or backward through time. Such godlike feats… feats that often cause a mage to become forever lost to history… are often best left to the Storyteller’s discretion. Even for Masters, Time travel is a mysterious and maddeningly imprecise art. For extensive details about such things, see the

sourcebook How Do You DO That?