Locking an Effect

Normally, a lasting magickal Effect remains in the location where it was originally cast. The mage has essentially transformed that localized reality to suit his desires. Certain Effects, of course, travel because of the nature of the things they do; rumors circulate, winds and fires move, a shape-shifted character can run around, a gate leads to some other location, and so forth.

If, however, you want to cast a lingering, mobile Effect that has been integrated into a specific Pattern and which involves a Sphere that is not normally related to that sort of Pattern, then the Effect must be “locked” into the target’s Pattern by a Sphere that does apply to that Pattern.

What does that mean? It’s very simple: if you want to alter someone’s mind, use the Mind Sphere; if you want to alter her physical body, use the Life Sphere. But if you want to use magick to build inorganic material into her body’s Pattern, then you must use both Life and Matter; if you want to make her Pattern invisible by warping light around her body, then you must lock the Effect by using both Life and Forces.

Locking the Effect combines the necessary Spheres so that the magick is essentially integrated into a Pattern. And as noted earlier, the Patten Spheres are Forces, Life, and Matter. Spirit is sort of an honorary Pattern Sphere because although it deals in non-physical elements, those elements have their own kind of Pattern when they become ephemera. (See Chapter Nine, p. 475.)

Unless the subject of a locked Effect has been turned into a Wonder (see Crafting Wonders, pp. 652-653, and the rules given in Appendix II), that Effect still expires when the Duration runs out. The lock in itself does not make an Effect permanent.