The loosest of cannons, you’re gonna do whatever you damn well please, and to hell with any and all consequences! You might still belong to a group, but your membership is more a matter of habit or convenience than of loyalty. Alternately, you may have gone your way and now exist in a nebulous state between fondly remembered comrade and total outlaw. Certain Backgrounds (Requisitions and Secret Weapon) are forbidden to you now, and others (Allies, Backup, Chantry, Resources, and potentially many more) are hard to access – perhaps even impossible to access – if their connection to you depends upon your allegiance to a group. Former peers consider you a liability, and the main reason no one has taken you out yet is because nobody’s gotten around to doing so successfully.

For Technocratic operatives, this Flaw is a slow-motion death sentence; for other mages, it could involve similar threats to longevity, although many Crafts (aside from the Templars, Wu Lung, and Hippolytoi) and most Traditions (aside from the Chakravanti, Akashayana, and Order of Hermes) take a more liberal approach to rogue members. Either way, your relationships with former allies are strained at best (+3 to the difficulty of most social rolls involving their goodwill), and you’re on rather hostile terms with your so-called (or former) superiors. Some mages manage to live for quite a while in this state of mutual antagonism. Most, however, do not.