In your heart of hearts, you’re a hero. While your com­ panions work toward their own selfish ends, you embody a higher purpose. This purpose guides you in uncanny ways that feel, at times, as if you’re being moved by a force greater than yourself – a noble force, naturally, but one that transcends even your personal Enlightenment. In dreams, you see yourself as a Warrior of Reason, a Champion of Truth. A paladin. A genius. A knight of everything that is worth defending.

Intended more for Technocratic operatives and skeptical technomancers than for mages who accept reincarnation as a metaphysical truth, this Merit grants you special gifts when it seems like all hope has been lost. These gifts allow you to…

• access Traits you don’t possess, as per the Background: Dream (at a rating of 5) but without entering a trance;

• add five temporary points to your Willpower Trait, to use during that “hope is lost” crisis;

• …and perhaps recall things from a previous life that the character could not possibly have known – a language she does not know, an escape route in a place he’s never visited, a person they’ve never met before, and so forth.

These boosts last only through the current scene, but include a burst of vitalizing energy and a sense of your inner hero coming through to save the day again.

This isn’t the sort of thing you talk about, of course, especially not if you’re an agent of the Technocratic Union. The benefits, though, cannot be denied, even if their source is clearly… well, improbable, at best. And while this Merit was originally created for the sourcebook Guide to the Technocracy, any mage with a sense of higher purpose can take it. Just remember that the biggest difference between a knight and a murderer is the side of his sword you happen to be on at the time.