You’ve honed a special trick – a simple, specific, non-com­ bat application of your Arts – which you can perform without making a casting roll. Such tricks include things like conjuring a business card, stirring a pot without touching the spoon (or the pot), igniting your cigarette without lighters or a match, producing a small amount of light without mechanical contriv­ ance, changing your hair color with a shake of your head, and so on. To a Sleeper, these tricks look like something a normal person could do with a mysterious bit of skill. You, of course, realize that the skill in question is not quite what they think it is.

Three important rules govern this Merit:

• It cannot be a feat with direct damage-producing combat applications (though a “light your cigarette” trick could also work with a stream of flowing gasoline). No popping claws or conjuring firearms!

• It must be a quick, simple action that a Sleeper witness could explain away as practiced sleight of hand.

• These tricks are limited to things you could do with Sphere Ranks 1 to 3, apply to only one specific trick (con­ juring a rose, say, not conjuring anything that’s roughly rose-sized), and you must have the Spheres necessary to perform the feat in the first place. This Merit does not allow you to cast Effects above your normal abilities!

Each trick costs three points, and must suit your character’s metaphysical focus. You can take this Merit up to three times, total. Obviously vulgar feats (making yourself disappear in broad daylight) are prohibited, although a clever use of circumstances (the old Batman disappearance trick – see How Do You DO That?, p. 77) could be included in your bag of tricks.

This Merit is intended to give your character and chronicle a little extra flair. It should not be allowed as an end-around to skirt the rules, or as a secret weapon that he can use without consequences like Paradox. Under unfamiliar and /or hostile circumstances, like stirring someone else’s pot in someone else’s kitchen, this Parlor Trick might not work at all.