Rotes & Procedures

Night-Folk, however, cannot be aged so easily – otherwise, an alliance of Hermetic wizards and Cultists of Ecstasy would have wiped out vampirism ages ago. Beyond the normal protections that such creatures possess (see Night-Folk Counterspelling in Mage 20), and the Sphere-combinations required to harm them in the first place (Matter and Life for vampires, Life and Spirit for werecreatures, Life and Mind for changelings), the self-restorative nature of such beings counters the effects of accelerated aging.

Such spells do have an effect, but that effect is minor, temporary, and bound to piss off the creature in question. Vampires, werecreatures, mummies, and the fae suffer the usual success-based amount of lethal damage from accelerated aging, and may – in the case of changelings and werecreatures – even age cosmetically for a few moments. On an essential level, however, these entities cannot be aged out of existence by mere human magicks; vampires suffer a divine curse, werecreatures are half-spirit, mummies exist outside conventional mortality, and changelings share the immortal essence of the Greater Fae.

When hit by aging spells, vampires and mummies remain essentially unmoved in time, while werecreatures and the fae mystically “heal” their lost years in moments. Spirits, meanwhile, remain immune to such spells. Years mean nothing to a ghost or other entity, and so attempts to “age” them have no effect at all.

In one of the most confounding applications of Time-Sphere magick, a mage can remove himself – or other characters or objects – from the passage of time. How, exactly, does that work?