Rotes & Procedures

Hazards section, that damage tends to be bashing, although elements that have been heated by Forces – like hot metal or boiling water – may deal out lethal or (in the case of molten metal) aggravated harm instead.

Extreme degrees of cold – the type of cold that freezes matter or living tissue solid – may inflict lethal or aggravated damage too, especially if someone follows up that freezing with a physical attack that shatters the frozen material. (See the film Snowpiercer for a literally chilling example.) Assume that this level of cold demands Forces 4 or 5, while the same Ranks are essential when a mage wishes to turn metal into molten slag.

For further details about attacks against material objects, see

the Optional Rule: Bustin’ Stuff in Mage 20’s Environmental Hazards section, pp. 439-441.

Elemental mastery tends to be associated with physical control. Certain practices, however, apply mental discipline to those physical phenomena. In game-terms, such psychic command adds the Mind Sphere to the usual Pattern Spheres, and generally demands concentrated focus from the character in question.

A variation on this discipline adds spiritual connection to the mix. Essentially, the mage bonds with the element’s metaphysical aspects as well as with its physical properties. The “bending” Arts from the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korrah show such disciplines in action. (Yeah, there’s a live-action Airbender movie too; it’s fucking dreadful – don’t waste your time.) In story terms, the mage pursues spiritual refinement that allows her to join her soul with the soul of that element, and so this sort of magick concentrates on a single element – Fire, Air, Wood, etc. – instead of on all the elements as a whole. The mage dresses to favor that element, spends most of her time with it, and channels a Resonance related to that bonded element.

Game-wise, psychic and/ or spiritual connection to the elements works like this:

• A purely psychic connection adds Mind 3 (Mental Link) to the usual Pattern Spheres.

• A spiritual bond adds Spirit 2 (Touch Spirit) or higher, as described in the sidebar A Bit of Spirit? (p. 16). The power to actually transmute physical elements into ephemera, or vice versa, begins at Spirit 3 and grows from there onward.

• The mage may be able to add one automatic success to the Arete roll if he spends a temporary Willpower point. This choice remains limited by the usual rule of spending only one Willpower point per turn, although he could spend several Willpower points over several turns in order to perform a “psychic elemental ritual” with an extended roll.

In an exception to the usual rule, the Dimensional Science Sphere cannot be used in this fashion. Such Technocratic approaches deny the intrinsically spiritual nature of the connection, and thus can’t bridge a person’s soul to an element because Dimensional Science does not acknowledge the divine essence of either side of that transaction.