Living Charms
Rote · Mage
Combined with the powers of other Spheres, Prime 4 allows the mage to invest a magickal Effect into a living vessel; thus enchanted, that creature can retain one single-use Sphere-based power until the Effect’s Duration runs out or the mage sees fit to trigger that Effect. (Time 4 is essential to “setting a trigger” that extends beyond the Effect’s usual Duration.) Such “living Charms” contain – at least for a short time – the essence of magick within them. Prime 4/ Forces 3/ Life 3 can let a tree burst into flame without burning itself, while Prime 4/ Matter 3/ Life 2 could make it blossom into ice. Prime 4/ Life 3/ Entropy 2 could turn a child into a vector of good or bad luck. The living bomb – crafted from Life 4/ Prime 4/ Time 4/ Forces 3 – has become an awful weapon in our Age of Terror. Such living Charms tend to be rather vulgar when they manifest obvious magick, but so long as they’re far away when the backlash hits, unscrupulous mages really don’t care.
Such investment demands one point of Quintessence for the highest Sphere involved in the Effect. The aforementioned living bomb requires four points of Quintessence from the mage nasty enough to create it.
It’s worth noting that such one-use infusions of magick do not radically alter the Pattern of the creature in question. Instead, they infuse a limited amount of energy in a short-term expenditure of metaphysical energy. That’s why the Life-Sphere requirement is lower than what would be required when actually altering that creature’s Pattern. It’s a small distinction in terms of the single use of magick, but a significant one in terms of the poor critter who’s being used this way. Once the Effect goes off, the creature – assuming he hasn’t been harmed – becomes essentially “normal” again.
Shapechanged creatures may be “energized” with certain Effects during the creation process; this feat of Pattern transformation, however, isn’t quite the same thing as crafting an organic Charm. For details, see Additional Abilities in the
section Conjuration, Transformation, Shapechanging, and Modification, pp. 19-20.