Rotes & Procedures

Is it ethical to use such deep-seated influence on people without their knowledge and consent? That’s an interesting question, especially in the 21st century, when issues of ethics, consent, and domination become more important than, perhaps, they have ever been before. The recognition of social power and its abuse is a vital debate in this new millennium, for while previous generations simply took what they wanted from other people (and from other living beings and entities as well), those “others” have a stronger voice in the era of democracy, mass communication, and the Internet. As a result, the harm caused by exploitation has come under greater scrutiny… and greater criticism, too. A person – mage or otherwise – can’t simply “work his will” without consequences, and although such consequences have always existed, the ability to abuse

other beings and then walk away with clean hands and an intact conscience is not, shall we say, what it used to be.

There are reasons why words like bewitched, enchanted, fascination, and irresistible bear sinister connotations. All of them refer to having one’s “right mind” stolen away by uncanny powers. Under such influence, a person does things he or she would supposedly never do otherwise. As a result, people rather justifiably fear a “beguiling” individual, even if they secretly long for the excuse to set their hidden desires free. Uncanny influence has great power, and such powers and their targets are very easily abused.

Old-fashioned mystics and technomancers don’t care. “Love” charms and mental compulsions have long histories in the Awakened world, and so plenty of the more “conservative” elements among various factions use them without a second thought. The Mad and Fallen, of course, employ whichever tools seem most appropriate to the circumstances, with the Fallen taking great delight in the emotional ruin caused by coercive influence. Other mages, though, question the morality and long-term consequences of coercive magicks; sure, such tactics are useful… but are they right, and do they cause more problems than they resolve?

Regardless of a mage’s personal stance on the subject, coercive influence does have lasting effects upon the people who’ve been influenced… and usually on the folks around those people as well. A guy who’s been seduced (sexually or otherwise) by a mage gets stuck with the social and emotional aftermath of that seduction. Maybe he betrayed his marriage… or his oaths… or his ideals. He could lose his job, his family, his faith, perhaps even his mind; worse still, he might not even know why he has lost them. Because metaphysical influence tends to be more or less invisible, that guy may spend the rest of his life wondering what came over him.

Beyond the social and legal questions of uncanny influence, it’s worth recognizing that such Effects violate the target on perhaps the most intimate level imaginable. Mental coercion and spiritual possession literally rape a person’s mind and soul; the word rape comes from the Latin root rapere: “to seize,” “to take,” “to steal.” And that’s just what a mage who uses such influence does – she takes what she wants from another character, stealing their free will and their ability to resist. Such actions might not be any big deal to the mage, but will probably leave deep scars on her target. Uncanny influence is metaphysical predation, and so – to certain mages (and Mage players) – such spells are morally questionable and ethically problematic.

Justifications for this sort of thing can and will be made. Ranging from pragmatism (“It’s better than killing him”) to idealism (“I’m just setting his innermost desires free”) to ideology (“Power is meant to be used by the powerful”) to dismissal (“Stop being so politically correct”), those justifications carry a certain amount of weight. The amount of weight they carry depends a great deal upon circumstances, social affiliations, and the mage’s personal ideals. A spell that’s anathema to one mage

will seem perfectly reasonable to another. As for the long-term effects of coercive magicks on the targets of those spells, such considerations are vital to certain mages and irrelevant as far as others are concerned.

Ultimately, the questions of consent – Is it right to take away another being’s free will? What harm will it bring to that being if I do? Is that being’s consent important to me? And what do such deeds say about me on a deeper level? – are yours to answer. And although other fantasy games leave such questions more or less unasked, Mage is ultimately about changing the world, and so the long-term consequences of mystic influence – even on “background characters” that the players never see again – can be more important than they might seem at the time.

Tiny adjustments of physical chemistry can trigger emotional reactions, both from the chemical triggers and from the conscious reactions to those triggers. (“Hey, I feel scared. WHY do I feel scared? There must be something scary around here that I haven’t noticed yet…”) Although such adjustments can’t actually control a person’s mind the way that Mind-Sphere magick can do, it’s still a form of influence that a Life-trained mages can perform.

A related form of Life magick lets the mage control his own physical chemistry in ways that might influence other organisms: boosting pheromone production so that he “smells right,” augmenting his endorphins or testosterone in order to ward off pain or radiate aggressive strength, and so on.

In game terms, both techniques use Life as a coincidental modifier for mundane die-rolls. As detailed under Magick Enhancing Abilities, this allows the player to adjust the difficulty of a related die-roll by -1 to -3. Unless he’s trying to do something that’s hard enough to demand a high difficulty, this adjustment M-I-G-H-T (Storyteller’s option) let the character succeed automatically. A guy who enhances his testosterone just before a big meeting, for instance, could simply dominate lesser characters by default.

Adjusting your own physical chemistry requires Life 2. Tweaking the chemistry of other people requires Life 3. Unless the mage is stupidly obvious about using magick to invoke drastic results, this feat tends to be coincidental.

For related details, see Concocting Chemical Compounds under the Elemental Mastery section, p. 31-32.