Reboot
Rote · Mage
By adding Life 3 and Mind 1 to the Time 3 Time Warp, the mage can send herself back a few turns (or other increments of time) with full memories of what had happened before. In this case, the rest of the world moves exactly as it had moved before until and unless the mage changes the course of its actions. If, for example, Lee Ann goes back to stab a cultist before he fires at her friend Kyle, then the cultist (and Kyle) respond to her “rebooted” actions.
Rebooting other human beings or other sophisticated lifeforms requires Life 5/ Mind 4/ Time 3, due to the intricacies of working with Patterns and consciousness outside of the mage’s own self. Can a mage “reboot” a vampire to her non-vampiric state? No – the Curse of Caine is far more powerful than the paltry whims of human mages. (See Aging the Night-Folk, below.)
As a general rule, assuming that each “rebooted” character other than the caster herself requires at least three successes in addition to the usual number of successes necessary (see Dilating Time). Yeah, this is a hard and vulgar trick, and one that’s very rarely performed successfully.
The Storyteller may declare that it’s just not possible to reboot a character more than five turns into the past. Alternately, he could simply say, “Sure, you think you remember something about things having gone differently before, but everybody else remembers them going the way they’re going now… so perhaps you DID go back in time, but this present is the result of your actions back then.”
One of the nastier applications of Time magick – combined with the Life, Matter, or Entropy Spheres – involves rapid aging or decay. Reversed, that same Effect can make “de-age” items or organisms. In all cases, Time 3 – combined with Life 3, Matter 3, or Entropy 3 (for objects) or 4 (for organisms) – can either accelerate aging or else reverse its effects.
For obvious reasons, this Effect is always vulgar. And since different substances and beings age at different rates, the successes necessary come from the amount of aging, not from the years involved. Using the Feats of Time Magick, p. 109, select the amount of aging – in either direction – that the mage wants to inflict.
The entries in this section assume that this optional rule is in effect. Your Storyteller, though, has the right to declare otherwise.
Note also that such spells affect the whole, not the parts, of the subject in question. You could age a person, but not cause his heart to beat at a different rate than his other bodily functions. It’s comparatively easy for a mage to use Life 3/ Time 3 to disrupt the rhythm of a person’s heartbeat, but it’s impossible to put his heart and other organs into different time-zones.