Rotes & Procedures

In one of the most esoteric applications of warding, Correspondence 5/ Entropy 5/ Life 4/ Mind 4/ Prime 4 allows a mage to seal out people who follow forbidden paradigms and practices.

Once this ward is established, magickal Effects cast through that hostile paradigm are considered to be vulgar with witnesses on the warded side of the gate. This way, mages from competing factions can shut out enemies, or at least cripple their powers, if enemy mages come through the ward. This effect lasts for the Duration of the ward.

Game-wise, it costs additional three successes and three additional Quintessence points for each paradigm or practice that gets shut out by the ward. Warding against three paradigms, then, would require nine successes and nine Quintessence points in addition to the successes and Quintessence that are necessary to build the ward in the first place. This is high-end magick, which takes plenty of time, energy, and effort to perform.

Because the paradigms and practices are the objectives of this sort of a ward, you do not need to also spend successes and Quintessence upon objectives, unless you wish to also bar different types of creatures or entities that hold the forbidden beliefs; this sort of thing, though, could get ridiculously complicated – barring people but not demons who pursue maleficia, for example – and so we recommend leaving things simple and just using the paradigms and practices as objectives for this sort of ward.

As an example of a paradigm ward, imagine that Jennifer Rollins had the power to construct such a ward on a gate into her sanctuary. Being a primal witch whose practices favor artwork and whose beliefs tend toward the paradigm Creation’s Divine and Alive, she wants to seal out folks who believe that Tech Holds All Answers, feel that Might is Right, and pursue the hypertech practice. That takes nine successes and nine points of Quintessence in addition to the five points of Quintessence it takes to establish the paradigm ward, plus however many successes and Quintessence points she used to set up the ward itself. If characters with those belief-systems and/ or practices try to enter, they wind up with headaches and discover that their magicks are always vulgar in Jennifer’s sanctuary.

A player could also choose certain forms of a practice to allow while warding against another. Joshua Minh, for example, could ward against European alchemy while allowing Taoist alchemy. This sort of “sub-setting” costs the usual three successes for each type of practice blocked by the ward.

At the Storyteller’s option, Awakened characters with an Arete lower than that of the character who set the ward might not be able to use their Spheres at all. Poor Sabra (Arete 2) may not be able to access his magick at all if he stepped over a hostile paradigm ward and into a Realm where Sabra’s urban-shamanic practice is forbidden by the vastly superior Dr. Hans von Roth (Arete 6). Again, this is an optional rule that might place lower-level mages at a supreme disadvantage.