Rules

In most cases, a Wonder has a particular activation roll, often represented by an Arete Trait. Certain Wonders have their own Arete, while others use the Arete of the person using the item, the Arete of the person who created it, or simply a default Arete that applies to the Wonder in question.

(Technological Wonders have an Enlightenment Trait; it’s the exact same thing as the Arete Trait, but reflects the differ­ ence between a mystic Wonder and a hypertech Wonder. Yeah, that’s semantics – but semantics, for mages, can be important.)

To use a Wonder, roll that Wonder’s Arete as a dice pool. In most cases, the difficulty is 7, although certain items may be easier or harder to employ, at the Storyteller’s discretion. Older Mage rules used the same highest Sphere + coincidental /vulgar without witnesses /vulgar with witnesses system that mages employ for their own spells, but a default difficulty of 7 offers a quick and easy solution.

Most Wonders have a Quintessence Trait as well. Each Quintessence point counts as one “charge” for the item, and that energy must be replaced with a Prime 3 Effect (or a Periapt or Matrix) if you want to keep your Wonder in working order. Depending upon its shape and form, a particular Wonder might be vulgar (a rod of lightning, a flaming sword), coinci­ dental (a turbocharged gun or laptop computer), or somewhere in between (a deck of uncannily accurate Tarot cards). The specifics vary from object to object, and might depend upon who’s using what, how he’s using it, and where he happens to be using it at the time.