Rules

To employ a Fetish, a character needs to convince the spirit to activate a Fetish’s mystic powers. Most often, this involves making a resisted Willpower roll (difficulty 7) against the spirit’s Gnosis. A single success is enough to make the Fetish work. The player then rolls the Gnosis Trait as a dice pool for the associated effect; a Fetish with Gnosis 4, for example, will let you roll four dice when your character employs its power. In a more equitable relationship, the mage strikes a bar gain with the spirit, performing favors for favors in a partnership sometimes called chiminage: the spirit states terms, the mage agrees to them, and both parties help one another out.

In certain cases, the “activated” Fetish simply does whatever it’s supposed to do, without needing a Gnosis roll in order to do so; a shirt that repels bullets, for instance, pro vides one soak die per point of Gnosis, while a raven-skull infused with a minor servant of Raven caws and talks whenever it pleases, without any need for an activation roll.

As vessels for spiritual entities, each Fetish holds a Resonance that fits the spirit within that object. The raven-skull, for example, radiates a tricky sort of wit, while a gourd contain ing the essence of a tornado quivers with the trapped tempest, emitting a low moaning thunder to folks who can sense the deeper nature of mystical things.

For details about dealing with spirits, see Summoning, Binding, Bargaining, and Warding in How Do You DO That?, pp. 90-106. And for information about spirits and their Gnosis Trait, see Mage 20, pp. 485-495 and 631-641.