Abilities describe what your character knows rather than what he is; they describe the things he has learned rather that the things he can naturally do. Choose 7.
Note: Some of the abilities, especially the lores, can be translated into influences. For example, if your character meets a werewolf during game play, and the two characters exchange information on how to be reached, then a Werewolf influence can be gained with storyteller approval.
Mages usually are quiet and solitary in nature, but they also possess a mystical ability to avoid the limelight. This is a side effect of their coincidental magick powers. In game terms, every level of Arcane a character possesses makes it harder for everyone else to locate her. Unless a character is concentrating to be unnoticed, Arcane is not effective.
At the first level, the mage is indistinguishable in a crowd. At the second level, the mage disappears in crowded rooms. At the third level, the mage is unnoticeable at a table of four. And so on. Characters with this ability must win a static mental challenge bid Mental traits equal to the level of Arcane being used. The other character must be looking specifically for your character.
The levels of arcane your character has can be communicated
using green ribbons. The number of green ribbons worn indicates the number
of levels of arcane your character is using actively as well as the number
of mental traits needed to bid to perceive your character.
This is the mage's ability to perceive things not of the
physical world. The mage cannot see through walls, but could possibly detect
the location and approximate power of a nearby Talismans, Spirits, Wraiths,
and auras. Aura's can indicate a being's nature ( mage, werewolf, etc.)
and a being's mental and emotional states. This ability may only be activated
once Awareness trait and target.
Your character specializes in doing vulgar magick in plain
sight and having Sleepers accept it. He may be a stage magician with a
large following, a faith healer who prepares the faithful to accept miracles,
or he is so weird than compared to hi, the things he does are mundane.
Note that this ability only works under the right circumstances; throwing
fireballs down Main Street would be considered vulgar no matter what the
cover might be.
Even when unable to see your character's foes, he can
use his brawl or melee abilities. In such situations, the blind fighting
ability must be bid as well the brawl or melee ability.
Brawl
You are adept at any form of unarmed combat, from dirty
fighting to highly stylized martial arts. In this manner, even a character
who is stripped bare can still represent a formidable foe. You may spend
this ability during an unarmed combat turn to gain a retest.
Bureaucracy can be used to overcome paperwork and red
tape to allow the character the power to appropriate licenses, use contractual
agreements to her advantage and recover, alter, or destroy files from organizations.
Bureaucracy often requires a Mental or Social Challenge, depending on the
type of roleplaying the character performs or as the Storyteller directs.
Mages with Computer can infiltrate systems, swap data,
steal business and scientific secrets, and access records. A Mental challenge
is required to accomplish these and other similar acts, with the difficulty
based on system security and accessibility, equipment, time and rarity
of information as assigned by a Storyteller. Failure can lead to investigation
by natural and sometimes supernatural agencies that operate in the computer
worlds.
Your character is skilled at mediating disputes and discussing
delicate subjects. This ability involves a knowledge of the formal rules
of give-and-take, as well as the official cultural rules of conduct and
politeness. A Social challenge is needed to calm someone down as well as
to mediate negotiations.
This ability is only taught to members of the Akashic
Brotherhood. With a successful Mental challenge and spending this trait,
an Akashic warrior can add an extra level of damage for one combat round.
There is no limit to the number of Do abilities spent in one combat turn,
but a mage may only have a maximum of five Do levels.
A character with this skill is an adept driver capable
of tailing and avoiding tails, avoiding collisions and using the vehicle
as a weapon. These actions often require a Physical or Mental challenge,
the difficulty set up by the Storyteller.
Enigmas is the ability which assists players in solving
mysteries created by the storyteller. It is irreplaceable for divining
secret pathways to lost realms, answering riddles of mystical guardians,
or even when trying to navigate the paper trails of modern bureaucracies.
This ability always requires a static Mental challenge with the storyteller
or narrator.
Your character is skilled in various techniques which
enables her to escape from bonds and restraints. This skill is often used
for entertainment, but can also be useful in real life. This ability requires
a Physical challenge.
Your character can follow money trails, perform and verify
accounting tasks and understand such concepts as investments, byouts and
the like. The difficulty for this Mental challenge depends are up to the
storyteller. On average, the character can obtain $250 dollars per level.
The most common use of this ability is in combat, but
a Storyteller can also allow you to attempt a Mental challenge to perform
other functions such as care for your firearms, repair them and possibly
make minor alterations. A character may spend this ability for a retest
in a combat turn which involved using a a firearm.
Your character may or may not have the gift to tell accurate
fortunes, but he can make people believe he does. This ability can be a
means to earn money or a good cover for Time magick. With a successful
Social challenge, your character convinces the target he know their future.
The character can often pick out or uncover details and
clues that less attentive individuals would overlook or ignore. With a
Mental challenge, he can tell if a person is carrying a concealed weapon
or the like. When dealing with plots, you may also request a Mental challenge
with a storyteller to see if any clues have been overlooked, to piece together
clues, or to uncover information through formal investigations.
This ability is needed to teach any other player your
character's spheres and can be spent to hasten instruction of abilities.
It takes two weeks to teach the Apprentice level, a month for Initiate
level, six weeks for Disciple level, two months for Adept level, and three
months for Master level. Of course, all the appropriate supplies and a
safe place to learn are needed to learn magick.
A character can use the Law ability to write up binding
contracts, defend clients, and know his rights and those of others. This
ability usually requires a Mental challenge.
Leadership
After defeating a subject in a Social challenge, a character
may use this ability to cause a target to perform a reasonable task for
him. Subjects must first be under his command or serving as his subordinates.
Example: Mentor to student. These requests may not endanger the subject's
Nature or Demeanor.
The character with this ability can speak, read and write
any one language other than his native tongue. A language must be specified
when choosing this ability, and it may not me changed after character creation.
Using Linguistics may or may not require a Mental challenge, depending
upon the clarity of the text.
The attention of the mind is focused on a singular object or phrase so that a character's entire being can also focus on matters of importance and screen out distracting thoughts. Meditation is usually performed while seated in a special position, like the lotus position, but with practice it can be performed in a variety of situations or positions.
Meditation can be used to catch up on sleep, survive intense temperature changes by effectively hibernating, or figure out particularly complicated puzzles. In almost all cases this ability requires a Mental challenge and 15 - 45 minutes of game time.
This ability can also be used in conjunction with Initiate
level Prime to gain quintessence from a node. For every 15 minutes a character
successfully meditates at a node, a Mage can gain one point of quintessence.
This ability allows a character to help a living creature
recover a single Health Level (non - aggravated) per night with rest and
a Mental challenge. The severity and nature of the damage, equipment at
his disposal and any assistance or distractions influence the difficulty
of this challenge. Other uses of this ability include forensic information,
diagnosis, pharmaceutical knowledge and determining the health of living
creatures.
Melee describes a character's experience and familiarity
with any non-firearm weapon,. This includes anything from beer bottles
and battleaxes to katanas and crossbows. This ability can be spent during
combat to gain a retest if using a hand-held weapon during a combat turn.
Your character has a versatile voice which can imitate
accents, people and some other sounds. This ability requires hearing the
sound first, and then a Physical challenge.
Your character has a specialty (declared when this ability
is acquired) dealing with the performing arts. This specialty could be,
but is not limited to, painting, poetry. composing music, or playing one
type of instrument. How well your character performs at a particular situation
depends the levels of Performance the mage and the results of a Social
challenge.
With times, tools and parts, your character can fix or
slightly alter most of the trappings of modern society. Using this ability
usually calls for a Mental challenge.
Similar to the Investigation ability, Research centers
on finding written information, usually found in old, lost texts. To find
the information, the mage must first have access to a large number of texts
( public or personal library, Internet) and then win a static mental challenge.
This ability allows your charac ter to identify properties
of a field (which you choose when this ability is acquired), perform experiments,
and fabricate items. A Mental challenge is necessary for all but the most
trivial use of this ability. A few examples of specialties include Physics,
Biology, Electronics and Chemistry.
Scrounge enables characters to produce items through connections,
wits and ingenuity. Materials acquired with scrounge aren't always brand
new, are rarely exactly right and often require some tie to acquire, but
this ability can sometimes work where finance or outright theft fail. A
Mental or Social challenge is needed to use scrounge.
Not only can your character counter existing security,
such as locks, alarms and guards, but he can also determine the best way
to secure items and areas. Other uses include breaking and entering, infiltration,
safe-cracking, and hot-wiring. This ability requires a Mental challenge.
You can get information on events, deal with gangs and
the homeless and survive without an apparent income. This ability requires
a Social Challenge.
When participating in a social setting or conversation with a subject, your character can attempt to draw information out of him through trickery and careful probing. A successful use of subterfuge can reveal information such as one's name, nationality, Negative Traits, friends and enemies.
The first requirement is to get the target to say something dealing with the desired knowledge. Then propose the true question and initiate a Social challenge. If your character wins, the target must forfeit the information. Subterfuge may be used to defend against this.
Conversely, characters may also use subterfuge to conceal
information or lie without detection. This ability doesn't work against
Mind magick or other such supernatural effects.
Your character is able to find food, water and shelter
in a variety of wilderness settings. Each Mental or Physical challenge
allows him to provide himself or another living creature with basic necessities
between two game settings.
The character can identify the trail of an animal or person
and follow it under most conditions. The difficulty of the Mental challenge
varies according to the conditions -- following fresh tracks in deep snow
is easier than following week-old tracks across a concrete sidewalk!
Herbalism, Cosmology, Astrology, Spirit, Umbral (specific realm) , Society (specific), Tradition (specific), Technocracy (specific), History (specific), Religion (specific), Alchemy, Stones, Vampires (Camarilla or Sabbat; specific clans), Werewolves ( specific Tribes), Changelings, and Wraiths.
Note: The general lore must be acquired before the mage
can learn something more specific.
This influence allows the mage to have access to not only normal libraries, but those special collections of books throughout the city which pertain to magick and the supernatural. It also reflects the mage's own collection of arcane tomes, but it is not limited to those.
The higher the level of this influence, the more time
must be spent to earn study points. For example, Library of 1 would require
three hours a week, X2 =9, and so on. At level five, a character must spend
all of her time between sessions studying, in order to gain five study
points.
Nearly all apprentices are Awakened and taught by a mage known as a Mentor. The relationship between apprentice and Mentor often continues after the apprentice becomes a full mage, the Mentor's role becomes less as a teacher and more of an information broker.
A mage with a Mentor will more easily find teachers, avoid dangerous rivalries, hide from the Technomancers, and understand the power structure.
Mentors can be very helpful, but do not like to be bothered
with things they know a mage should be able to handle.
This influence shows how much control the mage has over local nodes. The mage must have the meditation ability or the Prime sphere to get and/ or use the quintessence of the Node. Each point in this influence indicates the power of the Node.