[Mage: The Awakening] Fetishes Indepth: Part VIII: Awakened Spirits

((Out of Character (OOC) Document))
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Venue: Mage: The Awakening (Fallen World Chronicle)

Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Cannibalized from the Lore of the Forsaken sourcebook for Werewolf: The Forsaken))

Fetishes In-Depth

A Pentacle Academy lecture series by Daduchos Gabrielle and Thunderbolt Guardian Anton (MD), Dean of the Adamant College.

Part Eight: Awakened Spirits

AWAKENED SPIRITS

There’s a stark difference between the Shadow reflection of an object and the awakened spirit of an object. Most objects in the spirit world are the former — the reflections of objects or structures that are significant enough to cast an echo across the Gauntlet but are not associated with a particular spirit.

Most objects in the physical world don’t even have that much — the average car has no Shadow reflection, nor does the average personal computer, lawn chair or fast food wrapper.

However, the spirit of an object or animal can be awakened — sometimes, even that of a place. When this occurs, one of two things can happen. In the case of an animal, and often in the case of an object, the spirit goes “stray”; it is awake, and takes its initial form from the thing that birthed it, but it is not bound to its original physical reflection. However, the spirit may elect to fetter itself to its physical “body,” for familiarity if nothing else, at least at first.

The awakened spirits of animals are no different from any other animal spirits roaming the Shadow. But an awakened spirit of an object may remain bound to its material analog, its mooring. And it is in this fashion that awakened objects become useful to a mage — or dangerous. The spirit of a beaten-down pickup truck may assist a werewolf who’s trying to restore the old vehicle (werewolves don’t always have the credit necessary to buy new cars), but the spirit of a bone saw used in a series of grisly murders is very unlikely to be helpful. That is unless approached by someone hoping to use it for the tasks to which it has grown accustomed….

AWAKENING ARTIFICIAL SPIRITS

Artificial objects with awakened spirits are not fetishes, although they are often confused with them.

Neither are awakened weapons klaives. Powerful artificial spirits can do some fetish-like feats, but they are limited by their Gifts and their Influence to a particular scope of power. Generally speaking, their will is their own, which can make them far more flexible, but also contentious to deal with — like any other living thing. Artificial spirits, awakened or not, have several characteristics that set them apart from other spirit types.

THE MOORING

A mooring is the actual man-made object that births an artificial spirit. Artificial spirits have a much stronger link than natural spirits for their material reflections. Real foxes aren’t attached to fox-spirits — there are foxes and fox-spirits that, while related, are not dependent on one another on an individual basis. A rabbit may have an awakened spirit, but that spirit has taken on a life of its own. On the other hand, many artificial spirits are content to remain attached to the material forms that gave them birth, their moorings. This bond is so strong that the destruction of an artificial spirit’s mooring normally causes the spirit’s death.

Those that survive are scarred by the incident, unable or unwilling to recover, becoming increasingly aggressive and obsessed with the events of their “death.”

The Natural and Elemental Courts often see artificial spirits tied to their moorings as a sign of the Artificial

Court’s youth and rudimentary nature. Their relationship to their material forms has several benefits — they can fetter themselves to a mooring with very little effort. This tie has one major benefit. A hare-spirit’s life is normally as fleeting as its material counterpart. This similarity extends to artificial spirits — giving the least.  Artificial Gaffling a much longer life than other types of spirits.

THE MAN-MADE AND THE SPIRIT

To summarize the relationship between a made thing and the Shadow, briefly:

• Artificial objects may or may not have spiritual reflections in the Shadow, and most don’t. The ones without a spiritual presence simply do not appear on the other side of the Gauntlet. These objects have no discernable spiritual constituent, though there is the potential to gain such over time if conditions are right.

• Man-made objects may or may not have spirits. These includes objects with a spiritual presence. So, artificial objects with a spiritual reflection may have slumbering spirits, awakened spirits or no spirits associated with them at all. A mere reflection in the Shadow does not necessarily correspond to a slumbering spirit.

• Awakened spirits of man-made objects and places may have a special bond with the physical form that gave them birth, called their mooring. The Fetter Numen is nearly universal for artificial spirits, and it does not cost them Essence to link to a mooring. On the other hand, spirits with this bond are bound to their mooring more tightly than other spirits are bound to their fetters, rarely willing or even able to travel far from them.

• Conversely, some artificial spirits may have been awakened from a physical counterpart, but are no more attached to that analog than an animal-spirit is attached to a given animal. They may have been freed by the destruction of a mooring and somehow escaped great trauma, or they simply may never have manifested such a potent bond in the first place. There seems to be no clear rule determining which spirits are moored and which aren’t — such is the fickle nature of Shadow.

A VIEW FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD

A car, a town, a road, a pocketknife or coffee cup normally gains a spiritual aspect only due to the emotional or spiritual significance placed upon it. More specifically, the actions and emotions of humans create Essence and spiritual motes that infuse these material objects with a spiritual reality, if you will.

There are no hard and fast rules for measuring the significance of an object, just as there is no systematic approach to measuring pain, love or hate in the World of Darkness. Such judgments are subjective and should be biased towards the mores of player characters, Storyteller characters and themes of the chronicle.

The best way to judge the likelihood of an object or place having a spiritual presence is to consider three factors. First, mull over the emotions associated with an object or place. Then, think about the magnitude of the emotional outpourings associated with it and, finally, the frequency of that emotional imbuing over time. Hospitals are fountains of emotion of all sorts and, therefore, always have some presence in the Shadow. Over time, even many of the objects in the hospital grow to have strong manifestations in the spirit world (some long after the hospital itself disappears). Now consider the difference between a small town’s infirmary and the mammoth spiritual presence of a huge, old hospital like Cedars-Sinai, Walter

Reed or St. Bartholomew’s in London. To use the same method on a more intimate level, consider the contents of your nightstand. Pens, magazines and lamps are all but guaranteed have no counterpart in the spirit wilds, but a well-used diary will frequently cast a spiritual shadow, however faint.

Sometimes objects or places with emotional significance may have a reflection in the spirit wilds without truly developing spirits of their own. For example, the reflection of the gun that shot Martin Luther King, Jr, might have a devoted following of grief-spirits, without being a spirit itself.

Even if an object or a place has a spirit, it is most likely asleep. It can be seen in the spirit world as a translucent, often stylized shadow of its material form. The spirit is always tethered to its physical form; if the material form is moved from place to place, the spirit analogue will either slowly move after it or fade from sight only to reappear once the object has rested for a time in one place.

MOORED SPIRITS

An awakened artificial spirit bound to a mooring has more of a sense of individuality than most spirits of its Rank, but is also much more limited. Without the Unfetter Numen, it cannot stray more than five feet from the location of its mooring, even while in Shadow.

Most moored spirits possess the Fetter and Materialize Numina. They have a natural affinity with Fetter, and it never costs them Essence to use this Numen to inhabit (haunt?) their material reflections, although they are still bound by the other restrictions of the power.

Moored spirits can use the Fetter gift to inhabit nearby objects, but should those objects move out of the range of their true material forms, the link is lost and the spirit is forced either back into its natural body or into the Shadow — at the spirit’s option.

For example, the awakened spirit of a battered van uses Fetter on a motorcycle next to its mooring in a crowded parking lot. But were the Harley to move away from the van, the Numen’s effects would be cancelled, and the spirit harmlessly, but forcefully, ejected into either the Shadow or the physical form of the van. It would not cost any Essence for the spirit to use Fetter again to re-attach itself to its mooring.

If discorporated, moored spirits re-forms in the spirit world within five feet of their material forms following the normal rules for spirits. If their physical forms are destroyed, moored spirits automatically discorporate. Some may survive and become unattached spirits, while others are undone by the experience. The spirit must succeed at a Resilience test or be destroyed along with its mooring.

NUM INA

Here is a list of new Numina that pertain especially to moored spirits, although some may be used by other spirits as well.

• Spiritual Vision: This Gift allows a spirit in the physical world, whether fettered or in Twilight, to peer into the spirit world for a short period of time. Roll the Spirit’s Power + Finesse. The number of successes indicates the number of minutes the spirit can activate this ability. This Numen is particular to spirits that have spent a great deal of time in the physical world.

• Unfetter: This Gift allows a moored spirit to unbind itself from its physical counterpart for a time. Spend a point of Essence and roll the spirit’s Finesse. The number of successes is the number of hours the spirit may stray from its mooring. If the spirit is not within its normal range of the mooring after that time, it discorporates.

ART IFICIAL SPIRIT INFLUENCES

What follows are some extrapolations of Influence for Artificial spirits. The Storyteller must define the spirit’s sphere of influence. Generally speaking, a lesser Gaffling may only affect its Anchor. Greater Gafflings can influence any object within its descant; a greater Gaffling house-spirit might be able to affect itself or other houses. At higher levels of power, the spirit can affect others within its choir or even type. Remember, some spirits have more than one descant, or have more esoteric choirs than the ones listed in Werewolf: The Forsaken. Use your imagination.

Strengthen (•): The spirit can enhance its sphere of influence.

• The artificial spirit can make an object more robust (gaining an extra point of Structure per level of the spirit).

• Improve the item’s quality (+1 to die pool per level of the spirit, not to exceed +5 dice from an item’s quality).            This only affects die pools influenced by using this object as a tool, of course. (See the “Equipment” section in World of Darkness for details on equipment quality and die bonuses.) The Storyteller may rule that due to the nature of the device, and/or its materials, bonuses above +3 are not allowed. Bonuses for weapons cannot exceed the weapon’s damage dice. Also, while supernatural in origin, these kinds of improvements are still considered natural — the equivalent of quality and material bonuses. This power does not allow the object to inflict aggravated damage nor protect it from aggravated damage.

• Degrade the item’s quality by one per level of the spirit (to a maximum of -3).

Manipulate (••): The spirit can make minor changes within its sphere of influence.

• The spirit slightly changes the appearance of an object: shade of color, cleanliness, create or remove small scratches, etc. This would be enough to make finding a car in a crowded mall parking lot rather difficult. It can also dim the lights, fade the ink on the page of a book, leave spots on the glasses in the dishwasher and so on.

• Increase a vehicle’s Acceleration by two per level, starting at this level.

Control (•••): The spirit can make dramatic changes within its sphere of influence.

• The spirit can radically change the appearance of the object, shifting colors or even shape — for instance, returning a dilapidated house to pristine condition.

• Control allows the spirit to essentially dictate an object’s functioning. The more complex the machine, the more a spirit can affect its workings. Screwdrivers might strip the heads of screws, but computers may destroy data on their hard drives and cars may not start or tires may suddenly go flat.

• Machines that do not need direct human intervention can function by themselves. This does not mean that knives can levitate or throw themselves into walls — objects cannot defy gravity, for example. Cars can start and drive themselves; computers can power themselves on and manipulate their own keyboards. Houses can shutter their own windows, and open and close doors. A motorcycle with a sidecar could move of its own volition, but a normal motorcycle probably could not, since it could not stand itself up.

• The spirit can affect repairs on its physical form or any object to which it is Fettered. This is an extended action using the spirit’s Power as the die pool. Each success allows heals one point of Structure. As with normal repairs, the Storyteller can rule that there’s no way for the object to be repaired if the damage is too extensive. These repairs are not permanent, but may allow an object to function for a time.

• Increase an item’s Durability by one. This is considered a supernatural enhancement at this level, protecting the item from aggravated damage.

Create (••••): The spirit can create a new example of its sphere of influence.

• Create a brand-new object within the same descant.

• Spirits can spectacularly re-shape objects within their descant, turning a junked Pinto into a Rolls Royce.

• The spirit can affect repairs on any of the same descant.

• Repairs at this level are permanent.

• Increase an item’s Durability by two. This is considered a supernatural enhancement at this level, protecting the item from aggravated damage.

Mass Create (•••••): The spirit can create multiple examples of its sphere of influence. A number of items equal to the spirit’s Rank come into existence for one day per success scored.

• Create a permanent object within the same choir. This requires five successes.

• Create multiple identical items within the same descant.

• Create a brand-new object within the same choir.

• The spirit can affect repairs on any of the same choir.

• Mass improve or degrade. This allows the spirit to affect the quality of a number of items appropriate to its choir, as per the level one Influence. The effect lasts one day.

• Increase an item’s Durability by three. This is considered a supernatural enhancement at this level, protecting the item from aggravated damage.