[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition] Active Mage Sight

 Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Mage Sights: Part II - Active

My comments to the MtA 2e are in red and provide some guidelines on how we will implement and treat the conversion or re-creation of played Characters in our current Mage chronicle (Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen).  Effective implementation dates to be determined.  The following supersedes all previous rules regarding the Mage Sight System.

I know we have talked about Mage Sights for a long long time but these rules are it for the future... 

Additional explanation is in this font, when it helps drive the concepts home.  

Eyes Wide Open: What are they like?

Regardless of her Path, a walk down a crowded sidewalk is never the same for a mage:

Active Mage Sight  is a mage deliberately opening her senses to the Supernal World.  The experience is interpreted and filtered through the Mage’s soul into her mind as hallucinations and sensory effects – an Obrimos using his Mage Sight might see electricity glittering in the wall cables, see a halo of authority around the leaders of groups, and feel the burning, life-giving power in sunlight. The result is confusing or even overwhelming for new mages not used to it, and presents such an overload of information that it’s hard to make out details. 

Mage Sight represents searching for clues. It’s the mechanics of a Mage character’s insight into the world, and one of the ways a player’s choice of Path affects her character. Mage Sight is now also tied up with the Supernal World — while the “Supernal Realms” have been described as other dimensions in the past, we’re going to be much clearer in this edition that the Supernal is everywhere. The Aether is in every thunderclap, every wire, and every time a human approaches the divine. 

Acanthus Sight: Choice (Fate) and Consequence (Time) - To an Acanthus, the world is replete with “trails,” odd time effects, and signifiers of fate acting on the world. Witches using Active Mage Sight often experience time dilation or contraction. Under Focused Mage Sight, many Acanthus see the thorns —  visual metaphors for the branching timelines running behind and ahead of everything, which might appear as shining cracks in surfaces, quicksilver vines, or shimmering lines in the air.

Mastigos Sight: Transgression (Space) and Confrontation (Mind) - To a Mastigos, the world shows how all thinking minds turn back on themselves, and how illusionary separation and distance

is. Warlocks experience warping distance, mirages, and feelings of being lost, watched, or chased. Thinking beings are surrounded by indistinct auras, wrapped in their own thoughts and emotions. Under Focused Mage Sight, many Mastigos sense chains, bars, uniforms, or other representations of imposed boundaries.

Moros Sight: Permanence (Matter) and Transition (Death) - To a Moros, the world is a quiet, settled place — sounds dampen to the point of whispers, and movement seems to slow. Alchemists often see after-images of destroyed items or corpses, or look on the world through a lens of entropy and decay. Under Focused Mage Sight, Moros looking at places and people symbolizing distraction from the universe or holding on to things beyond their time (everything from a vampire’s Touchstone

or a ghost’s Anchor to a fellow mage’s magical tool or a workaholic businessman’s office) see them set aside, discarded, or broken. Moros call these impressions shells or, when they’re locations, crypts.

Obrimos Sight: Power (Forces) and Command (Prime) - To the Obrimos, the world is bursting with power. Theurgists see the interactions of Forces and Prime within everything, with the sense that the material world is straining at the seams, barely able to hold the power within itself. Under Focused Mage Sight, Obrimos see the mandalas — complex, twisting patterns, visual interpretations of all forms of power and authority. Theurgists see the leader of a gang decorated in golden jewelry, hear the sun making its passage through the sky, and perceive halos around the holy.

Thyrsus Sight: Boundaries (Life) and Intercession (Spirit) - Thyrsus experience the world as ecstasy, the feeling of transcending the self to connect to the world around you. The world under a Thyrsus’ Mage Sight is alive — some Shamans experience a pulse, a rhythm connecting every creature, or see magic lapping in and out of Hallows like breath. Under Focused Mage Sight, every living being is clearly part of the superorganism, playing its part like an individual cell in a body.

The Path as Perspective: What can be seen...

Regardless of the Arcana a mage has studied, her Mage Sight is always colored primarily by her Path. An Acanthus who adds Matter to her Active Mage Sight does not see inanimate objects

the same way that a Moros does.  For example, when a Moros examines a knife he sees its physical composition, senses its rate of decay, recognizes how often it has been sharpened, and knows what must be done to reinforce its structure or shatter it. He recognizes a poorly made knife because he can see its physical flaws.

Meanwhile, a Mastigos perceives the knife in terms of its connections. Is it a mass-produced tool spat out by a machine in a miserable sweatshop in Southeast Asia, or was it forged with care by a hobbyist blacksmith new to the craft? Tracing back the connections of sympathy, the Mastigos knows the knife was made with inferior steel because someone involved in the blade’s production knowingly gave the factory poor-quality raw materials, or because the factory owner chose to cut corners

during production.  The same is true of the other Paths. The Obrimos sees the same knife in terms of all the energy that was put into it, and knows a faulty blade because it diverges too much from its platonic ideal. An Acanthus sees a thousand paths the knife may take and notes that it is fated to break at a critical moment. The Thyrsus notes the knife’s especially weak and sickly spirit and knows it reflects the poor quality of the blade.

Mages describe the aggregate Supernal symbols corresponding to a phenomenon its Pattern, and when more clarity is needed call the individual symbols making up a Pattern Forms. When a mage speaks of a person’s “Life Pattern,” she means the total information available to the Life Arcanum about that person — his health, physicality, age, hunger, disease, and any supernatural effects influencing those things. All of the Patterns — all of the Supernal World — together with the Fallen World giving it substance is called the Tapestry.

Active Mage Sight

Active Mage Sight requires more concentration from the mage, and overlays the mage’s perception with the Supernal World of her Path. It automatically uses the mage’s two Path Ruling Arcana, has no cost to add any third Ruling Arcanum, and costs one point of Mana per scene to include a Common or Inferior Arcanum.

Active Mage Sight allows the mage a much greater sensory experience with regards to the Supernal correspondences of the Arcana used, interpreted into the mage’s Path. The mage hallucinates, seeing the connections of the Arcana all around her. Mage Sight highlights all phenomena related to the Arcana used, but making sense of the torrent of Patterns is often difficult, and the mage can only determine the symbols related to phenomena within her senses — her Sight won’t let her see through walls or perceive entities and objects in a state of Twilight. Knowing spells and several Attainments allow more specialized analysis of a mage’s surroundings, either adding capabilities to Mage Sight or granting extra senses for more information. Each Arcanum has a minor mechanical effect, relating to the base level of perception granted by Active Sight.

System: Entering active Mage Sight is a reflexive action when only using Ruling Arcana, and an instant action otherwise. Leaving it is always reflexive. If the Storyteller determines that a mage’s Active Mage Sight could logically pierce a concealment effect, use a Clash of Wills, pitting the observing mage’s Gnosis + Arcanum against the defender’s dice pool for the concealment power.

Distraction: While a character is using Active Mage Sight, she suffers a –2 modifier to all rolls unrelated to using or perceiving magic.

Limitations: Mage Sight is draining, a mage can maintain Active Mage Sight for a number of minutes equal to her Gnosis. After that, she must spend a Willpower point to keep it active for the remainder of the scene.

What Active Mage Sight Detects:

(note that these are combined and consolidated proto-spells.  If someone has Death Sight up they see everything under the death sight category)

Any Ruling Arcana Sight (Gnosis 1, Ruling Arcana 1)

• Any supernatural effect falling under the purview of the Arcanum that the mage can see is highlighted if she is using the correct Sight.
• Detects supernatural creatures within purview on sight unless attempts at veiling force a clash of wills
• Detects all active spells within sensory range regardless of Arcanum
• Detects supernatural items even if they are not being used
• Detects when a magic spell is cast and from who (if within sensory range)
• Detects the nimbus of the caster of any spell
• Can recognize the Signature Nimbus of someone they previously scrutinized
• Can be used to initiate a Clash of Wills to pierce concealment powers if the Arcana being is appropriate
• Assume any mage can recognize the effects of any supernatural ability common to the mage template: Mage Armor, Focused Mage Sight, Pattern Scouring/Restoration, and so on.
• Requires direct observation of the phenomena in question: it doesn't work on recordings or a live television feed. A mage can use Active Mage Sight through a scrying window or visions of the past from Postcognition or similar effects.
• Can identify the Resonance of supernatural people/place/things as long as the mage has scrutinized a previous similar type before.  Otherwise they need to initiate Focused Mage Sight
• Can see another willworker’s Nimbus flare as he forms the Imago and casts the spell (which, in turn, gives the observant mage a chance to use the Counterspell Attainment if she knows the Arcanum involved).

The mage using Concealment magic, of whatever type, can hide a target from Active Mage Sight, but only if the concealment would logically mask the target from the purview of the Arcanum in question. Even then, if the concealment power uses the same magical principles as the detecting Arcanum, the mage still has a chance to see through it.

For example, a light-based invisibility spell would conceal a target from Mind Sight, but Life Sight could still detect the living being, with or without the assistance of photons. Likewise, some vampires employ a kind of mental “invisibility” that causes observers to ignore them. This power would conceal a target from Forces Sight (it isn’t light-based) or Time Sight, but not Mind Sight (since both the concealment power and the Arcanum are working on the same principles).

Death Sight:
- Detects the presence of the Anchor Condition
- Detects manifested ghosts or manifested ghosts and related phenomena (also in Twilight)
- Detects if someone or something has a soul
- Detects if someone or something is living or dead
- Death Knowing/Unveiling spells that add to Death Sight (but are separate spells):

• Forensic Gaze (Death 1) – reveals what killed/is killing someone in detail
• Speak with the Dead (Death 1) – allows the caster to perceive beings in Twilight and speak to ghosts there regardless of language 
• Soul Marks (Death 1) – reveals the relative health of a person’s soul

Fate Sight:
- Highlights anyone the mage watches who experiences a dramatic failure or exceptional
- reveals the presence and use of a Destiny Merit but not the details of that destiny
- Fate Knowing/Unveiling  Spells that add to Fate Sight (but are separate spells):

• Interconnections (Fate 1) – reveals Sympathy between subjects and senses manipulations of fate and destiny
• Oaths Fulfilled (Fate 1) - notifies the mage if a specific fate befalls the subject
• Serendipity (Fate 1) - Shows a mage the very next thing that must be done to accomplish an objective
• Synchronicity (Fate 1) – reveals cryptic events and random input that provides guidance from fate itself 

Forces Sight:
- Detects motion and highlights the presence of environmental Tilts
- Detects fire, electricity, and other hazards within line of sight
- Detects if a device or system is powered
- Forces Knowing/Unveiling  Spells that add to Forces Sight (but are separate spells):

• Night Sight (Forces 1) – allows the mage to see in the dark using virtually no light
• Outer Music (Forces 1) – reveals electromagnetic signals from outer space
• Receiver (Forces 1) – allows the mage to hear sounds beyond normal volume or pitch 
• Tune In (Forces 1) – allows a mage to listen and see electromagnetic signals and data steams with an automatic decryption function for most signals.

Life Sight:

- Detects life signs, revealing if a body is still alive and how injured it is

- Detects toxins and diseases in a subject

- Detects any Personal Tilts within sensory range

- Life Knowing/Unveiling  Spells that add to Life Sight (but are separate spells):

• Analyze Life (Life 1) – allows the mage to study and gain information on a lifeform
• Sense Life (Life 1) – allows a mage to detect the proximity, size and type of lifeforms
• Speak with Beasts (Life 1) - allows the caster to talk to animals
• Web of Life (Life 1) - Life Detection/Alarm AOE

Matter Sight:

- Determine the Structure and Durability of anything observed

- Detects the quality of items (revealing the Availability and Equipment Bonus of any object)

- Matter Knowing/Unveiling  Spells that add to Matter Sight (but are separate spells):

• Crafter’s Eye (Matter 1) – reveals damage, wear and tear on an object and how to fix it
• Craftsman’s Eye (Matter 1) – discover the functions and how to operate any machine or device
• Detect Substance (Matter 1) – reveals the presence and proximity of a desired material
• Discern Composition (Matter 1) – reveals exact measurements and portions of materials and elements in a subject
• Find the Hidden Horde (Matter 1) – Reveals any hidden doors or empty spaces in a location.

Mind Sight:

- Detects the presence of thinking beings

- Detects if a subject is asleep, comatose, awake, meditating, Astrally traveling, or projecting out of the body

- Detects when a subject gains or spends Willpower

- Detects the presence of Geotics or mental projections in Twilight

- Mind Knowing/Unveiling Spells that add to Mind Sight (but are separate spells):

• Aura Perception (Mind 1) – Reveals Auras and emotional states of minds
• Sense Consciousness (Mind 1) – Reveals sentience and sapience, including in Twilight
• Know Nature/Know Virtue/Know Vice (Mind 1) – Examine a person’s fundamental character
• Mental Scan (Mind 1) - read surface feelings, emotions, and flashes of insight
• Perfect Recall (Mind 1) - Allows a mage to recall things with perfect memory

Prime Sight:

- Highlights anything that can be used as a Yantra

- Detects the presence (if not the composition) of any Awakened spell or Attainment effect

- Detects tass or if a subject has mana

- Detects if they are in a Hallow or Node.

- Prime Knowing/Unveiling  Spells that add to Prime Sight (but are separate spells):

• Analyze Enchanted Item (Prime 1) – Reveals what a supernatural item does and how it works
• Paths of Power (Prime 2) – Reveals Leylines and locates the nearest one.
• Detect Banisher (Prime 1) – Reveals the damage in the soul of a Banisher in relation to their Supernal Connection
• Discern Phantasm (Prime 1) – Reveals illusions for what they are
• Supernal Vision (Prime 1) - reveals the supernal in everything and all magical phenomena
• Pierce Deception (Prime 1) - allows the mage to see through illusions, reveals pure truth
• Sacred Geometry (Prime 1) - reveals leylines and nodes

Space Sight:

- Instantly judges distances, range bands and cover (allowed player to know the bonuses and penalties involved)

- Detects spatial warps, scrying windows and the presence of Irises

- Space Knowing/Unveiling  Spells that add to Space Sight (but are separate spells):

• Angle Vision (Space 1) – Allows a mage to look around corners of send his vision outside his body
• Omnivision (Space 1) – Allows a mage to look everywhere at once.
• Correspondence (Space 1) – Reveals the Sympathetic Ties between subjects
• Finder (Space 1) – Allows a mage to flawlessly track an item in his immediate surrounding
• Locate Object (Space 1) - pretty much the same thing as Finder
• Spatial Map (Space 1) – Provides a tactical map of an area from above
• The Outward and Inward Eye (Space 1) - new name for Omnivision pretty much

Spirit Sight:

- Detects the strength of the local Guantlet

- Detects the presence presence and nature of subjects with a Resonant Condition

- Detects sources of Essence

- Detects manifested spirits and related phenomena corporeal or in Twilight

- Spirit Knowing/Unveiling  Spells that add to Spirit Sight (but are separate spells):

• Alien Spotter (Spirit 1) – Reveals entities possessing or hidden in a subject
• Exorcist’s Eye (Spirit 1) – Reveals entities possessing a subject
• Know Spirit (Spirit 1) - Same thing as Analyze Spirit
• Spirit Tongue (Spirit 1) – Allows a mage to touch spirits in Twilight and speak First Tongue with them.
• Analyze Spirit (Spirit 1) – Reveals detailed information about a spirit 
• Peer across the Gauntlet (Spirit 2) – Allows a mage to look into the Shadow

Time Sight:

- Reveals the split-second adjustments of time, allowing the player to know the Initiative ratings of all participants in combat

- Detects when a character is about to act, even with a reflexive action, a mage watching with Time Sight is aware of it (if not what that action will be), and may preempt it if he is able.

- Detects temporal warps, and the tell-tale signs that someone has come back into the past

- Time Knowing/Unveiling  Spells that add to Time Sight (but are separate spells):

• Momentary Flux (Time 1) – Reveals butterfly effects in the immediate future
• Divination (Time 1) - See the most likely future in generalities
• Precise Dating (Time 1) – Highly accurate dating of past events or subjects
• Temporal Wrinkles (Time 1) - Reveals temporal disturbances 
• Perfect Timing (Time 1) - Use your knowledge of the immediate future to take advantage of things
• Postcognition (Time 1) - Look back into the past of a subject

What active Mage Sight does do is make glaringly obvious what was only a feeling of something strange in Peripheral Sight, as long as it can be seen in the Arcana used. and the presence of supernatural entities and inactive items and Merits that are covered by the Arcana used, even if in Twilight. For example, Fate Sight will pick up on the presence of destinies and fate-cursed objects even if those curses haven’t triggered.

Active Mage Sight allows a mage to study her surroundings through the lens of her Path and the Arcana she knows. It makes plain supernatural beings and phenomena and reveals the nature of things under her Arcana's purviews. It does not offer insight into the nature or function of the Mysteries a mage observes — that's the role of Focused Mage Sight — but if the mage has encountered the phenomenon and successfully Scrutinized it before, she can recognize it with Active Mage Sight.

My Notes:

• Active Mage Sights are treated as one spell-like ability even when multiple are activated but do not count against a mage's active spells.  
• Mage Sight can be granted to others using the Prime 4 Spell "Apocalypse"

Theory, Practice, and Crossover

How Mage Sight interacts with the concealment powers that other supernatural beings use, and indeed, what information Mage Sight reveals about other supernatural beings, is a complex and potentially fraught topic.

For example, Death Sight would, logically, detect vampires — they’re undead. That just makes sense. But what about the strange and rare beings known as Prometheans? They aren’t undead, after all, but they’re made of dead flesh. Should Death Sight register them at all? One Storyteller might argue that because a Promethean is, in fact, made of dead flesh, Death Sight should reveal that some component of its body is dead. Another might argue that Prometheans are alive and the mysterious Divine Fire that animates them has no Supernal resonance with Death — but they would be visible to Prime.

We’re not prepared to publish a full breakdown of the different Chronicles of Darkness characters and how they appear to Mage Sight, for two reasons. First, it’s simply impractical and we have better uses for the page count. But second and more importantly, the kind of interpretation that such a discussion would entail is a perfect Mystery for a cabal of mages.

A Storyteller who says, “you can see with Spirit Sight that she is a werewolf,” is making things a bit too easy on her players. “You can see with Spirit Sight that she appears to be composed as much of spirit as flesh — she isn’t possessed, since the spirit isn’t simply riding her. It looks more like her body — her whole Pattern — is in constant flux between ephemera and material.” That’s much more evocative, and allows the character (and the player) to make assumptions without providing certainty.

Likewise, this freedom of interpretation means that the same type of creature might look different to two different mages, using the same Arcanum, but filtered through their respective Paths (or Nimbus). Magic is as much a subjective experience as an objective one, and giving descriptions in visceral imagery contributes to the feel of the game much more than flat, out-of-character knowledge.

In addition, the following Merit is approved of immediate play:

New Merit: Supernal Taxonomy (••)

Prerequisites: Intelligence ••, Occult •••

Effect: Your character possesses a deep, intuitive understanding of Active Mage Sight. When she observes a phenomenon similar in either effect or origin to one she has previously Scrutinized, she can recognize the similarity. For example, a mage who has previously Scrutinized another mage's Psychic Domination spell, upon seeing the victim of a vampire's Dominate Discipline, would recognize the effect as some sort of mental control. If instead she saw someone under the effects of the Augment Mind spell, she would recognize the signature of Awakened magic. If she's Scrutinized the Signature Nimbus of another mage, she can now see it with Active Mage Sight rather than having to Scrutinize. There are more examples of Active Mage Sights and while they use both the Practice of Knowing and Unveiling. Many that require more effort than simply looking at the world around them require higher levels or Arcana or a legitimate spellcasting roll to determine its effects.

Two-Dot Attainments that affect Active Mage Sight

The second dot of an Arcanum grants a Lesser Utility Attainment and a form of Mage Armor. Lesser Utilities are Attainments that fit into the purview of the Arcana, but don’t map to the Practices and rely more on a general understanding of the Arcanum in question than of specific spells. Below are some of the most common Lesser Utilities, though the players and the Storyteller may devise others.

Death 2: Eyes of the Dead

Active: The mage can see ghosts and souls in Twilight when using Active Mage Sight with Death.  The mage detects ghosts and deathly Twilight phenomena with her Periphery, and can automatically see souls and ghosts in Twilight with her Death Sight. If a ghost is using a power to hide, it provokes a Clash of Wills. With the expenditure of one point of Mana, the mage can interact with ghosts for a scene. She can speak with them, touch them, and even strike them. However, this renders her vulnerable to their attentions, as well.

Mind 2: Mind’s Eye

Active:  The mage can see Goetia, other Astral entities, and beings using supernatural powers to project out of their bodies in Twilight when using Active Mage Sight with Mind. The mage detects Goetia and Mental Twilight phenomena with her Periphery, and can automatically see Goetia and projecting beings in Twilight with her Mind Sight. If a Goetia is using a power to hide, it provokes a Clash of Wills. With the expenditure of one point of Mana, the mage can interact with Goetia for a scene. She can speak with them, touch them, and even strike them. However, this renders her vulnerable to their attentions, as well.

Spirit 2: Spirit Eyes

Active: The mage can see spirits in Twilight when using Active Mage Sight with Spirit.  The mage detects spiritual Twilight phenomena with her Periphery, and can automatically see spirits and projecting beings in Twilight with her Spirit Sight. If a spirit is using a power to hide, it provokes a Clash of Wills. With the expenditure of one point of Mana, the mage can interact with spirits for a scene. She can speak with them, touch them, and even strike them. However, this renders her vulnerable to their attentions, as well.

Combination Sight Examples:

 (Fall under the purview of the Highest Arcana know but can be used if the Mage understands the other Arcana involved.)

• Abyssal Perception (Space 1, Spirit 1, Prime 1, Death 1) – allows a mage to detect the presence of Abyssal phenomena 
• Breach Point (Matter 1, Death 1, Space 1) – reveals hidden structural vulnerabilities in walls and barricades
• Eye for Destruction (Matter 1, Death 1) – discern the weak points in a machine or lifeless subject
• Sense Poisons & Drugs (Matter 1, Life 1) – Reveals any deadly substances
• Detect Alien Mind (Mind 1, Prime 1) – Detects possession of minds from outside normal reality
• Gauge Essence (Prime 1, Life 1, Death 1 or Spirit 1) – Reveals how much Essence is stored in an object or entity.
• Moving Target (Space 2, Time 2, optional Prime 2) – allows the mage to predict the movements and location of a subject over time.
• Track Projectile (Space 2, Time 2 or just Space 2) – reveals the path and location of a high-speed projectile
• Time’s Mark (Time 1, and Life/Matter 1) – Accurately know age of subject