Guardian Angel Stats

[Nonsense]

It depends how you handle guardian angels.
If you can summon one that means either that every human has one (parallel to an Avatar or as Avatar) or that your thoughts are enough to summon “your“ guardian angel from the High Umbra.

If not every human has one and it doesn't come from the High Umbra, then the rote can summon nothing. Then you have to take an ally first, which in turn makes the rote rather pointless.

I would use the High Umbran option.
So without the rote the guardian angel can not influence the world in a direct way.

[BurritoMage]

And the rote is meant to contact your particular guardian angel.

So what's to keep the party from adapting the rote to their personal paradigm and suddenly everyone has their own personal Clarence?

[Spacecat]

So what's to keep the party from adapting the rote to their personal paradigm and suddenly everyone has their own personal Clarence?

Not much apart from personal beliefs, the fact that not everyone will have the right spheres, and the fact that I'll ensure that the guardian angels meddle in their personal lives to try to make them "better people". But I've seen weirder stunts so I'm not worried about that. One guy I knew made a site that became the base of his army of quintessence collecting "Porn Spirits".

[Spacecat]

So far my assumptions here are, (almost) every human has a guardian angel that watches over him/her but is generally stuck in that place angels stay and do their work outside of material reality. The angel will be built as a 25 faith angel as per the Time of Judgement book, but really can't manifest in the material world. I'd like to give it some minor powers that could be mistaken for coincidence that it could use to try to steer you towards the path of "goodness". Maybe the ability to make coincidental omens or something. The rote basically allows it to manifest in the material world (without requiring authorization from the higher powers, like a sort of heavenly bureaucratic loophole). This manifested being will have your best interests at heart from the perspective of you becoming more saintly, and fighting the forces of hatred, sin, and cruelty as good. It will have little care for much else other than other people's spiritual well-being and the greater good. It will generally respect free will but nonetheless pester the mage over what it thinks are bad choices. It will act like a parent or guardian. That's what i'm thinking of for now.

[BurritoMage]

What's the duration on this rote because that reads like its just a summon a super best friend ally that is immune to paradox bleed and judges you on life choices. Also why does it give a toss about other people when it's the summoners Guardian angle?

[Spacecat]

You got me thinking there. After some thought...

So far, I have it as a Spirit 2 Prime 2 spell which uses a heavenly bureaucracy loophole to grant your Guardian Angel the proper permissions to appear in the material world (but does not force it to do so), to let it take a direct hand in aiding the mage in becoming a "good person" and in removing the influence of evil from the mage. It is meant to act like a spiritual parent or guardian. (So getting it to do stuff other than saving you from your own evil and from actual evil will require some negotiation). The rote essentially has the same duration as any spell can have but does not prevent the angel from leaving when it wants to.

As for why it cares about other people, only because it doesn't want to give other guardian angels a hard time. In other words it tries not to lead to the corruption and loss of faith of others and might actually feel like trying to discipline them too if they are a bad influence on the mage.

Depending on the mage, it can be an awesome ally or a total disaster. The mage has no real say over it and it is immune to mind control.

[JagneStormskull]

You got me thinking there. After some thought...

So far, I have it as a Spirit 2 Prime 2 spell which uses a heavenly bureaucracy loophole to grant your Guardian Angel the proper permissions to appear in the material world (but does not force it to do so), to let it take a direct hand in aiding the mage in becoming a "good person" and in removing the influence of evil from the mage. It is meant to act like a spiritual parent or guardian. (So getting it to do stuff other than saving you from your own evil and from actual evil will require some negotiation). The rote essentially has the same duration as any spell can have but does not prevent the angel from leaving when it wants to.

As for why it cares about other people, only because it doesn't want to give other guardian angels a hard time. In other words it tries not to lead to the corruption and loss of faith of others and might actually feel like trying to discipline them too if they are a bad influence on the mage.

Depending on the mage, it can be an awesome ally or a total disaster. The mage has no real say over it and it is immune to mind control.

I think you need Spirit 3 to summon a Spirit and Spirit 4 to summon an angel or demon because they're so powerful. And I think it's Spirit 4/Prime 4 to make a body for a spirit ("How do you DO That?" Page 45).

[Dataweaver]

I really wish they'd put Feats more front and center in Mage. “They're more powerful” shouldn't generally be a justification for requiring more dots; it should, rather, require more successes.

Rather than talking about “a Spirit 3 Effect to summon spirits, and a Spirit 4 Effect to summon angels and demons”, we should be talking about “a Standard Spirit 3 Effect to summon spirits, and a Difficult Spirit 3 Effect to summon angels and demons”, or something to that effect.

[Shakanaka]

So without the rote the guardian angel can not influence the world in a direct way.

Wait, what? All you have to do is lower the Gauntlet level via a simple Arete roll if you have the Spirit Sphere up to at least 2 (which is very basic) and the Spirit that you have follows you on the other side to have the Materialize charm/power. All it takes is for the Gauntlet level to be lowed to even or lower than the permanent Gnosis rating that Umbrood has. After that it can practically do anything it wants for at least a scene or longer if the ST has it where a certain area has a constant low Gauntlet level.

immune to paradox bleed

I thought only Constructs and Familiars were subject to Paradox? I'm pretty sure Spirits from the Middle & High Umbra are immune to paradox. Embodied (aka materialized past the Shroud) Wraiths also don't suffer Paradox either.

[Bluecho]

Arise, Necro Thread, Arise!

[JagneStormskull]

I really wish they'd put Feats more front and center in Mage. “They're more powerful” shouldn't generally be a justification for requiring more dots; it should, rather, require more successes.

Rather than talking about “a Spirit 3 Effect to summon spirits, and a Spirit 4 Effect to summon angels and demons”, we should be talking about “a Standard Spirit 3 Effect to summon spirits, and a Difficult Spirit 3 Effect to summon angels and demons”, or something to that effect.

That makes sense. Keep Spirit 4 for advanced Gauntlet manipulation and Fetish creation.

In fact, it makes too much sense for White Wolf authors /s.

[Starcomet]

In my current game with my sorcerer, he is a celestial/angel summoner with S/B/W and he has the summon guardian angel ritual. The ST and I agreed that his guardian angel was simply assigned to him after he summoned it forth and bargained with it successfully. The stats for it however are vague. The ST simply has it hang in the background and help me and my mage allies when I cast a blessing on others or myself, throw curses, or need story based guidance.

My sorcerer is strong enough to easily compel it to do what he wants, but that does not fit his paradigm. And as to whether these are True Angels or generic Spirit Angels, I can definitely say that his guardian angel is just a generic celestial spirit that works for heaven/the high umbra, but is not a true angel since it is a gaffling level entity. It is the Jaggling and Incarna level beings that are True Angels. My sorcerer plans to summon a Serpahim of battle next session hopefully.

Note: If we are to use Demon: The Fallen cosmology, it would be really hard to summon forth True Angels. Time of Judgement states that all angels are bound to heaven and by divine decree cannot leave heaven until the end times. So that means summoning one forth would make it break this divine law and thus they would instantly become a fallen/demon. But this is just one optional rule and STs of course can ignore it. The other thing about True Angels is that they are VERY powerful beings. Even the weakest of angels has like 15 or 25 True Faith and a bunch of abilities and immunities. A mage or sorcerer being able to summon such an entity should be very hard to do and used with caution.