Ask a simple question, Awakened edition

[KaiserAfini]

If you are referring to Veil of Moments, I think you will find that that particular spell is Shielding you from the effects of the passage of Time, not Time as a whole.

I’ve read a post on the forum that explains this better, but Veiling can do 3 things. It can completely hide something from something under it’s bailiwick, it can obscure one of the properties under it’s bailiwick, or it can completely hide something that completely falls under it’s bailiwick. Incognito Presence Is a example of the first one, it hides you from Minds. Supernal Veiling is a example of the second, it hides one of the properties of the subject. Lastly, Hidden Hoard is a example of there third that completely hides material objects from everyone and everything.

So, yes, Prime Veiling can completely hide a Eidolon. I’m not sure if it’s technically the same spell though, since Supernal Veiling is type 2 and this new one is a type 3. It would seem to me that you can hide a Eidolon’s “obviously magical nature” with Supernal Veiling.

By default, no. You can only Channel Mana into it by default, I think. (I don’t have the book on me right now.) That being said, you can probably Weave it in, as I recall, Mages can do something similar, and Mages a under the Purview of Prime. At the very worst, you can imbue it with Prime/Death spell that uses gives mana when you kill something.

Edit: You absolutely can Veil stuff from just Sleepers with Prime. A spell that conditionally hides a thing or reveals itself based on who is nearby requires Archmastery. Note that there is a difference between the two.

Technically you could give them a mana battery. Then modify a Hallow so it has Plentiful Tass and so one of the ley lines "conducts" the mana into a battery charge spot, which might require conjunctional Forces or Matter. Utilizing that and multiple batteries, you could technically have a self sustaining Eidolon, provided they periodically switch out their charged packs.

[TempleBuilder]

Thanks for that, though that paragraph seems a bit off ( "A target can be made to lose all sense of time (Time)" but the counter example "a mage can’t Veil herself against death or hide from time" - especially considering the written up veiling of time which prevent poisons, bleeding to death and natural healing).

But yeah, i think this is veiling a concrete (objective truth) example of the abstract, not the abstract concept of truth itself.

If you are referring to Veil of Moments, I think you will find that that particular spell is Shielding you from the effects of the passage of Time, not Time as a whole.

That is exactly my interpretation, but not how it was agreed earlier in this thread. Hiding a spell hides the entire thing (but spells are hidden by default unless you decide for setting reason you want the world to have Display of Power always on - a la the magic in Doctor Strange). I presume this spell also hide an Eidolon, which is 'obviously magical' but it is entirely made of tasks, so like a spell, would it completely disappear? (I'm going back to my thoughts on Eidolons as retainer guardians, but using them as an environment which is not visible to sleepers - or conditionally dissapears when a sleeper walks by - would be cool).

I’ve read a post on the forum that explains this better, but Veiling can do 3 things. It can completely hide something from something under it’s bailiwick, it can obscure one of the properties under it’s bailiwick, or it can completely hide something that completely falls under it’s bailiwick. Incognito Presence Is a example of the first one, it hides you from Minds. Supernal Veiling is a example of the second, it hides one of the properties of the subject. Lastly, Hidden Hoard is a example of there third that completely hides material objects from everyone and everything.

So, yes, Prime Veiling can completely hide a Eidolon. I’m not sure if it’s technically the same spell though, since Supernal Veiling is type 2 and this new one is a type 3. It would seem to me that you can hide a Eidolon’s “obviously magical nature” with Supernal Veiling.

Unrelated Eidolon question, can they gain mana by performing a blood sacrifice? (I'm thinking a bird of prey - with a spirit appropriate to murdering small animals - refilling the Eidolon's mana pool by murdering small animals).

By default, no. You can only Channel Mana into it by default, I think. (I don’t have the book on me right now.) That being said, you can probably Weave it in, as I recall, Mages can do something similar, and Mages a under the Purview of Prime. At the very worst, you can imbue it with Prime/Death spell that uses gives mana when you kill something.

Edit: You absolutely can Veil stuff from just Sleepers with Prime. A spell that conditionally hides a thing or reveals itself based on who is nearby requires Archmastery. Note that there is a difference between the two.

[orathaic]

Peripheral Mage Sight pings on all spells that aren't about concealment, and Active Mage Sight will reveal all spells from the Arcana of your Mage Sight (except for Prime which instead reveals all spells). Casting Supernal Veil on spells does a lot to keep those spells hidden from other mages

thank you, always good for the reminder. I was talking about mundane senses, hence my bit about making spells look like they do in Dr. Strange (both the films and comics are very visual mediums, so it doesn't surprise me that they made this choice - mechanically you could have it as an option: -1 reach, make your spell visible to mundane senses, but practically in front of sleepers this gains you nothing, as they add 1 dice of paradox, and away from sleepers you would be making a choice between easier counter spelling for more power).

[Tessie]

Regarding Supernal Veil, its main purpose is to hide anything under its purview from supernatural senses.

This is a common interpretation, but the text says nothing about hiding things specifically from supernatural senses. Other Veiling spells of the same kind tend to hide the subject (which is under the purview of the Arcanum) from any sort of detection, both magical and mundane. Nothing about Supernal Veil indicates it would work any different from its literal wording.
Personally, I do favour that it merely hides the supernatural parts of the subject (even though that's technically not stated in the spell, but it's how it should work given the description for Veiling spells). So no casting Supernal Veil on yourself to become completely undetectable by direct means just because you're a mage and thus technically supernatural.

You could definitely craft a spell that would hide its subject specifically from supernatural senses, but since the method of detection falls under the purview of Prime, the subject no longer needs to be and could theoretically be anything. In this case you could cast the spell on a mage to have the mage become undetectable to any supernatural senses, but you could also cast it on a Sleeper, or on that rock over there. Now you can't use Matter to gain info about the rock's mineral composition without winning a CoW.

but spells are hidden by default

Peripheral Mage Sight pings on all spells that aren't about concealment, and Active Mage Sight will reveal all spells from the Arcana of your Mage Sight (except for Prime which instead reveals all spells). Casting Supernal Veil on spells does a lot to keep those spells hidden from other mages.

[orathaic]

Page 123 states that Veiling cannot affect abstract concepts, you can hide the truth of a subject but not from truth itself (the subject does exist and has some truth).

Thanks for that, though that paragraph seems a bit off ( "A target can be made to lose all sense of time (Time)" but the counter example "a mage can’t Veil herself against death or hide from time" - especially considering the written up veiling of time which prevent poisons, bleeding to death and natural healing).

But yeah, i think this is veiling a concrete (objective truth) example of the abstract, not the abstract concept of truth itself.

Regarding Supernal Veil, its main purpose is to hide anything under its purview from supernatural senses. This means casting it combined with a spell makes it not ping the Peripheral Sight, the mage register as a Sleeper or an Artifact as just an object.

That is exactly my interpretation, but not how it was agreed earlier in this thread. Hiding a spell hides the entire thing (but spells are hidden by default unless you decide for setting reason you want the world to have Display of Power always on - a la the magic in Doctor Strange). I presume this spell also hide an Eidolon, which is 'obviously magical' but it is entirely made of tasks, so like a spell, would it completely disappear? (I'm going back to my thoughts on Eidolons as retainer guardians, but using them as an environment which is not visible to sleepers - or conditionally dissapears when a sleeper walks by - would be cool).

Unrelated Eidolon question, can they gain mana by performing a blood sacrifice? (I'm thinking a bird of prey - with a spirit appropriate to murdering small animals - refilling the Eidolon's mana pool by murdering small animals).

[KaiserAfini]

Page 123 states that Veiling cannot affect abstract concepts, you can hide the truth of a subject but not from truth itself (the subject does exist and has some truth). So you can use it to make everything you say sound genuine or everything someone else says sound like a lie. Mundane methods will be unable to pierce it and supernatural effects cause a Clash of Wills.

So putting that together, it means you could, for example, change the contents of the piece of paper. So you could redact text, change a map into a picture or make it the color of the wall to hide a poster. But it would still have the tactile sensation, shape, weight and any other properties of the default paper.

Regarding Supernal Veil, its main purpose is to hide anything under its purview from supernatural senses. This means casting it combined with a spell makes it not ping the Peripheral Sight, the mage register as a Sleeper or an Artifact as just an object.

But the thing is, sometimes the important thing is just mundane. The journal that leads to a long lost temple is just ink on paper, its because it was written by a Sleepwalker that its contents are valuable. The special herbal candle is just a candle, but its also the ban of the ghost that is haunting the antique shop. Sure, they can still see it with their eyes, but hiding them from their supernatural abilities is already a big help.

[TempleBuilder]

New Question: i know this has been discussed before, (I'm only 230 pages into this thread, ok?) But two small things about Supernal Veil

"This spell wards its subject, which can be a
spell, object, mage, supernatural creature, or any other active magical phenomenon, from detection"

Should this not be magical object? Object seems to be out of place in this spell.

Yep, they mean magical objects. You know, you can probably Veil Yantras too, so maybe ordinary objects from a Sleepers perspective can be veiled. That’s possibly a different spell though.

Second: whether or not the above uses Prime's purview of Truth and not Magic, could you creative thaumatergy a Veiling of the Truth (of subject's objectively true existence) to hide anything from everything (like various time spells that make the rest of the world simply act as if a subject with no history never existed - see Space 5 spell Quarentine).

Probably CoW for supernatural detection, but essentially a more powerful than Incognito Presence (unless it is also withstood?)

It should be withstood, since this is effectively a reverse Words of Truth, and you are not changing the Truth itself, just hiding it. A non withstood version can be achieved through Patterning, I think.

EDIT: on second thought, veiling the objective Truth of my existence should just make people question it, not fail to see it... Still makes witnesses to your actions have some reasonable doubts (in a legal sense). Eg: "Witness1 i definitely saw him murder the Mayor
Defence Lawyer: but are you sure he even exists?
Witness1: i... Eh.. definitely saw someone who looked like him murder the Mayor."

This is pretty much how it goes. Prime can’t mess with any of the regular properties that go into detection like Mind or Life or Forces or most of the other arcanum, but the veiling Truth of your presence does technically work. It just produces some rather odd results. Let’s say you veil the Truth of your identity, people who would recognize you could describe you in exact detail, even draw a perfect sketch of you, and recognize everything you are doing, and never realize it was you. Maybe they think it’s a extremely well done costume, someone who likes like you, or that they are hallucinating or dreaming. When the spell ends, they will probably be able to recognize that it was you all along, (though they probably wouldn’t come to that realization without some prompting,) but until then, even if you tell them exactly what’s going to happen, they will know that it’s not you. When compared to Veiling of Mind/Life etc, they can produce similar results, but they can outright make people fail to recognize that there is anything there at all. When Veiling the Truth of your existence, people will know that the person who shot the mayor doesn’t exist. They mayor was shot, it was a murder, witnesses could describe the murderer perfectly, but the murderer is a person who doesn’t exist. This doesn’t protect your identity by the way, people will still recognize you. And they will know you don’t exist. And if any sleepers think too hard about how someone who doesn’t exist managed murder someone and shows up on cameras, you are going to have a huge problem with dissonance. And once the spell ends you are going to have problems. For example, your description is still plenty of evidence enough to make a case against you. This, on the whole, makes this a bad spell for not getting caught. Instead, look to enhance your lies with Veiling, and Veil your identity and specific parts of your identity (like your skin tone or tattoos or other major identifying features), and Veil the fact that you aren’t where you belong. Maybe set up a scapegoat by Veiling your identity as someone else, so they take the fall and the case gets closed quickly. And accept that both memories, records, sketches, and cameras will potentially be problems in the long term. You probably will want to invest in a safely relinquished indefinite spell that Veils the fact you murdered the mayor. Also, other Mages will be able to figure out what you did pretty easily.

Edit: Grammar.

[orathaic]

New Question: i know this has been discussed before, (I'm only 230 pages into this thread, ok?) But two small things about Supernal Veil

"This spell wards its subject, which can be a
spell, object, mage, supernatural creature, or any other active magical phenomenon, from detection"

Should this not be magical object? Object seems to be out of place in this spell.

Second: whether or not the above uses Prime's purview of Truth and not Magic, could you creative thaumatergy a Veiling of the Truth (of subject's objectively true existence) to hide anything from everything (like various time spells that make the rest of the world simply act as if a subject with no history never existed - see Space 5 spell Quarentine).

Probably CoW for supernatural detection, but essentially a more powerful than Incognito Presence (unless it is also withstood?)

EDIT: on second thought, veiling the objective Truth of my existence should just make people question it, not fail to see it... Still makes witnesses to your actions have some reasonable doubts (in a legal sense). Eg: "Witness1 i definitely saw him murder the Mayor
Defence Lawyer: but are you sure he even exists?
Witness1: i... Eh.. definitely saw someone who looked like him murder the Mayor."

[orathaic]

Seems a bit aggressive, but let me clarify two things.

Firstly:

Contingent items aren't toggled on and off, they're either in a state of having been activated or they aren't, with early termination being a function of normal spell control for the creator.

My reading of this:

contingent (triggered by a word,
gesture, or condition)

Is probably confused by the condtion part. My understanding is if the condition ends so does the spell (like the Conditional Duration Fate attainment).

I am specifically saying, a pair of glasses which are trigger by putting them on, but have conditional duration ending the spell of you take them off (or the condition is being worn, and i interpret the rules to mean the spell ends if the condition is not satisfied).

Secondly, i am saying the rules for indefinite spells in imbued items are not clear. With one paragraph explicitly forbidding them.

I would house rule that as described above - to give two options both of which have advantages and disadvantages - and describe what are intuitive items for players to enjoy the game.

[Satchel]

The names do seem back asswards.

"The caster decides whether the spell imbued into the item is persistent (always active) or contingent (triggered by a word, gesture, or condition)"

My thought is that the 'always active' spell is the one you want to be able to switch on and off with a condtion/trigger. Which is contingent... But i see how you are correct on that.

Yeah, no, the literal definition of "persistent" is that it persists, whereas "contingent" means that it's not necessarily going to be happening at any given time, because depends on something happening.

You can want it not to be that way, but the distinction is "does this keep happening constantly" versus "does this happen when a trigger is applied," regardless of what you'd prefer it to be as someone who didn't make the decision about which way the item was made.

Contingent items aren't toggled on and off, they're either in a state of having been activated or they aren't, with early termination being a function of normal spell control for the creator.

[TempleBuilder]

Of course, i keep forgetting this.

It seems clear the imbued items use the Arcana rating from the item rather than the user (or indeed the creator) - at least this is the case for the dice pool.

I am going to guess that the withstand is the arcanum rating of the spell (with a possible +2 for advanced potency). Does SoS clarify?

Nope, but your reasoning makes plenty of sense.

No your brain just filled in the details without reading because you've probably read it multiple times before... Human brains take shortcuts! Just look at your blind spots

Yeah, I just wish I didn’t have so many blind spots though.

I'm not sure i like that 'you can't buy it with a merit'* or In Character explaination. I'd prefer to run a system which makes sense.

That’s fair. Personally I find being able to put any spell on a imbued item to be more consistent with the rest of Mage, but you do whatever works for you.

[orathaic]

Got these backward, chief.

The names do seem back asswards.

"The caster decides whether the spell imbued into the item is persistent (always active) or contingent (triggered by a word, gesture, or condition)"

My thought is that the 'always active' spell is the one you want to be able to switch on and off with a condtion/trigger. Which is contingent... But i see how you are correct on that.

[Satchel]

Contingent imbued spells which turn on and off based on a simple user action (is not a spell roll) : indefinite duration, 0 mana to activate, can only be 'cast' once (unless dispelled with lasting) - as its imago is always in use - which would also prevent messing with spell factors.

Persistent spells, which are always (at least) 1 mana and a spell roll to activate, and last until their duration is over. Can be cast multiple times, costing mana each time, but only one spell slot.

Got these backward, chief.

[orathaic]

Oh, to just follow that note about a Ward, spells don't Withstand being dispelled with their Potency, they do it with the Arcanum rating of the caster;

Of course, i keep forgetting this.

It seems clear the imbued items use the Arcana rating from the item rather than the user (or indeed the creator) - at least this is the case for the dice pool.

I am going to guess that the withstand is the arcanum rating of the spell (with a possible +2 for advanced potency). Does SoS clarify?

Wow, and first line too. I am blind, because I definitely reread that part.

No your brain just filled in the details without reading because you've probably read it multiple times before... Human brains take shortcuts! Just look at your blind spots

I'm not sure i like that 'you can't buy it with a merit'* or In Character explaination. I'd prefer to run a system which makes sense.

Contingent imbued spells which turn on and off based on a simple user action (is not a spell roll) : indefinite duration, 0 mana to activate, can only be 'cast' once (unless dispelled with lasting) - as its imago is always in use - which would also prevent messing with spell factors.

Persistent spells, which are always (at least) 1 mana and a spell roll to activate, and last until their duration is over. Can be cast multiple times, costing mana each time, but only one spell slot.

This gives a reason for two different ways of casting, or types of spell.

It is reminding me of 1st Ed (LARP) conversations i had about imbued items, i was firmly of the opinion that each spell you loaded into an item was a one use, and so a lasting damage spell was like loading a shotgun with one Shell. Whereas a hone the form spell with indefinite duration could be used only by one person at a time and could be switched on and off but would always be the same spell...

*EDIT: I'm compiling a list of magical items; Imbued, Fetish, Enhanced are the ones with merits...just for quick reference. There are more types of items than you can buy as a merit, so sure, that seems fair. But i think a balance of permanent conditional vs non-indefinite 1 mana per activation works fine for my purposes (that is ignore the rule which doesn't seem to make sense and run something balanced and fun).

EDIT2 : Actually the more i think about it, the more sense my persistent/contingent division makes sense. Eg:
1) Persistent Atheric Wind, effect lasting, cost 1 mana, roll Gnosis + 3 (Spell's Arcana), deal potency damage.
2) Contingent Wards and Signs, effect duration, once cast it may be switched on or off as needed (instant action?) Target withstands spells by potency

[Isator Levi]

Honestly, I think the first line of the Imbued Item Merit was just a slightly awkward way of saying that the object is carrying the spell but it's not based on it having an indefinite duration.

I'm observing now that the parameters of Enhanced Item are a bit broader than they were in First Edition, where it referred to something that had specifically had Durability, Structure, or Tool Bonus improved. The reading of it in the current rendition would be that you could have an object that has, say, been made to have acidic properties with what it touches and that would be Enhanced, but it would still be based on being an Indefinite duration spell that can be removed from it. The power of an Imbued Item cannot be extracted without breaking it.

To be frank, I think there's a distinct lack of clarity about what Persistent Effects are, and the notes in Signs of Sorcery on them lasting for their Duration actually make it more confused. So you've got a choice between something that is "always active" (until it naturally runs out of time, and then needs to be manually activated in some fashion again) and something that can only be triggered by a set activity that also ends up with a limited duration. It ultimately ends up sounding like so-called Persistent Effects are just Contingent stuff that is more difficult to use. The more straight reading is that their effect really is active at all times, but that would end up clashing with a clear sense of what their factors actually are; even if they functionally amount to free indefinite effects, how are Potency and Scale determined? It actually makes me question the value of the distinction.

Oh, to just follow that note about a Ward, spells don't Withstand being dispelled with their Potency, they do it with the Arcanum rating of the caster; a Ward cast by an Apprentice needs a Potency 3 dispellation to break it, that of a Master needs a 6. Although the Reach to increase that Withstand by 2 is used on Advanced Potency, that actual spell factor has no significance to it.


Indeed, because Ward is a spell based on providing a Clash of Wills, improved Potency is actually wasted on it... unless a Ward can only Clash as many space warping or sympathy targeting powers as it has Potency, per the guidelines on page 126-127. Hmm...