Ask a simple question, Awakened edition

[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.