Custom Legacy: Shattered Mirror (WIP)

[inversemot]

Shattered Mirror

The Shattered Mirror Legacy looks at the Fallen World as a broken mirror, poorly reflecting what was in the Time Before.
The Spectators try to put the pieces together, to form a cohesive image of what the world should be.

Origins
Parentage: Moros
Background: ?
Appearance: ?

Doctrine
Prerequisites: Death 2, Empathy 2, and either Craft or Expression 2
Initiation: Must have visited their own Oneiros and manipulated shadows.
Organization: None
Theory: A shadow is one of many reflections of the self. Inspired by their own daimons, Spectators reveal that which others turn away from.

Magic
Ruling Arcanum: Death
Yantras: Using a pinhole camera to focus an image (+2), breaking a silver backed mirror (+1), holding a cup or bowl of water still (+1)
Oblations:?

First Attainment: Through the Looking Glass
Prerequisite: Initiation
Arcana: Death
Primary Spell Factor: Duration
Reach: Advanced Duration
Reflections have long been thought to show glimpses of a person's soul.
The Spectators know that these reflections show evidence of distortion in the essence of both people and objects.
With this attainment, a Spectator can see these distortions in shadows.
Through the Looking Glass also creates shadows where none currently exist.
Objects and entities in Death attuned Twilight cast shadows into the Material Realm.
Hidden objects and entities cast shadows as if there were no obstructions to hide them.
Objects and entities hidden by supernatural means resist this effect causing a Clash of Wills.

Optional Yantra
When using a reflective yantra such as a pool of water or a mirror, any objects or entities whose shadows are revealed by Through the Looking Glass appear in full color in the mirror's reflection.
This allows for creatures like vampires to properly appear in mirrors.

Add Mind or Spirit *
Objects and entities in the corresponding Twilight cast shadows into the Material Realm.

Second Attainment: Reflection Sculpting
Prerequisites: Death 2, Crafting or Expression 3
Reflections, like shadows, are images of their source and just as a shadow can be manipulated so too can a reflection.
This attainment duplicates the effects of Shadow Sculpting (Death **) with one reach for instant casting and a second for animation.
When animating the Spectator's reflection, their reflected shadow may be manipulated to form objects with Durability 2.
These shadow objects are treated as solid by Twilight entities reflected in the mirror by Through the Looking Glass.
If used as a weapon against Twilight entities the shadows have a weapon rating of 2.

Optional Matter 3
For a point of mana, the Spectator can cause reflections to happen in reality.
Damage done in this way is always bashing and reduced by 2.


Third Attainment: Mirror World
Prerequisites: Death 3, Empathy 3
Reach: Advanced Duration
The Spectator may perform a ritual to use a mirror as a portal to Death attuned Twilight.
Ghost Gate (Death ***) is similar to this attainment, but objects may be retrieved through Mirror World without Touch of the Grave (Death **) and become true material objects with the appropriate properties.
While the portal is open the mirror reflects its destination, from the Material Realm it shows Twilight and from Twilight the Material Realm.

Optional Space 3
The Spectator causes the mirror to become a portal to another mirror instead of to Twilight. This effect acts as Co-Located (Space ***), but may only overlap spaces reflected in mirrors that the Spectator knows about.

Fourth Attainment: Mirror Double
Prerequisite: Death 4, Crafting or Expression 4
The Spectator may command their reflection or shadow to act on its own and which has access to the Spectator's Legacy Attainments.
A reflection is capable of stepping through a mirror with Mirror World, but disappears when Mirror Double ends.
When used on their shadow, it creates an entity that appears like a palette inverted copy of themselves (neither they nor the double cast shadows or have reflections.)
When physical, the reflection or shadow has the same attributes as the Spectator otherwise it uses the same attributes as the Spectator's Dream Form.
The reflection or shadow may be directly controlled, giving up control of the Spectator's body unless under the influence of One Mind, Two Thoughts (Mind *).
This attainment causes the Spectator to be considered in the Astral Plane at all times for the purposes of One Mind, Two Thoughts.
Alternatively, the reflection or shadow can be given a simple command which it will attempt to complete, if time is still left an additional command can be given when it completes the first.
This attainment may also be used as Ghost Summons (Death ***) binding the ghost to the reflection or shadow, in which case complex commands may be given.

Optional Spirit 3
The Spectator may use the attainment as Spirit Summons (Spirit ***) binding the spirit to the reflection or shadow and may give it a complex command.

Optional Mind 3
The Spectator may use the attainment as Goetic Summons (Mind ***) binding the goetia to the reflection or shadow and may give it a complex command.

Fifth Attainment: Windows of the Soul
Prerequisite: Death 5, Empathy 5
Eyes are reflective surfaces, normally too small to work with, but with this attainment that changes.
The size of a reflective surface no longer matters, the Spectator may "step through" a pocket mirror.
Mere eye contact is enough for the Spectator to activate any of their attainments, using either the reflection in another's eyes or the reflection of their own eyes in someone else's.

Optional Mind 4
A person's eyes function as a mirror to their Oneiros, which is considered Twilight by this Legacy's Attainments.
When stepping through a person's eyes, a mirror reflecting the outside world they see is created in their Oneiros.
Attempting to enter the Temenos is impossible when an Oneiros is entered this way.
Entering your own Oneiros this way is possible, but as your own eyes cease to reflect anything in the real world... getting back out can be difficult.

[Mrmdubois]

I do not like that first attainment at all. It’s crossing arcana purview, and a Lasting enchantment on a mirror? No. It...actually gets messier from there. I think what you should do is really focus on narrowing down what and how this legacy does what it does.

[inversemot]

It's mostly just classic effects with mirrors that are completely missing from Mage.

1. The old see things over your shoulder in the mirror thing. Unfortunately, Mage separates twilight and only granting Death Twilight is pointless (and duplicates a regular attainment,) so also reveals hidden things (it isn't Prime stuff, if anything it's Matter.)
2. Reflections that don't behave like their source are another super common thing.
3. Walking through mirrors and teleporting through them is super common.
4. Mirror people is a common trope.
5. This one doesn't fit and I know it. But I'm not sure what else to do with this Legacy other than lift some requirements.

From a metaphysical perspective, it's all an extension of shadows (as most things that don't have a shadow also don't have a reflection.) I am working backwards in the sense that I want magic that does more with shadows/reflections but don't have an actual ideology to back it up.

[Mrmdubois]

Reflections as shadows is cool. I think you’re trying to get too much done with it though. I think you should run with this as a Death primary legacy. Not sure on the Optional arcana.

For the first attainment you could have a version of Sculpt Shadow that works on reflections caught in ritually prepared mirrors.

Work up from there. Given the limit on ritually prepared mirror you can get away with animating the reflections as well as sculpting them. So horror movie reflections abound.

[inversemot]

That's basically what the second attainment is (if worded poorly) with an optional to cause the reflection to be able to manifest effects in the world (which is why I promoted it To second and tried to express that it's a middle ground between the two shadow manipulation spells.)

Another option would be to play "shadow tag" where you tag someone's shadow and you can see through their reflections in any mirrors.

Really I would like to just do some of this as normal spells, but I don't want to just give my character spells that aren't directly under any arcanum's purview. So since Legacies are an explicit license for creativity I'm trying to cram as much in as possible.

[Mrmdubois]

Arcana used in legacies still have to adhere to the rules that they usually use. Neither Mind nor Eeath have the ability to do something quite like Pierce Deception. Mind could tell you if a person was lying, but not that deception is merely present like PD.

[inversemot]

Yes, but if we're to be more flexible with definitions Legacies are the place to do it. After all my position is that these effects should be Death, but they aren't present anywhere so it's not supportable by anything other than theme (reflections being related to souls, ghosts, and other worlds.)

Edit: Legacy attainments are atypical, which is why I'm pursuing a Legacy.

"Atypical: Legacy Attainments generally operate according
to the Legacy’s traditions, which may slightly limit or expand their scope."

Edit 2:
In the case of the first attainment, it would be closer to detecting the absence of a reflection that should be there. So beings that normally don't have a reflection show up as does objects hidden by magic. A person who does their hair would have the correct hair color in their reflection because their "conceptual shadow" is being corrected.

[Mrmdubois]

Legacy attainments are atypical, the arcana are not.

That said that explanation is a lot better than just saying it works like PD.

[Taldorblackfire]

Legacies are by design highly specialized and limited in the way they work. Making them extremely flexible essentially ruins the point of legacies. I think if you used Matter Unveiling you could see the hair being dyed and other things physically hidden with either mundane or supernatural efforts with the latter provoking a Clash of Wills gaining an automatic number of successes equal to the Matter arcana.

At most the 1st Attainment should allow you to see Ghosts and any Matter based veiling effects, but that is the extent of the 1st Attainment. You could also swap Matter out to get Mind so you can see someone lying as well as Goetia, but having Mind, Spirit, Matter, and Death all combined into one attainment is far overreaching what a Legacy Attainment should be capable of accomplishing.

Also, the Lasting Effect is way too powerful because attainments can't be dispelled so there should be very few cases where Lasting is the duration. Perhaps you can have it last 1 hour after preparing the mirror with a ritual, spending your Reach on Advanced Duration.

I am also perplexed on what the end goal of this legacy happens to be, it seems like it is trying to do way too much as Mrmdubois has stated.

[inversemot]

Mrmdubois I think you might be misunderstanding what I was saying.

There is no Arcanum that explicitly has reflections as its purview. I believe that thematically Death is the most appropriate, but this is an assertion that I am making. Since Legacy Attainments are atypical, expanding Death to include reflections is within the scope of what a Legacy can do. This is as opposed to me as the ST just arbitrarily announcing that Death now covers reflections, which I could do. I don't want to because as the ST I don't need approval the way my players do. Legacies are, however, a built in way to get odd effects so I do feel comfortable creating a Legacy that matches my vision.

Taldorblackfire The only end goal is the inclusion of effects not listed anywhere that are thematically interesting to me.

The first attainment is literally only good for Forces and Matter veiling effects (prior to the optional). That's why I explicitly called out that it doesn't reveal fraud aka lies. All it does is show you things that are there but you can't see (With death, mind, and spirit taking care of twilight.)

[Taldorblackfire]

Hm, I suppose I don't really understand what you mean by "reflections". Hard for me to conceptualize what you are doing when I don't have a root understanding exactly of what a "reflection" is in your case. Sounds like you are creating an element that is not explained or discussed in the book, so I mean sure House Rule it and using a Legacy to utilize it is one way of going about it without adding a new purview to an existing arcana. However, I really wonder exactly why "reflections" is not covered in Prime, again this is where I am not 100% sure what your "reflections" happens to be.

[inversemot]

Hm, I suppose I don't really understand what you mean by "reflections". Hard for me to conceptualize what you are doing when I don't have a root understanding exactly of what a "reflection" is in your case. Sounds like you are creating an element that is not explained or discussed in the book, so I mean sure House Rule it and using a Legacy to utilize it is one way of going about it without adding a new purview to an existing arcana. However, I really wonder exactly why "reflections" is not covered in Prime, again this is where I am not 100% sure what your "reflections" happens to be.

So tvtropes warning, but to give you a quick guide to my thoughts

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...GlamourFailure

See the sections on Casts no Shadow and Missing Reflection. They both involve things that are dead (ghosts are in both sections.) Basically, there's a bunch of creepy effects that exist in horror that aren't accounted for. So yes I'm house ruling and I'm using a Legacy as the vehicle.

Edit: to be more specific shadows and reflections are associated with souls aka Death not Prime.

[Mrmdubois]

Oh, no I understood that you were “expanding” the purview of Death completely. I was disagreeing with you grabbing Prime stuff and slapping it in there because “reflections.”

[Taldorblackfire]

So tvtropes warning, but to give you a quick guide to my thoughts

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...GlamourFailure

See the sections on Casts no Shadow and Missing Reflection. They both involve things that are dead (ghosts are in both sections.) Basically, there's a bunch of creepy effects that exist in horror that aren't accounted for. So yes I'm house ruling and I'm using a Legacy as the vehicle.

Edit: to be more specific shadows and reflections are associated with souls aka Death not Prime.

Based on what I read, it seems Prime would work, however, sounds like you have made it so "reflections" are essentially an extension of the soul of a creature or lack of in the event of vampire. Sounds like you are literally changing how souls work in the game. A lot of modifying and it makes me wonder how you handle soul swapping, maybe it works differently in your world? Anyway, sounds like you really don't need to post here if you have already House Ruled this is the way something works. I mean, I can't really critique something you have decided is how it fits your vision. *shrugs* Have fun!

[inversemot]

I'm not saying Prime wouldn't also work. The first attainment does, perhaps erroneously, refer to a Prime spell. What I'm saying is I'm drawing more on the real life lore of what mirrors and reflections mean, in lieu of an actual category in the book. And while you can interpret the basic effect as Prime, seeing the true form, it's the latter effects that push is solidly out of Prime. It's the drawing things into an otherworld, interpreted as Twilight, it's the parallels with shadow sculpting/crafting, and the parallels with summoning ghosts/goetia/spirits. Honestly, this probably isn't included in Mage because those categories are split in a way that real life lore doesn't. However, the creepy mirror based effects have more in common with Death spells than any other Arcana (the shadow spells, Ghost Gate, Ghost summons, compared to just the summons from Mind/Spirit or just PD from Prime.)