Trinity Continuum x MtAw: Talent Hack

[Critian Caceorte]

Someone in the forums before suggested the idea of Tier 3 Talents being like Acanthus (Fate/Time) Mages in Mage the Awakening. This suggestion provided me with a bit of Inspiration, and so I created this. It's somewhat barebones, especially as anyone wishing to use it will have to do some conversion work for individual spells, but I think it suffices.

Trinity Continuum Tier 3 Talent Idea
Rules: In order to become a Tier 3 Talent, the following requirements must be met:

• You must have 5 points in a single Facet.
• You must have an Inspiration rating of 7 or more.
• Based on your chosen Facet, you must have at least 1 Attribute, Luck or Skill Gift, corresponding to the Destructive, Intuitive or Reflective Facets. You must also have 1 more Attribute Gift whose Attribute corresponds to the Facet in question (Power -> Destructive, Finesse -> Intuitive, Resistance -> Reflective).

Once that is achieved, you can buy points in Aspects. Aspects are a “second layer” of Facets, the culmination of one’s Facets where you stop channeling the Facet and instead begin to embody it. These Aspects grant the use of special powers, which are the conscious control of unconscious Facets. Aspects correlate as follows:

• At Destructive 5, you can purchase a point of Prime. Prime represents the “truth” of any situation, enlightening those it’s used on as well as providing more side benefits for the other two Aspects.
• At Intuitive 5, you can purchase a point of Fate. Fate transforms the Talent’s subconscious manipulation of luck into a conscious control of destiny, bringing the right people and the right objects to the right place at the right time.
• At Reflective 5, you can purchase a point of Time. Time allows for the gross manipulation of the time stream, culminating in being able to travel to different points in time.

Having points in Aspects grant a number of benefits:

• Buying at least 1 point of Aspect automatically makes the Talent a Tier 3 character, known as an Awakened Talent, allowing for the Talent to buy 6 dots in an Attribute (or 7 with Superior Trait) and lowers their target number from 8 to 7.
• Points in Aspects provide special powers which require the expenditure of Inspiration. While more versatile than Gifts, they are not necessarily more powerful except at the higher levels, and the cost in Inspiration does limit their use.
• At Aspect 1, whenever you pay a point of Inspiration to add Enhancement equal to the associated Facet to an action, the action also gains +1 Scale. This increases to +2 Scale at Aspect 3 and +3 Scale at Aspect 5.

Aspect powers are drawn from the 2^nd Edition of Mage: the Awakening. Having levels in an Aspect grants all of the powers/spells of that level or lower for free. In order to use a power, an Awakened Talent must pay 1 point of Inspiration every time. They roll for the power by using (Highest Associated Attribute) + (Aspect), for example Cunning + Fate for a man with great senses that nonetheless fumbles their words and throws. An Awakened Talent can only have (Highest Aspect) powers active at once. Higher levels improve lower-level powers, subtract a power’s level from the utilized Aspect, then add 1. The result becomes a number of “improvements” that can be used to increase different portions of the power by one step each. The table for improvements is shown below:

Number of Improvements Invested	Power Scale	Speed Scale	Range	Radius	Duration
4	4	5	Long	Medium	Persistent (Requires investing 1 point of Inspiration)
3	3	4	Medium	Short	(Aspect) Days
2	2	3	Short	Close	(Aspect) Hours
1 (Tool of the Trade)	2	2	Touch	Single-Target	(Aspect) Minutes
0 (Base)	1	1	Self-Only	Single-Target	(Aspect) Rounds

Specific powers can become Tools of the Trade, a term used for those powers which are used so often that they become more powerful permanently, regardless of improvements invested. A Tool of the Trade starts off with all categories one step higher than the base level, and this can be increased with improvements as usual. In order to purchase a power as a Tool of the Trade, the Talent must have used that power at least 5 times before. After all, one cannot improve upon what they know without practice.

Finally, some powers are esoteric and cannot be properly defended against except through sheer force of will. When this occurs, the Talent and their target engage in a Clash of Wills: they roll against each other, with whoever gets more successes winning the power conflict. Examples include resisting alterations to one's timeline or destiny, the flow of time, etc. Talents use their highest Facet or their highest Resistance Attribute, whichever is higher; Awakened Talents use their (Highest Aspect + Highest Associated Attribute) or Highest Facet, whichever is higher. Psions and Psiads use Psi Rating + (Highest Mode or Resistance Attribute), Novas use Quantum Rating + Highest Dot Rating among their Mega-Attributes or Mega-Edges. Finally, Superiors and Baselines use their Highest Resistance Attribute by default. Anyone involved in the Clash of Wills gains their Tier as equivalent Scale for the conflict. Thus, a Quantum 6+ Nova will be more difficult to affect with Awakened powers compared to a Psi 2 Psion.

Awakened Powers with a longer duration tend to fare better in a Clash of Wills. When rolling, the Awakened Talent gains +1 Enhancement if the power has a duration of (Aspect) Days, and +2 Enhancement if the power has a Persistent duration.

Object	Change	Cost
Aspect	Add 1 point in an Aspect	10 Experience
Tool of the Trade	Purchase a power as a Tool of the Trade	5 Experience

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Q: Why these Arcana in specific? What made you decide to go for Prime?
A: Fate and Time were always going to be part of this hack, the only question was what was the third Arcana going to be, and in what order. Fate and Luck were quite literally made for each other, so Fate was always going to be associated with the Intuitive Facet. Time of course needed to be included, but I was having trouble deciding which Facet suits it more. I initially had Time/Fate/Mind for my arrangement, since Skill would more naturally align with Mind, but I realized that would be intruding a lot on what Psiads/Psions are supposed to do. So I ditched that and chose Prime since the "Truth" Arcana to me would be great for Intention, even if it's not a Vulgar Arcana like Time. I didn't want to put Forces there because I think that Noetic and Quantum users fill that niche quite well already, same with Space. That left only one space for Time to go, hence why the triad is Prime/Fate/Time.

Q: Why not convert the spells to TC format yourself?
A: I'm a busy man and just don't have the time. If you want a general guide, assume that eliminating or inflicting penalties instead provides an equivalent Complication, same with bonus dice and Enhancement.

Q: Why does the Range start out at only Self?
A: Because many of the powers available for Prime, Fate and Time don't require targeting another person. A lot of them are sensory powers, in which case the Awakened Talent only needs to target themselves with it. And if they do need to target an individual at Aspect 1, then they still have 1 Improvement they can use to boost the range to Touch. Also, I don't want Awakened Talents to bombard people from Extreme range with curses and debuffs, that's what Psiads/Psions do. Instead they should be at least somewhat close to their target(s) in order to affect them. Finally, it also allows for Gifts to still have some use at the lower levels. I didn't want to waste a player's experience for making "bad decisions."

[Mateus Luz]

Nice idea and the results seams interesting and functional. I will try to play with it and maybe bring some spells up... when I have time. Maybe instead of spells I may try to adapt the options to TC format (for example, how damage and healing may work, or increasing difficulties and complications).

I would say it’s a bit more than just manipulating Prime, Fate and Time, it’s possible to expand to the entire set of Spheres.

If you put the Mist (the space between realities) as the source of Flux (the source of the Talents powers), you create a correlation between the Supernal realms as the source of magic, but on a multiverse level.

In this case, the manipulation of Fate is the most basic power, as its is the most subtle, but slowly it would grow to affect all aspects of reality. Dramatic edition for example allows the talent to “summon” things they need at times of stress, but as if it was ever there, like a door in the other end of the room when a scape a needed, or a gun taped under the table in a restaurant when needed.

[Critian Caceorte]

Nice idea and the results seams interesting and functional. I will try to play with it and maybe bring some spells up... when I have time. Maybe instead of spells I may try to adapt the options to TC format (for example, how damage and healing may work, or increasing difficulties and complications).

I would say it’s a bit more than just manipulating Prime, Fate and Time, it’s possible to expand to the entire set of Spheres.

If you put the Mist (the space between realities) as the source of Flux (the source of the Talents powers), you create a correlation between the Supernal realms as the source of magic, but on a multiverse level.

In this case, the manipulation of Fate is the most basic power, as its is the most subtle, but slowly it would grow to affect all aspects of reality. Dramatic edition for example allows the talent to “summon” things they need at times of stress, but as if it was ever there, like a door in the other end of the room when a scape a needed, or a gun taped under the table in a restaurant when needed.

Thanks for the comment! I really enjoyed your own work on Fists of Flux, which partly inspired me to create this, but I wanted to take it in another direction. Wizards, instead of Monks, if that makes any sense.

For the inclusion of the other Arcana, I would say "Technically, yes." You could indeed utilize these rules for more than just Prime/Fate/Time. I briefly toyed with the idea of choosing between a "growing" and "decaying" Aspect for a particular Facet: Prime (Growing and sustaining Truth and intention) and Mind (Decaying truth and purpose behind lies and feelings) for Destructive, Space (Growing gulf between people) and Fate (Decaying space between them) for Intuitive, Time (Growing age) and Death (Decaying Life) for Reflective. You could mod in practically any of them, I just had my reasons for not doing so. Death you could substitute anywhere, especially Destructive, and I wouldn't really object to it. If you focus Spirit as a "parallel worlds" thing a la Dimensional Science that could potentially work as well. Mind I feel treads too much upon the Noetic Domain unless you only allowed for spells which personally affected you, which kind of ruins the theme of Mind, same for Matter for the Quantum Realm. Forces, Life and Space are both utilized quite a lot by both of those two sources, so I felt like including them would feel like I'd be stepping on too many toes. Still, if you want to, go for it! For a more Mage the Ascension thing, you could assign the Dynamic Spheres to Intuitive, Static to Reflective and Primordial to Destructive.

And yeah, still trying to figure out how the Mist and Flux would interact with Prime Arcana. Definitely would be at minimum some mixing, but stuff like Geomancy (Prime 3) would be a bit odd to work with.

[Mateus Luz]

Don’t get me wrong. The idea of each splat having their own powers is great, probably better than a lot of powers that everyone can do. Make each splat unique in many ways.

As a fan of MtAs, I personally would change Prime for the Dimensional Science of the Void Engineers, but I think this is not an option in Awaken (I honestly have little contact to it to have a complete understand of how multiverses work there).

Using Ascension spheres I would go for:
Destructive -> DimSci (Spirit)
Intuitive -> Entropy
Reflective -> Time

Destructive/Intention have a weird connection to DimSci but it’s because the other 2 are more related, Intuitive/Luck to Entropy and Reflective/Skill to Time (time to train and learn and to resist and endure).

It would have a lot of things not fitting properly in the Awaken Talent Paradigm, but at same time, even among mages there are things that don’t work properly, so... whatever.

And using the same idea and extending it to the other Splats:

Psiads/Psions : Mind (obvious), Correspondence and Life.
They are better in exploring space, remote detection and similars, also they are the ones capable of real healing (Novas can’t heal without risking corrupting the target).

Novas : Forces (obvious), Matter (not so obvious, but still) and Prime (the power of creation!).
The first 2 are basically the 2 “legacy” aspects of QK (Energetics and Transmutation), so basically what they would gain for sure, and Prime would be the power over creation and over other powers (that QK call Fundamentals), what make sense as a Quantakinetic would simulate quantum powers.

[Critian Caceorte]

As a fan of MtAs, I personally would change Prime for the Dimensional Science of the Void Engineers, but I think this is not an option in Awaken (I honestly have little contact to it to have a complete understand of how multiverses work there).

Using Ascension spheres I would go for:
Destructive -> DimSci (Spirit)
Intuitive -> Entropy
Reflective -> Time

Destructive/Intention have a weird connection to DimSci but it’s because the other 2 are more related, Intuitive/Luck to Entropy and Reflective/Skill to Time (time to train and learn and to resist and endure).

It would have a lot of things not fitting properly in the Awaken Talent Paradigm, but at same time, even among mages there are things that don’t work properly, so... whatever.

Thanks for the suggestion. Honestly, now that I think about it, you could maybe have Spirit be the main Destructive Aspect, while Dimensional Science is the Super-Science application of it, though I'm still iffy on that. To my knowledge, Dimensional Science works more on entering and creating dimensions, while Spirit focuses more on extradimensional entities, right? Something I'll have to think about later.

I do agree with your analysis of the three splats as pertaining to Mage the Ascension. With Awakening, I think you could maybe give Novas Death as well, or in place of Prime, since Quantum Flux destabilizes entities and regions which prevents them from growing/healing/reproducing. Overall it checks out with my own thoughts.

Also, just to give an example of a converted spell, I decided to tackle one of Max Mercer's stated abilities in Adventure (besides time travel): Accelerating his own flow of time. Acceleration is a Time 3 spell/power which in MtAw multiplies the user's speed, allows them to defend against firearms and take the first turn in combat if they so choose. I think a lot of this can be simplified as "Increase the target's Speed Scale." So, here is an example of how a conversion could look:

Acceleration (Time ***)
Effect: Increase Target's Speed Scale to (Power Scale + 1). Speed Scale can also be applied when rolling Defense.

Just as a reminder, in MtAw Potency does not equal the successes you've rolled, it's a predetermined modifier on your dice pool. I've simulated that here with Power Scale. Speed Scale in this case refers to how quickly a spell/power can be cast, though I may have to adjust that lower (say, Scale 0 to Scale 4?) in-line with Awakening. Anyway, for this example let's say that Mercer is in his earlier years, and he only has Time 3 (unlikely considering the time travel, but whatever.) If he were to cast Acceleration, he would have to spend 1 Inspiration, and the spell would by default boost him to Speed Scale 2, take Speed Scale 1 to cast, only target himself and last for 3 rounds. He gets 1 Improvement to place in any of these categories, such as instead boosting himself to Speed Scale 3, taking Speed Scale 2 to cast, targeting someone else for the effect by touch, or having the effect last 3 minutes. If we were to presume that this was one of his Tools of the Trade, then he would instead have all of these benefits and can place that Improvement elsewhere. At Time 5 (where he more than likely is), he would instead have 3 Improvements, and so he could boost himself to Speed Scale 5 (which is VERY impressive), cast the spell at Speed Scale 5, target someone else far away, target a large group of people around him or make the effect last theoretically forever by investing an additional point of Inspiration. All in all, quite a powerful effect and deserving of a Tier 3 character.

EDIT: Realized I forgot to add the limit of how many spells can be active at once. It's your highest rated Aspect by default.

[Mateus Luz]

DimSci works exactly as spirit, they are actually the same sphere, like Data and Correspondence, the changes in the paradigm only changes the way they deal with it, not the utility. In other words, you could summon an extra dimensional creature with DimSci and travel to other dimensions, while spirit you summon spirits and travel to the deep umbra, and they are requisites when dealing with anything from another dimension as a target.

Anyway, I like the way you dealt with it and the resulting spell. It turns the system a bit complex (works for mages, not much for TC, as I see), but works, and once the spells are defined, using it in game becomes easier. That was one of the things I went with Fists of Flux, the idea that you can make any power, but the result be simple once done, like Aberrant or Mutants and Mastermind, you have some work to define how it works before the game start, so during the game you just go and use it.

I had my Mage games, and more than once we spent literally hours discussing metaphysics’s of magic or what would be coincidental or not from the view of a mortal. It was fun as hell, but definitely not the kind of session I would like in my TC table.

[Critian Caceorte]

Welp, I promised that I wouldn't be converting the spells because of how much of my time it would take. ...It appears that I will be reneging on that promise.

Time Conversion

Let me know what you think. I converted all of the spells listed from 2E MtAw, and created an original spell for the "Mercer Effect," Temporal Train Station (Time ****).

[Mateus Luz]

I like the ideas. They seam to work fine, very Mage, but fine.

I think you may need to describe how the character learn/invent/interact with magic, because it’s not clear to me if you want something like Spontaneous magic or formulaic.

Also improvements, is that the additional dice rule or does it have another meaning? (You may have explained it in the post and I didn’t reread)

[Critian Caceorte]

I like the ideas. They seam to work fine, very Mage, but fine.

I think you may need to describe how the character learn/invent/interact with magic, because it’s not clear to me if you want something like Spontaneous magic or formulaic.

Also improvements, is that the additional dice rule or does it have another meaning? (You may have explained it in the post and I didn’t reread)

For the spontaneous versus formulaic, that's something I've been debating. I leaned more towards spontaneity with the Speed Scale, but now I'm kind of debating maybe reducing that down. Still not sure at this point. But yes, some elaboration on how Awakened Talents do this sort of thing would be good.

As for Improvements, that's my copyright-free version of Reach, which you can read about in my first post.

[Dataweaver]

You might consider death as the third arcanum for talents, perhaps with a bit of a tweak for a more science oriented flavor.

What I'm thinking of is focusing on the aspect of death that deals with things breaking down and decaying, and reinterpreting the stuff having to do with access to the underworld in a manner similar to how ascensions dimensional science reinterprets Spirit as merely otherworldly access. So the underworld stuff gets reinterpreted in light of The mists, with ghosts being replaced by whatever the denizens of The mists are. The only oddity left is deaths inclusion of darkness and shadows.

and I'll have to double check later, because I'm not in a position to check right now: did you translate over awakenings notion of Attainments?

(Please forgive the messed up capitalization. I'm dictating this on my cell phone as I drive, so I don't have the option to clean it up right now.)

[Critian Caceorte]

You might consider death as the third arcanum for talents, perhaps with a bit of a tweak for a more science oriented flavor.

What I'm thinking of is focusing on the aspect of death that deals with things breaking down and decaying, and reinterpreting the stuff having to do with access to the underworld in a manner similar to how ascensions dimensional science reinterprets Spirit as merely otherworldly access. So the underworld stuff gets reinterpreted in light of The mists, with ghosts being replaced by whatever the denizens of The mists are. The only oddity left is deaths inclusion of darkness and shadows.

and I'll have to double check later, because I'm not in a position to check right now: did you translate over awakenings notion of Attainments?

(Please forgive the messed up capitalization. I'm dictating this on my cell phone as I drive, so I don't have the option to clean it up right now.)

Yeah, Death is also a possibility. I think that instead of "ghosts," the Death Aspect could instead call upon "Shadows of Time", cast-off versions of individuals from timelines that no longer exist a la F/GO, or the native inhabitants of the Mists a la the Cthonians from Geist. That would help it maintain the science-y flavor of it all while still allowing for creature summoning (which I'm currently working on). The darkness and shadows aspect I'm sure I can conjure something up with, maybe drawing on the void of space to deepen darkness, or dark matter? Not sure.

I've folded over the Temporal Sympathy Attainment into the base mechanics for Time, and will likely do the same for Fate's conditional durations, but besides that I'm not including Attainments. I'm already allowing for the boost in Scale at certain Aspect levels, and I don't want Awakened Talents to overflow with goodies.

[Dataweaver]

Maybe call them cross-time shadows, and have them represent pulling in echoes of things that might have been from alternate timelines.

[Critian Caceorte]

Here's the first draft for the Extradimensional Entity (EDE) rules. There's still stuff I need to add before I do more Arcana conversions, but this at least covers most of everything.

EDE Rules

[Mateus Luz]

It’s sad you can’t make a book about it and sell under any of the CCs. This thing has a lot of potential!

[Dataweaver]

I'll check out those rules in a moment. In the meantime I wouldn't really worry too much about anything beyond the three arcana that you associate with the inspiration facets.

That said: I may revise my opinion on that subject depending on how Adventure works out. I wouldn't attach arcana to Novas, Aberrants, psions, or psiads; but if TC:A! treats Stalwarts and Mesmerist as pseudo-Talents, then I could see letting them augment into Awakening territory, with the Mesmerist going Mastigos+Life and the Stalwart going Obrimos+Matter. Only Spirit gets left out; and with Death being recast as cross-time, there's precious little for Spirit to do anyway.

In that regard, you may want to look at my TC: Adventure! prototype edition hack.