Ask a simple question, Awakened edition

[orathaic]

Like, if you've been married to a person for twenty years, your feelings about that person are not going to be defined solely by a few days in which the attitude becomes cooled and distant as a consequence of weakened sympathetic link. The other person being there for you when your parents died in that tragic blimp accident is going to count for something.

Ah, i see what you read, but it was not what i meant to say. If you have a connected sympathic link to your familiar, or a strong physical connection to your child (regardless of your emotional connection to them - they were made from you) then using magic to change that link would not change how you felt...

That is a non-emotional sympathic connections - when altered by space magic - would not have an emotional effect. Is what i would have assumed.

Unmake the connected link between a mage and her soulstone? Or weaken the link between a mage and her spell/subject of her spell?

[Cauthon]

Ah, i see what you read, but it was not what i meant to say. If you have a connected sympathic link to your familiar, or a strong physical connection to your child (regardless of your emotional connection to them - they we're made from you) then using magic to change that link would not change how you felt...

That is a non-emotional sympathic connections - when altered by space magic - would not have an emotional effect. Is what i would have assumed.

Unmake the connected link between a mage and her soulstone? Or weaken the link between a mage and her spell/subject of her spell?

I don't think you can weaken the link to your soulstone - it's too closely tied to the entirety of "you" as an ephemeral, thaumaturgical, and symbolic entity.

Likewise, a spell you haven't Relinquished relies on you as a stable conduit to the Supernal. A Relinquishment automates that maintenance by disengaging the symbolic existence of the spell from your own. It goes from being "Cauthon's Spell of Climate Control" to "Independent Spell of the Perfectly-Temprate Livingroom". The resonance of the Mage's Nimbus will slowly fade, as will the significance of who created the spell (and thus the Sympathetic tie) unless the spell is significant enough to go on being actively considered the Mage's spell.

[orathaic]

I don't think you can weaken the link to your soulstone - it's too closely tied to the entirety of "you" as an ephemeral, thaumaturgical, and symbolic entity.

I mean, it explicitly calls out requiring Unmaking to destroy a Connected sympathy. My asusmption would be that without the connection it would act like the soulstone of a dead mage, though the alternative is that it could actually break the soulstone's connection to your path... But given how we know soulstones continue to work after the death of their creator, i think the latter is unlikely.

Similarly, if your control over a spell depends on the sympathic link, then destroying or stealing that link could allow you to force them to (unsafely) relinquish the spell (probably requiring you to spend the willpower cost), or steal spell control... Though transfering spell control usually requires Prime, and the caster to be doing it.

The point remains, i don't think these kind of sympathic changes should have any emotional effects.

It is unclear, would changing the strong sympathic connection between parents and child lead to unnoticable genetic changes which makes it look like they are not directly related? For emotional links they naturally vary over time and can organically re-grow, but re-reading the rules it is very explicit that modifying these links should have effects which echo into the Fallen.

I like the idea of taking an item you have used as a yantra (weak sympathic link) and using space to strengthen the link to the point where is becomes easy to turn into a dedicated magical tool.

[Satchel]

Ah, i see what you read, but it was not what i meant to say. If you have a connected sympathic link to your familiar, or a strong physical connection to your child (regardless of your emotional connection to them - they were made from you) then using magic to change that link would not change how you felt...

It doesn't change the specific emotional context of your relationship to them, but a sympathetic connection possessed by a feeling being manifests in its emotional relation to the subject of that connection.

One of the examples of how altering sympathy works literally involves someone being given a bond to a nonliving object, 1e didn't have a description of the emotional effects of sympathetic links and specified that a mage and their familiar could feel each other's emotions, and the Contagion Chronicle's crossover mechanics specifically include "the sympathetic connections a Deviant has for their Touchstones — the things that ground the Stability of their existence through their obsessive love or hate for them — are one step stronger than they would normally be."

Messing with someone's parental sympathies isn't, by default, going to do anything to their biology — you're messing with physical/emotional/magical distance, not fidelity. The physical consequences are generally that it's easier or harder to bring the two together.

[orathaic]

It doesn't change the specific emotional context of your relationship to them, but a sympathetic connection possessed by a feeling being manifests in its emotional relation to the subject of that connection.

I'm not sure i understand what you are getting at.

Messing with someone's parental sympathies isn't, by default, going to do anything to their biology — you're messing with physical/emotional/magical distance, not fidelity. The physical consequences are generally that it's easier or harder to bring the two together.

I see, i like that... Distance between a parent and their child would be a big deal.

Applying that same understanding, how does distance added to the metaphysical connection between a mage and their soulstone work? I know this would be Unmaking, so you explicitly make it so the mage and their soulstone are no longer one and the same.

Probably handy if you have stolen someone's soulstone and don't want them tracking you down...

And weakening a connection to their spell?

It feels like strengthening a connection to an item you used as a yantra would make it easier to then dedicate (ie take less time) as you are already closer to that item.

[Tessie]

Fuck. I wrote a long post that got ate when I accidentally pressed ctrl+r instead of ctrl+t.
Anyway, my point was that sympathy (regardless of the nature of the bond) is almost exclusively described in emotional terms, and that the Create Sympathy spell explicitly states that creating a sympathetic bond will always affect the subject emotionally.

So yeah, severing the bond between parent and child will likely make the parent more neglectful and dismissive, and make the child prefer to confide in any other parental figure in their life. It would not change their biology or physical appearance.
A continuous blocking of the connection would make them look less alike, but only because mannerisms wouldn't transfer between them nearly as easily (both because they'd interact less, and because they'd be less receptive during interactions). Mannerisms do incredible things to how people are perceived. Many teens and young adults are said to be similar to a parent by people who don't know it's a step parent or adopted parent.

Altering mystical sympathetic connections would not change how the magic works unless that magic is specifically and explicitly based on the connection itself.
A soul stone is still made of the same stuff as the mage's soul/gnosis, and would still resonate with them in the way that makes the mage able to use the soul stone as a dedicated tool.
Strengthening the connection to a yantra doesn't change the fact that dedicating a tool is a specific process requiring conscious effort by the mage. Being sympathetically or emotionally closer doesn't mean it resonates with your magical identity any more than usual.

[orathaic]

Seperate but related question. Changes you make to the strength of a sympathic connection are lasting by default, right?

I mean for emotional distance, that can change, the examples of a couple going to counselling.

But for something Mystical or Physical, that distance may be harder to repair?

[Tessie]

Seperate but related question. Changes you make to the strength of a sympathic connection are lasting by default, right?

Varies by spell. Web-Weaver isn't lasting. Cut Threads is. Create Sympathy has a Reach option for being lasting.

[Satchel]

I'm not sure i understand what you are getting at.

Changing your sympathetic connection to someone won't make you love them or hate them or feel sad about them, but it will affect the degree of emotional investment you're likely to put in the relationship them one way or the other — drawing once again on the Contagion Chronicle guidelines, having Family Ties to a Beast gives you a Strong sympathetic connection to them and requires that the pair of you become close through significant shared association, the three stages of a vampiric blood bond directly increase the thrall's sympathy to the vampire in question and come with attendant levels of infatuation with them, and Sin-Eaters can indirectly have their Synergy messed with by altering their sympathetic connection to their geist to steer the trends of their behavior (and the only level of Synergy at which the two aren't Connected is the one at which the Sin-Eater has no especial insight into their geist's goals and emotions and vice versa and instead negotiate with each other through favors, threats, and bribes).

Applying that same understanding, how does distance added to the metaphysical connection between a mage and their soulstone work? I know this would be Unmaking, so you explicitly make it so the mage and their soulstone are no longer one and the same.

Left to their own devices, the mage and their soul stone would be more or less likely to be brought into contact with each other.

It feels like strengthening a connection to an item you used as a yantra would make it easier to then dedicate (ie take less time) as you are already closer to that item.

Nope. In Doylist terms this is a justification for the table to have items recur in the narrative, not a means of accelerating the process of aligning an item with your Nimbus.

[lbeaumanior]

The Wyrdbound Oaths spell allows mages to be part of Wyrd-backed oaths.


Oaths allow a free Mantle dot:

Societal oaths include oaths sworn when a change-
ling joins a motley, court, or freehold. The changeling
gains the benefits of being part of that group. For a
court, this means the character gains the first dot of the
Mantle Merit (p. 117) without spending Experiences,
and is bound by whatever restrictions that court usually
levies. For a freehold, the changeling becomes a recog-
nized part of the local supernatural landscape; the player
receives a +1 to all rolls to navigate the Hedge wherever
the freehold controls it. For a motley, the changeling en-
ters a pact with his fellows.

The following questions arise:

1. Assuming that a Court accepts the mage. Does this mean that a mage gains a Mantle rating if allowed? Or does it gain the Allies (Court) / Court Goodwill (Court) instead?
2. Assuming that a Motley accepts the mage. Can they buy Motley merits like Hollow?

[ArcaneArts]

The Wyrdbound Oaths spell allows mages to be part of Wyrd-backed oaths.


Oaths allow a free Mantle dot:



The following questions arise:

1. Assuming that a Court accepts the mage. Does this mean that a mage gains a Mantle rating if allowed? Or does it gain the Allies (Court) / Court Goodwill (Court) instead?
2. Assuming that a Motley accepts the mage. Can they buy Motley merits like Hollow?

1) Allies and Court Goodwill, and possibly an adjacent Mystery Cult Initiation, taking cues from the Court of the Leafless Tree and Contagion Player's Guide on the subject. The Supernal can speak words that affect the Mysteries a mage relates to, but in the same way a Mage can't take on Forsaken Gifts or Renown specifically even with an established Spirit-forged link, Mantle requires more of a fairy metaphysical infrastructure than the spell can provide*.
2) Strictly speaking, the expenditure of EXP for Hollow represents the work put into clearing (or cultivating) and stabilizing a space in the Hedge into a Hollow, and then putting in the work to build a place and stock it up within it. The spell that lets the Mage do their version of Hedgeshaping is the more direct cause of this than strictly Wyrdbound Oaths.

....of course, since this is largely a background developed affair, that's all semantics. I suppose the better way to put it is a) Yeah, they can, but also b) They don't strictly need to be in a motley-or-greater fairy organization to get a Hollow.

*Of course, being the gonzo who still wants to do the Forest of Teeth where in Mantle and Renown are tightly wrapped up in each other, I'm not going to be the one to say that if you wanna interpret it the other way, I'm not going to particularly stop you-just that there's actual precedent and logic in the way I described it.

[Cauthon]

The Wyrdbound Oaths spell allows mages to be part of Wyrd-backed oaths.


Oaths allow a free Mantle dot:



The following questions arise:

1. Assuming that a Court accepts the mage. Does this mean that a mage gains a Mantle rating if allowed? Or does it gain the Allies (Court) / Court Goodwill (Court) instead?
2. Assuming that a Motley accepts the mage. Can they buy Motley merits like Hollow?

1. It's Allies, if I remember right. Mantle is largely irrelevant to a Mage.

2. No reason you can't. Unlike, say, Hallow or Mantle, a Hollow has no splat-exclusive primary mechanics.

[Cauthon]

Create Avernian Gate is a Making spell, since it creates a new Gate wholesale. Would a spell that temporarily turns a Ghost into an Avernian Gate be a reasonable Adept spell?

[Satchel]

Create Avernian Gate is a Making spell, since it creates a new Gate wholesale. Would a spell that temporarily turns a Ghost into an Avernian Gate be a reasonable Adept spell?

I would say no, for much the same reason that a spell that temporarily turns a Grimoire into a Hallow would not be reasonable.

[orathaic]

I would say no, for much the same reason that a spell that temporarily turns a Grimoire into a Hallow would not be reasonable.

I would tend to agree. But that said, most making spells (saying Create Life) can be achieved with Patterning if you start out with something to alter.

So if you want to make a Dragon from scratch it is Making, but if you want to turn a dragon fly into a Dragon, is it Patterning.

If you want a connection to the Underworld, you will need to pattern something which is already connected. I think, anything which has drunk from one of the rivers of the Underworld would do... With enough legwork you can create an Avernian gate without magic (if you are willing to kill someone and ritually bury them in a new graveyard - thus mundanely creating a graveyard). Perhaps a blood sacrifice would do it, creating the essence of death by actually killing a living thing as part of your spell.

It think ST fiat, but normally it is easier to find an existing Avernian gate (at least in the material world). To quote Geist

Morgues. Graveyards. Crossroads. Battlefields. Once you can see them, Avernian Gates are almost impossible to avoid.