ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

Frostegalder (Life 1)

Asatru rote. By singing this song, the mage is protected from cold and freezing. The mage sings the galder to his flesh and limbs, making them liven up and get warm again.

Follow Blood (Life 1, Time 2)

Order of the Eternal Dawn rote. The mage touches someone's blood. The result is the mage gains physiological knowledge about the owner, his age, condition, appearance, sicknesses, markings and so on. By tracing the blood backwards, the mage can learn how the owner was when he was younger. The mage may also continue tracing back to the owner's parents, and their parents and so on. A single trait may be followed back to its source.

Heritage of the Blood (Life 1, Time 2)

Asatru rote. In ancient times, the god Heimdallr traveled the land and sired the thralls, the bards, the farmers and the jarls (the leaders). The trace of the god is still upon the people, and a priest knowledgeable in the ways of the blood can still see it. By feeling the force in the blood, the mage can follow the lineage back through time to its source and see which group someone really belongs to. This is also used to trace the lineages, and find those special bloodlines which contain the life of the people.

Song of Life (Life 1, Spirit 2)

Dreamspeakers often contact the spirits of nature. They seek to awaken the spirits around themselves by dancing, drumming and singing ancient songs. If they are lucky they might contact the spirits around them. Most nature spirits are weak beings, but sometimes they meld together into one powerful spiritus loci, which can have great power. However, most spirits are just conscious of what happens in their own world and are very bad at recognizing other activities. On the other hand, nature spirits are very good at revealing where different plants grow, if someone has passed or forecasting the weather.

Blessing of Baphomet (Life 2)

All kinds of life in the vicinity of the mage start to grow and multiply faster. Flowers bloom, crops become bountiful, all female beings become fertile. A place where this rote has been used often sometimes looks like a jungle, filled with vines and insects.

Ignore Pain (Life 2, Mind 1)

Verbena sometimes turn off their own pain. Using this rote the mage feels no pain, regardless of how wounded she is. This is both good and bad, especially since the mage cannot easily tell how hurt she is, which can be rather dangerous. Verbena used to perform this rote by ritually cutting themselves in a spiral pattern. At the start of the cut it hurts, but then it feels less and less and in the end nothing at all.

The mage will not get any penalties for wounds down to his stamina number of wound boxes. After that the damage is so severe it causes practical hindrances for the mage despite the absence of pain. To find out how hurt the mage is if the situation isn't obvious (like with an arrow in the back), use Perception + Alertness with a difficulty of 6.

Lust (Life 2, Mind 2)

This rote is used by the Verbena to fill their victims with unquenchable sexual desires, either directed at the mage or someone else.

Mark the Blood (Life 2 Prime 2)

Order of the Eternal Dawn rote. The mage "marks" the blood of a person. This marking will be passed on to the children, and so on. Sometimes this marking is bound to a special trait. The mark can be read by Life 1. Different markings have different meanings, and are used to keep track of certain traits. Mages have also found that there exist other markings in several bloodlines, which they have not put there. Some believe that there must have been other mages doing the same thing as they in the past. Other explain it away as a "lusus naturae", a strange but useless natural phenomenon.

Brew Venom (Life 2, Entropy 1, Prime 2)

Asatru rote. While the Vikings regarded poison as foul, some of the modern asa-mages use it in the defence of their homes and traditions. By boiling together a foul mixture of blood, salt, yeast, earth, iron, ice and some drops of snake venom under invocations of the powers of death, they create a potent and untraceable poison. The poison can be applied in food or drink, placed on weapons or even on surfaces. The poison will seek out the weakest point of the victim and make him very sick or kill him.

The poison works as an infection or other disease, completely coincidental. Typical effects can be heart attacks, allergic reactions or food poisoning. It will find the weakest point in the body of the victim using an effect like Dim Mak and then strike. It does three times the number of successes damage levels.

Magic Mead (Matter 2, Mind 2, Prime 2)

Asatru rote. By adding special herbs and some blood to mead and then brewing it together, the priestess can create a mead which will infuse the drinker with the emotions of her choice. This is used to create the mead drunk during the blot, or a subtle way of influencing people.

See through Other Eyes (Life 2/3, Mind 3)

The mage touches an animal (or plant), draws a circle on its brow or similar area and contacts its consciousness. Now the mage can experience what the animal feels and sees. He has no direct control over it, other than emotional impulses and telepathy. The range can be extended by the use of Correspondence.

Commune with Nature (Corr. 2, Life 2/3, Mind 2)

The mage goes into a state of trance and contact the consciousness of all life around her, spreading her senses into the surroundings. The mage feels what life around her feels, the consciousness of plants and animals and their positions. With some concentration the mage can find all animals and plants in the vicinity, tell their relation to each other and see through their senses. If something happens to any living being in the area the mage will immediately feel it. This can, of course, cause unpleasant effects if something dramatic or painful happens. Besides, the mage will have big trouble returning to just having a single consciousness and a single body if the experience has lasted long. After coming out of her trance the mage is often disoriented and confused for a while, especially if it has taken a long time or her consciousness have been spread out over a large area.

Talk to animals (Life 2/3, Mind 4)

Simply contacting the minds of animals (and plants) for information is seldom useful, since they lack understanding of human questions and the gift of reason. An experienced mage can overcome this by temporarily making the animal intelligent. Verbena do this by dipping their athame in blood and drawing symbols on the fur of the animal. The mage builds a temporary mind out of the memories and personality of the animal (and partially of the mage) and communicates with it mentally. In this way the animal can respond to questions, think and even act intelligently for a while. But the mage must also keep constant control over its emotions and mind, since they tend to get confused or panic. After the rote ends, the animal return to its original state and forgets everything.

Simulate (Life 3)

Sometimes mages have to appear more hurt than they are, for example during medical examinations. Using this rote the mage can simulate all kinds of diseases and wounds, or make wounds appear healed. Verbena usually wash themselves with blood and paint their new appearance using it and special herbs. The results look like the real thing, but are not real wounds (if the mage doesn't want to be too realistic, of course). By adding Mind 1 the mage can imprint the correct responses too, like appearing in pain or shivering when touched in certain spots.

Eternal Youth (Life 3)

The mage simply stops ageing. This requires almost constant low-level concentration, but is often coincidentally explained using a healthy diet involving certain herbs and blood.

Bath of Beauty (Life 3)

The Verbena have never underestimated the power of youth and beauty, and have developed this rote. The mage fills the cauldron with blood, which is consecrated. Then the mage washes himself from head to toe in the blood while invoking the powers of youth and life.

Each success triples the number of years the mage rejuvenates (1 success - 1 year, 2 - 3 years, 3 - 9 years, 4 - 27 years). If the mage wants to continue rejuvenating another bath is required, and so on. These changes have the same weakness as Improve Self, they suffer from Pattern Bleeding.

Enchanted Senses (Life 3)

The mage gives himself the sight of the Eagle, the smell of the Dog, the taste of the Rat and the hearing of the Cat. Verbena to do this by anointing eyes, ears, fingers, nose and tongue with blood while visualizing the power and sounds of the different animals.

Fountain of Blood (Life 3, Prime 2)

The mage creates blood. This can be done inside the mage, inside someone else or even in the environment (rather vulgar). The amount of blood and the quality varies depending on how well the mage did. Some Verbena with a sense of drama use this to multiply blood. They pour a small amount of blood into the cauldron, then makes it rise until it pours over the edges.

Infection (Life 3, Prime 2)

The mage infects someone with disease by touching him. The disease can range from hay fever to anthrax. If the disease is contagious the victim can himself spread it. Verbena, who first used this rote, usually take the blood of a sick animal, and during a long ceremony concentrate the disease into the blood. Then (for example) the hand of the mage is coated with the blood, and used to touch the victim. Sons of Ether place organic material in a vessel, which they then send electricity through a few hours to cause disrupting morphogenetic fields to develop. Fragments of the matter is then placed on the victim.

The mage must succeed on a number of successes dependent on how serious or complex the disease is. One success is enough for common, fairly benign diseases like colds or warts. Two successes gives more serious diseases like mumps, gonorrhoea or glaucoma. Three gives life threatening diseases like Multiple Sclerosis or Pestilence. Four successes can create practically incurable diseases like AIDS or severe Cancer. With five successes the mage can create all known diseases and a few unknown.

Mead of blood (Life 3, Prime 2)

Asatru rote. This rote may have started as a kind of travesty of the Catholic Mass. By pouring mead into the bowl and adding a few drops of blood, the priest can turn it into blood. However, it doesn't have to look like blood or taste like it, the priest can make it appear to be normal mead. Afterwards, the mead can be used instead of blood as a foci, be imbibed as a source of strength or even used as sustenance for vampires (although practically no modern kindred know about this. Only the oldest Scandinavian Methuselahs have tasted such mead).

Reanimation (Life 3, Prime 2)

Alchemists rote. The alchemist burns a dead (or alive) plant or animal. The hot ashes is mixed with exotic chemicals and salts. Finally gold solved in aqua regia is added and the mixture is allowed to crystallize. By performing the necessary incantation and slowly heating the resulting salts, the mage will restore the being to life. If the mage succeeds well enough, the being will be completely normal in all aspects. A less successful experiment would result in a being which would die after a while, turning into salts again. Really bad results create "nothing but ye liveliest Awfullness". Some alchemists experiment with turning people to dust, and trying to raise them again. If anyone has succeeded, they have not told anyone.

Hunting Horror (Life 3, Mind 2, Prime 3)

The mage creates a living being and imprints hate against someone in its mind. Now the being will relentlessly seek to destroy the victim using all available means until it is killed or the target is killed. This rote can be used on normal animals too, turning them into killing weapons. With Life 4 the animal can be given extra weapons like sharper claws, poison or fangs.

Bond of Blood (Life 3, Corr. 2, Prime 3)

Hunters Hunted. Arctus developed this rote. By charging his blood with quintessence linked to him by drinking liquid Tass, he can give his blood the power of blood bond. Anyone drinking it three times will be blood bound to the mage (although this bond doesn't last as long as a vampiric blood bond).

Homunculus (Life 3, Prime 2, Spirit 2, Time 3)

Alchemist rote. Paracelsus developed this famous rote. The mage takes some of his bodily fluids, adds silver and gold salts, and pour the result into a vessel. The vessel is kept at a constant body temperature for nine months (in the Middle Ages, a heap of dung was used). After the time is up a small, fully grown man has developed in the vessel. This homunculus is intelligent, has a will of his own and will grow at the normal rate after he has left the vessel. Some mages keep their homunculus inside it for safe keeping, feeding them of their own blood. Homunculi are often used as advisors, familiars or servants. But if the mage treats them badly, they may rise up against him.

Dissolve (Life 4)

A nasty rote invented by a desperate and hateful Euthanatos against her master. The mage dissolves the tissues of her victim. Bones become flexible, muscles turn into jelly and the blood become almost etheric. Usually the victim just collapses and burst open, in a gross and very vulgar display.

End Blood (Life 4)

The mage touches the victim with some blood (very little is required). The result is a small infection rendering the victim sterile and unable to pass on undesirable traits. The victim will not notice anything.

Constrict Gene Generation (Entropy 4 and either Corr. 4, Life 3, or Life 4)

By Michael M. Moolick. This rote, Life Hacking, is a closely guarded secret of the Reality Hackers. They will use it for others (for a sufficient favor) but will never divulge its secret to anyone not of their small order. The Traditions continual seek ways to foil the threat of Progenitor cloning. This rote is one such means.

Its use causes small errors in the recipient's gene structure to be produced, seeds for a chaotic process of cellular degradation. This causes the cell to begin making "suicidal" enzymes and structural components. Progenitors trying to use such a cell for cloning will find the cells untenable, they die out in less than ten divisions. The rote has three specific sub-versions. All require the Virtual Adept to make a computer model of the recipient's DNA.

The first works along with Correspondence 4 and can take up to a week to run. It causes all cells that the recipient has already shed to undergo the entropic genetic change. It takes so long because the computer must Sort Through All-Space to find every little cell. This affects cells with the recipient's DNA even if they are dead. The second works on the mage himself, involves life 3 and causes the cells he sheds to develop the entropic gene sequences. The third and final version uses Life 4 and is the same as the second version except it is used by the adept on another.

Each success removes two successes from any attempt to clone/grow the effected cells. The second and third versions will cause pattern bleeding if maintained beyond their normal duration, so Life Hackers often run this rote regularly to ensure pattern integrity. Life hackers insist their appretices submit to versions one and three of this rote before sharing any of the secrets of the Life Hacking rote itself. Paradox rote can cause the early expression of the gene errors or strike a close relative with them (similar codons). I don't really want to think what version 1 would do if someone had a clone made or to an identical twin.