ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

As any gambler knows, luck is semi-tangible. Certain objects and people contain luck, while others have no luck or worse, bad luck. If a dice has rolled high for a while, its luck will be depleted and it will begin to roll low to compensate. Salt is able to absorb both good luck and bad luck and neutralize them, while black cats emit bad luck. Here are a few rotes developed by the Players, a subgroup of the Cult of Ecstasy.

Detect Luck (Entropy 1, Matter 1)

The mage can detect objects containing good or bad luck. These could range from a four leaf clover to a chair which happens to give good luck. It also detects objects which have been affected by strong luck, such as a deck of cards which has recently dealt a royal flush or a marker which belonged to someone who was shot. Most players look at the subtle signs of luck or misfortune, like the patterns of smoke in the room, cracks in the floor or the way the cards move.

Concentrate Luck (Entropy 2, Prime 2)

The mage concentrates luck (or misfortune) into something. If done well, the object will retain its luck for a while. This is often done by surrounding the object with symbols for good luck, like dice with sixes up, money and flowers.

The object will be favorably biased for the duration of the rote.

Channel Luck (Entropy 3)

Some Players gather lucky objects and then channel their luck into something else, like their cards or markers. In the same way they can dissipate the luck in something, and make it normal again. This is commonly done using complex gestures, where luck is visualized as something which could be poured or gathered like sand into objects.

Significator (Corr. 2, Entropy 2, Matter 3)

The mage identifies himself with a card, a playing piece or a number on a slot machine, and thus gains control over it. He will be able to feel what happens to it, where it is and control what it will do. However, the reverse is also true, everything that affects the significator affects the mage (if the card is bent the mage will be hurt, if the game piece is moved from the board the mage will soon have to leave, if the slot machine gives a jackpot to a stranger the mage will loose all his money too). Players usually create this link by randomly selecting the significator and then spend some time meditating on it, learning its secrets and trying to identify with it.

Sacrifice to Fortuna (Entropy 2, Spirit 2)

Fortune is by definition capricious, and all attempts to placate the goddess of chance are of course quite useless. Some gamblers are risking it anyway, hoping that the attention from the powers of chance they gain will help them rather than destroy them. The player sacrifices something expensive, preferably in a random way (like throwing money from a rooftop into the street below) surrounded by symbols for luck and chance (like dice, cards, the Wheel of Fortune tarot card or lottery tickets) while invoking the powers of chance into his life.

If successful, chance will begin to affect the mage much more strongly. Each time the mage is in a random situation, roll a die. If the result is below the number of successes of the rote, the mage will either get that number of extra successes or that number of ones (toss a coin). The rote will also make the mage get involved in more random events, both good and bad.