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Correspondence
To reach across any distance - through any barrier including the Gauntlet or the Horizon - is the gift of ultimate Correspondence mastery. Any connection to a person or place may serve as a "bridge" with which to work one's will. The arch-Master may appear physically in any place he desires, including multiple locations (by adding in Life and Mind) with a thought, or he can send objects hurtling into deep space at lightspeed. The mage who wishes to do so offensively (i.e., teleporting a foe into the sun) must roll at least three successes to succeed. This is, of course, highly vulgar, even if no Sleepers are watching.
Entropy
True mastery of Fate; this rank focuses growth, randomness or decay to such an extent that things which happen gradually at lower levels (deterioration of matter, lifeforms or ideas) occur instantly. With a wave of her hand, the archmage may cause buildings to crumble, people to perish, or mental processes to scramble in a turn or two. Damage caused by this Entropy rank is (successes x 3), which may be aggravated if the magick was vulgar and direct (snapping a person's bones with a snap of your fingers, as opposed to dropping a suddenly rotted statue on top of him). The reverse is also true: A 3-D jigsaw puzzle that has been scattered across a room may be instantly assembled, while a termite-eaten house may be repaired with minimal effort.
Forces
Can Porthos really level a mountain? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, he can. Now you know why he's still alive.... Forces 6 allows a mage to create or influence phenomena for miles around. Forces 5 may conjure a hurricane, but Forces 6 can conjure a storm front across a continent. This, of course, demands high dice rolls and advance preparation, but can literally shift tectonic plates or alter weather patterns within minutes.
Life
The power of mass life - or mass death. With Life 6/ Mind 5/Prime 2, an arch-Master of Life can create small armies out of thin air, or, with Matter 4, from many smaller objects (like bones or stones). The Perfect Metamorphosis Effect (Life 5) may be used on these new creations, transforming them utterly into whatever the mage wants them to be. If these creatures fall injured, the arch-Master may heal many of them at a time, or slay them en masse. In general, one human-sized being per success may be affected. Damage or benefits are figured normally, and all damage is aggravated.
Matter
All matter is interconnected unless some other force interferes. The most advanced Arts show a wizard how to control this connection. With slight effort, the arch-Master of Matter may create, destroy or transform large structures into radically different materials. A castle may be turned to sand, butter or water with enough successes (typically 10 or so).
Additionally, the wizard may extend things he does to one object into another one, so long as both of them touch some inanimate surface close to him - an effect similar to many Correspondence spells, but transferred through vibrations. A bottle broken against the floor may shatter every bottle on a nearby shelf. The range for this latter magick is roughly 50' per success. Damage or benefits are figured normally.
Mind
Are all minds one mind? The arch-Master would argue that they are. By expanding her consciousness into the world-thought, she can sense through many different minds at once, possess several people simultaneously, or perceive the world through a number of different beings - animals, people, insects, even spirits - at the same time. Maintaining control of one's own thought processes requires a Willpower roll at some great difficulty (7 or higher). For a mage with this level of expertise, however, such a roll should be easy. The link may cross between worlds, even beyond the Horizon.
Additionally, an arch-Master may absorb a complex series of learned codes - a language, a mathematical equation, directions to some location, a set of instructions, etc.- in a turn or two. This requires at least three to five successes to perform (depending on complexity), but leaves the wizard as familiar with the transferred information as ifhe had learned it himself. New Knowledge Abilities must be purchased in the usual way, or they fade in a week or so; each dot “learned” temporarily requires two successes to acquire.
Prime
The ripples in reality which cause Paradox may be smoothed with the highest Prime Arts. For every success the arch-Master rolls, she subtracts one point of Paradox from whatever source she chooses - a backlash, a Flaw or a Paradox Pool. Paradox spirits may be dispelled with a good roll: each success cancels 5 points of a spirit's Power, dissipating it with raw reality in motion. Each success spent smoothing out Paradox costs the wizard one point of his own Quintessence. As always, the shifting of Prime Force feels like heaven to the mage in question, and often affects those around him the same way.
Spirit
The greatest Masters of Spirit remember how to call the gods. With this Sphere rank, the greatest and most distant spirits - Celestines, Incarna, the nameless things beyond the Horizon, etc. - can be contacted (like Call Spirit), channeled (like Living Bridge) or even summoned (like a combination of Call Spirit and Break the Dreamshell). While many of these things are possible at lower levels of expertise, the arch-Master may use them from any side of the Gauntlet and may, to a degree, compel a powerful being to come forth.
With a resisted Willpower roll (difficulty 8), the mage may try to dominate the Umbrood he summons, giving it simple commands (like Guard this room for one day.") or requesting a simple service ("Take me from New York to Atlanta in one hour."). Gratitude and payments are always good things to have ready when the service is finished; this magick does not last for long.... Simple spirits - like Minions and elementals demand fewer successes to best (say 5 to 8) than stronger Umbrood Lords or Banes (8 to 15), Preceptors (15 to 25), or Celestines and Incarnae (25+). Losing such a contest is perilous to say the least, even if you're an arch-Master.
Time
Yes, as one or two arch-Masters can attest, it is possible to travel backward in time. It is deeply vulgar (unless tethered to a conjunctional Mind Effect which allows the person to travel only in dreams), risky and not always reliable. But it is possible at this magickal rank.
Paradox hangs while a mage journeys back in time; she can feel the weight of accumulated belief towering over her as she goes about her business. The longer she stays and the more she attempts, the bigger the risk of potential backlash. She may bring other people with her, but each additional person compounds the risk. Another person might go in her place, but the consequences of his actions will fall on both of them.
For each game hour the wizard (or her companion ) spends in past-time, her Paradox Pool doubles. If she attempts some significant action (confronting a person, grabbing an object, stopping a bullet, etc.), the Storyteller rolls her Paradox Pool for a backlash. No botch on the magick roll is necessary. The backlash difficulty depends on the importance of the action: If the character simply grabs the purse she left back at home an hour ago, the difficulty would be 9; if she did something marginally important, like stopping a bus she missed earlier that week, the backlash difficulty drops to 7. If she attempts to change major actions in the recent past, like getting her father to a doctor in time to save his life, the difficulty drops to 6 or 5, and adds three points to her Paradox rating. Major alterations to history, like killing Hitler, drops the difficulty of the roll to 4 or even lower, and doubles the potential backlash, and gives her five points of permanent Paradox. These five dice form the basis of the backlash roll; thus, a mage who started out with no Paradox at all has five dice rolled against her. Even if she successfully changes the course of history, the mage may well die in the attempt.
Stepping back in time is never coincidental (except, as noted above, if it's done in a dream); the archmage may reduce the "charge" to "vulgar without witnesses" by appearing to be part of the time period (dressing and acting like a Nazi to kill Hitler, for instance) or going where no one can see her (like appearing in her empty apartment). Jumping out of the time stream in full view of others is virtual suicide. The wizard who tries to kill Hitler by leaping out of his closet in '90s clothes will earn an automatic five points of Paradox, plus 26 points of Paradox if her Storyteller rolls a 4 or better.
Now you know why nobody's done it.
Storyteller Note: Jumping back in time really contradicts the atmosphere of the World of Darkness. These strictures have been made with that setting in mind. If you want to run a more freewheeling game, you may drop whatever aspects seem too harsh to you. If you do, however, it's your funeral...