New Systems


True Celestial Knowledge (Al-Anbiya ••, or Gavri-El ••, or Primus ••; Cosmology ••• also required)

　With this rote, a magus meditates on charts and observations of the heavens, sharpening her knowledge and opening the path to greater inspiration. This provides a perfect understanding of celestial phenomena. This rote can be used to predict the positions of stars and planets, the length of days, and other ordinary phenomena. All educated people know that the Music of the Spheres sets Earthly events in motion, so this rote allows the magus to interpret the astrological significance of her predictions: how they might affect people, settlements, and even entire nations. These interpretations are often clouded by ambiguous symbols, but at least provide a starting point.

　System: For the purposes of casting True Celestial Knowledge, duration (see Dark Ages: Mage , p. 103) represents the period his predictions covers, starting from the end of his casting. The caster can predict one general category of celestial phenomena perfectly (such as planetary alignments, the positions of stars, meteor showers and upcoming eclipses), though within the Ptolemaic model. The magus can even predict upcoming celestial events (such as non-recurring comets) that cannot by foretold by mundane scholars.

　The magus also learns about how these phenomena influence the world. The stars sway certain nations and individuals, and eclipses represent a celestial “lens” that presages some important event by focusing power or opening a hole in one of the spheres. This information usually manifests in the form of inspired writing or as a code in the stars that leads the caster to interpret peculiar passages from other texts. In any case, the Storyteller determines the type and clarity of information she will share, and may even introduce events derived from phenomena the caster wasn’t looking for. Successive castings can be used to tell the player whether her prognostications are getting “hotter” or “colder.”

　Ahl-i-Batin, Messianic Voices and Hermetic magi (including Craftmasons) are capable of using this rote. Other Fellowships may possess equivalents learned through their own stargazing.