Instruments (Mage)

# Instruments: The Tools of Focus

Belief envisions, practice inspires, and tools perform. All three elements allow a mage to focus Will and knowledge into Effects. And although any human activity can provide a tool for an imaginative mage – so long as that instrument fits the mage’s beliefs and practices – certain tools hold honored and popular places in magickal practices of all kinds.

As suggested by its root word instruere (“to prepare”), an instrument is a tool or set of tools that prepares an act of magick or hypertech. That instrument doesn’t have to be a physical object – it could be a dance, a song, a prayer or invocation, an intense glance, a scent, a formula, a gesture or word or handful of ash. The potential variations among such tools are more or less infinite. If an object or activity can be used to capture an intention and bring it into being, then that object or activity can be used as an instrument.

## Symbolic Power of the Instruments

Many tools carry symbolic weight, granting them significance beyond their practical utilities. Sure, a sword can kill you, but the mystique of certain swords can cut deeper than the blade itself. There’s a huge symbolic difference between a katana and a butcher’s knife, and that difference often influences a person’s choice of instruments. In game terms, such tools tug at Mythic Threads, adding their symbolic presence to the raw Will-power of the mage.

By extension of that symbolism, certain instruments define certain groups: Etherites have their goggles; witches have their wands; agents of authority have their dark suits and mirrorshades, and all those trappings create a sense of group identity. For many people, this sense of identity bonds them to the group. Symbolic instruments, then, can be like gang colors, offering a shout-out to your sect of choice.

## Tools and Time

As mentioned elsewhere, instruments demand time and effort… and certain tools demand more time and/ or effort than others. A person who dances to focus his intentions can’t cast a spell in a three-second turn; one who employs intense rituals may need an hour or longer, and an artisan-magus could prepare his Effects for days or weeks before the magick manifests. That’s why so many practices depend upon creating Wonders (as per the Background of that name) or else employ quick-use tools: amulets, guns, enchanted blades, and the like. It takes time and effort to focus Will into magick. If you rush the process, things go poorly… resulting in Paradox, fast-casting modifiers, and other obstacles.

In game terms, then, your mage might need several turns in order to cast his Effect, with the amount of time based upon the tools in question. For that reason, your mage might want a wide selection of instruments to choose from. Maybe he doesn’t have time to perform an elaborate hoop-dance right now… but that pouch of tobacco will serve as a quick offering for his totem spirit until he’s got the time to set things right.

Remember, too, that mages don’t choose their tools based on convenience, but rather upon what they believe they need to do in order to alter reality. A mad scientist toils in her laboratory to create a portable transmutation ray, then carries that ray around with her, aims it, and turns it on before the Effect starts changing things. It would be more convenient, in game terms, for her to simply glare at an enemy and turn him into a newt. Even if she has Life 5 on her character sheet, however, she wouldn’t do things that way because she’s a scientist, not a witch. Sure, she probably accepts that witches have power; that kind of power isn’t her style, though… and thus, it does not work for her.

Eventually, certain mages learn to BE the focus rather than to NEED the focus. And at that point, they’re able to discard tools, as described earlier in this section. Still, as we explained in the sidebar about the one-inch punch, you can’t ditch your instruments just because you think it’s possible to do so. Magick is an extension of the mage, and tools direct that mage’s beliefs and bring his magick into being.

## Standard Instruments

Despite the march of science, certain symbols have become so deeply ingrained in the Consensus that they could be called standard instruments. Such tools provide the default focus for mystic or hypertech training and practices. The Common Practices listed in the group entries represent the practices and instruments that members of those groups employ. The various factions and mentors teach their students with such tools, and most mages use them for a lifetime.

In game terms, a standard tool offers no bonus or penalty. You might incur a penalty if you work without one, or receive a bonus if you use one in an especially significant manner. For the most part, though, these instruments simply provide the appropriate toolkit for a mage’s practice.

## Personalized Instruments

Certain mages employ personalized or unique tools – a lucky baseball, rowan wand, hand-built guitar, and so forth. Such personalized instruments resonate with the mage who employs them. There is, perhaps, a touch of Resonance between such symbols and an individual character. In game terms, a personal tool reflects that character’s connection to a Sphere – a bridge between artist and Art.

For your character’s affinity Sphere, choose one personal instrument that fits his practice and that Sphere. A Progenitor Genegineer might connect to Life through a mutagenic cocktail of chemicals, whereas a Bata’a houngan unites himself with that same Sphere through a gift of whiskey, three cigars, and a virgin rooster for Baron Samedi. The personal tool represents your mage’s original training and connection with the Sphere in question. In return for sticking close to your roots, you can reduce by -1 the difficulty of a roll that employs that Sphere. After all, that instrument is significant to your mage, so he employs it as if it were a significant tool.

## Unique Instruments

In the place closest to a mage’s heart, you might find a unique instrument. This tool really is one of a kind, and if the mage loses it, he also loses a vital connection to his Arts. Unlike other kinds of tools, a unique instrument must be something your mage can lose: a fiddle crafted by your dead grandfather, a locket with your mentor’s last portrait, a shirt given to you by a now-lost lover, and so forth.

Game-wise, a unique instrument reduces the difficulty of your Arete roll by -1 when you work with a particular Sphere. That Sphere is tied to the instrument in question; if your magick fiddle, for instance, is attuned to the Time Sphere, then only Effects that use the Time Sphere will benefit from that bonus.

If that tool is both personal and unique (or significant and unique), then it reduces the difficulty by -2. Only your mage can use that instrument in such a way. That fiddle might sound great, but it truly sings in your mage’s hands alone.

If your character loses that unique instrument or finds herself working without it, then she’s essentially Working Without Focus. If it gets destroyed, then the bonus is gone for good. From that point onward, she’s working without focus until she can transcend the need for at least one tool by raising her Arete by one more dot.

## Common Instruments

When picking out the instruments that suit your mage, check out the following entries. People, after all, do not select their most important tools without good reasons for using them. Most instruments have symbolic and cultural significance as well as practical applications. Once you start to recognize such factors, you realize how deep a mage’s toolkit really goes…

### Armor

Protective devices can shield a mage and her allies from harm. Such instruments range from self-powered exo-suits and enchanted plate armor, hypertech fabrics, or specially reinforced clothing, to the bulletproof “ghost shirts” or woad body-paint designs intended to protect warriors in battle.

As a tool for Awakened focus, the armor in question must be created or modified by the Spheres to provide additional levels of protection. One point of Quintessence, invested into the armor with Prime 2 or better, can make that armor resistant to aggravated damage.

### Artwork

Drawings, paintings, CGI, sculptures, graffiti, and so forth allow a mage to capture his intentions in a visual medium. One of the oldest mystic tools (as shown in prehistoric cave-paintings and goddess figurines), artwork often draws upon the principle of connection: by depicting your subject, you attach your intentions and desires to it through the art. Artwork also influences the human condition by appealing to people (or disturbing them) when they recognize the symbolic energy of a piece.

### Blessings and Curses

Bestowing favor or inflicting bad luck – especially through the power of gods or spirits – remains a potent form of magick. And so, when people see witches, clergy, gamblers, and hoodoo-folk call upon God, Fate, and Fortune, they’re inclined to believe in the results. In game terms, blessings and curses tend to be coincidental. After all, superstition and religious awe are universal, even in these supposedly civilized times.

### Blood and Other Fluids

Sweat, tears, blood, semen, saliva, pus, urine, bile, marrow, sap… through such fluids flow the essence of life. Sure, they seem disgusting to most folks, but mages – especially ones who practice medicine work, biotech, or primal magick – recognize their power. DNA, viruses, life force, the generative capacities of living things – all manifest in such organic fluids, so many practices employ those liquid instruments… possibly distilling them down to Quintessential Tass, painting with them, drinking them, drawing them out of the body, releasing them in acts of gory sacrifice, or otherwise opening an organic vessel and letting the magick flow.

### Body Modification

Tattoos. Piercings. Scarification. Implants. Bifurcation. Branding. Constrictions. Suspensions. A body can be subjected to many sorts of modification, from the relative simplicity of modern tattooing to the squick-inducing extremities of genital torture and consensual amputation. To non-practitioners, certain types of modification appear positively demented: Why would someone do that to themselves? Folks who understand the disciplines involved, however, recognize that the combination of endorphin rush, exquisite pain, radical artistry, and enduring results can focus concentration and awareness to a preternatural degree.

Body modification has a rich pedigree among mystic societies. Tattoos, piercings, brands, and selective mutilations are among the oldest forms of initiation, especially when they’re performed as part of a ritual surrounding puberty, entrance into a secret society, important events, the sealing of agreements, or acceptance within a special caste. Traditionally, such modifications become part of an initiatory ordeal… And because endurance is part of the experience, such modifications tend to be done in prolonged, excruciating ways. Of course, such traditions also tended to result in infections, decay, and death too, so modern practitioners usually employ sterile conditions and equipment, specialized training, and other precautions. (Old-school shamans, witches, and Ecstatics turn up their noses at such refinements, though.) Once created, the results of such initiations can be used as instruments of focus as well as marks of initiation; a bard could tug each of her seven earrings while chanting a song-spell, and a fire-eater might close his eyes and rub his tattooed belly before invoking a gout of fire and spiting it in an enemy’s face.

More radical forms of modification – amputation, implanted hardware, extensive tattooing, bifurcation of tongue or genitals, and so forth – are time-consuming and labor-intensive. Often employed during rituals, such feats combine the instrument of modification with the instrument of ordeal. Rules-wise, those operations demand extended rolls on the part of both the subject of the modification and the person who’s performing the operation. (Stamina-based rolls from the subject, Dexterity or Intelligence + Art or Medicine rolls from the artists… and don’t botch. Really…) Even the simpler forms of modification – tattoos, minor piercings, and the like – often involve extended actions and a certain amount of endurance unless the modification happens too fast to process (as with a shopping-mall ear-piercing), in which case it’s essentially worthless as a tool of focus.

Story-wise, modification ordeals produce an altered state of consciousness as the body and mind struggle to process what’s being done to them. The resulting state of ecstasy has become an integral part of many postmodern mystic practices, and quite a few technomagickal ones as well. The extent of the modification really depends on how extreme the character is willing to be… although considering the possibilities involved in Life-Sphere magick, even the most extreme forms of consensual mutilation can be healed with relatively simple Effects, so long as there’s something left to work with once the modification is performed. (Castration and limb-removal tend to be one-way streets unless a mage is very, very good at her job.)

### Bodywork

Massage, energy-sharing, chiropractic medicine, acupuncture and acupressure, yoga, and other disciplines of body manipulation allow a person to influence mental and physical health, stimulate organic functions, establish or reinforce intimate bonds between the practitioner and his subject, and simply help people feel better about themselves. As a result, bodywork forms a centerpiece for several mystic practices, especially ones that – like martial arts, shamanism, witchcraft, yoga, and certain types of medicine work – favor vitality over external tools.

### Bones, Skins, Organs, and Other Remains

Like bodily fluids, the physical pieces of a living (or once-living) thing contain potent magickal significance. After all, such remains facilitate life, and so they also focus the life of a spell. As a result, they often get converted into ritual instruments of many different kinds. Books might be written on flayed skin; dusts can be ground from powdered bone; items could be crafted out of organs or skeletal remains. It’s gruesome, sure – but it’s also quite traditional. Creepy mystics aren’t the only folks who do this sort of thing, either… are they, Dr. Frankenstein? The literal structures of life play important roles in magick, science, and religion, no matter how macabre that role might seem.

### Books, Scrolls, and Periodicals

Is print obsolete? Not even close. Although e-books and PDFs comprise a wider range of texts now than they did even a decade ago, the printed word retains a mystic significance that those digital media have yet to achieve.

In older days, books were like magickal items: rare, expensive, exclusive to a certain class of people (those who could read), and able to transmit arcane lore through an apparently supernatural method. Mages, then, were an elite class simply because so many of them had, and could employ, books. Since the advent of mass publication in the late 1700s and mass literacy in the 1800s, most of the glamour has faded. And yet, when people seek deeper truths and fictions, they still turn to da Vinci codes, boy wizards. and Middle Earth. Even the rougher voices on the socio-political fringe publish books in order to seem more respectable. Talk is cheap; writing is respected.

21st-century mage periodicals range from e-books of shadows to SF/ fantasy lit, computer manuals, magazines and e-zines, occult tomes, aged grimoires, ancient scrolls, downloadable PDFs, print-on-demand texts, graphic novels, and even game books like this one. Many feature the occult lore of ages, whereas others present pop philosophy, subversive concepts, historical information, cataloged facts, and any other subject that can be presented in written form. Within the last 30 years, incredibly rare arcane texts have popped up on big-box bookstore shelves all around the world, so any mage who takes herself seriously has a library of some kind.

### Brews, Potions, Powders, and Other Concoctions

Blending various ingredients into potent concoctions, the archetypal witch’s brew and its many permutations – goofer dust, corpse-powder, dragon’s blood, beer, wine, love philters, mystic potions, and the diverse medicines, foods, and beverages found across the world – present an obvious tool of magickal intent. Regardless of the purposes or composition involved in a given concoction, the process of turning many things into one thing reflects a sort of magic. For that reason, mythology often credits gods and wise-folk with the creation of beers, foods, and medicines. In game terms, any sort of mage can use such refreshments. Holy water, love potions, hypermeds – they’re all refinements of the same basic idea: mix it up, drink it down, and watch things change!

### Cards, Dice, and Other Instruments of Chance

Probability holds a sense of wonder, even for the Masters of Entropy whose Arts direct it, to a certain degree. The fickle hand of chance represents the randomness principles of the universe, so its talismans – dice, tokens, thrown bones, drawn straws, divination sticks, and, of course, the symbol-flashing cards – reflect command of destiny. Fate appears to speak through these instruments, and they become potent tools of omen and prophecy.

Traditionally, a caster mixes up the tokens into an apparently random selection, then draws a certain number of them in order to find out what he needs to know. That mage could cheat, of course, removing the random element from the task. Still, instruments of chance present a dramatic focus for intentions – witness the gambling-hall scenes in Run Lola Run or Casino Royale – especially when big things depend upon the turn of a friendly card.

Cards, given their visual focus, are especially vivid instruments – particularly the symbolic portents of Tarot or other oracular cards. Even normal playing cards, though, can be incredibly evocative, reflecting cosmic tales of sex, violence, desire, and royalty in a few simple icons that find their way into popular mythology.

### Celestial Alignments

What’s your sign? Long before books or machines became common tools, mages read, focused, and calculated the schedules for their rituals by the dance of planets and stars. Even now, when modern science has supposedly disproved the old cosmologies – at least on the mortal side of the Gauntlet – the old mystique of horoscopes, the brilliant possibilities of Hubble telescope photos, and the eldritch mysteries of deep space continue to influence mystic and scientific practices, conjuring insights and miracles when the stars are right.

### Circles, Pentacles, and Other Geometric Designs

As the archetypal symbol of unity, the circle shows up in mystic practices everywhere. Enclosing workspaces, sigils, ritual areas, and other regions in circles, spell casters secure that space within spheres of their intentions. Meanwhile, other circular designs – rings, belts, linked hands, dancing circles, even circular movements and sung rounds – provide similar enclosures that seal an intention with an activity.

Other geometric shapes – triangles, squares, hexagrams, pentacles, and so forth – seal different sorts of activities. Symbolically, those shapes (which appear in scientific formulae too) represent cosmic principles by mathematical designs. Squares reflect stability, rectangles present expansive yet secure areas, crosses signify intersecting forces, triangles direct energy, and combinations of those designs – as seen in yantras, mandalas, sand paintings, and other ritual diagrams – combine several forces into unified wholes… wholes often surrounded by a circle.

Certain ritual practices, especially in High Ritual Magick, demand elaborate designs that must be traced and crafted to exacting standards. Such designs can take hours or even days to create, and they often become permanent parts of a ritual space. In symbolic architecture, the space itself might be crafted into the design – a common practice among Freemasons and other artists of sacred geometry. Temples, cathedrals, Chantries, and other important buildings become massive works of symbolism… which, when you think about it, says volumes about the mystic dimensions of Washington DC. (See also Artwork and Formulae.)

### Computers and IT Gear

The essential tech of the 21st century, computers and other elements of Information Technology form the basis for Consensus Reality in our age. For obvious reasons, then, mages use computers for everything from data storage to social transformation. Not long ago, such machines were toys for a privileged few. Now, almost everyone within the industrialized world has at least access to a computer, and many folks use them on a daily basis.

Magickally speaking, computers store and manipulate data like handy household gods. Using arcane calculations and alchemical technologies, they transform every sphere of life they touch. The industrial world depends upon computers nowadays – they run cars, manage banks, link people, and allow for a global community that, within living memory, used to be impossible. These portals of Hermes let tech-savvy mages sidestep physical reality, not only through the Digital Web itself but through common miracles like smart phones, laptops, and streaming media. And so, in our new millennium, a mage can use a computer for damn near anything if she’s good enough at what she does.

Connected to the computers themselves, the ever-growing network of clouds, sites, sectors, and connections holds an expanding universe of virtual potential. And though the gleeful prognostications of early cyber-visionaries bear little resemblance to the Internet we know today, that technology is just a few decades old. What might happen when and if the Masses catch up to the Awakened in terms of Internet Enlightenment? That potential, and its practical applications, still seem very much like magic

### Crossroads and Crossing-Days

Intersections are powerful. Areas and times in which one element or energy crosses over another one, or even several, herald passages, transitions, and transformations. Clearly, such transitions are magickal – liminal spaces where options and choices multiply. As a result, crossroads and transitional periods – midnight, dawn, New Year’s Eve, certain holidays – provide focus for mystic workings. Rituals often seem most significant when performed in such places or times.

### Cups, Chalices, Cauldrons, and Other Vessels

Practically and symbolically, the many vessels we create to hold and carry things – especially water, the liquid upon which human life depends – hold potent significance for both mystic and scientific practices. Cups, goblets, chalices, and cauldrons have deep associations with birth and renewal, feminine energy and fluid potential. For examples, look no further than the Holy Grail, the witch’s cauldron, Baba Yaga’s pot, or the singing bowls of Tibet. On the technical end, vats, beakers, crèches, and test tubes contain their own mystique… witness the phrase “testtube baby” or the image of vat-brewed clones. And so, mages of many kinds use vials, bottles, pots, and beakers to work their Arts, often combining those instruments with brews, water, and various concoctions in order to turn one thing into another.

### Dances, Gestures, Postures, and Other Movement Practices

Movement unites the body, mind, and life force into a flowing whole that breaks physical stasis and opens channels of vital energies. Dance – often driven by Music (see below) – sends the body into ecstatic flight. Postures and katas – specifically those taught in yoga, t’ai chi, and various martial practices – program muscle memory into efficient poses while freeing the mind to pursue focus or meditation. Gestures – arm waves, hand signs, mudras, genuflections, and so forth – direct manual dexterity into symbolic displays, as peaceful as the “fear not” mudra or as incendiary as Hitler’s salute. From bowing to ballet, such activities convey deep ritual significance through physical discipline. In especially rigorous forms – advanced yoga, breakdancing, classical ballet, and so forth – those disciplines demand physical vitality and constant practice, channeled through cultural symbolism, aesthetic appeal, and just plain fun. And so, the various styles of dance, gesture, and movement form essential elements of mystic and technological practices, directing a person’s intentions and energies through the instrument of the body itself.

### Devices and Machines

Humanity’s great gift is our use of tools. It’s clear, then, that such tools – from simple machines like bows and arrows to complex machines like death rays or printing presses – hold symbolic power beyond their practical utility. Humanity’s machines are a form of magick, epitomizing the Will to transcend our limits and transform our world. Technomancers are literally defined by their reliance upon machines, but even the most traditional shaman can use a loom as a creative instrument, directing his intentions through whirring shuttles, levers, and gears.

### Drugs and Poisons

Like the Brews and Concoctions described above, various drugs, poisons, venoms, and so forth change one state of being into another. In the case of psychoactive drugs, that state might involve radically altered consciousness. Practices from primal shamanism to psychedelic transhumanism use mind-altering drugs to cleanse the doors of perception and open a mage to new possibilities. Poisons, meanwhile, harm or kill inconvenient people – a nasty but traditional practice among alchemists, witches, and assassins. Such substances make excellent tools for Entropy, Life, and Mind Effects and range from natural toxins to hypertech drugs.

### Elements

Fire, water, earth, and air – perhaps adding metal, wood, glass, plastic, and electricity, depending on your point of view – all play important roles in almost every sort of practice. From their symbolic meanings (solid as stone, fiery passions, earthy groundedness, etc.) to their practical applications through Forces, Matter, and (for plants) Life Arts, the elements can become a mage’s primary instruments.

Depending on her practice, your mage might employ elements through spiritual connection, scientific physics, angelic and demonic control, sympathetic magick, or even a personal tie to the living world. Through her Arts, that character can shape, conjure, alter, manipulate, merge into, or otherwise control the forces that make up our world… a literally elemental talent that in many ways defines the Art of Wizardry

### Energy

The life force forms a significant element of mystic focus. Through practices like Tantra, yoga, and other forms of energy work, a person can perceive and manipulate that life force, directing it to his needs. That energy, in turn, fuels martial arts, sexual disciplines, bodywork, and other practices.

For mages with the Prime Sphere, this instrument focuses Quintessence-based magick. However, characters without the Prime Sphere can also focus energy as an instrument, so long as that person’s practice includes energy work as a possibility.

### Eye Contact

By using these windows to the soul, a mage can charm, frighten, seduce, bewitch, curse, intimidate, or otherwise enchant someone else. Folks have feared the Evil Eye for centuries and cultivated an extensive body of lore – banishment gestures, hex signs, spitting on the ground, and so forth – in order to escape its influence. These days, though, people often want you to look them in the eye. And so, flirtatious glances, poisonous glares, dominance-establishing staring contests, puppy-dog eyes, and other optic rituals become potent instruments for magick and technology.

### Fashion

Clothes can make the mage. From the social grace of a bespoke suit (that is, one that’s tailor-made for the individual) to the fierce warnings of gang gear or the playful flirtations of a pretty dress, fashion plays a subtle yet pervasive part in social interactions. Your mage could craft reinforced clothing into armor; adopt disguises; don ritual gear (robes, skins, body paint, etc.); display a uniform; cosplay familiar or original characters; or simply use high fashion or street wear to invoke a particular effect. Especially when that clothing holds symbolic weight – like priest’s robes, biker jackets, military uniforms, or fetish gear – fashion becomes a potent focus for Mind powers, Spirit rites, and Matter-based protection from a dangerous world.

On that note, the lack of clothing – either bared body parts or total nudity – constitutes its own type of fashion. Witches and shamans often go skyclad (naked) in their rites, whereas other mystics take oaths to bare or cover certain parts of their bodies. Veils, burqas, scarves, headdresses, bare feet, naked chests, gis, saris, club fashions, turbans, clothes made from certain materials (silk, fur, even meat)… all of them evoke cultural significance, concealing or displaying certain elements of the wearer’s body while sending signals about the person underneath.

### Food and Drink

Even mages need to eat. And beyond the good taste and practical nutrition involved with food and drink, those meals have symbolic significance as well. Sharing meals means sharing energy – it’s an intimate communion even in the age of fast food and store-bought chow. Ritual feasts hold places of honor in every culture: Thanksgiving, Passover, potlatches, and holiday dinners combine spiritual significance, good food, and social bonds. Even alone, however, food and drink can be important, mingling bodily needs with mystical intent and chemical ingestion.

### Formulae, Equations, and Sacred or Advanced Mathematics

Math has been called the universal language of the cosmos. Its esoteric applications can seem as arcane as any wizard’s ritual… and many mystic rituals do, in fact, feature complex numerology and brain-shaking mathematics. For Technocrats – especially those from Iteration X and the Syndicate – mathematical models help predict future events (in short, focus Time magick), plot out connections (the Correspondence Sphere), determine esoteric chemistry (Life principles), and employ physics in counterintuitive ways (that is, to use Entropy, Forces, Matter, and Prime). Older mystic practices employ sacred numerology, angelic formulae, and the dizzying principles of non-Euclidian geometry. So if it’s true that mathematics bind the universe together, then it’s easy to understand why math plays such a vital role in so many practices.

### Gadgets and Inventions

Nothing beats the personal touch. As mentioned earlier, machines provide a vital edge to mages who want to get things done. Machines created by the mage himself, however, embody a bit of that creator’s Enlightenment, manifesting it as a potentially powerful device.

Strictly speaking, a gadget is a minor machine that performs a specific function once and then burns out. An invention may be any device that’s been hand-crafted by the inventor himself; a one-of-a-kind machine, it’s probably the experimental prototype for a planned line of similar devices, with all the bugs and quirks that such prototypes display. Unlike the capital-D Devices, these creations don’t necessarily have innate technomagick built into them. As focus instruments, they provide mechanical vectors for the creator’s Enlightened Science.

Because such devices share a personal connection to their inventor, these tools count as personal and unique instruments when they’re being used by the mage who created them. They count as simply unique instruments in the hands of allied characters, and they probably don’t work at all for characters who don’t share the inventor’s view of reality. In game terms, a mage using his own inventions and gadgets reduces his difficulty by -2, his trusted associates reduce it by -1, and strangers find themselves unable to make heads or tails of the device.

Technocrats who enjoy a special relationship with Q Division might wind up with experimental gadgets and inventions. Etherite allies and other mystic characters could be trusted (or tasked) with a special gadget from a technomancer whose imagination exceeds his courage. Hopefully, that inventor takes the time to explain how the machine’s supposed to work; otherwise, the guinea pig might find herself with a lump of worthless junk in her hands just when she needs it most…

### Gems, Stones, and Minerals

Diamonds are forever. Gold is good, and jade incarnates Heavenly goodwill. The mystic properties of precious stones, ores, and minerals echo down through legend, slang, and alchemical lore. Mages who know how to tap into these properties employ them in rituals, build them into instruments, wear them as jewelry, and otherwise keep them close at hand. Technology, meanwhile, employs those properties too. Did you think it was an accident that gold is so vital to the world’s economy or that diamonds find their way into so many industrial machines…?

### Genetic Manipulation

We live in a wondrous time, wherein miracles of medicine provide seemingly impossible feats: cloning, quick healing, resistance to disease and poisons, physical mutability, environmental adaptability, mutant powers out of a comic-book movie… the endless wonders of genetic manipulation make such things possible… don’t they?

Not really, no. Not with current technology, anyhow. Enlightened biotechnicians, however, are not working with mundane Sleepertech. And so, as an instrument of hypermedical practices, genetic manipulation can focus a wide range of Life-based Effects through the wonders of advanced medicine.

Such wonders don’t come fast or cheap. Used as a focus instrument, genetic manipulation demands sterile lab facilities, specially prepared medicines and gear, and sufficient time through which the procedures can alter the genetic structure of the subject’s body. (See the instrument entries for Devices and Machines, Drugs and Poisons, and Labs and Gear, plus Medical Procedures.) Once such treatments have been completed, however, the subject of the operation can manifest those Life-based Effects by way of the “instrument” of his modified genetic capabilities. Alternately, the biotechnician can create mutated critters – clones, hybrids, modified agents, Enhanced personnel – through the application of the appropriate Effects focused through genetic manipulation and other related instruments.

Genetic miracles can do only so much. Not even the most advanced hypermedicine could, for example, bend a cityscape or open a portal to another world. As a general rule, assume that this instrument works only for Life-based Effects that modify or create a living organism. Other Spheres may be involved, of course – and usually need to be – but the core of a genetic Effect must be the Life Sphere and an organism who’s being suitably mutated. And although radical feats of fast-acting Enlightened Science remain vulgar even in tech-based cultures, the popular (mis)conceptions about genetic manipulation can let a lot of crazy shit slide in under the radar if the person involved with such manipulation manages to spin a believable web of scientific justifications.

### Group Rites

Smart mages realize that raising power in groups directs the collective will and imagination of that group toward a specific purpose. Circle-dances, music concerts, plays, protests, prayer meetings, and other gatherings provide focus for mystic rites. Technomancers understand the power of groups too – why else would factories and cubicle farms be so damned effective?

Generally, a mage whips her group to an emotional frenzy and then channels their energy into her intended purpose. As that energy reaches a peak, she plays the crowd like an instrument, bringing things to a climax as she casts her Effect. The Allies, Assistants, and Cults section details the in-game effects of sympathetic crowds; for certain practices, however, the presence of a group is not just helpful but essential to success.

### Herbs, Roots, Seeds, Flowers, and Plants

Growing things hold power, especially when you want to perform Lifebased magick. Plant-based materials can be essential to other instruments like brews, laboratories, and drugs, and they provide the roots, so to speak, for practices like witchcraft, shamanism, and many forms of medicine work. By gathering, drying, curing, eating, grinding, or otherwise employing these botanical substances, a mage can distill the essence of Creation into her Arts.

Beyond its practical properties, each sort of plant holds symbolic importance; in most cases, the different portions of a plant have significance as well. Holly sprigs, elderberries, acorns, mandrake roots… even now, popular culture immortalizes ancient plant lore. A creative player can learn about the properties of different plants and herbs, then bring both the practical and symbolic elements of botanical tools to the gaming table.

### Household Tools

Especially among the practical Arts, household tools – pitchforks, hammers, nails, brooms, ovens, horseshoes – hold traditional power as magical implements. The same holds true for technological tools, as well… witness the atavistic terror that’s invoked by a chainsaw.

Because magick so often depends upon directing energy and intentions toward a goal, household tools have all kinds of uses. Six silver dollars might be hammered into place around your property to keep the cops away; a specially brewed floor wash might cleanse tainted Resonance; a Roomba (with or without a shark-dressed cat) could patrol your Chantry-house. And when the spells are done, those tools serve double duty around the home. A witch, after all, can use her broom to fly to the gathering and then sweep the house clean once she comes home again.

### Internet Activity

Even without the metaphysical playground of the Digital Web, the Internet has become perhaps the largest instrument of magick in the history of human existence. The fact that its effects are almost always coincidental unless a user does something amazingly stupid, like trying to teleport his physical form from screen to screen (possible with enough dots in Correspondence, but seriously vulgar) makes it that much more useful. Hell, even a Sleeper can drive a person on the other end of the globe to commit suicide, give him all their money, or both with a clever application of Internet potential, so a mage can do oh so very much more…

Generally, Internet activity demands a computer, a connection, the proper knowledge, and time. With those materials, however, a savvy user can cast influence-based Effects through posts, hack into remote locations and alter or access data, disseminate some elemental chaos, and possibly – if he’s willing to dare some vulgarity – employ a properly prepared computer as the instrument for some time-and-space-bending technomagicks. Again, this sort of thing takes time and typing, and it won’t work if you’re trying to access and influence places where the Internet can’t reach. But although Sleepertech computers aren’t capable of half the things that films and TV shows give them credit for, a skillful mage can bend those limitations around his little finger and take the world by storm. In our weird and wired world, that’s nowhere near as difficult as it used to be.

### Knots and Ropes

There’s a reason the phrase spellbinding exists. Long before Velcro, buttons, or carabiners, people had to tie or weave things together. Because the principle of contagion focuses on connecting spells, subjects, and casters by a single strand, knots and ropes (as well as thongs, strings, threads, and so forth) feature heavily in spells. The metaphorical Tapestry and the concept of string-theory physics both draw upon that connection, and so the acts of binding things together, weaving intentions with materials, and undoing knots to release their energy all serve practical as well as symbolic purposes in magick. And once you understand that fact, you see deeper significance in Celtic knotwork, knitting, the arcane arts of rope bondage, and the pervasive imagery of mystic spiders and Pattern Webs.

### Laboratories and Lab Gear

Although you can’t usually carry a laboratory around with you (although certain portable labs can be stuck inside a vehicle, trailer, or suitcase), such places of labor provide essential instruments for technological, alchemical, and elaborate ritual practices. Generally, a mage employs his laboratory to refine other tools and spells for his practice, then uses the results of that lab work as his portable instruments. Still, without that lab, he’d be more or less worthless. You can’t grow clones, install cybernetics, or refine base materials into perfection without a good lab.

By extension, lab equipment – beakers, crucibles, centrifuges, generators, analyzers, and other sundry (though expensive) tech that procures results – constitutes an essential array of tools for the practicing scientist or technician. Even old-school mystics use labs occasionally, though they might refer to them as dungeons, workrooms, sanctuaries, and so forth. Within such space, a mage can work through difficult puzzles, experiment with methods, and enjoy a fairly secure space where Consensus interference is a bad memory.

(An established laboratory space makes an obvious Sanctum, as in the Background Trait of that name.)

### Languages

Words are a form of magick; after all, they shape abstract thoughts into reality by communicating them to other beings and thus opening their minds to your own. In a communal form, language shares thoughts and – by extension – broadens the potential of reality for everyone concerned. Words, it is said, opened the gulf between animals, spirits, and human beings… and although animals and spirits clearly have their own forms of language, the flexible precision of human words has certainly marked a major step in our development.

But words are bigger than that. According to many legends, the Divine Source (by whatever name you prefer to call it) spoke words in order to bring the universe into being. Certain words and languages echo that divine command and can thus make things happen. Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic, Mandarin, and Latin (among others) supposedly capture the essence of godly speech, whereas other languages like Greek, Urdu, and Hopi encompass sublime concepts that elude other human tongues.

Mundane languages can alter reality too, especially when those languages get rearranged, re-contextualized, redefined, or otherwise altered in order to change the meaning attached to the words. Hip-hop rapping presents a perfect example of such remixed language, breaking down the expected rhythms, spellings, and context of words in order to invoke an alternative truth. Internet jargon does the same thing, as does legalese. By altering the common tongue, a person (mage or Sleeper) can change the realities it describes, making codes that admit or exclude certain people, seeding new concepts out among the people, or invoking certain states of mind by forcing the audience to accept unusual modes of communication. And then there’s the anti-language of unfamiliar babble that still sounds like it means something important. (See the Voice entry, below.)

Spoken words also have a sonic component that literally resonates throughout the world, changing the landscape in accordance with the speaker’s wishes. Words of power – amen, aho, ohm, and the like – convey both their interpreted meaning and the resonant power behind the sound itself. Therefore, language – both spoken and written – forms a vital element of all mystic practices. (Again, see Music, Voice, and Writing, below.)

### Mass Media

As suggested by the name, media becomes a medium through which ideas and impressions spread from an artist to her audience. The bigger the medium, the larger its audience and the further the reach of that idea. Early on, media consisted of a storyteller and the members of her tribe; later, it expanded to sacred ritual theatres. Each new expansion of technology allowed ideas to go further and reach more people. With the advent of mass printing and distribution, followed by sound- and image-recording technology, radio waves, and rapid international travel, media become the dominant tool for shaping the Consensus. Memes can now spread across the world in seconds. And so, for the 21st-century mage, mass media becomes an essential tool when altering reality.

As a magickal instrument, mass media can take many forms: music concerts or recordings, TV and radio broadcasts, Internet posts, viral videos, roleplaying games, remixes, mashups, bestselling books, theatrical productions, movies of any scale… if they reach a large audience, then they’re all mass media. Such media provide excellent venues for coincidental Mind Effects – the audience wants to receive a message, and therefore they’re already receptive to it. Such messages can occasionally seed new Mythic Threads too – just Google Harry Potter, Twilight,or Obama.

Since the earliest large rituals, mages have used mass media to make things happen. The Syndicate, NWO, Cult of Ecstasy, and Celestial Chorus are the obvious masters of media, but any group or individual can employ it. (Rumors and evidence suggest that the Nephandi might be the greatest media masters of them all.) Given the vast reach provided by the Internet, data files, home-production technology, and the various things you can do with them all, anyone with a computer and Internet access can employ mass media. And though the Internet’s signal-to-noise ratio makes it hard to create large and lasting impressions, a savvy person can use a single cellphone picture to start waves rolling across our world.

### Medical Procedures

There’s always been something magical about the healing arts. The ability of an uncannily skillful person who can mend wounds, dispel sickness, and discern the hidden mysteries of a human body can seem positively supernatural. Thus, practitioners of medicine – any sort of medicine – occupy a reverent and sometimes fearsome role in human societies. And so, medical procedures form a vital sort of instrument when healers work their Arts.

Depending upon the practitioner and her specialties, this “instrument” (which is actually a collection of tools and activities related to that person’s healing methods) could range from prayer and a “laying on of hands,” to consecrated spirit-masks, hypnotic music, and prescribed dances and invocations, to hypnotherapy, energy-work, psychic surgery, conventional Western medicine, Taoist chi-balancing, acupuncture, hypertech regeneration processes, sports or battlefield medicine, and so on. Other instruments find their way into these practices too: drugs, herbs, meditation, bodywork, dancing, prayer, etc. etc. etc. As an instrument unto itself, however, a medical procedure involves the process of treating the patient – a time-and-effort-consuming process that demands whatever sorts of attention, expertise, and specialized equipment the healer’s practice requires.

As noted above under Body Modification, a medical procedure will involve extended rolls in all but the simplest of healing tasks. Most medicine-worker players would be rolling Intelligence + Medicine, although delicate surgery might involve Dexterity + Medicine instead. Psychic and psychology-based healing would be more likely to employ Charisma, Perception or Wits + Medicine, while a prolonged medicinal rite would use Stamina + Medicine instead. The patient might need to make Stamina-based rolls as well, especially if there’s an especially grueling and /or excruciating treatment involved. In-depth healing demands a ritual, during which the medical procedure itself becomes an instrument in collaboration with other instruments described above.

In many RPGs, the “healer” simply lays on hands, exerts some magical doodah, and restores lost Hit Points. Mage isn’t most RPGs. Sure, a Life-schooled healer could simply let loose with the glowy-hands thing… but that wouldn’t be in keeping with Mage’s emphasis on paradigm and practice. A Lakota medicine-worker versed in pre-European healing traditions won’t be using the same sort of medical procedure as an Ayurvedic physician, a Baptist faith-healer, a Frankenstinian surgeon or a Progenitor medic would. From a roleplaying standpoint, it’s a good idea to do some research into the type of medicine your healer would practice, and then base the specifics of her medical procedures and associated tools on what you find. A quick Wikipedia search can net you the basic information about a given type of medicine; after all, it’s not like you’re gonna need to heal someone for real with what you learn there, right?

### Meditation

An intrinsic part of almost every mystic practice (and many technological ones as well), meditation involves quiet reflection through which a person screens out everyday distractions in order to connect with her inner self. Through meditation, a mage focuses her intentions, sorts through her circumstances, and often arrives at the next step she needs in order to move forward.

Often simplified into mere relaxation, meditation actually runs much deeper than that. Given the hectic, distractionfilled world we live in, though, meditation’s certainly a useful tool for relaxation as well as focus on greater things. Mages use meditation to connect to Primal Force, bridge minds and emotions, reach out to higher (or lower) powers, perceive their surroundings on a sublime level, access their inner resources, and plan the next move in their activities. As a tool, then, meditation works for just about anything, so long as the character has time to stop moving, focus on the meditation, and screen out distractions long enough to find what she seeks. It doesn’t work well, obviously, in high-stress situations, although – given time – a character can use meditation to reduce her stress.

Traditionally depicted as a person sitting in a lotus position while humming Ohm, meditation can take many different forms. Postures, katas, games, prayer, running, chanting, dance, sex, music, even certain forms of fighting can all function as meditation. The vital element is the mindset of the person meditating. If she views her practice as a meditative connection, and if it takes her where she needs to go, then almost anything can be a form of meditation.

### Money and Wealth

Money itself is a magic(k) trick. Essentially a symbolic token of trust, money defines a person’s val-you within society. Societies, too, get defined by how much they’re worth, so human and social realities are shaped by something that has no intrinsic value beyond what people think it means. (That trick’s even more profound when you consider virtual money; burning dollar bills generate very little heat, but numbers in a database generate no heat at all.) Obviously, then, money provides a magickal focus for folks who know how to use it… and no faction understands money as well as the Syndicate does.

As a magickal tool, money has two potential forms: physical cash and virtual trade. Cash – paper money, coins, tokens, and so forth – allows the mage to pass along an Effect by passing along the cash. A $20.00 bill could carry a mind Effect that reminds someone of his mother; a Spanish piece of eight could bear an ancient curse; a defaced dollar bill might feature the message THIS IS NOT YOUR GOD stamped in red ink, focusing a Mind or Entropy Effect that degrades people’s trust in social institutions. Cash often holds Resonance too, especially if it’s been tainted by criminal acts or emotional desperation. As any mage knows, blood money is a real thing when you understand Resonance.

Virtual trade focuses Mind and/ or Entropy Effects that get people to believe that abstract numbers determine their fate. Checks, credit and debit cards, credit ratings, bank statements, and approval processes reflect uses of virtual trade. Such tools can be extraordinarily effective and dangerous. At the time this section was originally written, in real life, the United States government was temporarily shut down over an imaginary crisis built around virtual values that have no physical counterpart, only the emotional reality of what people think a bunch of numbers mean. Societies can rise and fall over such ideas, so the practice of hypereconomics (see The Art of Desire/ Hypereconomics) manipulates virtual trade on a scale far beyond the possibilities of physical cash.

### Music

One of the oldest magickal tools, music harnesses the powers of sound, art, memes, social influence, voices, symbols, and – in one way or another – many of the other tools on this list. A full exploration of the esoteric potential of music runs far beyond this space, and although its most obvious adherents include the Celestial Chorus, Bata’a, Dreamspeakers, Cult of Ecstasy, and Hollow Ones, any group or mage can use music as an instrument of focus.

As a general rule, music’s vibrations carry the spell caster’s intentions into the world. That music can be broadcast to a mass audience, performed for a smaller audience, or created in solitude for personal Effects. For obvious reasons, music takes time to perform but makes an ideal instrument for rituals, especially when a number of characters are working together to weave the Effect.

Depending upon the character, his audience, and the scope of the Effect, that music can range from quiet humming to a full-scale orchestral symphony. Lullabies, rock operas, chamber music, plaintive solo flute, vocalized chants… if there’s a way to perform music, then there’s a mystical practice associated with that type of performance.

### Numbers and Numerology

Numbers hold power. As mentioned above under the Formulae entry, that power can be unlocked through arcane mathematics. Sometimes, though, all you need is a single number – nine, for example – to seal your mystical intentions.

On a related note, the occult practice of numerology draws connections between specific numbers and the deeper levels of Creation. As such, it provides a venerable focus for Correspondence, Spirit, Prime, or Time Arts, acting as a tool for understanding the ties between one thing and another. And so, beyond the baroque patterns of number theory, simple numbers or numerical correspondences (Bible verses, racing horses, sports-team player numbers, etc.) can be remarkably potent tools when they get assigned to something you’re trying to accomplish.

### Offerings and Sacrifices

Often, the best way to prove that you really want something involves giving up something else in order to obtain your goal. Thus, sacrifice (“to make sacred”) holds a precious, though controversial, place in mystic practices. Essentially, a person offers up something precious – property, behavior, living things, even her own life – in order to seal a deal with the Powers That Be.

Typically associated with maleficia, sacrifice has an understandably bad rap. Slitting Fido’s throat in order to summon devils is a terrible idea for all kinds of reasons. And yet, the custom of offering things up has deep spiritual roots in even the most virtuous traditions. Jesus, Raven, Odin, Prometheus… all of them sacrificed themselves in order to achieve a greater goal. Mortal devotees – Awakened and otherwise – use sacrifice as both a tool and a display of spiritual commitment. Even atheists understand the value of such offerings; it takes money, after all, to make money.

In game terms, a sacrifice involves giving up an offering as a tool in accomplishing the Effect. The nature and severity of that sacrifice depends upon the mage, her practice, and the goal she wants to achieve. Using the Prime Sphere, a mage could also harvest Quintessence from a sacrifice. But although live offerings have literally vital significance within many cultures, killing something in order to further your own ends raises obvious moral and legal questions, especially in our current era.

### Ordeals and Exertion

Pain has a marvelous way of focusing your attention. From the gruesome splendor of the Lakota sun-dance to the more prosaic practice of cutting, people employ techniques of significant anguish as methods for either getting out of their heads or, in contrast, getting “under the skin” to find the deeper layers there. Many mystic practices (and certain technological ones, too) employ agony as a tool for focus.

Athletic exertions, too, count toward such goals. Marathons, pumping iron, cage-fighting, extreme sports… they all take you out of the routine and into the moment and thus provide focus through intense experience. Physically, such exertions are ordeals – challenges that take a person to her limits and show her how much she’s capable of doing. And so, for certain mages (especially Akashics, Thanatoics, Ecstatics, shamans, and Technocrats), the practice of intentional exertion provides a physical and symbolic way to “break on through” and reach new levels of reality.

### Prayers and Invocations

Reaching out to higher or lower powers for support, a person can, with any luck, secure aid from the force in question. Among religious people, that force tends to be the god they worship or intercessors like saints, Loa, bodhisattvas, or guardian angels. Certain desperate folks, however, pray to devils or rival gods – a heretical but surprisingly common practice. Prayer could be considered a form of meditation too, especially when it’s part of a daily ritual. For religious mages, prayer is THE instrument of choice. No other focus works as well or brings a devotee closer to his god.

Invocations aren’t always prayers, but they still call in potent forces. Essentially, the mage speaks names or words of power (see Languages and Voice) in order to make things happen. Materialist mages do this too; it’s amazing how effective certain phrases (“Nothing to see here,” “Death before dishonor,” “It’s a fact – you can look it up”) can be when you say them with intention. An invocation speaks Will into activity, so buzzwords and battle cries figure prominently in the Arts of Change.

### Sacred Iconography

The Qur’an. The cross. The pentacle. The Tau. Icons and scriptures. Prayer wheels and hell-money. The rich iconography of human religions provides an essential focus for mages of faith. Depending on the character’s creed, the symbols in question could be brandished while casting an Effect; employed in rituals; worn simply as a reflection of faith; or possibly – for enemies of that faith – desecrated or destroyed in order to insult the creed in question, mock the power of its god(s), or co-opt that religion’s resources in order to take them for oneself. In either case, those symbols contain potent emotional symbolism in addition to their potential mystic power.

Sacred materials almost always contain a strong Resonance from that faith. In certain cases – like the legendary power of the cross – that Resonance focuses the invested power of millions of believers… which may provide a metaphysical reason for the force such icons have against certain enemies of that faith (like, say, vampires). Employed by a mage from the appropriate religion, a powerful instrument of faith – holy water, sanctified earth, a famous shrine, and so on – could contain a bit of Quintessence that it lends to the mage in question. Holy symbols tend to make certain Effects coincidental when they’re performed among faithful Sleepers, too; a group of devout Catholics won’t be surprised to see a priest perform a miracle.

### Sex and Sensuality

Sex is fun. Sex is scary. Sex is the most intimate thing you can share with another person, short of killing or giving birth. Hence, sex and sensuality (that is, close but not necessarily sexual contact) hold places of honor and shame among many mystical and technological practices. Certain disciplines – Left-Hand and Westernized Tantra, Gardnerian Wicca, Taoist sexual alchemy, the reclaimed Qadishtu tradition, and other forms of sacred eros – employ sex acts to focus life energy and dedicated magicks. Others simply stage orgies and Bacchanalia as tools for ecstatic worship, mysticism, and release.

As the entries about Bodywork and Energy suggest, sex rituals provide intimate contact for mystics both Awakened and otherwise. Sometimes regarded as communion between masculine and feminine polarities, other times used to break down concepts of gender and identity, occasionally corrupted into violation (especially in maleficia), and frequently employed as initiation (particularly in the Cult of Ecstasy, the Verbena, and certain Hermetic lodges and religious orders), ritualized sexuality mingles the primal essence of all parties involved. Given that level of contact, such practices share Resonance and make ideal instruments for Life, Mind, and Prime Arts… although, as certain lovers can attest, sex has a way of making Time move faster or slower for you, too.

### Social Domination

The superior person does not wait on the whims of others. That person – male or female – moves the world through force of personality. He might not be a tyrant – he might, in fact, be most effective when he isn’t one – but his word commands respect. Mages are superior people, and the most dominant of them use that knowledge to impose their Will upon the people in their lives.

The art of “alphaing” people isn’t necessarily what folks think it is. Although Alpha-Male/ Bitch types do tend to get their way in the short term, people resent them for it, often screwing them over out of vindictive spite. The most effective dominant people make people glad to be in their service. They inspire love as well as respect, and they garner long-term loyalty as a result.

Sometimes, though, short-term results are enough to work with. A bully can impose dominance upon people, turning them into agents of his Enlightened Will. And really, let’s not kid ourselves: abusive bastards run corporations, governments, cults, and even Traditions. The word sociopath is so loaded these days. We’ll simply call those people movers and shakers: they move, and you shake.

As a magickal instrument, social dominance plays out through command of group situations. Rank, eye contact, imposing body language, and sometimes threats provide the obvious tactics, but a seriously dominant person evokes that impression by simply being there. Presence and eloquence work far better than brutality, so a mage who uses domination – a prized skill in the Technocracy, but useful in every other faction too – directs his Arts (typically Entropy, Mind, Life, and Prime Effects) through force of personality, social cues, and the ability to back up his commands with Will when need be.

For obvious expansions on this idea, see the Might is Right paradigm and the practices of dominion and the Art of Desire

### Symbols

Technically, every instrument on this list is a symbol. As an instrument in its own right, however, a symbol takes a powerful image or omen – a flag, a glyph, a raven, etc. – and then directs a practice and Effect through that vehicle. The mage who unleashes a Mind Effect by unfurling a flag (or burning it) employs a symbol as a tool of his practice. Folks who wear significant symbols – like Captain America or Batman – evoke the power of that sign, adopting its mystique as their own. Mages do this sort of thing all the time; after all, doesn’t a wizard look more impressive in his brocade robes and runecarved staff than he would if he were simply wearing jeans?

### Thought Forms

Behind every potent symbol, there’s supposedly a level of psychic reality. The belief and life force invested in that symbol – and connecting it to the thing it supposedly represents – grants a level of reality to that symbol and the principles behind it. In modern occultism, that reality is sometimes called an egregore: a “watcher” that attains a sort of sentience because people believe in it.

Although various practices disagree about the nature of egregores (are they independent spirit entities, psychic constructs, imaginary concepts, quantum-particle activity principles, or simply human mind games invested with belief?), these thought forms become instruments for various practices, most especially chaos magick, crazy wisdom, shamanism, reality hacking, some forms of High Ritual, the Art of Desire, hypereconomics, and – as certain postmodernist mages would argue – every form of magickal practice, particularly the religious ones.

(You could think of an egregore as a meme-god; some occultists, in fact, would argue that both memes and gods are egregores, and that no distinction between the three of them exists. Yes, mages argue about some pretty weird shit.)

In game terms, a character uses a thought form by constructing a symbol, either in her imagination or in some physical and/ or social form, and then meditating upon it. If she can convince other people to invest psychic energy into the symbol, so much the better – a potent egregore becomes a stronger instrument. By calling upon that symbol as she casts a spell, either through meditation or invocation, she can focus her intentions through it as she would any other sort of instrument. It works because her belief has granted reality to the thought form, creating something from nothing. And so, although the mage appears to be working without an instrument, that instrument is actually something she holds in her head, believing – rightly or otherwise – that it has external reality as well.

Beyond the egregores of various mass-media constructions (Mickey Mouse, Team Edward, even Axe body spray), an especially pervasive thought form rules the 21st century: the Corporate Citizen. Employed to devastating effect by the Syndicate, Nephandi, and other corporate-culture mavens (Awakened and otherwise), the Corporate Citizen has become the most powerful political force of our era. Wearing many different masks… one hopes… this thought form channels immense energy for the people who understand how to use it as an instrument. A CNN press pass can focus potent applications of the Mind Sphere; a Koch credit card could channel access to incredible amounts of wealth, and the Axe citizen might indeed facilitate Life-based enchantments. The idea that there could be many different entities spawned from Corporate-Citizen thought forms – each with its own powers and agendas – is too frightening to contemplate… and yet, it might also be the truth.

### Toys

Magick need not always be serious. Playful items – tops, blocks, dolls, toy soldiers, little cars, games, and so forth – often find their way into the Arts, especially when those Arts are being practiced by Marauders, kids, street mages, Awakened parents, geek-culture mavens, and consistently young-at-heart folks like Willy Wonka or Mr. Magorium.

Toys can be creepy too, of course… especially the ones that come to life when you sleep, watch you after midnight, or seem to know a bit more than you’d like them to know about things you’d rather not have ANYONE find out about. Ouija boards, creepy dolls, action figures with working guns… such tools provide hours of fun for mages whose idea of play is rather sinister…

### Transgression

Breaking rules is a powerful thing, especially when it’s done with ritual intent. A specialty of chaos magicians, crazy-wisdom practitioners, reality-hackers, Left-Hand yogis, and even certain clerics and High Ritual Magi, the instrument of transgression involves intentionally shattering taboos in order to move past internal and external limitations.

Known in occult and theological circles as antinomianism (from the Greek: “without law”), ritual transgression discards the strictures by which one is expected to abide. Instead, the practitioner places his faith in his ability to endure whatever the penalties for such disobedience may be. In Christian theology, antinomianism is an accusation of heresy; among magical societies, it’s a disreputable path to potential wisdom. Aleister Crowley was the twentieth-century poster boy for such practices, but the concept is at least as old as the Vedas, and might be as timeless as magick itself.

Transgression, as you might expect, has various degrees of severity. Simple transgression is relatively easy to survive: acting like a fool in front of people you respect, dressing like a member of a different gender or class, assuming an identity that’s drastically different from your own (say, an Ecstatic stripper becoming a celibate nun, or vice versa), using drugs if you’re straight-edge, or going straight-edge of you use drugs… that sort of thing. Dedicated transgression violates the laws and expectations of your society: stealing, attacking innocent people, undergoing torture, performing deeds that would normally disgust you (digging up graves and fucking the corpses, to use a Left-Hand Tantric example), and similar outlaw acts. Catastrophic transgression is the sort of thing you can’t come back from once you’ve gone there, and so it’s a rare and perilous course to take; rape, murder, blasphemy to the gods to whom you’ve been sworn… such transgressions change the person who performs them, and that radical transformation is the point of the exercise. It’s worth noting that other folks won’t appreciate being part of that sort of “exercise,” and tend to use all available methods to punish such transgressors.

As an instrument of focus, transgression demands a willful, deliberate, and often openly declared intention to forsake taboos in order to achieve a greater end. It’s not simply partying hardy and hoping to avoid a hangover, but an intense and painful discipline by way of indicipline. Breaking someone else’s laws are easy; transgressing your own ethical codes is far more dangerous… and thus, more powerful. Transgression may have not only legal, moral, and physical consequences, but psychological and spiritual ones as well. A person who has thrown a rock through the figurative stained-glass windows of his own cathedral has to look at himself in the mirror, and then assess what he has seen there afterward.

### Tricks and Illusions

“It’s an ILLOOOOSION!” Mages who’ve learned how to hide their Arts in plain sight can at least try to pass off their Effects as stage trickery. If the magician in question has an arsenal of real-life tricks – ones that don’t actually employ True Magick but sleight-of-hand and misdirection – it’s far easier to then convince the Masses that the flying car or teleportation jump was simply another cool illusion.

On a similar note, pranks, gags, pratfalls, traps, con-jobs, and other tricks can be useful tools for the mystic or hypertech Arts as well. A well-executed prank or scam is kind of like magick to begin with; if the grifter just happens to employ real magick to make her tricks more effective, well, then she’s simply very good at the game. Gamblers and survivalists can put Correspondence, Entropy, Life, Mind, and Matter to good use by wrapping such Effects up in tricks and traps. And as for illusions, Mind excels at getting folks to see what they want to see, not necessarily what’s really going on.

Certain Social Abilities provide excellent dice pools for this instrument; for details, see the Art, Blatancy, Expression, High Ritual, Seduction, and Subterfuge Talents.

### True Names

To name something is to define it; to name someone is to have control over them. For this reason, among others, mages often hide their identities, taking on craft names and adopted monikers that differ from their full birth names. The New World Order, of course, has access to any legal record they care to check… which gives them an edge when they want someone’s True Name. From a technomagickal standpoint, an American’s Social Security Number might work just as well as… or better than… her True Name if the mage wants to hold power over that citizen.

In game terms, the Storyteller may rule that an enemy with someone’s True Name – that is, her full legal name, perhaps with childhood nicknames attached – might act against that person as if the enemy has a unique personal instrument (-2 to casting difficulties). That option might be a bit too powerful for comfort; then again, such power could underscore the point that we take privacy too lightly in this era…

### Vehicles

KITT. Blue Thunder. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and every car ever driven by James Bond. Modern mages know how to get the most out of that cornerstone of our era: the magic vehicle. And though such conveyances tend to be Wonders in their own right, a tinkerer or driver can work his Arts through any properly maintained machine.

Enchanted vehicles aren’t always modern machines. Coachmen used to be infamous for their apparent gift for driving coaches between worlds, and High Artisans gained renown for their devastating war machines. Sailing ships, ironclads, old diving bells, skates, even surfboards can provide a focus for transportation magicks.

### Voice and Vocalizations

Vibrations from the human throat focus astonishing Effects. From singing or recognizable words (see Music and Language, above) to the wordless cries, gibberish, or evocative singing techniques collectively known as glossolalia (“babbling tongue”), vocalizations feature prominently in mystic practices. Both the terms gibberish and jabber come, it has been said, from the 8th-century Arab alchemist Jabir ibn Hazyan, who disguised his forbidden formulas in terms so incomprehensible that would-be translators referred to his work as “Jabir-ish.”

In mystic practices, non-linguistic utterances and nonsense phrases often evoke sublime states of mind because they seem significant even though they defy discernable language. The “speaking in tongues” so popular in prophecy and evangelism; the channeled speech or singing of mediums and trance-artists; the passionate cries of sex, euphoria, and pain… all of them work as tools of magickal focus. Even primal sounds – snarls, growls, whining, and so forth – can contain mystic influence. And although hypertech practices tend to frown upon indecipherable words, the cyborg who snarls as he aims his chain-gun might not need Spheres in order to get his point across!

### Wands, Rods, and Staves

Harry Potter’s crew understands the mythic quality of wands and wizard-staves. Acting as extensions of the mage’s arm (and, symbolically, his Will and other parts of his anatomy), these instruments become common yet formidable tools. Best of all, they can be practical in the everyday world as well. Although a wand won’t do much for you beyond directing mystic spells, a rod or staff could serve as a walking stick, prop, or weapon… especially for mages who spend lots of time in the wilderness, where hiking sticks get plenty of use.

### Weapons

Tools of ill omen tend to find their way into Awakened hands, often becoming channels for Entropy, Forces, Life, and Matter Arts. Any Sphere, of course, could manifest through a weapon: Spirit-crafted bullets to shoot at ghosts; Time-enhanced guns that fire at phenomenal speed; Correspondence arrows that fly impossible distances, WarriorPrincess throwing discs that seem to fly of their own accord; or swords or staves so imposing that only Mind magick could explain their mystique. A canny mage doesn’t even need to enchant their weapon in order to use it as an instrument for Arts; a simple Mind-push tacked onto a witty soliloquy could do the trick. (“Drop. Your. Sword.”)

### Writings, Inscriptions, and Runes

Writing is a magickal act. Long before literacy became a common trait, the man or woman who could read and write understood the secret lore of texts and scriptures. Even now, the act of physically writing something down (or carving or engraving it into a surface) gives that magick a sense of permanence. It was for this art that Odin hanged himself on the World Tree, that Chinese calligraphers spent their days in meditative bliss, that monks and friars, scribes and nuns devoted themselves to copying holy words in sacred texts. And even now, a smart blog post or text message can change somebody’s world. True, there’s a huge difference between cutting bloody runes in your flesh, scribing an illuminated scripture, and texting a Twitter observation. Any and all of these methods, though, can focus magickal intentions. Hell, even writing a roleplaying book could be considered an act of Will…