Sanctum (Mage)

## **Creating a Sanctum/Increasing the Level of an Existing Sanctum**

Post character creation, the Sanctum background can be gained in-game by creating the Sanctum itself through play and then spending the requisite experience during Downtime. This process can be repeated for each dot in Sanctum, or done all at once, however, the amount of out of game time that must be invested is the same. Once designated, the area must be attuned to the Mage's Resonance. There are two methods that can be used to create a Sanctum in-game, either method can be used to increase the level of an existing Sanctum.

* Using a designated area as your Magickal workspace once per day, every day, for a period of 3 months.
* Consecrating a designated area with your personal energy (via the Prime 1 effect) once per day, every day, for a period of one month.

Either method will attune the Sanctum to the Paradigm of the Mage in question; Consecration takes less time as the Mage is attuning it to their Paradigm by directly infusing it with their personal Resonance via the Prime Sphere, as opposed to indirectly infusing in with their personal Resonance through repeatedly casting Magic.

### **How To Create a Sanctum without Prime**

* Designate an area in your living space as your Magickal Workspace; this will become your Sanctum. It can be any area up to 500sq feet (46.5sq meters)
* Once per day, make at least 1 successful Arete roll on any Effect. in your Magickal Workspace. It can be a Rote, Fast-Casting or part of a larger Ritual. As long as at least 1 roll is successful, it will subtract one day from the 3 month time period needed to create the Sanctum. You may spend Willpower and Quintessence on the roll, or attempt to lower the difficulty with an Ability roll as per the usual rules.
* If the initial roll Fails, you may attempt again until you achieve a successful Arete roll.
	+ If any roll after the initial roll Fails, the normal penalties apply.
* If *any* roll Botches, the Mage in question applies Paradox as per the Paradox rules. As long as a successful Arete roll is made within the Magickal Workspace that day it will not disrupt the process of creating the Sanctum.
	+ If a Botched roll is not overwritten by a successful roll in the same day 3 times the work is considered to be a Failure and they must wait one week before starting the process anew.

### **Time**

The amount of time required is dependent on the amount of dots you are looking to invest in. Each dot in Sanctum requires 1 month or 3 months real-world time (depending on the method) to pass in order to create; this time is cumulative with the number of dots you are purchasing for your Sanctum, not with dots already existing on your sheet. Thus, a player could invest 1 month of time to create a level one Sanctum and later invest another month of time at a later date to increase that level to 2.

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*For example; Mary is creating a 2 dot Sanctum for herself entirely through play. As Mary lacks the Prime Sphere she will need to invest 6 months of time into creating the Sanctum. She opts to invest in 1 dot now, save her experience over time and purchase the second point at a later date.*

*Eric has a 2 dot Sanctum. He wishes to increase his Sanctum rating to 3. As he has the Prime Sphere he opts to invest 1 month of time to create the Sanctum by Consecrating his Magickal Workspace.*

### **Tracking Rolls, Taking Breaks & Missing Days**

Each roll made to create your Sanctum should be screenshotted and Bluebooked as such. Due to the high amount of time potentially invested in this endeavor we recommend creating a separate tracking post just for creating the Sanctum.

In terms of Mage mechanics, creating a Sanctum functions as a Great Work dependent upon the passage of a certain amount of time, rather than accruing a set number of successes. Regardless of the method used to create the Sanctum, the amount of time that passes between each casting counts as a break; because of this we will not be requiring players to spend a point of Willpower in order to take a break, nor will we be requiring players to make a roll to pick the work back up. This is to allow players the ability to leave their Sanctum and do things, rather than be stuck inside casting for an inordinate amount of time.

Sometimes life happens and you can’t be around to make your rolls for a given day or days. Sometimes people forget. Sometimes characters stretch themselves thin and need to recoup their Willpower. Whatever the reason we’re inclined to be a bit forgiving and give each character three “sick days” per month during each month they will be dedicating to their Sanctum.

These “sick days” are not cumulative and refresh at the start of each month of play: after downtime ends and play resumes.

Additionally, we will be allowing players to make up to 7 rolls at a time, at the beginning of each week. If you will be away due to some life event arrangements can be made with the Storytellers to make the requisite rolls either prior to the player’s departure or after the player’s return.

It is imperative if at all possible you contact a Mage Storyteller to make these arrangements before your absence, not after, if at all possible.

If you miss a roll and have used your sick days, or want to save them for later, you will have a 24 hour grace period to make and bluebook the rolls. If the player still has “sick days” for the month, they will be automatically subtracted from the total number of sick days remaining for the month. If rolls are not made after the 24 hour grace period, and the application of any remaining sick days, or if no sick days are remaining after the end of the 24 hour grace period, the PC in question is considered to have failed in creating the Sanctum and will need to start over from the beginning at the start of the next month of play.

### **Experience Costs**

Due to the extreme value per dot of Background invested in Sanctum, it costs double the normal amount of XP to purchase after character creation, as it costs double the amount of Background Dots/Freebie Points at character creation.

Before beginning the process of creating a Sanctum in-game, players should have a minimum of the amount of XP required to pay for the number of dots they are investing into the background in their XP bank.

So a player wishing to buy 1 dot in Sanctum, or increase their Sanctum by 1 dot would need to have 3XP banked. 2 dots 6XP, 3 dots, 9 XP and so on. The experience cost is cumulative with the number of dots invested over time.

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### **Background Cap**

Per M20, the Sanctum background caps at 5. While players may potentially be able to raise other backgrounds beyond 5, Sanctum offers invaluable advantages to a player, as such, rather than creating write-ups for Sanctum beyond 5, we have decided to cap it at 5, rather than allow players to continue to sink XP into the background beyond a rating of 5.