Some More Rotes

Freeze Ray (Forces ••••)

By use of this rote, a mage can suck the heat out of objects, quickly freezing just about anything. While this will usually be vulgar, you can occasionally get away with "Hey, a freon can burst!" or "Hey, he's standing under a tank of liquid nitrogen!". Essentially, this rote will do nasty damage to living creatures (Successes X 3 for damage) and render them extremely fragile. Clever folks will be quick to realize that just about anything becomes brittle if you drop it's temperature far enough, so it's great for defeating armor (I recommend blow off one point of armor per success on the magick test) and can blow out car tires, shatter hot objects when their temperate drops so suddenly, etc. For the fully Mr. Freeze effect, combine this with Matter 2, Prime 2, and you can actually make ice with your freeze ray. Great for trapping HIT Marks, covering doors, burying pesky Nephandi, etc.

Water Breathing (Matter ••, Prime ••, or Life •••, or Forces •••, Prime ••)

An excellent example of using different spheres for the same effect! Using the Matter/Prime effect, you conjure air inside your mouth or lungs ("Boy, he sure can hold his breath a long time thanks to all those tuba lessons as a child!"). With the Life 3 effect, you modify your lungs to take oxygen from water. With the Forces/Prime effect (and here's where it starts to stretch!) you generate electrical current inside your mouth to cause electrolysis, breaking water down into hydrogen and oxygen. Just silly enough to work!

Medusa's Glare (Life ••••, Matter ••• (possibly ••••, it's up to your ST), Prime ••)

A truly vulgar effect, you use this rote to turn people into, you guessed, stone! Or, if you feel frisky, I recommend tapioca pudding or perhaps neon-purple plastic. It's a vulgar life attack, so you get X3 successes in aggravated damage, with the possible (ST's option) effect of rendering the wounds basically unhealable until someone either shifts your pattern back to normal (essentially undoing all damage) or cuts the stone, pudding, whatever free and rebuilding the pattern (normal Regeneration effects). Note: this effect even works on Vampires! Of course, the unlucky recepient of your hostile stare gets a directed dodge against the effect.

Sleeping Beauty's Lament (Life ••••, Time ••• (at least)

Use this effect to put someone to sleep for a long, long time. Either using the Dilate/Constrict Time effect, or "sending" the victim into the future. For each success on the effect, you dump somone into a longer and longer sleep (1=hour, 2=day, 3=week, 4=month, 5=year should be pretty acceptable).

Mind Strike (Mind ••••, Entropy •••• (ST may insist on •••••)

Use this effect to essentially drive someone completely insane. By absolutely dissaranging their ability to think coherently, you can plunge someone into a whirlwind of screaming madness by surging information, replacing perception (hallucinations, delusions, etc.) and just generally making someone's life hell. Successes indicate level of disorganization (I recommend -2 dice on all tasks per success scored by the mage), though this effect is resisted with a Willpower roll (difficulty somewhere around mage's arete +3 or just plain 8's a good rule of thumb, each success killing one of the mage's).If you don't have Mind, you can also get away with using Life to induce schizophrenia, etc. or maybe even Spirit for partial possession!

Alter Ego (Life ••••• (you might even finagle a •••), Spirit ••••, Prime ••)

Use this rote to create another you! Yes, you actually create a full clone of yourself (to clone yourself might only require a 3 Life, after all, it is your pattern, but, of course, that's up the the almighty ST) and put the favorite spirit of your choice into the body.Why the hell would I wanna do that? you ask! Well, it is an instant alibi and possible ally, allows you to be, quite literally, in two places at once and doing different things, and can make your life complicated to no end (it's like the Mistaken Identity Flaw, only better!) You and your ST could have hours of fun designing the spirit you stick in your twin. Want to avoid paradox! "Hey, meet my identical twin!"

Monomolecular Weaponry (Matter •••••, Prime ••)

Use this rote to create a sword one molecule thick! This weapon can cut through just about anything, and weighs next to nothing. It's pretty darn coincidental (unless you take to whittling through battleship plate or cinderblock walls), and is made even more so if you stamp Ginzu on the side! I recommend difficulty 5, damage is equal to the number of successes rolled to hit as automatic successes for damage, plus Strength + 2 in dice. Note that there aren't many things capable of parrying such a weapon, and armor might even be less effective (rating lowered by one or something along those lines).

Getting in Touch with Your Feminine Side (Life •••, Prime ••)

Need a foolproof disguise! Try transforming into a woman (or man, if you're already a woman, whatever works for you). It's pretty simple matter of just switching your systems over (simple, ha!) but the effect if spectacular. Just like Better Body, this effect can be hazardous to you from pattern leakage, so don't keep it up for too long. However, by fiddling with your chromosone patterns, you might talk your storyteller into letting you make it permanent (if you for some reason, really wanted too...)

Note that with Life 4, you can do this to other people! Fool your friends, fun at parties!

By: Daniel P. Anderson (daanders@nmsu.edu)

HTML by Arthur Muzzarelli (theshadw@industrynet.net)