Resonance is the mystical ‘flavor’ of all the magic your character works. It describes his magical effects and their ‘aura’, if you will. This allows you to give your mage a style all his own, and as your character advances, his Resonance will grow stronger. See the rules on How to Gain Resonance, below.
Resonance is divided into three groupings:
- Dynamic: Things in motion, change, new ideas in action.
Examples: Quick, Smooth, Hopeful, Angry - Entropic: Destruction, death, decay, renewal, primordiality.
Examples: Bitter, Rotting, Unweaving, Unmaking - Static: Principles of definition and construction.
Examples: Logical, Artistic, Steady, Unyielding
A mage starts with three traits in Resonance, one for each category. In general, the strongest resonances in your magic will be tied to your Essence, your Nature, and your Demeanor. Choose these descriptors carefully, as they will define your magic throughout your career.
Example: Joe Tytalus is a fire mage of the Dynamic essence, with a Bravo demeanor and a Competitor nature. He is known for his fiery temper, and his tendency to tackle a problem head-on, often unwisely. Joe’s resonance might be rendered as:
Dynamic: Blazing ●
Static: Dominant ●
Entropic: Ashen ●
Each of these traits may gain additional dots later on, or you may gain additional traits within a category; this describes the relative strength of each aspect of your magic in relation to the others. Two dots in a specific resonance trait will make it appear twice as strong as a single dot, and so forth.
House Rules
Since Mage 20th has pretty much screwed the pooch with their Resonance rules, we’ve dropped back to a variant on the Revised rules. These rules should give Mage its own special feel, and make the willworking aspect of magic more obvious and more interesting to play.
Gaining Resonance
As a mage grows in power or becomes more focused in a certain sphere or type of magic, he may gain additional Resonance traits. These Resonance traits can gain him additional ability with magic that is within his normal paradigm and pattern.
Note that you may have more than one descriptor in a category, over time. Joe, in the example above, could wind up adding Crackling to his Dynamic Resonance traits, for example.
Benefits of Resonance
Any Resonance of 3 dots or more can grant you a -1 difficulty with magic of that type. Note that this is cumulative with all other difficulty reductions for magic from Quintessence, etc.; the total reduction in difficulty is still -3 maximum. In addition, casting magic in which you have a high related Resonance can negate a single 1 on rolls for that specific type of effect for the purpose of avoiding botches.
Let’s return to Joe as an example. Joe advances in Arete and gains more experience with his Forces magic in particular. His Resonances have become:
Dynamic: Blazing ●●●, Crackling ●
Static: Dominant ●
Entropic: Ashen ●
If Joe casts destructive fire magic, he can now draw on his Dynamic/Blazing resonance to make those effects easier. He gains a -1 difficulty for having 3 dots in Blazing, only to be applied to destructive fire magic, and if he rolls any 1s, one of those can be negated and turned to a 2 for the effect of calculating botches. This is cumulative with all other difficulty modifiers.
The Down Side of Resonances
In addition, any magic that opposes a strong Resonance within you is cast at +1 difficulty. Example from above: Joe wishes to cast an effect that summons water to put out a house fire. This is directly opposed to his Resonance, so he will gain a +1 difficulty for doing so. This is cumulative with all other difficulty modifiers.
How to Gain Resonance Dots
You cannot buy up dots in Resonance. You gain Resonance in two ways: from magical workings, and from Seekings.
Magical workings: Any time you garner a botch, or cast an effect with 20 or more successes, roll the total number of successes or 1s as appropriate at a difficulty of (11 – highest sphere used). To gain a new Resonance trait, you must attain as many, or more, successes as you have total dots in Resonance.
These rolls must be logged and mailed to the staff for approval. You should request the type of trait you want, and describe the effect that you were casting when this happened.
You may gain, at most, 1 point of Resonance per month.
Seeking: When your character undergoes a Seeking for higher Arete, he gains a dot in a Resonance of your choice as well.
Identifying Magic Based on Resonance:
Another mage can use Prime magic to ‘read’ the Resonance lingering in an area where you have worked magic recently. Each success on the Prime scan roll will give the scanning mage one dot of your Resonance, with the highest ones first.
Resonance lingers based on the number of successes you garnered, and the number of dots you have in Resonances. The more dots you have in any one Resonance, the longer it will take to fade.
- Each sphere dot used in the effect (total ALL dots used, not just the highest one): 1 hour
- Each success garnered on the roll: 1 hour
- Each dot of resonance you possess: 1 hour
- Botch: 1 day per dot of the highest sphere used, plus 1 day per dot of Resonance you possess.
Optional Advanced Rules
This set of Resonance trait rules is optional — a player has the option of using these rules, but is not obligated to do so. If you choose to use them, please list your modifiers on your sheet along with your Resonance for reference.
| 1 | -1 difficulty to detect similar effects +1 difficulty to detect opposed effects |
| 2 | -1 difficulty to analyze similar effects using Enigmas or Esoterica all above, plus +1 difficulty to analyze opposed effects using Enigmas or Esoterica |
| 3 | all above, plus -1 difficulty to cast similar effects all above, plus +1 difficulty to cast opposed effects |
| 4 | all above, plus -1 difficulty to counter similar effects all above, plus +1 difficulty to counter opposed effects |
| 5 | all above, plus -1 difficulty to unweave similar effects all above, plus +1 difficulty to unweave opposed effects |
Resonance-Related Rotes
Cleanse Resonance (●●● Prime)
This rote allows you to remove the traces of your personal Resonance after casting a magical effect. Note that this rote cannot be fast-cast. It requires an extended roll, at ten minutes per additional roll. Each success garnered can negate one dot of personal Resonance.
Read Resonance (● Prime)
This rote allows you to detect the traces of any magical effect cast in an area. Use the timetable above to see how long after the casting it can be detected. Note that this rote cannot be fast-cast. It requires an extended roll, at ten minutes per additional roll. Each success on the Prime scan roll will give the scanning mage one dot of the casting mage’s Resonance, with the highest ones first. A complimentary Perception + Awareness roll may be made alongside each Arete roll, with every two successes on the Per + Aware granting you one success to the Arete extended roll for detection. Note that you must recast this rote for each mage’s workings in an area that you wish to read.