<TBODY> Major Arcana and Minor Indiscretions

Newsletter           September 8^th, 2007</TBODY>

<TBODY>Wade Lahoda	Head Storyteller   storyteller@saskatoonbynight.com or 477-0145
Narrators:    Allan Schnell & James Nobel

The official Saskatoon by Night webpage can be found at www.saskatoonbynight.com

Next Game Date to be determined tonight – October 6^th or October 20^th?

Because of Hero’s Gambit, the next game date needs to be moved.  We can either move it up to October 6^th or back to October 20^th.  The forum poll is running fairly close, so I’m just going to hold a quick vote at the end of the game tonight to determine where to land the game.  Please stay the few minutes extra so we can count your vote.

Virtues, Vices, and Willpower – Slight change

It used to be that you could regain one Willpower by following your Vice once per scene, or you could refresh all your Willpower by following your Virtue, but only once per “story”.

I am changing that so that fulfilling either your Virtue or your Vice gives only one Willpower, but you can do either(or both) once per scene.  Remember as usual that just doing something Virtue or Vice inspired isn’t enough – it has to be something that costs you.

The other easy way to regain Willpower is to perform a Recovery Downtime Action, but this can only be performed once per month.

And because people often forget, I’ll note once again the main things you can spend Willpower on:

• You can spend one Willpower to gain a +3 modifier on one test.  Some tests can not be modified in this way: Wisdom and Degeneration checks, and offensive combat actions or powers meant to incapacitate an enemy.  And, yes, I have forgotten about the latter restriction in the past.
• A Willpower point can be spent to add three to your character’s Stamina, Resolve, Composure or Defense to resist mental or social/emotional pressures asserted on him, or to make a concerted effort to avoid being harmed.
• You can spend a Willpower to prevent yourself from losing a spell in Backlash. (new rule, See Below).
• Some powers, effects, or Derangements might cost you Willpower points.

Remember that all Willpower expenditures must be declared before any rolls, and you may only spend one Willpower a turn.

Rarely, I will give players the opportunity to spend Permanent Willpower (Willpower dots) for various special effects and cases, in addition to the standard cost for releasing a spell or creating a rote.  These special cases won’t happen often, but they might crop up.

Spending Willpower to hold a spell together during Backlash

One of the first house rules I instituted to up the ante for Paradox was that if you accept Backlash (take points of Bashing damage to nullify a Paradox), your spell is ruined and cancelled.  I am lightening that rule up slightly – now you can avoid losing the spell if you spend a Willpower point to hold onto it through the Backlash.  Remember you can only spend one Willpower a turn, of course.

Targeting, Sympathetic Casting, and Temporal Sympathy

First, a reminder: all spells, with only a couple of odd restrictions, need a target – a person, a place, or a thing.  Archmasters might be able to surpass this and case spells on ideas or concepts, but for your rank and file every spell must have a target.  I say this because about half the time when I’m working with a player on an improvised spell and it is troublesome, it is because one or both of us have neglected to ask “What is the target?”  What is this spell meant to perceive, affect, damage or the like?

If a spell has multiple targets – for instance you are casting a spell to analyze the link between two items, or to send one person to another or whatever – you always treat the casting as if were acting on the least favorable target.  This means if you are affecting two things and one of them is in Sensory Range but the other is far away you’ll need to cast it Sympathetically.

Any spell that tries to affect something not in Sensory Range must be cast Sympathetically.  This adds a series of complications – take a look at the Spellcasting stuff to see exactly how Sympathetic Casting works.  Remember through that what is important is your degree of Sympathetic Connection to your target – having the target’s buddy who has a Known Connection to the target doesn’t help you any since he isn’t the one casting the spell, you are.  Having a piece of the target will create an Intimate Connection though, for as long as you are holding it.  Such pieces must be significant – shed skin cells and trace evidence and the like aren’t enough, although in the past I’ve let people use things as small as a single strand of hair for a single casting (after which it is “used up”).  A lock of hair or an envelope full of fingernail clippings is plenty, though.

Scrying a target doesn’t mean you don’t have to cast other spells Sympathetically.  It just allows you to use your normal senses at a distance.  If you want to use other spells on the target – whether it is to see in the dark, control their mind, analyze their Resonance, or rend their flesh – you need to cast those spells Sympathetically.  On the upside, Scrying might reduce your penalty – Scrying counts as the equivalent of “having the target on a live video feed” while it lasts, which gives you a Known Connection.  Once the Scrying ends though, you’re probably back to a Described Connection (you’ve seen it through a spell, but not personally encountered it yet) unless you already had a better connection.

Temporal Sympathy for Time magic operates, in theory, the same way, but it takes a bit more brainwork to figure out Connections sometime.  They key is to remember the whole Target thing – you’re not targeting a time, you are targeting a person, place, or thing in time.  Want to target a place?  It doesn’t matter that you’re standing there right now (since you’re not changing where, you’re changing when), what matters is your knowledge of or connection to the place in that time (if you’re Scrying an apartment building in 1973, what matters is your personal connection to that apartment building in 1973 – the fact that you might be standing in it in 2007 doesn’t matter).  Same for people and things.  The JFK bullet example in the rulebook is a bit misleading because it implies you need a connection to an event, but really you do need a connection to the target instead.

Also, to add a complication to the mix – if you’re trying to affect something in Shadow you’ll need Spirit, if you’re trying to affect something Astral you’ll need Mind, and if you’re trying to affect something in Twilight you might need either Spirit, Death or Mind.  Oh, and don’t go trying to affect anything outside the Lunar limit – it never ends well.

Info on Sanctums, and a change to how Sanctum adds to casting downtime actions

Over the next week, I’m going to try and hunt down everyone who has a group Sanctum and get them to specify exactly a) who has dots in it, b) who put what dots in, and c) the details of the Sanctum set-up itself.  So you might want to start sorting out that type of stuff, deciding on a street address for your Sanctum, stuff like that.

Secondly:  Before, dots in Sanctum Size added their rating in dice to Extended Casting Downtime Actions for everyone who was part of that Sanctum.  I’m changing that so that now Sanctum Sizes adds its rating in automatic successes to Extended Casting Downtime Actions(thus potentially increasing your number of rolls significantly), but with the trade-off that dots in Sanctum Size must be split between everyone who is doing an Extended Casting in that Sanctum that month.  Since it is very rare more than one or two members of a Cabal will do an Extended Casting Downtime Action in one month, in general this works out to be much to the benefit of folks, which is the intention.

In Character Venue – A Events Hall in Southerland

In character, the venue is a Community Hall in Southerland.  Consider the main area, the front entrance hall, and the back entranceway to be WYSIWYG, but please don’t wander off into the rest of the building – presume it doesn’t exist IC.  If you need to wander off for private conversations go outside or some such.  You will likely get glared at(by me if no one else) if you go wandering off down the hallways and into classrooms and the like.  Plus, the IC venue isn’t that huge.

Awakened with the Spirit Mage Sight Spell, Second Sight, up will notice the Gauntlet is unusually high here.