Mages most often decorate their ritual spaces according to their Order - a Mystagogue’s ritual space may be a storehouse of knowledge that reflects the Order’s Tarsi Archive, while a given Libertine may fit hers out as a machine shop or embed the soul stone in a sacred tree. Demesne Many willworkers enhance their ritual space with a soul stone, turning it into a weak form of Verge. Others find places - or times - where the Lie reflects the Supernal without any specific proximity. Place Mages seek out - or create - locations that border the Supernal in the hope of using that proximity to enforce ascended laws on the Fallen World.
someone who wants to interrupt an involved casting thus has plentiful opportunities to snatch away mystic items, block out the light of the full moon, or just shoot the mage in the head. a mage can draw upon one yantra as a reflexive action when casting a spell each further yantra extends the casting time by a turn. Number of yantras you can use Gnosis Yantras 1 or 2 2 3 or 4 3 5 or 6 4 7 or 8 5 9 or 10 6 It takes time to draw upon the supernal sympathy of objects and actions. If she uses one ritual item in many ways, each individual use counts as one Yantra for this limit. To reflect this, the number of Yantras she can apply to a given spellcasting pool is limited by her Gnosis. She can however only access so many pieces of Supernal knowledge at once. A mage may want to use as many Yantras as possible in her spellcasting, especially for powerful acts of magic. A mage can only get so much help from Yantras - after offsetting any penalties, the maximum bonus from all her Yantras combined cannot exceed 5 dice. These bonus dice can help eliminate penalties to her spellcasting pool, or provide bonuses. The number of dice varies by the Yantra that she uses.
When a mage uses a Yantra in the working of a spell, she adds bonus dice to her spellcasting dice pool. A Guardian might set up a Chamber of Veils that she uses to hide truths and reveal secrets, but unless she can connect her Supernal understanding of the Chamber of Veils to a place of healing, it won’t help her when a cabal-mate stumbles through her door holding his intestines in place. Naturally, using Yantras in this way has its limits - if the mage can’t fit any of the symbols associated with the Yantra into her working, she can’t use it to bolster her magic. The more Yantras she uses - whether different interpretations of the same tool or different tools altogether - the more basis she has for her imago, making it easier to form. Rather than drawing a picture of what she wants freehand, she instead has a stock image she can trace or use as inspiration. That reflection then factors into her arcane understanding, enabling her to use that symbol as the foundation for an imago. Yantras In order to use a Yantra, a willworker has to recognize a specific symbolism in the tool. If you’re casting a rote out of a book (which takes hours), or one you designed yourself, you get the rote factor (reroll failures) on the roll. All three use the same dicepool – Gnosis + Arcanum. A Rote is an imago designed by a Master and either cast by following the instructions in a Grimoire or learned with Experiences by less-developed mages. When a mage uses one of her praxes, all Magical Tools (NOT all Yantras – tools are a subset, as you’ll see) count as being Dedicated, which greatly reduces but never quite eliminates Paradox Risk. You get one with every dot of Gnosis, and can buy more with Arcane Experiences. A Praxis is a spell you’ve become especially practiced at, iconic for your character. 2nd Edition Spoiler Rules Types of Spells An Improvised Spell is just that – something you’ve used your knowledge of the Arcana to come up with.