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The purpose of this update to the “Mage” system is to harness the simplicity of the New World of Darkness (nWoD) engine and lay on top of it a magic system that is more practical and functional in a Fantasy setting than “Mage the Awakening” is as written.

Goals:

1. Magic exists under [many] very specific Spheres of influence called Purviews
2. Each character has few Primary and many Non-Primary Purviews
3. Each Purview has 1-6 or so specific Powers associated with it, each at different power levels
4. Each Power in a Purview can be purchased independently from the others (you do not have to buy them in sequence)
5. Every Power is useful in and of itself (things that have no game effect should not have to be purchased with XP)
6. No Power is rendered pointless/useless by other or higher-level Powers
7. (Other than Eminence) Every magic-related thing purchased with XP should give the character a new, direct capability (for example, purchasing Arcana dots does not directly give you any powers if you throw out spontaneous casting)

(Taken from the nWoD White Wolf Wiki)
Do everything outside of the MANIFEST TEMPLATE as per the nWoD “Blue Book”.

1. Choose Background. Write a background and determine the character's motivations and personality.
2. Select Attributes. Use the Blue Book rules with these modifications.
3. Select Skills. Use the Blue Book rules with these modifications.
4. Select Skill Specialties.
5. Determine Advantages. (Health, Defense, Speed, etc) Use Blue book rules with these modifications.
6. Select Merits. See the Mage book for Magical Merits and Blue book for Mundane Merits.


BEGIN MAGICAL TEMPLATE
7. Overlay Manifest Template.

• Pick 3 Primary Purviews. (Cassie might have: Telepathy, Kindred of the Forest(Animal), Healing)
• Start at Eminence 2 (3 Merit points can be sacrificed to start at Eminence 3)
• Health Pool: Use this calculation.
• Mana Pool: Use this calculation.
• All other “Advantages” are the same as Mage.
• Choose Innate Abilities:
  • Pick 6 Dots of Purview Powers: Choose any number of Powers under any Purview whose levels total up to 6 ¹⁾.
  • Example: Fire Elemental Style 1 + Fire Elemental Style 2 + Fire Elemental Style 3 = 6 Dots spent.

END MAGICAL TEMPLATE

You are better at your Primary Purviews, therefore it is cheaper for you to purchase Powers from them.

A restriction on the maximum level of Power you can buy within any Purview based on your eminence. Essentially, you can buy Powers of up to level 5 at starting Eminence, but for levels 6+ your Eminence must equal or exceed the level you which to purchase.

“Innate Ability” and “Power” are used interchangeably below.

(0) Rule Base: We are using the modifications to Mage listed here unless modified below. If a topic is not mentioned here, and not mentioned below, then use the mechanic as it is written in the Mage book.

(1) Purviews: An infinite number of Purviews exist, and the vast majority of them are not defined here. The ones which are mentioned are to be used as examples in order for the ST/Player to get a good idea of what, say, a Level 3 Power should entail (approximate power level) under a Purview. And really, anything imaginable can be a Power. Use the Mage book, the Werewolf book, the Changeling book, etc for ideas. Anything you can come up with can be worked into a sequence of Powers under the umbrella of a Purview.

(2) Determine Die Pool: Decide an appropriate ( ATTR + Skill ) to associate with the Power if applicable. Its Die Pool will be [Purview] + ATTR (+ Skill). When rolling dice, you only get to add in the (+ Skill) part if the Power is in one of your Primary Purviews. Powers that involve modifying yourself and do not directly attempt to manipulate others/objects in some way do not usually require a roll and therefore do not need a die pool. Powers that do or can manipulate others/objects generally do require a roll, and therefore do need a die pool.

(3) Power Restrictions: All Powers follow a set of General Power Restrictions, as well as Specific Power Restrictions (the Power's specific text). General Power Restrictions are high-level things like Activation Mana Cost and Eminence Restrictions (Spell Factors are an optional mechanic). Specific Power Restrictions are basically the text of the specific Power in question; these can potentially override the General Power Restrictions of a spell if it makes sense.

(4a) Power Activation: Spend your 1 Mana power-activation cost (if applicable) and if the Power requires a die pool roll (it may not), then roll [Purview] + Associated ATTR (+ Associated Skill, if Primary Purview). NOTE: Zero dots in the Power's skill do not impose the -1/-3 penalty for the purposes of Innate Ability activation.

(4b) Activation Time: Unless otherwise noted in a Power's specific text, any power activated on your turn takes effect that same turn.

(4c) Deactivation Time: Unless otherwise noted in a Power's specific text, all powers can be dropped as a reflexive action. Therefore, you can drop all 3 active Powers you have running in the same turn that you activate a 4th Power.

(4d) Combat Action Type: Power Activation is a simple/instant action, like an attack action. You can do a move action in the same turn as activating an Innate Ability, but you can NOT do an attack in the same round as activating an Innate Ability. This can be overridden by Specific Power Restrictions.

(4e) Vigor/Stressful Power: We are throwing out the concept of “Vigor” and keeping the concept of “Stressful Powers”. A Power is Stressful to activate if it is under a Non-Primary Purview for you, and your Eminence is less than the [Purview] level of the Power you're trying to activate. Primary Purview Powers are never stressful. For Example: if Water is a Primary Purview for you but Fire is not, and your Eminence is 3, then it is Stressful for you to attempt to activate a [Fire] 4 Power. However, activating a [Water] 4 Power is not Stressful, even though you are only Eminence 3.

(4f) General Paradox: The Paradox mechanic is rewritten as follows, and uses essentially none of the rules from the core Mage book. You still generate Paradox if the Power you are trying to activate is Stressful for you (see above, 4d). When Paradox is invoked (instead of using the core Mage book mechanic), you take Lethal (L) damage in the amount of Base [Level] of Power that caused the Paradox, which must be healed normally (cannot be healed magically).

(4g) Activation Failures: For Primary Purview Powers, you can attempt to re-activate a Power after a failed attempt as many times as you want. For non-Primaries, you have ( Eminence ) number of tries to successfully activate a Power per scene before you start causing Paradox. If you succeed before generating Paradox, your number of tries per scene resets. If you do generate Paradox, you always generate Paradox each subsequent attempt at activating that power for the remainder of the scene. Note that this is for trying again after a number of failed attempts; activating multiple times successfully within a scene has no bearing on this.

(4h) Nimbus: Activating a Primary Purview Power does not cause Nimbus flare. Activating a non-Primary does. Each activation of a non-Primary is +1 Nimbus flare, and the activations are additive per scene (so activating 5 non-Primaries in a scene will boost you to level 5 Nimbus). It takes an hour for a character's Nimbus to drop one level; that said, every time your Nimbus increases by +1, this timer will be reset back to one hour (example: if your Nimbus is level 3 with 15 minutes left before dropping down to Nimbus 2, but you activate another power bringing it to level +4, it will now take 1 hour to go down to 3).

(4i) Eminence Benefits: On this page, your default eminence 2 mage sight is a generic mage sight that shows the Manifest anything supernatural going on in the area, although you can only get the flavor of the powers being observed if they fall obviously under one of your Primary Purviews. For the Eminence 3 Mage Armor, you get your Eminence in armor ranks (not your Arcana).

(4j) Manifest Weapon: For the purposes of the Manifest Weapon mechanic, you get base 2B (which is normal) and instead of Arcana rank, you get Eminence worth of other points to distribute. The rest of the manifest weapon mechanic rules remains the same (including appearance, etc).

(5) (OPTIONAL) Rituals: If you wish to include default Spell Factors in your game, you can use this as a way of boosting your Spell Factors from the default values. Use the Ritual version of the tables on the spell factors page. The die pools are calculated in the same manner (per level) as the Instant casting versions are (see 2b in the section below). A ritual always causes a +1 Nimbus flare, even on Primary Focus Purview Innate Abilities (due to the intense, extended focusing of the Manifest's magical abilities). The Flare occurs at the end of the Ritual, and so the timer starts counting down from 1 hour at the completion of the Ritual.

(6) (OPTIONAL) Tenacity of the Gods: For Primary Purview (ONLY) Innate Abilities, a character may attempt to activate a higher-Eminence version of an Innate Ability they have already purchased. Spend one willpower point plus [Eminence Required] Mana and roll [Your Eminence] dice (no willpower-for-extra-dice here). You need [Eminence Required] - [your Eminence] in successes minimum in order to succeed in concentrating your Eminence to a higher level than normal. If you fail, you take [Eminence Required] worth of Lethal (L) damage as well as the Lethal (L) damage generated by a Paradox, which you have just invoked by failing your activation (all of this damage is unhealable by magical means). If you succeed, you can make a single normal Power-activation roll (you may use willpower on this if desired). Assuming this normal activation roll succeeds, you automatically get a Nimbus flare of +10 for pushing your Eminence beyond its typical limits.

(7) Regaining Mana: Use the mechanic here.

“Innate Ability” and “Power” are used interchangeably below.

All Innate Abilities have these default characteristics based on Eminence unless the verbiage of the Power indicates otherwise. As such, these are to be considered a starting point, the default parameters of any given Power if any of these specific details about the Power is not explicitly defined. But any and all of these defaults may be overridden by a specific Power's description.

(1) Power Instances: Only one instance of a particular Innate Ability may be running at a time. If someone wishes to target an additional person with a particular Power of theirs that is already activated, the Manifest must drop the first instance of the Power and re-activate it. (this restriction may be overridden depending on the verbiage of the specific Power)

(2) Spell Attributes: Attributes of a Power (Number of Targets, Size, etc) are explicitly written into each Power description, if such an attribute is expected to be a factor in the Manifest's ability to activate the Power (such as Size of a Gate for a Gate Power). Optionally, you can use the following OPTIONAL rules (2a, 2b) for applying default Spell Factors to all Powers.

(2a) (OPTIONAL) Base Spell Factors: All Spell-Factor-related attributes of the Innate Ability upon a simple success (1 success) in your activation roll are: Eminence X nets you Spell Factor Level X for all Spell Factors ³⁾. For example: (TARGETS: you get 1 target at 1 Eminence, 8 targets at 4 Eminence, etc) (SIZE: you can affect something of “20 or less” at Eminence 1, “41-50” at Eminence 4, etc) (If you are Eminence 4 then you can target up to 8 people all of size of up to size 41-50 by default).

(2b) (OPTIONAL) Spell Factors at Higher Levels: To apply a Spell Factor above and beyond what you get by default depending on your Eminence, just subtract the difference of what you want/need from what you get by default: At Eminence 2 you can target 2 people by default but you need to target 5. Well, 5 targets is (-6) but you get 2 targets for free (-2), so you you have a net (-4) penalty to apply to your Power activation roll for targeting 5 people.

(3) (SPECIAL) [Purview] Maximum

(4) (SPECIAL) Activation Mana Cost

(5) (SPECIAL) Damage Type

Here are some examples of Innate Abilities/Powers under various Purviews. The Purviews are grouped thematically below. There is no tie between Purviews that are under the same group heading, other than that they are very similar in nature.

Old examples are [ here ].

Others:
Crystalline Elemental Style
Light Elemental Style
Lightning Elemental Style
Metal Elemental Style
Shadow Elemental Style
Wood Elemental Style

Example: