Instruments
From Ascension Sojourns
| Armor | As a tool for Awakened focus, the armor in question must be created or modified by the Spheres to provide additional levels of protection. One point of Quintessence, invested into the armor with Prime 2 or better, can make that armor resistant to aggravated damage. For details about armor, see the Combat section in Chapter Nine of M20 Anniversary. |
| Artwork | Drawings, paintings, CGI, sculptures, graffiti, and so forth allow a mage to capture his intentions in a visual medium. One of the oldest mystic tools (as shown in prehistoric cave-paintings and goddess figurines), artwork often draws upon the principle of connection: by depicting your subject, you attach your intentions and desires to it through the art. Artwork also influences the human condition by appealing to people (or disturbing them) when they recognize the symbolic energy of a piece. |
| Blessings and Curses | Bestowing favor or inflicting bad luck – especially through the power of gods or spirits – remains a potent form of magick. And so, when people see witches, clergy, gamblers, and hoodoo-folk call upon God, Fate, and Fortune, they’re inclined to believe in the results. In game terms, blessings and curses tend to be coincidental. After all, superstition and religious awe are universal, even in these supposedly civilized times. |
| Blood and Other Fluids | Sweat, tears, blood, semen, saliva, pus, urine, bile, marrow, sap… through such fluids flow the essence of life. Sure, they seem disgusting to most folks, but mages – especially ones who practice medicine work, biotech, or primal magick – recognize their power. DNA, viruses, life force, the generative capacities of living things – all manifest in such organic fluids, so many practices employ those liquid instruments… possibly distilling them down to Quintessential Tass, painting with them, drinking them, drawing them out of the body, releasing them in acts of gory sacrifice, or otherwise opening an organic vessel and letting the magick flow. (See also Brews, Food, Offerings, and Sex.) |
| Bodywork | Massage, energy-sharing, chiropractic medicine, acupuncture and acupressure, yoga, and other disciplines of body manipulation allow a person to influence mental and physical health, stimulate organic functions, establish or reinforce intimate bonds between the practitioner and his subject, and simply help people feel better about themselves. As a result, bodywork forms a centerpiece for several mystic practices, especially ones that – like martial arts, shamanism, witchcraft, yoga, and certain types of medicine work – favor vitality over external tools. |
| Bones, Skins, Organs, and Other Remains | Like bodily fluids, the physical pieces of a living (once-living) thing contain potent magickal significance. After all, such remains facilitate life, and so they also focus the life of a spell. As a result, they often get converted into ritual instruments of many different kinds. Books might be written on flayed skin; dusts can be ground from powdered bone; items could be crafted out of organs or skeletal remains. It’s gruesome, sure – but it’s also quite traditional. Creepy mystics aren’t the only folks who do this sort of thing, either… are they, Dr. Frankenstein? The literal structures of life play important roles in magick, science, and religion, no matter how macabre that role might seem. |
| Books, Scrolls, and Periodicals | Is print obsolete? Not even close. Although e-books and PDFs comprise a wider range of texts now than they did even a decade ago, the printed word retains a mystic significance that those digital media have yet to achieve. 21st-century mage periodicals range from e-books of shadows to SF/ fantasy lit, computer manuals, magazines and e-zines, occult tomes, aged grimoires, ancient scrolls, downloadable PDFs, print-on-demand texts, graphic novels, and even game books like this one. Many feature the occult lore of ages, whereas others present pop philosophy, subversive concepts, historical information, cataloged facts, and any other subject that can be presented in written form. Within the last 30 years, incredibly rare arcane texts have popped up on big-box bookstore shelves all around the world, so any mage who takes herself seriously has a library of some kind. |
| Brain/ Computer Interface | An emerging technology among the Masses, BCI is a common tool among certain Awakened factions, especially the Virtual Adepts, Iteration X, the Syndicate, and the NWO. Microtechnology – usually a bush of carbon nanotube bundles spread throughout the brain – transmits electrical signals from the brain, interprets them through a computerized interface, and allows for physical manipulations or virtual functions through brain power alone. Because it literally messes with your brain, many mages consider BCI anathema. Even among allies, the debate about such technologies can get pretty heated. Does BCI turn its user into a tech-addled posthuman, or is it simply another step in human progress, like language, printing, or the Internet? Regardless of such objections, brain/ computer interface is a viable tool for the 21st-century technomancer – borderline coincidental so long as it’s used invisibly, and potentially game changing for the future of humanity. |
| Brews, Potions, Powders, and Other Concoctions | Blending various ingredients into potent concoctions, the archetypal witch’s brew and its many permutations – goffer dust, corpse-powder, dragon’s blood, beer, wine, love philters, mystic potions, and the diverse medicines, foods, and beverages found across the world – present an obvious tool of magickal intent. Regardless of the purposes or composition involved in a given concoction, the process of turning many things into one thing reflects a sort of magic. For that reason, mythology often credits gods and wise-folk with the creation of beers, foods, and medicines. In game terms, any sort of mage can use such refreshments. Holy water, love potions, hypermeds – they’re all refinements of the same basic idea: mix it up, drink it down, and watch things change! |
| Cards, Dice, and Other Instruments of Chance | Probability holds a sense of wonder, even for the Masters of Entropy whose Arts direct it, to a certain degree. The fickle hand of chance represents the randomness principles of the universe, so its talismans – dice, tokens, thrown bones, drawn straws, divination sticks, and, of course, the symbol-flashing cards – reflect command of destiny. Fate appears to speak through these instruments, and they become potent tools of omen and prophecy. Traditionally, a caster mixes up the tokens into an apparently random selection, then draws a certain number of them in order to find out what he needs to know. That mage could cheat, of course, removing the random element from the task. Still, instruments of chance present a dramatic focus for intentions – witness the gambling-hall scenes in Run Lola Run or Casino Royale – especially when big things depend upon the turn of a friendly card. Cards, given their visual focus, are especially vivid instruments – particularly the symbolic portents of Tarot or other oracular cards. Even normal playing cards, though, can be incredibly evocative, reflecting cosmic tales of sex, violence, desire, and royalty in a few simple icons that find their way into popular mythology. |
| Celestial Alignments | What’s your sign? Long before books or machines became common tools, mages read, focused, and calculated the schedules for their rituals by the dance of planets and stars. Even now, when modern science has supposedly disproved the old cosmologies – at least on the mortal side of the Gauntlet – the old mystique of horoscopes, the brilliant possibilities of Hubble telescope photos, and the eldritch mysteries of deep space continue to influence mystic and scientific practices, conjuring insights and miracles when the stars are right. |
| Circles, Pentacles, and Other Geometric Designs |
As the archetypal symbol of unity, the circle shows up in mystic practices everywhere. Enclosing workspaces, sigils, ritual areas, and other regions in circles, spell casters secure that space within spheres of their intentions. Meanwhile, other circular designs – rings, belts, linked hands, dancing circles, even circular movements and sung rounds – provide similar enclosures that seal an intention with an activity. Other geometric shapes – triangles, squares, hexagrams, pentacles, and so forth – seal different sorts of activities. Symbolically, those shapes (which appear in scientific formulae too) represent cosmic principles by mathematical designs. Squares reflect stability, rectangles present expansive yet secure areas, crosses signify intersecting forces, triangles direct energy, and combinations of those designs – as seen in yantras, mandalas, sand paintings, and other ritual diagrams – combine several forces into unified wholes… wholes often surrounded by a circle. Certain ritual practices, especially in High Ritual Magick, demand elaborate designs that must be traced and crafted to exacting standards. Such designs can take hours or even days to create, and they often become permanent parts of a ritual space. In symbolic architecture, the space itself might be crafted into the design – a common practice among Freemasons and other artists of sacred geometry. Temples, cathedrals, Chantries, and other important buildings become massive works of symbolism… which, when you think about it, says volumes about the mystic dimensions of Washington DC. |
| Computers and IT Gear | The essential tech of the 21st century, computers and other elements of Information Technology form the basis for Consensus Reality in our age. For obvious reasons, then, mages use computers for everything from data storage to social transformation. Not long ago, such machines were toys for a privileged few. Now, almost everyone within the industrialized world has at least access to a computer, and many folks use them on a daily basis. Magickally speaking, computers store and manipulate data like handy household gods. Using arcane calculations and alchemical technologies, they transform every sphere of life they touch. The industrial world depends upon computers nowadays – they run cars, manage banks, link people, and allow for a global community that, within living memory, used to be impossible. These portals of Hermes let tech-savvy mages sidestep physical reality, not only through the Digital Web itself but through common miracles like smart phones, laptops, and streaming media. And so, in our new millennium, a mage can use a computer for damn near anything if she’s good enough at what she does. Connected to the computers themselves, the ever-growing network of clouds, sites, sectors, and connections holds an expanding universe of virtual potential. And though the gleeful prognostications of early cyber-visionaries bear little resemblance to the Internet we know today, that technology is just a few decades old. What might happen when and if the Masses catch up to the Awakened in terms of Internet Enlightenment? That potential, and its practical applications, still seem very much like magic |
