This spell implants a subliminal message in any piece of electronic media, including radio broadcasts, web pages and television programs. Affecting a print article, such as a newspaper story, requires Matter 2 instead of Forces 2. Anyone who reads, watches or listens to the targeted piece of media will be subject to the affect of this spell.
The subliminal message that the mage creates cannot be particularly complex. In most cases, it simply causes the viewer to be far more or less skeptical of this or some specific, related piece of media. This spell can also be used to produce other emotional reactions to specific pieces of media, including anger, belief or joy. None of these emotions are particularly powerful or complex — readers or listeners are simply more inclined to feel a certain way about the information. However, if a particularly listener is strongly inclined to feel otherwise about the piece of media, this spell cannot override such a strong conviction.
Although the thoughts and emotions produced by this spell only directly affect the target while he is watching or listening to the media containing the subliminal message, the effects of these thoughts and emotions generally linger well beyond the end of the spell. If the mage is using this spell to affect viewers’ reactions to a story or rumor other than the one that she is placing the subliminal message in, then the spell becomes more difficult.
Connection Between Spell and Story Dice Penalty
The spell is used on the actual story. 0
The spell is used on a closely related story. -2
The spell is used on a distantly related story. –4
The spell is used on an unrelated story. –8
A closely related story is one on the same topic, such as a specific UFO sighting or a particular fire in a warehouse district. A distantly related story is one that is about UFOs, fires or the warehouse district in question. Much of the power of this spell comes from the fact that Sleepers are trained to believe in the mass media. While this spell can be used to implant subliminal messages that make Sleepers less likely to disbelieve evidence of magic, impose a one die penalty on any such rolls, because even the mass media has difficulty overcoming the great power of the Abyss.
Guardians of the Veil Rote: Rumor Control
The Guardians of the Veil do their best to make absolutely certain that information about magic does not make it into the mass media or onto the Internet. However, in these days of bloggers and electronic media, stopping everyone who has seen an act of vulgar magic from reporting it is no longer always possible. Instead, the Guardians must be content to discredit both the source of the information and the information itself. If the Guardians cannot use this rote on the actual source of information, either because it was a live broadcast or because it is a rumor spread by word of mouth, or printed in a book or newspaper, they implant information in all manner of related electronic media that influences the public’s view of the original source. While it is often impossible to stop a rumor, Guardians who are skilled with this rote can often alter the nature of a story so that their revised version swiftly replaces the story they wish to suppress. Guardians have numerous uses for this spell that do not directly involve causing the public to disbelieve a specific piece of evidence for the existence of magic. However, using this (or any other) spell to cause Sleepers to believe in magic more is one of the most serious crimes one of the Guardians of the Veil can commit, unless this is done inside of the strictures of an occult Labyrinth, where the Sleeper’s belief in a conspiracy theory or occult phenomena might be the key to redirecting that Sleeper into falsehoods. In such cases, it may be necessary at times to foment someone’s belief in the occult.
