Mage ●
Spells ● Breach the Vault of Memory
This spell gives the willworker power over that which helps define a person: memory. The mage can add to, modify or delete a subject’s memories in whatever way he sees fit. (It helps but is not necessary to cast Read the Depths first.) An individual could be made to forget where she parked her car, the fact that she likes strawberry ice cream, or even why she wears a wedding band. Naturally, short-term and less deeply ingrained memories are easier to manipulate than those that are long term or more fundamental to a person’s identity, but just about any memory can be sculpted according a mage’s desires.
The mage might suffer a penalty, depending on how deep the memory to be altered lies.
| Penalty
| Memory
|
| None
| The willworker can manipulate, destroy or create a trivial memory (causing the subject to forget where she left her lunch money or making her believe that a man in a garish hat walked by her office window earlier).
|
| –1
| Deep-seated but not life-affirming memories (such as making the subject’s favorite color red instead of green, causing her to forget ever having gone to a favorite restaurant, or making her believe that there has been a shy-but-friendly kid named Roger working in the mailroom for the past year).
|
| –3
| Shape memories on a life-altering level (causing the subject to forget that she has a 10-year-old child, making her believe that she was paralyzed from the neck down until she was 17, or implanting memories of having spent two years wandering the American southwest with Jesus Christ).
|
| –5
| Almost completely eradicate a person’s memories and redefine that individual on all but the most fundamental levels (making someone forget everything she ever learned about communicating with others or making her believe she is Joan of Arc).
|
Once the spell expires, the memories return. During the spell’s Duration, psychotherapy and hypnosis might be able to restore the victim’s memories. Each success on the spellcasting roll levies a –1 dice penalty on any attempt to restore the subject’s memory to normal (or to otherwise influence an implanted or altered memory).
A subject cannot be made to forget that she is Awakened (or is otherwise a supernatural being of some sort) or how to use her paranormal abilities. That part of her identity is too deeply bound into the mind and soul alike to be tampered with. Virtue and Vice may not be changed at this level. They are facets of who a person is, rather than just a product of her memories (see Psychic Reprogramming).
If a target is a mage with at least Mind ●, he might have an inkling via his Unseen Senses[1] that he is attacked mentally. A reflexive Wits + Composure roll allows him to sense attempts to alter his memories. He can know nothing about the intrusion unless he casts magic (such as Third Eye) to learn more. Most mages react by first erecting a Mental Shield.
This presence of this spell on a target cannot be detected unless its Potency is overcome by a Third Eye spell.
Guardians of the Veil Rote: Reshaping Yesterday
If at all possible, most Guardians prefer not to cause harm in the course of their work. This rote enables such mages to alter the memories of those who have seen what they ought not. Silver Ladder willworkers also use this rote, creating friendships and enmities where none existed before, winning lifetimes worth of trust in a matter of hours, and forging loyal servants out of bitter foes.
