Tetragrammaton

Most cities recognize 10 degrees of punishment. Particular mystics assign these increments to various astrological signs, numerological symbols, ancient alphabets or major arcana of the Tarot. The most common sequence among Western mages, however, is the tetragrammaton. Typical punishments include the following (listed in degrees of severity):

Minor Reprimand

This is little more than formally stating that what the mage did was wrong. This formally expresses to other mages in the city that the Consilium considers the act a transgression. (Refer back to the Precept of Recognition for further details.)

Major Reprimand

The Consilium instructs other masters to limit their assistance to the mage. In some cases, the Councilors may even warn other cabals or mages against helping the criminal.

Payment of Debt

The mage must pay a debt, usually in the form of a favor, act or deed. Cabals and orders trade favors, as do masters. If the mage belongs to a society — such as a cabal or order — she must pay on a debt that her society owes another.

Minor Penance

The mage must atone for her act by performing a service for the city’s mages. This may be something as simple as re-organizing the contents of a library, standing guard with agents of the Adamantine Arrow or serving as a lone watchman for a few nights.

Major Penance

The mage must perform a risky or dangerous act for the benefit of the city’s mages. This could involve scouting an area known for supernatural activity, undertaking a spiritual journey or retrieving a powerful artifact. Note that this punishment actually hints that the mage has potential, since a fool would not be trusted with such an important mission.

Severe Reprimand

The Consilium states bluntly that no one (not even initiates) may aid or assist the offending mage, clarifying the duration of the reprimand. Offering assistance merits the same punishment, “tarring” the collaborator “with the same brush.” The mage is then either instructed to meditate in seclusion or abstain from practicing magic. Failure to comply leads to incarceration.

Incarceration

The mage is magically confined, surrounded by powerful wards that cripple his magical power. He must meditate on his actions. In many cases, this is done because the mage is dangerous enough that he has risked exposing or seriously weakening the city’s mages, and the Consilium needs time to recover while repairing the damage that’s been done.

Banishment

This is rarely effective, but sometimes used as an alternative to incarceration. The mage is given orders to leave the city, sometimes for a specific period of time. If she returns during that time, she faces incarceration or worse. The stigma can include further details of where the mage must go or what she must do before she returns.

Spiritual Scourging

(Confinement or Banishment)

This punishment is rarely performed more than a few times each decade. A master of Death (using Death 5) can steal an Awakened soul. When carrying out a sentence of spiritual confinement, the master of Death binds a mage’s soul in a protected place for the duration of a stigma before restoring it to its owner. When performing a rite of spiritual banishment, the master sends the soul far away. This may involve hurling it into the Shadow Realm or instructing a Sentinel to carry it to another city. Spiritual banishment often results in a quest, as the mage must either chase down the soul herself or find allies who can do so for her.

The Death mage who performs this rite must be thoroughly convinced that the crime is worth such a dire punishment, since he is making a sacrifice to perform it: performing this rite is an act of hubris (requiring a Morality check).

Spiritual Oblivion

This punishment is rarely performed more than once or twice a century. The mage’s very soul is destroyed, rendering him incapable of performing magic. Sentencing a mage in this fashion — and actually performing the spiritual execution — always tests the hubris of the mages involved. In addition to this moral risk, very few mages know of reliable methods for performing such an execution. There have been instances when a mage’s soul has been fed to horrible creatures who feast on such delicacies. No matter what the method might be, such an act invariably has serious consequences.

In many cities, a Consilium that has no resort but to call on this final and horrible punishment must step down, as an admission of their failure to resolve the problem another way. Those Consilii that do not have this principle are typically tyrannies, and such extreme actions are taken as call to war for the criminal’s allies.