A santero who is menaced or even annoyed by a rival can try and attract the notice of Elegguá, the trickster god, onto the enemy. Elegguá, once his notice is drawn, watches over the mage, making sure if his rival menaces him directly, the rival suffers for it.
If the spell is successful, the rival suffers the following effects:
- If the rival has the Destiny Merit, he cannot make use of its benefits during the scene in which he menaces the mage. The Storyteller can, however, apply the effects of his Bane (and probably should).
- A number of the rival’s rolls equal to the mage’s Fate rating are reduced to chance dice during the scene. Dramatic failures involve some spectacularly bad run of luck.
While normally this spell has a duration of Prolonged (one scene), most santeros use the Conditional Trigger effect (see p. 151 of Mage: The Awakening), provided they know Time 2.
To cast this spell, the mage must have fashioned a representation of Elegguá under the guidance of another santero (usually, this is done during the initiation rites anyway). The mage writes the rival’s name on a piece of paper and places it underneath Elegguá’s head, and then spends hours in meditation, dance and vocal entreaty to the orisha.
