Objects do not have volition of their own, but they are given momentum by the wills of the sentient creatures that act upon them. They are imbued with purpose by human belief in their designated purposes. Human choices become the destinies of such items. Thus, a mage with a stronger will than a Sleeper could, for example, decide that a rare heirloom will come into her possession. Through the quirks of fate, it eventually finds it way into her keeping. It may not do so in any way she might envision (and her ownership of it need not necessarily be legitimate or even legal), but she does not have to exert any special effort to acquire it. Indeed, she need not even know where the object is when she casts the spell. The item reaches her when it does, if it does (this spell could be dispelled before the item arrives; see below), and she has no control over the circumstances of how or when it arrives. Destiny makes no guarantees, for example, that a ritual knife a mage hopes to get won’t end up protruding from a wound in her abdomen by the hand of some crazed wino.
A mage can send a given object any which way she desires, specifying that a woman’s gold necklace ends up owned by the son she gave away at birth, or that a treasure chest eventually spends its days at the bottom of the sea. Using
this spell with naked and indiscriminate greed often results in dire consequences for the caster (such as the aforementioned knife in the gut). Wise workers of Fate magic advocate using this spell for personal gain only when need is great, otherwise doing legwork personally and without the aid of magic. Some items have so much belief and will behind them, conscious or otherwise, that it is essentially impossible to move them from their
current circumstances. While the Hope Diamond might be able to be moved (at a –3 penalty for its celebrity; see Cult of Celebrity p. 115), the Leaning Tower of Pisa isn’t going anywhere, despite the fact that the technology certainly exists to disassemble, transport and reassemble it. The threads of fortune can only be stretched so far.
The Storyteller assigns a required
target number (the metaphysical
weight of the object’s current destiny)
that must be overcome in order to
move the item in the desired direction.
Thus, an object from a mage’s own
childhood about which no one else
really cares might require only one
success, while the mummy of
Tutankhamen could require that 10 or
more successes be accrued, if it can be
moved at all.
The targeted item can take some
time to make it to its destination. Excess
successes added to the target
number can speed up the journey by
one degree per success.
| Physical Distance from Caster
| Maximum Time Until item Arrives
|
| Same city
| 1 day
|
| Same state
| 1 week
|
| Same region or province
| 2 weeks
|
| Nearby country (from Canada to Mexico)
| 1 moth
|
| Distant country (from America to Nepal)
| 3 months
|
This spell can target items within the
Shadow Realm, although without a
Spirit 3 component the item cannot
cross the Gauntlet. It arrives just on the
other side of the Gauntlet, probably
brought by means of a hapless spirit.
Using this kind of magic for selfish
or greedy ends, especially when a mage
does so repeatedly, almost always leads
to bad twists of fortune, often involving
one or more of the objects the mage
tries to acquire.
As with any spell targeting an unseen
subject, the mage needs a Space
Arcanum sympathetic connection to
reach out and grasp the object’s strands
of fate to draw them to him. The
strength of this connection determines
if there are penalties on the spellcasting
roll (see p. 114).
Mysterium Rote: True Ownership
Members of the Mysterium skilled
in the Arcanum of Fate need not go
traipsing through dark jungles or crawlin g
around dusty tombs to
find the relics or
knowledge they
seek, but can call
such things to them
by means of this rote.
