Environmental Hazards

Even without overt violence, the world is a dangerous place. From fire to flood to the various toxins people ingest for fun, profit, or revenge, mortality remains an inescapable element of the human condition. Even among the Awakened, most suffering and death comes not from violence but from the world around us. So when your characters ride the whirlwind or walk on fire, a handful of systems can tell you if and how they survive.

The by-the-numbers game effects of environmental hazards can be found on the Environmental Hazards charts. The general rules appear below.

Harsh Weather and Environments

Modern-era man is spoiled. Our houses and vehicles keep out the worst effects of extreme weather. But in an age of global climate change, not even those luxuries can save us. You can’t air-condition a farm, or scale a holy mountain in a Prius. Especially for mages from the streets, deserts, and wilderness of our world, the effects of heat and cold can be vital story elements.

In all but the most extreme conditions, harsh weather comes through in narration and Difficulty or dice-pool penalties (between 1 and 3 factors) based upon conditions like icy roads, driving rain, high winds, staggering humidity, and so on — see Rough Weather or Terrain under Combat Tactics and Circumstances. Dice-pool reductions reflect the state of a character who’s weakened by heatstroke or shivering, whereas increased Difficulties represent environmental challenges — fog, frost, sand, jungle, and so forth. Random hazards like ice patches, sinkholes, or lightning bolts are certainly appropriate too.

Truly dangerous conditions (parched deserts, temperatures above 120 degrees or below freezing, hurricane-force winds, ice storms, and so forth) may inflict bashing damage on characters who remain outside in them. At various intervals — once per hour, twice an hour, possibly even 3 or 4 times an hour in truly extreme situations — a character suffers 1 health level in Bashing damage unless ze makes a Stamina roll to resist those effects. (See the Resisting feat on the Physical spectrum of the Dramatic Feats chart.) Ze cannot soak it otherwise, though — that’s what the Stamina roll is doing. As with other Bashing attacks, this damage can kill a character if ze’s injured badly enough. Environmental protection gear can add to the Stamina roll (generally between 1 and 3 dice), but bulky, exhausting, or otherwise unsuitable gear (like wearing armor in a desert or being naked in a blizzard) may inflict penalties on the roll unless the character has already acclimated to those conditions. Life 2 magick can protect against those effects (assuming that an appropriate spell has been cast, of course), as can the Esoterica specialty Body Control or a character whose background history includes being conditioned to those elements, as an Inuit would be to cold conditions. Even then, however, certain extremes — like being nude in Antarctica or wrapped in furs for a trip through Death Valley — may override some or all of that protection at the Storyteller’s option.

Deadly situations — like hard vacuum or deep-sea pressure — inflict Lethal damage instead. A successful Life 3 Effect would protect against such environments, but the other methods won’t. Such damage usually involves quarter-hour intervals, although some hazards — thick smoke, boiling liquid, toxic gasses, crushing pressure — can kill in minutes or even seconds. Intense radiation inflicts Aggravated damage and can kill in seconds, minutes, hours, or days, depending on the nature of the radiation and the intensity of its effects.

In suitable surroundings, a character may be able to avoid some or most of those effects by constructing shelter, gear, or both. A successful Survival (or Urban Survival, for city environments) roll — perhaps backed up by some related magick — can help zir manufacture such protection, so long as ze’s got something to work with. Making a cold-weather shelter in the Canadian wilderness would be fairly easy if you knew what you were doing. Radiation shielding in a nuked city, though? Not quite so easy...

Starvation and Thirst

Mages don’t go hungry, do they? That depends on who they are, where they are, and what sorts of magick they perform. After all, storm arts won’t teach you a damned thing about conjuring food or drinks! Sure, it’s easy to find chow if you’re a financially solvent city-dweller; take away ready cash or easy access to food merchants, though, and that’s a totally different story. People die of hunger even in American suburbs, and though your mage might not have to worry about that fate zirself, a willworker who’s concerned about the world at large has to take hunger into account... other people’s hunger, if not zir own.

Thirst is a far more serious issue. The industrialized world has plenty of drinkable water, but once you leave the urbanized sphere, that easy access disappears. Rural water may be contaminated by rust, pollution, sewage, or animal waste; drinking from a stream in the wilderness can infect your intestines with parasites or toxins unless you’ve filtered that water beforehand. Many so-called developing nations have limited access to safe drinking water; in some regions, water is either “privatized” (that is, if you can’t afford to buy it, you can’t have any), contaminated, or essentially nonexistent. Together, starvation and thirst kill more people most years than wars and other violence combined.

Both starvation and thirst inflict damage on characters who go long periods without nourishment. Figure that a character suffers 1 health level of Bashing damage for each day ze goes without food, and 1 health level of Lethal damage for each day ze goes without water or other potable fluid. A successful Stamina roll can put off these effects for 1 day, but the Difficulty of that roll starts at 6 and then goes up 1 level per day without nourishment. A character can go a maximum of 1 day without water for each dot in Stamina ze possesses, and a maximum of 3 days without food for each dot before starting to take damage automatically. A starving character can spend Willpower points in order to put off this effect (1 point per day), but ze cannot do the same thing to avoid thirst. In neither case can the character soak that damage — zir body is already soaking it simply by surviving through it. The Storyteller may reduce that character’s dice pools (other than Stamina and Arete) by 1 for each day suffering thirst and each 2 days suffering hunger.

For the effects of consuming tainted water or food, see Drugs, Poisons, and Disease.

Fire

The most fearsome form of death (especially for mages), fire fries skin, devours tissue, cooks organs, cracks bones, and consumes the body’s essential water supply. Burns kill not only from shock trauma and tissue damage but from dehydration as well... and burns can kill long after the fire itself has passed. It’s no wonder that all living things... and many undead ones too... fear fire — and that so many hells are said to be filled with eternal flames.

In game terms, this awful element inflicts Aggravated damage, from 1 to 3 health levels of it per turn. A successful Stamina roll, made against the Difficulty on the Fire Damage chart, indicates a minor burn but no damage that turn; failure means damage, obviously; and a botch reflects a major injury — blinded eye, flash-seared hand, scorched windpipe, and so forth. Every turn spent in the fire demands another roll. Life 3 magick can protect against open flames, but Life 2 and Body Control cannot.

Beyond the harm caused by the flames themselves, fire creates intense heat, consumes oxygen, releases superheated gasses, and draws the body’s water to the surface (as blisters) and then evaporates that moisture. Fire also ignites flammable materials and can melt many artificial substances, sometimes from the heat alone. A character may be protected from the flame but not from that heat and its effects. A character who’s got flame-resistant armor or clothing suffers half damage from the fire, but ze still feels the fire’s side effects, like inhaling superheated gasses, and or blistered flesh that’s not covered by the fabric, unless ze’s protected against that factor too. Meanwhile, someone in heat-conducting protection (like metal armor) takes the same amount of damage as an unarmored character, but from radiant heat and side-effects rather than directly from the fire.

Metaphysically, fire turns material Patterns into Quintessential chaos. Prime 3 magick can channel Quintessence from a large fire (as per the Base Damage or Duration chart in Casting Magick), but the disruptive nature of Lucifer’s favorite element taxes the skills of every mage. Even Masters of the Forces Sphere respect the power of raw flame.

Explosions

Flames and explosions go together like wizards and books. And between fireballs, plasma cannons, and the more mundane sources like bombs and gas leaks, the combination of compressed space and irresistible force has serious consequences for anyone nearby.

Metaphysically, explosions blast Patterns into pieces through application of intense energy. For survival’s sake, however, explosions tend to inflict Bashing or Lethal damage, though fiery (napalm) or catastrophic (nukes) ones inflict Aggravated damage instead.

In real life (as opposed to the movies), explosions usually cause more damage from the concussive force of the blast than from the pyrotechnics involved. Bystanders can suffer burst eardrums, broken bones, and ruptured organs even when their skins remain unburnt. Shrapnel, too, is often deadlier than the heat, with people cut to ribbons by flying debris. The level of realism, then, depends upon the Storyteller’s approach. In cinematic tales, lesser characters can be wiped out by explosions that major characters walk away from with a bit of singed hair; gritty realism, however, dictates lethal harm for everyone, with little dodging allowed unless it involves ducking behind walls before the bomb goes off.

Blast Area and Blast Power

Regardless of the damage involved, explosions radiate their effects outward from the center of a detonation, to a distance called the Blast Area. The Storyteller (or the player who set off the explosion) rolls a dice pool based on the Blast Power of the explosive involved — 1 die per point of Blast Power for each pound of the explosive involved. The Difficulty of that roll is 6 for concussion blasts (grenades, plastique, bombs, etc.), and 4 for balls of fire (napalm, gas tanks, Molotov cocktails, etc.).

Each success on that roll equals 1 health level of damage. Everyone and everything within the Blast Area takes full damage, and everyone outside that Area takes damage based upon their distance from it. That Blast Area (and everything in it) suffers the full force of the explosion; each yard (or meter) outward from the center subtracts 1 success from the original roll.

Certain explosives just use a dice pool for their effects — no Blast Power involved. In this case, just roll the dice as above. The Blast Area, though, still counts when you’re figuring out who takes what amount of damage. Flaming explosions may ignite fires (see above), and concussive ones might weaken surrounding structures.

Handling Explosives

Some explosions go off by accident. Others are deliberate. Especially in our age of terror, the ability to design, modify, employ, and disarm explosives can mean the difference between live Sleepers and dead Masses. The Secondary Skill Demolitions reflects a character’s grasp of explosive substances, their use, and — when possible — their disposal. Without such knowledge, explosions remain mysterious forces of chaos; with it, a character can exert a small but helpful amount of control over the process.

Rules-wise, a character with Demolitions may design, use, and possibly deactivate explosive devices. Ze’ll understand a bit about the forces and reactions involved, and might even be able to shape and direct them with Forces or Matter Effects. In general, use Dexterity + Demolitions to build or manually defuse an explosive; Perception + Demolitions to note traps involving explosives (including booby traps on a particular device); Intelligence + Demolitions to analyze or design a bomb or to gauge what its effects would be after it goes off; and Wits + Demolitions for those last-second situations when quick thinking saves the day.

Successful rolls, of course, are essential when you’re playing with this sort of thing. Designing or defusing an explosive device may demand an extended roll... and by all that’s holy, don’t botch that roll! Meanwhile, a mage with Demolitions may enhance or suppress the effects of an explosive situation by using a Demolitions roll to lower the Difficulty of a Forces-based explosive device, using an Arete roll to lower the Difficulty for a Demolitions-based roll, or turning zir knowledge toward magickal use by employing explosives as a focus for zir Arts.

For sample explosives, see Explosives under the Combat System Charts.

Duck and Cover?

Characters who expect an explosion can dodge behind cover (assuming that such cover exists), go prone, or — if you use the Dodging the Blast option — save themselves in the nick of time. In this case, a successful Dexterity + Athletics (or Acrobatics) roll allows the characters to escape the worst effects. All of these choices count as a defensive action. If you’ve already used your action that turn, though, you’re kinda screwed.

• Cover: A character who ducks behind a wall or other large solid object (car, counter, large heavy machine, etc.) gets the protection of that object’s Durability and Structure. (See Bustin’ Stuff.) Essentially, the explosion destroys those objects first.

  The protection absorbs 1 success from the explosion for each point of Durability and Structure the object has. If the protection gets destroyed and there are still successes left over, then the character behind that protection takes the remaining damage, plus another health level in Lethal damage from the shrapnel of the object being destroyed. Cover works only if the object in question is fairly solid; a bicycle won’t protect you from a grenade, and a glass window would just make the effects of that blast even worse: 2 health levels of Lethal damage from its shrapnel.

• Going Prone: Dropping to the ground can help a mage minimize an explosion’s worst effects. Again, a successful Dexterity + Athletics (or Acrobatics) roll lets the character hit the dirt before things go boom. A prone character suffers 2 successes fewer from the blast, assuming that the explosion is not a ball of flame; in the latter case, a prone character still takes full damage.
• Dodging the Blast: Although this sort of thing’s impossible in real life, action-movie heroes manage to outrun explosions, leap up and ride the blast, use kitchen appliances as space capsules, and other sorts of nonsense. Under an optional rule (see sidebar), mages can use magick to do similar things. Again, such stunts ignore basic physics; then again, though, so does magick.
• Armor: If all else fails, armor can absorb 1 health level’s worth of Lethal damage for every point of the armor’s protection. The character inside the armor, however, still takes the explosion’s full force in Bashing damage. As all too many war vets know, Kevlar won’t stop a concussive shock wave. Armor might absorb certain kinds of Aggravated damage, like werewolf claws or vampire fangs; it will not, however, stop fire or radiation unless that armor has been specially made to protect against such elements or the fire involved is very small and quickly removed.

Electrocution

Roughly 150 years ago, electricity was a mysterious element that only the most esoteric scientists dared to mess with; today, it fuels our everyday world. And yet, it’s still dangerous as hell. Electricity is the galvanizing fire that ignites and extinguishes life. So when your characters battle near a third rail or ride the lightning in any number of ways, they risk getting badly burned.

Minor shocks from tiny self-contained battery-powered units — Tasers, TENS units, even car batteries — inflict shocks of Bashing damage. Essentially unlimited sources of electricity, however — household currents, third rails, lightning bolts, Tesla coils, etc. — cause Lethal damage: burnt tissue, organ trauma, disrupted body functions, and the like. Both sources cause astonishing pain and tend to lock muscles into uncontrollable spasms or rigid immobility. Our bodies run on electrical impulses, so such impulses on a larger scale do serious damage to the human animal.

The Electrocution chart shows the number of health levels per turn that a character suffers from contact with sources of electricity. The literally galvanizing effects of electrical shock also render that character more-or-less helpless — in game terms, stunned for at least 1 turn per health level’s worth of damage taken. Pulling away from an electrical current requires a Strength roll, Difficulty 9. Prolonged contact with even a minor source of electricity (like a car battery) generates intense pain and can disrupt vital bodily functions... most especially the heart, nerves, muscles, and brain.

Oh yeah — and electricity travels, too. Anything in contract with a character or surface that conducts electricity will get shocked and damaged as well.

Characters reduced to Incapacitated by electrical injuries may suffer permanent damage: nerve trauma, impaired motor functions, brain damage, and so on. Game-wise, this might take the form of reduced Physical and/or Mental Attributes, disfiguring scars or uncontrollable tics (reductions in Appearance), and other story-based effects. There’s a reason we equate paralyzing trauma with the effects of electricity. Lightning might do our bidding these days, but — like fire — it’s not wise to consider it tamed.

Falls and Impact

Gravity is a harsh mistress. A character who falls between 10 and 100 feet takes 1 die of Bashing damage for every 10 feet — rounded down — that ze falls. Over that 100-foot mark, the damage becomes Lethal damage instead, thanks to the wonders of terminal velocity and physics, unless that character happens to land on something that’ll cushion such falls.

Realistically speaking, tree branches and rushing water won’t cushion long descents. A person falling off a cliff is more likely to be impaled on branches or shattered on waves than ze is to be saved by them. Decades of movies and adventure fiction, however, allow mages to use such surfaces as coincidental cushions without going outside the bounds of consensual reality. Technically, Lethal damage should kick in after only 30 feet. The World of Darkness rules, however, say 100 feet, so what’s a little physics between friends?

A long-distance fall inflicts a maximum of 10 dice, Lethal; it is possible, then, to survive such falls, though it’s not bloody likely. If the gravitationally challenged individual happens to land on something sharp or broken (rubble, rocks, racks of polearms, etc.), then all of the damage is Aggravated. Armor absorbs only half of its usual rating (rounded down) in falling damage, unless it has been specially designed to cushion impact.

Ramming and Slamming

Ramming into, or being rammed by, other characters or solid objects (walls, tables, vehicles, etc.) may — at the Storyteller’s discretion — inflict 1 die of Bashing damage for every 10 feet (or 3 yards) of velocity at the time of impact. A dude who runs 20 feet before slamming into a wall, for instance, might take 2 dice of Bashing damage from the impact.

If that object’s Durability Trait is higher than the character’s Stamina Trait, ze may take an extra automatic Bashing health level from the impact. A car that had traveled 40 feet within the previous turn, for example, would inflict 4 dice of Bashing damage for its velocity, plus 1 health level of automatic impact damage to whatever it hits because... well, it’s a car. If that impact exceeds both the object’s Durability and its Structure, however, then that object could be destroyed, at the Storyteller’s discretion.

Objects or characters that smash into each other at roughly equal velocity take the total of both impact dice pools, plus 1 additional automatic success for each turn they were traveling before they hit, to reflect the cubed effects of colliding velocity and mass.

A flying object loses 1 die of effect after the first 20 feet unless it’s self-propelled or aerodynamic, 2 dice after 30 feet, and 3 after 50 feet. A thrown table, for example, loses momentum thanks to its mass; a motor-powered car, however, does not.

Armor, because it’s designed to protect against impact, reduces ramming and slamming impact by the usual amounts. These impact rules do not affect weapons, as impact damage is already figured into the weapon’s normal effects.

Magick Versus Objects

Certain types of magick are pretty hard on material objects. Damage-inflicting Effects from the Entropy, Matter, and Prime Spheres undermine the Durability Trait — Entropy by exploiting weak spots, Matter by disrupting the substance, and Prime by disintegrating its Pattern on a Quintessential level. In all three cases, figure that a damage-based Effect from any of those Spheres reduces an object’s Durability by -2. At the Storyteller’s discretion, the Life Sphere may cause the same effect on wood, plants, and other living, organic materials.

If, using this option, the mage wants to transmute an object, ze’ll have to score at least 1 success for each point of Durability in that object; if ze falls short, then ze’ll need to use an extended roll in order to overcome that object’s Durability. This explains why turning safes into cotton candy is not exactly an easy proposition, even if you use vulgar magick. And yet, Entropy, Matter, Prime, and perhaps Life still subtract -2 from the target’s Durability for each success rolled, and so you can turn a safe into cotton candy... it’s just not particularly easy and certainly not a coincidence.

Inspired by the Objects rules in the New World of Darkness series, this option has been adjusted and simplified for Mage 20. So when a cyborg punches through a wall or a street prophet makes a cop car accidentally blow a tire, these rules can help you decide the amount of force it takes to succeed.

For sample objects, see that entry on the Combat System Charts. The Vehicle Systems section has Durability and Structure ratings for various riding machines.

Drowning and Suffocation

Even Awakened beings need to breathe. But when smoke or water force a character to hold zir breath, that character can hold zir breath for a length of time based on zir Stamina Attribute:

That character can extend zir breath-holding time by spending temporary Willpower; each point spent grants another 30 seconds of time. If the character cannot reach breathable air by the end of that time, ze starts to suffocate or drown at the rate of 1 health level per turn. If ze reaches Incapacitated and still cannot breathe, ze dies 1 turn afterward.

Suffocation damage is automatic; it is not rolled and cannot be soaked. Oxygen deprivation accumulates and heals like Bashing damage, although drowning damage (which involves inhalation of water, and can damage the lungs and windpipe) may accumulate and heal like Lethal damage instead, at the Storyteller’s discretion.

If a character with First Aid training (Medicine 1 or higher, assuming modern medical techniques) can reach a drowned or suffocated character within fewer than 10 minutes of death, xe can try to resuscitate zir with a successful Wits + Medicine roll. In unusually cold water, this time extends up to half an hour. The Difficulty starts at 6 and goes up by +1 for each 5 minutes after the first, however, and starts racking up thresholds of successes needed once it reaches Difficulty 9. Successful Life 3 magick can restore a person to life within those first few minutes. However, after 10 minutes (30 minutes in cold water) without air, the brain begins to deteriorate. After that point, only Life 5 will do.

Assuming that the character has had time to meditate zirself into a trance state, a successful use of the Body Control specialty can extend breath-holding time by the amounts shown in the sidebar dealing with that Trait. After that, the devotee begins suffocating or drowning like any other person would do. It’s worth nothing that drowning is one of the biggest accidental killers on Earth, especially among children... and, contrary to popular impressions, is not marked by thrashing and yelling, but by silence.

Drugs, Poisons, and Disease

Each living being is a chemistry set. The sublime features of life come about through complex chemical processes. Certain other processes — often referred to as drugs, poisons, and diseases, among other names — change the chemical default settings in a given living thing. Some hurt, some help, and some have both effects. For simplicity’s sake, think of drugs as chemical compounds intended to alter a person’s body and mind, poisons as chemicals intended to harm a living thing, and disease as an internal alteration that causes suffering. Mages have long histories with all three.

Despite its negative connotations, a drug is simply a substance; medicines are drugs, and drugs are medicines. Psychotropic drugs represent a certain kind of medicine meant to enhance various mental and physical states. Mystics and technomancers alike use psychotropic compounds as tools for transcendence, relaxation, heightened awareness, and physical vigor. As the Drugs and Poisons entry in the Instruments section of Focus and the Arts explains, various practices use drugs to focus their intentions. Even so, psychotropics alter body chemistry... and in that sense, they become intoxicants, working their effects through potentially hazardous chemical changes.

Poisons are intentionally harmful drugs and diseases — venoms, toxins, infections, and so forth, with unpleasant effects upon the body and mind. Some are natural and many others are not. Thanks to the long associations between poison and the Awakened, most Sleepers consider magic to be a sort of metaphysical or even literal toxin. The word “witch” in the infamous Exodus 22:18 passage, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” is rooted in a Hebrew word sometimes translated as “poisoner.” As for disease, mages of all types have been regarded throughout history as both healers and carriers of sickness. Drugs, poisons, and disease, then, can be tools of magick; subjects of magickal activity; and things that mages suffer from, cause, and cure.

Calling Dr. Feelgood

Given that long association, it’s not surprising that certain mages specialize in drugs and poisons. The Secondary Knowledge Pharmacopoeia/Poisons reflects a character’s dedication to such substances, from the perspective of either high-tech research or time-tested, traditional practices. With that Trait, your character can analyze, concoct, enhance, dilute, or diagnose the effects of various substances. As with the Demolitions Skill (referenced above), a properly skilled mage might make certain toxins and psychotropics more or less effective with magick; use Life, Mind, or Matter magick to help create unusually potent substances; and employ poisons, medicine, and drugs as instruments of focus... probably while also enhancing their effects — a common gambit for Progenitors, Verbena, Dreamspeakers, Bata’a, Children of Knowledge, and Cultists of Ecstacy.

By the same token, a knowledgeable character can also recognize the effects of certain substances (Perception + Pharmacopoeia); talk intoxicated people down during a bad experience (Manipulation + Pharmacopoeia); spot the nasty potential of an apparently harmless substance (Wits + Pharmacopoeia); and potentially use Life or Mind Arts to counteract a given toxin, because ze understands the way it works (Intelligence + Pharmacopoeia). So yes — mages have deep relationships with chemical alterations... and some understand those relationships better than others do.

Toxin Ratings

In game terms, poisons, diseases, and dangerous drugs all inflict damage, alter Traits, and can be caused or cured with Life Sphere Effects. Mages who specialize in such things — especially Ecstatics, Thanatoics, shamans, alchemists, witches, and Progenitors — tend to favor that Sphere, and they can focus Life, Mind, and other Spheres through diseases and chemical compounds.

All diseases, drugs, and toxins have the following Traits:

• Toxin Rating: The number of health levels that a particular toxin or disease inflicts upon the afflicted character. Entries marked with a (B) inflict Bashing damage, and those marked with an (L) deal out Lethal damage. Drugs and poisons cause this damage 1 or 2 times per ingestion unless the player makes a Stamina roll (below), whereas long-lasting diseases inflict that damage once per week or perhaps — as in the case of slow killers like cancer — once per month or longer.
• Difficulty: The Difficulty of the character’s Stamina roll to resist the damaging effects. If the disease or poison continues to affect the character, or if that character keeps taking the drug, make new rolls as necessary. On a botched drug roll, the character overdoses which — as the warning goes — “may be harmful or fatal.”

Certain diseases or substances have both a (B) and an (L); these designations reflect the severity of the disease or the purity of the substance. Lethal compounds or diseases tend to affect a victim until either ze’s cured or ze dies.

Especially vile paranormal toxins deal out Aggravated damage, but fortunately such substances are rare. Powerful Night-Folk often shrug off toxins and disease (or, like vampires, remain immune to most of them), but typically 1 or 2 substances — like silver to werecreatures or iron to the fae-folk — inflict Aggravated damage against them.

Medicine and Magick

Given time and the tools of zir trade, a character with the Medicine Knowledge can ease the symptoms of a disease or substance. The toxin still needs to work its way out of the body, though, so although a successful Intelligence + Medicine roll can help the patient feel better — and perhaps speed the healing process as per the healing rules detailed under Health and Injury — they can’t actually heal the problem, merely treat its effects.

Life magick, on the other hand, can cure such problems. Game-wise, this usually involves successful Life 2 Effects to alter the mage zirself, and Life 3 Effects to alter someone else. Slow cures tend to be coincidental, especially when focused through a commonly accepted tool or practice. (“Here — take this. It’ll help you feel better in no time.”) Instant cures, however, tend to be vulgar unless the patient and observers literally do believe in miracles (“Be HEALED!”).

The same runs true for inflicting intoxication and disease. Although a person can have a literally intoxicating effect on other folks... a specialty of Ecstatics, Nephandi, and Syndicate ops — that effect still needs to be fairly subtle. A person who gets falling-down drunk after shaking hands with a stranger will wonder what the fuck just happened. And though curses and poisons have deep connections to witchcraft and Voudoun, a mage who points zir finger at someone and gives xem instant leprosy is working vulgar magick for sure.

Better Living Through Chemistry

You don’t have to be a Cultist of Ecstacy or Child of Knowledge in order to deal with psychotropic substances. Shamans of all types work with mind-altering compounds, whereas technomancers deal with smart and designer drugs as well as with more mundane drugs like coke or booze. Sure, plenty of mages do just say no. For those who don’t, however, the following drugs have notable in-game effects:

• Alcohol: Every 2 drinks of a moderate alcoholic beverage cause 1 die of Bashing damage. Really potent drinks have the same effect after a single drink. The resulting dice-pool penalties reflect blurry perceptions and staggered reflexes. Heavy-duty drinking damage can linger for a day or more in the shape of hangovers, nausea, and other impairments. If the character drinks zirself to Incapacitated, ze passes out... and, if ze’s a supporting character, ze might even die.

  Whether or not the character takes damage, a drinking character needs to make a Stamina roll for every 2 drinks ze consumes. The Difficulty depends upon the potency of the drink — 5 or 6 for wine coolers or weak beer, 8 or 9 for the really hard stuff. Failure on that roll subtracts 1 die from Perception- and Dexterity-based dice pools. A botch knocks the character out right then and there. Yes, heavy drinking can indeed fuck you up!

• Cannabinoids (Pot, Hashish): The mellowing effects of ganja alter a character’s sense of time, space, and wellbeing. On the flip side, they can induce paranoia and heart-thumping panic attacks. Game-wise, a character either gains or loses 1 die from zir Perception-based dice pools while under the influence of the herb. The player makes a Willpower roll; success indicates a bonus, but failure indicates a loss. Continued smoking may lead to further rolls and more intense effects. At the Storyteller’s discretion, a character under the influence of pot or hash could even lose 1 die from zir Dexterity- and Willpower-based dice pools for each half hour spent indulging.

  Despite occasional perceptions to the contrary, cannabis inflicts no physical damage. Its influence might, at the Storyteller’s option, reduce the Difficulties of Time-based spells by -1, thanks to the slipstream effect it has on time perceptions. This bonus does not increase with continued use of awakened herbs, however, and should not be a reliable bonus in any case — sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

• Cocaine/Crack/Meth/Speed: High-octane stimulants give a character 1 extra action per turn while ze’s under the influence, but they also reduce zir Willpower-based dice pools by 1 die for rolls based on judgment, restraint, or common sense. Each dose inflicts 2 automatic health levels in Bashing damage once the drug wears off and the character crashes. Ze might put off this effect by using the drug again, but the crash gets 2 levels worse each time: 4 health levels for 2 consecutive uses, 6 after 3 uses, and so forth. A dose of coke lasts about an hour, crack lasts roughly half that long, and crank lasts between 4 to 6 hours per dose.

  Each time a character consumes a heavy stimulant, the Storyteller may require a Stamina roll, Difficulty 6. Failure means irrational behavior (recklessness, flash temper, violent mood swings, etc.), and a botch means an overdose. In the latter case, the character takes double the usual damage... Lethal, not Bashing. Prolonged use, in any case, tends to lead to addiction, irrationality, and other ugly side effects.

• Designer Drugs: Concocted by either Awakened or Sleeper chemists, designer drugs alter bodies and minds in various interesting ways. The most famous concoctions, LSD and Ecstasy, have been around for generations and aren’t usually considered designer goods any more, even though that’s technically what they are.

  In game terms, a designer drug can have whatever effects the Storyteller wants it to have — typically a temporary boost of Mental and/or Physical Attributes, at the cost of unfortunate behavior and potentially serious side effects. Such concoctions make excellent plot hooks and mystic/technomagickal focuses (“...you take the blue pill, and...”).

• Ecstasy/Mood-Altering Drugs: Technically, all psychoactive drugs have mood-altering effects. However, this category — epitomized by MDMA, a.k.a. Ecstasy, or X — reworks brain chemistry in an effort to promote trust and wellbeing. Game-wise, these substances may add bonus dice to Willpower-based dice pools at the expense of a level or 2 of automatic Bashing damage when the user comes down. Ecstasy, in particular, has tooth-grinding, dehydrating side effects; a botched Stamina roll while “rolling” on X may cause a seizure that inflicts 1 to 3 health levels of immediate Lethal damage instead of that post-roll Bashing damage.

  On the good side, ecstasy promotes intense (often compulsive) sensory awareness and may add a die or 2 to Perception-based dice pools for about an hour during the highest point of the Ecstasy roll. Depending on the dose and purity, an MDMA roll may last between 2 to 5 hours.

• Psychedelics (LSD, DMT, peyote, etc.): Mind-bending substances provide the keys to many mystic practices; some folks have even theorized that human consciousness itself arose when primates ate psychotropic fungi. Truth is an especially hazy concept where psychedelics are concerned. Certain folks prefer the term entheogen over the more common hallucinogen, because hallucinations project dreams and delusions, whereas entheogens wake the “inner god.”

  Rules-wise, a dose of psychedelic drugs reduces a character’s dice pools by 1 to 3 dice for the duration of the trip. A mild trip bends the landscape, and a major trip skews every reflex and perception. At the Storyteller’s option, a character who’s using such drugs in a focus may reduce the Difficulties of zir Correspondence, Mind, Spirit, and Time-based magick rolls.

  Although such drugs inflict no physical damage, many entheogens induce nausea, dry mouth, dehydration, and profound — sometimes painful — perceptual intensity. Typical trips last between 4 and 12 hours, peaking between 1 and 3 hours after the first dose. Contrary to popular belief, trips don’t jumpstart weird shit as soon as the user drops the dose. Most often, the perceptions begin skewing within a half hour, gradually rising toward more intense sensations.

  Somewhere along the trip, the Storyteller might request a Willpower roll, with Difficulties based on the stuff that’s going on in the character’s life at the time. Happy circumstances lower the Difficulty, but fears and challenges raise them. A successful Willpower roll means a generally good — perhaps profound — experience, whereas a failed roll drops the user into a bad (perhaps shattering) excursion through Nightmare Alley. Either trip can inspire a Seeking, and a really bad one might cause a Quiet. (See Telling the Story and The Book of Magick for details.) Thankfully, an experienced guide can help ease a bad trip or enhance a good one. Successful Social rolls from a character who’s familiar with psychotropic experiences (like many shamans, certain alchemists and doctors, various witches, and almost all Ecstatic devotees) allow a tripping character to make new Willpower rolls in order to master zir experience and perhaps gain long-term benefits from even the bad trips.

• Opiates (Heroin, Morphine, Opium, etc.) and Sedatives (Valium, Quaaludes, etc.): Suppressing the sensory and nervous systems, the various downer drugs reduce pain and promote euphoria. Although opium has a mystic history of visionary trance states, the addictive properties of such substances make them risky and problematic tools.

  In game terms, a dose of opiates or downers reduces pain-based dice penalties, typically by 1 or 2 health levels’ worth of damage. That damage isn’t actually healed, but the associated penalties don’t hinder the character so long as the drug remains in effect. Meanwhile, the character’s Dexterity- and Social Attribute-based dice pools drop by 1 die per dose. Each dose also inflicts 1 automatic level of Bashing damage, not from injury per se, but from the deadened energy associated with such drugs.

  At the Storyteller’s discretion, an opium or heroin trance might decrease the Difficulty of vision-based Mind or Spirit spellcasting rolls. A character who’s concentrating on a particular problem could receive a 1 or 2 die bonus to zir Intelligence or Perception rolls... after all, Sherlock Holmes was an opium user who believed that the drug sharpened his mental faculties. On the downside, opiates and sedatives are ferociously addictive. Regular users should certainly have a Flaw or two associated with the drug. Also, each new dose of an opiate or strong sedative that has not been meticulously measured by someone who’s not under the influence — or that has been mystically awakened or enhanced — demands a Stamina roll. Failure means a deadening trance, and a botch means potential coma or death.