When allied mages need to hash out a dispute, normal combat will not do. Although the time-honored rituals of non-fatal dueling, wrestling matches, martial arts sparring contests, and so on remain popular in certain groups, mages — especially ones from a mystic background — prefer Arts over force when it comes to dueling techniques.
When a graceful display of superiority seems sufficient to resolve a dispute, the antagonists could share a contest. Pitting their skills against one another, these rivals choose a field of battle to find out which is the better mage. Depending on the group, dispute, and antagonists in question, this could take one of a number of forms. Here are a few suggestions:
All of these contests play out through a combination of imaginative roleplaying and a few rolls off the Dramatic Feats chart. Social, physical, and art-and-science feats work best for this sort of thing, with the rolls based on the tasks that the duelists agree upon as a field of battle. Those feats tend to be decided by either extended rolls (to see who gets the most successes first, as in a race) or extended and resisted rolls (to see whose skill and luck prevails, as in games or physical confrontations).
In any contest, the disputants agree upon stakes beforehand, with the winner and loser settling their grudge once the contest has been won. Meanwhile, each side will probably pick out several witnesses and associated seconds to assure a fair and official resolution with — one hopes — a minimum of cheating.
Ancient customs dared rivals to settle their disputes through trial by ordeal: both rivals undertake a painful experience, and the one who gives up first loses the dispute. Handling hot irons; enduring intense heat or cold; retrieving objects from deep underwater without diving gear; suffering consensual torture or body modification without crying out; pitting one’s self against wild animals, insects, or spirits... all these ordeals, and many others, have places of honor in various cultures. And though modern mages often consider themselves too civilized (read: chicken) to submit to such challenges, willworkers who cherish physical and spiritual vitality — shamans, witches, extreme athletes, martial artists, Ecstatics, Thanatoics, and other people who venerate tribal cultures — tackle such ordeals gladly.
In game terms, the players again utilize the Dramatic Feats chart, this time favoring the Physical Feats table. Resistance really comes into its own here, as it reflects a character’s ability to withstand pain and fatigue. Again, use extended rolls... extended and resisted, if the duelists are inflicting the ordeal upon one another. The Storyteller might require Willpower rolls as well, especially for ordeals that involve courage in the face of personal fears or spectacular demise. The Environmental Hazards section features the effects of unfortunate conditions and terrain. Regardless of the ordeal’s specifics, both duelists will probably suffer damage, too... probably Bashing, often Lethal, and perhaps even Aggravated. By the time the challenge gets resolved, the duelists might need significant healing, recuperation, or both.
A variation on the previous dueling styles pits netizens (often, but not always, Virtual Adepts) against each other in online duels or ordeals. In this case, the same systems used above come into play, but the feats are social and intellectual rather than physical. As the duel rages, the antagonists might need to make Willpower rolls — either extended (as when facing taunts and scorn), or extended and resisted (as when they’re tearing into one another’s self-esteem). Losers sacrifice temporary points of Willpower, and winners become the Last Ego Standing.
In a core war — an Internet dueling tradition favored by the Virtual Adepts — each disputing party sets up a Quintessence-pool server core that has been partitioned outside the Digital Web as a whole, to prevent widespread infections from the coming duel.
Once the duel begins, the antagonists write virus programs (Intelligence + Computer, Difficulty 8) to attack the other servers. In the process, they invest a part of themselves into the virus by energizing it with a point of Quintessence from their personal energy — in game terms, from the Quintessence Trait. As with the classical Certámen style described below, these servers and viruses can take imaginative forms; Quintessence servers might be built like dungeon levels, cinematic landscapes, maze-like offices, pan-dimensional labyrinths, complex mandalas, and so forth. The viruses can look like fantasy adventure heroes, cartoon characters, insectoid invaders, angry birds, disgruntled office workers, geometric storms, and so forth... all of which reflect the personalities of the people conducting the duel.
As the duel begins, the viruses get sent off to attack the cores. Power-ups along the way — power pills, medical kits, pools of water or fire, etc. — can fuel and upgrade the virus warriors during the attack. With those power-ups, the duelists upgrade their viral champions by spending another point of personal Quintessence. In game terms, these points let a duelist change tactics or lower the Difficulty of zir attack.
As the core war continues, the duelists make extended and resisted rolls. Generally, that roll involves Intelligence + Computer, as mentioned above. A duelist might change zir tactics, though, by making new rolls with different Traits — say, Wits + Enigmas, Wits + Computer, Perception + Cryptography, etc. Each change of rolls requires a Quintessence point, but the change can adjust the dice pool to favor a duelist’s strengths. The first duelist to score 25 successes breaches the core and wins the war... and gets the Quintessence that went into making that core, as well. Because core warriors invest their essence into their viruses and cores, they take damage from the battle. Each failed roll indicates a death for the virus, which inflicts an automatic level of Bashing damage on the duelist and requires a new point of Quintessence so that the virus can respawn. A botched roll inflicts Lethal damage instead, as the death backlashes on the duelist as system shock. Although core wars to the death are rare, such duelists do occasionally die. Y’know those stories about computer game enthusiasts found dead in their chairs, the console or keyboard clutched in their hands? Now you know what really happened...
Variations on flame and core wars involve hacking challenges (with systems as Contests, above) or virtual combat; for the latter rules, see the section on The Digital Web. More recently, however, both the Virtual Adepts and other activist mages have favored the most productive sort of duel...
In a world that desperately needs hope, a reality challenge resolves a dispute in the most altruistic way possible: by finding a problem among the Sleepers, then seeing who can fix it best. Essentially, the field of battle involves a situation that cries out for improvement: a crime-ridden neighborhood, a famine, a slave trafficking ring or drug cartel war, an environmental catastrophe, and so forth. A third party picks the situation and then places a certain number of goals that must be fulfilled as victory conditions. The winning duelist is the one who manages to meet the most goals within the time required.
One major rule dominates all reality challenges: the Sleepers must not know what’s really going on. This forces the duelists to be clever, subtle, and secretive — they can’t simply fly in with bundles of food and wipe out warring factions with a few well-tossed fireballs. In the process, the contestants must also inspire hope and self-sufficiency among the Masses... after all, if the people themselves aren’t inspired to change, then very little has actually improved.
Dueling mages are usually allowed to let people see them and interact with them but not to directly witness magick in action. Essentially, the duelists become like angels, gods, or heroes, walking among mortals without revealing their powerful true natures to the people. Overt acts of magick in front of Sleeper witnesses cost the offending mage one goal per incident (as well as any Paradox incurred!), and a Paradox backlash forfeits the duel.
Because a reality challenge benefits humanity as a whole without tilting the paradigm over a cliff, both mystics and Technocrats can share a reality challenge with one another. According to legend, such duels originated during the European late Middle Ages, the Red Turbans War in China... or perhaps both, or maybe neither. Warring factions would work to improve the lot of the common people, which in time became a suitable test for a faction’s virtue. After all, went the reasoning, if a particular mage or faction could win — as the expression goes — the hearts and minds of the people, then Reality itself would be the judge of that mage or faction’s worthiness.
In game terms, a reality challenge is a story hook, not a series of rolls. For more details about changing the world for the better, see Ascension: Can There be Only One? in Telling the Story and Reality Zones in The Book of Magick.
On a more selfish but literally Traditional level, the Council has its longstanding custom of Certámen — the formalized wizards’ duel that has resolved disputes since the medieval era. Rare but fascinating in the new millennium, this form of dueling involves a large, magickal Certámen circle inscribed in a specially prepared ritual space outside of consensual reality. This circle must be prepared in a Horizon Realm, as the duel itself manifests exceedingly vulgar magick.
Early forms of Certámen usually involved wizards getting into a ritual circle and then blasting one another with mystic might until somebody surrendered or died. The obvious problems with this method made it unsuitable for the Council as a whole. During the Grand Convocation era, Hermetic wizards refined their mystical trial by combat into a form that other non-Hermetic mages could employ, preferably without killing one another. After decades of adjustment, the Traditions arrived at a ritualized duel method that drained Quintessence without inflicting physical or psychological injury. This legal form of Certámen became the official method for resolving disputes. Although old school-wizards continue to duel with other methods as well, the sword-and-shield form of Certámen has been the legal standard since the mid-1500s.
In official Certámen matches, each party agrees to terms, putting up a stake as the prize for the duel in question. The rivals then enter a specially prepared circle that has been configured to shape, confine, and channel the mystic energies involved. Due to those spectacularly vulgar energies, all official Certámen circles must be crafted within Horizon Realms; the few mages who’ve tried to wage such duels on Earth have been theatrically undone by massive Paradox displays.
A Certámen match features at least two antagonists, the circle, one to three Certámen Marshalls, and usually an audience. The Marshalls enforce the proper protocols and make sure that all sides abide by the duel’s outcome. Depending on the antagonists and circumstances involved, the match might open with an elaborate ritual — invocation of spirits, blessing of contestants, reading of charges, observation of etiquette, reciting of titles, pre-duel bragging, and so forth — a brief introduction, or a simple command: “Fight.”
During the pre-duel ceremonies, each combatant channels all their Quintessence into a single Locus: a large sphere or pool of shining energy. If a mage has Tass or receives a loan of additional Quintessence from zir allies for the duel, ze puts that into zir Locus as well. The Locus provides a target for that duel. Rather than attacking the mage zirself, the rival strikes at xyr opponent’s Locus instead.
Once the match begins, a dome of mystic energy descends over the arena in order to protect the Marshalls and spectators from errant energies. Each antagonist manifests a number of glowing spheres; the more powerful the mage, the more spheres ze manifests. From among them, each duelist selects two: a Gladius (sword) and an Aegis (shield). The Gladius attacks the opponent’s Locus, and the Aegis defends the mage’s own Locus from similar attacks. When one duelist has drained the rival’s Quintessence from xyr Locus, the match ends.
A no-frills Certámen match features two mages slinging spheres at one another. More often, however, the antagonists craft their Gladius, Aegis, Locus, and other spheres into elaborate, theatrical, and often fearsome shapes. Guiding mystic energies with willful imagination, the duelists forge wild weapons, ferocious creatures, curtains of energy, elemental tempests, titanic shields, bursts of sound, and whatever else the mage can imagine. The Certámen circle allows its duelists to will their energies into infinite arrays of form. A Certámen match between two skilled opponents, then, can be an incredible display of occult pyrotechnics... which, for spectators, adds a serious entertainment factor to otherwise solemn procedures.
Assuming that the duelists meet in such a space, the duel itself employs the following systems:
These glowing spheres represent the mage’s excellence (zir Arete Trait), not zir expertise (zir Spheres Trait). Thus, an Arete 5 duelist can conjure up to 5 glowing spheres, even if ze has dots in only 3 Spheres on zir character sheet.
Each duelist may change initiative dice at the beginning of a new turn, reflecting a shift of tactics.
The attacker rolls zir Wits + Gladius Sphere or zir Dexterity + Gladius Sphere against a Difficulty of the [defender’s Aegis Sphere + 3]. (Aegis Life 3, for example, would be Difficulty 6.) The attacker may divide zir dice pool or employ Time 3 magick in order to attack several times within a single turn. Using Time 3 to slow your opponent down, however, is forbidden by Certámen etiquette; a combatant who attempts this tactic automatically loses the duel.
The number of glowing Certámen spheres reflects a character’s Arete Trait rating, but the Gladius and Aegis reflect the character’s actual Sphere Traits. When they first appear, these glowing spheres are simply balls of energy that look like whatever the mage wants them to look like. The Gladius and Aegis, however, embody the principle of their respective Spheres; Correspondence could look like a quivering warp in space, whereas Entropy resembles a black hole or ghostly face, Forces conjures a ball of wind or fire, Life creates a green sphere of humid energy, and so forth.
Once the glowing spheres get conjured, however, creative duelists (and players) can shape them into whatever forms they wish to present. That Correspondence warp could become a polydimensional fractal sword or a coruscating hole in space. Entropy might shape itself into a ghastly skeleton-thing with an obsidian scythe or rip open a portal to an apparent hell. Forces could swirl into tempests, and Life could turn into dragons or other mythic creatures. Within the Certámen circle, the possibilities are limited only by each duelist’s imagination. These shapes are purely cosmetic — a Life 3 Gladius is a Life 3 Gladius even if it looks like a giant, tentacled eye-creature — but they can be pretty damned intimidating and display each duelist’s creativity as well. Seasoned duelists might be known for their evocative weaponry, and these old pros probably have signature shapes for their Gladius and Aegis Spheres.
The other glowing spheres and the Locus can be reshaped as well. A really showy combatant might conjure a chorus of dancing sphere-imps, a Locus made of shimmering liquid fire, a Gladius like a flaming demon sword, and an Aegis like a black mirror filled with sneering faces. Stylish Certámen spheres can provide extra entertainment for the crowd that inevitably attends a Certámen match. Although the old dueling masters are more or less history in the current age, tales still recall the mind-wrenching geometry of Caeron Mustai’s abstract designs, the lusty grace of Marianna’s sensual artistry, and the awful force of Porthos Fitz-Empress’s elemental Certámen arsenal. Sure, a dueling mage could simply conjure shimmering balls of energy, and leave the theatrics to zir egotistical peers... but really, where’s the fun in that?