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Mage Character Creation

Misc Gaming Mechanics Index | Mage: The Ascension

Character Creation Process
Step One: Choose Concept, Society, Foci and Magickal Process.
Step Two: Choose Attributes (7/5/3)
Step Three: Choose Abilities (13/9/5)
Step Four: Choose Backgrounds (5)
Step Five: Chose Spheres
Step Six: Record Arete (1), Willpower (3), Merits, and Flaws (7 points maximum)

Avatar
An Avatar determines how much Quintessence can be spent on any magical effect. Characters start with an Avatar rating of one, which may be increased by one to a maximum of 5 with one negative trait per level. This determines the size of an Avatar as well, with a rating 1 avatar being around dog sized, while a rating 5 avatar would be the size of a house. A mage's avatar also decides how much Quintessence their avatar can hold. A mage can store their avatar's rating in quintessence naturally, and begin the game with a fully charged avatar. Quintessence is restored to an Avatar using either the Meditation ability or with a Prime effect.

Arete
A mage's arete is determined by Arete traits. In game terms, before a Mage can learn any sphere at a given level, they must have enough Arete traits to allow them to learn that sphere level. All mages start with 1 Arete trait. Extra Arete traits may be bought at the beginning of the game with 3 negative traits, up to a maximum of 3.

Arete also governs how well a mage is at crafting magick. The power level of a magical effect is determined by the mage's Arete. As well, every Arete trait a mage possesses allows them to transcend the use of one of their foci for one of their spheres, permanently. If they wish to keep their foci, they may - this is only an option available to them.

Mages have 'titles', determined by what magical power they wield. These 'titles' represent the maximum level that a mage may buy any sphere level at. The five levels are Apprentice, Initiate, Disciple, Adept and Master, each of which has an arete trait requirement which a mage must have in order to attain that level.

Title

Apprentice

Initiate

Disciple

Adept

Master
Rating 1 2 3 4 5+

Willpower and Magick
If a mage has a sphere rating higher than their willpower, they may not use the sphere ratings higher than their willpower until their willpower has been increased to a level sufficient enough to use the sphere rating. This holds true for Arete - if a mage has more Arete than Willpower, that extra Arete is not usable by the mage until they increase their willpower sufficiently.

Quintessence and Paradox
A mage can store a maximum of 20 points of quintessence using Apprentice Level Prime. Every point of paradox, however, lowers the maximum number of quintessence storable by 1. So 1 point of paradox lowers the maximum number of quintessence stored to 19, 2 points lowers it to 18, etc. As well, if it should ever occur that a point of paradox lowers the maximum amount of quintessence below the number that the mage currently has, then the excess quintessence is lost due to the paradox overflow. SO, for example, a mage has 8 points of paradox and maximum quintessence, 12 points. If the mage were to accrue another point of paradox, they would lose a point of quintessence to paradox overflow, leaving them with 9 points of paradox and 11 points of quintessence.
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