Rotes

Overview

Rotes are spell effects that have been refined and practiced so thoroughly that they become second nature to the Mage who practices them. Just like composing a song from scratch is a far more involved process than simply learning one that has been written from the sheet music, creating a spell effect on the fly is more error-prone than the practiced formula of a memorized Rote. Rotes are, thus, the sheet music of magic.

Rotes allow a Mage to ignore the Fast Casting Penalty and add the highest involved sphere's rating to their casting roll. For example, a Mage who has Forces 3 and chooses to learn a Rote that uses Forces can add their Forces rating to their Arete roll. Only one of your spheres may count (your highest applicable one).

Rote Points

Rotes are purchased with Rote Points. In character generation, mages are granted 10 Rote Points to begin with starting rotes. Additional Rote Points can be purchased at 1 XP for 5 Rote points or 1 Karma for 5 Rote Points.

Acquiring Rotes

All rotes cost a number of Rote Points equal to the total number of Sphere dots involved in the effect (a Forces 2, Correspondence 2, Matter 1 Rote costs 5 Rote Points). If the rote is from a paradigm or practice that does not match your character's paradigms or practices, the cost is doubled. If the Rote is not only counter to your paradigms and practices but belongs to a different Craft (like a Verbena trying to learn an Etherite rote), then the cost is tripled.

Learning an existing Rote requires research time (1 downtime), and a research roll to learn. The research roll is Intelligence + Occult (in replacement of Esoterica) or Science depending on your paradigms and practices. The difficulty of the research roll is 5 + the highest sphere in the rote. Only one success is required for the roll.

To initiate the process, send in a +request describing the Rote you want to learn (read below for the Rote Proposal sheet if you are asking for a new one).

Choice Of Rotes

There are Enlightened Grimoire Rotes (EG Rotes), Modern Nights Rotes (MN Rotes), and Personal Rotes.

Enlightened Grimoire Rotes are the rotes found in the unofficial work entitled Enlightened Grimoire. Modern Nights Rotes are rotes that players contribute as supplemental world building. In terms of their IC popularity, if Rotes were movies or TV shows, then the Rotes found in Enlightened Grimoire are the enduring, iconic classics: they're The Godfather, Terminator 2, and The Wizard Of Oz in terms of their prominence in mage culture. Countless have experienced them, everybody has at least heard of them. Modern Nights Rotes are more obscure, but still popular within individual Crafts. Extending the movies and TV metaphor, they're the works that still have a special place among certain cultures but aren't mainstream classics, like Reefer Madness and Paris Is Burning. This metaphor is not entirely appropriate since there are Rotes that are called out in Enlightened Grimoire as being specifically proprietary to a particular group. In those individual cases, those Rotes remain secret as they are described, like Distill The Azoth Elixir.

Personal Rotes are ones your mage has created themselves and are thus known to your mage and whomever your mage decides to teach.

Enlightened Grimoire

You may choose any rote from Enlightened Grimoire for your mage to learn. When you pick a rote from EG, staff will review the rote if they have not done so already in order to ensure compliance with How Do You Do That? because the mage material is very contradictory and we want the mechanics to comply with HDYDT as much as possible. Eventually, we may have all of the EG rotes reviewed, but M20 is a shitload of material to pour through, and so until that day comes, rotes picked out of E.G. will need to be reviewed by staff before their approval. If they contradict the HDYDT material, we won't reject the rote, we'll just change the way the rote works so that it follows the rules in HDYDT. You can see any Rotes that have already been reviewed and approved on our Enlightened Grimoire Errata page.

In order to prevent as much "Whoops, actually the mechanics are..." as possible, two staffers will need to review the requested rote before it is approved, but once it's approved, it's upheld.

Rotes that are called out in Enlightened Grimoire as being specifically proprietary to a particular group remain specifically proprietary, like Distill The Azoth Elixir (p. 73 of EG). If you are not part of that group and the rote's description specifically calls out that this is a guarded secret, it remains a guarded secret. Please note that this just means the Rote itself: the spell effects in proprietary rotes are not magically off-limits to someone else coming up with something similar. For example, just because Distill The Azoth Elixir essentially describes a potion that can heal Aggravated damage, that doesn't mean another Craft can't also make up a potion that heals Aggravated damage.

Modern Nights Rotes

If you wish to add a rote to the story world, you are welcome to do so. For example, maybe you're acting as Storyteller and want to reward their mage characters with a cool spooky tome. Maybe you just came up with a cool idea or found something cool on the Internet and want to add it to the game. So long as the Rote in question makes sense for the Craft and the Rote doesn't conveniently solve an ongoing IC issue your character is actively facing, we will add it as a Modern Nights Rote. If it solves an IC issue your character is actively facing, we will still allow you to acquire it, but we will want you to use the rote creation rules in the Personal Rotes section, below.

Contributing a new Rote costs nothing (learning it on your Mage does). Rote proposals should be sent in via +request and contain the following information:

* Rote Name
* Rote Type: Is this an MN Rote (contributing it to Modern Nights in general) or a Personal Rote (you're designing and creating it ICly)?
* Required Spheres: One can make up rotes regardless of the abilities of their Mage character. Learning them, of course, is another story.
* Practice, Paradigmatic Keyphrase, and Instrument: Valid options are those which are found in the official M20 Material as well as Practices and Paradigms found on the Modern Nights player contribution wiki.  Rotes that designate that a Rote uses a Practice, Keyphrase and/or Instrument not found in the official material or the Wiki material can certainly exist, but would be considered the result of an individual Mage's personal, private work.  
* Spell Effects: Spell Effects should turn to HDYDT and M20 Core mechanics as a guide, rather than Enlightened Grimoire (which has some contradictions).

Two staffers will need to review the submitted rote in order to ensure compliance and consistency with HDYDT.

Personal Rotes

While players can contribute to the world building by proposing Rotes, individual characters can also personally craft new rotes themselves. The Personal Rotes rules are used when you decide your character is going to personally create a rote, themselves. Staff may deem a Modern Nights rote proposal to be more appropriately a Personal Rote when it appears that the Rote is serving the mage who submits it more than the game. Here are some flags that make us think that:

• Effects don't make sense for the craft, like a Verbena rote to run diagnostics on a computer.
• Mechanics play disproportionately to the strengths of the contributor's mage character, such as using an instrument that happens to be their personal or unique instrument.
• Effects address a very obscure or specific situation that strains the believability that this could be valuable practice within a subculture.
• Effects address a currently ongoing IC issue pertinent to their mage character.

Creating New Rotes

Rote Proposal

First comes the Rote Proposal. To submit a new Rote, send in a +request with the following information, and specify somewhere that your character is making this Rote themselves.

Rote proposals should be sent in via +request and contain the following information:

* Rote Name
* Rote Type: Is this an MN Rote (contributing it to Modern Nights in general) or a Personal Rote (you're designing and creating it ICly)?
* Required Spheres: One can make up rotes regardless of the abilities of their Mage character. Learning them, of course, is another story.
* Practice, Paradigmatic Keyphrase, and Instrument: Valid options are those which are found in the official M20 Material as well as Practices and Paradigms found on the Modern Nights player contribution wiki.  Rotes that designate that a Rote uses a Practice, Keyphrase and/or Instrument not found in the official material or the Wiki material can certainly exist, but would be considered the result of an individual Mage's personal, private work.  
* Spell Effects: Spell Effects should turn to HDYDT and M20 Core mechanics as a guide, rather than Enlightened Grimoire (which has some contradictions).

Extended Roll

Highest Sphere Rating	Required Successes
1	10
2	25
3	50
4	75
5	100

The process of refining, tinkering with and perfecting the rote are represented by an extended roll. An Attribute + Ability dice pool is selected by the ST based on the Instrument(s) and Practice(s) being used in the description of the rote. So, if someone describes a rote where they must sing a particular song, the roll might be Charisma + Performance. The difficulty is 7 (specialties apply) and cannot be modified by the "magic enhancing abilities" rules.

Each individual roll costs 1 Downtime and each Downtime point represents an entire day or night being dedicated to practice. For every 5 rolls made, your Mage accumulates 1 point of Paradox, 2 if the Rote is vulgar (and not practiced in a Sanctum), representative of the mistakes the mage makes along the way. You may space out your rolls as you see fit: there is no time constraint requirement, only a completion requirement. For each skill roll, a failure indicates no progress. A botch requires you to start over.

When you've achieved the total number of successes you'll have fully refined the rote. The required successes depend on the highest sphere rating used in the rote: a level 1 Rote takes 10 successes, a level 2 rote takes 25, and then each level higher requires +25 successes. See the table to the right.

Rotes And Your Mentor

Just as Vampires can roll their Mentor rating at a difficulty of 3 + Ritual Level to determine if their Mentor is both willing and able to teach them a Ritual free of cost, a similar mechanic applies for learning Rotes for Mages.

When wanting to learn an Enlightened Grimoire rote from their Mentor, a Mage rolls their Mentor rating at a difficulty of 4 + Highest Involved Sphere Level. You may ask your Mentor for a rote that has not actually been submitted before ("Hey Jimbo, is there a rote that ..."). The ST will need some time to make some decisions about that rote, but it is an option.

When that roll succeeds, the mentor is happy to teach the rote to their pupil as a matter of course. When that roll fails, the mentor either doesn't know it or feels that their pupil must first make it worth their while to teach it and will administer a task. When that roll botches, the mentor is either not willing or able to negotiate: they've been picked at a particularly bad time, and can be asked again in a month.

A selection of custom rotes

Stop Killin', Just Smoke

• Rote Type: MN
• Required Spheres: Mind 3
• Practice: Ecstasis
• Paradigmatic Keyphrase: Your Mind is My Mind, My Peace(High) is Your Peace(High)
• Instrument: Drugs (In particular drugs that invoke a euphoric or calming effect and produce a smoke or highly effusing smell)
• Spell Effect: Coincidental
  • The Cultist takes a particularly deep drag from a smokable or vapable drug and then expels it into the air of the area they occupy, in doing so they intentionally share and slightly expedite the effects of the euphoric sensations from the high they've invoked by imbibing the substance they've just smoked, encapsulating the experience of it, and projecting it outwards through the smoke and the smell.
  • Though through a practical view it appears as though the Cultist intends to invoke the principle of a 'contact' or 'second hand' high, in truth those followers of the First Bud that devised this method of 'calming a room' view it as the decoherence of the boundaries of place and person so that the understandings of the importance of peace, comprehension, and the importance of shared progress towards the better.
  • Mechanical Effect: This effect is meant to be similar in function to the Mind 3 sleep spell effect mentioned in HDYDT pg. 128 in terms of usage and resistances, though it is intended to cause greater complacency and calm, as opposed to sleep. Successes are intended to be divided between number of targets, the strength of the mental complusion, and perhaps the amount of time the subjects remain complacent.