Template:Focus

M20/4th Edition Magick is actually a little different (read: simplified) compared to the Third/Revised-edition process for doing Magick.

While you are certainly welcome to expound upon your character’s Magickal methodology as much as you’d like to, for the purposes of your application what we want is for you to create your Focus. Your focus contains the key terms and concepts that build the way your Mage does Magick.

So, when you are prompted to set Your Focus, your Focus +note needs to include the following:

Paradigm

Paradigm is the way your Mage conceptualizes existence and their purpose for being. Choose one or more paradigm keyphrases that encapsulate your mage’s worldview. You may also invent your own keyphrase. We recommend choosing no more than three keyphrases. One is just fine! Then, if you like', you can provide a breakdown of how your mage sees the world through the lens of these keyphrases. A list of paradigms taken from M20 and The Book of Secrets follows. Detailed breakdowns of these paradigms can be found there.

• A Holographic Reality
• A Mechanistic Cosmos
• A World of Gods and Monsters
• Aliens Make Us What We Are
• All Power Comes from God(s)
• All the World’s a Stage
• Ancient Wisdom is the Key
• Bring Back the Golden Age
• Creation Is Innately Divine & Alive
• Consciousness is the Only True Reality
• Divine Order and Earthly Chaos
• Embrace the Threshold
• Everything is Chaos – You Only Think It Makes Sense
• Everything is Data
• Everything is an Illusion, Prison or Mistake
• It’s All Good – Have Faith
• Might is Right
• One-Way Trip to Oblivion
• Tech Holds All Answers
• The Ancestors Watch Over Us
• Transcend Your Limits
• Turning the Keys to Reality
• We are NOT Men
• We’re All God(s) In Disguise

Practices

Practices are the broad-tent methods by which your Mage does Magick. They represent your Mage’s training, as well as personal, intimate elements of their beliefs and methodologies. Certain practices are integral to the identities of various Traditions and Crafts, though no one faction has a monopoly on a Practice. Choose three Practices to build this part of your Mage’s focus. Detailed descriptions of these Practices are found in M20 beginning on pg. 572 and The Book of Secrets beginning on page 196.

• Alchemy
• Ancestor Worship
• Animalism
• Art of Desire/Hypereconomics
• Bardism
• Chaos Magick
• Craftwork
• Crazy Wisdom
• Cybernetics
• Dominion
• Elementalism
• Faith
• God-Bonding
• Gum Shoeing
• Gutter Magick
• High Ritual Magick
• Hypertech
• Invigoration
• Legalism
• Maleficia
• Martial Arts
• Medicine Work
• Mediumship
• Psionics
• Reality Hacking
• Shamanism
• Weird Science
• Witchcraft
• Yoga

You also can create your own practices in addition to the list above. Check out some of our own Player-Created Practices.

Instruments

The most intimate aspect of focus is the Mage’s Instruments, meaning the tools and hands-on methods by which they work Magick. When creating your Focus, choose a minimum of seven instruments. You are free to choose more, but we recommend you take no more than ten. More than that, and you risk becoming bogged down when building magickal effects.

Instruments in the broad sense are not linked to any one sphere though a Mage might certainly have instruments they favor when working with a specific sphere. They represent a broad pool of tools you can draw on in order to make your Magick happen. The more complex the Magick you are doing is, the more Instruments it’s likely to involve.

Transcending Instruments

As a mage attains enlightenment, they shed the need to rely upon their tools to make Magick. What transcending an instrument means is that you no longer depend on that instrument when doing Magick. For instance, if you’ve transcended your Eye Contact instrument, you might say “I would normally look into the policeman’s eyes in order to hypnotize him, but I’ve transcended that instrument, so I’ll omit it and hypnotize him without looking up from what I’m doing.” You may still use a transcended instrument to make an effect coincidental or to help you focus your Will (in which case it gives you a -1 difficulty to your Arete rolls).

Mystick mages begin transcending instruments one at a time beginning at Arete 3. Technomancers begin transcending their instruments the same way beginning at Arete 6. (Technocrats never transcend their instruments, as a point of order). Mages generally transcend the instruments they rely on least, first.

The following list of instruments is taken from M20 beginning on page 586 and The Book of Secrets beginning on pg. 205. You may also create your own instruments, though we recommend using this list as an example of the amount of specificity needed. While it may be fun to play a mage with one hand bound behind their metaphysical back, flexibility is the goal.

Instruments From M20 Core

• Armor
• Artwork
• Blessings or Curses
• Blood and Other Fluids
• Bodywork
• Bones, Skin, Organs, and Other Remains
• Books, Scrolls, and Periodicals
• Brain/Computer Interface
• Brews, Potions, Powders, and Other Concoctions
• Cards, Dice, and Other Instruments of Chance
• Celestial Alignments
• Circles, Pentacles, and other Geometric Designs
• Crossroads and Crossing Days/Moments
• Cups, Chalices, Cauldrons, and Other Vessels
• Dances, Gestures, Postures, and Other Movement Practices
• Devices and Machines
• Drugs and Poisons
• Elements
• Energy
• Eye Contact
• Fashion
• Food and Drink
• Formulae, Equations, and Sacred or Advanced Mathematics
• Forensic Procedures
• Gadgets and Inventions
• Gems, Stones, and Minerals
• Group Rites
• Herbs, Roots, Seeds, Flowers, and Plants
• Household Tools & Implements
• Knots and Ropes
• Laboratories and Lab Gear
• Languages
• Management & Human Resources
• Mass Media
• Meditation
• Money & Wealth
• Music
• Nanotech
• Numbers and Numerology
• Offerings and Sacrifices
• Ordeals and Exertion
• Prayers and Invocations
• Sacred Iconography
• Sex and Sensuality
• Social Domination
• Symbols
• Thought-Forms
• Toys & Games
• Tricks & Illusions
• True Name
• Vehicles
• Voice and Vocalizations
• Wands, Rods, and Staves
• Weapons
• Writings, Inscriptions, and Runes

Instruments From BoS

• Body Modification
• Cannibalism
• Cybernetic Implants
• Genetic Manipulation
• Internet Activity
• Medical Procedures
• Transgression

Personalized Instruments

Finally, choose a personalized instrument affiliated with your Affinity Sphere. For instance, this might be a wand made of specific materials and of certain dimensions, which you prefer to use when manipulating Forces, a specifically-arranged medical kit for when you work Life effects, or it might be the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, which you’ve got down to an art for working with the Spirit sphere. It just feels right. This personalized instrument gives you -1 difficulty when your affinity sphere is part of an effect, and it’s present. You don’t have any penalty if it isn’t available.

Unique Instruments

As an optional choice, you can also tie one or more of your spheres to unique instruments. A unique instrument is deeply personal to your mage; they depend heavily on it when making Magick, and if lost a unique instrument can’t be replaced. A unique instrument gives you -1 difficulty when working with the sphere to which it is linked. A guitar that once belonged to Jimi Hendrix would be a unique instrument, as would a staff handed down to you by your hermetic pater, that was also used by his pater. Your personalized instrument can also be unique, in which case it gives you a -2 difficulty on rolls involving your affinity sphere… there’s a catch, though. If a unique instrument is unavailable, your mage is considered to be Working Without Tools for rolls involving that sphere until you can transcend the instrument. That’s bad, especially if the unique instrument is lost or destroyed. Think about this carefully before you commit to a whole bunch of unique instruments!