Blessing
Somebody up there, or down there, or out there, likes you. Maybe you did him/her/it a favor, or it's a relative, or you're its devoted servant and it's given you a perk to help you do your job. Maybe you've made an amazing discovery on your lonesome (not that you're able to recreate the experiment) and you've still got the dividends. No matter. You've been given a taste of power (possibly with a few strings attached) and now it's time to play.
What this means is that you have some ability that other mages don't, and one which most of the creatures oflegend don't, either. Miraculous strength. Immortality. The ability to summon the fires of Hell to your hand. Any or all of these and more … and possibly a few odd problems, like those inconvenient little horns on your head or your newfound craving for spinach. (After all, some blessings can be mixed.) Likewise, cyberware, mystic rubies for your forehead and/or navel, demonic investments and the magically grafted skeletal hands of ancient lich kings also count as Blessings. Pretty much, if it's a Wonder, but you can't take it off, then it's a Blessing (or a mixed Blessing). If you can trade it with your friends, or hide it under the bed when the MiBs come to call, then it's just a Wonder.
As with the empowerment of Wonders, simply go to the lists of Merits and magical powers and select what you want. Calculate the Rote cost of any unlisted capabilities and double it if the effect is permanent, taking no more than one-third of the Blessing's total value in Flaws (if you want a mixed Blessing) with an eye to who or what Blessed you and what they want in return (if you even know). Alternately, you may have your Storyteller choose a few mystery Flaws or negative Backgrounds, which you may discover over the course of the chronicle. For example: Say you want the Blessing that you can always sense the flow of energy in all living things (as per the Life 1 Effect Sense Life). Since it's a one-dot power, made permanent, it's a two-point Background.
Common origins for Blessings include benevolent ancestors, demons, devils, gods, powerful spirits, Totems, saints, ghosts, faeries, powerful mages or groups of mages (your superiors at Iteration X, for example), random accidents, strange mysteries and occasionally irreproducible personal discoveries. All of these sources have limitations inherent in them and this will often be the source of your Flaws.
Typically, a Blessing is some property that's inherent to you, which grants good luck or a single supernatural capability. You might have the Blessing that your clothes never get dirty, but you couldn't have the Blessing that you own a very powerful magical item (that's the Wonder Background). However, you might have a Blessing that powerful items tend to pass through your hands or come within your grasp - a mixed Blessing indeed, since powerful items tend to be followed by powerful enemies. To generate a dice pool for a Blessing -say, the aforementioned Life Sense power- use an appropriate Attribute + Blessing. So, if you have a two point Blessing of constant life sense, you would use Perception+ Blessing to determine how much information you can garner from a look at a person. If you have a Blessing that your skin is tough as iron (giving you an extra soak die), no roll would be necessary as a permanent Blessing. As a non-pemanent Blessing, you would roll Stamina+ Blessing to activate it use the successes to generate duration. Activating a conscious Blessing like this typically requires a full action, although it might be reflexive (as in the iron skin case).
Note that any 'vulgar' Blessings use the rules for Paradox Mitigation but still can cause Paradox for a mage. A sorcerer/psychic with a blessing doesn't suffer this, but should use the scale for Alchemy or Enchantment to figure out their dot rating, rather than Sphere levels.
Your Blessing may also be in the form of the Fates, or faeries at your Christening, or even some old woman (with Entropy 5) smiling and weaving the threads of your Destiny into a happy pattern -like never losing at cards or always being lucky in love. This is not the same thing as the Destiny Background itself, which is an earmark of someone being Fated to do something important in the grand scheme of things. While being a whiz at poker and always being able to get a date are extremely useful abilities, they're generally not anything that the Fate of the world hinges upon. If your Blessing is a matter of a happy Fate, design it yourself using the following as benchmarks:
● You always find a parking spot right in front of your destination with money still left in the meter.
●● No matter how much you drink, you never get a hangover.
●●● Everything you buy outlasts the warranty by at least 10 years.
●●●● Every one you dislike moves away within the week.
●●●●● No matter how badly you screw up, no lasting harm comes of it, and no one finds out unless you tell him or her.
Note that for permanent effects, Living Artifact spells cast on someone, and similar after creation, this background is bought to represent it.
