Vires

Dark Ages Mage

Command of Forces

A wizard's wrath is a conflagration and his laughter warm and pleasant sunlight. Certainly the most fantastic and visually stunning of the Forms commonly taught to mages of the Order, the way of Forces summons the storm, masters light and darkness, bends the tides and grants the mage flight without wings. Though it is considered the least subtle of the Hermetic arts, Vires is as well suited to the spy, the courtier, and the assassin as it is to the blustering mage. After all, this Forma is as capable of conveying whispered words across leagues or gathering a mantle of shadows as it is of raining lightning down on the heads of those who displease. At first, disciples of this art flicker candle flames and send chills through the air and, later, transform moonlight into flame and tear castles from the Earth to set them atop the clouds.

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● At this level of knowledge, the mage can follow the movements of various terrestrial energies (light, heat, sound and so on). She is capable, for example, of discerning how long a candle has been extinguished by its residual warmth or feeling out where lightning will strike even as thunderheads gather.

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●● Now, the mage can manipulate what she could perceive with the previous level, if only on a small scale. Thus, she can conjure a candle flame, increase the force of friction to the point that a wall could be scaled with hands and feet, or whisper her words directly into the ear of an ally from across a dining hall. The effects at this level must be small and subtle, but, when targeting visible energies, are obvious uses of the Gift.

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●●● At this point, the mage can direct Vires on a wider scale. The control of terrestrial forces is within the wizard's grasp. He can project a thunderbolt from his fingertips or wrap himself up in shadows that hang like a cloak (adding a die per success to Stealth die pools). Further, he can defy his own earthbound nature to take to the skies, or he can sap the heat from an enemy's frame, turning blood to ice in another's veins. The many martial applications of this level of power inflict either a Health Level of lethal damage or two of bashing per success.

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●●●● Now, the mage learns to harness some of the most potent of forces. She can create true sunlight or transform a scream into a conflagration (inflicting two Health Levels of lethal damage or one aggravated per success). She can make an object "fall" sideways, with as much or as little force as she wishes. If she wishes, she may fly above the sky itself, out to the limit of the Lunar Sphere, or she can freeze rivers solid at midsummer and bat aside an entire volley of arrows with a wave of her hand.

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●●●●● The true master of Vires can shake the heavens themselves with his awesome might. He can bend the tides, topple mountains, and create raging storms. If he chooses, a blow from his fist can shatter steel and stone, or the raging power of a landslide might strike his town with no more force than a mass of falling feathers. When the Master is angered, lava flow erupts, thunder rains on all sides, and foes fall screaming, embraced by withering flames (two Health Levels of aggravated damage per success ) .

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Sample Foci: Electricity, Fine Manipulation, Fire, Flight, Physical Contact

Specialties: Candles, fire, iron, pentacles of Mars, swords

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Sources: https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Forma

DAM: Dark Ages: Mage Rulebook, p. 120-123

DAM: Dark_Ages: Mage Grimoire, p. 161