Spheres
To make a terrible pun of it, Mage’s Spheres reflect a well-rounded knowledge of nine different yet interrelated elements of reality. In story terms, these nine constructs represent a sort of “unified- field theory” of Earthly metaphysics. In game terms, they measure what your characters do and cannot do, based upon their understanding of theoretical knowledge and practical results.
Each Sphere features five different levels of progress and result. That progression is represented by the number of dots in your Sphere Trait. As detailed in Chapter Two, within the sidebar Levels of Sphere Progress and Expertise (see p. 68), each successive level allows your mage to understand a bit more about the principles of that Sphere. As a result, he can do more things with it, adding a new level of abilities onto the previous levels of accomplishment:
- • Rank 1: Perception – the ability to perceive and observe the forces in question. With such basic (yet useful) understanding, a character can sense things that few mortals ever recognize.
- •• Rank 2: Manipulation – the ability to do small things with those forces. At this point, the mage begins to exert minor control over the phenomena she sees, and may use it to work small changes upon herself.
- ••• Rank 3:
