Initiate of Forces
Influence Heat (Forces •)
The mage can guide the direction and/or flow of existing heat. He could, for example, keep warm in cold weather by pulling the ambient warmth shed by other human bodies to himself, or make sure that the dim heat from a radiator on the other side of a bathroom reached the shower stall. He could not increase the temperature of the heat at this level, nor create heat where there is none.
Influence Light (Forces •)
The mage can guide the direction and/or flow of existing light. He could, for example, cause a wide-angle lantern beam to focus more tightly, like a flashlight beam, or split visible white light into its full spectrum of colors, like a prism. He could not (at this level) cause a weak light to become brighter or cause light to appear where it did not already exist.
Influence Sound (Forces •)
The mage can guide the direction and/or flow of existing sound. He could, for example, focus sound waves from across a vast chamber so he can listen in on a whispered conversation, or ensure that the sound of his own voice does not carry beyond the person to whom he is speaking. He could not amplify the volume, however, or create a noise from thin air.
Nightsight (Forces •)
By attuning her perceptions to pick up trace amounts of ambient light, supplementing this with an intuitive feel for vibration, heat and the like, a mage can see in the dark with the same clarity as most nocturnal predators. She can essentially perceive the infrared or ultraviolet spectrum and detect electromagnetic radiation, or sonic or kinetic energy.
Read Matrices (Forces •)
The mage gains the Mage Sight (see “Mage Sight,” p. 110). He can perceive energy and magical resonance, detecting the presence of all of the universe’s various forms of energy: heat, gravity, electromagnetism and the like, including the presence or absence of different sorts of radiation, such as x-rays or cosmic radiation, either visually or through tactile perception. An undiscerning mage might be fairly blinded by the overwhelming variety and sheer quantity of energy that moves around her at all times, unable to process the ever-shifting tapestry of power that is all but invisible to the untrained eye. The mage is also especially aware of resonance’s energetic aspects and flow, its vibratory frequency and movement.
Receiver (Forces •)
The mage can hear sounds on subsonic or supersonic frequencies that the human ear cannot normally distinguish, but this spell does not improve her hearing ability (it adds no dice, but does extend the range of sounds she can hear).
Tune In (Forces •)
This spell enables a mage to listen in on a free-floating data transmission (like that of a cellular modem) and translate the electromagnetic “noise” into intelligible information. The will-worker cannot, however, understand information that was originally transmitted in another language. With this sense, a mage could listen in on a radio broadcast without the need for any kind of receiver. Likewise, she could watch any television signal not transmitted directly through cables. This would enable the mage to spy on closed walkie-talkie channels, get free satellite pay-per-views, or even “listen in” on the data-stream transmitted and received by a cellular modem if she really felt like it (not that she’d be able to make much sense of it without the use of Mind magic to interpret the noise). She could even access wireless communications (such as MP3s, Internet long-distance phones, or video conferencing) at a wi-fi “hot spot,” although she can only listen to, not read, such transmissions. At this point, the mage is incapable of actually sending any information along these channels and is restricted to eavesdropping on extant signals.