by Jonathan Lang (Mage: The Ascension | Resources)
This article is a reworking of the True Faith merit for use in conjunction with the sphere magic from Mage: the Ascension 2nd Edition (ISBN 1-56504-400-2)and Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade (ISBN 1-56504-489-4). The underlying concept is that, since belief is so central to the workings of magic and true faith is representative of belief, Faith should have an effect on magic beyond the ability to dispel it. In essence, True Faith should work in a manner similar to a mobile Sanctum, making the magus' Effects more coincidental.
Faith has two main aspects: how the world works, and what ideals the Faithful lives by. In the former case, Faith is tied to a paradigm in much the same way that Magic is. While the most famous version of Faith is Chorister-like in this respect, it is hardly the only version; one can have Faith in Gaia, the powers and goals of Hermetic magic, the beliefs of the Verbena, and, yes, even the capabilities and ideals of Science and Technology. When choosing a Faith for your character, keep the style of his Faith in mind. Faith and Effects Each dot in Faith makes magic that is compatible with the Faithful's beliefs more coincidental, and makes incompatible magic more vulgar:
Faith and Compatible Effects:
* Reduce the difficulty of Vulgar Effects by one.
** Treat all Effects as Coincidental for the purpose of determining difficulty.
*** Vulgar Effects without witnesses are treated as coincidental effects for all purposes.
**** Vulgar Effects with witnesses are treated as if there were no witnesses for the purposes of generating Paradox.
***** All Effects are coincidental.
Faith and Incompatible Effects:
* Increase the difficulty of Coincidental Effects by one.
** Treat all Effects as Vulgar with witnesses for the purpose of determining difficulty.
*** Coincidental Effects are treated as Vulgar without witnesses for generating Paradox.
**** Vulgar Effects are automatically treated as being witnessed.
**** All Effects are Vulgar with witnesses.
Note that many Effects will fall into neither of these categories; to a Verbena, Dreamspeaker magic is neither compatible nor incompatible, and is thus unaffected by the Verbena's Faith in this regard.
Use the higher of your Arete or your Faith when determining Countermagic dice.
Faith can also provide additional abilities, determined by the paradigm. These can include, but are not limited to the abilities listed in The Inquisition (ISBN 1-56504-228-X). These abilities should obviously be compatible with the nature of the Faith; Chorister-style Faith accepts the existence of vampires, but allows the Faithful to drive the vampire away. On the other hand, Technocratic Faith denies the very existence of vampires, and would likely result in subjecting a vampire in his presence to the wasting effects normally suffered only by Bygones; but it would not allow the Faithful to drive the vampire away through force of Faith alone.
The only other ability common to all Faiths is its ability to bolster Willpower; when the Faithful needs to spend a point of Willpower that he doesn't have, he may spend a point of Faith instead, as per The Inquisition.
