Time: This Sphere promulgates the subjectivity of time. Using it, a Mage may manipulate the perception and passage of time for himself and others.

Specialty: Cult of Ecstasy

1 – Time Sense

2 – Time Sight

3 – Time Manipulation

4 – Time Determinism

5 – Time Travel, Time Immunity

Time is the study of how Patterns change over time, and how nothing ever truly forgets its past or is ignorant of its future.

Time is present in all things, marching toward its inevitable conclusion. …right? Mages know that time is not only subjective, but can be manipulated, twisted and branched, and a Master of Time can create loops, causal paradoxes, and travel through time. A Time Mage never needs to worry about regretting an action, missing a split-second chance, dying from a random accident – he can simply take it all back and do it again.

Time magic can be horribly Paradoxical, creating situations which cannot exist. Time travel, in particular, is a death wish, as the chances that something will go wrong build up higher and higher the further back or forward you go from your proper place in time. Also, no matter how much the Mage speeds or slows time, he can only do one magical action each Combat Turn – in essence, he can only weave magic as quickly as reality can accept it.

Apprentice Time: Time Sense

Certainly, the Mage becomes a perfect clock, but this Sphere goes deeper than that. They can see the fabric of time itself – knowing who is experiencing fast or slow time, detecting Time magic at work, and knowing when they are being watched through time. Mages with Time can detect alternate histories and paradoxical loops, and may be able to set the world right again. Along with other Spheres, the Mage can create effects using split-second timing and precision.

Initiate Time: Time Sight

Although the past and future are nothing but possibilities, it’s possible to scry through time itself to look at the most probable outcomes. The Mage can look into time, gaining a fuzzy, vague sense of what might happen at a future time. The future isn’t always set – free will is a powerful influence, and some Mages think that the act of looking toward a future ensures that future will never happen, at least not exactly. A Mage at this level can also create temporal static, preventing others from using this power on him. His divinations are limited to times close to the present, and his current location. He might use Correspondence to scry on other locations, or use Life or Matter to determine what will happen to a particular object or person.

Disciple Time: Time Manipulation

By contracting or dilating time, the Mage can alter the rate at which things seem to happen in comparison to the ‘normal world’. A water faucet could become a torrential flow, bullets could slow to walking speeds or a running man could whiz by faster than a jet. But the running man will only perceive himself running at normal speed, and the bullet will hit with just as much force – only their place in time is changed. Mages at this point can cocoon themselves from time temporarily, performing numerous physical tasks in the space of a few seconds. With a little effort, the Mage can create loops in time and rewind time itself, although Paradox and Destiny tend to make it so that reality plays out again, the same way as before.

Adept Time: Time Determinism

Instead of stretching or compressing time, the Mage can stop time in its tracks, or place something in a time loop to be released at a specified time. Magic and other patterns can be made to wait in place, creating ‘hung’ effects, or time bombs. The Mage can even freeze a target outside the time-stream, putting them in stasis until they can be dealt with. An effect can be set with a keyed pause – not releasing until a specific person arrives, or an item comes into the right position. With Entropy affecting fate, it is thus possible to put a princess to sleep until her true love arrives, or to create a room outside of time that only specified people can enter.

Master Time: Time Travel, Time Immunity

The Master of Time is now freed of the boundaries of Time. A Mage can thrust himself or others forward or back in time, although this requires an anchor point in the present so the Mage doesn’t become lost in the realms of infinite possibility. Time travel is hideously Paradoxical. Furthermore, things wait in the time-stream, perhaps sent there by past (or future) Mages, or simply predators which exist outside of time. Time is far from a simple line which the Mage travels on. A Mage can fire off magic into the past or the future, creating unusual effects to be sure. The Mage can also immunize himself from time – freezing the world in stasis as he wanders around, pulling people into his vision of time just long enough to interact with them then freezing them again. To an outsider, such effects would seem to happen instantaneously, and the Mage could accomplish epic feats between the clicks of the second hand.