CHARACTER CREATION

At present, you can play any mage from the Traditions or Disparates, but Verbenae, Virtual Adepts and Hermetics will probably be the best fit. I'm especially interested in mages whose paradigm includes fae magic, and will allow characters from the 'lost' House Merinita.

The game will include changelings from the Seelie (Manchester) and Unseelie Courts (Salford), and the Verbenae especially have connections with the local fae. There are vampires in the city, but you'll be unlikely to meet any of them.

Freebie Points

Instead of players buying Quintessence at character creation, characters start with a number of Quintessence points equal to their Arete + 1d10 (use the Dice Roller app above).

Traits

Any trait over three should have a strong basis in your character's background. In general, if you have more than one or two such traits, you should expect to be called up on it. Likewise, traits should make sense. Your average school teacher isn't going to be a crack shot, even if you do want to min-max your combat traits.

While there will be combat involved in the game, there will be far more opportunity to use wits, brains and cunning, and ample opportunity for social activity. So try not to create a one-sided character who will be flawed in other parts of the game. Generally speaking, few characters will be skilled in Firearms, Melee and Brawl all at once.

Alternate Abilities and Secondary Abilities

I'm a fan of fewer and looser traits if this works for you. I recommend using the core Abilities from the character sheet with a few tweaks, and all other Abilities count as Secondary Abilities or specialties. We'll be scrapping Do and making it a specialty of Brawl. It will have no additional benefits.

What this means is that very specific Abilities are no longer needed to allow characters to do things they should be able to do anyway. It's your job as players to make sure you use as many of your traits as you can (or as appropriate) and in creative ways. It's my job as ST to help you develop every aspect of your character, rather than to leave you to overcome everything based on combat or seduction.

The new Ability listings are:

Talents: Alertness, Athletics (encompassing Dodge), Awareness, Brawl (encompassing Martial Arts), Empathy, Expression (may choose a specialism at any stage), Intimidation, Leadership, Streetwise, Subterfuge, Hobby Talent (must have a specialisation)
Skills: Crafts (must choose a specialism), Drive, Etiquette, Firearms, Meditation (encompassing Body Control), Melee, Performance (must have a specialism), Research, Stealth, Survival, Professional Skill (must have a specialisation)
Knowledges: Academics (may include a specialism), Computer, Enigmas, Finance, Investigation, Law (may choose a specialism), Medicine, Occult (encompassing High Ritual and Esoterica), Politics, Science (may pick a specialty), Expert Knowledge (must have a specialisation).

Secondary Abilities cost half as many points (Freebie Points or Experience Points) as Abilities, and specialties kick in at the fourth dot (except where noted in the list above). All 10s count as two successes on specialties.

Avatar and Arete

The Avatar Background carries too much weight in Mage. As such, we'll be doing away with it altogether. The Background will instead be subsumed into Arete. Therefore, any roll which would normally require Avatar will instead use Arete, and the total number of Quintessence points a character can channel per turn is equal to their Arete as well. Thus, every character has the potential to increase the amount of Quintessence they can channel per turn, without having to sink Freebie Points into Avatar.

Arete will still cap Sphere ratings, but the larger dice pools now used for magick will enable mages to net more successes more quickly (see True Magick for details).

Spheres

We're using the M20 write-ups. As a point of note, mages need Mind 1/Spirit 1 to see chimerical reality and Mind 3/Spirit 3 as well as any other Spheres to interact with chimerical reality or the beings who reside there. See more in True Magick.

Major and Minor Spheres

Spheres represent broad areas of knowledge. You may, however, opt for more niche magickal abilities if it fits your concept better - and treat these as specialties.

If you opt to use Minor Spheres instead of Major Spheres (as detailed in the Mage Storyteller's Handbook), you can purchase these at reduced cost. The prices are as follows:

Sphere Dots
2 dots of Minor Spheres can be taken for the cost of 1 dot of Major Spheres

Freebie Costs
7 points per 2 dots (or 4 points for 1 dot)

Experience Costs
New Minor Sphere: 5 points
Minor Sphere: current rating x 4

There are no Affinity Spheres when using Minor Spheres, as all Minor Spheres are closely tied to paradigm anyway. However, Minor Spheres automatically count as specialties, and so any 10s rolled count as two successes.

Backgrounds

There's a great list of published Wonders here. We'll be using the costs specified in Forged by Dragon's Fire.

Merits

Merits that allow you to engage with changelings are highly encouraged. These could be oaths, faerie heritage or even a curse.

Sorcerers

There are actually very few rules required for Sorcerers and Psychics. What few are required will be discussed here.

1) Creation will use the standard creation rules for Sorcerers and Psychics. We will NOT be using the rules presented in the "Equal for All" sidebar. Therefore, Attributes are 6/4/3, Abilities are 11/7/4, 5 points of Backgrounds, 5 points of Numina paths and 21 freebie points.

2) Sorcerers use Sorcery Paths. Psychics use Psychic Paths. Never the twain shall meet. For a full Sorcerer or a full Psychic, he has devoted his life to learning a particular type of magic. His paradigm is firmly defined and his beliefs are fully in place. As such, sorcerers and psychics are unable to make the jump between the two types of powers. So Sorcerers will not learn Psychic Paths and Psychics will not learn Sorcery Paths. Choose carefully when deciding whether you'd rather have a Sorcerer or a Psychic.

3) The Wonder Background will be allowed for characters to start with magical items created with the Paths of Alchemy or Enchantment, worth a number of Background points equal to the level of Alchemy or Enchantment needed to create the item. In the case of consumable items, each purchase gives the character a batch of 5 during creation. A sorcerer/psychic that acts as a mage's Consor or has other justification may be able to start out with other Wonder types, if they can be utilized by non-mages (Always-active Artifacts, for instance, or appropriate Charms).

Equivalent Banality

p. 281 of CTD2e lists the following Banality ratings for mages:

Mysticks (Verbenae, Ecstatics, Hermetics, Dreamspeakers) 2-4
True Believers (Nephandi, Celestial Chorus, Akashayana, Chakravanti, most Crafts) 4-6
Modern Cynics (technomancers, most Orphans and Hollow Ones) 6-8

Here's how we'll play it:

1. Take your Avatar Essence or Resonance
2. Dynamic and Entropic (Primordial) essences/Resonance give you the lowest rating from the above range.
3. Balanced  puts you in the middle of the range.
4. Static (Pattern) puts you at the higher end.

See Enchantment for more information, and for the details on the Mists.

Please add this rating to your character sheet.

Kinain

Glamour and cantrips: Sorcerers, psychics and mages can all be kinain. However, only unawakened kinain may use cantrips. An Awakened mage cannot have a Glamour rating (because being tied to the Dreaming would prevent their Avatar from Awakening). Any Fae Gift or Background that requires the use of Glamour is therefore off-limits to mage characters (Fith-Fath, Riastradh, etc).

Mages can mimic cantrips as in-paradigm rotes using their Spheres. Taking Fae Gifts requires taking the Faerie Blood Merit as precursor.

Character creation: The character creation rules in The Enchanted are for mortal kinain only. You should create your character as a mage or hedge mage first, and then use Freebies to 'add on' the fae characteristics. Yu should consult The Enchanted for the specific rules on kinain-specific traits.

Apply the following template to modify your kinain character:

1. Create a mage/hedge mage character as normal, remembering that chimerical reality and/or their fae blood will be incorporated into their paradigm. The character's Avatar essence might also be informed by their fae heritage (a Sluagh-descended kinain may be Primordial, while a Satyr's relative may be Dynamic).

2. Take the 4-point Merit: Faerie Blood. This will grant the character a single dot in the Faerie Blood Background. Alternatively, you can take the Faerie Affinity Merit, which gives you a lower Banality (one dot lower than normal) and makes changelings more friendly, but does not allow the character to take any Fae Gifts or Kinain Backgrounds, nor to interact with chimerical reality.

3. Note your Seeming and Seelie/Unseelie Legacies. Pick a Heritage (Kith). Your Banality rating will be the lower of: a) the Banality rating for your Seeming in The Enchanted; or b) the Banality rating as defined above.

4. You start with no free Fae Gifts or Kinain Backgrounds. You can spend Freebies to take any Fae Gifts and Kinain Backgrounds you like (provided you already have the Faerie Blood Merit), but you may not take more dots in either of these than you have dots in the Faerie Blood Background. So if you have Faerie Blood 5, you can take up to five separate Fae Gifts and up to five separate Kinain Backgrounds. These tricks are Paradox-free. Kinain Backgrounds can only be bought from your Freebie pool, rather than from your normal Background dots.

5. Fae Marks can be taken to gain additional Freebie Points.

The Kinain Background Fith-Fath costs 1-5 points (based on the dice pool for Fith-Fath) and can only be taken by hedge mages.

Full list of Fae Gifts: http://changeling.wenchipedia.com/faegifts.html
Full list of Kinain Backgrounds: http://changeling.wenchipedia.com/kinainbackgrounds.html

Describing characters

A useful guide on how to effectively describe characters can be found here.