Narrative
By Alejandro Melchor (alejandrom@mail.proesa.com.mx)
"Lucky is a character, for he can laugh at death, knowing he will never die."-- Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author
Description
When a Mage begins learning the Sphere of Narrative Imperativity, he begins to understand he's just a character in a role-playing game or a story being written interactively by a group of sadistic authors known as players and Storytellers; when this dawns on him, he learns that all that happens around him is just fiction; it can be very devastating for weak minds and big egos, but the Mage that gets past the initial shock can achieve tremendous power.
* Sense Plot
By use of this level of the Sphere, the Apprentice can discern the story status of anything he encounters; he can know whether the old lady he's talking to is a plot point or just background; he also learns to recognize PCs from NPCs and their importance to the Chronicle he's in. With a conjunctional Mind effect, he can also determine whether the baddie his Cabal is fighting is the main villain of the story or just a henchman. With Matter or Entropy, he can identify if an object is a McGuffin or just a prize given by a benevolent Storyteller.
** Sense Story Flow / Affect Minor Plot
With this level, the Mage can try to divine the direction the story is taking; this is different from Time based divinations in the manner that, instead of knowing future events in the timeline inside the story, he can get a glimpse of what his player or his player's Storyteller has in mind for the direction the story is taking; traps and ambushes can be avoided, or just recognized as a Major Plot Point and thus unavoidable.By Affecting Minor Plot Points, the Mage can shift for a brief time the focus of the Chronicle, granting him more leeway to create subplots that involve him or the persons closest to him, or garnering more successes to actions that change a minor plot.
*** Affect Continuity
With the third level of the Narrative Sphere, the Mage learns how to twist and bend the story's flow to his advantage, creating incongruencies in continuity such as having his gun in his pocket when he really left it at home, or taking a lot less time to get somewhere else and wearing different clothing on arrival.
**** Create Plot Point / Affect Major Plot
The Adepts of the Narrative Sphere can, in a fashion, dictate the direction the overall story takes; with Create Plot Point he can cause a given ocurrence to take such importance as to become a milestone in the Chronicle, shooting the plot in a previously unforeseen direction. By Affecting Major Plots, he can also force himself into the limelight, becoming the main protagonist regardless of the Destiny rating of other characters.
***** Narrative Imperativity
Masters of the Narrative Sphere can come up with any occurrence and make it happen, justifying as being good for the story; wild coincidences become possible without the need to learn the other Spheres, and the effects created are always Coincidential; with enough successess, a railroaded Intergalagtic Train can crush the advancing HIT Marks and leave immediately. It's easy for narrative Masters to go Marauder.
6+ Oracle magicks
It's rumored that Oracles of Narrative Ascend beyond the realm of the game to become players and Storytellers, but as anything relating to Oracles, it's only a rumor . . .