Autonomy. Freedom. Individuality. Anarchy. These are the precepts of truly understanding magic. Anyone who believes magic can be understood within constricting, confining rules systems, structures, hierarchies, and tenets set forth in the who-knows-how-fucking-long-ago past is a fool. Magic comes from discovery and understanding, not obedience and lessons. Magic cannot be taught. It must be seized.
Apostates are excommunicated members of the Invisible Church (the formal magical orders), though sometimes that so-called excommunication is self-imposed. We eschew the orders, and reject organized magical study altogether. Sometimes we call ourselves rogues, sometimes mage errants. Very rarely, chaos magicians—some of us spelling it “xaos” for that extra touch of rebellious rejection of authority, rules, or organized . . . anything. Others call us warlocks or forsakers, or even oathbreakers, but we simply don’t care. Some of us have been expelled from one or another of the orders. Others were never accepted in the first place. Most, however, never sought succor from their tried and true—and thus mundane—ways and trite bits of philosophy and arcana.
Not all of us are quite so rebellious, inflammatory, or punk. Some of us are simply introverts who would rather study magical tomes and test theories all on our own. Individualists, rebels, introverts, and castoffs, we find our own way by using bits of magic from each of the other orders, plus new discoveries we make. Sometimes while making rude gestures. Apostates follow no single path. Rather, we each have our own path—our own focus, specialization, and areas of expertise. We are explorers who eschew maps and blaze new trails, mostly for our own edification. Likewise, obviously, Apostates have no organization or hierarchy. No degrees or rankings. We are often quite unaware of each other. That is not to say, however, that Apostates are loners, don’t have friends, or cannot learn to respect other vislae, even those who work within the system of magical orders.
Philosophy and Outlook: Apostates are individualists. Even compared to other Apostates, most of us blaze our own trails. That means we often“reinvent the wheel,” but at the same time it means we aren’t mired in orthodoxy or out-of-date ideas.
Relationships: Goetics and Vances see the most distance between themselves and Apostates. Makers and Weavers can appreciate our individualism and lack of organizational structure a bit more.
Other Names: Rogue, rogue mage, mage errant, chaos magician, xaos magician, warlock, forsaker, oathbreaker.
Path to Joy: The following actions give us Joy.
✦✦ Developing a new spell or other magical practice.
✦✦ Finding a specific success as a direct result of not being part of an order.
✦✦ Discovering an unexpected effect in what had been a tried and true magical practice.
Path to Despair: The following actions give us Despair.
✦✦ Being presented with a clear example of the benefits of being part of an order.
✦✦ Finding that a new spell, magical practice, or other development that we created is actually not new at all.
Apostates have no degrees, but all starting Apostate characters begin with the following abilities.
Ephemera Use: We can safely possess three ephemera at any given time.
Skill: We are trained in 1 level of magical lore.
Spell: We learn two general spells that we have enough Sorcery to cast.
Counterspell: As an action, we can cast a counterspell that unravels and dispels one active, ongoing spell or magical effect that is level 1 or level 2. The cost for the counterspell is the same as the cost for the original spell (almost always 1 Sorcery per level).
Raw Power: Apostates start with 3 additional bene in their Sorcery pool as a permanent bonus.
Testament Rejection: As we reject the idea of the orders and the Testament of Suns that they use as their symbol, so too can we ignore the effect of a Sooth card held by the Testament of Suns if we choose.
Apostate Abilities: We gain two selections from the list of abilities for which we meet the prerequisites.
Once an Apostate begins play, we can select a new ability for which we meet the prerequisites for a cost of 1 Crux.
Additional Ephemera: The maximum number of ephemera we can possess at one time increases by 1. We cannot select this ability again until we have gained at least two other Apostate abilities.
Counterspell: The maximum level of spells we can affect with our counterspelling power is increased by 1. We cannot select this ability again until we have gained at least two other Apostate abilities.
Combative Caster: All our spells inflict +2 damage (+1 if a spell affects multiple targets or an area). We cannot select this ability again until we have gained at least two other Apostate abilities.
Extra Spells: We learn two general spells that we can master and cast.
Spellbreaker: We can turn our ability to counterspell into a passive defense. Using no action (although we must still be aware that a spell is incoming), we negate any level 1 or level 2 spell cast upon us that we do not want.
We cannot select this ability until we have gained at least four other Apostate abilities. When we do, the maximum level of spell we can negate increases by 1.
Street Magic: We gain 1 level of skill in two of the following skills: lying, sleight of hand, stealth, or searching.
Telestic Strike: We inflict +2 damage with any weapon attack, enhanced with magical energies.
Haven of Magic: We gain 1 level of skill in one type of defense in which we are not already trained: Dodge, Resist, or Withstand.
Exultant Warrior: We gain 1 level of skill in one weapon.
We cannot select this ability at all as a beginning Apostate. Once we do select it, we cannot select this ability again until we have gained at least two other Apostate abilities.
Drain Magic: We steal Sorcery from another vislae. With a touch, we take 2 Sorcery from the vislae.
We cannot select this ability as a beginning Apostate.
Incantation: One of our ephemera can be a conation incantation.
We cannot select this ability at all as a beginning Apostate. Once we do select it, we cannot select this ability again until we have gained at least two other Apostate abilities.
Guided Hand: For any weapon in which we have at least 2 levels of skill, we enhance the attack roll by +1 die.
We cannot select this ability as a beginning Apostate.