Living Grimoire (Life•••• + Prime ••••)
Practice: Patterning
Primary Factor: Potency
Cost: 1 Mana
Withstand: Total Arcanum dots used in the rote and Stamina Suggested Rote Skills: Crafts, Medicine, Occult
The mage scribes a single rote per casting of this spell onto a living being, either from memory or copied from another Grimoire. The symbols could be represented as tattoos covering the body, brands burned into flesh, runes carved into bones to be discovered after death, or any other method the mage devises that utilizes the physical body of the being. It’s even possible to inscribe the rote into nucleic acid sequences, requiring highly specialized equipment or magic to access and possibly passing it down through a bloodline; or to write it into neural pathways such that the knowledge lives in its behavioral patterns, accessi- ble through observation or particular stimuli.
Raw Supernal symbols carved directly into a being’s Pattern are a lot to handle for an organism born of the Lie. Animal and plant subjects tend to live shorter lives. If the subject is a character, his player must choose a Persistent Condition for the character to labor under so long as he remains a living Grimoire. This Condition reflects a difficulty imposed by the intensity of the magic he houses. Common Conditions include Obsession, Blind, and Addicted.
An Awakened subject can always cast the rotes within, regard- less of whether they’re visible. Becoming a Grimoire doesn’t protect Sleepers from Quiescence or breaking points.
Casting this spell constitutes an Act of Hubris against Understanding Wisdom.