Arcanum: Forces
Practice: Ruling
Primary Factor: Duration
Suggested Rote Skills: Computers, Crafts, Science
The mage may alter the flow of electricity as well as diminish its current.
She cannot increase the current without some device capable of generating it, since she cannot create electricity from nothing.
For example, the mage can direct the electricity in a building to single or multiple outlets, cut the power, or divide power going to one outlet to many other sources.
This requires a method of conduction, like existing wiring or metal.
She can also cause existing electrical currents to arc (such as striking a target near a wall outlet), or redirect it away from a particular device.
Causing a short or using the electrical current to attack a target usually burns out the breakers or shorts out a device afterward, unless it’s made to withstand the stresses of power fluctuations.
Damage caused by this spell uses the Electrical Damage rules. By directing the flow away from a subject, she subtracts the spell’s Potency from the damage of an electrical source.
Each level of Potency in the spell allows the mage to control one line of power. If she diverts it somewhere else, the Storyteller determines what occurs — a socket or device could overload, or if the mage is careful she can avoid damaging components and simply change the course of power.
If instead she wants to diminish the power, it drops by one level for each point of Potency; a Potency of 4 reduces a subway line’s current to that of an ordinary wall socket, for example, or Potency 5 cuts it completely. (See Transform Energy table)