Of course, some characters die without anyone, including the Game Master, expecting it! If this happens, and a mage with Death Sight is present, the GM should give the mage a single chance to act quickly to prevent it.

 Attempts to thwart fate, on the other hand, should be countered at nearly every turn, by freak occurences if it's entertaining. Saving the doomed shouldn't be impossible, but it should be very difficult. If the mage does cheat the Grim Reaper, somebody dear to the mage will die, instead. If the mage has no friends, close relatives, or respected allies, the mage himself will die, a victim of his own compassion (a rare event; those with such potential for self-sacrifice usually have friends, unless they've recently lost all of them to tragedy). Even telling someone that they have one of the colors on them exacts a price; the mage gains the Unluckiness disadvantage for that session only.

 For obvious reasons, elder magi do not teach the refinement of this Sight to irresponsible youth, but some have it naturally.

 The mage will also (with a successful IQ roll) be aware of the type of plotting: whether someone is trying to (for example) rob him, poison him, or humiliate him. The Sight never reveals who is plotting, but Divination and other Knowledge spells may be used to investigate the matter further, and any spells used for that purpose are cast at +2 to skill. Furthermore, if the eyes of the mage ever meet the eyes of one of the conspirators, the mage will instinctively recognize him as such. Hiding such recognition requires an Acting roll (see p.B62) on the part of the mage!

 The discussion of treachery must mention the mage by name, but any kind of name (including nicknames and aliases) will suffice. The mage always knows the nicknames his is given. If his apprentice calls him ``old stinky'' around the kitchen staff, the mage will know it the first time it is spoken aloud.

 Many Paranoid mages believe that they have this kind of Sight. Some of them do; this advantage can lead to Paranoia.

 If the mage stumbles across such an event already in progress; he may still get a vision revealing its consequences, but will be given no special chance to intervene.

 This advantage costs 10 points with an activation roll of 9 or less; use the frequency modifiers under Allies (p.B23) to modify the power and price of the advantage.

 Any question may be ``asked'' of the deceased adepts, but questions that are entirely contemporary are pointless. If the GM decides that a mage, in years past, knew something germane to the character's question, he should secretly roll 3d. On a 9 or less, the GM should provide an answer, in the form of a ``memory'' of how the dead wizard in question saw things. If the roll fails, the questioner recieves nothing. The GM should fake a roll if he decides that no mages in the past had knowledge of the issue.

 The ``memory'' that the mage experiences will be the most recent applicable memory. Additional rolls (at a cumulative -3 to the roll) are necessary to dig deeper.

 The GM should be creative in his delivery of the information. If a mage PC with this advantage is confronted with a two glowing gems floating in an ancient ruin, and questions their nature, he might recieve the memory of the last mage who found them. The PC will ``remember'' reaching for the gem on the right, and then remember being killed by it. The death was too rapid for the ``memory'' to provide any detail other than a sudden pain followed by oblivion. The PC-mage now has to work from that. Touching the gem on the right was bad, but maybe the dead mage simply didn't know the right ritual. The left gem is still a mystery, but at least the PC now knows who's skull he just stepped on.

 The base price of Magical Memory is 15 points for an activation roll of 9 or less. As with Foresight (above), the power of this advantage can be altered with the frequency modifiers in the Basic Set.

 If the roll succeeds, the mage becomes aware of the spy and (on an IQ roll), his exact location. Merely being watched will not trigger this; the observer must desire that the mage not notice his attention.

 Magical scrying can also be detected, but Long-Distance Modifiers (p.B151) are applied to all IQ rolls.

 A pawn is any character that plays a role in the conflict without directing the action. In a major land-war, the soldiers are pawns. In a campaign focusing on political skullduggery, NPC spies and informants are pawns.

 As with Death Sight, the mage will be largely powerless to prevent such visions from coming to pass (at least intentionally; the Fates - represented by the Game Master - decide when they are bound by such things). At most, he can try to force two pawns to swap roles. Such tampering should exact a terrible price; double the personal grief and pain to the PC for each time he cheats fate.

 If the mage mistakes a ``mover and shaker'' for a pawn, and attempts to see his fate, the Sight will fail, revealing the independent nature of the character. If the initial (IQ-2) roll is failed, subsequent attempts to view the fate of the same pawn are at a cumulative -3.

 This requires careful judgement by the Game Master. The rule is this: if either side in the conflict gains or loses something truly signifigant, a vision will be triggered. If the mage and his friends are seeking to unseat a murderous Duke, the death or capture of an allied spy would trigger a vision; the same spy simply getting in a fight would not. If the Duke's sorcerer has summoned up an ancient evil to serve his cause, a vision would be triggered the instant the summoning was complete. If the Duke purchased some new knives for his flunkies, no vision would result.

 There is no time-delay; the visions occur in real time with the triggering event, and are detailed and accurate. If the mage is sleeping at the time, the vision will come as a dream, and the mage will waken instantly when the vision ends. The GM should be as honest and detailed as possible while maintaining brevity and campaign balance.

 This is normally a 10-point advantage. If, however, the visions are painful, the cost is reduced to 5 points. Painful visions completely cripple the mage for their duration, and cause 1d+2 fatigue. Visions (or the attendant pain) do not manifest when the wizard is actually present to witness an event!

Sense of Balance                                                                10 points

Existing Advantages as Sight

 Danger Sense: The first roll reveals the existence of the danger; the second roll lets the mage instantly visualize it, and know approximate direction and distance between he and it.

 Empathy: The first roll gives an impression of the character's nature, as described. The second roll, if successful, grants a vision of a recent incident that reinforces the impression. A person that the mage feels is violent and quick-tempered might be seen striking someone or breaking something in a fit of anger, for instance. The details of these visions will sometimes provide clues, and can be used as leverage in dialogue to impress NPCs.

 Intuition: The first roll weeds right choices from wrong ones; the second roll grants an impression (sometimes visual, but not always) of why Choice B was such a poor choice compared to Choice A, giving the mage an idea of what he's avoiding.
 
 

Second Sight for Blind Characters

 A mage may also be created with magical blindness; he has no physical eyes, but can see the world plainly through second sight, perhaps as patterns of force or stark outlines. In game terms, the mage is treated as an ordinary sighted character with the Dark Vision advantage (25 points; the no-colors version) and Color Blind disadvantage (-10 points). Of course, he will still recieve a +1 reaction bonus in any society with sympathy for the blind (5 points), and cannot be physically blinded (in no-mana zones, he may be in trouble). The net cost is 20 character points. If the mage can also see colors, it won't matter whether it's dark; the cost increases to 35 points.