Time Effects

• • • • Contingent Effect — By placing a hold on a magical Effect, the mage turns it into a contingency: a spell that doesn't go off until some

specified condition comes to pass. Doing so requires the use of other Spheres. If the spell only functions when a specific individual arrives in the

area, for instance, then Life magic is necessary to discriminate the subject's Pattern. The mage can either make the magic hold off until a certain

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amount of time elapses (anything within the Damage and Duration table, based on successes rolled) or set further conditions with other Spheres.

The mage also has the choice of simply letting the Effect dissipate once it reaches its time limit without any activating conditions.

Hanging an Effect on a Pattern does place a certain amount of magical "weight" there, and such an Effect is noticeable to most magical senses.

Doing so does, therefore, count as a maintained Effect (p. 121), although the mage doesn't actually need to concentrate on it.

Note that, if the mage casts a contingent Time Effect, she won't know if the subsequent Effect hung with it is successful until the contingency

goes off, unless she also takes the time to use other magic to examine the Effect itself!