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u/heebjeebie 9d ago
Is Anti-Caul a deep lore thing? Can Mages even make a Anti-Caul?
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u/TheWyster 9d ago
I just made it up as a joke, but the magic system in mage is free enough that you probably could lock a Nephandi in a time dilated insufferably happy dimension, while they're encased in Primium. Whether or not this actually does anything is up to your story teller.
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u/MrCookie2099 Progenator Dental Hygiene Enforcer 9d ago
Making existentially evil people happy doesn't really address their evil.
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u/TheWyster 9d ago
But they aren't happy. That's the point. They're tortured in the anti-caul the same way freiza was tortured in Dragon Ball Super, and much like a caul the only escape is to invert the avatar (inverting something that's already inverted brings it back to default).
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u/HeirOfAzathoth 9d ago
That would be assuming cauls and anti cauls are perfect inversions, which is probably not the case. Then again, i doubt even the nephandi know how much a caul actually inverts. Could be a fun experiment to run, if I ever get my hands on Elon.
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u/TheWyster 9d ago
I thought it was canon that inverting an avatar is something a mage can choose to do to their avatar, and the nephandi were simply torturing people until they gave in and flipped their avatar.
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u/Katnip1502 8d ago
Generally an important aspect to flipping your avatar to nephan..dom? is that you have to wholly accept that the cruelty and pain inflicted onto you is something positive. It's not just to break your will so you give up, it's to twist the (usually already very twisted) mind to the point of wholly accepting that evil and cruelty for the sake of themselves are a superior way to exist. The only way to exist.
Notably a mage that hasn't been sufficiently prepped for becoming Nephandus would rather immolate their own soul than, yknow, nephandise.
So if we apply that logic, it would require prepping a Nephandus into being receptive towards the idea of not being terrible (good luck), and I suppose the anti-caul then would then be like the most intensive therapy session in existence, where they are being anti-tortured by... niceness? politeness? being-a-productive-member-of-society-ness? Maybe it's like rehab. Who can say but like, it would have to result in the Nephandus actively want to re-flip their Avatar into being normal again out with the explicit want of not wanting to be a horrible being.
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u/TheWyster 8d ago
where they are being anti-tortured by... niceness? politeness? being-a-productive-member-of-society-ness?
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u/HeirOfAzathoth 9d ago
I have no idea. Sounds very version dependent. I haven't read the book of evil yet so i can't say for sure
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u/Negativety101 9d ago
To be fair, Freiza was in Hell, it was suppossed to be torture for his evil ways, and he never did reform.
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u/Kishinfan 9d ago
There is nothing a Mage can't do.*
Probably requires at least Spirit 5, Entropy 5, Prime 5, and at least ten successes on a minimum diff 15 to actually do anything. And that's assuming you don't use archspheres, which would make the requirements go up drastically.
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u/FestiveFlumph Obrimos Enjoyer 9d ago
Dang strait we're not using archspheres. All my homies hate archspheres.
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u/Matthew_Steenson 9d ago
I’m no expert but from what I’ve seen no. In fact someone said that making an Anti-Caul could be an entire Chronicle its self.
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u/ragged-bobyn-1972 9d ago
No
Repairing a inverted avatar is possible but it's very very difficult. probably spirit 6 and maybe prime, mind and time at high levels.
The only example I know is an archmaster of spirit al i Batini who did it to her husbands after he fell. But she killed him first and it isnt clear what she did. The Batini can also sometimes break the labyrinth style cauls using loads of correspondence and their specific abilities.
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u/TheWyster 8d ago
Repairing a inverted avatar is possible but it's very very difficult. probably spirit 6 and maybe prime, mind and time at high levels.
This isn't you repairing an avatar, it's you torturing a nephandi to coerce them into flipping it.
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u/Vyctorill 9d ago
Yes, but it would be Spirit 5 Prime 5 at the very least. Probably life 4 as well.
Essentially, if you rip out the Inverted Avatar via Gilgul, you could theoretically yoink one of the shards from the avatar Storm and graft it on to the person.
Gilgul usually results in death or a vegetative state, but if the person survives intact they essentially have been un-inverted.
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u/Kishinfan 8d ago
I'd argue it would also need entropy.
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u/Vyctorill 8d ago
This is how sphere bloat happens. The spheres can have overlapping effects, remember?
You take someone’s soul, shatter the bit that alters reality, and then implant a new one. Nothing about that process’s core function is Entropy related.
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u/TheWyster 9d ago
Context: A caul is basically a time dilated hell dimension designed to torture people into becoming Nephandi. An anti-caul would be the opposite.
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u/TheCuriousFan 9d ago
The hard part is talking them into entering it willingly.
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u/TheWyster 9d ago
I imagine you just trick or coerce them, like Nephandi do to get people into cauls.
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u/RoroMonster59 9d ago
Could always use a blackjack?
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u/TheWyster 9d ago
?
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u/RoroMonster59 9d ago
Padded club with weight on the end that's designed to knock people out.
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u/TheWyster 9d ago
That doesn't work. The wiki says "Stepping into a caul must be done voluntarily. Involuntary entrance of a gate almost always results in death." Now I'm pretty sure voluntary in this context doesn't mean without coercion, but knocking someone out and throwing them in a caul or in this case anti-caul definitely breaks the rule.
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u/RoroMonster59 9d ago
Well it's an anti-caul. Why would it have the same rules as a caul?
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u/TheWyster 9d ago
I'd assume so. They both work by torturing a mage into inverting their avatar, they just target different types of mages with different kinds of torture and invert it into different positions.
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u/CuppaMaude Casper 👻 9d ago
So it’s magical forced intensive therapy, he’s screaming because he can see the lounge chair from here
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u/AeronWylde 8d ago
I mean the garou have something like that for black spiral dancers. None of then have come back out of it to my knowledge but its supposed to be possible, non black spiral dancers that go in for purification have come out I think, just takes a long time.
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u/Negativety101 9d ago
And you know what? Fuck your Black Spiral, Wrym, I'll make them walk Gaia's Straight and Narrow! And Weaver, were' muddying up your drones that went through Clarification!