Watch a mirror long enough, and something will jump out.

Looking at mirrors always filled you with a sense of awe. That was you in the mirror, moving strange and curious, watching back,closely. You always felt that if you studied it for long enough, you’d figure out its secret.

One day, you did.

From that one magic moment, you studied. You learned about mirrors and reflections in mythology. You studied optics. You broke mirrors, and watched as the woman in the mirror multipled. You started to collect mirrors at a frantic pace, and studied them all closely, to see what kinds of secrets they held. Your first trip to a carnival funhouse was hellish, but you came out of it stronger. Every time you look in a mirror, though, there’s still more to discover.

It’s not narcissism, despite what some might say. You spend your time basking in your own reflection, but it’s not narcissism. It’s mystery. It’s contemplation. It’s the opposite of narcissism. You’re not focused on yourself. You’re forgetting yourself in favor of that other person – the one in the mirror.

Generate a minor charge: Stare into a mirror, watching yourself closely without looking away, for three hours. A store window, still pond, or even dark sunglasses will work too.
Generate a significant charge: Seriously change your life, for better or worse. You must stare into a mirror the whole time you make the change, for a stretch of at least three hours.
Generate a major charge: As a significant charge, but you must change the whole world.

Special Rule: Looking into a mirror while you do other things is distracting. Doing something physical using only peripheral vision gives -30% to your roll. Doing something social or scholarly is not as bad, but still gives a -10% penalty. Some skills (“apply makeup” or “think up catchy jingles”) may get no penalty at all.

Taboo: Every time you sleep, you lose any minor charges in excess of the number of different mirrors you studied for at least ten minutes, since you last slept. Waking up for a minute or two in the middle of the night is fine – you won’t lose your charges unless you’ve been up for an hour. Significant and major charges are not subject to this limit. As taboos go, mirror mages have it easy.

Backfires: There is a catch to that easy taboo: Mirror Magic backfires a lot. If any formula fails, charges are spent and the magic acts against you in some way. One common result is that the spell does the opposite of what’s intended. Another common result is that your reflection in the mirror leaps out and attacks you. The more powerful the magic, the worse the backfire.

Symbolic Tension: You’re obsessed with yourself as an external entity. You can see yourself in a mirror, but it’s not a real person – you’re really just looking at furniture.

Blast: A nearby glass object shatters, sending shards at the victim. The size of the object doesn’t matter – the smaller the object, the faster the shards. If no glass objects are nearby, the blast fails.

Random magic: Contemplation and reversal. The mirror mage can redirect things in the exact opposite direction, without changing strength, or can gain insight into things shown in mirrors.

Starting Charges: 4 minor

Minor formulas

Shattersmack
3 minor charges
This is the Mirror Magic minor blast.

Still Silver Pond
1 minor
While staring into a mirror, you see a scene from your own past. You can see anything you’ve experienced, in clear third person perspective. The vision is silent, and lasts until you look away. This is useful to review details, but just as often, it’s a way for unstable adepts to get obsessive.

Reflections of Intent
1 minor charge
You must look at someone in a reflective surface to use this formula. You know the subject’s true motivation for his current visible actions. He also knows that you just found out, though.

Stolen Visage
4 minor charges
Look at someone in a mirror. You look like the target, not including clothes or possessions, until the mirror breaks. That mirror shows your original appearance. You can’t go back except by breaking the mirror. Your abilities don’t change, except skills based on looks.

Deflection
2 minor charges
Use immediately in response to a successful attack that causes damage, like a punch or a blast. If you know the attack’s coming, you can use Deflection instantly, but you lose your next action. The attacker takes the damage instead of you, as if they’d just been attacked in the same way. You must roll higher than the attack roll for this formula to succeed, or the formula will fail (but not backfire).

Significant formulas

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall
1 significant charge
Pick some activity or personal attribute. You know the name and current location of the absolute best person in that field. You can be very detailed about this, and limit your selections. For instance, you could ask “Who’s the cheapest mechanic in Detroit?” or “Who’s the wealthiest embezzler in the American oil industry?” Attempts to find Godwalkers and Invisible Clergy, even unintentionally, always fail and backfire.

Borrowed Visage
2 significant charges
Here’s a good way to keep in touch. Watch someone’s reflection in a mirror and use this formula. The mirror becomes enchanted. You (and only you) can concentrate on the mirror for a minute or so to trigger it. The subject appears in the mirror’s image, with sound, as if she were on TV, until you look away. Furthermore, they’ll hear anything you say. It’s a great tool for spying or communication. If the mirror breaks, though, even a tiny crack, it loses it magic and can’t be used anymore.

We Call Them Leaks
2 significant charges
You need a full-sized mirror to use this. Step into the mirror, as if it were a doorway, while thinking of another mirror of sufficient size which you have seen before. You’ll come out that other mirror. You can’t bring others along.

Crystal Rain
1 significant charges
This is the Mirror Magic significant blast.

Doppelganger
4 significant charges
Study a mirror for an hour, and focus on some aspect of your personality. This must be some crucial aspect to your personality – a Passion, Obsession, skill or Madness Meter. Out from the mirror will step your doppelganger. The doppelganger looks just like you, and has all your abilities, except that one aspect of your personality, which is reversed in some way. This may affect the Doppelganger’s abilities, but otherwise they’re the same as yours. Posessions are also copied, but without any magical properties. If the Obsession changes, the doppelganger gets a new appropriate Obsession skill (GM decision, possibly even a different school of magic) at the same level as your Mirror Magic skill.

You can assign the doppelganger a single task, which it must go out and obey as quickly and efficiently as possible, then return to the mirror. When it touches the mirror, it disappears and the formula ends. If the doppelganger dies on the job, it leaves a real corpse.

There’s a lot of ways this formula can go wrong, even if it doesn’t backfire. While it’s gone, the mirror doesn’t reflect you, and if that mirror breaks, the doppelganger is free. Also, if you sleep before it returns, the doppelganger is free. The doppelganger knows this, and probably wants to get free and stay alive. As long as it is completing its task as well as it can, it can say and do whatever else it wants, including telling others about the weakness.

Because of the high cost and risk, this formula’s a desperation tactic.

Major effects
Permanently reverse some aspect of your personality, or someone else’s. View detailed scenes of the future. Trap a person inside a mirror’s reflection. Create a permanent duplicate of any person or thing by pulling it out of a mirror.