Insidious Tendrils of Hate

Cost: 20 motes
Target: People in area

The sorcerer feeds a brazier with the skins of a dozen exotic snakes (a Resources 3 purchase, or a Resources 2 purchase in large cities of the South). After a three-minute invocation of hate, a grasping hand of smoke rises from the brazier, and the sorcerer gives it arcane links to each of the intended targets. The hand returns to the flames, which burn a sickly green and then smother as smoky tendrils leap through Elsewhere toward the targets. The spell affects a number of sentient creatures up to the caster's (Manipulation + Essence), all of whom must be within 30 yards of each other at the time of casting. At that moment, the vision of the targets dims for about five seconds as the tendrils wrap around their hearts. The targets' players all attempt Willpower rolls, with a difficulty of the sorcerer's Essence. If a roll succeeds, the spell does not affect that character. If the roll gains three or more successes over the difficulty, the target knows he was just the target of some kind of emotion-manipulating spell.

Characters whose rolls failed suffer the effects of the spell. Every interaction they have with other people seems twisted: Victims believe enemies surround them. They take anything said to them in the worst possible way, as an insult, threat or lie. A victim may spend a Willpower to avoid misinterpreting a single statement by someone to whom he has an Intimacy, but even the voices of those he loves soon seem to drip with sarcasm and hate. Insidious Tendrils of Hate lasts for a number of days equal to the sorcerer's Manipulation rating or until the caster is slain. By then, a diplomatic meeting might have ended in declaration of war, or a family might have torn itself apart. Countermagic can free a single given target from the spell, but only someone present at the spell's casting can use countermagic to wreck the spell in its entirety.