In the Mage: the Awakening, a Proximus (plural: Proximi) is a Sleepwalker with a particular set of powers, called Blessings, that mimic some of the spells of Mages. Some have suggested that the Proximi are on the cusp of Awakening, and indeed, statistically speaking, they Awaken far more often than the general population. The reasons for this are unknown.
Overview[]
Some of these "lucky" (whether this is fair or foul luck is debated) individuals apparently inherit their condition by heredity, and some Mages take great interest in these families, beyond even their value as servants who do not trigger Paradox and their much greater chance of producing an Awakened Mage. The origin of their endemic proclivity to both attract and stumble across mysterious and uncanny affairs is widely debated; many speculate it resulted from long ago attempts to breed Mages.
Most prominent among Proximi are the Dynasties, families that seem to have magic in the blood. How this inheritance works is still poorly understood, but many of the Orders and Paths monitor these dynasties closely and may step in to take advantage of particularly talented members or catch any sudden Awakenings.
Some Proximi known as Enlightened Proximi have extra abilities, because they work with mages or other supernaturals. Proximi become Enlightened Proximi, either because they have a mage to train them, they have genius level intelligence. All Proximi that go to another dimension like the flux or hedge become Enlightened.
A Proximus who later Awakens retains the Blessings that they developed as gifted Proximi.
Abilities[]
Each Proximus has a "parent Path and a set of "Blessing Arcana" – the ruling Arcana of the parent Path plus one other. Their Blessings resemble spells (up to three dots) and can come from any of the Blessing Arcana. They also gain access to Mage merits like Grimoire and High Speech (They may not cast using High Speech), and may take supernatural merits like psychic phenomenon and low-magic at half cost.
Proximi have a limited mana pool, and use Willpower rather than Gnosis to cast. They also cannot contain Paradox caused by their Blessings, but rather than warping the Blessing the Paradox simply causes it to fail.
Finally, each Dynasty of Proximi has an inherited curse, which has a persistent low-level form and a stronger form that can be triggered by Paradox or other specific events. Even so, some Proximi avoid this curse.
These Proximi are know as Enlightened Proximi, which can spend one willpower to dispel the curse for a number of days equal to their resolve. Enlightened Proximi start with a spread of 8/6/4 for each priority, and a spread of 13/9/5 for each priority. This does come with a morality of 5. A Enlightened Proximi gets 7 merit points and 5 merit points that can only be spent in social merits. If a Proximi becomes enlightened, they gain 4 to their primary attribute, 4 points to their secondary, and 4 point to their third. As for their skills, they add 7/5/3. They also gain 5 merit points to be spent on supernatural abilities or awakened merits and 2 points to be spent on only awakened merits (This may be spent at the end of the session or in the moment, generally merits like imbued item or grimoire are explained by them being attached to the character magically and only appearing when enlightened). Their morality immediately drops 1 point, and they gain hysteria of magic for the duration of the scene (Essentially Paralyzing the character), unless in combat then, the character gains Fugue uses its magic to kill the thing attacking it, and then gets paranoia for one hour. Characters that become enlightened generally are feared or looked down on. They also gain 4 points in their occult and their rote specialties.
Known Proximi Dynasties[]
- The Myrmidons, who serve the Seers of the Throne as shock troops
- Sisters of the Mountain, a Thyrsus dynasty based out of Appalachia
- The Essers, a Thyrsus dynasty originating in Germany