Paradox

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Paradox is backlash that sometimes accompanies vulgar or improbable spellcasting.  It’s pretty nasty business and something you generally want to try to avoid.

The number of dice you roll to determine Paradox is equal to your Gnosis divided by 2, rounded up.  If you’ve already made at least one Paradox check that scene, add another die for each of those.  If the casting is witnessed by a Sleeper, add 2.

Types of Paradox (or: You’re Screwed, but How?)

There are five ways Paradox can manifest.

Havoc means that the spell that the mage tried to cast goes awry and is out of control.  It may strike a different target than intended or have a reversed effect.  Ideally, for the most hilarious result possible.

Bedlam is a temporary madness brought on by Paradox.  The severity of it is determined by the level of Arcanum used in the casting.  How this is handled is really up to the GM’s discretion, honestly, since Risus doesn’t have a built-in madness system.  You could have it subtract from some rolls until it fades, or something.  Or if your players are good roleplayers, let them act it out.

An Anomaly is an area effect that happens in response to the Paradox.  This is generally somewhat related to the mage’s Path, and can involve things like all plants in the area spontaneously withering, sudden storms, odd quirks in the laws of physics, people becoming unusually short with each other, difficulty of navigation, etc.

Branding is a disfigurement or oddity brought about on the mage him- or herself.  The kind of change depends on the level of Arcanum used in the spell-casting.

A Witch’s Mark is a blemish or weirdness visible to normals but that isn’t particularly prominent, e.g. weird glowing things in the eyes, radiating heat, etc.  A Disfigurement is similar to a Witch’s Mark, except for it is prominent, which means people will notice it.  With these two, the mage will also gain the Uncanny Nimbus feature, which sort of makes their Nimbus creepy or malicious.  Generally deformations will have something to do with the character’s negative qualities.

A Manifestation is bad news.  Really bad news.  Seriously, you don’t even want to know.

But if you do, here’s the rundown.  A Manifestation is where the universe opens up and lets some creatures from the Abyss in, because it specifically hates you and wants to cause you trouble/suffering/pain.

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Mitigating and Containing Paradox

There are, of course, ways to reduce your chance of getting smacked by Paradox, or at least reduce the severity of it if you do get hit.

The first is to spend either one of your Gnosis dice or, if you have it, one of your Hallow dice.  This represents spending Mana to subtract a die from your Paradox roll.  You can do this until you “run out of” Mana.

You can also declare that your character is using an appropriate tool for the casting—this would be something appropriate to their Path or Order, or to the Arcanum involved.  Additionally, if the spell has been bought as a Rote, it reduces the dice pool by one.