Rote: Ring of Truth

(Entropy 1)

For those who believe in such things, destiny has a way of coming to the fore. Prophets speak the words of destiny, and events come to pass; people make simple statements that turn out to hold profound truths. Attention to destiny (or just to the patterns that indicate when someone is most likely to lie or to be right about something) can tell a mage whether someone's words hold accuracy. 

The Ring of Truth relies on some tie to destiny to determine veracity. Although this powerful Effect can help a mage determine if someone is lying or if the individual's words are somehow important, it has limits. The mage can only analyze something that has meaning to her -- a question that has no relevance to the mage or the subject cannot be analyzed. That is, the mage cannot simply query a random person on the street, or even a cabal-mate, about sundry details of the Technocracy and expect an objective assessment of truth if the questions are without connection or context to the subject. Furthermore, the effect is not infallible, and it often leaves the mage with cryptic hunches or incomplete answers. Fate is fickle. "Reply hazy. Try again later." 

Joshua has found good reason to use this Rote on occasion. Suspicious by nature, he sometimes resorts to this simple working of Entropy magick when knowing the absolute truth is vital. Certainly the ability to sense higher truth, beyond the word-plays of conniving Kindred, can be extremely helpful when all else fails. The other aspects -- finding significance in the written word, special prophetic insight -- are not something he touches on often. But as time passes, and the prophets of the Cainite world continue to speak up about Gehenna's imminence...the thought of using the Ring of Truth troubles Joshua. It is possible to know too much.