Life

"From the air you breathe, to the soil beneath your feet, to the food you eat, to the homes in which you sleep. Nature is synonymous with living itself, and we are never separate from it."

-- Ema Nicholson, Verbena

Life is a rather self explanatory Sphere. It deals with all living things, or rather, all things with living cells. It is the art of healing, of shapechanging, and of transfiguration. While it is not as universal in the Awakened toolbox as Forces or Prime, it is quite the powerful and necessary art.
While it is essential, it is also one that cannot be easily managed. It isn't as swift as vampiric regeneration, or like some fantasy healer saying a few words and slapping a cross on the problem. There are many limits and specifications to the art that shall be discussed further in this article.

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Planetary Alignment:

Each of the Nine Spheres are associated with a Planet (technically). Fitting for an intimate and nurturing art, Life as a sphere is associated with the planet Venus. Unlike other spheres, the Umbral realm of Life isn't over Venus, but a bountiful yet chaotic mash of biomes that intersects with the Umbral realm of Venus, making it an easier Umbral realm to get to than most.

Effect

Life as a Sphere centers firmly on the concept of Life Patterns, which is a fancy Magick term for anything with active/living cells and their physical materials/composition. This does limit the applications a bit more then other Spheres as we will go into during the Limits section, but still allows a great range of control. Along the five -level system, you can expect these average ability ranges: 

• Entry Level: At this stage, a Life Mage is able to sense the vitality, well-being, and base information about a living thing.
• Training Level: At this level, the Life Mage is able to begin healing themselves while also being able to manipulate simple life forms.
• Intermediate Level: At this level is where the strength of a Life Mage begins to take hold as they gain the scope to transform their own Life Pattern, transmute simple life forms into other ones, and heal other Patterns.
• Advanced Level: At this level the Life Mage is able to alter other Life Patterns then their own, heal greater wounds, and fully transform their own body into another human shape or into an animal of similar mass.
• Expert Level: At this level, the Life Mage is able to transform other people how they wish, and have gained experience to the point where they can transform their own bodies into any shape, even ones that ignore and change inherent parts of their biology or mass

Side/Secondary Effects

Life as a sphere doesn't always invoke as much Paradox as other Spheres, but depending on the severity of their transformations or if they are trying to heal a Sleeper, they can invoke it just as strongly. If a Life Mage gathers enough Paradox for back lash, they can find themselves permanently alerted, misshappen, or any healing they were trying to do scar, ferment, or rip open.
Altering a body too much or too many times can also result in Pattern Leakage, where the body rejects the change while also rapidly leaking Quintessence, causing great internal damage. 
Life Mages themselves will be marked by their Magick and find themselves pristine and healthy according to their own self vision, but gaining uncanny features around their form and presence depending on how they use their art.

Manifestation

Typically Life Magick and it's energy tend to be green and red in color, with the effects themselves taking a sewing or knitting look as they change dna or the wounds.

Discovery

Much like the other Spheres, they have existed since the dawn of True Magecraft. Life has benefited somewhat from a better understanding of biology and medical science, but much like with Forces it's a double edged sword, because the more rules that mankind discovers, the easier it is for Magick to invoke Paradox.

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Related Organizations

• The Progenitors
• The Verbena

Material Components

Life Magick relies on manipulating living cells, and so it requires a living being to work. Only legendary Life Mages who have trained for decades can even attempt to create their own life forms from nothing, and those creatures are soulless and mindless until other similarly powerful Mages step in.

Applied Restriction

There are a handful of hard limits that Life Magick runs into most often.

• First and foremost, Life Magick can only be used on things with living cells. Preserved blood can be manipulated, but dried blood with no more living cells falls under the domain of Matter instead.
• Secondly, Life Mages must understand the pattern they are trying to manipulate or transform a subject into. They don't always need 100% scanned medical knowledge, but they need to be familiar enough with the structure and components.
• When it comes to altering human bodies, a Life Mage can only affect the target once until the physical form of the target changes. For transformation, the act in and of itself qualifies, but as acts of Healing return a Life Pattern to their base state, that state needs to change again before more healing can be done. 

Other Life Focused Organizations:

The witchcraft inspired Verbena  are the main representative for Life among the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions, but a good number of other groups focus on the art, such as: 

• The Progenitors, one of The Technocracy's Divisions who take a biological and medical angle to the art
• Wu Lung - Phoenix School: a branch of The Akashayana that focuses on the Tao and various healing practices
• Fellowship of Pan: A faction within the Cult of Ecstasy that calls back to Dionysian rituals