The blind and Mage Sight.

I was thinking about my next character and I thought it might be neat if they were blind. The question is. Can you still use mage sight when your blind? I am thinking he will have to continually have to use some form of magic to see. He will be a Moros with either prime or life as his third starting arcana. Anyhow, any help with this would be great. Thanks.

Two possibilities come immediately to mind:
1) Mage sight functions normally, and in fact provides the character's ONLY sight.  The world is a strange collection of auras and resonances and hazy shapes, though certain beings appear in sharp focus.

2) One could use alternate senses to evoke the effects of mage sight, as I believe Ophidimancer has suggested before.  Instead of sight, the character relies on smells or textures or sounds to detect the uncanny.

I think either would be fine; it just depends on the Imago the character creates.

Mage Sight essentially just broadens the scope of a person's natural senses so that they can perceive things in a supernatural manner. Since sight is the main human sense, it is the one most often enhanced by the spell. If a person were to be blind, I would say that they would probably utilise the spell through a different sense.

There are other magics which one could use to essentially grant themselves regular sight, such as a combination of Space, Forces and Life, but these would not necessarily unveil resonance (although they would still be Unveiling spells).

Thanks!

 I guess the end result is I want them to be blind but still able to see... They can grab a letter and read it. Avoid obstacles. Hit someone with a stick and so on. What would best allow that? Also, would that potentially cause disbelief if a sleeper knew you were blind?

A Forces Unveiling spell would probably be the closest to what you want.  I rules that Resonance doesn't map close enough to the topology of objects to be useable for a blind person to see using Mage Sight, but other Unveiling spells might be able to accomplish that.

Eldereth:

They can grab a letter and read it. Avoid obstacles. Hit someone with a stick and so on. What would best allow that?

If they are capable of reading print, then Matter should allow them to determine the layout of ink on paper. Space or Matter would let them determine the presence of objects in their local environment. Life would allow them to detect people.

You wouldn't "see" them, but you would automatically know where they are.

I don't have my book here, but there is a space spell that lets you see 360 view. Would that work? I guess I would like them to be able to see both people and objects at one time. What would be the closest effect to true sight? Thanks again!

Omnivision lets you see 360 degrees around you, but it doesn't give you any more eyesight than you already have. I'd allow it to be used conjunctionally with Forces to grant the usual effect though. Really, blindness isn't a serious Mage impediment. Mage Sights can grant vision beyond vision, and they are one of the most basic spells any Awakened knows, and even if you don't let just any Arcanum to grant vision, you'd have to give it to an unveiling of Forces, which is only a single dot, two if the ST is being blockheaded about it.

In fact, blind mages are a trope commonly explored. Sigil and Sanctum's opening fiction has a blind Mastigos who is perfectly capable of whacking people over the head with a cane. DaveB's love of blind mages is explored in Cxaxa (of Reign of the Exarchs fame, who replaced her eyes with the Eyes of Salt, but was stopped before the Heart of Flies were installed) in Broken Diamond and Teresias (Mystagoge Sphinx) of Soul Cages.

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I just realized that Cxaxa walks around with a pair of soulstones in her head all the time. This means she has access to Gnosis 8 and all of Querephas' Arcana.

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Then again, she is a Guardian.

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There is no comfort in that realization.

Solarious:

I just realized that Cxaxa walks around with a pair of soulstones in her head all the time. This means she has access to Gnosis 8 and all of Querephas' Arcana.

Sorry to get off topic, but, it was specified that the failure of the attempt to resurrect Querephas meant that the power of the Heart of Flies and Eyes of Salt was permanently broken. So the eyes are just two, mundane rocks (albeit ones which Cxaxa had imbued with spells to let her see). It was also specified that her Gnosis returned to its original state, and while she did gain extra Arcana, they were in a much weaker form than when Querephas was in control.

As for the topic, when I mentioned Space, I was thinking more of the Spacial Map spell.

Well, I have 2 suggestions for you. The first is an Embodied Familiar. It can be explained as a gift from a mentor/friend/etc. You can maybe use the telepathic link between owner and Familiar to see through its eyes. Now, if you don't want to be walking with/carrying a relatively large animal all the time you can always get a really small one and hide it in your hair or pockets or something. Like a fly or a mantis or a tiny snake even. Go crazy.

The second suggestion is to just use a spell. I was actually just thinking about this same thing a few days ago. Anyway:

Mind's Eye (Mind 2 + Space 1 + Forces 1)
Practice: Unveiling
Action: Instant
Duration: Prolonged
Aspect: Covert
Cost: None
The Mage gains the ability to perceive light and sound directly in his mind as mental images and sounds if for some reason his vision or hearing is impaired. This spell does not allow the user to see in the dark or gain any other superhuman boost to his input senses; the mental input functions just like a normal sense. Other spells are required for those effects. The Mage must specify a single sense to use for this spell at casting (vision or hearing). An extra success on the roll must be allocated to add the other sense as well.

If you don't want some or any of the Arcana you can always just use an Imbued Item, maybe bought at char. creation. Like contacts or a pair of glasses (Matt Murdoch, anyone?).

Thoughts?

Yeah, I wouldn't allow Mage Sight to allow you to see; it would, however, allow you to scrutinise something by any kind of sense (though most mages would rely on sight anyway)

Anyway... Space, Forces and Matter could all in their own ways provide sight or sight-equivalents with some kind of... I'm tempted to say Unveiling, but in a sense it's Knowing, because it's adding a type of sense rather than augmenting one. A Perfecting spell of the Life arcanum could repair any damage or defect in the eye.

All great suggestions. Thanks!

There is a space spell that allows you to sense your immediate surroundings, and how all objects and people fit within that space. It's perfect for navigating and avoiding walls, but rubbish for things like print.

Matter could let your detect the shape of air, giving you much the same, and a separate spell would allow you to analyze/read the ink on a page.

There's lots of various spells that lets you compensate for blindness.

As for mage sight, the book itself states that it's not automatically linked to sight, and can in fact be keyed to any and all senses, or even be a synesthetic experience alltogether. It's possible to go fairly wild with that one.

It might be an even more fun experience if it isn't just a single spell you cast every morning to compensate, either.  When you are inactive, you might walk around with hyperenhanced hearing, hobbling with a walking stick.  When necessary, you activate a spell for the occassion such as the ones mentioned before, as well as other ones like Scrying, maybe some Postcognition and the like.  If the spell varies by the moment, and is an ever-shifting palette of different senses and capabilities, it'd be more exciting to play out than "I can see everything you guys are doing, but my eyes are closed for the effect, even though I have a spell on to fix it".

You know now that I think about it I wonder how relying on magic at all times to "see" would affect how you viewed the world around you. For instance, while mage sight in WoD is not as severe as opening your sight up in the Dresden Files, I think if you used knowing or unveiling spells all the time it could negatively impact your psyche. Though it also might produce some unique insight into magic.