The first Major Arcana card drawn from the MAGICIAN (I) to THE WORLD (XXI) is the Arcane Adventurer's (AA's) Significator. This Esoteric Mimesis represents the balance between the Instrumental and Non Instrumental Modalities of the AA's home or Background Reality and simultaneously determines the AA's default Esoteric Core Crafts: Grammarye and TechnoBabble, gizmo and testbed. The means by which Telestic energy and the Technological Environment (Te/TE) is exploited across the Realities of the MacroVERSE:

There are special rules if The Fool is drawn first!

  The AA's origin is magically orientated

if the Numerical value of this Significator is high, representing a Background Reality where the Telestic Energy is high and the AA has a correspondingly high Grammarye.

  The AA's origin is technologically orientated

when the Numerical value of this Significator is low and thus the Technological Environment (22 - Te) is high. The AA will have a high TechnoBabble.

Knowing one automatically derives the other as:



Thus an AA with the medial value XI - Strength has equally balanced capabilities in Science and Magic and will medially cope with any given situation throughout the MacroVERSE. An AA with the Magician I or The World XXI is guaranteed to have problems.

The AA places the Significator in the fifth station and slightly above the Pattern indicating its higher role whenever it comes into play. Subsequent cards from the Major Arcana will have a secondary significance known only by the D/M according to the requirements of the Plot. These may represent known or hidden special starting powers or Instrumentalities and Non Instrumentalities associated with the Core Crafts.

The values and order of these subsequent Major Arcana should be noted for the D/M to interpret as required.

The Significator also determines the balance between the AA's Non Instrumental and Instrumental proficiencies:

  The capability to handle the Abstract vs the Practical.

For AA's with Significators verging to either extreme, although proficient with the Esoteric fundamentals of their Background Reality (Technological or Telestic) they will be operating at a distinct handicap when it comes to the everyday Tools of their Trade.

EXAMPLE
A Powerful World Mage (XXI) with a gizmo of 1 will have grave difficulties in operating the Crystal Ball Recorder; managing invariably to record someone else's visions! But their idiot Apprentice who can barely cast a Spell gets the most spectacular effects out of any Arcane Artifact she comes across!

Conversely in a Technological Environment our Mage has little appreciation of how things work but can get the most out of any Technological Wonder of the Age (testbed = 21!). Meanwhile his Apprentice is now the Mistress (of Invention); understanding at last, how the Universe really works. (Well this one at least!). Unfortunately the abstract knowledge underpinning the functionality of a device is no guarantee that she will be able to find the 'On' button. She will have to ask her erstwhile master to program that Holo-Recorder!

  The Significator and Campaign Requirements

The Significator will primarily be linked to the appropriate Core Craft(s) appropriate to the AA's home Reality. Normally these are determined by the Player with the approval of the D/M. The default being the Telestic/Technological equilibrium. However other Core Crafts may be defined by the D/M as fixed by the nature of the Campaign.

Exceptionally for the purposes of a specific Campaign, Adventure or Scenario the D/M may wish to keep the real value of the Significator hidden. Thus if the AA has to be an Apprentice Alchemist from a Reality where Magic is a well kept secret or an Awesome Artificer from a pastoral Technophobic colony world; the real level of Core Craft is secretly determined by the D/M from the Fate Deck. The AA subsequently learning their Core Craft Level through experience.