Source: M20 Sorcerer, modified

One of the most fundamental magics is the power to deceive others into believing what the magician wants. The Path of Illusion confounds the senses, making its targets perceive things that aren’t there or altering their perception of what is there. Most people trust their senses. “Seeing is believing,” but when an illusionist is nearby, this old adage can kill you.

The Path of Illusion is much less direct in most of its applications than some of the other Paths. Illusionists tend to be clever manipulators, at the least in order to choose just the right false vision for whatever task must be completed. This often requires strange patterns of thought and lateral thinking, leading illusionists to become eccentric over time.

When targeted with the Path of Illusion, avoiding the deception is always a possibility. A Perception + Alertness roll at difficulty (4 + Realism Aspect) for spells, and difficulty (4 + Rank) for rituals reveals the slight imperfections in the illusion. This requires one success for each sense covered by the illusion, though in cases where an essential sense, as determined by the Storyteller, is left out, the number of successes required may decrease. Anyone who makes this roll can tell that what they are perceiving isn’t real, though they perceive both it and the truth. If they alert others to this fact, they can reroll once.

Attribute: Wits
Modifiers: –1 to –3 difficulty if using a base similar to the goal (making a table appear differently is easier than making a table appear from nothing).
Cost: None
Duration: Varies

Illusionists must often be masters of psychological warfare. They can’t create anything truly real, so they play on the fears and anxieties of their targets to control them. One of the key rituals for this is Cruel Whispers. A purely auditory illusion, Cruel Whispers follows its target around for twenty-four hours. Though the magician may never know what the whispers are saying, the victim hears voices, just barely audible, pointing out every flaw, every insecurity, and ever misstep they make during the day. This distracts them, giving them +1 difficulty on all rolls for the day, and whenever they botch they must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6) or else suffer the effects of the Chronic Depression Flaw for one week.

A popular ritual among technosorcerers, Hard-Light Constructs are illusions everyone involved knows are fake. This creates scenery, furniture, etc., that looks and feels real, though putting your weight onto it wouldn’t be the best idea. It’s often used to simulate visuals where every single detail isn’t needed, but which have moving parts. It creates the illusion for all onlookers, rather than a fixed set of targets. At least one Extraordinary Citizen has been reprimanded for using Hard-Light Constructs to run their World of Shadows game.

Illusory food is deceptively hard to create. Taste, smell, image, and texture all need to be just right to fool someone into thinking they’re eating a real meal. The target rolls Perception + Alertness (difficulty 7). On failure, they believe they are eating real food for the duration of the meal, whatever food the magician can imagine. However, they’re still hungry. This provides no sustenance (unless the illusion is covering up some other food), though if six or more successes are rolled on the casting, hunger cues are suppressed for a number of hours equal to the target’s Stamina, before they feel hungry again. This can’t alleviate the effects of starvation.

One of the most terrifying rituals of the Path of Illusion, Oubliette has broken some of the strongest people in the world. The magician must be within a few feet of their target for the entirety of a three-hour ritual, which requires at least 5 successes. If they can accomplish this, then the ritual removes all five senses from the victim. They are trapped in a world without any sensation until either the magician releases them or they accumulate 5 successes on Perception rolls at difficulty 9, making one every hour. The victim must start over on a botch. Often, the victims of this ritual are being punished for heinous crimes, and have it cast on them before they are thrown into a hole and forgotten, left to starve without even knowing they are starving.

Naive magicians think botching an illusion must be no big deal. The spell did nothing real, so nothing real should happen when it goes awry. On the contrary, the caster’s perceptions are altered. Worse, most of the alterations are subtle and easily missed. For larger spells, though, there will eventually be a substantial change, likely when most dangerous for the caster to be caught unaware.