The Nobilis source­book is some­what con­fused on the sub­ject of mir­a­cles, and man­ages to con­tra­dict itself in places. This page is my attempt at a sum­mary of the rules as I under­stand them. In the cases where the text dis­agrees with the exam­ples given, I’ve gone with the examples.

Step 1: What do you want to do?

As always, the first step is fig­ur­ing out what you want your char­ac­ter to do. If it’s within the realms of nor­mal human pos­si­bil­ity, it just hap­pens auto­mat­i­cally unless it’s opposed by some other being of power.

Step 2: Is it a Gift?

If you want to do some­thing you pur­chased as a Gift at char­ac­ter cre­ation (or later, with Char­ac­ter Points earned), it just hap­pens auto­mat­i­cally (and for free) unless it’s opposed by some other being of power.

Step 3: Aspect, Domain, Realm or Spirit?

Each Mir­a­cle you use is tied to one of your four Attrib­utes, and thus one of your four Mir­a­cle Point pools. Which of the four depends on what kind of mir­a­cle you’re doing.

• Aspect mir­a­cles are all about super-powering your phys­i­cal and men­tal abilities.
• Domain mir­a­cles are the ones tied into your Estates, where you can affect what­ever you’re the Power of.
• Realm mir­a­cles are those that affect your Chan­cel, and things within it.
• Spirit doesn’t use mir­a­cles like the rest. Spirit can be used for claim­ing Anchors, detect­ing traces of mir­a­cles used by other Pow­ers, and for the rit­ual mag­ics of the Nobilis.

Step 4: How hard is the Miracle?

Each poten­tial mir­a­cle is assigned a level based on how dif­fi­cult it is. This will later deter­mine how costly the mir­a­cle is to use. Pick a descrip­tion that matches what you’re try­ing to do. There are fuller descrip­tions in the book, start­ing on page 86 for Aspect.

For Aspect (these are quite woolly):

• 0: Peak human per­for­mance e.g. grace­ful jump; iden­ti­fy­ing Nobles as Nobles etc.
• 1: High-level human, e.g. Olympic long jump.
• 2: World record per­for­mance, e.g. world record jump.
• 3: Improb­a­ble feats, phys­i­cally pos­si­ble but not some­thing a human could attempt, e.g. skeet-surfing.
• 4: Very Improb­a­ble feats, e.g. run­ning on heads.
• 5: Impos­si­ble for humans, catch­ing a bullet.
• 6: Uni­ver­sally improb­a­ble, e.g. par­ry­ing Uzi fire.
• 7: Impos­si­ble for any­one (local effects), e.g. lift­ing a hill.
• 8: Impos­si­ble for any­one (non-local effects), e.g. lift­ing a mountain.
• 9: Fabled, e.g. hid­ing a mountain.

For Domain, these are all of one of your Estates, e.g. a Greater Cre­ation of Storms:

• 0: Estate-driven div­ina­tions, e.g. iden­tify threats to the con­cept of Storm.
• 1: Ghost mir­a­cles, e.g. make a day slightly gloomier.
• 2: Lesser Div­ina­tions, e.g. know when a storm will hit.
• 3: Lesser Preser­va­tions, e.g. make it rain for days.
• 4: Lesser Cre­ations, e.g. cre­ate a light­ning storm or drizzle.
• 5: Lesser Destruc­tions, e.g. clear away rain­clouds, and Major Div­ina­tions, e.g. scry in a bowl of rainwater.
• 6: Lesser Changes, e.g. make it hail blue­ber­ries, and Major Preser­va­tions, e.g. make an ongo­ing storm perpetual.
• 7: Major Cre­ations, e.g. cre­ate a hur­ri­cane, tor­nado or monsoon.
• 8: Major Destruc­tions, e.g. calm the sky above an entire ocean.
• 9: Major Changes, e.g. make it rain every third day in a given Chancel.

For Realm, the descrip­tions (Lesser Preser­va­tion, etc.) are as above. Realm Mir­a­cles are not tied to your estates — you may Lesserly Pre­serve or Majorly Cre­ate any­thing — but the effect must take place in and be con­fined to your Chancel.

Spirit, as pre­vi­ously men­tioned, doesn’t really have Mir­a­cles in the same way that the oth­ers do. Per­form­ing the Rit­u­als of the Nobilis will be cov­ered on a sep­a­rate page.

Step 5: How much is it going to cost you?

Any Mir­a­cle of a level less than or equal to the num­ber of dots you have in that attribute is free. (This is referred to as a ‘Sim­ple’ Mir­a­cle.) For exam­ple, a Noble with 3 Aspect dots can per­form “Improb­a­ble feats” (or any­thing lesser) for free. A Noble with 4 Domain dots can per­form Lesser Cre­ations for free.

One level more than your num­ber of dots is con­sid­ered a ‘Nor­mal’ mir­a­cle, and will cost you 1 MP of the appro­pri­ate type. Two lev­els more is con­sid­ered ‘Hard’, for a cost of 2 MP. Three or four lev­els higher (‘Deep’) costs 4 MP, and 5–8 lev­els higher requires use of a ‘Word of Power’, cost­ing 8 MP and a wound.

For exam­ple: Elsa, the Power of Machin­ery, has 3 Domain dots and 6 Domain Mir­a­cle Points. She is onboard an aer­ial bat­tle­ship that has taken heavy dam­age, and she wishes to use a Mir­a­cle to keep it safely fly­ing. For such a huge ship this is a Major Preser­va­tion of Machin­ery, a level 6 Mir­a­cle. For a Noble with 3 Domain dots, this is a Hard Mir­a­cle, and will cost her 4 Domain Mir­a­cle Points. She’ll be left with two spare.

Step 6: Add penetration!

If you’re up against another Noble, an Excru­cian or even an Imper­a­tor, they will have an ‘Auc­tori­tas’ that pre­vents mir­a­cles from directly affect­ing them.

If your mir­a­cle is directly tar­get­ting an enemy, add 1 level of dif­fi­culty for each point of Pen­e­tra­tion you wish the mir­a­cle to have. The Pen­e­tra­tion value of your mir­a­cle must be greater than the target’s Auc­tori­tas for it to be effec­tive. For this rea­son, directly attack­ing other Pow­ers with Mir­a­cles is risky, expen­sive, and rarely a good idea.

Step 7: Role­play it!

Your Mir­a­cle trig­gers, have fun with it!