Hot Spots

These are places of power, repositories or choke points of magical energy that can be tapped and harnessed for you own ends should you require magical energy in amounts beyond your personal capacity.  Any place of cultural significance, social gathering, magical importance, or a waypoint of temporal travel.  These could be churches, office buildings, nightclubs, sacred lands, or even a train station. Anywhere there is a constant flow of energy. With the right tech, a witch could utilize these hot spots to fuel her personal magick.             
Let us begin with places of power, as they are the most obvious targets, even if the most uncommon. Places of power are just that, unique locations that seem to generate magical energy simply be existing, or as a result of their mystical significance.  Some historical and well-known examples of such locations could be the pyramids of Egypt, the stone temples of the Mayans, Stonehenge, the catacombs of Paris, or the temple mount in Jerusalem. Other lesser-known hot spots are burial mounds, ancient forests, haunted buildings, or battlefields. There are also hot spots that can only be known on a local level or be perceived because of personal relevance. Examples of this would be the street mage who is empowered by a network of alleyways that, for him at least, seem to trace out a mystical pattern that generates magical energy. Or perhaps a practitioner that finds a particular country field to be sacred, for no other reason than that it has a potent magical resonance.  The best way to interact with these sorts of hot spots is to simply be in their presence. While it is theoretically possible to subvert a place of power, to ‘take control’, the task is quite daunting and beyond the scope of this text. By being in the presence of these places of power the magus is able to allow himself to be permeated by the energies of the location. By drawing upon the ambient power of such locations, the magus can find a readily available source of ‘free energy’. It should be noted however that the energy of such places carries with it a resonance similar to that of the location from which it springs forth. So it follows that power taken from a battlefield will have a more aggressive or sorrowful resonance, or power taken from a temple or holy place will take on the ‘flavor’ of the site.
Repositories are another sort of hot spot. Repositories differ from places of power in that the magical energy that resides within does not have its source in that particular location. Repositories are places where magical energy collects as a result of worship, energy sendings, or the symbolic meaning of the location. An example would be the various government buildings and national monuments in Washington D.C., the site of the Twin Towers tragedy in New York, Vatican City, or most any other place with cultural, religious, or national significance. There are other, lesser known but certainly powerful locations that are repositories. Such places as the houses owned by famous occultists, the hotel room in which Aleister Crowley dictated the Book of the Law, and the gravesite of Marie Leveau. Local hot spots can also act as repositories, there could be such energy reservoirs inside a famous college campus, a notoriously dangerous stretch of road, or a particularly popular nightclub. As to the methodology of pulling energy from such places is similar to the places of power in that simply being present within such locations is often sufficient to provide the needed energy. Though the application of rune or sigils designed to funnel energy into the magus are good ways to focus and control the flow of incoming energy. However, because these hot spots are not the sources of their own power, but receive it from outside sources, there is not the overriding need for restraint in the taking of energy from the location. While in a place of power the magick hungry magus might find that there are unsavory consequences that result from bleeding such a place dry to fuel his own desires. Though in a repository, due to its nature, can be used as much or as little as is needed. Regardless of the amount of energy drained, such a place receives its power because of its meaning and significance in the minds of the masses, and as such the magus would have to continually drain the location over a long period of time before any adverse effects began to arise. Though let it be said that discretion is a key skill for any sorcerer.
Choke points is a phrase that refers to any place, usually temporal, that acts as a waypoint in the general physical flow of the masses. Such places are focal points for the generally undirected energies of the masses. Potent examples would be massive train stations, highway toll booths, international airports, concert arenas, public beaches, amusement parks, shopping malls, and school campuses. People who are not practitioners of occult arts still generate plenty of energy, though unfocused, and generally broadcast it openly without perceiving their own energy fields. These choke points are the places in civilization that have the densest gatherings of the unfocused masses, and thus are a rich miasma of free energy waiting to be harvested.  As a result of this high concentration of ambient unfocused energy, there are very few ethical reproductions from harvesting as much as is needed. The resonance of this energy is very weak due to the lack of focus, and as such is easily transmuted into useable magical energy that does not permeate the witch with a particular resonance in the way that a place of power or a repository will. The methodology of harvesting energy at choke points varies depending upon the specific location. For example, if a witch were trying to siphon power off of a crowd while at a concert, the best way would be for the witch to harvest the energy directly. That is to say that she could cast a spell directly on the crowd and siphon the energy directly from the ambient field generated by the crowd, or she might simply open her hand and call the energy to her. However, a sorcerer who wants to harness the human traffic at a local train station would be best served by using a sigil created for the purpose of collecting the energy of the passengers as they pass through the doors, ticket booth, or riding the train itself. The sorcerer could simply draw the sigil on a few stickers and paste them on walls, in doorways, or affix them to the ticket counter or turnstile. That way, each time someone enters the sigil’s field of influence, it siphons off a miniscule amount of energy, and with hundreds of people passing it daily, the energy collects very quickly.
The discerning practitioner may find that drawing upon his or her own personal power is the most effective and rewarding source of energy.  While this is indeed true, keep these alternative energy sources in mind. It is possible that in the course of your life that you may find yourself in a situation where having that extra juice can be the difference between success or failure, maybe even life or death.