Turning lead into gold

This is a short look at how to turn lead into gold in Mage: The Awakening by White Wolf.

Now, there is no set rote for transforming something into gold, but there is one for transforming gold or other precious metals to an ordinary metal (Transmute Gold, p202) which is a Matter 4-rote.

Question is, would transform ordinary matter into gold be the same arcana and level? Judging from the Matter 5 rotes Raw Creation and Greater Transmogrification where you can either create gold from nothing, or change liquids into gold, I'd say that it is a Matter 4 rote.

However, for the sake of argument I'll look into both versions, starting with it being a Matter 4 rote, quite similar to Transmute Gold.

The spell is prolonged (1 scene), and to make it permanent he needs a Matter of 5 (or 6 if we go by the Matter5-version).

Also, there is a -10 dice modifier on the rote. It is possible for a powerful willworker to have a dice-pool large enough, but in most cases, extended casting is the way to go.

Looking at p120, we see that to make something Indefinite, we need 5 more successes than the base success, which gives us 6 successes. If we say that we need Matter 4 to transform something into gold, we need at least a Gnosis of 3 (remember that we acually need Matter 5, since advanced prolongation requires your arcanum to be 1 higher). With a Gnosis of 3, each roll in an extended casting takes 1 hr.

If we on the other hand say that we need Matter 5 to make Gold out of other materials, we actually need Matter 6 (see above), which requires a Gnosis of 6. Each roll will now take 30 minutes.

I havn't seen any offical stand on what level of Matter is required, but my research continues.