Learning a Legacy is a rite of passage into the 'adulthood' of the mature soul, by which the mage chooses the mystical calling he will follow for the rest of his life. Legacies are considered by many mages to be the next step in the evolution of their souls beyond Awakening. Additionally, Legacies are not bound to a specific soul, as the process of joining a Legacy determines merely the shape the soul will have afterwards.( MTAw: Mage: The Awakening Rulebook, p.
Legacies grant unique magical effects known as attainments which are not subject to most of the rules of magic. A Legacy retains many of the characteristics of the path from which it spawned, but the process of forging one's soul to follow a Legacy alters the joining mage. Smaller, derivative 'sub-paths' branching off of the parent paths and orders, increasing the diversity of the different kinds of mages in the world.