Mage: the Awakening's topics - tribe.net

Hello?

flickerflash — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:36:26 GMT

Anyone still active in this tribe?

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 0 replies

Fredricksburg gamers Tribe

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:55:42 GMT

I am trying to find gamers in the Fredricksburg/Stafford area to join the Fredricksburg Gamers Tribe for a cross-pollination of ideas and thoughts as well as providing a resource for people looking for game. If you live near Fredricksburg, and are a gamer, please join this tribe and share your games and gaming experiences.

tribes.tribe.net/fredricksburggamers

-stormcrow

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 0 replies

Introduce yourself and why you play Mage!

JackPirateHat — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 22:22:56 GMT

My name is Jack!, and the best intro is to go ahead and check out my profile/blog, etc.

I am hoping to be the Storyteller for this Mage group, unless there is a mutiny for others to take on the mantle. We'll have to see if anyone likes the story-hooks I come up with. I believe storyteller to be collaborative, and a two-way street, so it is not all up to me!

I like Mage for the cosmic philosophical perspective it takes in reinterpreting roleplaying. We as a group can ask any question, and search for any answer, as Mages unlock doors to the material, spiritual, internal and external realms of reality. Plus, you can blow people up with fireballs! (just sucks that Paradox strikes back)

I'm looking forward to first meeting everyone's avatar/personality, then inn person for some gaming. I like the steps this process takes, since we get to meet our intelligences naked before flesh interrupts.

More to come as I describe the new game itself in posts, and then our SF game in specific... Jack!

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 7 replies

Grrr. Sorry.

kerrickadrian — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 06:52:08 GMT

Goodbye all.

I apologize for my extended absence, but I've been roadtripping across the country to arrive in the Bay Area, and I've only just gotten net access. However, I have in the interim fallen in with a gaming group nearby, which won't cost me a BART trip across the bay every week, and I think saving that BART fare is extremely necessary for me at this point.

Good luck, I'm sorry about having to drop out, and I hope you all have a great gaming experience.

Kerrick

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 2 replies

I've got the book!

JackPirateHat — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 05:18:14 GMT

WoW.

I am speechless at the beauty of this book. I think it is the most elegant book WW has ever put out. It is the nicest looking rpg tome in my mind next to Nobilis(sp?).

And it breaks it all down real simple. I think that this might also be one of the best written books WW has ever come out with for clarity and precision of rules text. People can now debate the philosophies of the setting rather than the philosophies of the mechanics!

I am actually considering buying a second edition - one to keep perfect, and another to have everyone thumb through. Plus the PDF, so I can print out "Jack's Quick & Dirty" rule sets for everyone.

I am totally stoked about this game now!

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 1 reply

New Updates to SF Mage: the Awakening Tribe

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:56:58 GMT

So, I have realized that there is a lot of info to post, but never fear, I will get it all up. In a proactive and organized endeavor to be clear on what is near on the Tribe, I will keep this thread here updated with what is new.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 5 replies

Actual Role-play???

JackPirateHat — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 04:39:22 GMT

The Book is being released a week from today. So I think it is time we talk logistics...

Originally suggested was meeting every other week on Sundays. My significant other is urging another night, specifically Fridays every other week. What's the consensus (ha, he said consensus)?

I am hoping to have the first game the week of Sunday September 11th.

Who is still interested in playing? I know of Ari, Kerrick, and Riley. I am hoping for a total of 5. I might have two iffy possibilities. Any other takers? Ari, is your girlfriend up for it?

Is everyone okay with me GMing?

Any suggestions, questions, requests, complaints, please let someone know...

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 1 reply

Preliminary character thoughts.

kerrickadrian — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 16:58:44 GMT

I was wondering, do people feel like we should have our characters each represent a different path?

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 15 replies

Orders 101: The Adamantine Arrow

JackPirateHat — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 03:44:22 GMT

The Adamantine Arrow

Every order practices essential occult defense techniques, but the Adamantine Arrow goes further, internalizing the metaphor of war. It is the order's political stance and occult praxis. For some, it's a hard, ascetic path that burns away cowardice and encourages action over contemplation. Others see the order as the perfect platform to lead the Awakened's secret battles, selling services to the highest bidder or even seizing places of power away from the weak. Above all, though, the Adamantine Arrow acts. It is not given to purposeless cloistering, navel-gazing meditation, or weak pacifism. It knows the Awakened are in the midst of an esoteric war, and it brings a strong hand to bear for the right side.

But there's the question: Which side is the right side? Once, the Arrow protected Atlantis against all threats, internal and external. It was called the Ungula Draconis, the Talon of the Dragon. None could deny that this was righteous work, because it kept the flame of human power alive in an age rife with conquering monsters and renegade witches. When it came to Atlantis, there was no doubt and no compromise, even if the hinterlands suffered raids and ruins for its Awakened glory. In time, the ideal turned to warmongering and conquest. A mere soldier in the gleaming streets of the city could become a god in the wilderness.

Arrogance led to the Fall, and the Fall led to the Exile. Atlantis fragmented and the Adamantine Arrow guarded the shards. The Arrow has always claimed to be above politics, devoted to the pure duty of defending the secrets of magic from its defilers. Now, however, doubt and opposition wracks the old orders. Every time an Arrow mage chooses a side, she shapes the political arena. It's little wonder that such mages often grow impatient with mere guardianship and strive to seize power for themselves.

An Arrow is a warrior first, but this isn't as narrow a calling as many suspect. For every frontline fighter who rends the horrors of the Abyss with bare hands and soul, there's a strategist who sees and manipulates the secret patterns of the world. Economic, ecological, and esoteric conflicts are studied, mastered, and beaten into any shape the Arrow desires. Mages see reality as a many-layered thing, full of signs and movements invisible to the uninitiated. The Awakened art of war follows these pattern using a thousand techniques.

The Adamantine Arrow is assured of its roots in Atlantis, but it does not claim any particular historical event as its own. Instead, it champions the common virtues of warriors from many cultures. An Arrow might claim that these virtues are the spiritual radiance of the order's legacy after the Exile, a torch burning to guide soldiers of all ages away from petty violence to a common ethic of justice. If this is true, though, it poses a paradox, for the order carries within it the capacity for atrocity, rule by junta and a thirst for violent, self-justifying power. Like the occult art of war, this flaw can manifest in endless varieties, making it hard to detect and check. The Adamantine Arrow recognizes the essential problem but is not always sure whether a particular action upholds its ideals or sins.

Only righteous service gives an Arrow's life meaning. After the Fall, the order defended other mages from the new dangers of the Fallen World and swore oaths of loyalty. Today, this is still the Adamantine Arrow's primary role. Their mages defend sanctums and cabals as long as they are legitimate heirs to Atlantis. Some Arrows purportedly guard evil things that cannot (or because of some cruel fate, must not) be banished from the world.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 1 reply

Orders 101: Guardians of the Veil

JackPirateHat — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 03:45:28 GMT

Guardians of the Veil

Magic is a secret Art. The Guardians of the Veil keep it that way for a reason. The order believes that Atlantis was defined by its humanity. It rewarded the fruits of human brilliance and reflected its flaws. Atlantis was as close to Utopia as ever existed, but it was not perfect. Even Atlantis needed wardens, spies and killers. The Fallen World is no different.

The Guardians of the Veil, also called the Visus Draconis, or Eye of the Dragon, secretly protected Atlantis from internal strife and treachery. They say it was a thankless job where mages sacrificed personal quests for enlightenment for the good of the Awakened City. Even in its greatest days, Atlantis had subtle enemies: great beasts, demons cloaked in human flesh, and avaricious rebels. Like their companions in the Adamantine Arrow, they were to be viewed as instruments of Atlantis—never masters. But while war was the province of honorable, overt volunteers, the Guardians of the Veil were charged with more subtle matters of state. If revealed, they would undermine the ethos that Atlantis was where humans ruled without fearing the night or barbarous tyranny. Sometimes the ideal held true, but in the city's latter days, whispers accused the order of spying and killing to serve itself.

Atlantis's reign was partly predicated on the secret work of the Guardians. They discreetly removed foreign enemies where they could, moving beyond supernatural threats to press chieftains and lords for boons, and if necessary, toppling their kingdoms by fanning the fires of insurrection from within. Some of these kingdoms did indeed threaten Atlantis, usually through the plots of non-Atlantean mages, but most only posed potential threats—potential that the Guardian's mage spies expertly identified and then squelched. If Atlantis seemed like a Utopia to its people, it was partly built by keeping down any power that could one day threaten it.

Even after the Fall, the Guardians practice their subtle arts on Sleeper regimes, hollowing useful conspiracies and myths out of the loam of history, and using plots, lies, and knives to protect mages from enemies both Sleeping and supernatural. Even though their aims are pragmatic, they are not without occult significance. The order believes that every Paradox widens the Abyss, so magic must remain hidden. Its own dark deeds are an occult sacrifice: The Guardians defile their own karma so that other mages may hone their own, free from witch-hunters and fouler dangers.

No order is as hated as the Guardians of the Veil. Mages see them as a necessary evil; valued, but distasteful allies. Even the Free Council is more respected, because its own chaotic ethos still emphasizes discovery instead of repression. Awakened wills are trained to shatter barriers and seek freedom, so most mages have an inherent distrust of anyone who would shackle human desire.

Still, the order has its uses, and despite the fact that many mages hate the Guardians, they still come to them for aid—and the order demands aid in return. This is not always voluntary, but experienced Guardians learn to take stock of the skeletons in other mages' closets and expertly leverage them. Above all, the Guardians have mastered the art of moving among Sleepers in a mundane guise, planting useful stories and careful measures of magical influence to ward off magic's enemies while providing for their own interests. Rumors brag that the order once manipulated nations and civilizations to these ends. Even now, Guardians plant memes and secret signs in the world's cultures. Members of the order might receive assistance by uttering a secret word to a Sleeper, who learned it in the useless (but potent) rites of a secret society that the order created centuries ago. Stories of family lines bred to serve the order across generations and torture chambers reinforced for supernatural inmates fill the annals of Awakened hearsay. And for all anyone knows, half of the rumors may be the Guardians' own lies.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 1 reply

Orders 101: the Mysterium

JackPirateHat — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 03:46:11 GMT

The Mysterium

Forget Fallen World governments and occult politics. Knowledge is power. Over time, mystic lore trumps worldly ambition. The members of the Mysterium consider their order the purest because it shuns mundane power. Its members prefer to seek pure magical knowledge. This doesn't mean that there aren't influential mystagogues (as mages of the Mysterium call themselves), but even so, members of the Mysterium seek out knowledge first. Power is the welcome side effect of holding the chief currency of the occult: sorcerous lore.

The stereotypical Mysterium cabal is a group of lonely sages minding moldering grimoires and corroded Artifacts. Throughout history, witch-hunters and ignorance have forced the order to seclude itself, waiting centuries for human curiosity to defeat dogmatism. Old mystagogues still tend the ancient library-fortresses, but the modern order is more adventurous. The modern mystagogue is an archaeologist, cryptographer, and master of riddles who scours ruins. He soothsays the layout of city streets and programming codes. But aside from these puzzles, enemies also threaten the Mysterium. Ancient curses and cultist bullets try to keep the secrets of Atlantis submerged and mages ignorant. The modern order values its scholar-adventurers as much as its librarians.

The modern world is a storehouse of secret lore, waiting to be retrieved, catalogued, and developed for the good of the Awakened. Mysterium mages travel to obscure parts of the globe to add what lies therein to the sum of occult knowledge. Don't assume, however, that the order freely shares its hard-won research. Some knowledge is too dangerous for general consumption or too valuable to just give away. Exploration takes its toll in money and lives, and the Mysterium needs some leverage to fund, staff, and protect future quests.

In Atlantis, the Mysterium's members were professors and librarians. Legends describe the Cenacle of Sighs, where mages could consult the ghosts of savants and vast libraries written in the tongues of fae, demon, angel, and god. The ancient order ventured into the hinterlands to learn the natural sciences and cull the innovations of barbarian states. These expeditions were almost as martial as they were scientific, because outlanders (and the night-horrors who often ruled them) feared and hated the Great City. The early mystagogues paid for their knowledge in blood, securing a place of honor in the city's silver halls.

Without the Mysterium, also called the Alae Draconis, the Wings of the Dragon, the ruling cabal could never have built the Celestial Ladder. The order grew nearly as mighty as the Silver Ladder, and it restricted access to its collection to keep challengers from usurping its place. So the order became an architect of the Fall and destroyed the libraries it created. Survivors dared to hope that the barbarians they once plundered had done the same to them, so that Atlantis' wisdom would spread throughout the world. Order mages founded their own traditions as they wandered, teaching the crafts of writing, poetry and storytelling, imbuing it all with vital magical symbols. They hoped that future generations would sift truth from fiction and Awaken to Mysterium secrets, renewing the Atlantean arts.

Modern mystagogues believe that they are that future. The time has come to collect the secrets of magic from its prison of ancient languages, myth cycles and forgotten crypts. This is the most important mission in the world to them. Though attitudes vary, the order as a whole has little patience for the sanctity of human history. All that matters is Atlantis, magic, and the secret codes that lay hidden in the world. This is why other mages accuse the Mysterium of grave-robbery and plundering. But the order calls its accusers hypocrites, because they are all too happy to use the knowledge that Mysterium mages risk their lives to acquire.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 1 reply

Orders 101: The Silver Ladder

JackPirateHat — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 03:46:58 GMT

The Silver Ladder

Mages once ruled. Never forget that. Do not believe that hubris felled Atlantis, that humanity deserved to be cast into the darkness. That is a subtle part of the Lie. The conquest of reality—the war for the Imperium Mysteriorum—proceeds as it should. Expand your perspective and see that the fall of the Awakened City was just a skirmish. A setback? Yes, but there are other battles to be fought—thrones to topple from the enemy's Supernal strongholds. Cast your lot with humanity and with Awakened destiny, and you will embrace the Silver Ladder.

It's a potent promise that has lasted through the ages, articulated even as the Fall forced the théarchs to gaze back at the ruins of Atlantis. They say it is fitting that such devastation should follow a struggle for the ultimate prize, but hardly discouraging, for the Silver Ladder has a potent weapon its enemies can never possess: the Sleepers.

The Silver Ladder claims that it supports unenlightened humanity and spreads the flame of Awakening as much as possible. The Quiescence makes doing so dangerous, so it is necessary to release a trickle of the truth, gradually, so that dedicated men and women follow it to the flood of full Awakening. Mages must be prepared to accept these new apprentices. They must cooperate to expand Awakened influence and train themselves for the battle to come. The Silver Ladder wants nothing less than an army swelled by Sleepers and forged by conspiracy before it builds a tower to the gods once more.

The Silver Ladder is used to ruling mages. While they were not the official lords of Atlantis, its members were advisors who held the balance of power, the Vox Draconis, the Voice of the Dragon. As priests, viziers, and judges of old, the théarchs upheld the principles of law. To hold together an entire nation of mages is a feat that has never been matched since, and the order is rightly proud. When the Silver Ladder's judges ruled fairly, they maintained a balance of power between mages and an unenlightened humanity. As priests, they advocated a wise balance between material needs and spiritual desires. Of course, the théarchs had human weaknesses even then, and more than any other order, were swayed by the promises of the Celestial Ladder: To put gods and demons under the reign of humankind—what greater promise than that?

Other orders were humbled by the Fall, but not the Silver Ladder. Although some luminaries still speak of balance between the material and spiritual, others use these as words to justify their desire to wrest the Imperium Mysteriorum for all humanity. But their enemies are no longer the inhuman powers of the world. By trapping humanity in the Lie of Quiescence, they've shown the resurgent théarchs that they fear mortal men and women. If humanity is bound together to challenge them, they will lose. And so the order has bided its time, promoting the office of the sage advisor throughout the world, whispering their instructions to princes, generals, and ministers.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 1 reply

Orders 101: The Free Council

JackPirateHat — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 03:47:43 GMT

The Free Council

Can you feel it? Magic exists now, like a stunted tree twisted under the weight of the Abyss. Nations call fire from the sky when it's time for war; voices drift on invisible waves from New York to Jakarta. The world is full of sigils and runes; men and woman will die for a flag or work themselves ragged for a brand. This is an age of power and opportunity, and if they look at it the right way, the Awakened can see Supernal shadows overlaying it all. But it's an age of horror too, because power doesn't have an ethos. The tools of power are there for the taking, but the management is bad.

The Free Council means to change that. This age, this time of glorious chaos, needs to be translated into Awakened wisdom. In a new kind of alchemy, the Council will change the trappings of the Sleepers' Quiescence into its undoing.

Atlantis is a worthy dream, but to the Free Council, other mages make the mistake of casting their lot with the past, ensuring that they'll always be less than their ancestors. The order sees the Awakened City as a spiritual ideal but doesn't believe that its old rites are the best way to renew Awakened power. It holds that virtually any method can be used to invoke the Supernal Realms as long as it captures some genuine meaning. Humanity found the essential spark of Awakening in prehistory and never forgot. Even this Fallen World contains countless treasures for the Awakened seeker.

Arcane power is not wisdom. The Free Council discovered this when it started to question the Atlantean orthodoxy. For all their power, even great masters were blind to the new truths of the quickening age. It was time to drop the old hierarchies and seek the truth through democracy and consensus. Levels of initiation and secrets barred from the so-called unworthy are all the worse because humanity was never meant to abase itself for the sake of occult training. Magic exists now, and it's moving forward as swiftly as a thought. Cling to tradition, and you'll get left behind.

Awakened society has always had its share of rebels and strange geniuses, mages who could never accept the easy answers of Atlantean tradition. The Silver Ladder cast them out, the Adamantine Arrow refused to protect them, and the Mysterium expunged their words from history. But the Awakened have always been sensitive to the spirit of an age, and there have been times when the trickle of malcontent grew to a flood. These eras coincided with some of the greatest achievements in human history, but also its wars and disasters. Do mages cause such events or take their lessons to heart? So many layers of conspiracy exist between mages and Sleeping humanity that it's nigh impossible to tell who bears the burden of history, but during these pivotal periods, arcane knowledge increases. In the early 19th Century, cabals across Europe expounded a startling theory: that these events led to genuinely new occult praxes, not mere shadows of Atlantis. Men and women were not as weak as the Exarchs supposed, and strained against their prison across the generations.

The new movement gave itself hundreds of different names based on everything from Sleeper inspirations to esoteric humor. Conflict was inevitable; it spanned the globe through the charms of the Boxer Rebellion, the guns of the American West and the bombs of London anarchists. Mysterium historians call it the Nameless War, for at the time, the other orders refused to even give the revolutionaries a common name. After all, names grant their recipient symbolic power; the heirs of Atlantis, for all their internal strife, wanted to see history bury these apostates.

The war left the rebels bloody but unbowed, and even increased their membership. Young members of the traditional orders defected, charmed by the opportunities offered by rebel factions. Even so, the Nameless rebels couldn't prove their worth to the ancient orders until they took a stand for something, instead of against tradition. This requirement was fulfilled by the Great Refusal.

The Seers of the Throne knew that the rebels presented a great opportunity. Nameless mages embraced the Sleeping world's technologies and fashions. They could be used to wipe out all memory of Atlantis. Together, the Seers and the Nameless could create a world where humanity could not even conceive of the occult, closing the final few flaws in the Exarchs' prison. The Seers of the Throne sent emissaries to Nameless cabals, offering them wealth and power in exchange for an alliance that would wed technological and cultural magic to an agenda of control. The Nameless order declined. They declined with guns, bombs, and mind-crushing Arts. On New Year's Eve in 1899, the Great Refusal of alliance concluded with the official formation of the Free Council, who had finally discovered a common enemy. The spirit of the modern world would be liberty, not technocracy, and it was time to explore it.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 1 reply

Orders 101: Intro

JackPirateHat — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 03:42:40 GMT

So I am finally posting the five Orders. If the Paths are the soul and essence of each mage fated to them by nature or nurture depending on your view, the Orders are the political and "professional" affliations a mage makes in life after awakening.

The Order Threads are as following:
Orders 101: Adamantine Arrows
Orders 101: Guardians of the Veil
Orders 101: The Mysterium
Orders 101: The Sliver Ladder
Orders 101: The Free Council

The first post on each thread will be cut and paste directly from White Wolf. When I can get around to it, I will be posting my own opinions about each Order.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 0 replies

Paths 101: Mastigos

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:37:50 GMT

astigos

Warlocks on the Path of Scourging, Scions of the Watchtower of the Iron Gauntlet in the Realm of Pandemonium, Kingdom of Nightmares and Abode of Demons

A mage who walks the Path of Scourging through the nightmarish labyrinth of the realm of Pandemonium, at the center of which is the Watchtower of the Iron Gauntlet. Pandemonium is also called the Realm of Nightmares, for its echoes appear to Sleepers most often in their most terrible and dreaded dreams, where they fall from endless heights, never to hit the ground, or run for what seems like hours but never make any headway. Their worst fears or repressed emotions are brought forth in places touched by Pandemonium, to be examined and judged by strangers who mock and condemn them. Through such a gauntlet of humiliation and submission, a soul is scourged of its sins and purified to re-unite, cleansed and free, with the divine.

Mastigos mages work magic that affects the mind and the space all around us. The darkest corners of the unconscious mind are readily apparent here, worn like badges, while all roads twist in upon themselves, leading the traveler to confrontations with his own failings.

While Mastigos "warlocks" are often associated with diabolists and demon-summoners—those who make deals with the Devil—they are more properly the masters of such infernal urges, those who, by dint of will, command that within them which is most unsavory. While all men sin, the Mastigos learn from the foibles of the mortal coil and use them to attain higher power.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 3 replies

Creation Myth

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:42:08 GMT

What follows is only possible myth for where Mages come from. While it is the most popular and largely supported by mage cultural, it is not the end all, be all, for the game I have in mind. Four of the Orders believe they are descended from this myth, while the fifth looks elsewhere. Neither one in our game will necessarily be right.

Once, long ago:

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 9 replies

Awakenings

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:53:35 GMT

Posted from White Wolf:
From an ancient and powerful language to an unseen sense of the ebb and flow of magic all around them, the Awakened have a leg up over the Sleeping masses. None of it would be possible without that one pivotal moment of supreme insight known as the Awakening, though, and that's what we focus on today and tomorrow.

A soul, once stirred, is either sent in a dream or ecstatic vision onto strange astral pathways, or plunged into a "mystery play," a hallucinatory experience whereby the common, mundane phenomena of the world are transformed into highly symbolic and meaningful ciphers. A person experiencing an Awakening is called a seeker. Many seekers think they're going crazy, and in a sense they are. The insane sometimes perceive meaning in random events, but the mage sees how no event is truly random in a vast Tapestry woven by consciousness.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 3 replies

The Paths 101: Intro

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:36:42 GMT

Most RPGers related to Ascension via the Traditions' interaction with a Consensual Reality. In Awakening, there are no traditions, rather instead you have the Paths and the Orders. As far as if Reality is consensual or not, it appears that in Awakening, Reality /might/ be consensual. The nature of Reality is heavily in question in Awakening, and rather than give out an answer, Realiy's nature is more up to the players. Cool.

So to motivate this search for the nature of Reality, White Wolf essentially broke up the Mage archtypes into 5 Paths. With a liberal interpretation, which is the intent in the design since the Paths are umbrellas not boxes, you can fit any type of wizard/sorcerer/magic-user into one of the 5 Paths.

Here is an intro taken from WW's teasers:
When a mage Awakens, his soul travels out of his body across the yawning chasm of the Abyss to the Realms Supernal. He is guided through the void by the light of a Watchtower with which his soul most closely resonates. The Watchtower and its surrounding Supernal Realm dictates a mage's path, and that path determines what sort of mage he becomes. Choosing one's path is often one of the earliest steps in character in Mage: The Awakening.

General Path questions, post here. I am going to post each Path as its own thread, and specific questions can be asked there. Enjoy!

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 2 replies

Paths 101: Thyrsus

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:39:30 GMT

Thyrsus

Shamans on the Path of Ecstasy, Scions of the Watchtower of the Stone Book in the Realm of the Primal Wild, Kingdom of Totems and Abode of Beasts

A mage who walks the Path of Ecstasy, forging his own trail through the realm of the Primal Wild to discover the Watchtower of the Stone Book. Most of the hallmarks of civilization are but dreams not yet dreamt in this realm, where the world into which mortals were first born thrives in all its teeming grandeur and horror. This place speaks to the primordial in all beings, causing them to lose themselves to ecstasies of the flesh or spirit, exalting in the very act of being alive. Some claim that all wine is blessed with the taste of the Primal Wild, and that those who get madly drunk dance in its humid embrace.

Mages on this path perform magic that affects both living things and spirits equally. The pounding drums of the heart and lungs, the surging blood in every vein, the tingling nerves and salty sweat—these things all spell an alphabet of desire presided over by this realm. Not just flesh, but ephemera, too—the instincts of beast and spirit alike are wrought in the jungles of the Primal Wild.

Thyrsus shamans celebrate the moment and the sheer thrill of existence. Surrounded by Presences, they are never alone—there is always a partner ready to take up the dance anew. While some of them are looked upon by other mages as uncivilized louts, they are no hippies—the Path of Ecstasy is also about pain, for life is there, too; only the dead feel no pain. Nonetheless, Thyrsus are often the first mages sought when the Realms Invisible intrude.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 0 replies

Paths 101: Obrimos

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:38:44 GMT

Obrimos

Theurgists on the Path of the Mighty, Scions of the Watchtower of the Golden Key in the Realm of the Aether, Kingdom of the Celestial Spheres and Abode of Angels

A mage who walks the Path of the Mighty, gliding on celestial winds through the realm of the Aether and the firmament of the stars to reach the Watchtower of the Golden Key. Only the elect can enter here, guarded by the Hosts with their swords of fire. Lightning strikes any who fly with false wings, just as Icarus was downed by his hubris. He who would wield the Flame Supernal must not flinch in the face of adversity, and cleave to one of the many visions of the divine.

The Obrimos control the very forces of the heavens themselves, as well as the subtle essence whence those forces derive. The Realm of the Aether bristles with energy—sometimes too much energy, threatening to burn those not shielded with divine purpose. The raw power of the prima materia, the fire of Creation that fuels magic, is born here and meted out by Providence.

Obrimos theurgists are often feared by other mages, for their temperaments as much as their judgmental attitudes. Nonetheless, their strength is admired by all, and they are the first called upon by others when the need is dire.

posted in Mage: the Awakening - 0 replies

Paths 101: Moros

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:38:13 GMT

Moros

Necromancers on the Path of Doom, Scions of the Watchtower of the Lead Coin in the Realm of Stygia, Kingdom of Crypts and Abode of Shades

A mage who walks the Path of Doom, treading the barren wastes and black rivers of the realm of Stygia to attain the Watchtower of the Lead Coin. There is a price to be paid for entering places influenced by Stygia, and there are many toll gates on the road the soul must travel through death to attain new life. This price isn't measured in mundane lucre but the treasure reaped by the soul during life. If its weight is light, like the precious metals, the soul can rise above its death, but if it is heavy, like lead, the soul must remain in the abode of shades until it can relinquish its grasping hold on life.

Mages who traverse the Abyss to Stygia perform the magic of death, affecting all forms of inert matter, for Stygia is the place of shells—whether the hollow shells of egos worn in life or the heavy shells of material greed. Whatever is most heavy falls to the influence of this realm: ghosts who are anchored to the world they have already left, material treasures that distract the soul from its true work, and even darkness, which weighs down the light.

Moros necromancers are often stereotyped as dour and quiet, and there are certainly those mages who fit that description, but this image is based more on others' misunderstanding of what mages who work so close to death must be like. If a Moros is gloomy, it is more because he is all too aware of the doom to which others will fall, while he rises above it all, alchemically transformed by his sojourn in the undiscovered country to which all must eventually travel.

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The Paths 101: Acanthus

JackPirateHat — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:37:18 GMT

Acanthus

Enchanters on the Path of Thistle, Scions of the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn in the Realm of Arcadia, Kingdom of Enchantment and Abode of the Fae

A mage who walks the Path of Thistle that winds through the realm of Arcadia to the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn (the "moonsilver thorn"). Arcadia is known dimly to Sleepers through the legends of faeries and the nymphs and dryads of the plant kingdom. In Arcadia, everything is enchanted, wearing a magical glamour of intense beauty—or ugliness. Things tend toward extremes; there is very little compromise in the abode of the Fae. Change is common and encouraged; those who walk this Path tend to be fickle and ever eager to try new things.

Acanthus mages are especially adept at performing magic that affects destiny and the fluid progression of time. Fairy stories from around the world reflect the timelessness of the realm, as people who enter places under its influence and spend an evening often exit many years later, as time is measured in the Fallen World. Likewise, a promise or oath is binding, and none can betray it without terrible consequences.

Acanthus, also called "enchanters," are often thought of as the archetypal "divine fools," for they seem to achieve their goals by not trying or by waiting for things to come to them. But this over-reliance on luck can be to their detriment, as they spurn patience and plunge themselves into situations that are perhaps best tackled instead with some degree of foresight and strategy. They are the wild cards of the Awakened world, both loved and hated by others for it.

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Yahoo! Group

JackPirateHat — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 02:57:48 GMT

Use it, love it:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SFMtAwake/

Easier place to post files and pics... But I prefer posting here. Either place works though. Will be posting soon at both places:
"Introduction of The Mage and the Game"

Rock on,
Jack!

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