Let's talk about the Cabal a bit. The Cabal needs a few things: a name, a base of operations, and a statement of intent on the five Great Rights. Let's start with the headquarters.
The game will take place in the greater Boston metropolitan area, so any of the neighborhoods or adjoining towns will work well. I can give you all kinds of information on these places, so just ask away. The neighborhoods marked with a star have well-known mages living in them, so you would probably interact/compete/ally/fight with another Cabal or solitary mage from time to time there. This is not a complete list, but a selection of neighborhoods that I think you'll find most appealing.
Allston: loud, youthful and cheap; Boston College and Boston U are here.
Brighton: quieter neighborhood near Allston, full of grad students.
Brookline*: sleepy community of professors, also the main Jewish neighborhood.
The Fens: a bog along the Muddy River, hotbed of illegal activity.
Mattapan: formerly a Jewish neighborhood and a flashpoint for violence in the 60s, now a quiet residential neighborhood home mainly to Middle-Class Blacks, with some Haitians.
Dorchester: racially integrated neighborhood of Victorian homes. Good for mages looking for a quiet place to stay.
Roxbury*: neighborhood most associated with crime, poverty, and urban decay. The "wrong side of town".
Back Bay*: wealthy neighborhood of brick row houses and upscale boutiques.
The South End: by far the "hippest" neighborhood in Boston. Home to the more affluent members of the gay community.
Beacon Hill*: Old money, neither trendy nor hip.
North End: Little Italy on the waterfront. Home to the historic Copp's Hill Cemetary. A little loud since they put in a highway through the middle of it.
Downtown*: Skyscrapers and big business. Frequent construction has damaged the once-potent Hallows that exist here.
Chinatown: Center of sex trade and gang violence, although progress has been made recently. The part of Chinatown known as the Combat Zone is rumored to be a naturally-occuring demesne, as paradoxes are rarer here.
South Boston: Usually called "Southie". Blue-collar and Irish, with nearly as many churches as bars. Stuck in the '50s.
Roslindale: Ethnically diverse; hip but a bit rough.
Cambridge*: Harvard, MIT, Buddhist temples and new age bookstores.
Somerville: Cheap housing in a suburb favored by college graduates.
Salem*: A historical hotbed of Awakened (naturally), Salem is the seat of the Consilium. It's also full of new age spiritualists and tourists.
Danvers*: a village on the edge of Salem, home to an insane asylum and a well-known hunting ground for Tremere liches.
I think Cambridge fits this group best, but the choice is entirely up to you guys. What do you think?
Last edited by Hella_Tellah; 6th November 2008 at 03:14 AM..
As far as locations go, Cambridge (or even Somerville) would be a perfect fit for my character. So I'll toss in my vote for Cambridge, but will gladly defer to the group majority if they decide otherwise.
I think that the Right of Sanctuary is a no-brainer and should definitely be included. And as a new cabal that's most likely the low man on the Consilium totem pole, it'd be prudent to institute the Right of Crossing and the Right of Hospitality. Though I think we can do without the Right of Emeritus since it doesn't seem like we're a pretentious bunch that would want it. I'm sure we could all be respectful to each other without requiring formalities. As for the Right of Nemesis, I'm wondering what the possible consequences are with or without it.
As for the Right of Nemesis, I'm wondering what the possible consequences are with or without it.
The Right of Nemesis basically means that if a Mage comes into your territory looking for one of their enemies, you won't interfere. This can easily conflict with other Rights, though. If a fellow Mage comes asking for protection under Hospitality, but another Mage has declared him a Nemesis, whose claim do you uphold? If a Mage comes hunting for someone under Nemesis, and in the process of hunting that Nemesis triggers a paradox that taints your Hallow, do you go after her under the Right of Sanctuary, or let it slide under the Right of Nemesis? On the other hand, it dovetails nicely with Crossing. You allow other mages to pass through your territory unmolested by you, but you make no promises about protecting them from their enemies while they're in your territory.
Mages who do not uphold Nemesis see those who do as aloof and a bit vicious. It connotes a Darwinian outlook on Awakened society. Mages who do uphold Nemesis see those who don't as interventionist, territorial, and idealistic. It's said that a Cabal that does not uphold the Right of Nemesis probably never had a Nemesis themselves. The Consilium Heirarch, who is known as "The Nemean," is a big proponent of the kind of approach that the right of Nemesis suggests.
Good ideas, Annalist. I don't want to give it the Official ST Blessing, because that stuff's up to the players. What do you guys think?
Have you decided which one of those three characters you're going to run with, Shayuri? I really liked the backstory you wrote up for Juno Reyes, but I'm sure anything you came up with for the other two would be equally fun.
Hmn. A Mage the Awakening game. I happen to like nWoD, but have had trouble getting a group of interested people who would play/run a mature game (ie. no running yourselves and making broken custom prestige classes for yourself). I've recently been delving into Actual Plays at rpg.net, and it sounds really fun, so I would like to sink some of that wasted money into some enjoyment!
I would like to say for the record that I like the idea of paths and watchtowers. I don't neccessarily agree with some of the crap writing and assuptions that some of the writers have made in the core and in the Tome of the Watchtowers, but they do make for some of the most interesting ideas: the gross/subtle pairings of arcana (where one is the Supernal Truth and the other is a inverted Fallen reflection of the Supernal); the swearing on your Watchtower being as solemn an oath as you can make without making a Fate-bound oath; and the powers that come most naturally to you as a member of that watchtower's path defining you rather than the fluff of writers who didn't do as stellar a job as they could have.
All this being said, I don't have the core nWoD book, but with the number of the supplements I have, there is a lot that can be infered from the statblocks and other things. My combat-foo is weak, however, so I'll leave that to others who are more familiar with the system.
As for the Five Great Rights, I think following 3 or 4 of them is best. People who don't follow at least 3 are usually considered lax and not taking them seriously (unless they have a good reason for it), while apparently only the most uptight of the Silver Ladder follows all 5 rights. Annalist's list of choices isn't bad, although we should discuss the goals of the Cabal itself and the location/terratory we'll claim before voting on them.
While I've always loved the enchanter's path, with Time divinations and Fate manipulations (broken 8 and 9 agains aside, everyone should grab a dot for Winds of Chance), but the cabal seems in desperate need of Space wards, while I have a love for Mind magic, which is incredibly powerful arcanum in it's own right. Looks like I'm putting together a Mastigos for my first character after all!
__________________ I hate to interrupt, but I believe we're being followed. The Mimes on the street corner. No, don't look. ~ Mycroft, Broken Diamond
Proud supporter of Dreamscarred Press and Untapped Potential, New Horizons in Psionics. Get it now! It's the best 5 dollars you'll ever spend.
To clarify my stance on paths and watchtowers: I don't ban them or remove them, but I make them optional. I prefer having everyone's Awakening be different, and if swearing an oath to your Watchtower fits your character, then that's how it goes down.
Really, I just want to leave the option open for players who find the system restrictive. When I first played Mage: the Ascension, I was pissed that I had to be a martial artist in order to be really skilled in Mind. I've also had one player complain that he wanted his character to be a mechanic, focused on forces and matter, and he didn't feel like either Obrimos or Moros really fit. On the other hand, another player in that same game took one look at Thyrsus and said, "that's what I want, right there." So you can go ahead and make a Mastigos mage, with my full support and blessing; I'm just leaving the options open.
Usually, I find the solution to that problem is to be either a Moros and pick up a Forces Legacy, or to be an Obrimos and pick up a Matter Legacy, and then use rotes to tide you over until you reach Gnosis 3. I do see how paths can be a character concept hindrance, but having these guidelines helps focus some character concepts as well.
I've seen some of the problems of paths too, usually when people want the Matter arcanum as a ruling, but don't like the zombies at dawn part of Death. One worked towards Mind, became a Uncrowned King, and eventually got over his hangups with Death (although zombies never entered the equation). The other picked up Mind for Aura Perception/Two Thoughts One Mind, and eventually joined a rocking GM-made Legacy for Moros with Time that uses a form of object postcognition as the first attainment, and has death optional attainment to sculpt ectoplasm and interact with Twilight. The second attainment can rewind or fast forward objects through time (grape juice to wine, nails to rust, and broken windows to... repaired windows), and the death attainment lets you draw objects out of Twilight back into reality. There is yet to be a third attainment, but be assured it'll probably be a fairly broken vulgar Time/Matter effect; various noises has made to the effect of speed excavation with a Time lock and a Matter Disintegration of everything else. I dare not imagine what shenanigans Death will add to the mix.
Speaking of Legacies, I know you've replaced Path requirements with Arcana requirements, but how are gaining new ruling Arcana? I've never been a fan of having some nice well-imagined legacy give one character a new ruling arcana, while it might offer someone else less punch because the primary arcana already is a ruling arcana for that character.
Last question: are order Legacies still in? Because everyone loves the Eleventh Question.
__________________ I hate to interrupt, but I believe we're being followed. The Mimes on the street corner. No, don't look. ~ Mycroft, Broken Diamond
Proud supporter of Dreamscarred Press and Untapped Potential, New Horizons in Psionics. Get it now! It's the best 5 dollars you'll ever spend.
Speaking of Legacies, I know you've replaced Path requirements with Arcana requirements, but how are gaining new ruling Arcana? I've never been a fan of having some nice well-imagined legacy give one character a new ruling arcana, while it might offer someone else less punch because the primary arcana already is a ruling arcana for that character.
A mage with a legacy still treats the legacy's primary arcanum as ruling. This means that most mages can manage to get three ruling arcana without too much trouble, so I suppose it makes the average character advance a bit faster, especially at higher levels of the arcana.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solarious
Last question: are order Legacies still in? Because everyone loves the Eleventh Question.
What kind of a monster would I be if I didn't allow the Eleventh Question? Order legacies are definitely still in.
I guess I should read about legacies. I didn't understand a word of the past three posts, and I feel like I'm missing out on something important.
Legacies are pretty cool, but completely optional. Also called "soul-shaping," legacies are a process by which a mage shares a tiny portion of his soul (experience) with his mentor in exchange for a small increase in power. The student gains magical abilities, called attainments, which have no chance for paradox and usually don't even require a roll. In many cases, the mage also gains an additional ruling arcanum.
You can start the game with a legacy, or you can seek out someone in game to instruct you in a legacy. If you've played D&D 3rd edition, I'd compare them to Prestige classes: you can tweak and improve a character with them, but you can also make yourself crazy spending hours on end (and a bunch of money on books) hunting down the perfect one.
Last edited by Hella_Tellah; 7th November 2008 at 07:26 AM..
A newly created Mage would have to spend six of his seven merit points just to raise his Gnosis to three, which is one of the minimum requirements to join an existing Legacy. So it's not likely that any of us will be starting out in one right away, so I wouldn't worry too much about them unless you're trying to plan ahead for a specific Legacy.
Speaking of Legacies, I know you've replaced Path requirements with Arcana requirements, but how are gaining new ruling Arcana? I've never been a fan of having some nice well-imagined legacy give one character a new ruling arcana, while it might offer someone else less punch because the primary arcana already is a ruling arcana for that character.
Here's a neat little house rule that I've run across that addresses this problem:
We invented the concept of the "Key Arcanum". A Key Arcanum is what happens when a mage gains a double affinity to one of his Arcana, such as a Moros joining the Bokor (Death) or a Mastigos being taught Subtle One magic (Mind).
What are the benefits of having a key arcanum? One extra die for each improvised casting, two extra dice for rotes, and one less die of paradox for each spell using the key arcanum.
That way, joining a legacy gives you access to a third Ruling Arcanum or it transforms one of your Ruling into a Key Arcanum.
We invented the concept of the "Key Arcanum". A Key Arcanum is what happens when a mage gains a double affinity to one of his Arcana, such as a Moros joining the Bokor (Death) or a Mastigos being taught Subtle One magic (Mind).
What are the benefits of having a key arcanum? One extra die for each improvised casting, two extra dice for rotes, and one less die of paradox for each spell using the key arcanum.
That way, joining a legacy gives you access to a third Ruling Arcanum or it transforms one of your Ruling into a Key Arcanum.
That house rule addresses the imbalance from choosing a legacy that doesn't grant you a new ruling arcanum, but I think it favors specialist mages over mages who want to spread out and dip their toes in a number of arcana. My own preference is for the Cabal to spread out and have a wide toolbox, rather than specializing deeply, so I'm going to pass on that for now.
It's a good rule, though, and later experience might make me rethink it.
I ordered a copy of Mage: The Awakening that shipped from amazon today. They're very good about getting it to me within 3 or 4 business days even on their cheapest super saver shipping speed. So I hope to have it early next week.
In the mean time, I couldn't think of any other way to nail down Sandra in game terms other than to make her as if she was going to be an Ascension character and hope that I could get some guidance for translating her into an Awakening character.
Next on my to do list is to develop her training and mentor.
Character Sheet
Nature - Visionary
Essence - Primordeal
Demeanor - Rebel
Tradition - Dreamspeakers
Concept - The weird girl at the new age section of the bookstore that actually got magic to work.
Abilities
Alertness 2
Athletics 2
Awareness 2
Expression 1
Streetwise 2
Drive 1
Etiquette 2
Meditation 2
Academics 1
Cosmology 3
Enigmas 2
Investigation 2
Occult 3
Accounting 2 (I don't think this fit under any of the default selections, so I just added it under knowledges if that's cool)
3 freebie points unspent (converted into experience points?)
Sandra's Paradigm
Sandra works magic by practicing the techniques she read about in various new age books and others that her mentor taught. Her methods are a mix of various techniques suggested from a range of different new age sources.
Spirit magic usually involves meditation or sleeping and utilizing techniques to induce astral projection to contact or travel to the Umbra. Unlike Mind, which projects a mage's conscious to dream realms or the dreams of people asleep, Sandra uses astral projection and meditation to physically leave the mundane world and pierce the gauntlet.
Sandra draws heavily on Wicca practices for her Life magic and Spirit magic that doesn't involve travel to the Umbra. She uses atheme, candles, sacred circles, a book of shadows, and other tools and rituals often associated with the religion. However, she is not a true practitioner of Wicca and to those that are, she would probably look like a poser or an amature.
Besides keeping herself and others in good health, she often uses Life magic to alter her features. She has found the ability to be extremely useful in various situations. (this would be the aspect of magic she is most likely to abuse and develop hubris)
Final Note/Question
I'm hoping that Spirt 3, Life 3 would allow Sandra the ability to "ghost" through solid objects like doors or walls. It makes sense to me that this effect would be a combination of spirit and life, though I could see an argument made for correspondence or matter. Would she be allowed to do this?
Last edited by BlueLotus; 7th November 2008 at 04:47 PM..
Reason: typo. changed willpower to 5, the default
Okay, you need to look at that big blue shiny book again. See the cover? Turn that so you see the back with the blurb. Eye scarring, isn't that shiny? Now, open the book. See the golden pictures with the broken throne (that's the Throne of the Dethroned Queen, but I degress) and the snazzy occult themes? Turn the page. You'll see a Carmilla ad. Ignore that and turn one more page into the book.
You'll see that it's the back page of a Mage the Awakening character sheet. It tells you stats and distributed by points and derived statistics at the bottom in fine print (it's on the front of it)! Useful doesn't even begin to describe it.
I'll let you research/decipher/wait for someone who owns nWoD Core to tell you more about skills and stats. I'll try to instruct you on the wavy fingers part of mage: the arcana and the practices.
Speaking of the arcana, let's talk Spirit magic. Umbra is now the Shadow Realm, and it's an evil, evil, evil place. Think basically the metaphorical truths of the world, all of them, and then make them manifest. You'll have spirits of living creatures plant and animal, you'll have spirits of elements and nature (from straight water and fire spirits to vacuum and crushing underwater pressure), spirits of objects we create (so knives, cars, bikes, hammers, etc), spirits of conceptual thoughts and emotions (which include hope, love, pain, terror, murder, etc), and they all exemplify whatever they represent. They all fight for the Essence they desire, sometimes preying on others like them, and resources are limited. It's a Darwinian horror show out there. They don't have real emotions, ethics, or morality, so they will try to manipulate things in the material world to best reflect what they want, and thus generate of the kind of essence they want. And if they're ambitious (or desperate enough), they'll slip through, anchor themselves on this side of the Gauntlet, and possess someone as a meat-puppet for the purposes of staying and manipulating the world even further.
And you can't really get rid of them easily: as long as they have essence, they'll piece themselves back together in the Shadow Realm sooner or later. And they remember things. And they hold grudges. And they gossip amongst each other. The only real way to control them is to let them know you're bigger, and stomp down on them when they get out of line. Best just to keep them out of the material and try to clean up spillovers when they occur: wrangling them into submission is a Werewolf's job, the poor sods.
And trying to separate the material and the Shadow is always a bad idea, since it's a natural part of the world, and doing so will simply turn the place into a ghost of what it once was, drained of all literal and metaphorical vitality.
As for your 'ghost' spell, I think it would be more of a Death spell, which has the Twilight in it's purview, rather than a Spirit spell, which must reigns over the Shadow. Thinking on it, I would say a Death 3, Weaving, instant, transitory duration, vulgar spell, costing 1 mana.
Funny you should pick Dreamspeakers as a tradition; they're reimagined as a Legacy in nMage that melds together Mind and Spirit magics towards the mastery of the Astral Realms (which is in itself another wall of text topic in itself) through shamanistic lenses. They're a Thyrsus (that's life and spirit, which you have also chosen) legacy, and associated with the Free Council as well, both of which they share their wisdom with.
-----------------
I've started on an image of my character... a medical forensics examiner (mutable point) who is inducted into the Guardians of the Veil, but doesn't fit in as well as hoped. Mentored by a member of the Faceless, whom he never finds out what his name nor his actual appearance, face, or personality is (although he has suspicions). Understands the purpose and the necessity of the Veil and other distasteful aspects of the Guardians, but feels they try too hard to cover up too much purely for the reason of covering it up. Disliked for being a Guardian in the first place (and can't be trusted in another Order 'cause he could be a mole), and shunned by fellow Guardians because of his interest/contacts in the Eleventh Question, he's a hot potato who ended up in Boston's newest cabal because no one else really wants him and the new cabal either can't afford to or straight out can't say no.
__________________ I hate to interrupt, but I believe we're being followed. The Mimes on the street corner. No, don't look. ~ Mycroft, Broken Diamond
Proud supporter of Dreamscarred Press and Untapped Potential, New Horizons in Psionics. Get it now! It's the best 5 dollars you'll ever spend.
Last edited by Solarious; 7th November 2008 at 03:31 PM..
Reason: For editing purposes
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