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[OOC] Mage: The Awakening - The Carnival of Madness [PBP]
cj iwakura
The Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
The Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
Come on, come all!, the signs proclaimed. The best circus in town. Performances you'll never forget, wonders you'll never believe.
A visit you'll never survive.
It's known to some as 'The Carnival of Innocents', or so the troupe is known by.
The Pentacle calls it something else: The Banishers' Banquet. Mages go in, and they don't come out.
They come and they go, leaving corpses in their wake. If the victims are lucky. Sometimes the victims are never seen again.
This time it's going to be different. The local Consilium is aware that they're coming.
And they're going to put a stop to them.
That is... if you're willing to help.
The Campaign
The Carnival of Innocents is a known Banisher cabal that leaves ruin in their wake: they kill first, and don't ask questions. They just want Mages dead.
Their next destination is an open field on the outskirts of Las Vegas, and the local mages know they're coming. They're ready and waiting.
Or are they? Is such a thing even possible?
It can't hurt to try, especially if you're in for the hunt.
Backstory
Magic exists. Once upon a time, it was the driving force behind ancient societies, and was wildly practiced in public and secret alike.
However, something went wrong. A select few aspired for more, and attained powers beyond earthly comprehension. In so doing, they left the mortal planes torn asunder.
The few who ascended gained godlike powers and rose to the station of The Exarchs. Shortly after ascending, they cast the rest of humanity down into the fallen world. Separating the fallen and the higher realms is a vast maw called The Abyss; where shadows, beasts, and all manner of unclean entities reside.
Anyone practicing magic in the fallen world without proper regard for the limitations of normalcy and reality can expect to get backhanded by a nasty force from The Abyss known as Paradox.
This means magic, once widespread amongst all, is now only practiced by a scarce few, and has to be done largely in secret. Worse, the servants of The Exarchs are many, and seek to keep magic away from the common people. These servants, known as the Seers of the Throne, believe common people are sheep and lack both the right and capacity to use magic.
Player characters take up the role of Pentacle Mages; those who were left behind when The Exarchs ascended, and want magic to be brought back to the common people.
This is no easy feat, of course, since Pentacle Mages not only have to contend with the machinations of the Seers and a magic-ignorant populace, but also the ever-present threat of Paradox, the Abyss, fallen Mages known as Scelesti, and all manner of unknown mystical threats.
However, something went wrong. A select few aspired for more, and attained powers beyond earthly comprehension. In so doing, they left the mortal planes torn asunder.
The few who ascended gained godlike powers and rose to the station of The Exarchs. Shortly after ascending, they cast the rest of humanity down into the fallen world. Separating the fallen and the higher realms is a vast maw called The Abyss; where shadows, beasts, and all manner of unclean entities reside.
Anyone practicing magic in the fallen world without proper regard for the limitations of normalcy and reality can expect to get backhanded by a nasty force from The Abyss known as Paradox.
This means magic, once widespread amongst all, is now only practiced by a scarce few, and has to be done largely in secret. Worse, the servants of The Exarchs are many, and seek to keep magic away from the common people. These servants, known as the Seers of the Throne, believe common people are sheep and lack both the right and capacity to use magic.
Player characters take up the role of Pentacle Mages; those who were left behind when The Exarchs ascended, and want magic to be brought back to the common people.
This is no easy feat, of course, since Pentacle Mages not only have to contend with the machinations of the Seers and a magic-ignorant populace, but also the ever-present threat of Paradox, the Abyss, fallen Mages known as Scelesti, and all manner of unknown mystical threats.
The Present
When a magic-ignorant human learns of magic and becomes open to its use, they 'Awaken'.
The reasons for Awakening vary from character to character. Sometimes it was a mundane traumatic experience, sometimes it was a chance encounter with a magic-wielding character, or possibly some other supernatural entity.
Whatever the cause, Awakenings also cause different sorts of magic to be accessible to a newfound Mage.
There are five paths in all, each with different specialties and weaknesses.
Acanthus
(Specialty: Fate & Time Magic)
Enchanters on the Path of Thistle work with luck, intuition and destiny.
Their awakenings tend to involve Arcadia: the realm of the Fae.
Connected to the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn in the Realm of Arcadia.
Generally associated with the Fae, and the Tarot of 'The Fool'.
Mastigos
(Specialty: Mind & Space)
Warlocks on the Path of Scourging work with perception and inner demons.
Their awakenings typically involve demonic or occult encounters.
Connected to the Watchtower of the Iron Gauntlet in the Realm of Pandemonium.
Generally associated with manipulation, subversion and the Tarot of 'The Devil'.
Moros
(Specialty: Death & Matter)
Necromancers on the Path of Doom work with death, mortality and material things.
Their awakenings usually involve death and encounters with the other side.
Connected to the Watchtower of the Lead Coin in the Realm of Stygia.
Generally focused on the study of transition and decay, and associated with the Tarot of 'Death'.
Obrimos
(Specialty: Prime & Forces)
Theurgists on the Path of the Mighty work with the divine energies infusing the world.
Their awakenings are typically involve flashes of divine providence, such as from angelic beings.
Connected to the Watchtower of the Golden Key in the Realm of the Aether.
Generally associated with the pursuit of power, and the Tarot of 'Strength'.
Thyrsus
(Specialty: Life & Spirit)
Shamans on the Path of Ecstasy work with all aspects of the natural world.
Their awakenings tend to involve the wild jungle. Think Jumanji.
Connected to the Watchtower of the Stone Book in the Realm of the Primal Wild.
Generally associated with the wilderness, and the Tarot of The Moon.
Once a Mage has ascended to their Path, the next thing that often happens is taking their place in modern society. This usually means deciding their role within The Pentacle; no easy feat.
The Pentacle originally consisted of four orders, but in modern times, a fifth has recently formed, largely consisting of younger Mages who wish to break with tradition and rely on more modern influences.
The Adamantine Arrow
Spiritual warriors and masters of conflict, who claim a heritage going back to the defenders of Atlantis. Currently, the Order of the Arrow could perhaps be described as something akin to a knightly sect, though bushido and other warrior codes find a place in The Arrow. These mages conduct intensive physical and mental training, honing the minds and bodies of order members into deadly weapons which magical society may then wield against its enemies (such as vampires, werewolves, Seers, and so on).
Guardians of the Veil
Spies and conspirators who claim their descent from the intelligence officers and enforcers of Atlantis' laws. Currently, they bear a resemblance to a combination of many occult conspiracies, such as the Thule and others. Many obscure their activities and identities even from other mages, and act as a check on humanity's dangerous curiosity for "that which man was not meant to know". To this end they falsify and obfuscate information through an elaborate honeycomb of lies and mis-directions known as "the Labyrinth".
The Mysterium
Dedicated to pursuit of magical lore and the acquisition, cataloging, and study of mystical and occult knowledge and artifacts. They continue the ancient heritage of the scholarly and intellectual of Atlantean society. Their internal structure often resembles the academic structures of the part of the world in which they reside. The Mysterium gathers, catalogs and maintains items of all types of magical and historical significance. These are stored in museum-libraries known as "Athenaea", which vary in size from private collections to massive storehouses that must be physically hidden by magical means.
The Silver Ladder
Dedicated to ruling and reshaping the world, the viziers and senators of Atlantis remain in force. Politicians and authoritarians, the Silver Ladder believes in creating a perfect hierarchy (with themselves at the top, of course) which will seize control of reality, subjugating it to the will of mankind. Many would say (justifiably) that the Ladder is only interested in power, but this dream is not without its altruistic appeal. As a member of the Ladder might point out, control over reality could bring an end to human suffering in all its forms.
The Free Council
Modernists who wish to create new forms of magic, a union of mages who have discovered ways of using magic that do not adhere to the Atlantean methods. According to Council members, mankind is subconsciously aware of metaphysical truths, and thus all of human society carries the potential for mystical wisdom. The 'Libertines' as they are also called, possess a strong belief in democratic process and anti-authoritarianism.
Belonging to any of the prior sects is completely optional for a character, though belonging to one can provide a safe haven and access to otherwise inaccessible information, both very valuable commodities in a world of darkness.
________________
In case you're unfamiliar, here's what's required of you for character creation.
There's character sheet PDFs here.
You can also make sheets online at Myth Weavers or via Dalines.net.
For purposes of creating a sheet, you should at very least need access to the (New) World of Darkness sourcebook for the basic stats.
It offers details on the available Skills, Merits, Flaws, Attributes, Virtues/Vices, etc. for a typical character of any sort, as well as fundamentals on gameplay mechanics.
Then you would need the Mage sourcebook for the appropriate Mage characteristics: Path, Order, Rotes, Arcana(for varieties of available magics), etc.
If you don't have either, read on.
Sheet Requirements
-Character's True Name(unknown to most) & Shadow Name(used amongst fellow Mages)
A character's True Name being widely known is very very bad as it makes them more susceptible to sympathetic forms of magic.
-Virtue & Vice
(Virtues: Charity / Faith / Fortitude / Hope / Justice / Prudence / Temperance)
(Vices: Envy / Gluttony / Greed / Lust / Pride / Sloth / Wrath)
Attributes:
(Hopefully you're reading along with a character sheet by this point for reference.)
5, 4, and 3 points, distributed between Mental, Social, and Physical stats respectively.
Acanthus, Moros, and Thyrsus Mages get a +1 to Composure, Mastigos & Obrimos get a+1 Resolve.
Skills
11, 7, and 4 points, distributed between Mental, Social, and Physical, along with 3 specialties. Specializations give a dice bonus if used during the appropriate situation.
Arcana
A Mage gets 2 dots in one Arcana, 2 in another, and 1 in a third, and a fourth dot to be used however the player likes.
Two dots must go to a Ruling Arcana(i.e. Fate & Time for Acanthus). A Mage can only reach five dots in their ruling arcana, and no higher than two in their inferior.
Rotes
6 dots. These are the spells accessible to a Mage. While having a dot in an Arcana means a Mage can improvise these spells, having a Rote means a larger dice pool, meaning it's more likely to succeed.
Merits: 7 dots
Found in the WoD sourcebook. There are also many Mage specific ones in the core sourcebook and just about every expansion sourcebook.
Starting Wisdom: 7 dots
This is a Mage's path of staying true to magic. Using magic for improper uses(i.e. murder, blatant disregard for the Veil, soul-theft) means a Mage loses wisdom, and is more susceptible to potentially losing their mind and succumbing to the Abyss.
Starting Gnosis: 3 dots
Higher Gnosis gives a Mage more mana(or MP technically). Gnosis tends to improve as a Mage becomes more gifted in magic, but also results in higher chance of incurring Paradox.
A character's True Name being widely known is very very bad as it makes them more susceptible to sympathetic forms of magic.
-Virtue & Vice
(Virtues: Charity / Faith / Fortitude / Hope / Justice / Prudence / Temperance)
(Vices: Envy / Gluttony / Greed / Lust / Pride / Sloth / Wrath)
Attributes:
(Hopefully you're reading along with a character sheet by this point for reference.)
5, 4, and 3 points, distributed between Mental, Social, and Physical stats respectively.
Acanthus, Moros, and Thyrsus Mages get a +1 to Composure, Mastigos & Obrimos get a+1 Resolve.
Skills
11, 7, and 4 points, distributed between Mental, Social, and Physical, along with 3 specialties. Specializations give a dice bonus if used during the appropriate situation.
Arcana
A Mage gets 2 dots in one Arcana, 2 in another, and 1 in a third, and a fourth dot to be used however the player likes.
Two dots must go to a Ruling Arcana(i.e. Fate & Time for Acanthus). A Mage can only reach five dots in their ruling arcana, and no higher than two in their inferior.
Rotes
6 dots. These are the spells accessible to a Mage. While having a dot in an Arcana means a Mage can improvise these spells, having a Rote means a larger dice pool, meaning it's more likely to succeed.
Merits: 7 dots
Found in the WoD sourcebook. There are also many Mage specific ones in the core sourcebook and just about every expansion sourcebook.
Starting Wisdom: 7 dots
This is a Mage's path of staying true to magic. Using magic for improper uses(i.e. murder, blatant disregard for the Veil, soul-theft) means a Mage loses wisdom, and is more susceptible to potentially losing their mind and succumbing to the Abyss.
Starting Gnosis: 3 dots
Higher Gnosis gives a Mage more mana(or MP technically). Gnosis tends to improve as a Mage becomes more gifted in magic, but also results in higher chance of incurring Paradox.
If anyone lacks the appropriate corebooks and needs more detailed information, feel free to PM me or ask in-thread.
I would prefer around four players. Most likely they should be at least familiar with Banishers and have a good reason for wanting to get in on the action, if not simply wanting to avoid a fate worse than death at their hands.
If you want to make a mortal character and go through their Awakening, that works too.
(I'll be using first edition as that's what I know, but if anyone has 2E and wants to adapt, we'll work it out.)
cj iwakura on
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So, consider me interested, but honestly if you get enough players who actually know what they are doing, I'd rather give them priority.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Original, I don't have 2e, but I can adapt.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Not too much. Just for setting tone and giving your Mage their human base.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
You're fine, from what I've seen, it just adds extra mechanics.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Six dots worth.
I've got a couple of ideas I'm kicking around
Edit: I'm also not married to this character idea.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
https://drive.google.com/open?id=19KvBKPYWstsPPfQPaaMaw-R8wsxb43Y8
I'm still working on a coherent post re:backstory/Awakening stuff, but shit kind of blew up at work, so I got side tracked.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Did either of you have any specific character ideas you were kicking around?
A. If you want to play an established Mage with more bite to their rotes and can write up a good background, we'll talk extra XP.
B. I did have an earlier(unused) campaign, but it didn't generate interest, so I felt a more urgent campaign would help, but that's also a possibility.
I'm more focused on Life then Spirit to start, but that may change as he grows...I also have, what I think, is a pretty cool name. I'll do my sheet when I get some spare time at work.
His grandfather had finally managed to drag the family jewelry business into a place of success, and a core tenant of his will was to set up a trust for his first grandson to go to college, and not just a business degree from a community college either. He was going Ivy League, and though his mother wanted him to be a doctor, he loved math. He loved the rigid rules, the clear outcomes. Everything had a place, everything had an answer. At least, it had looked that way from high school calculus. As he completed his undergraduate degree, he realized there were still some big questions. But that made him even happier. Clearly they just needed someone smarter, to really buckle down and tackle these problems, someone like him.
So he played the game, breezed through a master's in computer science, and found himself a PhD program at Stanford. It was going well, he settled in, bought a nice stockpile of chalk, and got to work. And started with one theory, which failed, followed by another theory, which failed, and suddenly it was years later, thousands of pieces of chalk ground to dust, theories piled up in mounds of discarded paper. He had tried everything he could think of, and numerous things he had found elsewhere. He was getting desperate. He was having weird dreams. Nonsensical equations drifted by every time he closed his eyes.
It was around this time that the book showed up. He can't really say that he found it, although he might have. He had been digging through every library he had access too, looking for books that might give him another angle, another lead, a new perspective, and at the end of a day of searching, this book was sitting on the desk in his room. The first he opened the book, he threw his hands up in frustration. It wasn't even in English! He closed the book, and left, hoping to get to his classroom a little early so he could collect himself before the undergrads showed up. But as he was sitting in the classroom, ignoring the students slowly filtering in, his thoughts were drawn back to the book. The writing was incomprehensible, but a formula from the few pages he had glanced at seemed oddly familiar. The class passed quickly. He probably taught some things, maybe, whatever. And afterwards he rushed back to his apartment. He poured through the book, noting more equations that looked familiar, but he couldn't think of where from. But none of the equations made sense. None of them worked. A book full of complex, intricate equations which amounted to nonsense, surrounded by gibberish words and symbols. He had asked a friend in the linguistics department, and she laughed and told him it must have been a joke, since the letters didn’t match any language she had ever heard of.
So he tossed the book back on his overloaded shelf, and tried to find some other answer. The dreams were getting more persistent though. About a week later he realized that the equations in his dreams were the equations in the book. He realized this in the middle of a lecture on matrices he was supposed to be giving, and simply walked out of class mid sentence. Renewing his efforts to decipher the book, he stayed up all night. And the day after missed a meeting with his adviser. And finally the next day when someone showed up at his apartment to check up on him, he managed to drag his now thoroughly disheveled ass to another lecture, where he gave half coherent talk, wild haired, his beard getting bushy. Except halfway through the lecture, a student stood up and asked him for a formal proof of General Relativity. Pausing at the interruption, Eli looked into the mass of students to find a glowing, swirling mass of numbers and symbols sitting three rows back “staring” intently at him. Unsure of what exactly was going on, but having worked to combine General Relativity with Quantum Field Theory for years now, it wasn’t much effort to throw a relatively coherent proof up onto the blackboard. The moment he finished another student demanded a formal proof of QFT. Now that he was in the swing of things, he didn’t even turn to check if what he suspected was true, and just moved into the other half of the unsolvable problem that had been driving him to the edge of exhaustion for years now. Finishing the second, and seeing again the irreconcilability of the two, he threw his hands in the air and turned to glare at the second “student” turned nimbus of light, only to find a crowd of them. As his jaw dropped, the whole mass seemed to pulse with another question. “Please formulate a mathematical proof of the self.” Giggling, he turned back to the board, certain he was losing his mind, but unable to stop himself. More astonishing, when he raised his chalk to the board, he found himself building a structure from the various nonsense equations that had been haunting his dreams. But they were missing something, and he couldn’t tell what it was. After what felt like hours of scribbling, but had really been 15 minutes of the fastest math anyone in the room had ever seen, he trailed to a halt, stalled out again. But again the room behind him pulsed, light washing over the board, leaving an outline in the shape of his shadow between the two previous equations, covering his proof of self-hood, and he realized what was missing was a name. And in a flash of inspiration, he recalled the Kabbalastic numerological value of his name, and added it to the equation, and divided it by 0, and it all came together. With a resounding crash of thunder, the chalk on the board turned to a gold fire, burning itself into his mind. Finally, an equation defining all of existence. He had done it. There was a God, a starting point for existence, a root to the universe. And he had found it!
Leaning up against the blackboard, Charlemagne slowly sank to the floor, exhilarated yet exhausted. He had done it, he had found the Truth. And it was a pure, unadulterated expression of mathematics, just like he had always known it would be. After his parents stumbling atheism, his grandparents rigid orthodoxy, the scratching at greatness of Kabbalah, he had seen the holiest of holies. The veil had been passed, and he would never be the same.
Later that day, the school psychologist stopped by his apartment. Cool, collected, showered and shaved, he laughed at the implication that he had had a mental breakdown in class, scribbling madness, dividing by zero of all things, and just gave them a pitying smile when told she would always be there to talk. By the end of the week the school had laid down an ultimatum. See a shrink, or drop out of the program. But honestly, Charlemagne hadn’t been to any of his meetings, hadn’t taught a class since his breakthrough. He had glimpsed a higher power, and he was going to pursue it. He found a local Kabbalah group, to see if there was something to the moment of divine inspiration he had experienced. He also joined a Free Mason’s lodge and checked out all the books on the Occult the schools library he had. It was during this period, kicked out of school (“I quit, actually”), using his fraternity brothers to get books from the library, bugging old professors for names to drop in Free Mason meetings, that he met his a Free Council member, although at the time he didn’t realize it. Feynman, as he would eventually be offer as his shadow name, had Awoken the day the first nuclear test occurred, and spent the intervening decades looking for other Awoken in the academic field, first to see if there was anyone like him, and then to offer support to those that followed. He helped Charlemagne learn his first rotes, taught him how to invoke his Mage Sight, and connected him to a larger group of academic Awoken.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
@cj iwakura
So I picked 5 for Mental, 4 for Social, and 3 in Physical.
Edit: This would go on top of a default 1 dot in each category, and +1 to Resolve or Composure based on your path.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I have no points in time magic so this makes sense
I have their sourcebooks, so if you have any questions, feel free. A Moros could fit with any of them.
I'm just doing the research. The way I see Awakening (and Requiem, etc), is there's two faction choices. One, the player makes (Path, Clan, etc); the other? That's the character's choice.
So I gotta read up on them, and get into Llane's head (that's my character's name, Llane), and figure out which order fits best.
It adds to the FUN!
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Yeah with a group this size I think that, like paths, it's more fun when there's variety, as long as they're built to get along.
I've got a fun little Moros faux-bo wanderer type I'm working through.
Also @cj iwakura have you looked at 2ed stuff and made any decisions about if you wanna switch over?
Given the popularity and streamlining of 2E, I don't mind switching over, I'll just be playing it by ear as I familiarize myself with it.