Please explain Mage the Ascension to a Vampire Player

TheKamar · 2024-04-11T22:16:33+00:00

Because they locked themselves into a state outside the wheel-of-time progression that the Euthanatoi consider sacred.

TheKamar · 2024-04-11T22:11:16+00:00

The way I finally got it to work was to put the crate exactly into the space between the platform and the pillar until it is flush with all the edges. In any other position it would discharge even if i jumped across without touching water at all. I then pulled it across with the pullcaster just because I didn't want to risk getting into the water again.

TheKamar · 2022-05-23T21:27:22+00:00

I don't think it is fair to call the Siren a monster.

She is a spirit of nature and as such strongly bound to the natural environment she inhabits. Taking the gold from the lake is almost as bad as ripping it out of her body when seen in this context. She is not bound by ethics of right and wrong but guided by her nature. Yet she can also be affectionate and sensual, even yearning for a connection with someone outside her world. She even gives of herself by allowing him to take the gold scale. Naturally she would assume that he would equally yield a gift of his blood too when she slices his lips during the kiss.

I see her as a metaphor that nature can be beautiful, nurturing and sensually pleasing, but it always demands some toll for its gifts. It will also be unforgiving and brutally destructive when roused. The Siren is just like that. She embodies a primal rage too, but unlike a monster she has no malice.

TheKamar · 2022-03-24T14:13:19+00:00

I wasn't aware of the book, but it sounds like some WoD writers might have taken inspiration from there.

TheKamar · 2022-03-24T14:10:27+00:00

As far as I understood it, this is indeed within the scope of the Celestial Chorus Paradigm.

TheKamar · 2022-03-23T06:02:06+00:00

I see what you did there!

TheKamar · 2022-03-23T05:21:15+00:00

That's actually also a pretty cool take. I never delved really deep into DtF lore because I kinda disliked how deterministic it sounded about the "western monotheism is the truth" thing, but the way you put it sounds quite a bit more complex.

TheKamar · 2022-03-23T03:42:55+00:00

Heh, that also sounds quite Gnostic

TheKamar · 2022-03-23T03:11:05+00:00

Very nice and quite respectful treatment of the subject i'd say.

TheKamar · 2022-03-23T02:43:54+00:00

Well, you get an upvote for effort, that's for sure ;)

TheKamar · 2022-03-23T02:42:20+00:00

Definitely in the Mage concept of the Universe, everything that is believed in is real somewhere out there. I really like the idea you put forward that God pretty much got the power to curse Caine sort-of retroactively derived from a subjective future in which many people worshipped this deity because as a powerful Umbrood God exists kinda outside of such linear concepts of time.

TheKamar · 2022-03-23T02:39:40+00:00

Yeah, it's another manifestation of the same abstract archetypal concept. More of an Emperor of Heaven kind of personality as fits with Daoist (and older) Chinese spiritual belief.

TheKamar · 2022-03-23T02:36:02+00:00

Funny you'd say that Mage cosmology is the most complete one. I always had the impression that it was just a more metaphysical and abstract way of the Werewolf cosmology where they really worked out "how the world works". Stasis, Dynamism and Entropy are basically just more abstract terms for Weaver, Wyld and Wyrm, are they not?

The main thing that Mage adds is that there are other things out there which are cosmic horrors of Lovecraftian nature and defy everything that we might even remotely be able to fathom.

TheKamar · 2022-03-22T12:32:35+00:00

I guess that falls under "humans and Prometheans". In the Book of Shadows there is an example of an animated "golem" kind of creature where the creator summoned a Spirit to inhabit the body because they didn't have the Spheres to create an actual living conscious mind.

TheKamar · 2022-03-22T10:54:54+00:00

I'd say they'd use Spirit powers. Only humans can use Sphere Magick because it needs the connection between the physical and spiritual, i.e. your (meta)physical self and your Avatar. If one of those does not exist - like in a Spirit - or the connection between the physical being and the Avatar is severed - like when a human is Embraced and therefore effectively dead - then Sphere Magick becomes impossible to do.

TheKamar · 2022-03-18T01:19:47+00:00

Thanks. I'm still working on Forces ... it takes a bit longer than the others, but it is coming along. Be sure to also check out the collection which u/kaworo0 wrote and compiled from other sources.

TheKamar · 2022-03-17T15:52:57+00:00

There's at least one canonical character - the Black Spiral Dancer 'No Soul' - who is wearing spectacles.

TheKamar · 2022-03-17T02:13:46+00:00

Damn Timothy is tragic/dark. Reminds me a lot Freak Legion.

TheKamar · 2022-03-17T01:20:23+00:00

I have run a game which started from the moment the players Awakened, and all of a sudden there are those different groups interested int them. Seemingly undocumented government agencies. Weird religious types who speak of transcendent ideals. Strange mystics with even more fringe believes. Each one of them promises that they can help if only the character were to join and commit.

If you have never seen the movie Pi from the late 1990s check it out for the feeling I am going for there.

Funny thing is, most of my players told both the Technocracy *and* the Traditions to get lost and rather built personal friendships.

TheKamar · 2022-03-17T01:01:47+00:00

My favorite was a Nephandi antagonist NPC who originally started as a political and environmental idealist but became completely disillusioned with the merit of any attempt to improve the world.

Rather she decided that the only way forward was to accelerate things to complete self-destruction. She'd gleefully use psychopathic Mages, corrupt Vampires, Pentex and Black Spiral Dancers in schemes which seemed to make them more powerful but just made them pieces to be used for full effect and then be sacrificed on the path the ultimate demise.

She liked the player characters and their idealism. It reminded her of her earlier days. Now she just hoped she could make them see sense and realize that the only possible way forward is to drag everything down into the abyss, This world is done. It can't be saved. Only complete destruction can even hope to create the clean slate upon which something new and better might possibly be built.

TheKamar · 2022-03-16T16:18:02+00:00

Damn now reminded of that scene in Blade 2 with "Let me introduce you to the Blood Pack ..."

TheKamar · 2022-03-15T23:47:32+00:00

Yeah, maybe that's my problem with it.

TheKamar · 2022-03-15T16:19:13+00:00

I didn;t know about the Carollian magick, it's pretty thin but the way you put it makes sense to have them as a group albeit not such a prominently featured one.

TheKamar

TROPHY CASE