Friday, December 25, 2015

[Mage: The Awakening] Oh the Places You'll Go (Part 1. Closest to Home)

((In Character (IC):
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Chronicles of Darkness - Mage: The Awakening (Fallen World Chronicle)
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Borrowed & Edited from Original Posting in 2014 by Dave Brookshaw of Onyx Path Publishing.))
((Out of Character (OOC) material in (())s ))




Oh the Places You’ll Go…


From: The Earth-Rim Runner by Daduchos Duelmaster Gabrielle  


Aside from high strangeness and Supernal truths, Mages have some common (and less-common) types of supernatural “real estate” linked to their Awakened state. Most mages will encounter a few of these and as his powers, experience, and Arcana advance they will encounter more and more.  The more he understands about this extensive and fragmented cosmology the better he understands how the invisible and spiritual forces of the universe interlock over the material plane.  This post will focus the closest to home.

((Archmasters refer to the entireity of the cosmos, the multiverse of parallel realities, the realms both invisable and visable as The Tellurian.  Everything else, including the Abyss and Supernal Realms is a subset of the Tellurian))

The Fallen World

Aliases: The Material Plane, the Physical Plane, The Corporeal World, the Phemeral World.

This is home base.  The world the Sleepers live in.  It is not any safer than some of the other places.  In fact, this state of existence which Pentacle mages refer to as “The Lie” or “The Fallen World” is actually an overlap of many of the fundamental forces of the universe.  It is a nexus, a crossroads where many places touch.


In Twilight


Natives: Ghosts & Spirits


The Twilight isn’t actually a place that overlaps with the physical world but is a state of being.  Beings in Twilight exist in the same place as the physical just out of sync with the material.  Ghosts, spirits, and other ethereal beings exist in Twilight and cannot be seen, heard or touched without powers of Manifestation or special Numina to make themselves known.  They are able to witness and hear everything that happens in the physical if their powers of perception are strong enough to notice the physical world.  Generally Ephemeral creatures can float around, walk through walls and travel freely so long as their own understanding of their state isn’t limited by existential bias or as long as the buildings or items don’t exist in a spiritual or ephemeral form also in Twilight. 


The Death, Prime and Spirit Arcana allow mages to be able to interact things in Twilight and Death and Spirit can allow mages to gain the Twilight State but without becoming truly ephemeral (which requires a great understanding of these Arcana and Life to actually transform a person into ephemera).  The Mind Arcanum also allows a mage to project their Astral Body into the world where it exists in Twilight.


Depending on how spiritual, resonant, or populated a location determines how hard it is for beings to manifest in Twilight.  Unmanifested entities are essentially just a fog of spiritual potential with very little awareness until they successfully manifest.





The Gauntlet


The Gauntlet is also not a place but is not a state of being either.  It is the level of psychic interference there is between the Shadow and the physical planes. This interference appears strongest in populated areas and weakest in remote areas, especially ones torn by some form of significant event.  Resonance easily permeates the Gauntlet in its most basic motes and the resonance of overlapping areas in the Shadow and corporeal directly correlate with each other.  The Spirit Arcana is necessary to interact, view or cross the Gauntlet and into the Shadow Realm (covered later).  A greater understanding of the Mind Arcanum is necessary to project one’s self into the Shadow ephemerally.


Sanctums


Safehouses, ritual chambers, and laboratories, a Sanctum is a mage’s safe place. Order Caucuses and Consilia maintain large, communal Sanctums, often serving as libraries and ceremonial spaces. Everything from a cabal’s rented apartment to a Mystagogue Athenaeum or a Seer of the Throne transport nexus is a Sanctum. Sanctums are the places were a mage is safest and can perform his art in ideal conditions.  Sometimes these are communal buildings, Cabal, or private locations and can be anything from a house to rented office space.

Hallows


Prime (pun intended) magical real estate, Hallows are places where Free Mana gathers. Perhaps the most coveted resources, especially if they are large, intersect with a Ley Node, or produce edible Tass. Many Consilia have strict laws against theft or vandalism of Hallows, but that doesn’t stop inter-sect rivalries; Seers and Pentacle mages sometimes murder one another for a potent wellspring of Mana.

Ley Lines and Nodes


Visible to any form of Mage Sight, a ley line is an invisible current of energy running through the Fallen World. Leys naturally follow the Fallen World’s features, contoring to flow between esoteric features like Shadow Locii and Avernian Gates, or spots of strong resonance but mages can move them with Weaving spells of Prime. Where leys intersect, they create Nodes – places where the Fallen World seems energized or drained. When a Node happens to be on top of a Hallow, the Mana the Hallow collects picks up a powerful resonance, so some mages engage in geomancy to carefully align positive Nodes onto their Hallows and prevent others from poisoning their mystical landscape.  Nodes and Leylines can be sought after by other beings.

Irises


An Iris is a gateway from the material world to somewhere else. Some are open doors, others have certain conditions or only open at appropriate times. Mages can circumvent many opening conditions with magic. Avernian Gates lead to the Underworld, Locii are places where it’s easier to punch through the Gauntlet to the Shadow World, and rarer Irises lead to more unusual – and potentially deadly – places.  Generally in Supernal Verges the associated Arcana with the closest Supernal Realm is more effective and in Abyssal Verges paradox is higher (not to be confused with magical Dead Zones where magic simply doesn’t work well though Abyssal Verges may cause a similar effect).
Other types of Irises include very rate Hellgates to Abaddon, doors into the Hedge and entrances to Wendings and Chantries.

Supernal Verges & Abyssal Verges


Verges are areas where the Supernal World or Abyss is especially strong, overwriting the laws of reality with the originating realm. Pandemonic Verges are nightmarish, twisting labyrinths. Aether verges are firestorms. Arcadian Verges are zones of weird or missed time. Abyssal verges are twisted spots where reality breaks down entirely. Supernal and Abyssal beings can survive in the appropriate kind of Verge indefinitely and see and be seen by anyone inside, which makes them doubly dangerous.

Supernal Emanations & Abyssal Annunaki


Natives: Supernal or Abyssal Entities


The rarest, largest, and most powerful Verges contain Irises leading to worlds where Fallen reality breaks down entirely rather than being twisted – these Emanation Realms (in Supernal Verges) and Annunaki (in Abyssal Verges) aren’t fully the Abyss or Supernal World, more like “Fallen World Verges” within those strata of reality.

Verges occur naturally, but Abyssal Verges can result from strong Paradoxes. Sleepers can’t destroy a true Supernal Verge through Dissonance, but their memories of time inside are subject to Quiescence.  Magic cast in Supernal Verges usually isn’t vulgar and Supernal Verges tend to strengthen magic, especially magic native to their associated Realm.  Abyssal Verges tend to have higher paradox and hinder the use of magic.

Abyssal Entities: Abyssal beings represent the world they’re in being corrupted, and use the rules for whichever realm they were summoned in (in the Material world, this means they usually manifest as spirits, but can sometimes appear as ghosts.) Material, Shadow, and Underworld Abyssal creatures are called Gulmoth. Astral abyssal creatures are Acamoth. Every Abyssal represents some kind of twisting of reality, which they further with their influences – Gulmoth are spells gone wrong, violations of physical laws, and warped matter, while Acamoth try to make the conceptual realms they infect twist into hellish landscapes resonant with the Abyss.  Abyssal entities also come in harder to define categories such as: Aliens, Outsiders, Procreates, Reality Flaws, and Entropics.

Supernal Entities: Fae (Arcadia), Demons (Pandemonium), Shades (Stygia), Beasts (Primal Wilds), and Angels (Aether). Supernal entities have seem similar to spirits but have no Influences or Manifestations, and don’t even use Essence—they use Arcana and Mana instead.

Verges & other Shadow Realm Anomalies


Natives: Spirits


The most common type of Verge (Verges are generally torn holes in reality where two worlds mingle in an unstable and unhindered manner) Shadows Verges are spots where the Gauntlet (a layer of interference that separates the physical plane from the Shadow) has been worn to nothing and things can pass freely between them.  Usually mages just call them Verges.  Like other Verges they are semi-permanent, tied to a location and almost never where there are lots of people.  Some may be keyed, requiring a certain action or resonance to open or may open intermittently as the result of some other mechanism (examples: triggers such as sacrificial, temporal, conditional, ritual actions).  Spirits and ethereal entities that get on the near side of the Gauntlet manifest in the Twilight state.
There are also other anomalies involving the Gauntlet and Shadow which a mage might encounter on the material side of existence such as Dead Spots.  Dead Spots are places where a certain singular resonant entity (person, place, thing…) is bolstering the Gauntlet to the point where nothing, not even the motes of resonance generated by emotions or correspondences can get into the Shadow. Some Dead Spots are so well fortified that no Shadow can exist in the same location at all.  These places drain life and substance out of the physical world and can be very dangerous, especially to supernatural creatures and spirits.  Mages may strengthen the Gauntlet with Spirit magic as a defensive measure for a Sanctum but don’t usually create a blight such as this.  Verges into the Shadow are rarely naturally occurring and usually have some sort of catalyst that may be countered or removed in order for the Gauntlet to slowly heal.


Rat Nests & Spider Webs

((Natives: Beshilu & Azlu))

Other Anomalies at the crossroads between the Shadow and the Phemeral World are places where the Gauntlet has been damaged.  Sometimes strange spirits and hybrid creatures may chew up the Gauntlet until it thins to create a verge.  These Rat Nests also seem to have actual swarms of strange rats around them…  On the opposite end of the spectrum one could encounter places where physical and spiritual spiders may spin webs that rereinforce the Gauntlet to the point where it can create Dead Spots.  Neither are good for the spiritual or physical landscape of an area.

Demesnes


A Demesne is a weak, artificial Supernal Verge, created by at least one mage’s soul stone. Mages create them to enhance their ritual spaces and allow easy access to the Astral Realms, but they’re much smaller and more fragile than a true Supernal Verge – Sleepers entering a Demesne cause Dissonance, and can destroy it.  Multiple soul stones can be used to amplify the range of the Demesnes and determine which Arcana are bolstered by the Demesne.  Magic cast within a Demesnes is almost never Vulgar.

Desecration Sites


Natives: Infernal Demons (aka Infernals or Akothertoi)


Some locations have been the sites of such travesty, suffering, and depravity that they gain resonance akin to Abaddon (also know as the Inferno) and Infernals are drawn to the location in hopes of infesting and corrupting any aspect of reality they can exploit.  Entities of pure unbridled vice, the Akothertoi greedily corrupt life and take all they can.  The rarest Desecration sites may support full-on Hellgates if the proper conditions occur but the door never says open for long.



The Ruins of Before

Aliases: Atlantean Temples, 3rd Age Sites

Mages sometimes find strange ruins and temples that seem to have been built before the Fall, either by Atlantean mages or other cultures (and people, and things that were almost people, and things that were definitely not people) in the vanished world Before. Those surviving to the modern day are guarded by powerful spells, contain deadly secrets, and act as enticing Mysteries to the Awakened. Despite many attempts, ruins of Before are impossible to date – Time spells report inconsistent or nonsensical results – or even place into a typography with one another. It’s not that they hail from Atlantis, which no longer ever existed. It’s that they each seem to hail from a slightly different Atlantis, or a post-Atlantean, hyperborean time that never happened.


Temple Guardians and the Bound

Some Ruins of Before contain entities. Mages call those set by the ancients as watchdogs Temple Guardians, and those which seem to be imprisoned The Bound. Bound, in particular, are the source of much speculation among the Orders, who believe they were once Supernal entities exiled to the Fallen World by the Exarchs. Their rapacious hunger for Mana, and the commandments some Seers receive to keep them safely imprisoned, seems to bear that out.


((Chantries and Wendings))

((Strange pocket-worlds obeying their own physical laws, a Chantry is the private universe of an archmaster, built within her soul. Mages seeking the insight and wisdom of the Imperial Practices, or just looking for a miracle, trace rumors of the Irises leading to Chantries of archmasters who might be able to help. Chantries remain even after their owner dies or Ascends beyond the Fallen World entirely, becoming Wendings. A Wending is a fragile half-real realm, sought out as shortcuts and secret routes between realms in the Fallen World by knowledgeable cabals, but they run the risk of shattering and depositing travelers into the Abyss and certain death.))

Monsters, Cryptids, and Genius Locii

The strange places of the world aren’t sterile and empty. Life persists anywhere, often warping into unusual forms that become just as Mysterious as their habitat. Cryptids, humans with paranormal abilities, extinct animals, nearly-human races like the Rmohals, and other odd beings all exist. Sometimes a place itself becomes self-aware; a Genius Locus or living place, often confused for spiritual influence or the result of mages casting Mind spells.  There are also Genus Territorialis which is a literally ghost of a location haunting a location.



((Not included In Character are spatial pockets, bolt holes, and infrastructure of the God-Machine.  Infrastructure and 3rd Age Ruins are not limited to the material world and can be found anywhere.  Sometimes they can be confused with each other.))


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