((Out of Character (OOC) Document:
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 on September 2nd, 2014 by Dave Brookshaw of Onyx Path Publishing. ))
Legacy: The Eleventh Question
She called it an interrogation but never asked you a thing, though she spoke as if you said exactly what you wanted to hide. You volunteered more to cover your ass and make a new story look consistent with what she already knew, but that just helped her hone her non-questions. You confessed it all, in the end; better the Hierarch than the masked man outside the door.
We’re The Ones Who See
The Eleventh Question credits a 19th Century mystagogue named Lucy Caspian with the core of its philosophy. She said that every Arcanum answered an eternal question so that, for example, Mind revealed the nature of identity and thought; and Matter showed Awakened the truths of tangible, inert phenomena. Yet these were always incomplete answers, and the full Mystery of sorcery, even Ascension, required an Eleventh Question, beyond the domain of the Arcana.
While investigating a haunted estate, ghosts possessed members of Caspian’s cabal and used the victims’ own magic to not only kill each other but cover it up as an apparent murder-suicide. A Guardian hermit named Sullivan helped Caspian’s protégé Jeremiah Moon uncover the truth, clearing the names of the deceased. Combining Sullivan’s Guardian training with the philosophy Moon had learned under Caspian, the two founded the Eleventh Question and became nomadic consulting investigators. After Moon perished in their last “case,” Sullivan passed the Legacy to three Guardians, then vanished.
Mages accepted the history taught by the so-called “Jeremiad” Eleventh Question until 2008, when mystagogues claiming descent from the “real” Legacy went public, claiming that Caspian had founded the Legacy and taught it to Moon—and that Jeremiah had killed him to claim it. Members of the “Caspianite” line (both lines just refer to themselves as the Eleventh Question, and use the sectarian names for their opponents, while neutral observers use both) even suspect Sullivan arranged for the original estate murders to cover his tracks.
Even before this nasty business, other Guardians of the Veil kept the Eleventh Question at arm’s length due to the unorthodox, even bizarre way they dug up the truth. Now that Caspianites initiate worthy individuals from any Order, Guardians consider the Querents barely trustworthy, though occasionally insightful.
Origins
Parentage: Moros, Guardians of the Veil or Mysterium
Background: Many Querents hail from law enforcement backgrounds; a smaller number were mathematicians, priests, and philosophers devoted to metaphysical questions. A few Jeremiad Querents were supposedly headhunted from spy agencies. All entered the Legacy with a passion for seeking the transcendental truth behind raw facts.
Appearance: Querents often develop behavioral tics or off-putting habits from the stress of their work and a general impatience with the half-truths of ordinary human interactions.
Doctrine
Initiation: The prospective Querent must successfully investigate a mystery assigned by her tutor.
Organization: Querents don’t follow any formal hierarchy though many work in pairs. If more than two gather for any reason, it’s to deal with a Legacy-wide emergency or something really, really strange.
Theory: The Eleventh Question believes that all evidence provides clues to a holistic ultimate truth. Secrets bar the path to enlightenment; they must be exposed to the light of investigation. Yet not everyone deserves enlightenment, so they don’t usually share what they discover with a free hand, though new members from the Free Council have been known to defy the rule of secrecy.
Sorcery
Ruling Arcanum: Time
Yantras: Succeeding on an Investigation roll relevant to the spell (+2); verbally explaining a mysterious phenomenon to a trusted associate (+1); collecting samples or recording information (images, sounds, writings) relevant to the spell—note that the act of collection is the Yantra in this case, separate from possessing an item that might be used for sympathetic magic (+2); using stimulants to stay focused (+1, or +2 if this creates an adverse Condition)
Oblations: Solving a riddle or puzzle; studying esoteric magical theories; pursuing an obsessive or antisocial habit; giving an extended lecture about an intellectually challenging topic.
ATTAINMENTS
First: The Undisturbed Scene (Gnosis 2)
Prerequisites: Initiation Requirements
You usually arrive at a location before nature and human hands wipe away evidence. The authorities haven’t arrived yet to destroy subtle information, or they (or someone trying to cover her tracks) didn’t have the opportunity to do a thorough job. The mage gains extra dice equal to his Time Arcanum on one Skill roll to retrieve information from the scene. Within these bounds, the Attainment emulates “Perfect Timing” (Time 2).
Optional: Matter 1
You also may engage Active Mage Sight (Matter) upon arrival. If it must pierce any form of supernatural concealment, it automatically scores successes equal to the mage’s Matter dots.
Second: The Unobvious Answer (Gnosis 3)
Prerequisites: Time 2, Investigation 3
Studying your subject for a turn, you peer into her recent past relayed through telling behavior, minute elements of her appearance and other sensory cues. This is usually used on a person, but may also be used on a location. It duplicates the effects of the “Postcognition” spell (Time 2).
Optional: Matter 2
You may also cause liquid or solid matter that has been diluted or diffused to take the shape it possessed in the past, as long as some residue remains. This might cause wiped fingerprints to reform and washed away blood to pool in its old location. You must touch these spots. This duplicates the effects of the “Shaping” spell and applies to both liquids and particulate matter. You may decide to make the change obvious (by giving a murderer bloody hands) or subtle (recreating a clue for Sleepers who “might have missed it”).
Third: The Chance Answer (Gnosis 4)
Prerequisites: Time 3. In addition to the Investigation 3 requirement from the previous Attainment, the Querent must increase the other Skill she used to meet the requirements of the Legacy to 3, or must attain two dots in a second skill from the list of possible requirements.
Confident that the truth of a thing will be revealed, you query the flow of time to fetch information from a future where it has been revealed. You receive answers to questions that can be answered with “Yes,” “No,” or “Irrelevant” (if the question is somehow nonsensical). This resembles the spell “Divination” (p. XX; cast at +2 Reach, allowing for a greater range of questions) except that you may ask any question which you believe your future self knows the answer to (not counting the predestination paradox created by the Attainment)! If you would not have personally discovered the answer, you will intuit it as “Irrelevant.”
Optional: Matter 3
You intuitively reshape matter into an object relevant to your personal future, particularly if it involves an investigation. This might be the duplicate of a murder weapon, or an item of clothing an important person may be wearing—or a key you need to open a future door. You need matching raw materials but no tools, and from your perspective, you might “discover” it. It might become the actual future object, depending on the vagaries of time.
Fourth: The Timely Answer (Gnosis 6)
Prerequisites: Time 4, Investigation 4 and the other Skill requirements of the previous Attainment.
If you possess at least a Representational sympathetic connection to your target, you may predict her possible future actions. This duplicates the effects of the “Prophecy” spell.
Optional: Matter 4
You no longer require a Representational sympathetic connection, as Time and Matter conspire to create one for you. Impressions from the past or emanations from the future shape present matter into a Representational strength Yantra.
Fifth: The Penultimate Answer (Gnosis 8)
Prerequisites: Time 5. In addition to the Investigation 4 requirement from the previous Attainment, the Querent must increase the other Skill she used to meet the requirements of the Legacy to 4, or must attain three dots in a second Skill from the list of possible requirements, or two dots in a third Skill from the list.
You project your consciousness forward in time to inhabit a version of yourself from a possible future, for as long and as far forward in time as your Time dots and automatic spell factors will allow (use the spell “Future Legacy” on to determine how far forward you can go, but you may choose to travel less than the furthest point). After your return, this future may appear. If it does, you may elect to do exactly what you did before with exactly the same results for any action under your control (such as successes on dice rolls), or you may act differently, taking the unpredictable path. You may even avoid that possible future entirely. If you die during the exercise of this Attainment (though not the actual future) you automatically snap back to the present.
Optional: Matter 5.
When the future you experienced comes due, you may add or delete material objects (as per the spells “Ex Nihilo” or “Annihilate Matter” with combined factors equal to the lesser of your Time or Matter dots) from your person or within sensory range to give yourself an advantage. Instead of drowning, you happen to have a rebreather in your coat, or your enemy’s enchanted blade somehow vanishes. Eliminating magical objects costs 1 point of Mana.
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