[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition] Media that Inspired Mage

Inspirational Media for MtA & MtA 2e

Mage draws on stories of obsession, conspiracy, mysteries, and the occult. It’s a popular fusion of fantasy and horror fiction is replete with occult detectives, wielding magic against mystery. Here’s some of the media that inspired this game:  My additions are in blue!

Recommended Mage Media:

Hellblazer graphic novel series, published by Vertigo comics.
John Constantine, nicotine-stained, trench-coated asshole demonologist and mage, has been the character other occult detectives are measured against for decades. His jackdaw magical style fits Awakening’s mages, but it’s his sheer inability to let a mystery go despite the ever-increasing fallout for those around him that really makes him stand out.

Read the first volume and couldn't get enough, I plan on collecting Hellblazer in the near-future.

The Invisibles graphic novel series, published by Vertigo comics.
The titular magician-terrorists assign “cabal” roles by symbolism, take on Shadow Names, and fight the forces of universal oppression in a world that’s a hologram between larger, Supernal realities. The story’s antagonists were a primary inspiration behind the Seers of the Throne; an early arc even has what Mage calls Profane Urim in it.

This is actually the first time I am hearing of this series but it sounds really good.  I plan to order and read the first volume to check it out.

The Night Watch book series, by Sergei Lukyanenko.
This series Deals with a gritty Chronicles of Darkness-like Moscow with a many- layered magical world underneath, only the shallows of which are accessible. If you need a hand understanding the Fallen / Supernal Worlds, give it a go.

I've got this series key'd up on my reading list and have been anticipating reading for years.  Long overdue.

House of Leaves novel, by Mark Z. Danielewski.
Thus book is a metatextual horror novel, at least two layers of which could describe a Mastigos Awakening or Pandemonic Verge. Beware the Minotaur.

I've had this one key'd up for a long time.  Too bad its not available on audiobook or kindle :(  I really want to read it soon!

The Dresden Files book series, by Jim Butcher.
This epic series describes a supernatural noir world inhabited by Chronicles of Darkness-like monsters and a wizard private eye who means well but often ends up hurting himself more than the bad guys.

You better believe I've read this series three times over, highest recommendation.

Marla Mason book series, by T. A. Pratt
I love me some Marla.  She's a pragmatic and morally loose Chief Sorcerer and her world is filled with a million creative ways that other mages perform their craft.  The world very much resonates CoD and the stories told in the series are captivating.

Rivers of London book series, by Ben Aaronovitch.
These are the adventures of Peter Grant, a young officer in the Metropolitan Police; who, following an unexpected encounter with a ghost, is recruited into the small branch of the Met that deals with magic and the supernatural.

Alex Verus book series, by Benedict Jacka
Dresden + UK + MtA and you get yourself some Alex Verus.  He's clearly an Acanthus that uses heavy amounts of Time and Fate but essentially only acts as a Diviner, having no flashy magic to assert himself. But being able to predict what is going to happen through possible futures is an incredibly understated and potent power.  This series is a joy to read.  He breaks the mold.

The Secret World video game, by Funcom.  
Sweet Jesus this game is so much like Mage in concept, story, and design that it feels like MtA a lot of the time.  You join one of three Orders, form Cabals and participate in global plot.  I started playing this MMORPG in 2012 and I haven't stopped!

Non-Mage Media:

True Detective television series, created by Nic Pizzolatto, is an anthology TV series, each season showing a different cast of damaged, obsessed individuals chasing a terrible Mystery.  I may have to check this series out...

Dark City movie, directed by Alex Proyas, initially looks like it might be Mage Media but veers into a different genre by the end. An amnesiac suspected of murder tries to discover the secrets behind the strange, night-time city he inhabits.  This is one of my favorite movies of all time, it is super magey.

Inception movie, pretty clearly some great dream or astral stuff going on there...

The Matrix movie, oh come on, you can't tell me you are surprised.  We are all stuck in a mass world-simulation?  The world as we know it is a lie?  Any of this ringing any bells?

The X-Files television series.  What can I say about a classic?  Sure, while its heavy on the alien stuff and a clear predecessor to Supernatural (Which I'd include if this was a HtV inspirational media list), the X-Files never gives you all the answers when you deal with the paranormal and you walk away feeling like you know less than you did.  Loose ends firm up or remain loose and its hard to duplicate the mounting sense of paranoia.  Government conspiracies and old secrets make for great game-fuel.

John Dies at the End and This Book is Full of Spiders books, by David Wong, depict the mind-bending possibilities of the Supernal World, as two layabouts take a drug that peels away the barriers of perception.I really enjoyed reading them.

Miriam Black book series, by world famous (at least to me) Chuck Wendig! Very Moros.  But also her struggle with fate and destiny, trying to change things, and eventually realizing she is a tool to destroy vile serial killers.  Miriam is a drifter who sees the death of anyone she touches. Violent, sweary, and funny along with the horror. 

The Shadow Police book series, by Paul Cornell. 
This is a great new series about a group of Police in London who are essentially granted Mage Sight and decide to start taking on the night.

TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information essays,by Erik Davis.
A collection of essays about the spiritual implications of technology and myths that dreamed up the information age.  It's also great inspiration for both the God-Machine, the Lie, and the Exarchs.


Previously published by Onyx Path/White Wolf:

Although this book contains everything needed for the game, we’ve published many other books for the Chronicles of Darkness that can enhance your Mage chronicle.

This is basically the writers telling us that the below materials are generally accepted as canon even though technically they are MtA first edition stuff.  Well, they did pick some great ones, the Order books, especially GotV, are excellent!

The Chronicles of Darkness Rulebook is a definitive handbook for the rules, including expanded systems and character options. Citations to the Rulebook in this volume refer to the second edition.

The six Order books detail the inner workings of their subjects, going in-depth into their history, philosophies, and factions:
- The Free Council
- The Guardians of the Veil
- The Silver Ladder
- The Mysterium
- The Adamantine Arrow




Left-Hand Path details those mages proscribed and pushed away by the Orders: the heretics, apostates, Mad, Scelesti, and Reapers.

The Fallen World Anthology contains twelve short stories of Mystery and magic. It’s a good way to immerse yourself in the Chronicles of Darkness, and gain inspiration for your own Mage stories.

Three Shades of Night cool nWoD fiction that takes place in Chicago and is organized in three parts telling the stories of the Kindred, Uratha and Mages of the city trying to deal with a shared problem that could destroy the city.

The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology because how can you introduce the Chronicles of Darkness corebook and God-Machine Chronicle without a collection of stories about the machine that runs and ruins the world.

I open this up to you for the comments threads: what media inspires your Mage gameplay?  By no means is the above an all-inclusive list for me.  There is tons more I could add!  What didn't make my list that you think should be included?  Chances are I just haven't read it yet, which is something I must do before endorsing it.  I want to hear your thoughts!

More Inspirations

These sources didn't make the character/page count but were recommended by the developers and creators of Mage: The Awakening and MtA 2e.

Comics & Graphic Novels:

Lots of people use film and television metaphors for roleplaying games – they “cast” their player and Storyteller characters and insert act breaks. I tend to think rpgs are a lot closer to serial comics – they have a somewhat elastic sense of continuity when they go on too long, and break down into chapters/issues that group into stories which are themselves part of larger arcs.

1.      Promethea - an Alan Moore comic about a woman who merges with the Astral incarnation of magic. It features a Tarot- and Kabala-steeped otherworld that’s inspirational for the Astral Realms.

2.      The Books of Magic - Neil Gaiman’s take on a modern-day mage. Ignore Tim Hunter’s close physical resemblance to another boy wizard (this came first anyway), and take a look at the initial miniseries if nothing else. Among meditations on the nature of magic, mystery, and choice, Gaimain utterly nails Atlantis in a single page.

3.      Locke and Key, by Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son), shows a bereaved family go up against magical family secrets, a house of secrets, and what could easily be an Abyssal entity.

      4. Kill 6 Billion Demons 

Literature:

1.      Umberto Eco - is good at dissecting the motivation of mystery-seekers; 

2.      The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum are both appropriate for different reasons. The Weird History fiction of Tim Powers mixes occult research with real events and spins yarns of magic crawling under the world’s skin.

3.      The best three books for Awakening are The Anubis Gates, Declare, and Last Call.

4.      The Illuminatus! Trilogy and the Historical Illuminatus by Robert Shea and Bob Wilson mainline the kind of twisting, societies-as-mysteries we’re after for the Orders.

5.      The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte shows the main character’s descent through a Mystery Play, and if you read the book instead of watching the movie you aren’t supporting Roman Polanski.

5.      Carter & Lovercraft novels by by Jonathan L. Howard is a Pandora's Box loaded with all of the wonderfully twisted stuff I love, including a two-fisted homicide cop turned P.I., warped realities, a mysterious bookstore, the Cthulhu mythos, a dash of romance, and creepy fish-men. 

6.      Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk depicts a particularly violent and strange Thyrsus Awakening. You shouldn’t die without any scars.

7.      The Great and Secret Show and Imajica – by Clive Barker.  They show off different facets of Awakening’s world, with rival magicians, layers of reality and – in Great and Secret Show – something close to what Awakening means by “Atlantis”.

8.      The Dark Tower series – by Stephen King.  I know I use his multiverse quite a bit in my Chronicles. Most Stephen King books could take place in the World of Darkness.  If I listed all the good ones (IMHO) I'd have to make an entire separate post.

9.      The Hellbound Heart – by Clive Parker.  Also the Scarlet Chronicles, anything with a Cenobite is awesome.

1.      Constantine is a frustrating adaptation — it ignores most of the character of the original, but is surprisingly faithful to the plot beats of the story it’s adapted from (“Dangerous Habits”, volume 5 of the current reprint drive, if you’re curious). Ignoring where it came from, it’s a perfectly good modern-occult film, and has one of the best depictions of Mage Sight committed to film.

2.      Donnie Darko  - If Fight Club’s a Thyrsus Awakening, then Donnie Darko is an Acanthus’ mystery play. Caught in a time loop punctuated by his own unjust, random death, a young man starts seeing time. The scene where people’s timelines extrude out of their bodies like silvery threads is pure Acanthus Mage Sight.

3.      Memento and The Prestige - The other non-superhero works of Christopher Nolan are all meditations on obsession in puzzle box world. There’s something for Awakening in all of them – a quote from Memento opens Fallen World’s Sleepers Chapter, The Prestige warns of rivalry turned to hubris and murder.

Television Shows:

1.    The Lost Room -  deals with the aftermath of reality going wrong in a lonely desert motel room, transforming everything in it into a powerful artifact now sought after by occult conspirators.

Video Games:

1.    The Assassins Creed games - feature rival conspiracies (one dedicated to freedom, the other control) astrally-projecting back into history to seek clues to the vanished magical civilization that created humanity and left potent artifacts behind. You can get all kinds of inspiration for Awakening from it, especially if you’re using a historical setting. The Stanley Parable is short, but is The Lie in a three-hour experience. It’s also very, very funny.

Non-Fiction:

1.    Atlantis and the Cycles of Time - If you’re interested in where Atlantis came from in a modern occult setting, try Joscelyn Godwin’s Atlantis and the Cycles of Time, a survey of the 19^th and 20^thcentury occultist movements Awakening’s cosmology and backstory are based on.

2.    Thinking With Demons - If you want to look at what people really thought about magic in European history, try Stuart Clark’s Thinking With Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe.

3.    The Encyclopedia of Symbolism - If you’re interested in the Supernal World, get your hands on this book.

4.    The original Awakening team recommended The Magician’s Companion: A Practical and Encyclopedic Guide to Magical & Religious Symbolism by Bill Whitcomb.

5.    Ken Hite’s Suppressed Transmissions are also an excellent guide to the weird. Ken wrote on Secrets of the Ruined Temple, early in Awakening‘s line, and this series (originally written for Steve Jackson Games’ magazine) is worth the difficulty you’ll face in finding it.

Music: - Try this on. 

More inspirations here....