[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition] Induction: The Fangs of Mara

 Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Why did Chimera join the Nightmares?

From the perspective of one of her Masques, the Hearthkeeper... (short by Hannah Nyland) 

She was young, barely a fresh concept, when the Abyss came to Chimera’s Oneiros. For the Hearthkeeper, there was only a brief childhood before the black decay crept in; before old scenes crumbled and swarms of new worlds sprang up overnight, every one soured by pain, fear and resentment. Her new home wept pus and bled black ooze.

Former dream actors become something monstrous and gaping. Tentacles grew thick like vines - even growing bold enough to attack the Hearthkeeper and her sister Masque, the Good Death, choking them by the throats and throttling their bodies. She still bears the scars, hidden beneath her robes. The Hearthkeeper cut frantically at the invaders with her cards, the Good Death with her knife, and still it wasn’t enough. Chimera’s daimon, Grace, ferreted them away to one of the few remaining places of safety before disappearing to take control of the body herself.

It ended in a pyrrhic victory at best; they didn’t so much escape the Abyss as they were dragged out of it, bloody and screaming. Better than annihilation. But only just.

Later, a light came forth to the Oneiros alongside a mage named Jack. The rot was burned away in swaths, mangled scenes flourished under its light, and for a while, The Hearthkeeper dared to believe that things might be better.

It couldn’t be. Too much damage. Too much broken. Before her home had been imperfect; now it was a ruin. Whole connections and possibilities ripped away, scenes aching like raw nerves, impotent rage leaking in through in places where the scenes cracked. The whole Oneiros was poisoned by distrust and a lingering reek of betrayal. And those half-remembered words: “We should have left you there.” Well, yes. Maybe you should have.

The Hearthkeeper sat alone in her room, her empathy unwanted and aimless. The Good Death invented new lows of brutality. The newly formed Avenging Son stormed about the Oneiros, leaving destruction in her wake. Grace, like Chimera, sank into a fog.

They all felt it. The world had failed them if what they’d seen could exist in it, taken away so much of what they’d believed in. They’d all been used; by destiny, by others, by paradox. What was left? Going through the motions of being normal again; friends, a therapist, classes. But only the moments of terror, glimpsed through the lens of a dream or the odd panic attack, truly felt honest.

When the offer came from Agent Simmons, they had both every choice and no defense. He put the weapon in their hands, but they were the ones who drew it. A choice was made in the space of a heartbeat. They entered the mind of an Acamoth, the Aboleth, and almost fell there, sank forever into its depths. But in the end, they carved its letters on their soul and came out something infinitely stronger. A Fang of Mara, an artist in the studies of fear.

So what if they’d had to damn themselves to do it? Everyone was already damned. “Sins for a just end”, always. Like so many other things, the Guardians had gotten that right.

The Oneiros was bolstered by something it hadn’t had in a long time: certainty. The world may have become a prison, but prisons could be broken. They would set everyone free, force the ugly honesty that was so sorely lacking, even if they had to destroy themselves to do it.

And so in the present, the Hearthkeeper sits alone in her empty room again, and waits with a gentle smile on her face for something to crawl out from the cocoon Chimera has been weaving over the last three years, wrapped in rot and dread instead of silk. Whatever emerges may be a queen, but she harbors doubts that it will still be human.

It sickens every part of her. But she is the Hearthkeeper, and she makes wishes come true.

Whatever the cost.  

Dossier: The Fangs of Mara

What’s is Mara?

“Mara” has two meanings, both potentially relevant to the Legacy’s name. In Anglo-Saxon folklore, the mara was an evil spirit that sat on the chests of sleeping people and induced bad dreams. The “mare” in the word “nightmare” refers to this entity. In Buddhism, on the other hand, Mara is a Satanic figure who personifies all the illusions and obstacles that prevent enlightenment. Mara strove to prevent Siddhartha Gautama from becoming the Buddha by distracting him with desire — and terror.

“Fangs of Mara” seems to suggest a unique entity. Could the Germanic dream-tormentor come from the Buddhist archdemon? Or does one of the legends conceal some deeper meaning? Other theories put forth over the years by members of the Legacy range from lost knowledge of an Abyssal lord of nightmares to the shadow name of an Oracle to a simple mistranslation that somehow stuck. If any of the elder Fangs know some shred of ancient
lore that sheds some light on the Legacy’s name, they aren’t talking.

Pentacle Recruitment: 

What little the orders know about the Fangs of Mara leads most mages to abhor them — but can tempt a few. Mages of the Mysterium regard fear as a product of ignorance. Still, some wisdom might be distilled from terror or some secret lore wrested from the dreams of the native entities of the Abyss. For mages of the Adamantine Arrow and the Silver Ladder, the promise of the Nightmares is especially tempting: the fear of one’s enemies, and, potentially, critical (if cryptic) knowledge about the acamoth and the denizens of the Abyss. Of course, all but a handful of Arrow and Ladder willworkers turn away from the poisoned gifts of the Fangs, but a few succumb. The Fangs hold little attraction for the Free Council; what little the order knows about the Legacy inspires loathing, just as with most sensible mages. An unwary Libertine might seek out the Nightmares just to find out why other mages hate them so much, however, and so be ensnared.

The Guardians of the Veil are the mages perhaps most likely to embrace the way of the Nightmares.  Many Guardians are well-versed in terror tactics used to preserve the

sanctity of the Mysteries. Mages in the most secretive Atlantean order can also fall prey to the romance of the hard choice and accept terrible stains upon their souls to serve some greater good. Such Guardians embrace their darkest fears, and those of others, in order to obtain the secrets they desire or to unravel the dark designs of the Abyss. Another sort of Guardian entirely is occasionally drawn to the Nightmares, one who has lost the way of Wisdom and has become a creature of the terror he creates in order to preserve the sanctity of the hidden world.

Appearance:

Most Nightmares try to appear relatively normal (by whatever local standards apply). After all, they have enough to worry about in dealing with other willworkers without drawing undue attention to themselves from Sleepers. Other Fangs of Mara, younger and less experienced, put on what they perceive to be frightful trappings (theatrically sinister-looking clothing, menacing tattoos or piercings, even ritual scarification or other acts of self-mutilation), but most older Nightmares look down on that sort of attention-grabbing nonsense. Of course, more powerful Fangs tend to carry an aura of dread and unease with them, no matter how they attire themselves.

Fangs of Mara often have an unnerving quality in their stares, somewhat akin to that seen in the eyes of a hardened killer or someone on the brink of madness. Some Fangs develop nervous habits (or maybe tics), go gray at a young age or otherwise exhibit characteristics of longtime exposure to an unhealthy amount of fear. Some Nightmares lose their appetites and become gaunt, while others have nearly constantly accelerated pulses and respiration, and seem perpetually on the verge of “fight or flight” panic. A few Fangs become the archetypal “cackling madmen,” babbling to themselves (or to anyone that will listen) about, “unspeakable terrors, roiling just beyond the edge of the mind’s eye,” and such. Aside from one or two disturbing qualities, though, most Nightmares seem ordinary enough to pass among Sleepers (or other Awakened).

Nimbuses:

Nightmares occasionally find their nimbuses twisted into terrible shapes, as the fear they hold within their souls twists the outward reflections of their Awakened power. Some Fangs manifest half-seen twisting tentacles curling around their bodies, while writhing shadows or hideous, demonic shapes loom around others. Odd tricks of space may surround a Nightmare, such as free-floating shards of  mirror or the warpage of a mirage, revealing unearthly vistas. There appears to be no rhyme or reason as to why this phenomenon happens to some Fangs and not to others.

Background:

Prospective Fangs of Mara are often people who have, in some way, worked with fear during the course of their lives, especially those to whom fear becomes both art and science. A crude and bullying bouncer at a nightclub revels in the fear he creates, but he wields it as a blunt instrument and has no appreciation for its subtleties. A psychologist ho works with sleep studies, trying to unravel the chemical and psychological causes of nightmares, on the other hand, would make an attractive recruit for the Fangs. Another type of potential Fang is someone whose Sleeping life was, at some critical juncture, defined by fear and who eventually learned to overcome it. A person driven into an institution after a mind-numbing trauma, for instance, and who later conquered the terror of that event, could well be sought out by the Nightmares. So could someone with recurring night terrors who finally won out over them through force of will, rather than medication. Confronting horror is important to the Fangs of Mara, and a person who understands her own fear is a step closer to mastering all fear.

Perhaps the least common of the “default” ways by which one comes to the attention of the Fangs of Mara is to survive an encounter with an acamoth or other powerful Abyssal being. People who do so come away with scars (both physical and psychological, though only the latter interests the Nightmares). Given the rarity of willworkers who actually clash with entities of the Abyss and live to tell the tale, however, these sorts of Nightmares form a clear minority of the Legacy’s already-small membership.

Organization:

The Fangs of Mara are loosely organized at best, though the mentor-student bond is a powerful one. Given the fervor with which Consilii hunt the Nightmares (if the Consilii know one is near), the Legacy needs a widespread and decentralized organization to survive. Still, the ties between teacher and student, for good or ill, help to hold them together as adherents of a single, cohesive philosophy.

A Nightmare usually adopts a cellular structure. Each individual Fang knows his teacher and one or two others. More powerful adherents to the Legacy often know a few more members, but even the most well-connected Nightmare doesn’t know more than seven or so others. In the rare Consilium in which the Fangs of Mara are not hunted (or, perhaps, hold sway, whether covertly or blatantly), this restriction is somewhat relaxed. Fangs from outside such Consilii, however, rarely associate with those within them. The Nightmares sensibly doubt the prospects of such a “good thing” lasting forever and know the probable consequences when it eventually goes bad.

The Fangs of Mara have killed their own over potential threats to the Legacy as a whole. For instance, a powerful and influential Nightmare captured and delivered to a Consilium could expose a significant fraction of the Legacy to danger (or at least force the Fangs to flee their current lives). Such a thing is extremely uncommon, however. Few mages from outside the Legacy combine the knowledge,desire, mystic might and opportunity needed to effectively besiege an entire (deliberately scattered) Legacy.

Outside of the mentor-student relationship, the Legacy has no formal titles, no special forms of address or ceremonial gestures of obeisance made by one Nightmare toward another. Experienced and powerful Fangs simply command the respect they feel they are due, and can make their displeasure manifest upon irreverent younger Nightmares in many awful ways. For the most part, though, young Nightmares show honor to their elders. Such willworkers have seen things that would shatter most human minds, and many of them have indulged in acts of such splendorous fear and horror that would make even the most callous and jaded mental health professional cringe.

Concepts: Prodigal psychiatrist, cerebral torturer, shellshocked veteran, dignified lunatic, long-term abuse survivor

History: 

As one might expect for such a secretive Legacy, other mages can find little reliable information about the origins and history of the Fangs of Mara. The Fangs tell their students that the Legacy is very old, but even they don’t

know their origin. Anyone inside the Legacy or out who wants to learn more must follow slender clues found in manuscripts known only to the Awakened.

For instance, a 16th-century Greek willworker known only by his shadow name, Armenius, makes reference in his journals to the destruction of a thing that may or may not have been an acamoth. It was almost certainly an Abyssal being of tremendous power. He writes of “those wise in the Power, and sworn to the service of fear,” as the mages responsible for the entity’s demise. Armenius collected his account from the lone survivor, a ranting madman. Some scholars of obscure Awakened lore believe the willworkers mentioned were Fangs of Mara. Naturally, the entry invites some uncomfortable questions for other mages about what the Nightmares want. Nightmares who have read the account believe it describes a phenomenal success on the part of their Legacy. Armenius said only that the battle took place in the Black Forest of Germany. Attempts to find the battleground so the truth might be divined with magic have so far failed.

The first mage definitively identified as a self-proclaimed “Fang of Mara” was a Silver Ladder willworker whom the Guardians of the Veil captured in London in the 1893. She had used her mastery of the mystic arts to pose as an inmate in lunatic asylum. The Guardians caught her torturing the other inmates with terrible visions of fear, using them as studies into the tolerances of the human psyche. Under great duress, the captive revealed that she had intended to unleash the fruits of her research upon her rivals within the Ladder.

No other such reference would be heard (outside of the Legacy itself) until 1967, when a Guardian of the Veil living in Los Angeles, California, became the hollowed-out host for an Abyssal entity (a Qlippoth). After he was put down (at the cost of three mages’ lives), the papers retrieved from his home mentioned the Fangs of Mara. The documents did not make clear whether the Guardian had pursued, or aspired to pursue, the way of the Nightmares. No Fang is known to have mentored him, but the ignominy of his demise was also poor incentive for any teacher to come forward and claim him.

Since that time, the Fangs of Mara have become, slowly but surely, known among certain scholars of obscure Awakened lore. The Fangs’ appearances are always brief but always accompanied by horror. Few mages care to know much about them; some Fangs are amused by what they perceive as an “ignore it and it’ll go away” mentality. Then again, few mages have much opportunity to learn about the Fangs, anyway. Allegedly, the Fangs hide in the underbelly of Awakened society, recruiting from among infernalists with few scruples and an unhealthy fascination with the power of fear.

Their critics say the Fangs are willing thralls to the acamoth and their kin in the unfathomable horror of the Abyss. The Fangs themselves consider this a slander born of misunderstanding. While some Fangs of Mara quite probably are slaves to Abyssal entities, such Fangs are, given the Legacy’s self-appointed task, in the minority. In fact, Fangs of Mara occasionally drop a dime on Scelesti or other slaves to dark powers (Awakened or not) to cabals or even entire Consilii. Likewise, scattered accounts circulate of mages facing off against Abyssal horrors that were only defeated through the timely intervention of a Nightmare. The stories certainly aren’t enough to make the Fangs seem trustworthy, but the Fangs in them do sometimes manage to seem noble, or at least a necessary evil. No willworker is concretely known to have slain one of the acamoth, but the Nightmares may represent the best chance the Awakened have of actually doing so.

Society and Culture :

Fangs of Mara are ill received by most Consilii that know anything about the Fangs, and most of them are thus forever mindful to keep their true natures secret. Indeed, Nightmares are exceedingly wary of other mages who learn of their Legacy. Fangs do not react with immediate hostility and violence when other mages learn their secret, if they can help it. After all, the way of fear is perilously close to the path of the Scelesti. The Fangs know that one misstep separates them from mastering the acamoth and their ilk to being mastered themselves.

Fangs often avoid prolonged contact with one another, unwilling to accept the risk to what is a relatively small Legacy. The loss of three or five Nightmares is intolerably large by their reckoning, and so they stay in contact with one another through less direct means.  Communication through dreams is a common tactic for them,and they establish and destroy the connections between their members (via the Space Arcanum) as needed, making it virtually impossible for outsiders to use one Fang to track down others. Particularly potent Nightmares convene during Astral sojourns in the Temenos, though the subjects discussed during these incorporeal gatherings remain unknown to lesser Fangs.

Teachers pass on to their students the arts of working strange magics upon the acamoth and sending messages through the dreams of such beings. Any mage who has undergone the “Nightmare Journey” spell can use the Mind Arcanum to transmit messages to any other such willworker through the dreams of the acamoth. The Arcanum dot effects for such telepathic communication are as normal, but count as a “Strong” connection and cannot be traced by mages who have not entered the nightmares of the spawn of the Abyss. Given the medium of the missives’ transmission, these missives are almost always tainted by disturbing and unearthly imagery, and unclean feelings. Individual Nightmares may know other magics worked on or through the acamoth, but these are not common to all Fangs.

Because of the Legacy’s induction practices, many students see their teachers as tormentors and hold considerable enmity toward them, even long after the students have joined the Legacy. As a whole, the Nightmares consider this arrangement a good thing: it keeps the students sharp. So long as neither the teacher’s nor the apprentice’s personal issues escalate to actual violence, the Fangs don’t usually intrude upon one another’s student-mentor relationships. Fangs who do not endure such an adversarial relationship, however, often remain close to their teachers and are happy to maintain ties to wiser and more experienced Fangs. If at all possible, however, the Nightmares keep those ties at a distance. Only in places where one or two of them are powerful enough to hold secret sway in a Consilium (or, alternately, in the rare Consilii that accept them), do they begin to demonstrate any higher level of organization.

Under very rare circumstances, a Fang will find some small measure of acceptance in “polite” Awakened society. Perhaps a particular Consilium has an exceedingly tolerant Hierarch or the Nightmare was a student or favorite of an influential Councilor before his induction. In such a case, an adherent to this Legacy can operate with reasonable safety. Slightly more often, an influential willworker understands the potential benefits from having civil, reliable, but secret, contact with a Nightmare. One never knows when the most intimate possible understanding of fear could come in handy.

The ultimate objective of the Fangs of Mara is so grandiose, and seen (by those few non-Nightmares that know if it) as such a colossal work of Hubris, as to make virtually any sane willworker see the Fangs as enemies. It takes an especially powerful sense of pride to imagine that any artifice of mortal magic could destroy the acamoth and their ilk (despite how much some mages want to believe). The Fangs believe it, though. More even than their reverence for the power of fear, this objective — the overthrow of the lords of the Abyss — binds the Legacy together. It is the one thing they all agree upon. If the Awakened world paints the Fangs as villains because of that struggle, well, the Fangs will be vindicated in the end. History will remember them as the saviors that they are. At least, that’s how the Nightmares see things.

The Fangs of Mara have less certainty about how to achieve this great work. Some of them struggle to decipher the fever-dreams of the acamoth, certain that unlocking their unholy wisdom is the surest path to obtaining the power necessary to destroy them. Other Fangs maintain that a shift in human consciousness as a whole, affected through the medium of fear, will harden even Sleepers to the terrors of the Abyss. The Fangs agree only that that the acamoth need human dreamers. Therefore, experimenting with nightmares may expose some critical weakness within the chthonic beings’ seemingly unassailable power.

Induction 

Nightmares tend to be drawn into their Legacy in one of two ways. The first way is a harrowing journey into fear, inspired by the would-be teacher without the prospective student’s knowledge or consent. Terrifying dreams await her each time her head hits the pillow and half-glimpsed visions of horror dog her waking steps. Depending upon how she reacts to the “training,” she may be approached by the Nightmare, left broken in mind and spirit or eventually left alone. Fangs inducted through such means tend either to be of higher Wisdom than the other sort, or else of very low Wisdom (having been all but broken by the tender mercies of their teachers.)

The other common path to induction begins with the prospective student approached by the mentor, and encouraged to create fear and terror in others. Of course, only a mage who seems truly receptive to this notion is offered this opportunity, save by the most foolish Nightmares (and few of those sorts survive long enough to develop their own abilities, let alone pass on anything they learned.) The end result, ideally, creates a willworker monstrous and callous enough to adopt the philosophy of the Fangs of Mara — to embrace the tools of the enemy, so that those very tools might be turned back upon him.

Regardless of which road brought the new Nightmare to her Legacy, she is next made to enter into what may well be one of the greatest trials of her Awakened life. She submits herself to the “Nightmare Journey” spell (see below), with the deliberate intent of encountering one of  the acamoth and immersing herself in the thoughts and dreams of that chthonic intelligence. Once there, the mage either learns to master the nightmare imaginings of those dread beings, or is consumed by them. Some willworkers’ bodies die with their faces contorted into expressions of purest fright, while others snap back to wakefulness, their minds shattered by the horrors they have witnessed. The Fangs lose about half of their prospective members that way, but the mages who survive with their sanity more or less intact are reborn, having harnessed the dreams of that which should not exist, and conquered fear thereby.

At each stage of growing understanding (as a Fang prepares to learn his next attainment), he again undergoes the “Nightmare Journey.” Some say that each sojourn is easier than the last, as the spirit becomes inured to the agonies of looking upon such unadulterated monstrosity. Others claim that each successive journey is more difficult than the previous one, as more and more of the entity’s attentions become focused upon a mind and spirit too small to easily weather such scrutiny. Still others find that the descent into the dreams of the unthinkable gets neither easier nor more difficult with time. It is, simply, what it is. Many Fangs prefer not to dwell overmuch on the subject, though. Some things are best kept locked away in the heart, even by mages who would learn to master horror from beyond space and time.

The Hard Sell

Time and again, it has been shown that a person who suffers intense or long-term torture can be made to feel identity with and loyalty toward his tormentor. Cults, kidnappers, professional interrogators and abusive spouses alike have all exploited this natural human tendency, at the expense of their victims. Some Fangs of Mara use this technique to draw in new members, though only the most skilled or powerful tend to enjoy much success with it.

Consider the process to be similar to that of brainwashing (see World of Darkness: Antagonists sourcebook, p. 77). Since it is rarely good Storytelling to attempt to horrify a player’s character into a Legacy she may not want to belong to, no systems are actually provided for this process. (You may simply allow a character to react to this treatment however she wishes, subject to the results of some Composure + Resolve rolls, perhaps suffering a temporary derangement if she fails a roll during a particularly bad episode.) An Awakened ally of the characters’ cabal, however, may speak of hideous visions, recurring night terrors and a feeling of dread that simply will not subside, even as his sanity frays and, eventually, crumbles.

Nightmare Journeys

Needless to say, delving into the thoughts of demon-gods is a dangerous, potentially fatal, undertaking. While within the dreams of the acamoth and their ilk, a mage uses only Mental and Social Attributes, though she may make use of Physical Skills. For instance, fighting a guardian entity while within a maze with no beginning and no end, and which can only be escaped through intense contemplation of patterns of fear and madness scribed in entrails on the walls, might entail an Intelligence + Brawl roll. Conversely, pilfering a memory from the deepest recesses of an acamoth’s mind may involve a Manipulation + Larceny roll. A character upon such a journey should also have to make frequent Composure- and/or Resolve-based rolls, and may well be called upon to make rolls involving his Mind Arcanum or Gnosis. Damage that the mage suffers can be applied to either Willpower or Health, or might inflict (probably temporary) derangements.

Magic of the Fangs: Common Praxes

The Fangs of Mara have developed a number of unique spells and rotes that call upon the power of fear and nightmare. Other mages could learn these spells, but the learning probably would not be pleasant.

Psychic Violation (Mind ••••) 
MtA 2e version!


This spell floods the mind of another thinking creature with images torn from the most horrific thoughts and memories of a Fang of Mara, those spawned by looking upon the naked consciousness of one of the greatest and most  powerful beings native to the Abyss. The result is typically mind-numbing terror, as the consciousness recoils from concepts and
vistas it was truly not meant to encompass. The Fangs of Mara use this spell to cow their enemies into submission and to render them more pliant for other uses of the Mind Arcanum. In combat, Nightmares generally prefer the faster variant of the spell, while the slower one is reserved for “interrogations” and the like...



Practice: Unraveling
Action: Clash of Wills
Cost: None
Suggested Skills: Intimidation or Empathy
Primary Spell Factor: Duration

Success: Winning the Clash of Wills, the target loses a point of Willpower for each success the caster has over the target. She also loses her action for that turn (Stunned Tilt), as her mind reels from terror. This spell may still be cast as through extended spellcasting, though the first Reach is usually used to make it Instant. Unless the Fang has some way to keep subject in sight for perhaps hours, the extended version of the spell requires a sympathetic tie to the victim (and Space 2 Sympathetic Tie Attainment).

Reach +1: For the rest of duration, the subject gains the Violated Tilt and may defend herself (at her full normal Defense, and she may take dodge actions) and can, after her one turn of inactivity, take any action that does not involve directly confronting
the caster.

Reach +1: After the duration ends, when the subject first recovers Willpower (by whatever means) after that scene, she must make an Integrity or Wisdom check.  Failure inflicts the Spooked or Shaken condition for the rest of the Chapter. Sleepers may lose Integrity from this spell, Mages do not lose Wisdom.

The use of this spell by a character with a Wisdom of 4 or greater is a Wisdom sin requires a degeneration roll.  Most Fangs quickly become Inured to the use of this spell.

Nightmare Journey (Mind •••••) 
MtA 2e version!

Teachers of the Fangs of Mara use this spell to separate students’ consciousnesses from their bodies and send the consciousnesses into the thoughts of the acamoth. By means of this rote, Fangs of Mara make the Astral journey into the thoughts and dreams of the acamoth and other Abyssal entities, there to harness the maddening nightmares of things never meant for human minds to experience.



Practice: Making
Action: Withstood by Resolve, but spell automatically fails on an unwilling subject.
Cost: 1 Mana
Suggested Skills: Occult or Empathy
Primary Spell Factor: Duration (typically the first Reach is used make it last longer and the spell itself is cast ritually (extended).


As with the Mind 5 “Shadow Projection” spell, the “Nightmare Journey” creates fetters that bond the mage’s consciousness back to his body. Instead of silver thread, however, iron
chains enmesh his psychic body and wind through the bleak unreality of Abyssal  consciousness, marking the path back to life and sanity. In game terms, these chains are identical to the silver cord created by “Shadow Projection.” The spell’s effect usually lasts for one hour/scene, but the mage’s experiences within the horrid musings of the entity he encounters could haunt him much longer, or perhaps even forever.

The mage gains no Investments from communing with the acamoth, but also does not suffer Willpower loss or degeneration: the Abyssal entity doesn’t know the mage is there to tempt or torment — unless the Fang’s player rolls a dramatic failure during the spellcasting. In that case, the acamoth is quite aware of the psychic intruder and can make its customary offer.