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
Space and time cannot limit masters of magic. In the Time Before, ancient mages tasked powerful spirits to enact their will in the world, ensuring their beliefs would endure. Before the Fall, elaborate rituals created avatars that would return long after the passing of their masters.
When prophecies were fulfilled and dangers realized, the fated avatars would emerge. Archmasters of the Time or Fate Arcana used magic to “triggers” for these semi-sapient apparitions to appear. Fearing what might happen in the future, Atlantean prophets created spiritual servants that would rest until they were needed, warning their modern descendants when magical catastrophes were imminent. They were embodiments of Fate and Time, not Ochema or sub-souls and were also very much like spirits. They may have been at one time, part of a Supernal entity of Arcadia pulled into the Fallen World and bound in the nature of destiny itself.
Not all prophets were so altruistic, however. Some created these same spirits to ensure that their visions for reality would become true, vainly attempting to shape the future long after death. Some were created by living or dead Archmages to bring about changes in the world to shape reality to their will (or what they interpreted as the will of the Oracles or the Exarchs. It is believed that the methods codified to create Ananke are lost, perhaps creating them was only possible before the Sundering.
The mages of Ancient Greece often interpreted these avatars as the servants of Ananke, goddess and mother of the fates. Because such avatars have been seen and known before, modern incarnations share the same name.
As agents of prophecy and destiny, ananke seek out people who have the capacity to change reality; mages who can fulfill oaths long forgotten and visions long obscured. After one of these avatars finds a mage who fulfills its carefully defined criteria ((possibly one blessed or cursed with the Destiny Merit)), the ananke’s very presence alters fate around that willworker. Prophecies are fulfilled and catastrophes are made imminent.
Like the gods of Greek myth, the ananke can assume human form, often with manifestations of supernatural beauty. Their clothes and demeanor allow them to walk among mortals, but their Twilight state prevents all but the magically enlightened from either sensing their presence or seeing them as they truly are. They have registered as spirits, supernal beings, supernal constructs, or any permutation thereof. When ananke speak to a mage they have chosen, their speech can seem anachronistic, prophetic or modern and cynical, depending on their whims.
The ananke delivers its warning, reciting the cryptic details of an ancient divination to prepare the listener. If the mage is truly fortunate, the avatar works beside the mage, granting him temporary powers or abilities to avert the catastrophe. An ananke’s message could warn of the return of ancient dangers, such as a cult of Timori Banishers, acamoth or the Bound. No matter how benevolent the ananke might appear, however, its very presence forces destined events to occur. The best a mage can hope to do is minimize the damage and try to survive it.
Ananke cannot help what they are or what they do. By their very nature, they reshape reality around themselves. Mages versed in Spirit magic may akin this to a spirit’s Influence that can affect the world in a similar manner. This is decidedly supernal in nature, like how certain supernal beings can emulate spells.
An ananke appears to its chosen mage to announce that an event will happen, paying little heed to whether the mage wants it to or not. As heralds and guardians of prophecy, everything and everyone around the mage is caught up in the drama. The mage must serve as a witness so that an enlightened soul can see that the prophecy was fulfilled. Strangers can suddenly become lovers, cowards become warriors, and bystanders forget their day-to-day tedium to play a part in the scene. Sleepers are oblivious to the workings of this magic, but mages have the awareness and opportunity to react. The ananke’s influence (and Influence) reworks people and places to resolve this course of events. A mage must then struggle to deal with the consequences.
Avatars of destiny are difficult to affect directly, as one would expect. All ananke have an innate resistance to Fate, Time and Spirit magic that would alter their true natures or the manner in which destiny bends around them. Ancient archmastery from a time when magic was stronger has set them to their ways. Despite this, ruthless mages sometimes attempt to “kill the messenger” — a foolish act that can substitute the mage for another victim in this drama. A vengeful ananke does not need to attack a mage who threatens it with mere violence. Fate, coincidence and destiny itself are far crueler.
Visions of an ananke’s wrath have been known to inspire dreamers and prophets, appearing in art, literature and poetry. The most drastic visions are woven into the text of ancient tomes, the lore of sacred societies, and the rituals of cults. A mage who openly uses magic to avert catastrophe finds it easier to do so in the presence of an ananke. An ill-fated mage finds himself at the center of a whirlwind, or crushed by that same force if he rejects his role. For all anyone knows, this might be the price a mage pays for reworking the skein of reality. A mage who has spent a lifetime shifting the warp and weave of the world to his personal desires can get caught in those same threads.
Case Study: The Lover’s Bequest
Quote: “This one has been chosen. This one will live. Others must die so that this one lives. Sacrifice is the true meaning of love.”
Before the Silver Ladder shattered, an ancient magus realized his world was in danger. Because he loved his seven children so much, he wanted to ensure that his descendants would inherit his magical lore… a bequest he wanted fulfilled no matter how terrible the price. While the prophecies of other sorcerers announced that the end of an era approached, this suspected Atlantean correctly foretold that a descendant bearing his likeness would inherit his magic. In his dying days, he used the last of his power to summon an ananke, an avatar of destiny that would pass fulfill his wish. It is believed that the Fall forced this spirit into slumber. Now it has awakened in the modern world to fulfill the mage’s prophecy.
In the time before history, the ananke’s creator sired seven children with seven wives. The ananke he summoned can take the appearance of all seven women. It does not know which line of descent has survived to the modern day, but it can assume all seven guises while searching for the sorcerer’s descendants. All of the guises are incredibly beautiful, since they represent idealized views of the women the magus loved. As part of the bequest, the ananke must choose a mage that possesses unearthly beauty and charm.
The ananke and the heir resemble each other as mother and daughter or son. The patriarch of this lineage had enough command over Mind to seduce seven of the most attractive women in the Awakened Nation. This same mastery over Mind is passed on to his descendant.
The ananke’s master has an eye for beauty and a complete lack of compassion for others. With Mind, he used and discarded people as easily as he could manipulate their emotions. This ananke should approach any mage who has a destiny somehow related to the Atlantean’s prophecy (whether that’s a destiny involving romance, love, beauty or an attractive woman). The exact circumstances don’t have to be the same, as long as the chosen mage deals with similar themes in his life. When this mage is found, the ananke speaks of its search for the heir to an ancient lineage, who resembles a woman the Atlantean loved. She cannot rest until the heir is found.
Once this magical heir is discovered, events take a dark turn. The ananke must help its chosen mage to “inherit” its ancestor’s magical lore, which it interprets as aiding the heir to attain a position of power and success in the Awakened community. As the avatar shifts between guises while advancing its mission, the cabals who have dealt with the ananke quickly realizes how easily its master used and discarded his paramours. Since it was misplaced love that created the ananke, any mage it has found is tempted to use and discard would-be suitors on her path to power. Ordinary bystanders fall in love with her, and they destroy themselves to help her in any way she sees fit.
((Ananke are created using mechanics for Supernal Entities from the Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition corebook.))
Rank: 3
Influences: Love 3
Arcana:
Fate 5
Spirit 3
Time 3
20 Mana, 10 Willpower,
Ban: its creator magus had a twisted notion of what love was, believing that it could be expressed only through selfless sacrifice. The ananke he created cannot affect anyone who is truly in love with another person, since that emotion reveals the ananke’s motivation as a shadow of true love.
Bane: Objects of true love.
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum
Ananke
The Servants of Destiny, Avatars of Fate, Fates, Sisters of Fate, Norns, Moirai, Parcae, Sudice
Space and time cannot limit masters of magic. In the Time Before, ancient mages tasked powerful spirits to enact their will in the world, ensuring their beliefs would endure. Before the Fall, elaborate rituals created avatars that would return long after the passing of their masters.
When prophecies were fulfilled and dangers realized, the fated avatars would emerge. Archmasters of the Time or Fate Arcana used magic to “triggers” for these semi-sapient apparitions to appear. Fearing what might happen in the future, Atlantean prophets created spiritual servants that would rest until they were needed, warning their modern descendants when magical catastrophes were imminent. They were embodiments of Fate and Time, not Ochema or sub-souls and were also very much like spirits. They may have been at one time, part of a Supernal entity of Arcadia pulled into the Fallen World and bound in the nature of destiny itself. Not all prophets were so altruistic, however. Some created these same spirits to ensure that their visions for reality would become true, vainly attempting to shape the future long after death. Some were created by living or dead Archmages to bring about changes in the world to shape reality to their will (or what they interpreted as the will of the Oracles or the Exarchs. It is believed that the methods codified to create Ananke are lost, perhaps creating them was only possible before the Sundering.
The mages of Ancient Greece often interpreted these avatars as the servants of Ananke, goddess and mother of the fates. Because such avatars have been seen and known before, modern incarnations share the same name.
As agents of prophecy and destiny, ananke seek out people who have the capacity to change reality; mages who can fulfill oaths long forgotten and visions long obscured. After one of these avatars finds a mage who fulfills its carefully defined criteria ((possibly one blessed or cursed with the Destiny Merit)), the ananke’s very presence alters fate around that willworker. Prophecies are fulfilled and catastrophes are made imminent.
Like the gods of Greek myth, the ananke can assume human form, often with manifestations of supernatural beauty. Their clothes and demeanor allow them to walk among mortals, but their Twilight state prevents all but the magically enlightened from either sensing their presence or seeing them as they truly are. They have registered as spirits, supernal beings, supernal constructs, or any permutation thereof. When ananke speak to a mage they have chosen, their speech can seem anachronistic, prophetic or modern and cynical, depending on their whims.
The ananke delivers its warning, reciting the cryptic details of an ancient divination to prepare the listener. If the mage is truly fortunate, the avatar works beside the mage, granting him temporary powers or abilities to avert the catastrophe. An ananke’s message could warn of the return of ancient dangers, such as a cult of Timori Banishers, acamoth or the Bound. No matter how benevolent the ananke might appear, however, its very presence forces destined events to occur. The best a mage can hope to do is minimize the damage and try to survive it.
Ananke cannot help what they are or what they do. By their very nature, they reshape reality around themselves. Mages versed in Spirit magic may akin this to a spirit’s Influence that can affect the world in a similar manner. This is decidedly supernal in nature, like how certain supernal beings can emulate spells.
Avatars of destiny are difficult to affect directly, as one would expect. All ananke have an innate resistance to Fate, Time and Spirit magic that would alter their true natures or the manner in which destiny bends around them. Ancient archmastery from a time when magic was stronger has set them to their ways. Despite this, ruthless mages sometimes attempt to “kill the messenger” — a foolish act that can substitute the mage for another victim in this drama. A vengeful ananke does not need to attack a mage who threatens it with mere violence. Fate, coincidence and destiny itself are far crueler.
Visions of an ananke’s wrath have been known to inspire dreamers and prophets, appearing in art, literature and poetry. The most drastic visions are woven into the text of ancient tomes, the lore of sacred societies, and the rituals of cults. A mage who openly uses magic to avert catastrophe finds it easier to do so in the presence of an ananke. An ill-fated mage finds himself at the center of a whirlwind, or crushed by that same force if he rejects his role. For all anyone knows, this might be the price a mage pays for reworking the skein of reality. A mage who has spent a lifetime shifting the warp and weave of the world to his personal desires can get caught in those same threads.
Case Study: The Lover’s Bequest
Quote: “This one has been chosen. This one will live. Others must die so that this one lives. Sacrifice is the true meaning of love.”
Before the Silver Ladder shattered, an ancient magus realized his world was in danger. Because he loved his seven children so much, he wanted to ensure that his descendants would inherit his magical lore… a bequest he wanted fulfilled no matter how terrible the price. While the prophecies of other sorcerers announced that the end of an era approached, this suspected Atlantean correctly foretold that a descendant bearing his likeness would inherit his magic. In his dying days, he used the last of his power to summon an ananke, an avatar of destiny that would pass fulfill his wish. It is believed that the Fall forced this spirit into slumber. Now it has awakened in the modern world to fulfill the mage’s prophecy.
The ananke and the heir resemble each other as mother and daughter or son. The patriarch of this lineage had enough command over Mind to seduce seven of the most attractive women in the Awakened Nation. This same mastery over Mind is passed on to his descendant.
The ananke’s master has an eye for beauty and a complete lack of compassion for others. With Mind, he used and discarded people as easily as he could manipulate their emotions. This ananke should approach any mage who has a destiny somehow related to the Atlantean’s prophecy (whether that’s a destiny involving romance, love, beauty or an attractive woman). The exact circumstances don’t have to be the same, as long as the chosen mage deals with similar themes in his life. When this mage is found, the ananke speaks of its search for the heir to an ancient lineage, who resembles a woman the Atlantean loved. She cannot rest until the heir is found.
Once this magical heir is discovered, events take a dark turn. The ananke must help its chosen mage to “inherit” its ancestor’s magical lore, which it interprets as aiding the heir to attain a position of power and success in the Awakened community. As the avatar shifts between guises while advancing its mission, the cabals who have dealt with the ananke quickly realizes how easily its master used and discarded his paramours. Since it was misplaced love that created the ananke, any mage it has found is tempted to use and discard would-be suitors on her path to power. Ordinary bystanders fall in love with her, and they destroy themselves to help her in any way she sees fit.((Ananke are created using mechanics for Supernal Entities from the Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition corebook.))
Rank: 3
Influences: Love 3
Arcana:
Fate 5
Spirit 3
Time 3
20 Mana, 10 Willpower,
Bane: Objects of true love.
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