[Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen] Hidden Watchtowers

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

Lore: Hidden Watchtowers

“The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size.” -The Man in Black

The following is a consolidation of lore, myth, essays, and legends shared among the Awakened regarding other Watchtowers besides the five Watchtowers of the five known Supernal Realms and their five reflections in the Abyss.  It is not known if any of these watchtowers are talking about the same 6th Watchtower or several more...

In-Character Note: If you actually read this all the way through it provides me with starting justification for your character to actually have heard of some of these documents and sources...


The Lone Watchtower
Source: Rumors among the Diamond Orders

Some mages in later years claimed a secret teaching. They spoke to those they deemed worthy of another Watchtower — the first, they said — erected in a realm long forgotten and unreachable from this side of the Abyss. Only a very rare few can find their way there by strange astral paths and carve their name into that mysterious tower’s foundation. What powers this Watchtower sends to its mages are unknown, for any whose name is written there do not reveal its secrets.

The modern magical orders have many legends and theories about the Lone Watchtower, but no evidence of its existence has ever appeared for public scrutiny.

The Lone Watchtower is a myth among myths. Mages speak of the first Watchtower raised in the Supernal World, in a place that can only be reached from the far side of the Abyss. Speculation about what sort of powers it might confer on the mage who manages to reach it and write his name within runs rampant late at night when the wine flows: theories range from it granting Archmastery to it transforming one into an Oracle. As of yet, no one has believably claimed to have reached it, so its existence and powers are still pure fancy.


The Watchtower of the Void
Source: Baalim (Scelesti Masters) fragmented records.

Abyssal lore suggests that the Lone Watchtower is not a fallen reflection of a Watchtower in the Abyss, but may reside in the Abyss as the first Abyssal Watchtower created by a Exarch or Oracle or Abyssal God. Baalim refer to it as the Watchtower of the Void. Other myths say its the Watchtower of the Soul, a secret ultimate secret in the furthest part of the Supernal Realms from the Fallen World. It is holding reality up, the anchor or foundation of the Supernal Realms themselves...

Baalim, Abyssal Masters, obtain mastery over the Abyss by making a deal with the Abyss for the Mark of the Elder Diadem. The Diadem may represent the legendary Lone Watchtower of the Void. It grants its owner the ability to channel the Abyss as if it was an Arcanum or Influence. Previous initiations bind a soul to the Void in ever tighter chains, but the Elder Diadem represents an ultimate surrender. The Abyss may do what it pleases with a crowned Lord: devour his soul, let gulmoth take his body or even cast him back to Quiescence. The Baal’s bargain with the Old Man only holds until he fails in some spectacular fashion, the Abyss may call him home for final purification.

The Old Man - appears to be referring to the Old Man who camps on the Ocean Oroboros at the edge of the Anima Mundi.  He is also referred to as the 11th Exarch and The Gate.  It is believed that Baalim are initiated to mastery by making a deal with the Old Man by the sea.  Those that speak to him enter his hovel.  Those that do, never return.


The Unknown Tower & rumors of a Sixth Watchtower
Source: Athenaeum, accessible only to senior Mysterium membership

Observation:  It was said that once Five guardians, powerful mages from time immemorial used their souls and powerful temples to bind Succoth-Bennoth, the Father of all Acacmoth to an Abyssal Watchtower, called "The Sixth Watchtower" by some.  The tower was bound by mystical chains that are anchored by the Guardians.  The tower chains countless soulless to the surface of this tower.

Hypothesis:  The Lone Tower stands firm in the center of the Abyss, bridging the gap between the Supernal and Fallen worlds. It is the keystone that binds the Awakened souls to the Supernal World. Originally a part of the Celestial Ladder, when it shattered, it took down a sixth King of Atlantis, who erected the Watchtower in a final heroic act. Surrounded by the entities of the Abyss, it drew the gulmoth to erect false towers, guarding the link. After all, if magic no longer exists, how can they feast on the Fallen?

Hypothesis:  The Lone Tower is the lynchpin that holds the Fallen world from sundering, and falling into the Abyssal energies of entropy and chaos. Only a select few from all the supernatural entities know of its existence, and with good reason. For the Lone Tower is dark. Once, eons ago, there was a nation of people who guarded the Tower. They were erased by agents of chaos so that an assault on all existence could take place.

Hypothesis:  Within the Lone Tower, resides the body of the last dragon of Atlantis, and it is dying. Magic is fading from the world, and mages are using it up in their hubris. The first to notice are, ironically, going to be the Tremere. Their necromantic magic is failing them, and they are dying much faster than they should be.


The Watchtower of the Soul
Source: Only members of Tremere Houses have access to this information

Lords of the Seventh Dragon, Tremere (aka Tremere Liches) believe that Final Watchtower reconciles the fragmented Arcana into a supreme Art of the soul: the secret of the “seventh dragon,” imprisoned by the founders of Atlantis. It is the Father of magic. The sixth dragon—the Blood—is vampirism personified: a messiah that prepared them for the final secrets of the universe.

The five dragons of Atlantis are deceivers. They betrayed Creation by driving souls from one subtle Arcanum to the next. They imprisoned the Final Watchtower as one of the Bound and designed the Tellurian to reject it. The Father and his final Art cannot exist in a world ruled by their sorcery, so it stands in the Abyss, awaiting its Tremere prophets.

It steals names instead of waiting for the worthy to write them. It confers mastery of the soul, but only reveals its secrets to the soulless. It contains the secrets of the Tellurian but resides in the Abyss: the un-place that contains its paradoxes.

The five dragons made the universe to keep it out, but the Tremere will bring it back. They are the only beings in the universe to have proven worthy of its Mysteries—but they do not truly comprehend the Father. They must devise a final theory of the soul.

Once they prevail, their Watchtower will conquer Death, Fate, Mind, Prime and Spirit. They will crush the old dragons beneath their heels. Until then, they must reclaim every shard of lost knowledge. Until the day of Imperium, every soul, and every secret of the soul, belongs to the Tremere.

Part of the initiation of a Tremere Lich is supposedly being baptized in the Ocean Oroboros, an act that should utterly destroy anything the water touches.  They claim this spiritual paradox causes "the Hollowing," that establishes a connection to the so-called Final Watchtower.  The Tremere becomes a living extension of the Watchtower and by devouring souls they are feeding the dragon in the tower.

Although they claim to serve an unknown Watchtower, the Tremere still believe the Supernal is the true reality. They despise magical practices that sever the soul’s connection to the Supernal. Liches catalog, study, and destroy the soul manipulation methods used by hedge occultists, spirits and other creatures. Tremere especially despise vampire occultists, but despite the strong rhetoric, don’t hunt vampires unless they think they can win easily and conceal Legacy involvement.  Scelesti want the Abyss to swallow Creation, and the Tremere dream of summoning a sinister Final Watchtower.


The Final Watchtower
Source: Only members of Tremere Houses have access to this manuscript known as the Suspire.

They followed their master’s dreams into distant lands. Far from humans (they could not steal breath from animals) they fed upon each other to escape starvation. Five survivors completed the journey. In the East, five Masters of the subtle Arcana imprisoned one of the Bound in their fortress. The Tremere don’t know why the Theban sent them—only that it was an error that freed them.


The Suspire tells two stories, side by side. In one, Breath-Eaters devoured the Masters. They used the sorcerers’ souls to release the Bound. In the other, the Masters destroyed the intruders but as the Breath-Eaters collapsed to ash, they infected the victors with their strange undeath.

The fortress shuddered; the Bound roared into the Astral Realm. The five chased it to the edge of the Abyss. They saw a thorny tree twist out of the chaos, and knew they had fulfilled the Tremere quest.

They beheld the Final Watchtower of the Soul. The five survivors—the first true liches—did not carve their names upon it. The Watchtower sang their names, claiming them. A paradoxical Awakening ripened within them. It gave them magic without souls. The Suspire ends in prophetic verse: the song of the Final Watchtower:

You mastered My Flesh, stolen by five dragons, my treacherous children.
You drank of My Blood, sixth dragon, my forgotten Son.
I am the seventh dragon and the first, the Lone and Final Watchtower.
In your hollowness, you made Me whole.
From My wholeness, your hollowness will devour the universe.


Speculation on other Watchtowers:
Essay by Theodoric, 1977
Source: Theodric was a mysterious mage who has appeared throughout modern history spanning several hundred years.

We know that there are at least five Watchtowers, each associated with a Path, a Gross Arcana and a Subtle Arcana, and whose Realm is an abode to a Supernal creature. It is through these Watchtowers that Mages Awaken and experience the Supernal.  One theory of for the Imperial Mysteries (those Mysteries associated with obtaining Archmastery), is that the five Watchtowers are sub-soul artifacts of unknown beings we mages believe to be the Oracles, however no matter how hard we search, we find no trace of the Oracles save the Watchtowers themselves. Some believe that every mage is a part of an Oracle since Awakening is the inscription of Name onto the Watchtower, in other words the imbuing of a soul onto these artifacts. But if that is the case, who was the first to imbue their Soul on each Watchtower, who was the first mage that created the the tower?

This question has drastic implications. It implies that Archmastery was possible in the Time Before. While this may seem obvious at first, consider what Archmastery is, it is the ability to connect directly to the Supernal without the aid of a Watchtower.  From the lore available to us, we can guess that the Archmasters who raised the Five Watchtowers were the Five Kings of Atlantis. But this answer spawns new questions.

How did the Five Kings achieve their Archmastery? Did they achieve it after climbing the Celestial Ladder? Were they Archmasters the moment they Awakened (did they have to seek some sort of Threshold)? And importantly, did anyone else achieve Archmastery other than the Five Kings? Normally, the answer is: of course the Exarchs, however even if we include the Exarchs, it's still a very small number of individuals if we consider the colossal damage that was caused, notably the Abyss.

Broken Watchtowers
So were there others? Others who climbed the Ladder with the Oracles and Exarchs? There are texts from the Time Before that provide evidence of  exactly that. However the wording of the evidence yet again raises more questions.  Broken ruins of watchtowers have been discovered during sojourners into Supernal Verges and Emanation realms.

Who raised these broken Watchtowers? What destroyed them? Why do the Ruins remain in the in places close to the Supernal Realms? Do they still have Paths, even if they may be "off the beaten track"?  These all exist as part of the greater Supernal World.

Most importantly, do these broken Watchtowers reside in the same Realms as the other five? That last question is significant as either answer would impact the lore greatly. If these ruins are in the same realms as the five, the questions then are: Why are these Watchtowers destroyed while the others stand? And in the scenario that a Ruin was not destroyed, what would it symbolically mean for one Supernal Realm to have two or more Watchtowers? If the Ruins are not in the same Realms as the five, the questions then are: Why are these Watchtowers destroyed while the others stand? And what are these Other Supernal Realms?

Do these Other Supernal Realms have Fallen counterparts?  It could be theorized that these Other Supernal Realms do not have Fallen counterparts because they never Fell. Or that they Fell so much that their Watchtowers failed to anchor them in the Phenomenal World and shattered, rendering the Fallen counterparts lost, perhaps consumed by the Abyss.  Perhaps they are further away, on the side of the Supernal World that "faces away" from our world.

Is there a "sixth Path," at the center of the supernal pentacle, that Atlantians awoke to?

If you believe what the Guardians of the Veils say, then in the Time Before the Abyss magic was greater than it is in the world the Awakened now live in - part of the Guardians mission is slowing the degradation of what magic remains. The Silver Ladder teach something similar through their precept of Thunder. In a perfected world, there would be no sleeping curse and no abyss - anyone could meditate all the way to the supernal if they wanted and there was no need for a watchtower.

The awakened of this time were vastly more mighty than those of the fallen world. They built cities of Adamas, a substance which can no longer be replicated, they created a civilization so mighty that even the Exarchs have never been able to erase all of the evidence of its existence. They erected the Omphalos at the edge of the Anima Mundi and when all else was achieved they constructed the Star Ladder and stormed the heavens.

When the Star Ladder came down and the abyss rose, these five retained their connection to the supernal, the only roads across the newly formed abyss. While the traitors who had usurped the Star Ladder set about conquering the heavens and remaking the world in their image these great mages sought the Imperium Rites that would allow them to become one with the supernal before the light of creation left the world completely. The Exarchs were so busy consolidating their rule and securing their newly won thrones from the Old Gods that by the time they discovered the Oracles, it was too late - their ascensions were complete.

The Oracles forged the Watchtowers in the image of the Ocean Spire when they lived and now they stand forever in the Supernal, guiding those that would follow them to the light of truth.


The Original Dragon Watchtowers:
The Lone Watchtower of the Soul and the Broken Watchtower of Blood
Source: Apocryphal documents found in a sanctum of a Nameless Order.  It speaks of an alternate history to the nominally accepted history of the First City among the Diamond Orders.

Before the Fall
Blood: The Blood Tower reflected the Gross Arcana (the physical magics of Forces, Matter, Life, Space and Time) and represents the Path of Descent and Embodiment. Blood Mages would draw from this Watchtower for their Blood-magic.

Soul: The Soul Tower reflects the Subtle Arcana (the abstract magics of Prime, Mind, Spirit, Death and Fate) and represents the Path of Ascension and Conception. Soul Priests would draw from this Watchtower for their Soul-arts.

Neither Watchtower exists in the Supernal World or the Phenomenal World, but instead stand on the Threshold between the two worlds, guiding Travelers along their respective Paths on the Astral Paths.

Blood: The Blood Tower guides Souls from the Supernal World to the Phenomenal World, giving them Vessels of clay (Flesh and Blood) in exchange for their memories. Descension.

Soul: The Soul Tower guides Souls from the Phenomenal World to the Supernal World, discarding their bodies of clay to merge their experience with the Supernal. Ascension. This leads to a cycle of Reincarnation.

The Fall
The Awakened Nation, in their Hubris, grew attached to their bodies of clay. They did not want to discard them to enter the Supernal, and neither did they want their memories stripped of them. What purpose then would their lives have been? And they have the power to change reality by their will, why not use that power to change their Destiny of Reincarnation? To remove themselves from Life's cycle. But how to Ascend without walking the Path of Ascension?

...by walking up the Path of Descent. The Blood Tower forbids this however. The Path of Descension is strictly one-way only. The Atlanteans though are well aware that magic breaks the rules. With their ingenuity, they created a Celestial Ladder that could scale the impossible height. With it, the Atlanteans climbed up the downward Path with their bodies of clay. The Blood Tower could not strip the clay off, it can only give clay. It could not strip the memories away, the Will to Usurp was too powerful. Cracks appear along the Blood Tower.

The Atlanteans reached the Supernal Realms and did not stop there.They now knew only to overwhelm, overpower and overthrow. Casting down Gods from their Heavenly Thrones, the Atlanteans erected new Watchtowers as proof that the Cycle of Life had been conquered. New Paths were forged between the Supernal and Phenomenal Worlds. The Atlanteans henceforth shall not be bound by the Destiny of Reincarnation.

This bastardized Ascension of Imperfect Clay corrupted the purity of Supernal Perfection. The Balance was broken. The Watchtower of Blood shattered.

After the Fall:
From the broken Blood Tower spilled an endless black ocean that sought to cleanse the Worlds of this toxic Heresy. It began to fill the Threshold and enveloped the Watchtower of Soul, severing the Phenomenal World from the Supernal World. The Celestial Ladder collapsed from the torrent, and Atlantis became flooded by a bottonless Abyss, consuming it, erasing it.
And still the barrier widened, the Phenomenal World was Falling further and further away from the Supernal World as the Ocean Oroboros grew.

The Ascended Oracles made a decision. They infused their new Watchtowers with their own Souls, and bridged their Paths over the Abyss, anchoring the Fallen World in place. The Ocean Oroboros stopped its growth.

The Watchtower of Blood was Broken.
Its contents now a bottomless Abyss, an Ocean Oroboros whose shores gather Astral Sand, Sand that came from the fragments of the Watchtower of Soul. Though the Soul Tower is now but dust, it is still not broken. But its Path is unclear. Where is the Threshold? Where is the Supernal World? Where is the Watchtower of Blood?

The Watchtower of Soul was Alone.
The Yin was without a Yang. The Soul Tower wept. It could not conceive existence without its opposite. Its tears mixed with the Abyssal Blood, and the Lie was born.


Further Speculation on the Watchtowers:
Essay by Theodoric, 2015
Source: Theodric was a mysterious mage who has appeared throughout modern history spanning several hundred years.

A thought occurred to me.  Can a broken watchtower even exist in the Supernal? Technically everything in the Supernal is a symbol of truth, including the Watchtowers. You could argue that irrevocably damaging one of these symbols makes it untrue (as in conflicting with other symbols) and shunts it off into the Abyss. The Abyss could contain loads of broken Watchtowers, and probably does, even if those Watchtowers don't have an external origin to begin with and were just untrue from the beginning.

We know that the Old Gods who were cast from their throne but may still be in the Supernal, but in a reduced form. So it could be possible that as long as the existence of a broken Watchtower doesn't undermine any other Supernal Truths, it could still exist. It would not be a Watchtower though, per se, but a reflection of what was once there. It is akin to an ancient ruin of a Roman Bathouse: it is no longer a Bath house, as it no longer serves that purpose, but it is a representation of what once was its purpose and it's form.

That said, a Watchtower that can no longer exist due to it contradicting the Supernal would likely end up in the Abyss, as would any other possibilities that no longer could exist. That, or it would just be destroyed completely, removing any trace of it from reality, absorbed into the truth.

The only definite thing we know of is that there were some major acts of Imperium that significantly altered reality. For all we know, the reasons we see ruins of the Time Before is because Archmages attempting to recreate the myths brought them into existence only to see them wiped out again by either the Exarchs or other great powers.  As to the five Watchtowers themselves, technically they always existed (being supernal symbols) in this iteration of reality.

My former peers have many different opinions.  One, who will remain nameless, has a personal theory that the Abyss came from the numerous Supernal Symbols being cast out of the Supernal by the Exarchs, who narrowed down reality to better control it. Their attempt to prevent awakenings was the final straw, as doing so would mean they retroactively invalidated their existence. The resulting paradox was what brought about the Sleeping Curse. The Watchtowers were not just an attempt to maintain Awakenings, but stabilize the Supernal (basically preventing the constant loop of "humanity can't awaken" and "humanity is ruled by those humans who awakened" from breaking the Supernal Truth). Thus, as symbols they became the new source of all awakenings, and thus don't have an identifiable creator: they always had been created.  We cannot go back to a time where they weren't present.  He also posits that the five Watchtowers cannot be destroyed based on their nature as the source of Awakenings and tether to the Supernal for the majority of the Awakened, without drastic paradox (hence the Exarchs seeking to control but not destroy them).  They are somehow necessary to the fundamental nature of Fallen reality.

I cannot help but reflect that all of these discussions assume that the Diamond Order version of things is correct.  The Exarchs might never have been Mages and the Oracles might not ever have existed either. The Watchtowers definitely do exist, and I think it is fair to say the Exarchs do as well, but the reasoning as to how and why is up for grabs. There's no more proof that the Exarchs ever were Atlantean Mages than there is proof that they were anything else, after all.

Perhaps Atlantis did exist, or rather, that there was a time before, before the Abyss and the Sleeping Curse. When the first Imperial Spell was cast by the first Archmage, however, things changed. Before that point, all of the Supernal truths that existed were the ones that had always existed, or if they changed, they changed naturally. Imperial Magic changed them forcefully, and the new truths cast the old truths into a state of non-being (creating The Abyss, that is, all the realities that cannot exist because this one does).  One other point I would make is that the Abyss reflects realities that cannot be. This means things that are not True are found here.

Perhaps Atlantis was/is true... now. Essentially, there was some major change early on due to some aspect of Imperial Mysteries, which created the Abyss. The cause of this changed over time though, as mages trying to solve and fix this cataclysm did so by attempting to recreate what was (which mind you, didn't exist in reality any longer due to that original Imperium). They couldn't reverse it this way, but what it did was tweak the narrative of the events.

So the Exarchs could have been something else originally, as could have the Oracles. The cataclysm could have been something else such as gods waging war and the losing gods/symbols being cast into the abyss, someone trying to tap a new source of magic and accidentally unleashing the Abyss, etc. Maybe the Abyss always existed, and was the source of creation as certain elements divided between "truth" and "not truth" (which would both fit the Scelesti legends, and also ancient Greek myths of how there was first chaos, which then gave birth to the universe).

But due to the mages continued alterations of the Supernal, this warped things to the current narrative: the Diamond and Seer's posited a lost city based on what they heard, archmages tried to find it or bring it back, their magic shaping the world to make it that way. The Exarchs were morphed from what they were to what they are now as the symbolism of their rise changed: gods became ascended mages, for example. This cycle fed on itself so now, for all intents and purposes, "Atlantis" in some form is what happened, as the edits to the Supernal made it so.


And More Towers:  There has been plenty of speculation among the Awakened regarding where and how the original Ocean Spire was created.  The Spire Perilous, in the Anthropic Redoubts (a layer of the Astral Realms) is thought among scholars to be an Astral representation of the original Axis Mundi.  It, and its dark twin, the Swath, may have represented the path of the Silver Ladder before it was sundered, splitting into a double helix ascent and rotting monuments of mankind's hubris.  Perhaps the actual two towers exist or existed (such as the theory of the original Dragon Watchtowers mentioned above) and were the top and bottom portions of one tower, the true Axis Mundi or the anchor points of the mage-made supernal bridge.  There is also the theory of broken towers where mages have attempted to recreate the First City and how that may have created post-Time Before Ruins that appear to have Atlantean features.


The Watchtower of Brass and Flame 
Awakened to a Sixth Watchtower in a Supernal Realm unfamiliar to the Atlantean cosmology, mages who claimed to be of a new Path started appearing with the rise and decline of the New Age movement, starting with the first rumblings in the early 1900s to the peak of the movement in the 1960s. These Willworkers claim to be part of an, as of yet unknown, Path. The new ager mages pointed to a global event after the Tunguska Blast of 1908 in which Hallows erupt with Mana across the world in an expanding ring centered on the deserts of Afghanistan and clusters of new awakenings centered on that area that followed.

Since then, these new mages claim to not be limited to the five known Supernal Realms and that the number of Awakenings of other Paths isn’t diminishing, leading to theories that the new Path is Awakening people that wouldn’t have been called by the other Watchtowers. 

The Diamond Orders started searching for the cause of this phenomenon, but never met with definitive success. Mages interview both sides in the fighting in the region with means both mundane and magical. Did whatever happen cause the Abyss to breach, allowing the sixth Watchtower’s light to cross into the Fallen World? Or was the event an aftershock, a rallying cry to the Awakened from the Oracles?  If anyone managed to defraud these mages by use of magical analysis the results were never released to the collective.  Common knowledge around the Pentacle Orders of today is that these mages, and others who claim to have Awakened to a Watchtower different from the known five, are frauds.

Neither the Realm nor the Path that springs from it have agreed-upon names used by all of the wise. The Realm is one of raging elemental forces, but not in the sense of the raw power of the Aether — the Sixth Realm is made of flame, lightning, freezing cold, and crashing sound, but they move with purpose, filled with alien intelligence that can be contacted and — for those that learn the Path well — coerced into doing the new mage’s bidding. The inhabitants are beings made out of the same purposeful energy, creatures of smokeless flame that the mages of this moment call Djinn.

Claimants of The Sixth Path have stated that their Awakening granted the Ruling Arcana of Spirit and Forces, and the Inferior Arcanum of Prime. Through experimentation these mages discovered that Yantras and Tools of brass, bronze, or copper have Supernal weight with this tower, and some have had success with knives as weapon or tools. Though Middle Eastern symbolism is obviously the orders’ starting point for experimentation, mages seek other elements of Sleeper culture and occult practice that might have power. 

The claims of these mages created quite a splash that settled down in the early 1970s. The Free Council, Guardians of the Veil, and Seers of the Throne led the charge to investigate the phenomena — the Libertines were seeking proof that humanity was influenced by this Realm spontaneously, without inheriting their symbols from the Time Before, and the Guardians and Seers because many of their cults and societies were being courted by New Age ideas. 

Interestingly enough, the Horsemen Cabal consisting of Nergal, Kairos, Casstiel and the late Loudon and Prodigy all claimed to have Awakened on the same night to Watchtowers similar to the traditional five but with radically different configurations of Path Arcana.

The Dark Tower
Source: Apocryphal documents found in a sanctum of a know Nephandi.

The Tower is the center of all creation. It is said to be Gan's body (creator of the multiverse), and is held up by six spokes of great size and length, visible only by their effects on the lands along their lines - such as patterns in the clouds. At each end of the Beams, there is a door, for a total of twelve. Each door is protected by a Guardian. The Tower can only be entered in one of the infinite number of worlds, called Mid-World. It is necessary to present a sigul of Arthur Eld, the bearer of the White in order to enter the Tower.

The Tower is a six hundred floor spire made of black stone, and the only entrance is a door of ghostwood, with the words "Unfound" written upon it. The tower has a central oriel window which is striated with thirteen different colors (each the color of the Guardian). In other worlds, the Tower can take a number of forms. Lesser floors in the tower are less than atoms to greater floors.  The brick of which The Dark Tower is made up of is a sooty dark gray color.

In the earliest of history, the Tower was wholly magical, as were its supports, and was intended to stand forever. But the Old Ones, confident in their "technology," replaced the magical beams with ones that could be broken, as they were derived from "machines." The Tower was also used to link its own world to others, some of which the Old Ones themselves visited for their own purposes.

The Old Ones eventually attempted to topple the Tower as well and replace it with a technological replica under the guidance of Maerlyn (Merlin?) by releasing the Prim from large cracks, which then formed in the ground and filled with monstrosities.

After the failed assault on the Tower, the Old Ones tried to make amends by creating the Twelve Guardians. These Guardian were engineered by the Old Ones to mend the magic of the Beams that was previously assaulted, thus mixing magic and gross matter.

The Rose, however, is not simply a manifestation of the Tower, but a completely separate entity. The Tower is surrounded by a huge field of roses called Can'-Ka No Rey. Each rose blooms with the light of a thousand suns and each has a beautiful core. Pure representations of creation.

The great Beams are mystical forces that hold up the Tower. Like the Tower, they are infinitely old, created at the beginning of the universe and are themselves living entities, having arisen from the Prim. The Beams are represented by 12 Guardians. In all there are 6 beams and 2 guardians on a beam.  At the end of each beam where a guardian resides, there is also a door to another world. The Old Ones sought to replace the beams with their own versions.

Though there are 6 beams, in effect there are 12 spokes - the Tower is at the center point of each beam, and an Guardian at each end.

All things serve the Beam. The power of a Beam can be demonstrated using a compass, by seeing birds turn to follow the beam as they pass through it. Trees grow in the direction of a beam, even their shadows follow the direction of the beams.
The Beams are weakening, the worlds are running down. Entropy.

Since the Old One's failed assault to conquer the Tower, it has been from then on been assaulted by the Crimson King using its Breakers to wear down the worlds and the beams supporting the Tower. This caused the world to move on, which is why magic broke down and failed, leading to time itself moving completely out of sync.  If the Beams fall, the Tower falls.  If the Tower falls, the world is consumed by darkness.

ALL HAIL THE CRIMSON KING

[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Ed] Ghost Mages

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

Ghost Mages 

The following is a conversion and upgrade of Ghost Mages as antagonists from Mage: The Awakening to Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition. Sources: Ghost mages come right from Mage: The Awakening corebook.

Within the realm of the supernatural, all things are possible and all boundaries are shattered, even the boundary between life and death. Necromancers insist that when the soul dies, it loses that vibrant spark that makes Awakened magic possible, unless a mage finds a way to circumvent that boundary as well. Ghosts are driven by passions that sustain them beyond death. Some mages believe that a passion tied to a handful of spells, or even an Arcanum of magical influence, is strong enough to defy that very limitation.

A living mage possess the strength of will to pursue nearly any form of magic. A ghost capable of performing magic is limited to a handful of Rotes and spells, clinging to them like the earthly place it haunts. Unlike living mages, spectral mages have little or no free will. Instead, they demonstrate a ruthless tendency to protect or oversee the people or places that were important to them in life. These objects or people — the ghost’s anchors — are critical to the spectral mage.

Normally, the ghost mage uses the same powers that other restless dead possess (per CoW rules), but when its anchors are threatened, however, its instinct is to protect them with outright magic. This protection seems like a blessing, but it’s ultimately a curse.

A ghostly mage cannot affect its own anchors with magic. It can’t transform, alter, destroy or affect them in any way, and it cannot free itself by destroying of these connections. It can still use its Influence on its own anchors however, as per normal ghost rules. It also can, however, use its magic against anyone who tries to affect the things it protects. With Matter, it can manifest and recreate what has been destroyed. With Mind, it can weaken wills, recreate what victims once felt, or bring on episodes of insanity. If a ghost has command over Space, its influence can reach much further than a living occultist might suspect. Legends tell of modern ghosts exploiting advanced technology — televisions, cell phones, cursed videotapes and even the Web — to reach enemies who threaten them, no matter how far away targets flee.

As my good friend Lucas Powell pointed out (via Storytelling dealing with a powerful Ghost Mage), a ghost mage who is a Master of the Death Arcanum can add additional anchors to its founding ones.  While then they can no longer be affected by its magic directly, the paradox that the ghost mage incurs can be inflicted on those anchors instead of the ones it really wants to protect.  One of these Death Ghost Mages could perpetuate much longer and be much more active, effectively becoming impossible to banish to the Underworld so long as it leaves one of its anchors intact.  And while the original anchors and protecting them are built into the very nature of why the ghost haunts the world in the first place (and it will still protect them the fiercest because it gives the ghost mage it's entire purpose), the artificially spell-created anchors forged by spells don't depend on the drive and emotional connection of the ghost and therefore the ghost mage has no compunction about using them for paradox fuel.


Destroying what you protect:
A ghostly mage’s anchors are well watched and carefully attended, but its presence has a corrupting influence. When the ghost uses magic to defend what it considers to be a threat to an anchor, any Paradoxes it suffers affect that anchor before it affects the ghost mage. The very people and places it protects risk the same fate as the deceased mage. If the ghostly mage died a violent death, those he protects may suffer a similar demise. When a mage dies through suicide, he might convince others to join him in death. Conflict with the outside world ironically leads the ghostly mage to destroy what it once loved.

An undiscovered ghostly mage can work this process more slowly. For all its good intentions, a darker shadow of the ghost’s psyche compels it to destroy the very bonds that sustain and anchor it. The people and places that anchor the mage degrade into dust and madness. The corrupting influence of a ghostly mage is far easier for a living mage to notice than it is for an unenlightened seeker of the supernatural.

What the Ghost Mage considers a threat to its anchors is up for interpretation.  It may hound anyone who so much as lays eyes on one of its anchors, or spy on anyone associated with a person anchor, or kill any mage who witnesses or notices the effects of the ghost mage on the early.  

Depending on its insanity-level of paranoia it may go out of its way to hide anything associated with its anchor, hide the anchor in incredibly hard to find.  In the case of Lucas's particular Death Ghost Mage (great band title), the ghost sealed its anchor in a magically warded chest in the deepest Death Dominion it dared venture.  This is not a common example, just an extreme case study.

Detecting & Destroying a Ghost Mage
The same methods that can destroy a ghost work on a ghostly mage. Spectral mages possess all the qualities (and the same basic of all ephemeral entities) that ghosts have, but their supernal magic and numbus is detectable by all means that reveal mortal mages and all forms of Active Mage Sight. Anyone possessing the same occult knowledge (or Arcanum) as the ghostly mage can recognize its magic for what it is (instead of mistaking it for a ghost’s powers).

Additionally, Any mage who is an Initiate of Death can see detect clearly, the ghost’s influence on the world, including the people and places to which it is anchored. Any mage not only have the insight to detect ghostly mages, but the countermagic to oppose them (if they have the correct Arcana).

A Ghost Mage can venture into the Underworld using spells or Anverian Gates and return to the Fallen World the same way as long as they have one anchor left.  If all anchors are destroyed it is forced into the Underworld. The one exception to this rule is that if the ghost mage happens to be on another plane of existence (Hedge, Shadow, Astral, etc), it can remain there until it tries to return, at which point it is quickly banished to the Underworld without a source of Essense to sustain it.  Once in the Underworld without an Anchor to the Fallen World, the ghost mage loses access to its magic and cannot return to the Fallen World.  The spellwork that tied it to the phemeral world and the things it protects are gone forever.

As with all ghosts, the Underworld sustains them, allowing them more freedom to move and act than the living world and they have no trouble straying from their anchors. This goes for anchored and unanchored ghost mages.  Ghost mages do have a nasty habit of sneaking out of the underworld, even after losing their magic and becoming a normal ghost, having spent centuries growing stronger and can wreak havoc until exorcised.

The Creation of a Ghost Mage:
The existence of such horrors is merely a sign that true magic, like true evil, is not limited by the reality we know. Death itself cannot necessarily limit the power — or the danger — of magic.

Ghost mages are not playable characters.  They do not gain experience when they haunt the world and are locked in a fixed state.  They don't really learn or gain new understanding.  They can only be what they are, an echo of magic in the world.  Also, Numina are a Storyteller construct because they lack balance or rigor in design as player-driven mechanics.

Much like other ghosts, ghost mages are usually the result of dying an especially sudden or traumatic fashion, which tends to be more common in mage deaths than regular people.  The resultant ghost mage is intelligent, sometimes very malevolent,  with power over whatever kind of calamity killed them.  Ghost mages are still rare, and automatically stronger and more independent than the majority of the restless dead.  Ghost mages still feed on Essence, a spiritual energy created by the memories and emotions that build up in their Anchors and are fed directly to them when they are remembered by the living.


Advantages

Vice & Virtue: Switch places.

Wisdom: Is in a fixed state at the time of their death.  They cannot take any action that would commit a Wisdom Sin.  If they are somehow forced to do something (like protect their anchor) that forces them to cause a Wisdom sin they make checks as normal and can suffer degeneration and have no normal means of resolving the Conditions that come from a Wisdom loss.

When wisdom hits 0, they don't become one of the Mad and their souls don't crack (they don't have them).  They do tend to lose all concept of morality and are not responsible with magic in any meaningful way.  They also tend to burn out their Anchors in short order, hastening their banishment to the Great Below.

Fate: Per the optional Fate system in Chronicles of Darkness (CoW) corebook, all ghosts have a fate of "Forgotten," as they will eventually forgotten by anyone who missed them and their anchors will decay, eventually forcing them into the Underworld.

Attributes:  (You can use the Rank table to determine how strong you want the ghost to be or convert the ghost mage's attributes from what they had in life)

• Power: Equal to the higher of Intelligence or Presence for mages, or just Intelligence for others. Used for Intelligence, Strength, and Presence tasks.

• Finesse: Equal to the higher of Wits or Manipulation for mages, or just Wits for others. Used for Wits, Dexterity, and Manipulation tasks.

• Resistance: Equal to the higher of Resolve or Composure for mages, or just Resolve for others. Used for Resolve, Stamina, and Composure tasks.

Rank: Associate the Rank of the Ghost Mage with with the ephemeral entity table and its current Attribute levels and caps.  Even though ghosts are usually Rank 0-1, ghost mages will usually be at least rank 2 and no higher than rank 3.

Other Traits

Corpus: Resistance + Size (usually 5), doesn't take wound penalties.

Willpower: Resistance + Finesse, with a maximum of 10 dots if less than Rank 6.  Regains one willpower point every 24 hours.

Defense: Defense is equal to Power or Finesse, whichever is lower, except for Rank 1 spirits which use the higher of the two Attributes.

Armor: All ghosts have General Armor equal to their Rank.

Physical Attack: All ghosts do bashing damage using their Rank as a damage bonus.  They can only harm the physical world if they use their magic to gain a body of some kind or have the Materialize Manifestation.  They can attack other ghosts in Twilight however.

Speed: Speed is equal to Power + Finesse + a species factor (usually 5)

Language: Rank 1 ghosts can’t communicate verbally; they don’t have enough of their sense of self left to employ language. Rank 2 and higher ghosts know whichever languages they knew in life.

Path Tools: All ghost mages can manifest their Dedicated tool as part of their being, it no longer helps with Paradox or Yantra.

Skills:  If the skill is something the ghost mage should be good at, then roll Rank + Attribute is rolled.

Bane: Ghost mages usually have a Bane relating to the way they died or the objects involved.

Ban: The ghost cannot directly affect its own anchors by any means.  It can only call upon its Arcana if its spells are in defense of its Anchors, but this is up for interpretation (if the ghost can rationalize it, it may work).  Simultaneously, they always inflict paradox backlash on their Anchors due to their subconscious desire to destroy the things they care most about.

Essence: They use Mana like Supernal Beings and Mages but they harvest Essence the same way as Ghosts and its converted into Mana when it enters their body.  They cannot harvest Mana in any other way unless they can do so using their Arcana.  They can use Mana in any way that other ephemeral beings use Mana.

Anchors: Dependent on the ghost mage but assigning the number of Anchors when the mage dies equal to what it's Rank will be.  These are things that are emotionally charged by the mage in life and the ghost mage will do almost anything to protect them.

Abilities


Manifestations: They have the Twilight Form automatically and the number of additional Maniestations equal to their Rank.

Influences: Instead of Influences, a ghost mage retains all dots in its Arcana it had in life.  Instead of using Gnosis + Arcana they roll Power + Finesse. They treat using these Arcana the same way the handled spells, paying Mana as needed.  If a spell risks Paradox the ghost mage must attempt to contain the spell as backlash but any damage or conditions the ghost mage would normally suffer are instead inflicted upon one of its anchors.  It has the ability to designate which anchor will take the harm inflicted.

Numina: The ghost mage has the number of Numina limited by its Rank (see table in corebook).  These can be anything a ghost would have and may not have anything to do with magic.  They will be all the power a ghost mage has it can use when its finally banished to the Underworld.

Rotes and Praxis spells may manifest as Numina. Arcana points can be traded for more of these spell-like Numina but can't be used to increase Arcana.  Praxes retain their ability to gain Exceptional Successes with only three successes.  Rote Spell Numina add the ghost's rank to the roll.

[Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen] Artifact: The Ring Revised & The Exarchs

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

The Ring of the Dethroned Queen

And the Exarchs

“By her grace She leaves this Ring, so we might find the Truth we seek.”

The following is a conversion and upgrade of the Artifact: Ring of the Dethroned Queen to Mage: The Awakening Second Edition rules.  Sources: The Merit as written, straight out of Mage: The Awakening  2nd edition.  The Artifact example I converted is from our current campaign and straight out of the Reign of the Exarchs sourcebook.

The Ring of the Dethroned Queen 

(7 dots) Artifact: OOOOO OO (4 Experience Points)

Description:
A Small golden bell to be rang by hand.  It's a bell clapper 9 inches in height with a bell at the bottom end that is 10 inches in circumference.  There is no dongle inside and the only way to produce sound is to strike it against something to ring.  Handle made of some king of ancient petrified wood, very pale gray and sanded very smooth and made to fit a petite hand. The handle feels cool, the gold parts a warm and soft.  The Metal is soft and can be bent with bare hands but has remarkable elasticity and quickly returns to its crafted shape.  The gold seems more red-hued, like a sunset. The reflections on its smooth surface seem to dance as if wreathed in flames.

Inside the bell and written in rings around the inside are bands of writing. They are True Atlantean and detail how to perform a special spell. The bell is actually an Inscribed Grimorie. Around the center of the bell’s circumference are a ring of round-cut precious gemstones about the size of a penny each in the following order: Diamond, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, Onyx, Amethyst, Moonstone, Amber, Jade and Aquamarine. Centered below the Amethyst is what appears to be a High Speech Glyph but you cannot tell what it says.

No one recognizes this name, its made from many many overlapping High Speech gylph. It is hypothesized that this is the name of the Dethroned Queen. Each mage sight adds a layer of dimension to the shape of the name, it is a 10 dimensional name made from all the Arcana.  Is this the full holy name of the Exarch herself before she was cast down, her shadow name lost to the ages? This symbol is much like the great seals of the Archigenitors, the top 4 Exarchs. Except this is also different from all of them. Casstiel has seen the names of The Father, The General, The Eye, and The Unity and this is not one of them. It glows brightest with Time sights, the other names focus on one Arcanum as well (Prime, Forces, Space and Mind respectively).  This presumes she was once was the chief Exarch of Time before she was replaced by the obscure Exarch known as The Prophet.

Each different mage sight makes its corresponding gemstone appear to blaze with that magic type. Use the Ringsight table to see what gemstone flares for which sight.



Basic Stats:
Durability 6, Size 1, Structure 7, Holds 14 Mana

Effective Gnosis: 3 (Mage accessing the Artifact can use any combination of Gnosis and Arcana on a given spell on the item)

Effective Reach/Arcana: 4

Yantra: +1 path tool for Acanthus

Determining usage: In general, it takes 14 successes on an extended research to figure out how to use the items power.  Opacity is 5 to study the item itself.

Wisdom Sins:
1. Every Use of the Ring
Wisdom Check at current level dice, after a wisdom loss the character can Inure themselves from the custom Ringsight spell or learned Ringsight Rote and avoid additional checks. This is Playing god somehow, tearing back the skein of reality and seeing the subtle control of the Exarchs.  This isn't immediately apparent though, the check is made without the character knowing why.  Rather than the normal Conditions from Wisdom loss the character gains the Condition: False Signs.  Regular failure grants the character a normal Wisdom loss condition (Megalomania or Rampant) and also grants the Character Condition: Ring Paranoia (See below). 

Condition: False Signs (Persistent)
Anytime you use the Ring you get the exact opposite of seeing the Exarch's influence in the world around you.  Instead you start seeing the people you trust most with the taint of Exarch control on them them and those under the true influence of the Exarchs are less noticeable.  
Effect: much like the mundane Condition: Paranoid, you take a -1 to all composure based rolls.  The other effects are role-play driven.  
Resolution: Gain a point of Wisdom or lose a Point of Wisdom.  
Beats: Gain a beat whenever the false information drives you to cause significant drama and set-back amongst your Cabal and friends.

Condition: Ring Paranoia (Persistent)
When you use Ringsight you start seeing what you want to see. People you suspect of having the taint of control, do. People you don’t trust start pinging as well. People you dislike the most give you a reason to hate them more. They are all under the influence. 
Effect: much like the mundane Condition: Paranoid, you take a -1 to all composure based rolls.  The other effects are role-play driven.  
Resolution: Gain a point of Wisdom or take another Wisdom check as a result of your actions.  Note, this cannot be a Wisdom check from more Ringsight usage.
Beats: Gain a beat whenever the false information drives you to cause significant drama and set-back amongst your Cabal and friends.

2. Learning the Rote - Learning the Custom Seer Rote "Ringsight" (Prime 1) is a Wisdom Sin for anyone of Wisdom lower than or equal to 6.


Conditional Effects:

I. Ring Fixation OOOO
Mind Patterning Spell w/ Condition Duration Attainment (Fate 2) and Conditional Trigger (Time 2) and specialized Indefinite Duration
An effect that doesn't act as a traditional spell, but is triggered by use of the Ring whoever uses the Ring as a Grimorie, Yantra or uses Ringsight triggers a clash of wills (Resolve + Gnosis) vs (Item Gnosis 3 + Item Reach 3).  If the user fails the CoWs they gain the Condition: Fixation (Ring).  No spellcasting roll is made for the effect and the spell has an Potency of 4 and an infinite duration.

Condition: Fixation (Ring) (Persistent)
This condition mirrors the mundane Condition: Fixated but is persistent and focuses on the desire to keep and protecting the ring.
Effect: Your character focuses on a single thought or command, in this case, keeping and protecting the Ring.  When the Ring is shown or used in a given scene, she  takes a –2 penalty to all actions for the rest of the scene other than acts the enable the victim to acquire the Ring or protect it from harm. This urge does not force the character to immediately try to steal the Ring or attack people to get it, they are simply penalized due to the distraction of wanted to focus on the Ring. 

Resolution: The spell is dispelled; The Ring is taken from you or put fully out of your reach; The Ring is destroyed.  The immediate effect of the spell terminates when the Scene (where the Ring is used or is shown) ends but the condition persists and its penalties will return when the Ring is shown or used again. 

Beats: Your character does something that goes against her Virtue to fulfill the fixation.

II. Ringsight O
Prime Unveiling Spell w/ Condition Duration Attainment (Fate 2) and Conditional Trigger (Time 2) and specialized Indefinite Duration.
The primary effect of the Ring is that it grants a special effect that activates the next time the mage uses Active Mage Sight.  This spell was created by through a combination of all Arcane Attainment effects captured from all the Active Mage Sights.  What makes this different, is that it shows the characters something they have to research or deduce to discover: it starts highlighting the control of the Exarchs on the Fallen World through the interpretation of the purview of each Arcana involved.  The ring created by the bell is the actual reason this item is called The Ring and not The Bell, the ring itself, its resonance is the actual item, not the bell itself.

Activation: 
When struck against a surface of wood, plastic, metal, or stone the item spends a mana from the item's internal storage. The bell reverberates the holder’s soul with a bass-rich tone and it hangs in the air after it quiets as if the world is waiting for something. 

Upon closer inspection mages can determine that a spell occurred and like a standing wave the sound now vibrates the pattern of the mage, holding a spell effect in the pattern for later.


The next time the Mage who rang the bell activates their Active Mage Sight (AMS), its it twists the focus from the Arcana involved to highlighting the control of the Exarchs.  To the mage, is alters the what AMS should highlight to some odd.  Why is that person glowing on Prime Sight when they are completely mundane in every way? (for example).




Mechanics: Ringsight only lasts until the mage drops their AMS again. AMS with Ringsight can be transitioned into Focus Mage Sight (FMS) and will highlight the resonance of control exerted by the Exarchs and their servants.  To regain Ringsight, the bell has to be rung again.  The spell doesn't change any mage sights that are currently being used when it is cast but instead works the NEXT time the person who used the bell.  Once Ringsight is learned as a Rote it can be cast using normal spell factors with the addition of the Conditional Trigger and special duration at no cost.  The spell automatically will last indefinitely so long as the target doesn't use Active Mage Sight.  Since AMS and FMS are incredibly distracting and possibly harmful, its extremely hard for anyone to keep the sight up longer than a few scenes.  Normal penalties for distraction (-2 and -3) still apply and the spell terminates as soon as they drop their mage sight.  No spellcasting roll is made for the effect and the spell has an Potency of 6 (withstood by Resolve) and an infinite duration.

Ringing the bell emits a tonal sound wave brings the user in sync with a different level of reality and is able to perceive the hidden influences of the Exarchs directly. This manifests as seeing a type of “taint” or "influence" with each Arcana.  It is unknown if each single Arcanum only shows the influence of its patron Exarch or if it shows all Exarchal influence.  Further study may clarify this.



1. Prime Sight: - Diamond
The mage sees a “color” of resonance you have never seen before. It is so foreign it can’t be described (think Octarine from Discworld), a combination of radiant green and orange. Scales from a slight discoloration to overwhelming brightness and omnipresence.  

The Father is the Archigenitor Exarch patron of the Prime Arcanum and the Greater Ministry of the Paternoster.  The Paternostic Ministry subjugates mankind through religion.

Faith is an unbreakable chain. Resplendent in ceremony and encouraged by the soft certitude of cultured piety, those of the Ministry of Paternoster style themselves priests of the Father, Exarch of control through faith and religion. Champions of all zealotry, the Ministry reinforces dogma and fear while quashing the positive aspects of religion. The Ministries scour Sleeper religions for hints of Supernal insight, that they can be grounded and guttered to promote the pure Exarchal religion.


2. Mind Sight: - Ruby
The mage sees physic push or presence seems to hang over people. In their presence you feel like its looming over them and you with increasing levels of scrutiny. You want to turn and look behind you or up, into your periphery but are terrified at what might be watching. Gods are watching.  

The Unity is the Archigenitor Exarch patron of the Mind Arcanum and the Greater Ministry of the Hegemony.  The Hegemonic Ministry subjugates mankind through collectivism and socialist governance.   Since the rise of capitalism and globalization starting in the 90s the Hegemony went into decline and has faded in influence to the strength of a lesser Ministry. 

The State is the soul. The first true Ministry finds itself embattled by factional conflicts, as globalization nips at the heels of the servants of the Unity, Exarch of control through nationalism. Dominating nations and attracting leaders, the Hegemons did quite well while humanity existed in a collection of nation-states and far-flung empires, but have fallen prey to the subversive power of the merchant class, represented by the Lesser Ministry of Mammon, servants of the Chancellor. As theocracies and corporate interests rise ascendant over political interests, many within the Pyramid whisper that the 21st century will be the last with Hegemony as a Great Ministry.



3. Space Sight: - Emerald
The mage sees bizarre warping of space around a person. Ranges from slight tweaks to spatial distances to an absolute swirling vertigo spiral emanating from a person who is under the influence of the unseen lords. 

The Eye is the Archigenitor Exarch patron of the Space Arcanum and the Greater Ministry of the Panopticon.  The Panoptic Ministry subjugates mankind through observation and personal transparency.

Vision is power. Making extensive use of surveillance technology, the Panopticon styles itself servants of the Eye, Exarch of control through surveillance. With every tracked private message, every law passed to strip a bit more privacy from citizens, the Panopticon gains power. Eyes high in orbit can see every inch of the globe, and the Ministry spends a great deal of time managing Seer conspiracy cults, promoting a culture without privacy, so that the people shackle themselves for fear of retribution.



4. Fate Sight: - Sapphire
The mage sees the threads of fate have a weight to them surrounding a subject. They are more tangible than the normal threads of fate and heavy. Those under the influence of the Exarchs appear to have puppet strings leading skyward. The strings loop, snag, tangle, and pull. More strings or heavier strings denote influence intensity.  

The Ruin is the Exarch patron of the Fate Arcanum.



5. Death Sight: - Onyx
The mage sees people under the influence have tags on ears or toes or fingers as if they were cadavers in a morgue. The writing is blurred, just slightly out of focus. The larger tags or more writing, font, size, denote intensity of influence.  

The Psychopomp is the Exarch patron of the Death Arcanum and the Lesser Ministry of Thanatacity.  The Thanatonic Ministry subjugates mankind by using the fear of death, beliefs in the afterlife, and by utilizing the dead.


6. Time Sight  - Amethyst
The mage sees people, things and places significant to the Exarchs hold the shadow of their time of importance. Young people may have the shadow of the elderly or old people have the shadow of the young. None of these shadows depict people in the prime of their lives. All are either infirmed by an excessive age or youth. 

 The Prophet is the Exarch patron of the Time Arcanum and The Dethroned Queen used to be this Arcanum's patron.



7. Spirit Sight  - Moonstone
Mages see subjects under the influence have multiple afterimages that trail behind them. You can see a very unusual kind of essence that motes off of them and infuses them.  Perhaps this is something the Exarchs farm and harvest?  

The Nemesis is the Exarch patron of the Spirit Arcanum.





8. Life Sight  - Amber
The mage notices that tainted subjects have a parasitic aura around them, as if they had a parasitic infection. That is how it reads but the mage can find no trace of biological infection using other Life Knowing spells. The intensity of the aura ranges from a slight discoloration of the skin to a massive growth on their bodies. There always only to appears to be coming from one parasite per person. 

The Raptor is the Exarch patron of the Life Arcanum and is the embodiment of mankind's fear of nature.  She uses the fear of the natural world and its secrets to keep mankind hemmed in from elevating their state in existence.  Mages speculate that she may also be the Crone some vampires worship or the Dark Mother, Lilith, mother of all monsters.

9. Matter Sight  - Jade (mundane)
The mage sees people tainted by the Exarchs seem to have extra weight/density/mass to them. Gravity and density seems increased around them and other objects seem to pull towards them ever so slightly. Sometimes they feel like invisible chains pulling on the observer and the person, place, or thing. The most tainted you can actually see distortions of the chains on reality all around them… 

The Chancellor is the Exarch patron of the Matter Arcanum and the Lesser Ministry of Mammon. The Ministry of Mammon subjugates mankind through wealth and power.

The Chancellor is also served by another Ministry (as if hedging it's bets), the Ministry of the Pantechnicon.  The Pantechniconic Ministry subjugates mankind through technological superiority and isolation.  Since the failure of the Pyramid to recruit the Free Council of Assemblies both the Mammonites and Pantechnics have rushed to fill the power vacuum as the Hegemony continues to decline.  The Great Refusal (when the Free Council of Assemblies rejected the Seers) destroyed the Seer's hope to create the great Technocracy the Seers suffered perhaps their greatest blow.  The Pantechnicon continues the dream of the Technocracy and its Technocrats maintain it is their destiny to restore what could have been.

10. Forces Sight  - Aquamarine
the mage sees that around influenced subjects they can hear this hissing sound. They also hear whispers in varying tones and urgency. Analyzing this further, the sounds seem to emit as if someone was talking through a wall, words muffled and just barely incoherent. The tone and volume of the whispers varies in intensity based on the concentration of the control.  

The General is the Archigenitor Exarch patron of the Forces Arcanum and the Greater Ministry of Praetorian. The Praetoric Ministry subjugates mankind through military might.


The weak fear the strong. Brutal demagogues and warriors, the soldier-priests of Praetorian
serve under the General, Exarch of control through violence. Where their counterparts in the Adamantine Arrow practice combat as a symbol of righteous struggle, Praetorian mages espouse warfare as dehumanizing meat-grinder, through which warlords rise to subjugate others with the fear of violence. As western societies are increasingly militarized by fear of terrorism, and the world bathes in the blood of countless never-ending wars, the Praetorian Ministry seems unassailable in the Iron Pyramid.

Persistent Effects:


I. Attuned Orichalcum O

- Perfected: Orichalcum offers a +2 tool Yantra for spells cast upon itself

- Perfected: Orichalcum durability cannot be reduced by nonmagical means. 

- Perfected: When used as a Tool Yantra for Forces or Prime spells, the mage gains 9-again on the spell roll
- Perfected: It is completely impervious to corrosion and is considered chemically inert.

- Attuned: If the wielder of an Orichalcum imbued item knows a version of the rote contained in the item, she gains the 9-again quality when she casts the rote if she is wielding the item of power. 

II. Grimoire O

Reading the writing on the inside of the Bell reveals instructions to learn the custom Seer spell "Ringsight" (Prime 1 w/ Fate 2 & Time 2) for 1 Experience point.  The Rote skill used is Occult.  The spell no longer has an indefinite duration (expires when the spell duration ends) but is still triggered by Active Mage Sight and terminated after AMS drops without the need for hanging the spell in a Time spell.  

The spellcasting roll still needs to be made and can target anyone instead of being limited to the person casting it.  It does not have the automatic potency, starting at potency 1 as typical.  Casting Ringsight as a Rote Spell while holding the Ring of the Dethroned Queen gains the 9 again quality.  Reading the Rote from the inside of the bell while casting grants the Rote quality as typical for Grimoire use.

Reference - Merit: Artifact Rules

Artifact (•••+, Special) Effect: Your character possesses an Artifact, an item from the Supernal World which is both a physical symbol of magic and a unique item independently empowered create to sorcerous effects. These items possess their own Mana stores, and have their own effective Gnosis and Arcana with which to generate effects. They can cast these effects when harnessed by an Awakened owner who has researched (or divined through Prime) the manner in which the item works.

• Determining usage - In general, this takes successes on an extended research action equal to twice the Artifact’s Merit dots.
• Dot Rating - To calculate the cost of an Artifact, look to its single greatest effect, and map it to a spell effect. The base cost is equal to the highest Arcanum used, or three, whichever is higher. Each additional effect adds to the cost, but only half the highest Arcanum used (rounded up)
• Utility Attainments - Including a Utility Attainment in a spell effect (for example, an Artifact that can cast at Sympathetic Range) increases the cost by one dot for each Attainment included.
• Mana - Item can store Mana equal to twice the dot rating.
• Effective Gnosis Rating - The item’s effective Gnosis is equal to half the dot rating, rounded up.
• Accessing Mana - An owner can access the item’s Mana as if it were her own, or can use it to fuel the Artifact’s abilities. The Artifact can also use its Mana as part of its own activation.
• Effective Arcana Rating/Reach - The Artifact has effective Arcana equal to the highest Arcanum used in its various effects.
• Reach/Paradox - Artifacts cannot Reach beyond the “free” Reach for their Arcana ratings on their own. If an Artifact risks Paradox, the user can spend Mana to mitigate Paradox (in any combination of her own or the Artifact’s Mana pool, up to her Gnosis-derived limits) and may choose to contain the Paradox herself. Otherwise, the Artifact automatically releases it.
• Triggering Use - Every Artifact will use its effects under different circumstances, determined when you create the Artifact. For example, an Artifact might cast its effect the moment it is first seen by human eyes, or whenever it’s dropped on the ground.
• Combining Ratings -If an owner accesses the Artifact’s effects, she may use her own Gnosis and Arcana, the Artifact’s, or any combination thereof. 
• Path Tool Yantra - Every Artifact is also a Path tool Yantra worth +1 dice for mages of the Path of the Artifacts’ highest Arcanum.