2E Mage-focused Game
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Hi all,
I scrapped my earlier idea for the Golden Road (the one with numerous stories). I decided to tell ONE COHESIVE story with numerous elements from the other to where it could become a cohesive MU*. Right now, I want to do a 2E Mage-focused game that has a staff-run metaplot (me), but will eventually open up other spheres, not as main characters with staff stories, but as potential other PCs for others to interact with what's going on in the world. As such, I've put in a timeline and the current setting mood. I'd love for all y'alls thoughts.
I'm getting help with deugging, but could use someone to help with the wiki so all the world building can be put in a pretty form. DM me if intrigued. Thanks!
Prologue:
1900 - Founding of the Havrion Academy of Magical Pedagogy, an institute in established in as part of the Smithsonian Institutes in Washington, D.C in order to develop the best and brightest minds to lead the future of the Pentacle by El-Melloi Havrion, a Mysterium master
1910 - The first graduating class of the academy finishes, with fifteen of the forty three students passing finals exams and being considered at least of adept level in the Pentacle; many move on to serve in esteemed positions and as researchers worldwide
1964 - The Havrion Academy shifts from being a Mysterium led research institute into a multi-disciplinary college chantry to train the next generation. The first faculty from the Adamantine Arrows, Silver Ladder, and the Guardians of the Veil are introduced
1983 - The Free Council is welcomed to teach its techne’ and apprentices are soon brought in, thus representing the entire Diamond order.
1986 - Wanting to prevent potential magical disaster upon others, the combined faculty of the Havrion Academy move all leylines associated with the school from its original spot as part of the Smithsonian Institutes to a powerful node found in the town of Cayuga Falls, New York
1999 - Professors Genevieve Caldeur and Lin Tsinghua foresee a time of danger in the future, a time of increased spiritual wounds, abyssal intrusions, and other calamities. Their prophecies are recorded in the Great Record of the Academy
2000 - The first magical deadzone appears in San Diego, California. Magical treasures, wonders, and familiars at the San Diego consilium were completely wiped out. This repeats numerous times in San Francisco (along with a powerful 7.1 earthquake), Boston, Tokyo, Prague, and London, decimating powerful consilii that were once mainstays to the orders.
2001 - Increased intrusions appear with an alarming rate. Large portals start appearing, only visible with mage sight, and the Adamantine Arrow declare a state of emergency. They start sending many apprentices to the academy, starting the College of Battlemagic.
2006 - The portals and numerous abyssal intrusions start to wane down and enter a quiet period.
2007 - Professor of Magical Theory, Deshaunte Egboh, starts to find evidence of other potential Watchtowers, and formulates his hypotheses on the Watchtowers of the Soul (the classical five), and the Watchtowers of the World.
2009 - A powerful cosmic event can be felt throughout, as the first mages of the Watchtower of Brass and Flame from the Realm of the Djinn can be seen.
2010 - The Watchtower of Brass and Flame is considered the first Watchtower of the World. The Mysterium and Free Council further build on Prof. Egboh’s work to discover if there are others that would correspond.
2015 - Mages of four more Watchtowers are discovered and the full theory of the Watchtowers of the World has been formed. Prof. Egboh wins international recognition for his work.Chapter 1: The Death of Magic
2019 - The first students showing promise that are representing the other Watchtowers are now being apprenticed at the Havrion Academy.Chapter 2: The Names of God (just a preview ^_^)
Current Setting and Mood:
The Diamond Orders have had a strong interest in both the wonders and the students from the Havrion Academy, especially due to the prophecies of Professors Colder and Tsinghua. Unknown to the outside world, the theoreticians and academics at Havrion know one thing is certain; magic is dying. As to why and how they can stop it and stop it from potentially spreading? That is the sole purpose for the school, its faculty, and students.As magic dies, abyssal intrusions and other weirder things are becoming more commonplace around the world. The Adamantine Arrows have developed the College of Battle Magic to train and develop fierce warriors of the order in order to protect the masses (and potentially magic) from threats both magical and mundane.
The Mysterium wants to save magic by finding all grimoires, palimpsest, wonders, and other relics scatted across to world to see if this has happened before and if there’s a way to stop it. Surely, time is but a repeating cycle, they say, and there must have been some point in history (or pre-history) where mages had to contend with such a thing.
The Libertines are taking a different approach. Humanity is magic. While the Mysterium searches on Earth, the Libertines are looking beyond, not just to other realms, but other planets. Surely, life isn’t just on Earth, and thus they look to the stars, hoping to find that somewhere, out there, LIFE IS MAGIC, so that they can take it back to Earth to teach a new way or supplement what’s going on.
The Silver Ladder and Guardians are severe denial of ‘the death of magic’. They do not believe in the prophecies and consider it simply the Seers doing. As such, they are going out and increasing their actions against the Scelesti and the Seers of the Throne, to try to stop their perceived death of magic by removing any and all obstacles. Who knows if they’ll consider their peers obstacles in the future?
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Now soft open so people can test chargen and soft RP. The grid is still being built, but I want to test the XP system, chargen, rolling to make sure all those things work. Thank you so much to @derp and @Thenomain for their help in debugging.
If you're interested, hop on goldenroad.mudhosting.net Port 4201.
Thanks!
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So prior to 2010, there were no Mages, just hedgewitches and the sort? Am I reading that right? Cause that's hella neat, if so.
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@Jennkryst Oh no, there were mages. Now there's five more Watchtowers, so even MOAR MAGES but with different paths.
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I would want to know more about these new five Watchtowers. What their Realms are, what their Arcanum are, etc.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin said in 2E Mage-focused Game:
I would want to know more about these new five Watchtowers. What their Realms are, what their Arcanum are, etc.
If it's the same as the presented Djinn in the Sixth Watchtower, it'll be Forces/Spirit with an inferior of Prime.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@Derp said in 2E Mage-focused Game:
@Coin said in 2E Mage-focused Game:
I would want to know more about these new five Watchtowers. What their Realms are, what their Arcanum are, etc.
If it's the same as the presented Djinn in the Sixth Watchtower, it'll be Forces/Spirit with an inferior of Prime.
Except there isn't a single Sixth Watchtower; there's 5, including that one.
So, what's the other four?
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The new Watchtowers "of the World" are as follows:
Aretos, The Artisan - Watchtower of The Copper Mallet in the Realm of Utopia
Ruling Arcana
Matter and Prime. The world is founded on a duality: Truth and Reality, Theory and Practice, Supernal and Phenomenal, Prime and Matter. Prime provides the blueprints for the Aretos' works, and Matter supplies the raw materials used to implement those plans.Inferior Arcanum
Fate. The unpredictable, chaotic nature of this Arcanum runs counter to the orderly mind of the craftsman.Axios, the Trader - Watchtower of the Adamantine Scale in the Realm of the Divine Commonwealth
Ruling Arcana
Space and Fate. To the Axios, Space isn't primarily about distance or geometry; it's about Sympathetic Links: what is important to a person? Likewise, Fate isn't about manipulating probabilities; it's about a person's intentions and promises.Inferior Arcanum
Life is no gift, its a bargain. You can live but you will die; you can feel joy but you will also suffer. It is just a tool. What you can do with your life is more important than the life itself.Kleos, the Sage - The Watchtower of the Tin Flute in the Realm of Akasha
Ruling Arcana
Time and Mind, fluff soonInferior Arcana
Space, fluff soonMaestros, the Sorcerer - The Watchtower of Brass and Flame in the Elemental Nation (THE SIXTH)
Ruling Arcana
Forces and Spirit, fluff soonInferior Arcana
Prime, fluff soonSophros, the Druid - The Watchtower of the Wooden Chalice in the Realm of Elysium
Ruling Arcana
Life and Death: The Empress Hanging herself. Shades clothed in flesh and speaking through beasts’ cries. They are but two sides of the same coin. A stag runs through the woods leaving a trail of blood. His flesh will sing in the stomach of the hunter and flowers will grow along his bones. The Lie blinds Sleepers to the beauty of rot and they forgot life is nothing but growth and decay endlessly repeating. They sneer at the stinking swamp but Druids know. In the foulest mire grows the fairest lotus.Let other fear, Sophroï know they are immortals.
Inferior Arcanum
Time: Sophroï know that time moves forward but it clashes with their understanding. For Druids and Medium alike Time is a circle of growth and decay, each giving birth to the other, each becoming the other. In Elysium there is no beginning and no ends, no past and no future, only an endless cycle always in movement. -
Also, I'd love thoughts on PC levels.
1st Year Uni students - Assumed to be at least 18+ and awakened for one year. They either passed the rigorous admissions exam or were recommended by an alumnus/former professor.
3rd/4th Year Uni students - 15 XP with automagical +1 occult, +1 academics, +1 university status and +5 points of rotes
Faculty PCs - 40 XP with automagical +2 occult, +2 academics, +2 university status, and +10 points of rotes
Thoughts? It's GMC so XP costs are WAY cheaper.
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If it's a structured curriculum, xp should probably go up in even increments per year.
Faculty PCs being 40 seems sensible, maybe even a little underpowered, depending on what level of faculty we're talking about.
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ICly, there's a structured curriculum, but I figure people learn magic at a different pace, etc.
Students will primarily be learning things, like there'll be a chance for people to learn the IC/OOC fluff as shown in Signs of Sorcery, see the new merits, pick up new styles of magic, and participate in off world expeditions, learn battle magic and start fighting off Abyssal intrusions.
For faculty, maybe it should be 50 XP? Faculty will be leading off world tours, teaching the students how to fight off a research Abyssal intrusions, and will be developing new magical theories and magecraft.
The overall metaplot for the entire MU* is united, but the power level difference should be felt. Faculty should be able to humble a brash cocky student, but a group of students should be a match for a faculty member. Make sense?
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I more meant that 'if every student takes a certain number of credit hours per semester, and the course is adequately structured, then they're all gonna be learning roughly the same thing', which results in uniform xp.
This does not rule out independent study because they are naturally more adept at certain things than others, leaving them more time to explore the things they want to study on their own (whether they should be or not).
This has been the premise of nearly all the 'magic school' stories. Harry Potter, the Magicians. They're all learning the same stuff in class. Some of them are learning stuff on their own, too. Which is where your plots and such come in.
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That's what I want ICly. The structured curriculum covers things, so on some level progression should be more equal, but I also don't have the standard thought process of it takes four years to graduate. If you look at ye old apprenticeships, they're 7/8 years, so I figured 3rd/4th year is more of a halfway point to where there should be some decent progression.
Or should I break it down more to 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8?
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I think that the further you spread it out, the more work you're going to have to do when it comes to gating people into certain xp ranges. So really it's up to you. How are you going to stop everyone from apping in an Eighth Year Faculty-In-Training PC? What incentives do they have to play First Years? What does plot look like for a Fifth Year? A Seventh Year?
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@Derp I do have example plot threads for different levels. Faculty get different focused 'faculty-only' plots versus 'student-only' plots. The main difference will come down to the power level of the mystery/antagonist and just how difficult it will be to resolve shit.
If people wanna apply a bunch of 3rd/4th years and ignore the newblet, that's fine. I can run 3rd/4th year plot. If people just wanna apply a bunch of faculty and do higher leveled plots.
I think it's easier to basically split it out this way since this represents a student/faculty member who has done NOTHING else but the required stuff. PCs should be special, and so if a 1st year PC, after 24 weeks on grid is the equivalent of a 3rd/4th year new bit PC, then it is what it is. That experienced mage will be brought along more difficult adventures, just like how Quentin and Alice were skipped a year in the Magicians.
tl;dr I'm thinking plots like small/medium/large. No supersizing yet plz.
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@chibichibi said in 2E Mage-focused Game:
Kleos, the Sage - The Watchtower of the Tin Flute in the Realm of Akasha
Ruling Arcana
Time and Mind, fluff soonInferior Arcana
Space, fluff soonOooh, the Akasha got me to thinking about the fluff.
Reality is an infinitesimally small moment when all that was, is, and will be are. Every bit of knowledge in existence is already experienced, recorded, and archived. Every breath, every bliss, every heartache, every deduction, every inspiration, every despair, and every discovery have all been and always have been since the very first and only moment. To appreciate the infinitude of existence fully, though, the self must take all of this in pieces known as time. But everything is already in the akashic record and should you wish to skip ahead in the infinitude all it takes is knowing how to look.
Space is just an illusion created by the mind for time to work. How can one experience Thing A appropriately if Things B through Z are all fighting one another for the same moment of attention? Instead the mind parses out Thing A from Things B through Z by separating them with segments of time that must be crossed by "movement." Really Things A through Z were always right there to begin with.
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@Ominous I love it. Mind if I use it for the fluff in game?
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@chibichibi Have at it. I posted it either to be used or to inspire. I love writing up metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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@Ominous Have any ideas for Maestros (ie the Sixth Watchtower presented from Mage Chroniclers?)
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