Ascension’s Landscape

Setting Refinements and

Story Hooks

A Setting and World-Building Aide for

Mage 20th Anniversary Edition
Ascension's Landscape
Setting Refinements and
Story Hooks for Mage:
The Ascension 20th
Anniversary Edition

Terry Robinson
Credits
Written By: Terry Robinson
Developed By: Terry Robinson
Cover Illustration: Image by Виктория Бородинова from
Pixabay, additional photos Peter H, Iván Tamás, WikiIm-
ages, TheDigitalArtist, Angela Yuriko Smith
Edited By: Terry Robinson
Opening Poem By: Logan Rollins
Contact me: @terryrobinson on Twitter, phillycuriosity on the
Onyx Path forums, or terry.r.robinson at gmail dot com.
Find an error? Contact me! If I release an update and I agree
that the purported error is indeed an error, I’ll make the
change and credit you here.
Honored Rolll of Those Who Pointed Out Mistakes:
Stefan Carton, Brad Meng, John “Puppetcancer” Beckwith
Edition: 31 May 2020
Special Thanks to:
Chazz Kellner of the The Story Told podcast for bringing
a non-fanboy perspective. Chazz’s continual reminder
to answer the question “how does this affect the game”
helped turn what was originally a philosophical treatise
into something much more usable.
Charles Siegel for Charles’ encyclopedic knowledge of the
lore of Mage and consideration of some of the corners I
failed to inspect.
Travis Legge for reminding us that if you put your back into
it, you can make something pretty good.
Josh Heath for commentary and feedback.
Joseph Aleo and Adam Simpson of Mage: The Podcast for
encouraging me to put my fingerprint on the community.
Satyros Phil Brucato for carrying a very heavy football a very
long distance for a very long time.
The users of Mage: The Podcast’s Discord Server for helping
me with strange questions.
The listeners of Mage: The Podcast for being a wonderful
community. Authors have been driven from Mage due to
the toxicity of some of the fans. I’ve yet to encounter any of
them as listeners to the show. I hope this streak continues.

Piracy Notice: I started reading Mage books in 8th grade when I think I had a $4.00 allowance.
Saving for a copy of Traditions Gathered took a month and the Revised Core Rulebook was a
birthday present. I totally get not having the means to pay for a game book especially when so
many other needs demand our resources. I'll gladly give a free copy to anyone who sends me a
note and simply says "I don't have the means to pay for this". No questions asked.

FEEEEEEEDBAAAAAAAAACK: If you found an error a type and want to tell me, Click
here to submit feedback! ( or navigate to: bit.ly/ascensionslandscapefeedback)

© 2020 White Wolf Entertainment AB. All rights reserved. Vam-

pire: The Masquerade®, World of Darkness®, Storytelling System™,
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For additional information on White Wolf and the World of Dark-
ness, please, visit: www.white-wolf.com, www.worldofdarkness.com and
www.Storytellersvault.com.

3 Ascension's Landscape
 Table of
Contents
Chapter One: Introduction 5
Chapter Two:
Through a Setting, Darkly 9
Chapter Three: Queries 23
Chapter Four: Putting It All Together 53

4
 Chapter One:
Why this book?

Someone convinced you to storytell Mage?

— Every Mage Storyteller, while drinking

Two of Dynamism
Associations for the tarot card: difficult choices, indecision, stale-
mate
Mage: the Ascension is a game about human ambition magnified a thousand-
fold by the ability to directly shape reality via true magick. Mages function
in societies both magical and mundane and operate in a world shaped by
forces both natural and supernatural. So what happens to a world that is
otherwise mundane and suddenly magick, vampires, or the War of Rage
is introduced? That world shouldn’t be the same as ours. Once you’ve
established as a Storyteller that there will be mages, how does the world
differ if 1 in 100,000 mortals Awakens versus 1 in 5,000,000? This book
tries to answer those kinds of questions.
I never liked the default setting of Dungeons and Dragons
because in a world where magic was essentially free, why hadn’t magic
been mobilized to build great civilizations? Not like “ooh a castle” great,
but “continents in the sky” great. Why were people toiling in fields when
a single class of wizards casting Create Food could free up society to be
artisans and scholars? If crystal balls existed, why weren’t there crystal ball
telecommunications networks? The World of Darkness is urban fantasy
and with a little planning it’s possible to build a world that won’t fall
apart quite so easily under inspection.
Good science fiction or fantasy will address how even subtle
changes in a world lead to wildly different outcomes. Mage partly de-
mands a Storyteller ask “if magick exists, why is the world so similar?”
and “why hasn’t the World of Darkness fallen apart?” and this book
guides tables through answering those questions.
The first step to changing the world is realizing that it can be

6
changed and this book hopes to give Storytellers an idea of as- Storyteller find an interesting event or idea to include, there’s
sumptions that can be modified and how those modifications usually a way to get there.
then change their world.
The central thesis of this book is that by exploring how Names and Such
a game setting works and the assumptions that underlie it, a The book is littered with names, factions, and organizations
Storyteller can find interesting and unconsidered opportunities with no prior existence in Mage. These are provided to help
for stories. A secondary thesis is that Mage players generally breathe life into the text and are strictly ornamental. Storytellers
enjoy thinking about cosmological what-if scenarios and may should change the names in any story hook or chronicle idea
find the mental exercise of adjusting the knobs of the world if it doesn’t suit their Chronicle and sensibilities. NPC names
to be fun in its own right. were created using liberal use of random name generators. If a
name is offensive or improperly formed like listing an obvious
A world of darkness and The World of familial name first in a culture that generally lists familial name
Darkness second, please contact the author.
When used, The World of Darkness (capitalized) refers to
the setting of Mage as delivered across most of the books of
the line. This is considered the canon setting as well as all
variants directly supported by Mage’s text such as through the
Future Fates sidebars included throughout M20 and subsequent
books. A world of darkness (not capitalized), is a variant and may
depart from canon. The World of Darkness has a Council,
the Technocracy, the Nephandi and such where a world of
darkness may forego one of these factions with the Council
possibly scattered or the Disparate Alliance taking center stage.
A world of darkness will still share some theme or mood ele-
ments with The World of Darkness otherwise a table is just
using Mage for mechanics which may be somewhere between
nostalgia and masochism.

Chronicle Ideas and Story Hooks

Throughout the book, small sections labeled Chronicle
Ideas and Story Hooks are listed. Chronicle ideas in general
require something to be present from the beginning of play. If
a chronicle idea depends on the characters being part of The
Shattered Union, a collective of Anti-Nephandi agents that
exist after the Technocracy was destroyed in the Mass Layoffs
of the late 2000s, that organization needs to exist in chronicle
before characters can be a part of it. Players should buy into the
chronicle idea before the world is set up, otherwise Storyteller
and player expectations may not align. Sometimes a chronicle
idea requires a specific event having happened such as a spe-
cific state being an autocracy or a fictitious war having been
waged. If the event is big, such as the Technocratic Civil War,
the Second Inquisition, the Greylocke Incident or what have
you, the characters should already be familiar with it even if
the players are not yet. A Storyteller should provide appropri-
ate background notes or be ready to explain what a character
would reasonably know about an important event.
Story hooks require less to be built into a game like “char-
acters are asked by a cabal ally to help kill a mad Archmaster
before they become a Marauder so their Avatar can be freed”.
A chronicle idea can often be used as a story hook with some
work and vice versa. Maybe the characters aren’t members
of The Shattered Union but are asked to join it regardless of
their existing status as Disparates or Traditionalists. Should a

7 Ascension's Landscape
What This Book Includes read such a book, the author has no intention on writing one.
Chapter 1 - Through a Setting, Darkly outlines ways in System changes to support the narrative changes are also
which a given world of darkness can be dark. This chapter sets not presented. While this would be a logical next step, it's a
out the foundational questions that will determine the mood bit beyond scope for a text that started out as a 10,000 word
and theme for a chronicle. pamphlet and has since grown to a 30,000 word small book.
Chapter 2 - The Questions goes through questions orga-
nized by type on considerations a table may wish to answer
But What About...
before starting. These questions provide detail and landmarks This book presents what the author thought was a set of
in a world of darkness and describe options for how the tradi- core questions about the World of Darkness setting as well as
tional factions in the Ascension War behave. specific questions about the world of Mage: the Ascension.
Some questions were dumped as being too picayune such as
Chapter 3 - Putting It All Together gives sample worlds
"how common are Umbral Realms" and "how common are
created from a few starting assumptions along with plot ideas
Talismans and Devices". The definition of "too specific" is
that come from these worlds.
somewhat idiosyncratic as questions like "what is the nature
of scientific discovery" are included which some may dismiss
What This Book Does Not Include
as pointless to include. But, such is the tyrannical power of
Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has done
the author on a community-content portal.
very little to advance a canon metaplot and has continued to use
the Future Fates sections first introduced in Sorcerer's Crusade.
This book doesn't create new forward-looking metaplot nor
are the options presented necessarily aligned with the Future
Fates options presented in M20.
This book also is not a Mage version of Shards of the Ex-
alted Dream or Chronicles of Darkness: Mirrors. This book
assumes the world is or at least at some point was similar to the
gothic/punk setting of the Classic World of Darkness books.
There's no conjecture as to how to move the game into deep
space, a fantasy realm, or another place that doesn't look like a
somewhat contemporary earth. While the author would love to

8
 I will find you again.
Spirit of my heart
And cadence of my soul
On that forgotten horizon
Seen so long ago

What paths did you choose

To bring your heart to mine
What doors did I close to lose you?

They say it was Whispers

And the long forgotten paths
That betrayed our sacred bond.
Deed and choice are similar;
And fate can clash with destiny
On the shores of yesterday.

Winds of loss push us ever down a road

And that which we call magic is
but Will
A will that sees us through the
brightest night and darkest day
A will that builds a haven to call
a home

9 Ascension's Landscape
 Chapter Two:
Through a Setting,
Darkly

Why is it The World of Darkness?

The World of Darkness is billed as a dark satire of the cutting edge with access to the equivalent of 90s era computers
real world. It’s sufficiently similar that readers expect it to in terms of power. Maybe mobile phones are significantly less
behave in understandable ways based on their experiences in ubiquitous or everyone just has flip phones. Plane flight may
reality, that is once one ignores the supernatural elements. be a rare luxury requiring mystickal means of travel more often.
Players can assume that roads are traversable, convenience Differences propagate and can eventually create a world very
stores operate normally in most developed places, and the different than the reality outside the game for most material
police will be called if automatic gunfire occurs in most cities considerations. “Society has as much material wealth as dur-
and towns. If everything in the World of Darkness is basically ing the 80s” is probably not what most people think of when
the same as in the real world but darker, why care about the they think World of Darkness (unless the game in question
causes of the darkness? Because knowing helps build a world is set in the 80s).
that makes sense and helps makes obvious the stories that can Maybe the rich and powerful in the World of Darkness are
happen in it. As an example, what would make wealth darker even more rich and powerful than in the real world. But how
in a world of darkness? does a Sleeper keep their billions in a world with the Dominate
Discipline, the Mind Sphere, the Arts of Chicanery and Sov-
Darker Wealth
Traditionally, the dark in World of Darkness suggests
that day to day life is in some way worse for the majority of
people but what is this worse? Is the world simply poorer in
terms of money and resources? If so, even small differences
in economic growth will compound and make a world much
different than the world outside the game. For instance, if
the World of Darkness grew 1% slower economically than
the real world since 1945, the average global citizen would
have about half as much money. For the average American,
this would mean families having likely no more than one car,
smaller houses, fewer conveniences, a less varied diet, and less
advanced home goods. The Virtual Adepts may be considered

10
 ereign, the Lore of Humanity and Radiance and any number
of other mind influencing powers? Maybe the megawealthy are
largely supernaturals with some resistance or are mortals with
Iron Will. Maybe the 0.01% are not just economically vampiric
but actual Embraced vampires. Maybe every billionaire employs
some sort of service to not fall victim to supernatural influence,
such as Syndicate-provided “meditation aides” or Progenitor
nootropics that help keep the mind clear. Billionaires could
all employ other protective services that are fronts for linear
mages, vampires, demons, or even the amulet makers of the
Kher-minu as a check against mental intrusion. Answering the
question of “so how do the wealthy keep their wealth against
an onslaught of Night-Folk?” provides interesting answers that
can be used in a chronicle. What happens when the Syndicate
withdraws support, the linear mages go on strike, or the Kher-
minu return to the Web of Faith? There could be vast wealth
up for grabs to the less scrupulous and that can spell plot.
Supernaturals protecting against supernaturals answers one
setting question of “so where does everyone get their money
from?” Some tables enjoy the game of balancing a mage’s day
job with their role as a member of the Awakened but not all do.
Mages doing periodic high-paying jobs to interdict meddling
forces provides both money for characters and stories for players.
“Inequality darkness” may not suit your tastes and may
be simplistic. Similarly, a world of darkness where people are
simply meaner and more callous presents certain problems. If
everyone is simply meaner, characters fighting for peace may
just be out of place. Base-line changes to human nature can
be difficult to implement globally. If you choose to up some
negative human character trait, provide a world justification.
Do the constant machinations of the Wyrm make everyone just
a bit more violent? Does the influence of changelings produce
more artists? Are vampires behind some global conspiracies
shrouded from mortals? Are mortals simply idiots?
A world of darkness may be an iron meritocracy ruled by
a self-perpetuating elite. Those in charge are in charge because
they’re more capable but only due to an accumulation of ad-
vantages over their lifetime where most others would do just
as well. Another world of darkness may be dark due to radical
populism or paranoia or a failed socialist putsch that leaves
millions cynical and yet more paranoid. What counts as dark
is each table’s call but an explanation may help shape a game.
Questions of mood and atmosphere are fundamental enough
that Storyteller’s may wish to brainstorm with players. If it’s a
Types of Darkness
Warning! This section at times isn’t a happy one. Vio-
lence, property crime, death, suicide and other causes of
loss are discussed. While it’s often in clinical terms, if the
reader would rather not consider these specifics, consider
skipping sections.
11 Ascension's Landscape
big bad event, their characters will know about it. If the change
is a general difference in mood, they’ll need to roleplay it.
Eventually, though, differences will accumulate causing
reality and a given world of darkness to differ great. This di-
vergence may take decades of in-game time but a Storyteller
should remember that small changes accumulate. Anyone who’s
visited the pedestrian-friendly Time Square of recent history
won’t recognize the trash-strewn porn haven of the Time Square
accurately (for the time) presented in Bonfire of the Vanities.
Simple interventions like changes in policing, shifting crime
rates, and removing a lot of lead from everything transformed
squalor to a nearly pristine tourist trap.
The larger the difference between a world of darkness
and the reality outside the game the quicker the two will likely
diverge unless something is present to make them look simi-
lar. A world with twice the violent crime rate will have lots of
knock on effects in terms of focusing on security and bodily
safety and a chronicle with higher crime rates should shift to
reflect it. As crime rises, insurance is harder to get or more
expensive and shops are better protected. Fewer businesses
open and store hours tend to shorten. Chronicles involving
breaking and entering to get supplies should involve higher
difficulties to reflect better security systems or maybe the Lar-
ceny, Streetwise, or other appropriate Ability is scaled. Maybe
a novice in this world of darkness would be an adept thief in
a less locked-down world.
There’s a draw to simply double a given indicator of bad-
ness but this can be extreme. Homicide rates in the US in the
90s were close to where they are currently in Afghanistan and
doubling current rates in the US would make it as dangerous
as Mali or Uganda. Small changes accumulate to big changes
and big changes accumulate to seismic changes.
Before picking the causes of a world being dark, consider
the themes that will be explored as well as the preferences of the
play group. Players in college towns in areas where the manu-
facturing base has been hollowed out may have no interest in
going in a world that is like theirs but worse. Players may lean
into a certain type of darkness because they wish to fix it. If you
players are Robin Hood types, exaggerated inequality makes
sense and chronicle focuses should be agreed on ahead of time.
Not all interpretations of darkness need to be grungy and
overtly dangerous. Dark can also mean that which isn’t revealed
more so than that which is simply bad. There are many ways
to get darkness in a world that is still recognizable.
Many of these darknesses already exist in the real world
and to say otherwise would be either callous or naive. But
within a world of darkness, these forces may be ramped up
considerably. Wealth inequality in the US has risen since the
recent minimum in 1970 but it is still below the 20th century
maximum in the early 1930s. A given world of darkness may
reflect an equal wealth distribution as the 30s with Great
Depression-like characteristics of starving masses ignored by
the wealthy in country estates or high above in skyscrapers.
The causes of darkness are so important in defining a game
world that players should have a good idea of why a world of
darkness is darker than their world. Sharing what brings dark-
ness to the world explicitly before a chronicle starts can help
players visualize the world and figure out what appropriate
backgrounds and builds would be during character creation. Just
as important is indicating what aspects are likely changeable.
Characters may wish to right global wrongs and the world-
building discussion should answer whether that is possible.
If creativity is gone because an Incarna of Inspiration is dying
or imprisoned, characters may wish to fix that. If creativity is
gone due to a kind of bleak despair, that may prove harder for
characters to tackle except for maybe in small areas.
Many worlds will have a mix of factors making them dark
but here they are discussed individually.
Economic/Power Inequality
The rich and corrupt are exceptionally more so and no
counterbalancing forces exist. Class is more rigid or getting
ahead requires being more ruthless. At some point, unless a
world of darkness is actually richer in terms of expenditure, the
standard of living of everyone outside of the elite goes down.
Houses become smaller or more run down or dwellings are
more commonly shared. Less spending money results in fewer
businesses for most buyers and chain stores with low operating
margins become more common. The economy may be more
volatile with more booms and busts and people may be more
likely to hoard cash and resources leaving less available in the
open markets. Maybe heavy regulation has led many businesses
and economic transactions to work in an underground economy
where there is no recourse to the police or law enforcement.
Chronicle Idea: Characters are “Distributionists”, mages who
target supernatural entities that have accumulated wealth and
put it back out into the hands of Sleepers. This may involve
returning artifacts that vampire sorcerers have accumulated,
loosening up the pockets of Pentax’s bane-infested executives,
and releasing a miser wraith who’s gold stash is a fetter for them.
Chronicle Idea: The Children of Desolation in the Stockyard
neighborhood of Cleveland are tired of living hand to mouth
when they have magick at their disposal. Players choose a
questionable venture they wish to run to make money and the
chronicle tracks their trip to the lap of luxury and the difficulties
they’ll encounter. Characters may run an Entropy-influenced
underground casino or may use Time and Data to predict
market movements...or Matter and Forces to cause them. As
characters acquire Resources they may also acquire hangers
on and others looking to get a part of the action. Players may
choose to lean into luxury and possible temptation or spread
their model of Awakened success to other areas.
Story Hook: A new housing development opens in a cleaned
12
up Superfund site and the occupants all seem to be normal
happy families...which are exceedingly rare in this world of
darkness. Most of the inhabitants appear to have low paying
jobs and the companies that purportedly built the housing
don’t seem to exist. Six times a year, all of the houses seem
empty for one night.
Story Hook: A popular politician advocating redistributive policies
appears to have a heart attack during a campaign speech and
a recording surfaces of an audience member making strange
hand motions and then leaving moments before the incident.
Story Hook: A reclusive billionaire has created a grant to
revitalize poor neighborhoods and is offering an additional
$20 million to build “places of public reflection”. This could
be an opportunity for a cabal to protect/redirect/promote ley
lines, protect Nodes, and serve a reality zone friendly to their
paradigm and for other factions to try to do the same. The cabal
can use whatever means they find reasonable to get their plan
approved but may be willing to go much further when they
find out others have darker plans for the funds.
Violence and Destruction
The world is a more violent place with people being flat out
more likely to die at the hands of others. Adjusting the violence
knob can cause large changes to the shape and feel of a world.
For instance, the homicide rate in the United States is about 5
homicides per 100,000 people per year. Say there's two vampires
per 100,000 people and they each kill two people a year. This
would nearly double the murder rate in the US and that's just
due to vampires. The last time the homicide rate in the US
was around 9 per 100,000 was during the violent crime highs
of the 70s through the 90s which helped cause a flight to the
suburbs. Vampires may be particularly good at making murder
look like an accident or may feed on those whose departure
wouldn’t be missed. Feeding, though, isn’t the sole cause of
vampire-induced homicide. Masquerade breaches, the Jyhad,
sect warfare and blood sacrifices are just a start. What would
be a reasonable increase to also reflect actions of the Wyrm,
Sabbat, the Thallain, spectres, Syndicate clean-up squads, and
everything else that Night-Folk could do? Once murder rates
hit about three times the current US city average, personal
body guards, security fencing, and weapon ownership by pri-
vate citizens tends to rise and cities look more locked down.
Areas with open drug cartel warfare tend to have murder rates
between 40 and 80 per 100,000 per year.
In other countries with lower murder rates, just intro-
ducing vampires would cause an almost unimaginable rise
in homicide. Introducing vampires would quadruple the rate
of murder in France which would be unimaginable to most
French. Why bring this up? At some point the level of violence
shapes society and things quickly diverge. As non-state violence
increases, people are more likely to try to protect themselves.
Suddenly firearms may be more common or every bystander
may have brass knuckles or pepper spray on them. More people
13 Ascension's Landscape
are employed in security operations or more hard-line police
tactics are accepted or kickbacks to focus on particular areas
increases. Blackbag operations and abductions become harder
if everyone is armed and the police operate at high readiness.
The tools of violence also become more prevalent whether on
the open or hidden market. Violence chews up resources that
could go elsewhere in a society.
If a Storyteller doesn’t wish for a world with more inter-
personal violence, deaths of despair from alcohol, drug abuse,
and suicide may be more common. The population of Russia
dropped by approximately five million people between 1992
and 2008 due to a sudden drop in birth rates and higher death
rates from non-violent causes like drug abuse and suicide.
Storytelling a world where more people have simply given up
can be exceptionally dispiriting but provide opportunities for
a cabal to provide hope.
A world with more death and violence has a different feel
to it. At very high levels, fatalism tends to set in and people in
violent areas tends to view their lives as not in their control. A
world with more death and violence in it allows for characters
to enact more death and violence without consequence from
the state but with a higher expectation of people taking justice
into their own hands. If your goal is to create an environment
where killing someone will have high moral ramifications, your
characters will either need to be held to higher moral standards
by themselves or the world. Technocratic and Tradition mages
alike may consider themselves “better” and refuse to kill.
If a Storyteller wants a world with higher property crime,
consider how more theft causes an area to change. Alarm systems
become more common, more areas are patrolled by private
security forces, goods in stores are behind more locked cases or
purchases are made by making requests through a speaker grill
in 2” Lucite. Cars are more likely to have theft-resistant features
like remote kill switches which may make a high-energy action
movie feel harder to create. Everyday people may be more likely
to carry firearms making Mind effects that influence the actions
of a crowd much more lethal. More buildings may have metal
detectors and require searches to enter making espionage harder.
Chantries are more likely to be broken into without some sort
of magickal protection and Allies, Contacts, and Ties are more
likely to be harmed randomly making these Backgrounds harder
to maintain. Storytellers who don’t wish to punish a group
may allow the group to re-apply Backgrounds who have been
incapacitated in some other way like “our Contact was killed
but he left us instructions on where to recover a Talisman”.
Chronicle Idea: Characters serve as bodyguards to very impor-
tant magickal dignitaries which may be the head of a Craft,
a Primus, or a member of the Inner Circle. Besides dealing
with mundane threats, characters may discover the object of
their protection isn’t all they’re cracked up to be, leading to
questions of loyalty.
Chronicle Idea: Characters have their Chantry in a bad neigh-
borhood that is seeing rising violent crime rates. The Chantry
needs to decide to double-down and clean up the area or try
to move the Chantry or flat out abandon it. Staying will in-
volve either heavy fortification or coping with more crime
and leaving may cause a reality zone to wither.
Story Hook: A local medical college offers a small payment to
those willing their bodies to be used for research. Recently,
those that agreed have started to have a disproportionate
number of lethal accidents.
Story Hook: Riots are more common and string of Adepts and
Apprentices in a major city have been killed during riots tak-
ing place near Chantries. Some of the riots start as politi-
cal rallies where others begin with store smash and grabs or
are triggered by officer involved shootings. To confuse things
further, even known Technocratic Fronts also seem to be suc-
cumbing to civil violence.
Story Hook: A local chantry with a store as a front has been
approached by agents of a protection racket to prevent “bad
things” from happening to the store. The agents seemed re-
sistant to magickal coercion and seemed to know what the
chantry is capable of.
Strange Things in the
Shadows (supernatural)
Many feel like there are figures moving in the shadows
or incomprehensible things just out of view. In the World of
Darkness there are actually shadowy figures and those incom-
prehensible things are indeed there and in some cases may be
the very definition of incomprehensible. Mortals react as one
would expect when encountering the supernatural by possibly
freaking out, forgetting, telling everyone or telling no one, but
those who are too curious are either dealt with or the super-
natural tend to obscure what they do. At other times, Sleepers
interact with dark forces to become ghouls, acolytes, cultists,
worshippers, or otherwise hangers on but these activities ripple
out into the wider world and can be noticed by the discerning.
Some areas of the forest are suspiciously devoid of bird songs,
the homeless go missing on certain blocks, and Tilly’s Diner
is always closed on Tuesdays.
To keep the “darkness” in place, mechanisms exist to
conceal the supernatural activity done by at least some of the
larger supernatural factions. The Reality Deviant-hunting prac-
tices of the Technocracy, the Camarilla’s Masquerade, and the
Hierarchy’s Dictum Mortuum are all veils placed between the
supernatural world and Sleepers but they still have spillover
effects. When all of the ghouls in an area are killed before a
Justicar visits or when a particularly skilled psychic is repeatedly
shut down over health code violations, Sleepers may get a dim
awareness that something odd is in their midst. Mages have no
such protections beyond Mind magicks, the tendency of Sleepers
to explain away things they don’t understand, and occasion-
ally Paradox doing some clean up. As always, the best option
14
is subtlety as much as players and the Taftani often loathe it.
Storytellers should flesh out how a supernatural conspiracy
of silence affects everyday life. If everyone is trying to keep their
Ascension War-ing on the down low, plots will be slow, subtle,
and possibly vast. A Nephandus trying to gain control of a Node
near a historic site may have to infiltrate the zoning board to
get an area’s designation changed but only after convincing a
local historical society that the historic battleground or cem-
etery that designation is based on was actually elsewhere. Only
after that, can the developer be black-mailed to have the new
loft apartment building have an elevated first floor so that the
basement and sub-basements can be kept for darker purposes.
Conspiracies are slow and often spread out. Sussing out the
plot inclines players to interface with mortal power structures
and the reminder that they too are human.
Story Hook: A demon cult is attempting to get building per-
mits to build storefronts and public art installations to ad-
just leylines making their diabolic lords easier to summon.
A cabal’s contact on the street, in the city’s bureaucracy, or
someone sensitive to the strings of Quintessence between the
city’s Nodes alerts the cabal. The cult can be blocked bureau-
cratically, physically, or spiritually.
Story Hook: A rare cache of early writings on Vodoun mys-
ticism has been auctioned off as part of an estate sale and
researchers publishing papers based on the corpus are disap-
pearing. The cabal has lost a Contact to this phenomenon
and they have a suspicion that the works didn’t relate to mor-
tal practitioners.
Story Hook: A prominent medium has gone silent after years
of doing stage shows involving “contacting the dead”. On in-
vestigation, the characters find that the Hierarchy has sent
agents after the medium for violating the Dictum Mortuum
but the players only know that when asked the medium indi-
cates they’re meddling with powers beyond what they know.
Story Hook: Strange creatures that look like shambling piles of
dirty clothes live in the sewers. These creations possess lim-
ited telepathy that they use to try to convince people to flush
down the drain their favorite foods, high-protein breakfast
cereals and expired acetaminophen. The creatures provide
psychic rewards in the form of a sense of well-being and being
cared for in exchange. In extreme circumstances, the entities
themselves may appear top-side to remove those bothering
their feeders.
Strange Things in the
Shadows (Mortal)
People just do more weird things in this world of darkness
or their oddity is more obvious. An old man dines entirely on
runaway pets or a child makes doll dresses out of discarded
bandage wrappers. This variant can be entirely atmospheric and
helps convey that things are different here. The actions need
15 Ascension's Landscape
not seem to be intentionally malicious or outwardly creepy to
the people who chant in robes around a hot dog stand every
Thursday after the stand closes.
A twist on the standard trope of “something normal
is actually supernatural” is the opposite: “something seems
supernatural but is entirely mortal”. When coupled with
Paranoia, these two considerations can heavily influence the
game environment. If someone has all their kids dress up like
house cats and everyone’s cool with it, that suggests a wildly
different world than one where that person’s house would be
burned down after calling Child Protective Services.
The two types of Strange Things in the Shadows can be
mixed to provide confusion. A Malfean cult may encourage
odd activity so what they do in contrast doesn’t seem extraor-
dinarily strange. Distractions and red herrings may waste the
time of investigators so the cult can finish the Rite of Obsidian
Exsanguination on the fifth unsuspecting victim. Storytellers
should be careful with too many red herrings as players may
quickly tire of spending precious game time on leads that will
never pan out.
Story Hook: A group of gang members break into people’s
homes and steal jewelry and children’s dolls setting up displays
on overpasses just say “you’re next”. No obvious “next” has
been found.
Story Hook: Someone in a neighborhood is stealing house
number signs and using the digits to mark how long certain
people in a graveyard have been dead. Their stolen house
numbers all seem to be construction workers or those in the
building trades and the graves being marked are all for those
who have died under the age of 41.
Story Hook: Red Honda Civics are having their windows smashed
in and their license plates stolen. The group behind it considers
a red Honda Civic to be a crime against dignity.
Story Hook: The Font Liberation Front has moved into a local
area and is defacing signs and billboards that use the font
Papyrus. Print materials using it are collected and burned in an
abandoned parking lot once a month as part of a “grand purge”.
Story Hook: A group of former pastors and priests gather every
Tuesday to fold comic strips into paper airplanes which they
then dump into a lake saying “it helps God ignore them”.
Paranoia
People are more alert and concerned by the activities of
others and specifically outsiders to their identity groups. Ra-
cial or economic tensions may be higher and nations are less
trusting of each other. Even small international gaffs likely to
cause tension in foreign relationships. Trade still continues but
this may be only due to greed outstripping paranoid concern.
Mages can serve as superpowered peacemakers in this setting
and will actively resist the forces leveraging this chaos.
 Remember, paranoia exists in the real world, it’s just yet
higher in this world of darkness. While areas sometimes experi-
ence racist or bigoted violence, it’s much lower on average than
it was a decade ago. Maybe in this world of darkness hate-crimes
are still at 1970s levels with civil unrest (riots) and extrajudicial
killings or racially targeted violence more common. Storyteller’s
should be very cautious before ramping up rates of racial homi-
cide. There are certain areas of verisimilitude players don’t wish
to deal with or may not in every game.
A game with a more satirical bend may use non-standard
forms of “identity group” such as people persecuting others
for seemingly innocuous choices like haircut length or color of
footwear. At the international level, nations may wish to draw
alliances between other nations on the same side of the tomato
potato line or something equally banal. Sometimes though the
innocuous is simply a proxy for something else so be careful
when choosing.
Paranoia can be introduced into a chronicle by a Storyteller
innocuously noting behavior changes in NPCs or other characters
which may or may not mean anything or by spotlighting odd
sensory notes like an off smell or strange colors. Characters
may only interact with members of their faction in back alleys
or via secure channels and few mages use their real names.
Characters may see wildly distorted media coverage of events in
which they’ve participated showing that the media is controlled
or can’t be trusted. Characters may not completely trust their
superiors or be sent on seemingly odd missions with strange
targets. Mind magick may be ubiquitous to verify identity or to
probe the thoughts and feelings of others. Leaning into mortal
paranoia works to make normally non-menacing environments
more unsettling such as suburbs, shopping malls, hospitals, or
amusement parks.

Chronicle Idea: Characters are part of the legion of messengers

that used to communicate between Chantries or Constructs.
Characters deliver a message or information and then have their
memories cleared. One time this wipe fails and the characters
each receive a bit of disturbing news about their superiors that
they may wish they had forgotten.
Story Hook: A small diplomatic misunderstanding has taken on
a life of its own and the cabal has been contacted to smooth
things over before a trade dispute escalates. The cabal must erase
all evidence that anything ever happened before word gets out
requiring them to both be thorough and to act quickly.
Story Hook: An area set for urban renewal is facing zoning
opposition from a group of “concerned” citizens worried about
who may move in. There’s reason to believe that existing tension
has been actively elevated by some agent provocateur or by dark
forces that wish to happily profit from growing sales of security
systems and firearms.
Story Hook (with strong reality zones): An area next to an up-and-
coming neighborhood starts experiencing shattered windows,
flattened car tires, mystery doorbell rings, and other acts
16
of vandalism and nuisance with seemingly no culprit. On
investigation, the acts appear to be triggered by the collective
belief of the residents assuming that their neighborhood is
going to soon go downhill. The mages would need to shift the
parameters of the reality zone or otherwise allay the concerns
of the neighborhood for the phenomena to stop.
Note: The idea of Strange Things in the Shadows plus Mortal
Paranoia is explored deeply in Chronicles of Darkness. This
setting is generally less gothic punk and less intended as satire
and boy howdy does it lean into weird sometimes.
Knowledge not Shared or
High Skepticism
This world of darkness sees human behavior being less
open. Maybe everyone is more judgmental so people may be less
likely to post all but the most banal content on Wikipedia and
social media. This creates a world where information is generally
scarcer. Finding lore and data tends to require footwork to find
sources and even then the people with that knowledge may be
less likely to share. This can either be a world where there’s a
norm that’s highly protected (outsiders are ostracized more so)
or one where people keep to themselves. Stronger norms of
privacy may create inadvertent safe spaces as even judgmental
folk are unlikely to commit the faux pas of asking a personal
question or commenting on someone’s appearance. Even
communication across and between Traditions may be at low
volumes. Within canon, the tight lid kept around the issues
with the Consanguinity of Eternal Joy point in this direction as
well as multi-Tradition cabals being out of vogue for centuries
(see the Compact of Callias, Horizon: the Stronghold of Hope
p 41). Even mages may be expected to keep to themselves out
of courtesy or possibly fear.
Skepticism differs from paranoia as fear and anxiety
are not generally tied in. People don’t share because well they
don’t share and that’s the way its always been. Characters that
meddle in another’s business are just being nosy and are likely
to be considered busybodies or annoying.
This assumption invokes the hidden nature of knowl-
edge in the default World of Darkness. Sure, people know
things, but mages jealously guard their information so you
likely won’t get another mage taking cell phone pictures of a
hidden tome and dropping it into a Dropbox folder to share...
unless that’s the chronicle being run. Even though everyone
has a secret, no one may admit to it or recognize it in others.
People in this world of darkness may simply be more skepti-
cal. Organizations like the Arcanum in the default World of
Darkness setting are full of people who consider their conspiracy
theory to be highly supported but all other such theories to
be ridiculous. Similarly, most vampires would have mocked
the very idea that vampires could exist until they themselves
were Embraced or maybe just before. Now that they’ve become
Kindred, they may be no more likely than before to believe in
17 Ascension's Landscape
the existence of werewolves. Strong skepticism allows the Sto-
ryteller to invert or eliminate the trope of there always being a
true believer looking to share what they feel is really going on.
Chronicle Idea: After the collapse of the Chantry, Horizon,
characters are attempting to rebuild its renowned library. Using
a fragment of the Virtual Adept memory dump taken of the
archivist Nicodemus Mulhouse, the characters are trying to track
down and copy important tomes. Some consider the mission
noble and participate willingly, others are skeptical and view
it as an attempt to take advantage of the destruction of the
Horizon library to steal or copy hard-won magickal knowledge.
Story Hook: Characters are being terrorized by an annoying but
not deadly Paradox Spirit that seems resistant to normal methods
of dispelling. The characters must either get dispensation to
go to the Horizon Archives or find a willworker with previous
experience and the characters don’t know where to start.
Story Hook: One or more members of a cabal have come down
with some sort of supernatural sickness nicknamed “the Avatar’s
Lament” which causes the Awakened to bleed Quintessence.
The cabal doesn’t think it’s widespread until another cabal is
found concealing the illness of one of their members. When
approached, the few emissaries across groups choose not to
comment and refuse to share what they may know.
Story Hook: The characters receive word that something has
crashed in the farm town of Le Claire, Iowa but are having
troubling finding eye witnesses. Most in the town heard an
explosion coming from Dunsany Farms but most townsfolk
refuse to inquire as it’s not their business and don’t wish to
disturb the small success in rural tourism the town enjoys. Even
though there’s some evidence that a creature emerged from the
craft, the few witnesses refuse to give into the “UFO craze”. The
characters may have to go to considerable lengths to even get
basic information as witnesses give conflicting causes whether
it be kids playing with fireworks, a known tinkerer tricking out
a combine, or the old standby of igniting swamp gas.
Broken Institutions
Organizations tend to shift from principles-based (maximize
some value) to rules-base (maximize compliance) over time and
as they scale. If the rules and principles are aligned, the organi-
zation can cause change well beyond what most mortals could
ever dream but aligning rules and principles isn’t a given. Bad
things happen when an organization or system is optimized
for harmful goals. Racist policing practices doesn't necessarily
require overtly hateful racist police. Racist practices can emerge
when someone identifies a "hot spot" in a minority community
resulting in a larger police presence which then notices more
crime. This cycle then reinforces itself and law enforcement
then uses the increase in arrests to justify the initial scrutiny as
a purported crime spike is identified with a people or area. The
crime spike would have happened in almost any area. It’s rare
that all crime in an area is detected by the police so as resources
are put into finding crime more crime tends to be found. The
cycle is a by-product of this style of policing and says little about
the criminality underlying an area. If politicians then provide
incentives to leave a “crime-ridden” area and soon a thriving
community with a small increase in minor crimes suddenly
is considered a blight because of statistical artifacts and poor
methodologies. At every step, the organization was following
its rules but failed to follow its mission and the misalignment
between the two destroyed a community.
Here, darkness comes from the the downsides of blind
adherence and the “just following orders” mentality regarding
the rules of an organization or thoughtless maximization. In this
world of darkness, few institutions are truly welcoming and few
institutions are truly principles-based above a certain size. One
can trust the local Girl Scout Troop but probably not the city’s
police force. Metaphysically, this is a world where the Weaver
has more power. Think more Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and less
The Dark Knight. This world of darkness is ripe for satire but
also clever player actions. Cops never investigate crimes without
obvious reasonable suspicion, bank loan officers approval all
loans that meet certain criteria, bureaucrats are willing to do
anything not strictly banned by the rules of their organization,
and even the Council of the Nine will only Censure exact
violations of the Precepts or Protocols.
Chronicle Idea: Fed up with constant police harassment, the
characters have chosen to try to reform the local constabulary
from within by either becoming police or faking being police.
Characters quickly learn that performance objectives, political
pressures, desire to respond to community problems, and
maybe something more sinister make police work harder than
it first looked.
Story Hook: A custos has been picked up accidentally by the
police for matching the description of a robbery suspect. The
custos has no government-issued ID and is in detention while
waiting for a pre-trial hearing set for 60 days from now. Do the
mages try to spring their friend, putting everyone on the police’s
radar, use magickal influence to speed things along, or engage
the dizzying bureaucracy of the state to fix this minor error?
Story Hook: An arsonist has been causing havoc throughout
a city finding areas that are poorly covered by the local fire
department ladder companies. To combat this, fire departments
have implemented a system of fire response grading where only
blazes within six minutes of a fire station will be responded to.
This has shifted the coverage zone such that a large section of
the city along a leyline used by the cabal is unprotected. Is the
arsonist doing this on purpose and what is their motivation?
Can the cabal shift fire department procedure or do they need
to defend against the conflagrations themselves?
Story Hook: A Tribunal is called to address a reckless mage who
is continually violating the Protocol “Protect the Sleepers; they
know not what they do” and the cabal is offered considerable
rewards by the defendant to help plant evidence that bystanders
were actually Extraordinary Citizens, Infernalists, psychics, and
other entities that may not technically count as Sleepers. The
reward of Talismans, Resources, a potent Ally may come to a
group willing to show that the reckless mage has not in fact
violated the letter of the Protocol which is all the bureaucrats
on the Council care about.
Existential Threats
The world lives in the shadow of forces that are alien to
Sleepers. The world is nearly identical on a day to day basis
but some great force, entity, or event threatens humanity.
Much like the world in Men in Black or Doctor Strange comics,
there's some counterbalancing, and likely hidden, force keep-
ing the world safe. This could be a set of mortal secret agents,
18
the Technocracy, a network of linear mages, or something
else. This kind of chronicle promotes high adventure and an
epic quality. Maybe a story arc is the first hint the world gets
of these dark forces when the red star appears or Czar Vargo's
descendants come knocking having found the Lost Fleet. This
differs from Strange Things in the Shadows out of sheer scale
and the need to deal with the threat. A vampire feeding from
the homeless and the Zigg’raugglurr attempting to consume
creation have different feels to them.
Existential threats very much change the emotional
resonance of a chronicle. A character may still pursue love but
what does that mean when Al-Aswad walks the earth again?
While there are any number of near-end-of-the-world scenarios,
the book Ascension provides several which can be toned down
slightly to provide a scenario that simply may end the world
rather than will. A curious Storyteller with crossover interest
may wish to look at the other Time of Judgment supplements for
the other World of Darkness lines for ideas. The supplement,
Time of Judgment includes several for Hunter: the Reckoning,
Demon: The Fallen, and Mummy: The Resurrection which
are probably easier to lift than the Werewolf and Vampire end
time scenarios.
Story Hook: the Unnamed One has decided that the time
has come to pit the forces of creation against the forces of
destruction. Al-Aswad has been regrouping since the failed
summoning of a Thing that Should Not Be after WWII and
feels the current political instability marks an excellent time
to summon something from the Outer Darkness. Creatures of
notable size begin to sluice through the Gauntlet in Hong Kong,
Poland, Turkey, England, Chile, Sudan, and the Democratic
Republic of Congo. In some cases, much larger creatures have
made it through. The Gates of the Four Inverted Essences
have opened in four cities around the world. The characters
must seal the Gates of Obsession, Madness, Compulsion, and
Degeneration before yet larger horrors can creep through the
fraying walls of the Consensus.
Story Hook: The entities labeled “Threat Null “are frustrated by
their inability to cross the Gauntlet. The Agents and Residents
have convinced Rorg, the Incarna of the destroyed planet that
is now the asteroid belt, to declare war on Earth. Rorg as a
Totem of both war and calamity decided to fire a warning shot
at earth and Void Engineer satellites notice an asteroid about
3,000 ft across (large enough to throw up a cloud of dust that
would globally dim the sun for a year) headed towards earth.
Can Rorg be placated? Can another Incarna be threatened or
convinced to intercede? Can the players go all Armageddon
Variants in Time or Place
A frequent but not necessarily true assumption about a
world of darkness is that things have largely always been dark
and that they are dark everywhere. This is a simple assumption
19 Ascension's Landscape
and blow the thing up?
Just Dark for Night-Folk
The narrowest interpretation of “darkness” could be that
things are just bad for Night-Folk and specifically for those of the
characters’ type. Vampires are constrained by the Jyhad, mages
are hemmed in by Paradox and the Technocracy, and Wraiths
have great difficulty moving on but mortals take no notice. This
world of darkness is nearly identical to base reality except that
the supernatural exists and is marginalized and separate from
the mortal world. Maybe Paradox Spirits constantly hound
almost all practitioners of magick making mages peripatetic
and unable to cling to much mortal life. Vampires may have
great difficulty getting willing blood dolls or ghouls and every
mortal having a cell phone makes feeding much harder. Maybe
Night-Folk have a sort of fellowship and support one another.
Maybe just mages are hit and magick is dying.
Magick may be nearly gone from the world and charac-
ters are the last of their kind or they may simply be excluded
from greater mage society. Paradox Spirits may be much more
conscious agents like they were in 1e rather than being mani-
festations and forces as they were later.
Chronicle Idea: Characters are Outcasts from the Society
of Enlightened and Awakened Practitioners, the umbrella
organization consisting of the merged Traditions, Crafts,
and Conventions formed in the wake of the failed attempt
by Grandmother to destroy creation. There are 21 approved
Fellowships and the characters refuse to be a part of any of them.
Characters will be dodging Awakened police, both mystickal
and technomagickal as they try to make their way in the world
outside of the constraints of being a “licensed practitioner”.
Story Hook: There’s just enough magick left in the world for
one last portal to open to Horizon. Your mages have little to
their names and need to make it to the Himalayas in 14 days
to catch the last bus out of town. Any Sphere effects above 2
dots don’t seem to work any more and even simple magick
requires a point of Quintessence. The characters having a
collective pool of 10 points between them. Can they catch the
last bus off the mudball?
Story Hook: An Ally tired of being hounded by Paradox Spirits
makes a deal with one where in exchange for turning in other
mages the spirits are pursuing, the spirits will ignore the Ally’s
vulgar indiscretions. The players notice the Ally is getting away
with more than they should and the Ally purports to know
a way around Paradox if only they join the Ally for a retreat.
to use and allows for consistency as characters travel through
wheres and whens but it is by no means the only option.
Things may have one been brighter, and shadows may not
fall everywhere. If the world isn’t universally dark, one needs
to partly explain why. The answer may be culture, historical
happenstance, weather, or any number of other reasons, the
important part is to have one.

A Partial Darkness
Are things dark everywhere or just where your characters
are? One interpretation of Orwell's 1984 is not that the world
is divided up into totalitarian states, but that just England
is the lone soul-crushing panopticon and everywhere else is
largely fine. Another example would be The Handmaid's Tale
where the US has become an oppressive theocracy with nuclear
weapons therefore the rest of the world tends not to interfere.
In such a world, getting out from under an oppressive regime
could be a story unto itself as could trying to liberate others.
The darkness could also be varied with one region dealing
with high drug crime and violence where other areas are safe
but more paranoid.

Story Hook: A small number of Eastern European countries

have been completely taken over by the Technocratic Union
and most cities host large MANAR (magick-detecting Devices)
installations allowing even coincidental magick to be quickly
detected. The players are asked to help evacuate a Craft
consisting of mages who lack the mundane means to escape.
Constant surveillance makes any use of magick a significant
risk to the operation.
Story Hook: Tired of constant fighting, a large sect of vampires
has decided to simply take over lightly populated Wyoming
and declare themselves the top of food chain both literally
and figuratively. Extensive use of Dominate and Presence
(vampire powers similar to the mind control aspects of the
Mind Sphere) have lead Sleepers to act as cattle and other
Night-Folk have been warned that the area is under the strict
control of the Kindred. A common variant is to have a town
controlled by vampires, demons, or other creatures, but dealing
with a much larger political unit that’s been compromised is
another problem entirely.

The Recent Split

Any of the above factors if left to run long enough would
result in an unrecognizable world. Paranoia left to run long
enough triggers wars whether in markets or on battlefields and
violence shapes society in untold ways that impede progress
and flourishing. One option is that the World of Darkness got
bad only recently. Up until some point that’s not so recent as
to be fixable but not so long ago as to have remade the world
completely, something bad happened and that's where reality
and the World of Darkness split. Maybe the 2007 Financial
Crisis never had a bounce back and the world is dealing with
a protracted depression or the Russian invasion of Crimea
set off a new Cold War. A pandemic may have erupted that
proved just problematic enough to have people heading to
cities to get centralized treatment or maybe cities are partly
20
emptied out if the disease is still spreading. This kind of world
implies that the shadowy forces in the World of Darkness haven't
intervened strongly in the affairs of Sleepers in prior history in
such a way as to change the history books. Maybe the point of
divergence also allowed supernatural forces to being affecting
Sleeper politics to a new degree and a shadow war has picked
up steam. The triggering event may be supernatural such as the
split point being the Week of Nightmares or the Great Leap
Outward, or the fall of Doissetep and Horizon. A great White
Out may have again occurred wrecking mortal infrastructure
as well as marking a new war between the Virtual Adepts, Itera-
tion X, the Nosferatu and Malkavians, and the Glass Walkers.
The Night-Folk in this world of darkness may normally keep
their own kind in check or work in concert to keep supernatural
affairs balanced and concealed until the point of departure
Great Works, Agreements,
and Other Explanations
Why don’t Changelings every work with the Cult of Ecstasy
besides the satyrs? Why aren’t Knockers and Technocrats bes-
ties? How come Bone Gnawers and the Hollowed Ones don’t
share Nodes and Caerns? The World of Darkness as delivered
doesn’t often explain how it works or why certain things are the
way they are especially when reason would dictate otherwise.
Part of the paucity of crossover material is out of courtesy to
tables that wish to just play one line. If the World of Darkness
were intimately woven, most games would require many more
supplements to track the often convoluted metaplot. Filling
21 Ascension's Landscape
occurred. Maybe the Sabbat and Camarilla balance out and
the NWO monitored fomori activity and clean up what the
Garou miss. Then the 2007 Financial Crisis made the Syndicate
more aggressive in an effort to meet earnings targets, ramping
up work with the Special Projects Division. The expansion
of the SPD empowered the fomori which proved to be more
than the NWO could handle leading to rumors of monsters
among the Sleepers strengthening the nightmare-fueled Thal-
lain. Whatever the cause of the imbalance, the fix should be
neither immediate nor small otherwise it’s just a threat to an
otherwise non-dark world. Storyteller’s with a penchant for time
travel or alternate reality (Everett Volumes in Mage terms) may
want to explore how things would be different if some event
of importance did or did not happen but such one-shots or
short stories are beyond the scope of this text.
in these gaps, though, can provide story ideas and fill in the
backstory of the game. Mage’s metaplot isn’t as detailed as
other lines so there’s much room to invent things.
For instance, there are many occasions in both Mage and
Werewolf canon where it really seems like one could have
helped the other out. Here is an invented reason why mages
and werewolves don’t more often cooperate: In the 1400s, the
box containing the secret of the Doge Klypse, Incarna of Para-
noia was found. Speaking the secret was the only way to make
it vulnerable to attack. Three packs made an uneasy alliance
with a Verbena coven who had no love of an agent of paranoia
and distrust running around Europe stoking the Inquisition.
The Verbena would provide shielding from the effects of the
Doge’s madness as werewolves would deal with the Doge and it’s
minions. But, magick fails, and the wards protected the Garou
did not last. Paranoia quickly set in among the Garou. The
tide turned to calamity as the packs fought each other for the
right to slay the Doge and the Doge escaped. The Verbena were
ripped to shreds and called Wyrm-tainted. True, questionable
Tass was used to fuel the effect but that was hardly the cause.
The Garou have long memories and a failed spell has doomed
relations between the Garou Nation and the Traditions since.
From this event one gets many story hooks. Maybe de-
scendents of those pack members still bear a particular grudge
against the Verbena and the Life-weavers aren’t taken to kindly
in some places. Maybe some werewolves are fine with agents of
the Weaver and work with the Technocracy to purge Blights and
Hellholes but consider the Traditions Wyrm-tainted. Maybe
Crafts are on good terms or maybe a few packs are willing to
make peace as the Apocalypse seems to approach.
Great Works and Grand
Experiments
Great works of magick can also explain aspects of the world
although they are rarely invoked in Mage lore. The works would
need to be maintained and if they went against the Consensus
could face Unbelief but a large Craft, Convention, or Tradi-
tion that has modified reality in some way over the long term
may fit nicely with a table’s interpretation of True Magick. In
Mage 1e, the rise of the Gauntlet was listed as a work of the
Technocratic Union and in The Fragile Path, Akrites makes
mention of the Time Barrier which prevented too far scrying
the future. What other great works could there be?
Ban of the Hidden Assessors
Great entities may be kept out of reality. Keeping these
entities out may in some way be changing. The world could
be cynical or less loving because Alamar, Incarna of Love has
been banished either by the machinations of other Umbrood
or out of necessity due to some tragic downside to its presence.
One such case was called for by the judges of Ma’at. Grawlix,
Incarna of Wonder, Harbinger of Isfet was bordering on the
power of a Celestine and bore its mandate of change by mutat-
ing reality much like a Marauder would, albeit millenia before
the Mad would make an appearance and on a scale few could
dream of. Before the Gauntlet had truly risen, kingdoms would
scatter in its wake. The 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom,
though, proved to be a match for it. The Hidden Assessors, the
Awakened counterpart to the Assessors of Ma’at were able to
lull it to sleep with the aid of the Egyptian Umbral Court and
ferry it away to the rswt beyond rswt, the dream beyond dreams.
In modern terms, Grawlix is locked away within the Null
Zone where there is no reality to mutate but those lost in the
backstage of reality sometimes hear dark murmuring of inspira-
tion or madness from it. While Grawlix is a devastating presence
to those near it, at a distance it may inspire artists, inventors,
and others doing mundane tasks much as a fire burns close up
but warms at greater distance. Grawlix may have helped inspire
the early tales of gods and heroes which provided organizing
principles allowing bands to become tribes. Grawlix may have
once been a tornado when reality was generally less rigid but
this may no longer be the case. Reality has cooled enough that
Grawlix may be just what reality needs, or could be what finally
destroys it, and maybe Grawlix is waking.
Concord of Regal Obstinance
The nascent Order of Reason faced early setbacks when
the efficiency of their war machines and productivity of their
workshops weren’t enough to convince early regents under
the magickal influence of their Traditionalist advisors to side
with them. The Order used the power of the recently invented
Gutenberg press to promulgate highly potent Devices in the
form of Writs of Impervious Reason, which allowed the reader
to resist uncanny influence and actively destroy the source.
There are no remaining samples of such Writs as once read
by the intended target they granted immunity to themselves
and were quickly torn up.
Issuing Writs proved tedious and fragile so the Cabal
of Pure Thought set to something larger. The Concord of
Regal Obstinance was a Grand Experiment (high ritual) that
took months of preparation and years to cast in the form of
editing hundreds of secular and sacred works in subtle ways
to create a ward against “Effecting the Reason of the Chosen
Leaders of Men through Methods beyond their ken”. This
effect is maintained by small cadre within the Ivory Tower
of the NWO that makes small modifications to magazines,
blogs, social media posts, billboards, and a dozen other forms
of communication to reinforce what they consider to be the
subliminal messaging that prevents world leaders from being
affected by supernatural mind-control powers. This effect is
fortified by Gadgets and Devices in most major world capitals
and business centers. The Resolute Desk in the Oval Office?
Totally a Device.
Story Hook: The magick in this Grand Experiment is potent
but narrow protecting only the “Chosen Leaders of Men” and
who’s to say what that means? The Concordance now appears
to be protecting heads of multinational corporations as they
have more political power than a president or prime minister,
at least to most Sleepers. Heads of state show signs of unseen
influence and the Technocracy is scrambling to lock down heads
of state while other powers are scrambling to take advantage of
the power vacuum. Similarly, business heads seem to no longer
be influenced by Syndicate messaging and propaganda and
questions as to some business arrangements are starting to be
asked with the ultra-wealthy showing a shifting set of priorities.
22
Agreements
Agreements between factions in the Ascension War have
been exceedingly rare with the joint Technocracy/Traditions
force which expunged the Nephandi during the tail end of
WWII being a notable exception. But war makes strange bedfel-
lows and when the prize is Reality, odd alliances may abound.
Chances are that other agreements have existed in the past
and were temporary or undocumented explaining their rarity
in canon. Here are a few that help explain some things in the
World of Darkness.
Rule of Eze
Why don’t Nodes change hands more often? One reason
is the Rule of Èze among the Traditions or what is sometimes
called the Monaco Rules of Trade in the Technocratic Union.
In the 15th Century, early Craftmasons and the Chœur Céleste
were warring for access to a string of Nodes along the French
and Italian coasts to the Ligurian Sea. The meeting of land
and water focused on Monte Cinto combined with the potent
Primal Utility that could be generated from rich coastal trade
routes set off a set of escalating skirmishes that continued
through the 1540s.
In 1551 after a decade of running battles, the accumu-
lated Scourge began attracting the attention of several dark
Bygones that took up residence in the area. The troublesome
thaumavores were eventually dealt with but several of the Nodes
had been despoiled and stories of strange woodland creatures
and sea monsters ruined the safety of the marine routes. The
area became one of the few footholds of the Fallen in Renais-
sance Europe. The Fallen were eventually removed during St.
Tristan’s March which cleared the area of taint but at great cost
as recorded in Verse XXI of the Song of Bernadette. From then
on, an informal agreement between Andrea Cataneo of the
High Guild and Albinette de Valous-Anjou has prevailed that
one may try to seize a Node twice before it is declared “Just
Territory”. Violation may result in Censure or Reeducation in
contemporary times. Of course the Fallen and the Mad have
agreed to nothing...
Story Hook: A Node of only moderate power has been firmly
in the hands of the Conventions for a century and has come
under repeated assault by what appear to be Traditions strike
23 Ascension's Landscape
forces based on the methods of attack. The local Symposium
has responded by adding Enlightened messages to various
sources saying “you’re breaking the deal”. The major Chantry
of the city is at a loss. Are attacks being staged to break the
agreement, is another party sowing discord, or is it just time
to put this tradition to bed?
Story Hook: A weary Craft chantry is tired of Union harassment
and is looking for protection of the aegis of the Traditions. They
offer Tass in exchange for aide. The local Traditionalists are split
but one Master offers to fabricate evidence that the chantry
has been in Tradition hands and the Technocracy is close to
breaking their agreement but any evidence of malfeasance from
investigating Technocrats could render all the Nodes in the city
up for grabs. A prospect the Traditions do not look forward to.
The Garbage Men
As much as any Chorister may claim the ability to cleanse
something, most efforts pale in comparison to the raw power
of a Qui la Machinæ. Fittingly, one of the few cases where the
Marauders and the Technocratic Union will cooperate is to
deal with the Nephandi. While Marauders are immune to the
call of the Cauls, most lack the tools to deal with the psychic
harm a corrupted Node can cause to which the Mad may be
particularly sensitive. Similarly, most Amalgams lack the Um-
brood expertise to deal with the Fallen’s pets.
So in the greater New York area, a Marauder may inform
an Amalgam of a tainted Node and request assistance in clear-
ing it. Through various fusions and confluxes, this became
known as “notifying the Garbage Men”. In exchange for the
Marauders dealing with any problematic Bygones or Umbrood,
the Union will cleanse the Node and tend to ignore some
of the sometimes problematic feeding habits of any released
creatures...and both sides agree to not kill each other. A dwarf
griffin who eats stray cats is much less of a problem than the
throbbing heart of corruption in an otherwise quiet suburb.
This arrangement has left more than one Fallen with a
look of bereft confusion in their last moments as the door was
blown in by a Grey Suit and maybe Ko-Zar, Lorde of Man-Hattan
riding a chariot of living seahorses. So far this has only been
done with Marauders with reality distortion indexes below 3
(Quiet of 2 or less) and none with the Sanity Sink Flaw.
 Chapter Three:
Queries
The sections that follow address and discuss specific ques-
tions about how a world of darkness operates. Some questions
have a canon answer and are marked as “default” but many
questions have contradictory answers within and across edi-
tions which may seem particularly appropriate to Mage so
sometimes no canon option is listed. In other cases, the notion
The Awakened Community
These questions regarded the nature of the magickal
community across all factions in the Ascension War. Later,
the Traditions and Technocracy receive further attention as
well as other questions about the landscape of magick use. If
one simply doesn’t care about a question, skip it. Not all tables
will have the same level of interest in every question. If the
conclusions listed don’t fit what a group thinks is appropriate,
ignore them. Two storytellers may make a similar assumption
and draw opposite conclusions. For instance, a world with very
few mages could cause a very hot Ascension War or a very cold
one. One Storyteller may see this as an opportunity for a skilled
plotter to change the chess board by only needing to remove
a few pieces. A mage of even low Arete would be considered
quite powerful with no other mages to oppose them. Another
Storyteller may see a low population world leading to a low
key Ascension War as finding other mages could be quite dif-
ficult and any faction’s ability to move Sleeper opinion may
be quite small.
of canon is inferred based on published sources. Usually, exact
numbers are not important so much as the division into more
than normal, normal, and less than normal.
Once the basics of why a world is dark are established,
some Mage-specific questions will help refine and generate
plot ideas.
Why do so few Awaken?
Just as oysters require a bit of grit to start the process of creating
a pearl, a core of counter-cultural doubt in the status quo is required to
Awaken. The West is trying to create a world where no one gets sand
in their mouth. If successful, few Chi'n Ta will ever walk the earth.
-Do Van Tien, Blight Cleanser
Mage assumes that users of true magick are heavily out-
numbered by Sleepers. Unlike in some high-fantasy or weird
urban settings, even a hundred-fold increase in the number
of Awakened would still have them vastly outnumbered by
Sleepers. So why are so few Awake? The Mage gameline is again
contradictory so no reason is marked as default.
The options presented can be used alone or in concert.
Most chronicles will not hinge on why mages Awaken and a
complex mix of causes can allow a Storyteller to change the
Awakened landscape while always having a possible cause to
point to.
24
Rare Avatars: Awakenings require an exceptionally potent
Avatar which few people get. The Avatar may be shards of the
Pure Ones and few shards are large enough to do true magick
and the shards may be shrinking over time. As all mortals
receive some sort of Avatar, the finite amount of Pure One is
split into smaller pieces, making a piece large enough to trigger
Awakening rarer. One interpretation is that the number of mages
is relatively constant regardless of population so as population
increases, they become proportionately rarer. Some sort of
population collapse could see the proportion of Sleepers that
Awaken increase. A post-apocalyptic game could justify very
high mage headcounts due to the stress of the apocalypse plus
the massive drop in population allowing more mages per capita.
If every Awakening requires a potent Avatar and potent
Avatars tends to have agendas and desires of their own, every
mage would to some extent be two entities. Sometimes their
motivations would align and sometimes they wouldn’t.
Particularly large or potent Avatars may have a tendency
towards Ascension possibly removing them from the pool of
possible Avatar-stuff. Ascension may be screwing everyone else by
causing bits of Avatar to leave the Tellurian. Oracles may know
this and step back from Ascension to leave more Avatar mate-
rial available. Ascension, in this light, could be highly selfish.
Story Hook: A technothanatologist mage approaches the
characters and professes to being able to predict when certain
potent Avatars will return by analyzing time since death, current
weather, and some other seemingly mundane factors. The mage
simply needs to be escorted to the place where the Awakening
will happen: the exercise yard of a remote prison where a likely
riot may trigger Awakening.
25 Ascension's Landscape
Rare Circumstances: The circumstances that allow for an
Awakening are rare. Modernity is much safer than times of
yore and the shock that Awakens the Sleeper may be rarer.
War, religious strife, and just flat our terror are less common
in more and more of the world so Awakenings may stay rare
until more instability threatens the world. Stresses and strife
caused by climate change may cause the number of Sleepers who
Awaken to climb in areas generating climate refuges. Regional
strife could create a new faction in the Ascension War were
they to band together.
Western education may be counter to the environment
required for an Awakening with some amount of idiosyncratic
or even monastic learning doing a better job of getting Sleep-
ers to Awaken. The circumstances required may be far more
bizarre. Maybe Awakenings are tied to some astronomical or
cosmological event such as the earth being out of line with the
galactic plane or a particular planet being at its apogee. Pick-
ing something odd allows a Storyteller to suddenly change the
Awakened landscape and increase or decrease the number of
new Awakenings. Maybe for the first time since the Grand Con-
vocation a particular celestial alignment occurs causing Avatars
of a certain type to express themselves leading to a jump in the
number of Awakenings or Awakenings of a particular Essence.
Rare or specific circumstances for Awakening allows a
Storyteller to create a world with disproportionately more mages
in certain areas or of certain types. A persecuted community,
war-torn region, or fertile art commune may have one in every
thousand or hundred members Awaken without significantly
altering the global headcount of mages. Differential Awakening
rates allow even small communities to maintain an Awakened
presence if they remain persecuted. Tying Awakenings to ce-
lestial events also allows a Storyteller to ramp up the number
of Awakenings without making a claim about a group as being
persecuted or dominant.
Story Hook: Characters encounter a cabal trying to figure out
what makes people Awaken and they keep finding tantalizing
clues. By investigating Awakenings and trying to find common
threads, the cabal hopes to tip the scales of the Ascension War
back towards the Traditions. Stress and duress seem to be
key elements but some agents are willing to go much further
to test these theories. An NPC has been exploring terror as
an option and has been abducting promising Sleepers and
subjecting them to terrible horrors in the name of “science”.
Shutting the NPC down seems the obvious solution except
that one of the subjects has Awakened. Should the research
be allowed to continue, are the results important at all, or was
this simply a fluke?
Story Hook: A new organization of technopagans has emerged
called Gaia’s Conscious. The group is made mostly of mages
from island nations and coastal developing nations and has been
stealing next generation Technocracy tools to jumpstart helping
the climate. The Traditions seemed all in favor of this until the
group started raiding Tradition Nodes to power everything.
Story Hook: A rare five planet zyzygy will occur sometime in the
next year and the cabal expects this may cause the number of
Awakenings to spike. Characters will need to cultivate contacts
throughout the media and the local communities to pick up the
odd occurrence that could mark an Awakening and characters
may be asked to step in as Mentors if a new crop of mages arrives.
Metaphysical Requirements: Awakenings are caused by aspects
of the Metaphysical Trinity and their power to Awaken Avatars
is limited. The Wyrm, Weaver, and Wyld may be the agents
behind Awakenings tied to different essences and they are only
so potent (and what about Questing Avatars?). Differential
Awakening rates by Essence could allow for a “momentum”
effect in the Ascension War where the ascendancy of the
Wyrm or Weaver encourages more Awakenings with Avatars
of that type that are then drawn to the winning faction. As the
Nephandi gain power, more Nephandi Awaken as their inverted
peers tug reality in a direction more conducive to Primordial
Essences feeling the tug of the Cauls.
Storytellers who like the Metaphysical Trinity influencing
things may allow players to start the game with several dots
in Resonance, allowing for characters to do potent magick
even at character creation as long as it’s aligned with their
metaphysical aspect.
Chronicle Idea: The cabal comes upon the idea that the
Metaphysical Trinity is out of alignment because the agent of
balance, the Wardyn has been rejected by the Metaphysical
Trinity to the Deep Umbra. The cabal must collect earthly
information about its possible whereabouts and seek methods
to remove the mystickal chains that bind it. Finally, they must
rouse the entity and convince it to do its job again.
Returning to Sleep: Sleepers may Awaken regularly but when
confronted with true magick they may return to sleep as a
defense mechanism powered by their own Unbelief. Part of the
importance of the organized factions is to Ascension War is to
cultivate mortal structures to notice and kindle Awakenings so
the newly Awakened don’t return to sleep. Few of those who
Awaken outside a faction’s institutions have the Willpower to
be willing to embrace their experience, partly explaining why
mages tend to have higher Willpower than Sleepers.
If a game posits that the Awakened can return to sleep,this
may become a form of Quiet or a kind of Paradox backlash
especially if great harm was caused by their magick. There may
be Masters and Archmasters roaming the world, no longer
aware of their potence. Characters may gain access to almost
inconceivably powerful mages if only the sleeping masters can
be found and roused from slumber. These mages may have
strange dreams or odd Resonance effects that follow them as
well as hobgoblins or familiars that are kind of waiting for the
magick to return.
Story Hook: The Somnambulists are a group of Infernalists
that look for signs of newly Awakened mages in odd places
so their Avatars can be harvested before falling back Asleep.
The Somnambulists consider what they do to be simply taking
advantage of an untapped resource that’ll otherwise go un-
used. They watch social media for signs of momentary bursts
of power. They are fast, the characters willl need to be faster.
Story Hook: The characters have been asked to lull a Master out
Sleep. ReAwakening can be a slow process and as the Master
is getting their bearings, a band of Paradox Spirits, waiting to
teach some lessons have returned. The players need to buy
enough time to let the Master return to full strength or find
a way to placate or dismiss the Spirits if they hope to survive.
Hidden Awakenings: Periodically, medical science will discover
a phenomenon that’s existed for centuries but few noticed.
Aphantasia is a condition where someone finds it very difficult
or impossible to create mental images while awake. Conceptual
vividness runs from a spectrum of “unable to visually imagine”
to “can imagine things so vivid they appear in the perceived
visual field”. Aphantasiacs often go much of their lives not
realizing their state as they’ve always been that way. Similarly,
some people are tetrachromats who can perceive colors no one
else can and may just assume everyone else is that way.
Maybe many people have Awakened and are capable of
minor miracles that are small and non-obvious a la the Parlor
Trick merit but never become aware of the wider magickal
world or are never noticed by mage of higher Arete. Very few
of these mages ever pursue their talent in the same way that
not all people skilled at karaoke become professional singers.
Maybe they find the first manifestation of Paradox puts them
off every flexing their special muscles like a bad trip putting
26
someone off of drug use. This could create a chronicle where a
purported psychic who is simply an Orphan with latent Mind
ability promotes others to test their own possible “psychic”
abilities. Many do, triggering a rapid uptick in the number of
possible pawns in the Ascension War as many hidden Awaken-
ings come out of the woodwork.
Chronicles using this assumption may find hidden Awak-
ened allies among magicians not realizing what the true source
of their power is or detectives and investigators unsure of where
their knack comes from. Psychics and mediums may be true
magick users rather than possessors of linear magic ability.
Story Hook: A group of Etherites and Hermetics feel they’ve
identified some common indicators of latent Awakened talent
and have begun doing mass screenings at malls in areas believed
to be possible hot spots but the Council is split on whether
such blatant activities should be encouraged. The cabal has
been approached to provide security for an upcoming event
at a psychic fair where sparks may fly.
How common are active mages?
There aren’t enough ghosts for all of the ghost stories and there
aren’t enough Awakened for all the sorcery tales. The number of Night-
Folk is quite small. We call Sleepers stupid for seeing the Virgin Mary
in a piece of toast but I wonder how many stories of lycans, bloodsuck-
ers, and ghosts are just mages telling stories and refusing to believe
that they too need to make up stories to justify their night-time fears.
-Violine Joseph, Recollecting the Oracle Chantry, Port-
au-Prince, Haiti
Part of what shapes the world of Mage is simply how many
other mages there are. If mages are very rare and a cabal is one
tenth of the mages on the planet, their every action will be
historic. They may represent the only carriers of their Tradition
and may be most of the practitioners of their Art. On the rare
cases where only the Awakened can respond to a threat, they
27 Ascension's Landscape
may need to work with their normal enemies to save human-
ity and with methods that stretch across paradigms. If most of
the interactions are going to be with other mages, then it will
be a very small group with constant scheming and puzzling.
If the characters are just a few from among the tens of
thousands of mages on Earth, there may be a considerable
hierarchy to get to the top of the heap. If groups are well orga-
nized, Great Works may be doable just using practitioners from
one paradigm. Large mage communities may exist and one can
simply interact strictly with other mages and encounter every
imaginable character type. This question more than most will
establish the feel of the Awakened world.
There are three sets of sources for data addressing how
many active mages exist. The first are the few references to
exact ratios or headcounts. Testament of the First Cabal,
The Book of Crafts, Fallen Tower: Las Vegas, and the Order
of Hermes tradition book provide some number for at least
some sect or group. Hidden Lore puts the count as between
2,000 and 10,000 when the world population was roughly 5.8
billion leading the ratio of Awakened to Sleeper to be 1 per
580,000 to 2,900,000. If one takes the number from Hidden
Lore and adjusts it down for the Second Inquisition and the
effects of the Avatar Storm, that lower bound could be cut in
half to a mere 1,000 mages.
The second source of numbers is the combined references
and biographies received in books where cabals and chantries are
mentioned as being in all corners of the world with sometimes
multiple in a single city or small area. If one assumes all these
references are true or at least most are, the US, especially the
coasts, are teeming with mages. If one assumes the US isn’t a
hotbed of Awakening, by extension, any city over 50,000 glob-
ally may have a small community of mages.
The final source is the implication that mages are not
known to most people. Those few that do know about it are
likely Sleeper allies, part of a secret society or cult, a member of
a small section of an intelligence agency, or someone caught in
the right place at the wrong time. Many may have seen magick
and simply dismissed it or stayed tight-lipped but at some point
people start to talk. There may be features of a world of darkness
that make people less likely to talk. If paranoia and skepticism
are common with a high mage count, the existence of mages
may be an open secret among some Sleeper communities. Some
factions may use a combination of threats (the Nephandi) or
very active concealment (the Technocratic Union) to keep the
Ascension War under wraps.
These three sets of indications do not give figures that are
close to one another. A Storyteller could have anywhere from
1,000 to 750,000 mages and still have a canon source to point
to and the magickal world should be considerably different
between the maximum and minimum. Mages have no benefit
of the Mists like changelings, Delirium like werewolves, or Fog
like wraiths. No text indicates that Paradox erases the memories
of mortals so as the number of mages rises, their engagement
with the world must become much more subtle or concealed
to justify their hidden status.
The interplay of these three considerations makes a true
number hard to pin down. Thinking in raw terms of commoner,
default, and rarer may be more fruitful so if the number bands
below seem unreasonable, please ignore them but consider what
a world would look like with each relative abundance of mages.
The term “active” refers to a mage that practices magick,
somehow interacts with the wider magickal world (not a hermit,
anchorite, or eremitic), and is at least sometimes on the mundane
side of the Gauntlet. One solution to allow the count to vary
wildly is to suggest that most mages are in Umbral Realms of
some sort and few deal with the mudball or do so only rarely.
Mostly Umbral mages can lead to a chronicle where a cabal
could spend considerable time convincing mages to leave the
safety of the Umbra to deal with some terrestrial issue. Maybe
an Archmaster’s ancient mummy nemesis or demon foe has
returned, cutting edge technology needs to be liberated from
the Umbral aspect of a Construct to deal with an earthly threat,
or someone’s great-great-great-...grandchild needs to be blessed.
Default: Active mages make up something like 1 in 100,000 to
1 in 1,000,000 mortals. This means the United States would
have something like 3,750 to 375 active mages. Remember,
this is divided among all the Traditions, Conventions, and
Crafts, as well as the Nephandi and Marauders. This provides
a number that gives enough mages to populate mystickal
societies and a fair number of obscure sects but maybe not all.
Some sects may be maintained by hedge mages or mundane
followers and only periodically have a mage in its ranks. If a
Storyteller would prefer a game where mages aren’t common
but with a panoply of sects and such, these practitioners may
be more likely to Awaken or more likely to be discovered. A
count in this range means that some significant fraction of
mages has been identified in the Mage source materials which
have outlined hundreds of Awakened characters.
Mages are rarer: The original Order of Hermes book suggested
that about 1 in 5,000,000 people Awakened. Even if they were
all active, on the mundane side of the Gauntlet, and lived some
200 years each, that’d still result in only about 200 mages in
the United States divided between all factions. If instead, 1 in
5,000,000 is the number of Hermetics, there are about 75 in
the United States making the text support something closer
to the default.
In a low mage world, chantries could be rare and inter-
spersed or small with most mages working solo. Mages could
either be largely Orphans as no one else will note their magick
(there would be maybe three mages in all of New York City) or
maybe a considerable part of the Ascension War is recruitment.
At the 1 in 5,000,000 end, there are 150 mages in all of Europe
across all factions and Crafts, and among the Orphans. Mages
may only gather in a few large chantries making some areas of
the world supernatural hotspots with most cities, states, regions,
or countries simply having no Awakened presence. These areas
may be obvious hot beds or for reasons of security, they may
be tier two and three cities around the world. The Awakened
my have enemies among other Night-Folk and they may wish
for the mages’ demise.
In a world with this few mages, encountering another
willworker may be a once in a lifetime event or something that
happens maybe every decade and mages may band together
regardless of paradigm just to be in the company of other
mages. Paradigm may be unimportant with most magick be-
ing relatively free-form as there simply aren’t enough mages to
establish very firm paradigms. Alternatively, paradigm may be
so individualized that almost no magick reference would be
useful to another mage.
Other Night-Folk may have only heard of mages as rumors
or only among the longest living supernaturals like vampire
Elders, mummies, or wraiths. Most mortal institutions would
likely be unprepared for Awakened activity and a group of
hedge mages with an Awakened leader could suddenly become
much more powerful.
For more information about a game where the protagonist’s
type is very rare, consult Promethean: the Created.
Chronicle Idea: Characters are part of the North American
Response Network which keeps track of suspicious events that
could indicate a rare Awakening has occurred in North America.
Most of the times the stories don’t pan out but getting to the
sites are often easy. As one of the few mages on the continent,
Mind 3 lets you get past almost all border guards, Entropy 2
keeps you swimming in money, and Forces helps you level the
playing field if you and your enemies arrive at the same time.
But most of the time, it’s just your Chantry in a rental truck
with some equipment crisscrossing the continent, searching
for hope and keeping magick alive. Each member likely has a
different paradigm but the practices and instruments of the
group may have blended to the point that mages can usually
help each other.
Chronicle Idea: With so few mages, keeping a Craft alive can be
hard. Most Crafts have one or fewer Awakened members and
the last practitioner of a particular mystickal Craft is dying.
While the traditions as performed by acolytes will likely survive
28
until the next to carry the tradition Awakens, the sphere magick
aspect can only pass to another mage. A character has been
asked to serve as the reservoir of a Craft’s magickal practice
and will need to help wrap up some loose ends in the form of
recovering Talismans, placating spirits, and maybe settling a score
or two until another can take the mantle. This kind of story
may help a character write a past wrong or allow for a comedy
of manners in understanding a strange-to-a-character culture.
Story Hook: There are about 400 mages in the world making the
Ascension War very intimate. An exceedingly rare meeting of
the Council or the Inner Circle has been called and a high-level
defector has provided information on its location and time.
This may be a trap or an opportunity to give one’s faction a leg
up in the Ascension War that could last centuries.
Story Hook: Some problems only the Awakened can deal with. An
Incarna is raging war across the High Penumbra and is causing
wide-spread turmoil in the Sleeper world and a strange alliance
of Unionists, Traditionalists, Craft members, and unusually
cogent Marauders have banded together to stop and bind a
potent Incarna where others have failed.
Mages are more common: In a high mage world, chantries
could be incredibly common with multiple ones in even medium
sized towns and some in odd places as there may not be enough
safe space for all the mages present in a city. With 1 in 50,000
mortals Awakening and surviving, there would be 7,500 mages
of all stripes in the US making them roughly twice as common
as heart surgeons or about as common as anthropologists, fish
and game wardens, or nuclear reactor operators. At 1 in 10,000
there are roughly as many mages in the US as there are general
29 Ascension's Landscape
managers for McDonalds and Subway combined.
As the mage head count rises, the need to interact
with mortals may drop. The Awakened world may be something
like Harry Potter with magickal communities that rarely interact
with Sleepers with all the detachment one can expect from not
having to deal with the mundane. The battles of the Ascension
War may involve constant skirmishes with so many pieces on
the board and periodic large-scale war (for the Awakened) may
erupt. Voidships and etherships may have large Awakened crews
allowing for wondrous space battles or Umbra encounters.
Chronicle Idea: There are too many mages. With 100,000 mages
across the globe, the corners of reality is starting to fray with
Sleepers periodically falling into the Umbra and Bygones
popping up in problematic places. Some areas have gotten
so dense that greater Banes and even parts of a Onceborn
may manifest on this side of the Gauntlet. Technomancers
and their mystickal colleagues seems to think 25,000 may be
a more sustainable number. Some are fleeing to the Umbra
while others are choosing more direct methods to trim the
population and settle old scores. What will the characters do
to be one of the last mages standing?
Chronicle Idea: Common mages allow for almost any Tradition to
have a proper college. Your cabal works at an academic Chantry
doing field trips to various Realms, Zones, and Umbrae. This
upcoming semester has a trip to the Court of the Muses for all
students, a trip to the Spirit Wilds for intermediate learners,
and a visit to Stygia for the oldest. What happens with 20
apprentices, little supervision, and almost no Paradox is up
to the Storyteller.
Story Hook: The cabal encounters a loose network of mages
separated from normal mage society calling themselves The
Liminals. These mages fear that the Ascension War has gotten so
hot that mortals will soon take notice and try to purge whatever
willworkers they can find. They are preppers stockpiling Tass,
Talismans, Tomes, and Enlighted Tech for after a collapse in
mage society that would have no mirror in the mortal world.
The cabal discovers rumors that some of The Liminal
aren’t willing to wait and want to reveal the existence of mages
across the world at an unknown event on an unknown date.
Can The Liminals be stopped? Should they be?
How common are mages:
subquestions
Questions of "how many mages" have further complications
as two Storytellers may agree on the same number of Awakened
globally but for different reasons. This question breaks down
into seemingly a dozen other questions but three can capture
much of the nuance:
• How many Sleepers Awaken?
• How lethal is the early period of being Awakened?
• How long do mages live?
How many Sleepers Awaken?
Mages want to consider themselves special and unique but some
fellowships create no fraternity. Mages are about as common as bil-
lionaires and lightning strike survivors. We act like former, banding
together and scheming against each other when in truth we should
behave much more like the latter.
-Aoife Adler, Member of the Storm Crows, Bosque Del
Apache, New Mexico
Many: 1 in 10,000 or more may Awaken. News of odd
occurrences from newly Awakened mage’s first manifestation
of power may be common in alternative press reports or even
sometimes make it into mainstream news media. This will
naturally lead to a more mage-filled world unless something
tends to kill mages at a higher than normal. Characters may have
to do full time clean-up work hiding all of these Awakenings
so their enemies are unable to notice.
Some (default): 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 1,000,000 Awaken as with
most default settings. With no change in lethality, the number
of mages in the world will stick to the default.
Few: Fewer than 1 in 1,000,000 Awaken. Unless mages have
exceptional long lives, mages are relatively rare and may have
trouble forming societies except in the broadest sense.
How lethal are the early times after
Awakening?
Programmers and Armatures talk about the Allegory of the
Cave as a metaphor for Enlightenment. If we wanted to be honest
to our Ciphers, we’d modify the story so that there was someone with
a high-powered rifle pointed at the exit of the cave to shoot anyone
who manages to walk out. Compared to the hazards of the Assay, the
Ascension War really is quite a civil affair.
-01001010, Iteration X Comptroller
Safe: Mages have access to additional powers and can avoid
most common forms of death and severe injury. Mages may
be quickly identified by sympathetic factions and put in
apprenticeship programs where they’re under the watchful
protection of someone more powerful. The Avatar may provide
a kind of early warning system especially against supernatural
threats. Mages may in general be made of sterner stuff than
other Sleepers, promising them long lives, all else being equal.
Normal: Mages have new tools but they also sometimes just
blow up due to Paradox or are killed by other actors in the
Ascension War if the mage declines their offer of membership.
Mentors provide some protection but also may be pushed the
newly Awakened into action quickly after Awakening. The
Avatar provides no special protection or distracts and helps
in equal measure.
Deadly: Nothing about Awakening is safe. The first use of one’s
power may get you burned as a demon, shot by cops, terminated
by Technocrats (should one decline recruitment), or smoked
by Paradox. The apprenticeship process is also likely deadly
which may be intentional to filter out the weak. Apprentices
may be sent on missions they’re unprepared for or be up
against overwhelming odds during their supposed tutelage.
The new presence or newly loud presence of the Avatar may
prove distracting especially in dangerous times.
30
How long do mages live?
Do you know the feeling you have when you get a glimpse of a
memory from childhood? A fleeting wisp from what feels like another
person’s life. They can start as early as three and by the time you’re
six or so memories start to be sharp and can lose their dream-like qual-
ity. What if instead of a few years worth of those dream memories
you had two centuries worth but with a few days of introspection you
could bring it into sharp focus? Masters disappear across the Horizon
to make sense of themselves, not reality.
-Jendyose M’Bala, Exarch, The Order of St. Michael

Short lives: Whether it’s Hubris or HIT Marks, few mages

stick around for long out in the open. The nature of the
Ascension War may be quite violent. Only very careful or
lucky practitioners live out their normal lives and even fewer
live longer. Even low-key mages represent juicy targets to other
factions in the Ascension War. Few mages make it to retirement.
The magick required to live beyond normal lifespans may be
rare, exceedingly difficult, Paradox-prone, or involve simply
retiring to a Horizon Realm, never to return.

Normal lives: Mages have access to magicks that under normal

circumstances could extend their lives but for each mage that
makes it past the century mark, one adept gets eaten by a dragon
or killed by a Paradox Storm. On the whole, Awakened benefits
and threats tend to cancel out and mage’s tend to make it to 70
or 80 but rarely beyond 100. Those that do are likely masters
of the appropriate Spheres required to hold senescence at bay.

Long lives: Mages are able to heal most mundane causes of

harm and may have access to exceptional resources to deal with
problematic health issues from cancer to gunshot wounds.
Access to Entropy and Time allow mages to avoid terrible fates
and sidestep even simply annoying ones. Time spent across the
Gauntlet and immortality spells or hyperscience may allow a
mage to live centuries beyond a Sleeper’s expected lifespan and
these tools are accessible.

Example: Three Routes to the

Same Population
The following options all work with a roughly equivalent
number of active mages but with very different worlds.

Mage Cold War

Few Awakenings, low lethality, long lives. In a Mage Cold War, the
Ascension War is a very slow process with ancient mages fighting
through proxies. New recruits may be fought over viciously
but rarely is a newly Awakened person killed. This could be
due to karmic repercussions as Avatars bear grudges in future
bodies which can prove hard to stop. A newly Awakened mage
killed by an opposing faction may harbor a hatred against that
group in their next reincarnation without realizing why. Mages

31 Ascension's Landscape
may consider themselves above mortals and consider killing
another mage to be a high crime, but snuffing out a Sleeper’s
life may be no great loss.
Mages fight wars to control reality zones largely through
Sleeper or Night-Folk agents that may not fully comprehend
what is controlling them. The goal is still control of reality
but rarely is a victory decisive without reflecting a century of
planning. The plots and conspiracies of the oldest Kindred or
most seasoned NWO member may be par for the course in
this kind of world of darkness.
New Inquisition
Common Awakenings, high lethality, medium lives. Awakenings
are quite common and mortal observers frequently notice
disturbed people and strange happenings. Police departments
may employ folk defenses or may simply be trained to shoot
what are new mages on sight without quite knowing what
they’re dealing with. Once word gets around that someone
muttered to themselves, drew a symbol on the concrete, and
incapacitated a SWAT team, few emergency responders will
give mysticks the benefit of the doubt.
Those who safely Awaken and survive to a moderate level
of power may spend considerable time shepherding new ap-
prentices but still, the newly Awakened don’t seem to last long.
Mages may have considerable ties to mortal institutions to help
conceal the nature of Awakening from becoming apparent to
Sleepers and each faction plays up or down each flame out to
their own benefit. Nephandi and Technocrats may stoke fear to
gain power while the Traditions use these as points to remind
the world of the unknown and to respect the traditions and
practices of their communities. Other Night-Folk may also
harbor skepticism towards mages viewing them as potent al-
lies or loose cannons. Paranoia empowers the Wyrm and the
Garou likely won’t be fond of that.
Archmaster Pawns
Normal Awakenings, high lethality, long lives. Most power in the
Ascension War is held by a small group of Archmasters and
Masters from different factions who aggressively recruit new
mages to be pawns in their wars against other potent figures. The
standard factions of the Ascension War may not be identifiable
with each Archmaster having a personal army or maybe the
factions do exist with Masters and Archmasters directing all
the action. Archmasters may be directly unassailable due to
spending time in Realms of their own devising where they are
nearly omnipotent. The greatest threat to an Archmaster is
likely another powerful mage so newly Awakened mages that
don’t fit an Archmaster’s paradigm are killed, Gilguled or
silenced with great haste when discovered. Crafts may represent
groups headed by mages that survived to the height of power
and the Technocracy may be simply an example of coordinated
sympathetic Masters with similar paradigms.
Mages may be marked by particular sigils or Avatar insignia
to indicate to what group they owe loyalty and some groups
may be allied for strange reasons. The factions may be highly
regional much like the Jyhad in Vampire with a given group
holding sway over a country, region, state, or city, and all other
mages are removed.
The Ascension War may not exist as commonly known with
factions rarely trying to influence mortal practice so much as
favoring some over another. Such open desire for power suggests
that this is a world of darkness where few persue Ascension
but considerable magickal power may be given to characters
who hitch up with the right team.
How intertwined are linear and
true magick groups?
How can one who summons lightning and walks the sky to the
realm of the gods be said to have faith? We have but a shadow of their
potence but know their lessons bear no wisdom for us. Their truths are
for those already blessed, not for the overlooked.
-Naranbaatar Yunsheebuu, Keepers of the Sacred Herd
This question makes no assumption about the number of
linear mages. The question asks “how likely is a given linear
mage to regularly work with an Awakened mage.”
Somewhat intertwined (default): Most interaction between
linear and true mages come from alliances or from magickal
traditions that have a history of mingling practitioners. The
Celestial Chorus, Bata’a, paranormal explorers, and psychic
groups may all have contact between linear and true mages.
It’s possible that a character may have a linear mage apprentice
or interface with a few but there would need to be some story
justification (Allies/Adversary background) rather than contact
being presumed.
Not intertwined: Linear mages and true mages never interact
or do so rarely. Mages may consider psychic phenomenon
fundamentally different than other practices and this may be
worthy of investigation. Mages may investigate sorcerous activity
as it’s not generally known to the Awakened world. Linear mages
may consider true mages to be something not human and may
see Paradox as a vengeful God or righteous Gaia punishing
their Hubris and may actively avoid true magick. A mage may
have an Ally or Adversary with access to linear magic but this
would require some story justification.
Heavily intertwined: A cabal may have extensive contacts
among sorcerers and may be able to call on them as allies.
They recognize that each has access to something the other
doesn’t (flexibility for the true mages, expertise and ability to
perform Paradox-free work with the linear mages). Items like
artifacts may be fought over and linear mages may sometimes
cause problems meddling with powers they don’t understand.
If linear mages are also numerous, potent rivalries or recruiting
efforts may occur between linear and true mages or between
factions trying to sweep up sorcerous assistance.
32
 Mages conducting Great Works of Grand Experiments may
be able to call on capable assistants in some quantity allowing
very large magickal effects to be made...or very large bursts of
Paradox to instantiate...
How common are linear mages,
wielders of True Faith, or users
of psychic powers?
Our hedge friends present an interesting problem to the Awakened.
If all it takes is a few centuries of belief and some practice to do their
sometimes impressive effects why don’t we have colleges teaching the
stuff. Then again, if it is all hand motions and chanting why do so
few pick it up?
-Guðmundur Gunnarsson, Keeper of the Ægishjálmur
One could break this question down by type of power
like psychics vs hedge magicians vs other wielders of strange
powers, but the goal is to outline how many Sleepwalker al-
lies are available. This question focuses on the unAwakened
that have some sort of rare power. Few references exist for the
commonality of hedge mages but Revised books suggest that
in the Traditions and the Technocratic Union it’s 3-4 hedge
33 Ascension's Landscape
mages to 1 Awakened or Enlightened practitioner.
Default: More common than mages. Linear magic is considered
easier than true magick so having more linear mages than true
willworkers makes sense plus the not needing an Awakened
Avatar and such. Some groups make no distinction between
the two practitioners such as the Kopa Loei. Some of these
practitioners will be aides to Awakened practitioners serving
as acolytes or consors. Mages that choose to take on assistants
with access to some numina have a reasonable chance of being
able to do so. Magickal communities of linear mages exist
such that community belief may be what perpetuates a Path’s
potential as suggested in V20 The Black Hand: A Guide to
the Tal’Mahe’Ra.
Rare: About as rare or rarer than true mages. Linear mages
exist but are relatively rare. Numina, psychic powers, and ritual
practices are uncommon and may be viewed as very powerful
allies due to their immunity to Paradox. Practices dependant
on group rituals may be very difficult to do or only occur at
very rare gatherings.
Mages may need to seek our rare hedge mages for access to
tomes or implements that are also useful in Awakened practice.
Mages may encountered a linear mage enemy who’s notable
for seeming immunity to Paradox.
Common: Very much more common than true mages. Magickal
societies are vibrant and even low-level mages likely have access
to many if their group is close with a hedge magic group or the
mage is willing to pay. More ritual-focused groups can likely do
legendary high rituals and technological Grand Experiments
accumulating scores of successes. If you’re running a setting
where awakened mages are rare, most mage societies could be
largely run by hedge wizards.
Mages may view linear mages as competitors in terms of
organizing (both may be seeking Sleeper ritual participants to
do large works of magick), materials, and wisdom. While the
Awakened have access to true magick, the hedge wizards have
numbers on their sides.
Story Hook: A cabal is trying to encourage the activities of
a hedge wizard society to help safely shift a reality zone to
one more to their liking. The members of the group are not
unlike children and can prove rowdy and foolhardy but they’re
eager. The local Technocratic Amalgam has started to notice
the group’s public gatherings in parks and civic spaces and is
moving to block their activities.
Story Hook: A cabal is trying to get rid of a local linear magic
society whose work deeply opposes the cabal’s paradigm but
otherwise seems to be causing no harm. The group is becoming
popular with either growing membership or some aspect of
community outreach and the reality zone around the Chantry
is starting to turn against the cabal.
For instance, someone who speaks with spirits may be
bothered by the Star Council spreading to their area when
suddenly the normal embodiments of cosmological forces
they’re used to dealing with start looking like the Ka Luon.
How does the cabal deal with the shift? Do they relocate?
Do they encourage the group to set up shop elsewhere? Are
more forceful methods used?
How common are active Masters/
Archmasters?
Archmasters were once more common but now there may be five
left on earth, none of which are sane by any normal definition. Most
were lost to Disembodiment after the Avatar Storm and I say good
riddance. They did leave some neat toys behind, though.
-Brodie Chung, Sacred Order of the Thistle and Jade
Sphere ratings above five were phased out in M20 but tables may
choose to continue with the rules for Archmages as presented
in Masters of the Art or Horizon: Stronghold of Hope. A table
that doesn’t allow for Archmastery may still use this question
and focus on the question on the count of active Masters.
Uncommon (default): Something like 2%-5% of mages have
5 or more dots in a Sphere, usually with Masters outnumber
Archmasters considerably. Masters are around but often have
their hands full with instruction, pursuing Ascension, or the
activities of their faction. Five dot effects occur, but not often
and they require complex planning and coordination, if nothing
else, to allow the Master time to do it.
Rare: Fewer than 2% of all mages reach five dots in a Sphere.
This could be because the secrets of Mastery are jealously
guarded, the Ascension War is so consuming that no one has
time to dedicate the years of study to reach Mastery, or that
Masters tends to retire to hidden areas to pursue Ascension.
Five dot effects like Gilgul, generating Primium, creating Nodes,
building new minds, or colocating spaces are exceptionally rare
and would require a lengthy quest or an incredibly compelling
reason to get one of the few Masters to accomplish the task.
Common: More than 5% of mages have five or more dots in
a Sphere. Masters and Archmasters are more common which
makes five dot effects more common. Most Technocrats may
have access to Primium and creating new Nodes and realms may
not be a rare activity. High Master proportions may be because
Masters are generally long-lived and accumulate or because lesser
mages may die more often. A highly lethal Ascension War may
make magick a tournament-style endeavor where only those at
the top tend to persist.
34
 Patterns in the Tapestry
How common is Quintessence?
We may have polluted the water, but it has not gone away. We
shall clean it and slake our thirst.
-Chödak Rinpoche, Children of Ixion
Quintessence commonality can be broken down into
the potency and commonality of Nodes and the potency and
commonality of other sources of Quintessence. For simplicity’s
sake, this section assumes the two move in unison. The question
of commonality isn’t just a geographic or numerical question
but also a relative one compared to the numbers seeking it.
5,000 Nodes could viewed as rare if there are 40,000 mages
vying for them.
If a table doesn’t wish to have Quintessence supply and
Node supply move in unison, consider other sources of Juice.
One could have a world where Primal Utility is a much more
reliable and effective way of gathering Quintessence compared
to Nodes. Groups may then come up with Primal Community
or Primal Inspiration as similar replacements for Prime to power
their effects. Alternatively, these non-standard implementations
of Prime may be weak or experimental, making Nodes the best
game in town. Slaying and harvesting Tass from Umbrood
may be common or self-sacrifice to get Quintessence may be
ubiquitous and effective.
The more plentiful Quintessence is, the more Umbrood
can hide away in the mundane world and the more likely that
mortals will stumble upon sites of power without knowing what
it is. Plentiful Nodes may also suggest that other supernatural
entities that have sites of power (Caerns, Freeholds, Haunts)
may be more active. Unclaimed Nodes may pose as a hazard
as they are sites where the Gauntlet is generally weaker and
through can slip either wonders of a bygone age or the horrors
humanity has vanquished, depending on one’s view.
Plentiful: Nodes and other sources of Quintessence are
abundant compared to the demand from mages. Other methods
such as Wellsprings and Junctures make Quintessence even
more common. Very large rituals and Grand Experiments
are possible due to the abundance of Quintessence. A mage
without access to Quintessence is either very strange or pitiful.
For those that practice Primal Utility, Fundamental Sciences,
and other non-standard views, those methodologies are quite
potent at liberating Quintessence from dynamic endeavors.
Quintessence in all but the largest quantities (which carries its
own risks) or with very specific Resonances are rarely used as a
payment method and large stockpiles may abound.
Story Hook: A Node of moderate power has gone unclaimed and
an artist’s workspace has been set up there. Work coming out
of the studio shows scenes of great trauma and foreboding and
35 Ascension's Landscape
a gathering storm. A cabal member notes some of the recurring
motifs match that of an Umbral Bishop not seen in centuries.
Story Hook: An unclaimed weak Node in a small park has
been gathering pigeons. Gathering pigeons to the point that
a Pigeon Jaggling has manifested on the mundane side of the
Gauntlet for the first time in a millennium. The brilliant bird
is four times the size of a normal pigeon and pigeons in the
area have developed a taste for meat, killing mice and rodents
in large numbers.
Normally only human belief could bring across such an
entity but could the belief of the pigeons be strong enough to
make the creature manifest?
Uncommon (default): Quintessence is possible to obtain but a
regular supply of it is somewhat hard to come by. Quintessence
can be harvested from sacrifices, the dying, or gatherings of
common purpose but these are hard to arrange and may only
liberate moderate amounts of Quintessence. Mages without
access to Quintessence are considered rabble but are not rare.
Mages without a steady supply may sell their services to large
Chantries to receive Node access or to get Tass.
Rare: Access to a stable Node is available to only the most
potent of Chantries and other methods of Quintessence
gathering require rare expertise or liberate small quantities
of Quintessence with a proper Black Mass or the entire husk
of a dragon providing just a few pawns of Tass. Effects that
require Quintessence to maintain are either vital or decadent.
Quintessence is a highly prized commodity and great deeds will
be done in exchange for small amounts of it.
Storytellers may also consider having most Quintessence
sources already be claimed by non-mages. Umbrood or were-
wolves may already have claim over Nodes that produce more
than a trickle of Quintessence or the few remaining Bygones
may fiercely defend their food supply making Tass acquisition
something between foolhardy and suicidal. Nodes may also be
sites of important Sleeper activity. If a Node at a masque were
tapped, the faith of the congregation may dim forcing players
to calculate how vital Juice is. Most supplies of Quintessence
may be in some way tainted or most Nodes may produce very
specifically resonant Tass requiring intricate trade arrangements
required to get a useful variety. The Great Tass Bazaar of the
City of Brass may become quite important.
Story Hook: The largest Chantry in the region has lost access
to a Node after it was taken over by a group of Black Spiral
Dancers. The Quintessence flow was being used to maintain the
defenses of the Chantry which concealed it from the Penumbra,
concealed it from mortal eyes, provided Countermagick and
maintained contact to the Horizon Realm of the Chantry. If a
new supply is not found, two of those will need to fall.
The characters may be:
• Chantry members who need to decided which of the two
defenses will end and deal with the repercussions.
• Chantry members charged with clearing out the Black
Spiral Dancers and reclaiming the Node. Possibly with
outside help.
• Outsiders to the Chantry wooed with possible great
payment for helping reclaim the Node.
• Chantry members looking for a new source of Quintessence.
How contested are Nodes?
Since when have we viewed leaks in the fabric of reality a
good thing? We’ve figured out how to sanitize their output but I
can’t say the same of people waving rain sticks and talking about
sacred sites. A lot of Extradimensional Entities with a taste for
human flesh seem to slip through at these places of ‘purity’.
-Aziz Hedi Kilani, Border Corps Division
In Mage 1e, Nodes were heavily contested with Quintes-
sence kind of being something everyone fought over. As 1e
developed, new methods of harvesting (mostly on the Tech-
nocratic side but also for the Nephandi) were added, lessening
the fight over Quintessence and pushing the War for the Juice
to the background.
There are more reasons that those below that Nodes may
or may not be contested. For instance, if Node supply simply
outstrips demand, Nodes will likely be uncontested.
Rarely contested (default): Nodes once secured are usually not
taken unless the reality surrounding the Node can be shifted
or overwhelming force is brought to bare. In canon, some very
well known sites are listed as having provided Quintessence for
Horizon for centuries suggesting that none have been taken
successfully by another faction. Some, such as Stonehenge, have
no obvious protections, suggesting that either the Technocrats
don’t want the Node or can’t take it. Answering the question
of why may provide story ideas.
Uncontested, Resonance: Nodes produce Quintessence of
a particular Resonance that may be useless to other groups.
A Node at a natural spring in primeval forest likely won’t
be of interest to most Technomancers and most Nodes at
urban historic sites are of little concern to country folk. The
corruption required by the Nephandi to do their works may
36
be more easily garnered by other methods with toxic Nodes
being left to the Black Spiral Dancers. Alternative Quintessence
harvesting methods like Junctures, Wellsprings, sacrifices, or
the Technocracy’s alternative methods may be more efficient
compared to a traditional Node and don’t involve defending
physical territory on both sides of Gauntlet.
Uncontested, Obscured: Nodes are hard to locate. Their
footprint in the Penumbra may be light or once a Node is
controlled the free Quintessence is quickly bottled or converted
to Tass such that there’s little magickal residue for others to
notice. Nodes may not be visible to mages who are not in some
way keyed to it or that know some secret about the site.
Once a Node is discovered, though, all bets may be off.
Chantry’s may have a considerable vetting process to allow
new entrants and entering and exiting a Chantry may have
complicated protocols. Chantries in secluded areas may forbid
magickal means of conveyance to avoid the Resonance that could
mark the area as a gathering spot for mages. Mages attempting
to seize the site, though, will have no such compunctions.
Uncontested, Dangerous: Nodes could be uncontested because
no one wishes to use them. Nodes could be more trouble
than they’re worth and no one bothers to set up shop or most
could be guarded by potent entities not worth trifling with.
The few remaining unicorns, rocs, yeti, and other Bygones
may fiercely defend the last of their food sources which may
even set up Bygone food webs around the few large Nodes out
of Sleeper view.
Alternatively, Nodes may only be largely available in places
that are hostile to humans. Only the deepest caves, densest
woods, deepest oceans, and even most pollutes Blights produce
Quintessence of any use. Much of the work establishing a
Chantry may be in finding a Node and then setting up some
means to convey the Quintessence to a place where people can
more comfortably live.
Uncontested, Impregnable: Seizing a Node may represent such
an uphill battle that no one does it. The defending team has
access to Quintessence, a friendly reality zone, and possibly
Umbral entities that it would be unwise to try to take control
of one in all but the most important cases. The Rule of Èze
or some other agreement may also explain why Nodes rarely
change hands.
Contested, Quintessence Rare: Maybe Quintessence is rare
or Nodes themselves are more potent, but like having all one’s
wealth in the form of expensive jewelry, having a Node calls out
to thieves and cutpurses. Other ways to draw Quintessence like
Junctures or Wellsprings may be rare or impossible. To have
a Node is to have a target on your back so you best be armed.
Contested, Reality Zone Effects: Nodes may be important
sites because of their ability to alter local reality. Technocrats
would have less opposition to the Dreamspeakers in the glen
37 Ascension's Landscape
nearby if it didn’t cause their test tubes to be so chatty. Nodes
may take on the attributes of those controlling them leading to
heavy combat between factions in the Ascension War to control
them. Nodes may make that faction’s magick coincidental or
even mundane near it. A Nephandic Caul could gradually taint
a Node and make all Quintessence in the area dark and hard
to use for everyone else and possibly corrupt the surrounding
areas. Demons would become easier to summon and Qlippothic
effects may face reduced difficulty. Reality zone effects may
spread into the Penumbra making Nodes easier to find and
harder to hide in the Penumbra.
How potent are Reality Zones?
We have maps of location, altitude, gravity, humidity,
earthquake hazard, and even where the wind goes but no one
has yet to provide me the map I most want, a map of belief.
-Urpi Chuquisengo, Captain of the Ethership Revelation,
Royal Ethernautical Society
Medium potency (default): Reality can be shifted by having a
few hundred to a few thousand people believe the same thing
in a close area. Areas with a dominant belief scheme will have
a different reality zone from the surrounding area but within
some limits. Faith healing will work in some areas and acts of
cutting edge science will be easier in others. Large cults are
able to do acts that defy the Consensus elsewhere but this is
likely rare and cutting edge Science requires a dedicated lab of
some sort. It takes some distance from civilization before the
strictures of reality begin to loosen. A large forest, a remote
island, an abandoned town, or other lonely place is likely to
allow for more magick to be coincidental.
These two options assume that distance from civilization for
magick to be coincidental and potency of reality zones to move
together. They may not. One could argue that potent reality
zones means that Sleeper belief is more potent than in the
default setting both making more remote areas under the sway
of the Consensus but also the belief of a few in a small area
being able to overpower the surrounding reality. Sleeper belief
generally being more powerful could also justify more punitive
Paradox rules with the partial offset that Reality Zones could
become quite potent.
Low potency: Reality zones can only be created with intense
belief from a number of people to moderate belief from a
large number. Performing miracles would only be accepted
at very large gatherings of the like-minded and cutting edge
Science only becomes more possible at large dedicated research
institutions. Reality will only be more malleable in the most
remote of places such as the sea floor or the center of a large
deserted area.
Story Hook: A large religious revival movement has been co-
opted by a spirit who’s possessed the pastor. The entity plans on
manifesting during an upcoming holy day where the gathering
should be large enough to shift reality enough that it can get
through. The cabal needs to dissuade enough congregants
from attending that reality will not thin enough. Obvious
work will alert the entity and unsubtle means of preventing
the interference may surface.
High potency: Reality is highly malleable by even a small
group. Miracles may be coincidental if all the inhabitants of an
apartment complex believe the same thing. Leaving civilization
even a small amount reduces the likelihood of Paradox. A large
park or an empty building may provide enough distance for
The Technocratic Union
How common are Technocratic
Union members?
Our greatest trick is not that we are everywhere, but that we ap-
pear to be. You call us Mirrorshades as an insult but even that belies
our ability to seemingly multiply. In the next two hours I’m going to
appear as eight different talking heads. Ta ta.
-Dr. Simone Perreault, Media Relations for the Main Street
Institute Amalgam
This question gets a little messy as often times characters
are interfacing with Extraordinary Citizens or Associates who
are unEnlightened. A gang of Blacksuits may have one or no
Enlightened members but this will often be what a street-level
or low tier cabal may encounter.
As common as Tradition mages (Default): The number of
Enlightened Technocrats roughly mirrors the Traditions. This
makes for a nice symmetry as the Ascension War then becomes
more about mobilizing support and shifting the minds of
Sleepers than the inevitability of greater numbers. The victory
of the Technocracy then becomes due to organization and
unity leading to more effective strategy possibly bolstered by
the Technocracy purportedly giving Sleepers what they want.
The victory of the Traditions then comes from stirring the
creative and cultural desires of their surrounding communities
and tapping into networks of practice and tradition that may
have existed for centuries.
the mage’s belief to dominate.
Story Hook: The cabal is tired of Paradox from apartment
complex Chantry and without the Sanctum Background, set
about convincing their neighbors that the occult research they
do is perfectly reasonable. Can the cabal convince those in its
building that nothing is out of the ordinary and everything
they do is well within mortal frontier science?
Rarer than Traditions mages: The Technocrats could still be
warring the Traditions to a standstill because their smaller
numbers are more effectively used. The Technocracy could also
have a much lighter footprint if most of their efforts go against
other supernatural forces. The Void Engineers or Iteration
X focus mostly on Deep Universe threats or other not-the-
Traditions problems. A rare Technocracy may make Marauders
or Nephandi more front and center or other groups that may
be held in check by the Border Corps. Traditions cabals may
need to deal with unruly Bygones, Umbrood, demons, spectres,
Unseelie fae, Black Spiral Dancers, Banes, and a dozen other
supernatural entities that Sleepers would likely prefer not to
deal with.
More common that the Traditions mages: If one views
factions as self-reinforcing in terms of the Metaphysical Trinity,
an ascendant Technocracy may have momentum resulting in
more Technocrats as their paradigm spreads. The world could
be firmly within the Technocracy’s grip and any Traditional
activity will meet heavy resistance or most Technocrats could
be dealing with problems outside the Traditions. A chronicle
could focus on internal divisions within the Technocracy fighting
over whether or not to crush the Traditions but at the cost of
slowing technological advancement or whether the Traditions
serve a vital role in catching dreamers and mysticks that may
one day become Marauder time bombs.
If Technocrats are more common, the Technocratic Union
may simply require more hands to operate due to its size. Most
Enlightened Scientists may be engaged in research and a fair
number are likely in the Transdimensional aspect of a Construct.
38

How rigid is the Technocracy?
Some mages think the foot soldiers and Ivory Tower types are out
of touch with each other; that can be a deadly misconception. One
group primarily uses handguns and one group primarily uses sound
bytes but both can use either. If you ever forget that they’re all on the
same team with the same rules just remember how neat the necktie
was of the last grunt Blacksuit that shot at you.
-Shondea Leilani, Seshati Archivist
Rigid at the top, looser at the bottom (default): Many 1e
books focus on the discrepancy between what Control dictates
and what is done on the front lines. Control knows only black
and white where Armatures, Junior Scientists, Blacksuits, and
crewman know more shades of grey. Traditionalists may be able
to make deals, trades, or truces with unEnlightened or newly
Enlightened agents but woe unto the grunt whose boss finds
out about such contact.
Loose throughout: This is a profoundly practical or possibly
39 Ascension's Landscape
disorganized Technocracy where even Comptrollers , VPs, and
Whitesuits can be convinced to partner with the Traditions
for less than world-shattering events. Smaller team-ups may be
possible to deal with larger forces such as a coterie of vampires
or a pack of Black Spiral Dancers. Tension will still run high
during such operations due to the clash of worldviews but player
characters likely need not fear being shot on sight. Possible stories
include pairing Technocratic resources with Traditional know-
how or Traditionalists doing hit jobs on corrupt Technocrats
without calling Internal Affairs. Maybe the Traditions, Crafts,
and orphans are used as pawns during internal conflicts or
during the first stages of a Technocracy Civil War.
Tight throughout: Frontline operatives follow Control’s dictates
to the letter. The Technocracy is ruthless, unyielding, and may
have high turnover. Little to no quarter is offered to other
factions in the Ascension War even when their motives line
up with the Technocrats except for the most extreme threats
like the rise of Malfean or to fend off a Celestine. This kind
of Technocracy can be weaponized against other Night-Folk,
as alerting them to the presence of a Sabbat Pack will likely
cause an immediate response. This type of Technocracy can
be easier to deal with in some ways as the agents may lack the
autonomy to think flexibly.

How corrupt is the Technocracy?
Rationalism is just the intellectual version of the breakdown of
everything the Fallen seek. We shouldn’t have been surprised that the
Technocracy and the Nephandi proved to be two sides of the same
tarnished coin.
-Keezheekoni, Warband Leader for the Thunder Society
Pristine: The Technocracy has never been successfully infiltrated
by the Nephandi and may even consider Nephandic taint in
the Traditions to be a bigger concern than the normal activities
of the Traditions. The Special Projects Division may be simply
gone or replaced with another group. The Technocracy may be
so vigilant that some members of the Garou Nation may work
with the agents of the Weaver especially where their shared
resources can hold back the Wyrm.
Purged: The Technocracy was at one point rife with Nephandic
taint and it has since been purged. The Technocracy may be
reduced in power from this house cleaning and may be paranoid
about future infiltration. During the purge period, bagging
Reality Deviants may have been a low priority resulting in lighter
monitoring of Traditional activity or in other Reality Deviant
activity going unnoticed. Entities may have slipped through
the defenses of Technocratic Union and now mundane reality
has a higher number of undesirables from ghosts to Umbral
entities walking around. The makeup of the Union may also
not be the same with new Conventions replacing old ones or a
Convention that was the source of the corruption may be gone
leaving a large hole in the Technocracy’s line-up.
If the Technocracy is now in ruins either in some places
or in some ways, a War of the Ruins-style event may be going
down as the remaining Union members and rival technomanc-
ers may be picking through derelict Voidships for equipment
and abandoned Constructs for Devices.
Slightly Tainted: Nephandic influence exists but either only
at low levels or it is being countered by other forces who don’t
yet know what they’re dealing with. There could be a cat and
mouse game between the internal police of the Technocracy and
corrupted agents. Slightly Tainted could be viewed as a default.
Internal War: There is open internal warfare over the infiltrating
Nephandi. Traditionalists may witness very odd sites of MiB
agents fighting HIT Marks or Void Engineers helping Deep
Umbral Entities enter reality. Internal fighting in the Syndicate
could create market panics and warring NWO groups could
result in some strange news broadcasts. Traditionalists may be
viewed as potential allies by both sides of this conflict and such
a setting may present ample opportunity to liberate trapped
allies or stir additional havoc. Outsiders may consider this
state to be desirable but some of the more useful roles the
Technocracy fills are likely empty. More wraiths, vampires,
zombies, Umbrood, and other Reality Deviants may be at large
with no one to keep them in check.
Complete Corruption: The Technocracy is largely controlled
by the Nephandi. This can either be subtle as low-level agents
don’t know their missions are serving the Wyrm or that the
entity being researched in the Deep Umbra is an Outer Lord
or it can be well known throughout the organization who the
Masters are and no one is quite sure what to do. Small groups
may have learned what’s going on and are either sitting on that
knowledge or don’t know what to do about it.
While the Technocracy could be an obvious second faction
of Nephandi this would have a wildly unbalanced cosmology
unless those factions were at war. A corrupt Technocracy being
largely the agents of Entropy does allow for a new Static faction
to emerge while dispensing with the sometimes culturally
messy Nephandi.
How active is the hunt for Reality
Deviants (the Pogrom)?
I was scared when I had to look over my shoulder for Blackhats
everywhere I go. I’m more scared now that I don’t have to. What could
be chewing up the resources of the most well-funded and organized
group of reality shapers that have ever existed?
-Doreen Blizinksy, Owner of “Let Bygones be Bygones” bar
This question stands in for how easily provoked the Tech-
nocracy is by mage activity, how many resources are brought to
bear once one is noticed, and how active the Technocracy is
in finding mages. The hunt may be active but may be targeted
at some other supernatural faction such as vampires or even
if focused on mages, may instead focus on Infernalists and
the Nephandi.
Game books are also ambiguous as to how easy it is for
the Union to locate magick use with 1e N.W.O. suggesting
MANAR arrays (magick-detecting Devices) are common and
may operate even from orbital platforms but such monitoring
has been scaled back in more recent editions. A Storyteller may
choose to have a threat monitoring system such that each time
a mage uses vulgar magick, the threat level in an area increases
or once two vulgar effects are used a response team will respond
40
in 1d10 turns if in an urban setting.
In a friendlier game, investigation teams may instead be
the first response with data collection and analysis being the
primary purpose. The response should match the narrative
goal of the Technocracy in a story as being antagonists, rivals,
plot expediters, countdown clocks or simply window dressing.
Somewhat active (20th Anniversary default): Hunting Reality
Deviants represents only part of what the Technocracy does.
The Technocracy will strike if a cabal begins meddling in their
plans, disrupts their interests among the Sleepers, or becomes
troublesome in some other way. The Technocracy will often
serve as guard rails reigning in groups who are being too overt
with mortal meddling much like Paradox does for the magickally
over-active and may fill that role in rumor or gossip “did you
hear about the cabal down in Tijuana? The one remaining
member probably isn’t getting the deposit back when the lease
is up for the Chantry”.
The Traditions
What role does the Primii of each
Tradition play?
Thackery wasn’t the leader of the Virtual Adepts so much as
the respectable one that made sure the dean didn’t kick our frat off
campus for our partying habits. No VA who dabbles in politics will
ever be their true leader when you consider that a typical VA response
to authority is to be making sure you have a pizza delivered to your
house every hour, on the hour, for the rest of your natural life.
-Purple Justice, Captain of the Webship Veil of Ignorance
Governor: The Primii represent the apex of whatever power
structure exists within a given Tradition. The Primus can
mobilize the most formal resources within a Tradition towards
a given goal. This may be a social system in Traditions with
no formal structure a la the Dreamspeakers or Virtual Adepts.
The Primus need not be the most powerful active mage in a
Tradition as in 2e, Senex was vastly more potent than the
Rimpoche Indrani Taktsang and Porthos Fitz-Empress was
certainly more powerful than Getulio Vargas Sao Cristavao.
A governor Primus can likely direct or at least heav-
ily pressure mages in that Tradition to do what they wish and
can make life very difficult for those who refuse their wishes.
A governor Primus can also likely reward mages with Tradi-
tion resources for useful service. For hierarchical or organized
Traditions, a Primus may grant access to something like the
Requisitions background.
A governor Primus makes the most sense if the role
of the Council is to coordinate the Traditions and the Council
41 Ascension's Landscape
Very active (1e default): The primary activity of the Technocracy
is hunting down Reality Deviants or, in a game with an expansive
Technocracy, there are large dedicated groups that monitor,
track, and eliminate Reality Deviants. A cabal may constantly
be on the run from active efforts by the Technocracy to find
new non-Technocratic mages and capture, convert, or kill
them. Non-Technocrats may receive considerable compensation
for tips leading to the capture of a mage or their choice of
appointments if recruited.
Not active: Maybe the Technocracy has other things occupying
its time like an all out war with the Nephandi, a Neverborn, the
Camarilla, a pandemic, global climate change, or an internal
civil war. Maybe non-Technocrats aren’t as troublesome and the
Technocracy tends to leave other willworkers alone or considers
them more potential partners than adversaries. The Technocracy
may be simply very small and incapable of taking the fight to
magickal Reality Deviants. The Technocracy may consider the
Traditions allies in a world ruled by the Nephandi or plagued
by Marauders instead seeing the Council as misguided cousins.
itself has few resources and possibly none outside of Horizon.
A Council of this type may be a kind of confederacy whose
capital, Horizon, marks the entirety of the resources of the
Council
Story Hook: A Tradition feels Horizon is accumulating too much
power and has decided to withdraw a major Node supporting
it like Artaxerxes’ Court, Stonehenge, the Gediz Caves, or
Thomas Edison’s Lab causing Posht to shrink. The characters
have been asked to sway the mind of the Primus who made the
decision but, as possible outsiders, may be viewed as lackeys
for Horizon. The characters may need to solve an underlying
mystery, figure out a wrong to right, or simply bribe the Primus
to get the Node back in service.
Senator (default): The Primii are representatives to the Council
who express the preferences of their Tradition on the direction
of the Council. A Primus may wield considerable personal power
or may have considerable social sway in a Tradition but need
not also have considerable de jure power. Primii are likely chosen
by their Tradition but the Tradition is not directed by them.
A Primus may go against the popular will of their Tradition if
the Primus feels an action could be for the greater good of the
Tradition, the Council, or the world.
Senatorial Primii make more sense in cases where there
are shared resources of the Council that a Tradition may wish
to have access to. Shared resources at the Council-level would
also allow Traditions players access to Requisitions and some
other Backgrounds that are otherwise hard to justify.
Story Hook: A combined Tradition force was able to cleanse
a Black Spiral Dancer Hive and are now fighting over who
will be able to reap the Quintessence from the Caern. Some
participants wish to return the Caern to the Garou but others
are fighting to maintain hold of the precious Quintessence
supply. The players have been informed that a Primus is being
blackmailed to agree to cede the claim to the Celestial Chorus
and the players are tasked with clearing the Primus’s name but
under conditions of strictest secrecy.

Ambassador or Diplomat: The Primii are selected by their

Traditions and accountable directly to the hierarchy each
Tradition may have. Before the Council can do anything outside
of some specific list of actions, the representatives must each
get the approval from their Tradition.
For a single Tradition chronicle, characters may tasked
with getting a Tradition on board with some action that the
Primus wishes to take that they players agree with. Chronicles of
this sort provide an opportunity for a deep dive into the major
aspects of a Traditional paradigm as well as to work out the
petty squabbles or dirty laundry within a Tradition. Represen-
tative or diplomatic Primii may not then need be individually
powerful so much as charismatic or dogmatic representatives
of a Tradition. Much like the First Cabal was composed of
devoit Adepts instead of cynical Masters, a less experienced
set of Primii may be weaker but generally better intentioned.

How organized is the Council of

the Nine Mystickal Traditions?
The greatest service the so called Council offers is keeping the
dottering ‘Masters’ from getting in the way of those of us fighting the
real Ascension War. I suppose you have to master Life or Time to last
that long and Forces to deal with all the hot air. Tonight, we ride.
-T-Bone, Einherjar for the Gungnir Society

Completely disorganized or destroyed (Default Revised): The

Council is in disarray or may not even exist in a coherent form.
The destruction of Horizon may have killed off all of the Primii
and their staff or the Council may have always served as more of
an idea than an institution. Even a large threat wouldn’t create
a centralized response as there was no center to have respond.
A separate institution may have emerged such as a loose
confederation. This institution could be like the Disparate Al-
liance or a New Horizon Council to which all Traditions may
not yet be on board. A reformed body may have more than the
normal nine Traditions as members with some having folded
or merged and others split.

Story Hook: Horizon, the Stronghold of Hope is again safe to

inhabit and the characters have been asked to help gather
participants for a Second Grand Convocation. The cabal notes
that there are some strange inclusions and suspicious exclusions
on the guest list with what appear to be some Traditions simply
42
excluded. Can the characters reach those they’ve been asked
to and why the strange invite list?
Story Hook: The Disparate Alliance witnessed the fall of the
Council and is offering sanctuary to all who join them but
in an effort to not let the Alliance fall to old grudges, the
Traditions may not reform in their historic form. For instance
the Euthanatoi have been split into the Watchers of the Wheel
and the Karmic Enforcers. Groups are in a scramble to form
new groups and petition for status with the Alliance but who
will ally with whom?
Lightly organized (Default 1e/2e): The Council is largely a
talk shop with few common resources outside of Horizon.
The benefit of this talk can be quite high as the amount of
conflict stopped by information sharing is incalculable. In its
better moments, the Council may be able to bring together
cross-functional teams when no single Tradition or paradigm
may work to solve a problem and may have a large storehouse
of knowledge and know how which is poorly used and possibly
even some Wonders in its closets.
Highly organized: The Council is an effective force with
centralized power that can mobilize considerable resources
when necessary. Historically, efficient bureaucracies arise due
to external threat or citizen demand. This may reflect the
necessity of central organization against a potent foe such as
the Nephandi or an alternate history where the Council got
its stuff together and successfully anticipated the threat of
the Technocracy after an outcry during the Inquisition. This
highly organized Council may now have nothing to do and
may need to be provided a new goal to prevent it from falling
to politicking and infighting.
Story Hook: The Children of Heylel belief the first signs of
Horizon falling back into Winter have appeared and are trying
to find an external enemy to again unite the Council. Various
options are proposed but the most popular option appears
to be faking a Nephandic assassination attempt on a Primus.
The characters catch wind of the plan when asked to provide a
distraction at an upcoming Horizon gathering. Do the characters
assist? Do they turn their allies in? Can some other method be
found to maintain the Council’s unity?
How organized are the individual
Traditions?
Structured and effective are two different things. Sure, the Or-
der of Hermes has a structure to it but they lost Doissetep and Ars
College Mercuris within a decade of each other. On the other hand,
the Euthanatos have no structure to speak of but Senex was able to
mobilize half the Tradition to stand against Voormas. To think what
will happen if the Disparate Alliance becomes effective.
-Adebamgbe Adebayo, Ngoma Kitjito
43 Ascension's Landscape
Highly Organized: Most or all of the Traditions are well
organized. This doesn’t necessarily mean hierarchical, but
Traditions are able to communicate across their membership and
mobilize shared resources when necessary. Large problems can
likely have large responses at least within a specific Traditions.
An attack on the Cycle of the Seasons could likely get almost
all Verbena to respond or a powerful AI about to come online
could get most VAs to act. Groups tend to improve organization
after a defeat assuming the group wasn’t wiped out. Maybe a
failed incursion by Al-Aswad had brought the Traditions to a
level of readiness they’ve otherwise not had before or a threat
to the Web of Faith has brought together the Celestial Chorus
and Ahl-i-Batini for the first time in centuries requiring both
to be at their most ready.
Highly organized Traditions allow players to take on a
theater or operations level of control in the Ascension War.
Normally, players are limited to what personal resources they
may have or their cabal or Chantry, but highly organized groups
allow for a grander scale of play and possibly access to very high
level Backgrounds.
Story Hook: The Ka Luon, tired of minor incursions and simply
killing cattle and probing rural folk, decide to finally bring a
Cityship through a newly discovered massive Anchorhead and
begin harvesting the Earth’s Quintessence on a grand scale.
Characters are tasked with heading the Etheric Navy to knock
a planet out of alignment while coordinating the relocation
of historic sites to adjust ley lines to power the operation. A
faction within the SoE dissent, the Supplicators, are fascinated
by the opportunity to see the Grey’s technology and also to act
as agents to shepherd in an age of peace under their benevolent
rule and wish to submit. Are the Supplicators acting in good
faith, or has the Tradition already been infiltrated?
Some are organized (default): Some Traditions are organized
by their nature. The Curia of the Celestial Chorus with its
orders, regions, and ranks creates more order than the wide-
spread nature of the Virtual Adepts where each group mostly
handles its own issues and may even be reticent to ask for help.
The Order of Hermes may be derided as strict or admired for
being effective in a way that few Traditions can be. Whether
or not characters can get help from their Tradition will be a
combination of standing and the channels of power available
with a Tradition.
Characters wishing to mobilize the action of a Tradition
may have to go through institutional channels in some cases
and appeal to common motives or be prostrate before a taste-
maker’s ego in another. Organized and effective need not be
the same thing.
Disorganized: Most Traditions are simply an idea more than
an organization and cabals and individual mages may pick up
and drop the banner of a particular one easily. On the extreme
end, a Tradition may simply be a stand in for a paradigm with
all religious mages called Choristers and all shamanic ones
called Dreamspeakers. Occasional attempts to organize occur
but mages are as hard to herd as cats...with Sphere magick...
scattered over the globe...and the Umbra. Calling on the power
of a Tradition may be strictly a function of personal charisma
or calling in favors as there is no organized or effective entity
that can lend aid.
Highly disorganized Traditions make collective action hard.
Responding to a large threat will involve a lot of activating social
connections and individual pleas with no central clearinghouse
to get information out. Characters may prove to be the seed
crystal to a more organized Tradition if they repeatedly take
on the mantle of leadership.
Challenges should fit within the appropriate remit of a
Tradition. A bane mummy harming the Wheel of Creation
directly may get the Euthanatoi to act while the emergence
of a new Umbra Court that is wreaking havoc with tradition
Umbral ties could get the Dreamspeakers to move. Multiple
Traditions face a shared threat could result in the formation
of a novel Tradition or group. The rise of a Neverborn could
have bits of the Sons of Ether, large parts of the Euthanatos,
some Hermetics, and some Verbena to band together and real-
ize they share more with each other than with their respective
Traditions.
How well do the Traditions get
along?
Poorly: The Traditions are in Winter. Ever since the First
Cabal fell, Traditions have been loathe to help each other.
Multi-Tradition cabal members may be viewed with suspicion
or may be brought up for disciplinary action in the more
dogmatic Traditions. Multi-Tradition ventures are likely only
done in an emergency and overseen by a recognized Master
or the Council itself.
Characters may be asked to run espionage missions
against other Traditions or do reconnaissance against a sect
or Chantry that isn’t trusted. Getting assistance from outside
one’s Tradition may require favors or bribery. A character with
connections to another Tradition may be viewed as a potential
defector or quisling.
If the characters hope to foster better relations, they may
be part of one of the first inter-Tradition cabals or may be
detectives or police officers of a sort, investigating claims by
one Tradition against another.
Suspicious Friendliness (default): Some Traditions with a
shared past or similar paradigms get along but to many the Sons
of Ether still stink of the Technocracy and the Euthanatoi are
just well-behaved Nephandi. Multi-Tradition cabals are likely
very young, or share a common goal.
Very Well: Maybe the Traditions realize they share more than
they differ or a series of lucky events and reciprocal aid have
woven together the Traditions. Cooperation doesn’t mean that
the Council is an effective institution, but individual mages
are unlikely to be suspicious of other Traditionalists and may
lend aid and succor so far as they are able.
Traditions that get along well allows a Storyteller to easily
introduce mages from other Traditions without the need of
special circumstances or justification. Cross-Tradition projects
may occur in areas of common interest such as those who track
Avatars in the Euthanatos and Akashic Brotherhood working
closely or the technologically aware Verbena working well with
the biologically-minded in the Sons of Ether.
Cooperative Traditions encourage very broad paradigms
with characters moving between broad practice types and more
integrated beliefs like psychomemetics, procedural high occult,
biocomputation, or ectomartial arts.
44
 Other Factions
How common are Marauders?
We lose Brothers in five ways: They Ascend, Descend, die, retire,
or Snap. Have you watched the news lately? Way more people are
Snapping.
-Wang Xiu Ying, Yogi Sifu
Default: 1 to 5% of mages are Marauders. Marauders exist and
are generally known about. The Mad are talked about openly
but specific manifestations are often like urban legends. Small
groups exist and a few large organizations but few share similar
enough aims and Quiets to form large groups.
Rare: Encountering a Marauder is a notable event and not all
mages may do it. Alternatively, marauders could be curiosities
that warrant tracking with Traditions and Union researchers
eager to investigate the phenomenon. Marauders may generally
have higher Quiets and be pushed out of reality or fewer mages
Snap or choose to rap themselves in Madness. A cabal may be
asked to keep tabs on one or do reconnaissance or to try and
retrieve one for study. Assuming Quiets are not somehow less
diverse, few Marauder organizations exist.
Story Hook: Contact has been lost with a cabal of Marauder
researchers who believed that Marauder Quiet could be reversed
and that the secrets to Paradox control lay within the Mindscapes
of the Mad. The mages will find that the researchers have
been sucked into the reality of the captured Marauder and the
characters must navigate the Marauder’s madness with their
own sanity intact if they wish to free their colleague.
Common: Marauders are just another type of mage and may be
a present or growing faction. Their reality warping powers keep
them hidden. They could be sufficiently common that the Sitrin
or the Umbral Underground are noted players in the Ascension
War. As more mages are Marauders, their accumulated Paradox
would bleed off somewhere and non-Marauder mages need to
worry about being dumped on. Marauders may pose a sufficient
risk that other factions actively try to kill them or keep them
in check, possibly forming alliances to do so. This may be the
rare case of the Fallen allying safely with another faction.
Marauders may distort reality on a scale that they’re tracked
like weather. Characters may be called on to liberate other
mages from a Marauder’s warped reality or to help a group
escape the Paradox expected from a large Marauder gathering.
Story Hook: The cabal is approached to help a fellow mage test
a Talisman that purports to prevent Marauders from dumping
their Paradox on the user. The characters are offered the item
if they can prove that it works. If the device works, it could be
a great boon in managing the Mad but first a Marauder will
need to be found and incited to generate Paradox, and what
45 Ascension's Landscape
if the Talisman fails?
Rare but Growing: Marauders didn’t exist until the Middle
Ages when they burst onto the scene turning bricks into bread
and lighting wells on fire. As the grip of the Weaver tightens,
the Wyld may lash out and more Marauders are being created.
This could be due to Marauders actively attempting to produce
other Marauders by either Awakening the mad or driving
awakened to insanity. Increasing Marauder activity could be
simply a metaphysical backlash. Technocrats may notice that
in the most rigid areas or those that most suppress creativity
that a disproportionate amount of Awakenings are Marauders.
Story Hook: The Umbral totem spirit Cuckoo is attempting to
become the Patron of the Marauders and is helping the Mad
learn to conceal themselves in exchange for service. The totem
does not fully understand with what it is dealing but more and
more Marauder acts are marked with the sigil of the Cuckoo, the
sound of its call, or cuckoo feathers or eggs. Another Umbral
totem spirit sends an emissary to bargain with the cabal to help
dissuade Cuckoo for it is driven mad.
How common are the
Nephandi?
How much we’ve been able to achieve with so few proves the
truth of our mission. It only took three of my colleagues to nudge the
world to invent the hydrogen bomb and give Sleepers push-button ac-
cess to an oblivion that would make the Neverborn weep with pride.
-Milla Bakker, Adsinistratus
Default: About 1 to 5%. At this level, there are factions of
the Nephandi that can launch schemes but only in times of
exceptional peril does one need to worry about a Great Old One
or another enemy of reality attempting to enter the mundane
world. Nephandi rarely make open war but when challenged
are more than capable of mustering the forces required to
strike back. Most of their plans involve subtle corruption or
converting lone mages in an attempt to win a long war through
inverting Avatars.
Characters will encounter the Nephandi in small groups
and tempters exist in sufficient quantity that mages should
always be aware of their possible presence. Characters should
get periodic reminders that there are active agents trying to
cause the destruction of everything and that these agents need
to be actively opposed.
Rarer: The Nephandi are fringe players either due to the rarity
of Falling or due to exceptional efforts from other Awakened
factions to keep their numbers down. Widderslainte Avatars
may regularly de-invert or some process for de-inversion may
have been discovered. Maybe there are sufficient Masters of
Spirit to Gilgul the Fallen regularly. The Nephandi may then
be rare repositories for some esoteric knowledge like accessing
the Qlippothic Realms. Considering that many Nephandi
wield considerable power in the mortal world, they still may
be nothing to sneeze at.
Rare Nephandi may be something like a metaphor, showing
that some people just want to put reality out of its misery but
that the Nephandi give form and power to this desire. There
may be large collections of mortals with this belief with the
Nephandi simply being the Awakened tip of the spear.
Story Hook: The characters are attempting to decipher the tome
to undo a summoning performed by a Marauder cult of a
particular Outer Lord. One who is not evil so much as strange
and alien. The only non-Marauder with such knowledge are a
handful of adsinistrati who surely won’t work for free. In the
mean-time, the summoned creature is trying to re-shape reality
more to its liking with problematic results.
Common: The Nephandi have done very well for themselves
and this may reflect wide-scale corruption of Awakened society
or the Nephandi may spend most of their time in the Labyrinths
or trying to summon Outer Lords. A large amount of time
for the Traditions and Technocracy may go into disrupting
Nephandic plans and many mortal institutions may be
thoroughly corrupted. Characters may need to avoid interfacing
with government, the police, large corporations, and possibly
major churches if they wish to stay off the Nephandic radar.
Reality is likely an all out war against Entropy. A chronicle
with common Nephandi foes may see characters trying to make
common cause with what would otherwise be epistemological
opponents including Marauders and even lesser Infernalists
whose quest for power would surely be disrupted by the death
of everything.
Story Hook: Tired of being treated as second-class Nephandi,
a band of Infernalists approach the cabal to kill a K’llasshaa
adsinistratus. The Infernalists have become quite comfortable
in the souls for power quid pro quo and are tired of hearing
the K’llasshaa rant about obliviating creation. The Infernalists,
though, aren’t used to getting their hands dirty and offer details
about a Labyrinth’s defenses and inhabitants. If the cabal is
successful, the Infernalists purport to even help in cleansing
the Nodes supplying it but they must furnish the adsinistratus’
head...all four of them.
46
 Metaphysical Questions
The Mage canon provides sometimes contradictory indications
on the way metaphysical elements work in the setting. Rarely
though are these disagreements game-breaking but varying
interpretations create plot threads or at least fodder for in-
world disagreement.
What is the nature of a scientific
discovery?
The Union claims to be 50 years ahead but needs to gate discover-
ies to keep things ‘safe for the Masses’. CRISPR took a sledgehammer
to the Time Table and now there’s a race to see if the Progenitors can
contain it before the Sleepers learn how much control they could have
over themselves. If you see an actual designer baby within 10 years,
I’ll tell you who’s won the race.
-Dr. Ellie Darmish, Professor of Biomechanics, University
of California, Berkeley and Hermium member of the Solificati
Scientific discovery is presented differently across Mage
editions in terms of what is actually happening when a new
law of nature is discovered. This question may seem byzantine
but can help clarify the relationship between Sleepers and
Technomancer sects.
If scientific discovery is a free-for-all, then it’s entirely
possible that a well-positioned Verbena could adjust scientific
laws to be more based on the cycle of seasons or interactions
with spirits. If scientific discovery is based on some much
harder to change reality, technomancers should have a leg up
as their magick will eventually be mundane in a way that no
other paradigm can claim. If everyone finds the same rules
of reality and it looks like science, all traditions would do
well to introduce technology into their practices with digital
thanatology and computerized summoning representing clear
improvements over previous methods.
Science is a conspiracy to define reality and is controlled by
the Technocracy (1e default): Science as an avenue to a ground
truth doesn’t actually exist and is simply a paradigm that the
Technocracy championed to force alternative views of reality
out of the way. At root, all paradigms are radically true even
if internally inconsistent or illogical but the Technocracy has
championed science not for its truth but for its predictability
and controllability. All supposed discoveries for at least the last
several centuries have been what Technocrats have publicized
themselves or handed to Sleepers. In this view, the Michelson–
Morley experiments that disproved the existence of the ether
was merely a bit of theater led by Technocrats to change how
the very currents of reality functioned. The Sons of Ether (at
least in Revised) more or less work by this worldview believing
it is their job to prove that all world views can be true and that
Scientists must discover the truth in all things.
47 Ascension's Landscape
The Technocracy is likely very powerful in this kind of
chronicle as having the media apparatus to command all Sleeper
discovery is likely resource intensive. Characters may fight back
by disrupting research, advancing discarded theories, building
competing laboratories, and showing Sleepers that they have
powers well beyond those documented by science that they
may call upon. If coupled with Strong Reality Zones, a well-
prepared mage could create potent pockets where alternative
sciences ruled.
The idea of physics is simply a human construct to order
the cosmos and any sufficiently strong belief could re-order
the entirety of the cosmos in radical and even illogical ways.
Story Hook: A high-level Technocrat has entered Clarity and
claims that quantum mechanics is wrong and the world is
strictly classical. Their bubble of reality distortion is so potent
that devices dependent on quantum principles fail to work
like MRI machines, atomic clocks, GPS devices, and most
processors simply stop working around them. The Technocrat
has gathered a cult of of like-minded folk and a small area of
a city is ruled by clockwork devices and rod logic computers.
Normally most Traditionalists would view this as a win,
but the reality bubble of the group looks poised to shut down
a large hospital and a regional data center.
Reality behaves according to the rules of whomever first
discovers and promulgates a phenomenon (2e and on,
arguably): Whenever a new phenomenon is discovered,
whomever defines that phenomenon and disseminates
information on it gets to define how the phenomenon functions.
This may be a Sleeper or a Technocrat. Reality will then treat
that law as mundane once established and new discoveries
must conform with it.
New rules must fit the previously established rules or ex-
plain how the previously established rules were either limited
in scope or misunderstood. Special and general relativity didn’t
somehow make classical mechanics stop working as an approxi-
mation of the world, but did show that classical mechanics
became inaccurate at high speeds and very large masses. When
scientists first performed the double slit experiment or tested
Bell’s Inequality, the researchers interpreting that data could
have promulgated different models, assuming the model didn’t
radically disagree with existing science, reality would more or
less conform to. Had different conclusions been proliferated,
the laws of physics would literally be different.
This assumption yields a somewhat standard technomancer
paradigm of “yes mortal science is true but it’s not the whole
story”. Characters cannot simply negate scientific laws but
may extend them in ways that current science doesn’t directly
comment on which then become established and true. Fringe,
pathological, and alternative sciences will all work and may
work side by side. Characters may find new rotes by positing
unproven but undisproven laws of reality. A technomancer may
posit a law of emotional attraction, take advantage of unresolved
questions involving virtual particles to cause Forces, Matter,
and Correspondence effects and may posit that Mind effects
occur at the subquantum.
This choice creates a world where there’s a fast track to
a phenomenon being mundane. If a table would like a game
with psychics or other psi phenomenon, they simply need to
establish appropriate findings that allow it to be true and then
disseminate that.
There could be multiple physics all of which explain reality
consistently but at any given time one dominates. As discoveries
become more remote and esoteric from even other special-
ists in a field, it may be the case that the idea of a consistent
physics starts to break down scientists run against the human
capacity to understand mental models as anything but strictly
computational tools.

Story Hook: A Sleeper researcher claims to have discovered

a capacity in humans for what they call true sight, taking
advantage of certain idiosyncracies in the optical system and
claiming they’re actually adaptations. The Sleeper has shown
the ability, with training, to detect vampires, cyborgs, and ghosts
and wishes to go public with this technique. The NWO is not
keen to have other Sleepers discover what’s around them and
is trying to shut the researcher down.
The researcher has approached the cabal for help. Do the
characters help promulgate the findings? Verify it themselves?
Or do they too think that there are things humanity isn’t
quite ready for?

There is a proper order to the universe and magick is included

in it, regardless of who investigates reality, all will find the same
rules: Magick itself is simply another set of phenomena that
can be rationally considered. While mages and technomancers
may agree that reality seems to respond to human will, thought,
or desire, the rules by reality does bend are discoverable and
consistent. Mages recognize that each other’s magick does
indeed seem to work and have a variety of explanations for
the idea of paradigm.
Magickal research may be a proper field of endeavor and
progress can be made over time. Unless reality is somehow
becoming less hospitable to Awakened acts, practitioners that
apply the scientific method should improve over time. If this is
the case, a 500 year-old grimoire may contain esoteric knowledge
but may also provide rotes and rituals that are strictly less ef-
ficient or more difficult than current magick. Some Traditions
may refuse to try to refine their craft and they may be left in the
dust. Rotes may receive significant bonuses or improvisational
magick may be penalized.
There is one physics and it happens to include magick
but we haven't quite figured out the rules of it yet but could.

48
Are Avatars present at birth or
at least before Awakening?
Even a script kiddie can tell you we don’t “Awaken”, we get an
upgrade. If hackreality.exe were there since birth, we’d have found
it by now. You run a local 3-space sweep for Active Change Agents
in a Sector crammed with sheeple and come up with jackshit. Nah,
something comes along and adds something to our Firmware that
wasn’t there before and suddenly we can see True Code.
-IlIlIl, Disassembly Coder of the Liberation Collective
The nature of the Avatar in Mage is somewhere between
vague and contradictory with some sources representing it as
a weird alien other. Difference sources present the Avatar as
a part of ones personality that simply has seemingly more of
a life of its own.
Yes (default): Avatars are present at birth and follow the
not-yet-Awakened mage until Awakening. Avatar detection
now becomes a possibility and endeavors like 1e Progenitor’s
attempts at mass gilgul could be possible even if not reasonable.
Avatars can haunt someone before Awakening. The Avatar may
just be like one’s magickal inner monologue or some other
fundamental part of a person.
Magick may be able to detect those likely to Awaken based
on their Avatars and recruitment by the factions of the Ascen-
sion War may occur among these Postulants. Alternatively,
forces may try to limit the presence of magick in the world may
try to pick them off, requiring characters to defend possible
future mages.
Story Hook: Characters notice that the level of activity across
their region by a medium-sized Craft has increased considerably.
Word gets out that the group has conducted a large and costly
ritual to get a list of 1,000 people on the continent most likely
to Awaken and has positioned members nearby that match
their membership criteria (the Knights Templar will likely not
stake out atheists).
Are they doing something to induce Awakening like causing
stress or exposing the people to true magick? What about the
names on the list that don’t match their recruitment criteria?
Could other groups do the same or is something special going on?
Story Hook: The Syndicate has started a front organization of
mental health practitioners who look out for supposed dilusions
and hallucinations that could be a sign of an Avatar manifesting.
The firm does seem to provide reasonable services cheaply to
increase throughput. Characters find out when a contact using
their services Awakens and is promptly abducted.
No: The psychopomp storyline in late Revised presented the
idea that at Awakening, an Avatar is paired with the Awakening
person or some bit of Avatar is added to an existing Avtar. The
psychopomps saw that Avatars were well matched for their
hosts which is why in Sorcerer’s Crusade the noisy Avatar
49 Ascension's Landscape
isn’t a phenomenon. Avatars joining at the time of Awakening
allows for there to be no reasonable way to detect an about-to-
Awaken person as the signature of Prime of an active Avatar is
not yet present. The no Avatar before Awakening complicates
Avatars interacting pre-awakening but Avatars may be able
to communicate across time or may be unstuck from regular
causality. Avatars may implant in a person and then require
some time to manifest like a seed not sprouting until after
being planted.
Technocracy efforts to cause mass Gilgul will fail as there
are simply no Avatars present to destroy. Groups that attempt
to figure out who will Awaken will likely fail as there will be
no provable warning signs to Awakening. Avatars may attract
other Avatars with a cabal active in the world increasing the
number of spontaneous Awakenings providing a steady stream
of vulnerable mages the characters need to take care of.
Story Hook: An Infernal group of hedge mages claims to have
a caught an Avatar by interrupting the Awakening of a monk
apprentice. The monk has asked the cabal to retrieve their
Avatar which they rightly consider theirs. The Infernal group
is asking for a seemingly weak Talisman in exchange. Have they
indeed caught an Avatar? What’s so special about the Talisman?
Who are the Infernalists working for?
What is the nature of the Avatar
supply?
We spent our childhoods steeped in tales where every village had
a wizard or priest or shaman who could control the weather or place
a curse. There are seven hundred mages in all of the United States,
That’s more people than the world had at the time of Grand Convoca-
tion when the records speak of thousands of Awakened participants.
Now you tell me if there are enough Avatars to go around. At least
it does make my job easier.
-Asis Mukherjee, Scholar of the Wheel
This question attempts to address whether there’s a finite
supply of Avatar-stuff and sneaks in whether or not Avatars
are subdividable. These two questions aren’t strictly tied and a
Storyteller may choose to have the Avatar supply ebb and flow
with the population but also have individual Avatars tend to
stay together over time.
Avatars are divisible and the supply increases generally over
time: Avatars are subdividable or more Avatar stuff can be
created as populations expand. Avatars subdividing then
complicates the idea of remembering past lives. Maybe the
memory part of an Avatar is but a small part of it and not all
of it moves together. Avatars may manifest as needed allowing
their properties to change over time. Avatars may manifest at
particular times being disposed to certain Essences, Paradigms,
or Spheres possibly to balance out the Metaphysical Trinity. New
Spheres of magick may be brought into existence by changes
in the nature of the Avatar supply or established Spheres may
begin to fade in power. Changes in the nature of the Avatar
supply could explain why the nature of magick changed between
Dark Ages: Mage and Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade.
An infinite Avatar supply makes the war against
the Nephandi a question of rate. New Avatar stuff is created,
some gets inverted, and other bits do not. Gilgul becomes a
reasonable tool as if one is weeding the Avatar garden.
If Avatars have little tendency to stay together, the
Past Lives Background may simply be an attempt by the mind
to make sense of all the bits of Avatar making up a character’s
Awakened self and not reflect any actual historical lives.
Story Hook: Sometimes the population strongly contracts and
there is simply more Avatar-stuff in an area. A long-smouldering
conflict in a war-torn area of the globe has depressed the
population sufficiently that the next few Awakenings in the
area show very potent Avatars (starting Arete above 3) and
exceptional command of the Spheres. The newly Awakened
are unsure how to handle their powers and wish to continue
their Sleeper conflict with new tools. The characters must
intercede before a mortal conflict becomes a metaphysical one.
Story Hook: Characters discovered that a dying Master embedded
knowledge about a hidden cache of Talismans, Grimoires, and
Tomes within their Avatar hoping to put their next host at a
leg up in their next incarnation. The Master didn't plan on
their Avatar being spread across five Sleepers. The mages are
now in a race against the Master’s now Fallen apprentice to
find the Sleepers and collect the cache. The Avatar shards can
be found by the Resonance of their effects and through having
all been born at the same time.
The supply of Avatars is discrete and finite: There is a finite
amount of Avatar stuff or Avatars are of a finite number. Avatars
may grow but not as quickly as the population. Furthermore, the
Avatar population may be dwindling. Gilgul may successfully
destroy Avatars, demons may consume them, and the rare
Ascending mage may merge with the cosmos. A world of darkness
may be dark because there simply aren’t enough Avatars to go
around to keep reality flexible. In a finite world, Gilgul would
be taken on with the most extreme caution. Alternatively, Gilgul
could merely scramble an Avatar, forcing it to be incoherent
for years or centuries until it rejoins the pool of shards that
may manifest or join to people.
If Avatars are finite and there is no way to de-invert an
Avatar that has gone through the Cauls, there now becomes a
cosmic one-way valve. Each mage that Falls represents a shard
that is permanently lost. Finite Avatars also put a hard cap on
the number of mages active at any given time. If Avatars don’t
shard into smaller bits, Avatar lineages could be quite important
and the Past Lives Background could be quite potent, allowing
a mage to hand down wisdom and skills forward in time to
future incarnations.
Bits of Avatar may break off and stick to another Avatar
allowing a character to have two, possibly contradictory, sets
of Past Lives or for a cabal to return together as their Avatars
stick close across cycles.
Chronicle Idea: The cabal consists of a group of mages that
died at the same time possibly doing something heroic that
didn’t quite work. Now in a new incarnation, the group must
re-assemble to finish the job they didn’t quite get right the first
time. This could be subduing a Methuselah or Bane Mummy,
a rarely active Umbrood, or even another will-worker.
Story Hook: A Marauder is kidnapping barabbi mages and
transporting them to an Umbral hell for “purification” i.e.
medieval torture informed by the Marauder’s reality bubble.
The Marauder believes that if he can get the mages to repent
before death, they will not return widderslainte and that enough
suffering can cleanse the Avatar. The Realm is modeled after
Dante’s Inferno and features Gafflings issuing poetic and ironic
torments on its growing count of “penitents”. The leader is
attracting other converts drawn to the mission, some Mad and
50
some perfectly sane. The characters discover a former enemy
has sent a cry for help to be released.
Story Hook: A group of sorcerers have discovered rudimentary
rituals allow them to collect and control bits of Avatar in an
attempt to get enough in one spot to induce an Awakening. The
Council considers such manipulations heresy but there’s a small
group that sees the ability to induce Awakenings as a potent
weapon in the Ascension War. Should the sorcerers be allowed
to continue and what would such composite Avatars be like?
Can Avatars be de-inverted?
Why assume Descent is a one way process? All of nature exists in
cycles and all reactions are reversible at appropriate scales under the
right conditions; why would the inversion of an Avatar be an exemp-
tion? We are simply throwing tantrums because our True Selves has
failed to completely reveal their secrets.
-Meynard Chamborde, Former Professor, Etheric College
of Eidolon Studies
De-inversion has a presence within the canon where Mer-
cedes Gonzaga de Ortiz went through the Cauls, was killed by
Senex 27 years later, and is then reborn as Amanda Jonsson.
Amanda feels the tug of the Void while working with the Con-
saguinity of Eternal Joy but is taken in by Senex and seems to
largely be functioning as one of the greatest living Euthanatoi.
Amanda Jonsson would meet the definition of widderslainte
but has not joined up with the Nephandi. If Amanda was to
finish this life without rejoining the Fallen would the Angel
with Bloody Hands still be twisted? Possibly. No option is
listed as “default” as at a minimum, if de-inversion exists it’s
on par with a vampire regaining their mortality as things that
are possible but so rare as to be nearly mythical.
No, Avatars cannot be di-inverted: There are no documented
cases of an inverted Avatar deinverting or otherwise being
redeemed. Some texts suggest this could be done by an Incarna,
an Oracle or Achmaster of Spirit, or some other suitable potent
force but at minimum, undoing a trip through the Cauls is not
possible under anything like normal circumstances. This suggests
a kind of cosmic one-way valve. Avatars can be inverted but
can’t be de-inverted. Balance then becomes a case of needing
to wipe out these shards as fast as possible otherwise eventually
all Avatars will Fall and come back inverted. If one strongly
believes in the pull of Entropy this makes sense.
Once an Avatar has been inverted, there is a a permanent
stain upon it that can never be removed. Future hosts of the
Avatar may not be as strongly drawn to the Nephandi but there
may still be dark whispers.
Story Hook: House Fortunae and the Chakramuni have noted
that the number of Avatars returning inverted is rising quicker
and quicker and House Fortunae have convinced the Order to
declare Wizards March on the Nephandi. To aid them, copies
51 Ascension's Landscape
of an ancient tome of questionable provenance, De Dissectione
Animam “On the Dissection of the Soul” have been made
which offers a messier and simpler Gilgul doable by Adepts
(4 dots in Prime). These Tomes offer quick access to rotes that
purportedly detect corruption but there have been some reports
that the rotes contained may be inaccurate.
Yes, Avatars can be de-inverted: Redemption is possible albeit
rare and Avatars can be de-inverted. This process may just
occur at random with Avatars sometimes being inverted and
sometimes being de-inverted on rebirth as a sort of random
mutation. If redemption is possible why hasn’t it happened?
Redemption may have happened silently when a Nephandus
recants or walks away from the Void. There may be no reliable
way to fingerprint an Avatar to note when an inverted Avatar is
inverted no longer. Seeing acts of overwhelming grace, mercy,
and beneficence may do it which would be exceedingly rare
in some worlds of darkness. The redemption process may be
lethal. There could also be a psychoscientific aspect that mages
simply haven’t figured out how to build an anti-Caul yet.
What would a redemption arc even look like? While most
Storytellers would be skeptical of a player wishing to play a
member of the Fallen, playing a character trying to leave could
be compelling.
Story Hook: An Adsinistratus of some renown has approached
the players looking for asylum claiming a powerful Prelatus is
in pursuit. The Adsinistratus is claiming to know of a way to
create an anti-Caul to reverse the Avatar inversion and is willing
to share the method if the players are willing to help construct
it. There’s no proof that such a device has existed before or
even could be built. Some of the material requirements are
rare such sa the still-beating heart of a 500 year old vampire
and the fangs of a Black Spiral Dancer.
Did the Pure Ones exist and
were they in some way good?
To say that I worship the Pure Ones would be like saying I wor-
ship air or food. I simply recognize what is needed to sustain me and
choose to recognize its beneficence for what it is. Food has no choice
but to sate hunger; the Pure Ones had far more autonomy.
-Marshall, Itinerant Preacher from the Church of the
Perpetual Convergence
Yes (default): 1e leaned heavily on the idea that all of the
Traditions believed that the Pure Ones existed at the beginning
of creation. These entities either gave birth to humanity or
gave birth to what gave birth to humanity. The Pure Ones, at
a minimum, created Avatars if not Avatars being made out of
actual pieces of the Pure Ones. These sources don’t indicate if
this is considered metaphorical but even the technomantic Sons
of Ether book specifically mention believing in them. The Those
That Should Not Be that the Nephandi are trying to summon
opposed the actions of the Pure Ones at the creation of reality.
The side effect of taking both the Pure Ones as having
existed and Avatars being shards of them is that Avatars are now
more alien and other than simply a manifestation of human
genius or enlightenment. The Pure Ones may map on to the
firstborn of Dark Ages: Fae or the first chorus of Chorister myth.
An active Pure One may also allow a Storyteller to funda-
mentally change the nature of magick. An active Pure One may
cause Paradox to be less problematic or provide for a change
to the abilities ascribed to a Sphere.
Chronicle Idea: The Pure Ones exist in some balance with the
other entities present at the dawn of creation. A Neverborn
has risen, disempowering the Nephandi but raising an army of
Spectres. So too has a Pure One returned, empowering their
chosen proxies; mages. The number of Awakened globally will
spike but also the dark army of the Neverborn will assemble
to wage war on behalf of Oblivion. This may involve fighting
in the Tempest at the mouth of the Well of the Void or the
Labyrinth or the Spetres may begin mass controlling Sleepers
to stir chaos.
Story Hook: A character meets another mage who seems to
know aspects of the charater’s magickal life very well,,, down
to the way they mutter before beginning an incantation. The
character discovers that the pair have Avatars that “fit” together
and both can perform magick more easily when in each other’s
company but the new NPC is of a radically different paradigm
or worldview and the rest of the cabal is unsure if this “shared
Avatar lineage” is what it first seems to be.
Story Hook: Rather than passively allowing shards of their essence
to be Avatars, a now-active Pure One is imbuing some Avatars
with novel powers. A chosen character may manifest limited
abilities to do something that may be normally impossible
such as detecting who will Awaken or directly manipulate an
Avatar at a much finer level than crude efforts like Branding
or Gilgul. The character may be sought out my mages with
injured Avatars and even repentant Nephandi who wish to
reverse their trip through the Caul. The character also has
strange hallucinations pushing them towards some place that
they can’t quite find. How will the player balance out these
pulls? Will they continue their role within the cabal?
No: The Pure Ones are a myth used to explain certain aspects
of Awakened life. Removing the Pure Ones makes it easier
to say the Avatar is intimate and internal and not from some
outside font. Creation doesn’t need a multilayered fractured
cosmos start to it and more human-level logic ruled early
creation. Dispensing with the Pure Ones makes humanity
more front and center.
The Pure Ones myth may also be cover for either a darker
or messier creation. The Pure Ones may have simply won a war
at the dawn of creation. Equally primordial entities that would
52
have produced a less dark world may have been the victors
under other circumstances. The Pure Ones could be invoked
by maligned groups who claim to be doing their bidding but
that may be a cover used by demons or other forces.
Chronicle Idea: The Pure Ones are much closer to Those Who
Should Not Be that the Nephandi worship. A new breed of
mage appears imbued by the “true” Pure Ones who seek the
extinction of all mages whose Avatars are at the root of the
world’s corruption. These new mages do not have Sphere
abilities but exhibit powers similar to potent True Faith and
the powers of the Imbued in Hunter: The Reckoning. Who are
these new agents? Is the reality-bending power responsible for
the decay of the world?
Other Options for the Pure Ones
Demiurge: The Pure Ones could fill the role of the Aeons or
Demiurge in Gnostic traditions where reality is an illusion
keeping us from some greater plane of being. The Things
that Should Not Be could be right and we’re just used to a
particular layout of reality when theirs would be far better in
some way that inscrutable to mortals. These entities could be
right or they themselves could have gone mad resulting in the
perversions of the Nephandi.
Avatar Families as Shards of the Same Pure One: The Pure
Ones each had a flavor or personality to them resulting in
Avatar families with shared attributes. Mages could be better
able to deal with other mages that are part of their Avatar
lineage. Great works of magick may be possible or simply easier
53 Ascension's Landscape
if a group of mages with shards of the same Pure One work
together to produce an effect.
God as Remaining Pure One: God could be the sole unshattered
Pure One out of the dozens that existed at creation. The
shattered Pure Ones became the Avatars that exist in each
human. Humanity in unison could therefore be more potent
than god were it ever to find a way to reunite. In the World of
Darkness, one common interpretation is that God has somehow
left. Part of the Ascension War could be allying enough shards
to rule creation quite directly. The goal of the Ascension War
may then be to simply get enough Avatars to agree on how the
cosmos should be arranged to achieve an apotheosis and be
the new rulers of creation.
Children of the Pure Ones Still Around: One of the entities
between the Pure Ones and humanity may still be lurking around
the edges of creation. A possibly potent but flawed being with
a fundamentally different understanding of reality that could
either rival a Celestine or possibly do things that are viewed as
impossible within the World of Darkness systems. Such an entity
may possess an advanced form of Naming from Changeling
which could lift a Dark Fate, remove the Curse of Caine, de-
invert an Avatar, reverse Disembodiment, make someone a
werewolf, or any number of supernaturally impossible or at
least remarkably hard things. Such an entity would likely view
most of reality as strange and limited but may be hunted as its
very essence may grant considerable ability to reshape even the
mundane world. Such an entity may need to be taught what
reality is or concepts like time, identity, change, and morality.
 Chapter Four:
Putting It All
Together
The previous sections included a lot of questions, what
happens when the answers are put together? This section
showcases a few combinations and the world of darkness that
may come out the other side of them. Can two Storyteller’s
start with similar assumptions and still get wildly different
outcomes? Heck yes. A world where the mage count is high
due to the cosmic effect of a Pure One and a Neverborn rising
from slumber and a world where the mage count is high due to
very active Awakened organizations shepherding Sleepwalkers
to rise are likely to be quite different.
Example 1 - The Secret
Societies
Highly organized council, low mage count and relatively few
Nephandi. Powerful linear mage societies that work closely with the
Awakened. The world is dark because of strange supernatural things
in the shadows and Nodes are rare and not often contested.
In this world there are very few mages and the Council
is the small collection of Tradition mages that lead relatively
large hedge magic communities. Crafts and the Disparate
Alliance are also relatively powerful as their strong Sleeper
connections keeps things up and running even when their
Awakened leadership is away. Since there are so few Awakened
mages, the Traditions see their precarious spot and can work
together quite well. Traditions mages see the commonality and
magick styles even when their linear mage assistants do not.
Despite its size, the Council is quite well organized because
it must be. Much of their time is spent reacting to supernatural
threats and on some occasions the Council will work with the
Disparate Alliance and the Technocratic Union. As a mage,
why work with one of these organizations rather than going
your own way? Tass. The main factions of the Ascension War
have locked down most of the known Nodes and each has a
sophisticated distribution system of which a fair bit is used to
rent the help of mages. Technocrats are paid after appropriate
tours of duty while the Traditions maintain a bounty system.
The Disparates have an exchange system where Tass is used to
keep track of debts. Great leaders will give it away in a show
of strength but they keep track of those who don’t pay them
back. Mages in good standing can often rent Devices and
Wonders from their peers. Everyone in a faction is generally
no more than three degrees of separation from another mage
in that faction.
The Technocracy spends most of its time on research.
The universe needs to be safe for mortals so the Technocracy
spends most of its time trying to out-explore Sleepers so the
first person on Mars isn’t eaten by Forces Paradox Spirits or
doesn’t stumble in the Shard Realm. The Technocracy also
buries problematic research when someone outside their ranks
gets too close to opening a dimensional portal to Malfeas or
finding the keys to immortality via cellular rejuvination.
Marauders have yet been identified. Periodically mages
appear that seemingly are so unshakable in their paradigm
that the world around them bends to their whim but these
entities seem to be no different from Masters possibly in Quiet.
There isn’t the Nephandi so much as there is the Nephan-
dus. The Nephandus strides the world trying to find and tempt
54
newly Awakened mages or those who are desperate. It sound s
like something to scare apprentices if only so many hadn’t met
it. The Nephandus offers great power if only you agree to step
through its obsidian mirror and return to its Sanctum. The
Nephandus takes on changing forms and while most people
agree it’s just one being, its appearance always seems to differ
in terms of age, features, sex, and accent. The Nephandus
is always well-dressed but in slightly out-dated clothing. The
Nephandus always smells lightly of freshly cooked meats in most
cases or of savory herbs when in non-meat eating cultures. The
Nephandus always leaves if asked three times, and always offers
what you didn’t know you wanted. The Nephandus seems to
be fluent in whatever language it needs and has never resorted
to violence. Several attempts to trap the Nephandus have been
tried and all revealed the Nephandus to be an illusion, yet those
who walk into the Nephandus’s mirror are never seen again.
A theme in this world is exploration and discovery. There
aren’t enough Awakened eyes to sort through all the reports
and materials mortals generate but access to large linear magick
societies allow a cooperative mage to have instant access to eso-
teric tomes, money, person power, entry to board roomes and
cocktail parties all in exchange for a few favors only the Awakened
can provide. Much of the Umbra is likely unexplored with only
the most common of Realms being identified. Characters may
be able to easily carve out their own territory or there may be
good reason that much of the worlds beyond are unmapped.
The Ascension War still exists but it’s quite slow. There’s
only so much one person can do and still defend their Sleeper
communities, no one has the capacity to raid Horizon or
challenge Control directly. It’s much more potent to have an
enemy owe you a favor than to kill them. Maybe one day the
Nephandus will have enough power to do whatever it’s trying
to do but mortal cults are much more of a concern.
Example 2 -
The War of Shade
Explodes
A world where things were fine until recently. Something hap-
pened and now, the hunt for reality deviants is on strong, Marauder
and the Nephandi are common, hedge mages don’t work much with
their Awakened counterparts, Nodes are contested and the Traditions
are largely in disarray.
Just as the Week of Nightmares was set off by events
in the Underworld, again almost 15 years later, a similar event
rocked the Supernatural World. In 1979, an accident at a Rus-
sian bioweapons facility in Ekaterinburg released aerosolized
anthrax into the world. Luckily, the winds didn’t blow towards
heavily populated areas, and under 100 were killed. This is a
tragedy, but nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands
that could have perished under the right conditions.
On Friday, December 12, 2014, a collection of former
Soviet bioweapons researchers were gathered in Washington,
55 Ascension's Landscape
DC to observe the 100th anniversary of the first chemical
weapons deployment in WWI. The conference was a success
and the team retired to the house of a former colleague who
had moved to an old farm house in the DC suburbs. The ac-
commodations cozy but cold, the team slept in a converted root
cellar warmed by a propane heater that lead to a barn fire in
which the team perished.
The Reapers that removed the scientist’s cauls were unsure
what the strange symbols on the canisters held by the Enfants
but they were offered a hefty ransom by Thurifuge, Master of
Stagnation and Lord of Disease for them. The Master had waited
years for the circumstances for weaponized biological agents to
appear in the Underworld and now agents of proper plague were
in its hands again. The Risen proved to be remarkably good
carriers and many wraiths jumped at the chance to break the
Dictum Mortuum with such a powerful ally. In return, all the
Lord of Disease asked was to leave a few packages in strategic
places around the world.
The raised itchy bumps at the 2015 Hajj pilgrimage were
presumed to be a normal skin rash due to the harsh clothing
some pilgrims choose. The rough cloth emulates the cloth-
ing of the Prophet but by the time the diagnosis was made,
hundreds of thousands were dying. The mortal world reacted
with remarkable calm as Riyadh had preparations for such
eventualities. Experts were quickly brought in and the mass
outbreak nearly triggered a pandemic but transportation lines
were quickly brought to a halt, and while tragic, the world
avoided global catastrophe.
Supernatural world knew no such calm. The Banu Haqim
considered this an attack on their kine and quickly began work-
ing through a list of potential instigators until a high ranking
member of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs was killed
by something on camera during the Rally for Peace in Paris.
Thousands saw it happen live and hundreds had recorded the
moment from every angle. The NWO didn’t stand a chance.
A Grand Symposium was called and the Great Extirpation
began. The hunt for Reality Deviants was revved up to a level
not seen for centuries with tools no mortal would have antici-
pated. The lid had been partly blown, and the Union planned
on there being no repeats of such incidents. While the hunt for
Reality Deviants stepped up, it targeted anything that didn’t
look human. This disproportionately affected werecreatures,
low humanity vampires, and mages that practiced shapeshifting.
The Verbena, Dreamspeakers, and Sons of Ether have lost many
Life Adepts and Masters but most other practitioners have not
been targeted. Only later did the Virtual Adepts discover the
dossiers that the Union had compiled with the approximate
rank and Sphere understanding of almost 40% of all estimated
active non-Union mages.
The Council is in disarray over the selectiveness of the
attacks with most Traditions unscathed. The Verbena have
threatened to leave if the attacks on shifters are not stopped
and the Dreamspeakers would likely see no reason to not go
with them. Even the Akashics are receiving pressure from their
allies in the Hengeyokai to act. The Sons of Ether have made
no move yet but a small faction, the Integrationists believe
now is the time to return to the Union. While the Traditions
are in disarrayed, the Ascension War has taken a surprising
turn with the Marauder drawn to both the chaos and requests
for help from the Fera. After the pack of Black Furies aiding
Medea, the Marauder Oracle, lost its pack leader, Theurge, and
Philodox members, Medea lost access to the few entities that
helped retain her grip on the modern world. She could again
hear Hecate‘s calls to rebuild the Colchis her father ruled and
she would make it rise again. No one expected it to be literally.
Using an impressive armament of magick and Talismans
thought lost to the world, old Greek towns and villages burst
from the earth, their denizens suddenly given life again. This
new life was not always entirely in a form one would desire
with some returned to flesh whole cloth, others being souls
bound to bodies, and yet others taking stranger forms. The
Fallen saw opportunity in the chaos. Many offspring of their
dark lords had been buried millenia ago in the area using
magick no one alive now knows. Were they to be unleashed,
it’d take considerable effort to track down the lore required
to bind them or rediscover the methods to banish them. The
Mad sane enough to notice also flocked to find the Umbrood
that may too be finding new life.
Unlike previous Technocratic neutralization activities,
Sleepers in the millions saw these surgical strikes against strange
foes and in short order saw the Technocracy in the guise of
the Intergovernment Crisis Emergency Response Coalition
(ICERC) seemingly dealing with threats with an efficiency and
precision that many mortals thought mortal government was no
longer capable of. The hedge magician allies of many Traditions
have abandoned their groups, seeing that their anachronistic
friends seem incapable of protecting them.
The Marauders need Quintessence to feed their return-
ing pets, the caerns of the Garou seem partly up for grabs, the
Nephandic Things that Should Not Be need Tass in the absence
of sacrificed souls, and the Technocracy needs to power its toys.
The Tapestry strains under the tension on its threads, but for
the first time in almost a century, the Wheel of Ages seems to
be creaking into movement...
This set up provides a very dynamic set up for whatever
kind of adventure the Storyteller may have.
Example 3 -
A Fractured Globe
The Pure Ones existed and are responsible for Avatar lineages
(related Avatars that tend to have the same manifestation, and para-
digm), Archmasters and Masters are relatively common, the Marauders
and Nephandi are rare, Nodes are rare and other means are used to
gather Quintessence, reality zones are potent, the Traditions do not
cooperate but are internally organized, the Technocracy is shattered
after a Nephandic purge, and users of linear magic are rare.
There had always been a faction within the Union that
knew the Technocratic war machine was a tempting target for
Entropic Agent Infiltration (Nephandi espionage). The Union
had the resources to set off Armageddon and any Nephandus
would salivate at access to such power. The Void Engineers
though had largely secured space, the Syndicate and NWO kept
abreast of odd movements in markets and media channels that
signaled corruption and the Progenitors and Iterators cleaned
up the mess all while their algorithms (genetic and machine-
learning) helped figure out how to better spot the Fallen. But
the Nephandi leveraged the ultimate Technocratic vulnerability,
fear of looking weak, for their victory.
Threat Null was a diversion. The Nephandi hadn’t lost
contact to much during the Dimensional Anomaly. Only those
who had failed high school geometry couldn’t update the rituals
to property send sacrifices to the dark lords that empowered
them. Several Things That Should Not Be dripped a mere piece
of their essence across Horizon into appropriate Realms to
create the counter-Conventions. The dark lords gambled that
the Void Engineers wouldn’t ask for help, and they didn’t, and
with their hands full, a gilledian shattered itself to pieces to
slip through the cracks in the satellite and voidship defenses
and began reforming on Autochthonia, looking almost human.
The Computer was dormant. Only barely aware of what it
was, the loss of worshippers during the Dimensional Anomaly
lulled it to sleep. The gilledean roused it and promised it help
Materializing on the mundane side of the Gauntlet if only
it’d send special instructions to some of its worshipers. An
update was pushed out to Iterators who still had DEIs and
some rejoiced that the Computer had returned, listless from
their directionless freedom, and some 40% of the Convention
received the update. The takeover entered its middle stage.
The Technocracy had long ago learned the tell-tale signs
of corruption. Most agents can smell a Bane a long way off
and most of what the Nephandi can offer Unionists don’t
want and most of what Unionists want the Nephandi can’t
offer. No Adsinistratus can teach Dimensional Science and
cyborgs tend not to be easy to seduce. A gilledean, though,
could blackmail and bribe enough Syndicate Managers and
NWO Grey Suits to start shifting priorities. All seemed poised
for Control to miraculously re-appear but with a Board from
beyond humanity’s nightmares. Over the next 10 years, the
Fallen moved up and up the various ladders of power in the
Union and the return of Control was about to happen, until
someone started checking receipts.
Advanced nuclear research could be advocated as a program
to fend off Deep Umbra Entities. Disease virulence research
was justified as a potential vector for bacteriophages against
novel pathogens. But when research was done into how to
make child pornography more attractive as a way of “catching
bad actors”, an idealistic Extraordinary Citizen raised alarms
citing the violation of the 6th Precept of Damian and more
importantly, spending irregularities. Initially ignored, she visited
Amalgam after Amalgam investigating research appropriations.
56
The Nephandi tried to stop the Citizen, but silencing her with a
chaingun on a “misprogrammed” HIT Mark made her a martyr.
Project Invictus propagated the evidence of infiltration across
every data feed they could get their hands on.
The gig was up, but the Nephandi had compromised 1/3rd
of the Technocracy as a whole and had first mover advantage.
The initial strikes left many first-rate Constructs in ruins and
in the four years it took to clean up the mess, the Union
has a quarter of the head count of when the conflict began,
partly because recruiting operations had largely stopped. The
Nephandi too were set back. They gambled on the destruction
they wrought to further their goals and sew Sleeper discord
but the Technocrats waged a tidy war, even when going loud
would have been to their advantage. Throughout the conflict,
the Unionists never forget the First Precept as they fought to
enact the Fifth. The Nephandi quickly fell to in-fighting and
blaming each other for mistakes. Most knew how to fight re-
ligious fanatics but not Technocrats who had equivalent zeal.
At its end, two gilledeans went from alive to dead, one went
from half-alive to entirely alive and then dead, and one went
from dead to dead dead. Many mortal cults disbanded when
their sacrifices were no longer rewarded, and many nightmare
creatures disappeared when no one came around to feed them.
Even the quiet whispers of some Cauls went silent.
But, an entire college class whose best and brightest would
have become Sleeper supporters of the Technocracy were missed
by recruitment. Those Sleepers found odd bits of technology in
the wreckage of secret industrial facilities that were destroyed
57 Ascension's Landscape
Constructs. They began figuring out the priciples they worked
on. Strangely, in imploding, the Technocracy had still advanced
its Timetable. The banished Masters and Archmasters noticed,
for they too had waited.
Reversing Disembodiment wasn’t possible, but with some
work, one could etch some information on ones Avatar so
that on its rebirth, more than a few details from a previous life
would stick to the new body. It had taken 15 years for those
lost to Disembodiment to figure out Avatar etching, jump into
Oblivion to be re-made,, and then grow to early adulthood.
The Council was taken aback when something that looked a
lot like Akrites Salonikas returned in the body of a 12 year-old
Caribbean girl or when Fu Xia returned as a 15 year-old acne-
pocked kid from Seattle, but even if they were imposters, they
were imposters that already had Archmastery. The New Horizon
Council refused to cede power to these children. The Council
was the first democratically elected collection of Primii in the
history of the Traditions and they weren’t about to give it up.
The Archmasters made them and the New Horizon Council
was never heard from again.
The returning Masters and Archmasters weren’t quite
themselves. They had the power and the memories, but seem-
ingly not the wisdom. A returning Cultist Master knew how
to manipulate time, the Talismans they had hidden, and their
former enemies and friends but seemingly not the Code of
Ananda. Like the teenagers they appeared to be, the returning
reality weavers were seemingly power-mad non-adults. Many
quickly set themselves up as the apex mage in a given area and
became the undisputed heads of the area in exchange for keep-
ing out the remaining Nephandic horrors that the Technocracy
was in no position clean up. Lesser mages flocked to the region
ruled by the Archmasters that best fit their paradigm and still
younger mages went to the groups that seemingly offered the
quickest route to power. Even the Crafts proved emboldened
with their revered leaders again seemingly walking among them
and the Pogrom on hiatus.
After an initial shake-out period, 17 Grand Cabals seem
to have formed, and breaking the world in 15 stable and 9
contested regions. Some Grand Cabals are familiar with the
Verbena still being quite potent in an arc across Europe with
what looks like Charlotte Quay in her old body (the glory of
Life Mastery) while a kind of technoshamanic assemblage seems
to be largely in charge of an area from Central China through
an arc around the interior areas of Korea, Vietnam and some
of the Pacific. Venerating ones ancestors is much easier to do
when it can be done procedurally at several teraflops.
The magickal world is now geographically splintered with
some practices and paradigms ruling some areas and impossible
in others. Instead of reality zones acting in a neighborhood
or a mountain hollow, they’ve spread across whole countries.
Mortals have started to notice that folk practices seem to be
potent like never before. Research universities are publishing
at unheralded rates in a kind of academic boom bust cycle
with some areas of research advancing quickly and others at
a standstill unlike the previous steady advancement before.
Linear mages are considered rare assets as their methods
don’t seem to be subject to the same reality zone rules and their
work often goes undetected in hostile territories.
This is a world where the Traditions/Disparates have seem-
ingly won the Ascension War, but instead of creating a global
system where everyone can use magick to their paradigm, the
unity has fractured and the vulgar vs coincidental question is
now much more geographic. Cellphones work everywhere, but
cutting edge surgical robots don’t always, although more than
one has been coaxed into operation with a well-considered
sacrifice or prayer. Mortal mystical practices are re-asserting
themselves and in novel ways. Many world leaders have brought
back historical advisers and vizier positions and astrology seems
to be gaining more acceptance in the West.
The old enemies of Ascension are gone and new ones will
surely emerge. The greatest threat may be internal. The Masters
were denied Ascension due to their thirst for power and the
areas will reflect this. This setting could also be a jumping off
point to merge with another game. In a world where the fac-
tions of the Awakened world have been so thoroughly shaken
up, the Exalts of a previous age may re-emerge or Scions may
begin to make themselves known, fighting with the vestiges of
the old supernatural order.
Systems and Changes
This text only considers the setting portion of world-
building and ignores systems and mechanics. Systems and
mechanics reinforce the setting and make it real. Consider
what rules systems change will make a setting change more
flavorful. If a table decides that magick is a science just like
any other that happens to manipulate reality in a different
way, then rotes may receive a stronger bonus tham a mere -1
difficulty. Methods get refined, and over centuries, mages
may discover remarkably efficient ways to do things. Likewise,
if a table wishes there to be some rules change, an in-world
justification can add flavor to this choice. If characters would
like to be able to wield potent magick quickly, maybe there’s
been a change in cosmos empowering mages or Quintessence
is much more common than in the default setting.
Remember, if these characters can do something, so can
everyone with the requisite spheres and paradigm. Consider
what the world would then look like. Online fora are full of
players purporting to have broken Mage with various loopholes
and such. Mages are clever lot and will likely quickly find
those same loopholes. If a player figures that Correspondence
+ Prime + Forces allows their character to shoot off fireballs
while safely in their Sanctum, think of how this will change
the world. Other mages will quickly pick up on this tactic and
now Mage becomes a game of stealth and periodically bringing
down buildings to kill the mages inside. If a player character
can do something, likely, so can many other people.
Is this to say player creative should be shot down? Not at
all, but a table may find thinking through the ramifications of
some of their game interpretations. A Storyteller leading players
this kind of thought exercise may be more fruitful than simply
saying “no” and being the “no fun” Storyteller.
Closing Considerations
So, a Storyteller has made all the selections they’d like to
about how the world is arranged and has written a chronicle
start around it. Then what? The simple option is “play”. A
slightly more effective option is like “now tell the players”.
As time goes on, a session zero has become more and more
appropriate for players, even those already familiar with the
system. Here, a Storyteller will pitch their chronicle, review lines
(things they agree to not subject players to) and veils (things that
can happen but will occur off screen or only in vague terms),
and in this case, introduce their world of darkness. If players
are used to fighting the Technocracy, a Storyteller should
probably warn their players if that’s not going to be the case
any longer. Likewise, if there are large background events such
as the Technocratic Civil War having happened or Al-Aswad
being slayed but the Traditions lying in ruins, players should
likely know this as their characters likely will.
RPGs can be much the same way. Adding magick or
vampires or changelings or werewolves to a world that may
not otherwise already have them is going to create a world
where some bits don’t quite make sense and demanding total
consistency is unreasonable. Humans are remarkably good
at harnessing new power sources whether it be domesticated
animals or nuclear fission. Finding out that Vitae, Sa, Quintes-
sence, Glamour, Pathos, or Gnosis could power anything more
potent than a pocket calculator would have people all over it.
Vampires would pale in comparison to cellphones as a leading
cause of bleeding out if people discovered they could jump a
dead smartphone using their heartsblood.
RPG players partly pick games based on the amount of
hand-waving they’re comfortable dealing with. A Storyteller
may wish to ask their table what parts of the world don’t make
sense to them or seem particularly illogical. These too could
be jumping off points for homebrewing or creating explana-
tory mechanisms. Part of the social contract of a game is that
players will suspend their disbelief enough that the game can
be played. If a player wished for a true to life game with perfect
physics and real consequences that game exists, it’s called life.
Go play.
Final Feedback Request
It’s the author butting in at the end. I hope you liked what you
read. If you did, leave a review on the Storyteller Vault page for this
product. It helps other readers find it and gives me warm fuzzies. If
you found an error a type and want to tell me, click
here to submit feedback or navigate to: bit.ly/ascension-
slandscapefeedback.
58
Ascension’s Landscape
Setting Refinements and
Story Hooks

Mage: The Ascension has Strange Terrain...

Teeming with options and choices, world creation for Mage 20 can be daunting with seemingly every choice hav-
ing consequences. What is the Technocracy focused on? How strong are the Nephandi? What’s the status of the
Council? Why is the World of Darkness so dark?

...But Herein are Some Signposts

This book provides ideas and story hooks on why the World of Darkness is the way it is as well as how your world
of darkness could differ. Key options are presented with story hooks and chronicle ideas to take advantage of the
changes you make and maybe some reminders on what particular changes entail. Want to know what the world
would look like if there were 10x more or 1/10th as many mages? Look inside!