User:Peel
The Vanguard
New Illumina Republic
Mage: The Ascension in Arcus Prima Arena
Escape from the Abyss
Project Codename: Orenji
Hell's Garden REDAMNATION
Mage: Garden of Forking Paths
Mage: Drifting Tokyo
Pillars
General WoD Notes
Baali
Rather than being a particular clan or bloodline of vampires, this term refers to vampires that truck with the infernal in general. They are rare as most vampires have no ability to interact with the spirit world, if they even believe in it, but as vampires are more common than mages they make up an (un)healthy proportion of infernal servants.
The Camarilla forbid demonology and prefer that it not be spoken of at all, both to ensure the exclusive power of the Princes is maintained and from genuine moral revulsion. The Sabbat frown on it like a bad drug as they promote freedom of vampires from control, but the Lasombra fall from their ironic religious posing into actual devil-worship far more often than they are willing to admit. The nature of the 'Set' of the Setites is a matter of dispute even among followers, but the Serpent heirarchy does not ban traffic with demons - only subservience and 'excessive' behaviour.
Contact with demons can be achieved by forbidden rituals of Thaumaturgy or Necromancy, by astral projection, or by the secret discipline of Daimonion that is passed down among Baali from master to student. Not all Baali have the use of any of these powers themselves, but rely on access to a more capable Kindred master, a terrorised or controlled mortal sorceror, or even some item or location into which a demon has been bound.
Exalted: Eclipse
What if the Usurpation was done by Lunars? The Solars are slain, their Sidereal cronies sent fleeing to hide in Yu-Shan, and now the Thousand Streams River encircles Gaea. Dragonblood and Beastman populate the world. But all is not well. More and more knowledge is lost in the shifting tides of history, the Lunar elders and their experiments are becoming ever more degenerate, and once-Lunar monsters threaten to invade from the edges of Creation. And the Ebon Dragon just tricked the Raven into coughing up the Sun...
Lunar Charm/Knack Concepts
- Open up Chimaera charms to all lunars, with whatever caveats.
- Circle of Life Technique: Those the lunar kills and eats always reincarnate (including ghosts) <- needs more oomph.
- Chimeric Chrysalis: When threatened with mutation, instead enter a chrysalis and emerge radically transformed.
- Eyeball-Swallowing Approach: Eat a sense organ and receive memories of what it perceived over the last [essence] days.
- Hungry Cuckoo Method: The Lunar plants themselves into an organisation and siphons off a proportion of its turnover/profits <- maybe too Siddie.
- Myriad Hairs of the Monkey King: Release bits of body as independent entities.
- Raven Steals the Sun: Prereq. Golden Widow Method, ess 6+. After hunting and killing ones solar mate, imprison their exaltation and learn Solar charms (with limitations/drawbacks/side effects).
- Raven-as-Writing-Desk Technique: Transform into inanimate objects?
- [Something about tapeworms]: Hide inside someone else's body, with or without their awareness.
- Protean [Attribute Type] Ingenuity: Move attribute dots around inside one attribute type (physical/mental/social).
- Silent Owl's Patience: The lunar creates a shell personality to function socially and be affected by UMI leaving a dormant core personality unmolested.
Magical Pathologies
These are presented from a materialist perspective based on the pioneering research of Herr Klogius and his group. More spiritual mages may have more metaphysical explanations. And of course, their rendering as 'pathology' is a subjective value judgement and categorisation. Different mages and groups of mages manifest different pathologies, in different ways.
No confirmed cures have been found.
Externalised Delusion
One of the more common pathologies. The sufferer percieves reality in a radically different way to others and, within certain limits, it alters to match. This may occur based on physical, social or metaphysical proximity. Enlightened beings are not significantly altered but the sufferer will nevertheless percieve them as fitting into her world model.
Sufferers from externalised delusions are mostly immune to paradox, but may still be ejected into the umbra if their disruptions become particularly extreme. This immunity however gives them great power and their delusional perceptions give them unusual drives. These two factors together have given them the traditional name 'marauders'.
This sad disease is thought to be related to the 'internalised delusion' paradox sometimes inflicts, but is permanent, and far more dangerous.
Externalised Fragmentation
Rare and terrifying. What evidence exists suggests this is similar to marauderdom, but involving a total breakdown of world-picture coherency rather than mere substitution. They lose the ability to engage meaningfully with the world, but none of their power. The result is the alteration of themselves and the world around them into catastrophic chaos.
Ontological Megalomania
The ability to change the world does, in some cases, metastasise into the compulsive desire to do so and bring it into line with an imagined perfected state. This could be considered similar to externalised delusion, but with the imaginary world as target, rather than situation. However as sufferers are still subject to paradox, they tend to me more low-key than the aforementioned.
Hashimoto-Appelbaum Syndrome
In the East, called `karma demons'.
Raman-Klogius Syndrome
Sometimes called `widderslaintes' or `fiends', and found frequently among the Nephandi, infernalists, or the merely unscrupulous and daring.