M:RR

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M:RR or the Mage Round Robin is a new Mage the Ascension campaign run as shared setting with multiple storytellers. The chantry is a group of moderately experienced mages based out of an interdimensional North American chantry.

Characters

Chargen Summary

Revised mechanics, probably, but some horrible chimera of Mage, Mage 2E and RevMage cosmology TBD. There's also m20! Use XP-based chargen (linked in the header) save for the following modifications:

  • Initial Arete 4.
  • 50 XP post-chargen.

Other changes:

  • Dodge does not exist anymore. Evasion uses Athletics or Martial Arts maneuvers.
  • m20 Martial Arts.
  • Familiars use Familiars Via XP.

Characters List

Post your concepts here, who wants to play.

Kaneko Fujiyama (Peel)

Samurai.

Mara Evergreen (FBH)

Ecstatic Biker of Justice.

Ragnar Belix (Shrike)

Former orphan 'adventurer' from Horizon.

Ray Sevin (Acat)

VA Ghostbuster and general nerd guy.

Seungryong Pak (Sarp)

North Korean SINANJU Commando.

Sigrún (Silence)

Amnesiac Noir Assassin

Violette Voclain (Exhack)

Hermetic of House Verditus, Master of Wands and Explosive Trickery.

Evelyn Grace

Hermetic Vampire Hunting Doll, painfully shy and painfully sharp.

Evangeline Leblanc

Science Project Hermetic Orphan

Wilmodis

Verbena doll-maker with deep anger issues (possibly related to remembering her terrible past life).

Penelope Lovegrove (Aeon)

Chorister Theology Student and Neo-Gnostic with Scary Mind Powers.

Chantry

Genn Delacrois Manor, sometimes known in the wizarding world as the House of Doors, is a mildly interdimensional chantryrealm with exits throughout North America and a few in the umbra. Found in its current state sometime in the 80's, the origins of the building remain mysterious despite more than one major effort by experienced mages to study it. After being abandoned again for some time, the location fell into the hands of mages from Horizon who decided to commission it as a strategic chantry of sorts - a pot able to accept disparate mages on a temporary basis. In the mean time, its new inhabitants have a relatively free hand to conduct themselves as they will.

The chantryhouse takes the form of a massive, well-appointed mansion in victorian style - at least from the inside. It has no servants but contains a library of unwritten books, a gallery of unpainted paintings and sufficient rooms for the chantry members to each have a set. The numerous and varied rooms are joined together in a seemingly impossible geometry and its imposing front doors can never be opened. Rather, it has a number of ancillary exits, especially via the tunnels leading from the cheese cellar. It is not rare to find a secret passage, or obscure portal you are sure was not there before, that leads to an unexplored wing of rooms.

Known Exits:

  • Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia.
  • Baltimore
  • Boston

Boston Lore

Tradition
1: There is little high level tradition activity in Boston, as it is a heavily technocratic city
2: Most tradition activity is in a small scale cell structure in small associations, churches and wiccan groups
3: Considerable Tradition business takes place in shadow Boston, the mirror of the city on the other side of the horizon
Hermetic
1: Masionic Lodges host the majority of Boston's hermetics
Fairies
1 There is a major court in Boston
2 It hosts a strange variety of fae, including ambassadors from the old world
Pentex
1 There are no major Pentex facilities in Boston
2 However, it has some ownership in Haddenfield Financial, a new player in the district
Vampires
1: The city's prince is a man by the name of Wilson Todd, a successful merchant from the old world who was among the first kindred to arrive
2: Recently, a new Sabbat group has arrived in town
3: Todd's position is weak, and many say his star is falling.
Kue-Jin
1: Several Ku-Jin have an uneasy peace with the Akashics of Boston's china town
2: The Ku-Jin are lead by a woman of Vietnamese/Chinese descent. She is said to be one of considerable enlightenment and much ruthlessness.

GMs

Sign up here if you're interested in GMing and include vague point-form notes on expected setting, subject or tone (just enough to avoid flagrant overlap). Mechanics Discussion

Peel

GM-Maybe

  • Arizona (ongoing)
  • Le Cirque de la Lune
    • Violette and companions sign on with an umbral circus to travel to [location]
    • Fabulous sights
    • Slice of life?
    • The show must go on!
  • Bermuda College

Mal

GM-Maybe

  • Darkest Appalachia
    • Appalachia
    • Difficulty: Hard (hopefully)
    • Party must find and extract a person or, failing that, retrieve their macguffin. Straight forward, yet so many ways to mission creep.
    • Rural setting. Rural dangers. "Don't fuck around out there. Go in, find, and get out."
  • Baltimore Rioting

FBH

GM-OK

Exhack

GM-Absolute

  • Hawaii Nights (COMPLETED)
    • Hawaii Nights II: Etheric Boogaloo (Beginning)
      • Hawaii Nights III: The Siege of Mauna Kea (Planning)
  • V3: Virtual Vaporwave Vampires (Planning)
  • Nephandic Meth-dealing Biker Arc (Planning)

Setting

As a general note, I think it'll be good to keep presentation consistent but underpinnings vague. This way GMs can vindicate player theories in their work (although maybe not that lazily) by incorporating ongoing theories into major metaplot revelations. Entropy might be kind of powerful!

GM Information

Post official GM worldbuilding here. Try to keep information listed pertinent to player encounters rather than the overall campaign.

GM Reward Scheme

A plan to incentivize people to run lots of fun sessions so the game keeps flowing well.

  • Each session run gives the 1 XP for groups of 3 or less and 2 XP groups of 4 or more.
  • All participating GMs participate in a gentleman's agreement to spend this XP responsibly on things that do not substantially increase their combat power.
    • This means substantial XP inflow from running sessions cannot go to spheres, Arete, WP, or enhancing the character's primary combat or ritual pools.
    • XP gained from GMing can instead be spent on purchasing additional plot hooks (via Contacts, Status, Cult, Followers, Allies, etc), flexibility (sidegrading into various non-combat Skills and Talents) or acquiring purely thematic items (minor Merits, obscure Knowledges).
    • Additionally, it would generally be acceptable for XP gained this way to be spent on assets like the group's shared Chantry, Nodes, Sanctums and other 'safehouse' locations like Nightclubs, Mansions, etc.

Hawaii Arc Aftermath

Astounding Traditions victory over Pentex, with the tanker destroyed and the spiritual taint it cast out over the middle-Pacific removed. Pentex's presence in Hawaii through Penn Developments and the Texaco Minerals and Energy Company has been severely damaged. The Technocracy seems to have benefited from the purge but their inside man at the Resolven has been taken as a hostage by the Traditions to be used as leverage in ongoing negotiations. The stolen data has been circulated to a number of organizations with a vested interest in disrupting their activities, including environmentalist, human rights and tax organizations who've had their sights set on the organization for a long time. While Pentex is unlikely to receive too much damage from the wave of litigation about to erupt, their activities in Hawaii have been suspended indefinitely.

The Oahu Chantry operated by the Akashaic Master Sung Lin and Dreamspeaker Master Madame Mimi is on friendly terms with the party members and will be receptive to working together in the future. On a less serious note, Ji-min has a crush on

The participating Traditions members have been earmarked as Prime Threats by Pentex's security apparatus and may be pursued by them in the future.

Backgrounds that can be bought:

  • Allies:
    • Lin Sun, Akashaic Master (Allies 5)
    • Madame Mimi, Dreamspeaker Master (Allies 4)
    • Kaleo, Etherite Adventurer (Allies 2)
    • Ji-min, Euthanatos Child Soldier (Allies 2)
    • Grace Seo, VA Social Justice Warrior/Ersatz Shaman (Allies 1)
    • Noelani, App 5 Wereshark Serial Killer (Allies 3)
  • Contacts:
    • Oahu Chantry
    • Watchtower, Ecstatic Fixer
  • Sanctum: Oahu Chantry is a 4-dot Sanctum primarily aspected towards Akashaic and Dreamspeaker magick, with other mysticisms gaining some ease. Technomagic is not easier there, however. Spending 3 XP gets you access, spending 6 will upgrade it to 5 but mean you invest a fair amount of time there.

Loot:

  • A pile of 30 or so good-quality bulletproof vests with strike plates: d4 soak that treats bullets and shrapnel as bashing, gives 1 ablative HL.
  • A pile of 30 or so mid-quality M4 clones, with a total of 117 spare mags and most of the ammo to fill them.
  • Slightly too many 1911 clones for you to take with you, 2 spare mags each and a lot of ammo.
  • 17 binary aluminum-shell binary capsules each containing a mix of Sarin nerve gas precursors- combines to emit a lethal dose that can saturate a small-sized room in 3 minutes.
  • 3 shaped charges enhanced with the Art of Alchemy. d10, ignores armor, blast goes in exactly one direction.

Magic Loot

  • A lot of Technocratic space latex (actually VE Ionic Cloth). d2 Soak that stacks. Shiny.
  • Ebony and Irony, Chainsaw Fist (Gnosis 4/Gnosis 4). A paired set of Crinos-form chainsaw fists that trap two subjugated war spirits. Deal d7 + Str Lethal Damage at a difficulty of 5 and enhance the wearer's to a minimum Strength to 4, or add +1 if they're stronger. People wounded by Ebony are trapped in sticky black tar that doubles wound penalty for physical actions, while those struck by Irony redirect their next botched attack at themselves with an attack pool of d4. Ban: Wear only black (Ebony)/always laugh at the misfortunes of others (Irony).
  • Primium 'Knife': d3 +Str lethal damage, rolls d3 Primium against defensive magic or when used to deflect. Sounds as silver for the purpose of murdering wolves. Deals Agg to supernaturals. So huge that you need Str 4 to wield it comfortably.
  • Sword Gun (Gnosis 5): A gun that shoots swords. Has the stats of a crossbow but can fire a 5-round full-auto burst and never has to reload. Ban: Never take the peaceful solution when a perfectly good violent one is available. When inflicting damage, the wielder can choose to reduce damage in order to inflict the following effects:
    • Pinned to wall for 1 damage sux, which is inflicted after being unpinned.
    • Lacerated for 3 damage sux, which instead deals 1L damage of bleeding every round until treated.
    • Disjointed for 5 damage sux, which /also/ deals 1L damage of bleeding every action the character takes (so Extra actions make you die quicker).
  • Elite Business Attire: Constant 2-dot Mind 2 branding effect, grants Parlor Tricks via excellent tailoring and well-designed pockets and acts as rating 2 armor with no penalty.
  • Phaser (Enlightenment 3, Primal Energy 10/10): A simple laser pistol, spends 1 Quint to attack deals a flat [6]L damage. Incredibly vulgar, but also deals aggravated to spirits.
  • Reforged Sword of St. George (Arete 5, Quintessence 20/20): A blade fashioned from damascend steel and a fragment of the dragonslayer's blade. Deals d4 + Str damage with -3 difficulty to attack/parry and inflict damage and raises the soak difficulty of those it strikes by +3. It automatically halves the (pre-roll) soak of dragons and their descendants, and has a 2-dot Legend when used to defend Christendom from supernatural monsters of all types. Additionally, it rolls d2 additional countermagic when used to defend against the magic of dragons. When wielding it, one's actions feel as if they are constantly being scrutinized by a higher power.
  • Hemophagic Synthesis Heart (N/A): Allows the person implanted with the heart to function as a 5th generation Caitiff Ghoul without XP penalties, producing their own weak Vitae at a rate of 1/day as a Revenant. Cannot learn disciplines without a teacher and all disciplines count as out-of-clan, however. Probably incredibly evil.

Magic (Cont.)

  • A container with non-angrogenic Enhanced HGH+, Tass with Static (Fitness) resonance.
  • A cooler with 17 packs of blood-based Tass with Primordial (Beauty) resonance and 6 packs of blood-based Tass with Static (Masculine) resonance.
  • A miscellaneous ItX power core that can power any small mundane electronic device forever.
  • A spherical cat that you can bully into eating 3/dox per week.

Player Information

Post in-character journals, PC projects and theories about various unspecified worldbuild elements here.

Violette

Plot Hooks:

  • Always looking for rare and special materials to make new wonders.
    • Down for monster hunting/capturing.
  • Invested in Hermetic politics.
    • Interested in making a proper Chantry house on the East Coast.
    • Wants to raise an apprentice to increase her status.
    • Wants to do important things to gain more authority and influence in the Order.
    • Not as concerned about other Traditions' issues.
  • Patron is a Formorian, a spirit that might have something to do with the Worm (although it isn't a Formori).
    • Seelie fae hate her.
    • Most werewolves hate her.
    • That ones that don't might want to use her to advance their own ends.
    • Luckily all of the above can be rendered into good Tass.
    • Unluckily, her patron is a fairly powerful Incarna imprisoned in the Deep Dreaming.
  • Has lots of family problems.
    • Mortal family are dodgy circus people.
    • Actual mystical family are losers who are either mortal servants or Sorcerers, except for her dodgy uncle who is quite powerful.
    • Doesn't know who her father is other than that he's a powerful mage from the wrong place- could even be scandalously non-Hermetic!
    • Resented as an upstart.
    • Interested in finding out more and helping out, nonetheless.

Seungryong

Plot hooks and general background things

  • As part of his direct action duties in the past has come in conflict with numerous parties that have either wronged the Kims/reneged on deals/been a threat etc. Mostly KJ/vamp and kumiho/shifter smacking but also Technos and the occasional Nephandus. This has of course not made him many friends acting as the tip of the spear.
  • Totally wants revenge on the Mongrel Techno/Ex Akashic who killed his team.
  • While emphatically a Korean first and Akashic/Trad Mage second, he will render aid to Trad mages who ask and are prepared to compensate with Tass/or if ordered.
  • Active duty KPA solider with all that entails
  • Firmly believes that reunification is a moral imperative which must be brought about to save his southern brothers and sisters from the soul destroying materialistic existence imposed on them by their Techno/American oppressors.
  • Currently hiding out in K-Town with some Nork contacts in LA after almost being ATLASed

Kaneko

  • She is on the run from her wealthy-on-hard-times family and their demonic master, water demon Umi no Maou
  • Spark of Life is vampire (and progenitor, and verbena) bait
  • Is willing to go on heroic quests with little personal investment
  • Capable of infiltration and exfiltration, physical or social

Hisaki

Mara

  • A visitor from back home is in trouble. Mara needs to help them out.
  • Mara's sister really needs her help. Unfortunately she's a terrible normal
  • Wow, that last group of villains Mara finished off were tough. She needs the team to help her figure out who and what they were
  • People near a major rock festival are being murdered. Probably by a vampire rock band.

Ray Sevin

  • Hangs out in the VA chatroom #turingcomplete
    • Contact: <Jake_Carter> is one of a loose collection of VAs called 'Firewall who deal with...strange shit.
  • Currently working on a thesis in abstract, higher dimensional math stuff. Is trying to deal with a somewhat mundane life, putting on increasing strain.
  • Looking to raid a technocrat server for information on a future-phone.
  • Is a spirit magnet and still having trouble keeping them away. Looking to do something about that, possibly turning a couple of them into 'allies'.
  • Working on Seeking (probably as a capstone to an arc)