Mage 2012

Mission Statement

Mage was cool but it was painfully 90s and had many flaws. I'm gonna work from time to time on an update/revision of it. Help/suggestions appreciated.

Principles

• nWoD by accounts works better than oWoD mechanically. Mage should be updated to follow the new system.
• The Technocracy will generally be assumed dominant but corrupted by power.
  • Suggestions and support for alternatives should exist. However any take on the setting should incorporate the theme of the PCs being the ones who know the truth in a corrupt and blind status quo.
• No faction has total control over any aspect of human society. Even the Technocracy only influences, it does not dictate.
  • The factions are as often running to catch up with social movements and changes as their instigators.
• The major factions are defined by their attitude to reality.
• Other supernaturals exist but they are expected to conform to Mage cosmology.
• Nobody likes Hollow Ones.

Overview

Factions

The Technocracy

The Technocracy believe in a single, unified, material, mundane, knowable and limited reality. They have subordinated themselves to the idea of an external world and heirarchy to give them objectively correct knowledge and objectively correct actions, rather than seeking these things for themselves.

From a tradition (Hermetic) perspective, a Technocrat is one sort of broken Mage - a prince of the earth who refuses to rule. They have abdicated their rights as a Mage. Psychologically they are a loss of the sense of wonder and the will to power and freedom.

Marauders

Marauders believe their own thing, damn everyone else and damn the world. They have tremendous power to define the world but because they have lost any perception of the remaining limits on this power or the ways in which they world does not conform, they cannot exercise it.

From a tradition (Hermetic) perspective, a Marauder is another sort of broken Mage - a master of the world who denies the world. They have abdicated their responsibilities as a Mage. Psychologically they are delusional.

Nephandi

Nephandi are not all rapists and paedophiles and sadists. Though they have a somewhat higher rate of such, it doesn't define them except in enemy propaganda. Their fundamental idea isn't 'evil' or 'corruption', it is 'suicide'. They think the world is broken and must be destroyed. In some this manifests as sadomasochistic evil, in others it manifests as the gentleness of euthanasia.

From a tradition (Hermetic) perspective, a Nephandus is the last and worst type of broken Mage. Rather than merely rejecting themselves (Technocracy) or the world (Marauders) they cannot abide either and resolve to destroy one or both. Psychologically they are suicidal despair and nihilism.

The Traditions

Whatever their internal frictions the Traditions as a group symbolise a middle path between the above, either incoherent and doomed to failure, or a synthesis fated for success, depending on your point of view. The Traditions will succeed if they can find a way out of the relativist trap, and embrace their diversity and freedom without rejecting others.

There are ten traditions now, to match the ten Spheres of nMage. The tenth seat was filled (Batini?) during the last decade or so, inaugurating the prophesied era of shit getting real.

World

Prolly not as dark as the WoD. Mage sat even less well with the horror motif than the other games.

Digital Web

The lines of war in the Web are now clearly defined. On the Technocracy side, The Syndicate and NWO are attempting to monetise, censor and control the Net, with Iteration X providing the heavy computational firepower. On the Tradition side, the Virtual Adepts pursue information freedom, open-source and indie development, and the cyberanarchist thesis. Nephandi are trolls and malicious hackers, and Ulillillia is a Marauder. Every Tradition has a web presence by now, even though the VAs dominate.