Drawn to the Flame [Mage: The Awakening]

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It’s another layover week, which after last week’s vote means it’s Obrimos time!

First, a mood-setter.

The Obrimos are unusual in our Path refreshes; they’re the least-changed Path with the most-changed Arcana. We’ve used the opportunity of our two-fold Path schemes to promote non-religious Obrimos as valid characters, but despite or possibly because I’m a great big atheist I was very keen to maintain the Path of Might as the place for personal revelatory religious experiences, the feeling of communion with the godhead, and the theurgist magical style. Greek gives us our second title: Thaumaturgist, (“wonder-worker”,) reclaimed from vampires in the New World of Darkness (and, as some of you have noted, from Sleepwalkers with minor magical powers, who got called it in Second Sight. That’s okay, though – our Moros aren’t Promethean 2E’s new antagonists or one of the mummy Guilds, despite all being called “alchemists”.

So other than textual support for Obrimos who approach their magic with a scientist’s eye or a hermetic’s mechanistic view of angels rather than all being priests, the main change here is in the Arcana.

Forces is the Arcanum most altered by our design decision to remove “speedbumps” from the system – in first edition, some practices require higher dots than they should depending on which Force is being affected. We toyed with requiring extra Reach instead for a few days, but after some consideration decided to throw caution to the wind and peg all spells to the dot level of their Practice. That means that you can do things like Shield against gravity with two dots, to protect yourself from falling damage, when you couldn’t before.

Prime, on the other hand, was one of the two Arcana we were least pleased with as a standalone powerset (the other being Space) – to our minds, it didn’t do enough by itself. We’ve tweaked Prime’s purview: it’s now the Arcanum of magic, yantras, nimbus, mana, revelation, and truth. It doesn’t create phantasms any more, but instead creates Truths out of solidified mana. These are called Platonic Forms (when inanimate) and Eidolons (when animate) – the name “Tulpa” now soley refers to the Nimbus-emanations of the Mad. Prime’s revelations are a blunt instrument compared to Mind, especially on the unprepared – Prime spells will allow you to tear the veil off people’s eyes temporarily, but they won’t enjoy the experience.

Here’s three spells, one from Forces and two from Prime.

Zoom In (Forces 2)

Practice: Ruling
Primary Spell Factor: Potency
Rote Skills: Investigation, Science

The mage focuses light entering her subject’s senses, greatly magnifying vision. Without an Unveiling spell like “Nightvision” (p.XX), the spell can only affect visible wavelengths. For example, a mage using this spell on herself could look closely at a bird circling high above, or zoom in to great detail to examine a layer of dust on an object, but she couldn’t see things that would only appear under a blacklight.

If a character magnifies vision to focus on small-scale occurrences, the Storyteller may call for Intelligence + Science rolls to make sense of what she’s seeing. In the basic spell, every level of Potency doubles the distance the mage can see clearly before suffering penalties, although atmospheric conditions can still cloud her view, and adds to her Wits for purposes of rolls to notice small details.

+1 Reach: The subject can see clearly for a mile per level of Potency
+1 Reach: The subject can clearly discern dust-sized particles

Exceptional Success: The subject no longer suffers dice penalties to vision-based rolls from environmental affects, or can see microscopic particles, even the molecular bonds within substances.

Words of Truth (Prime 2)

Practice: Ruling
Primary Spell Factor: Scale (Targets)
Rote Skills: Expression, Intimidation. Persuasion

The mage speaks with tongues of fire, and the world listens. So long as the words the mage speaks are objectively true and the mage herself believes them whole-heartedly, all subjects of this spell can hear and understand her clearly, regardless of distance, noise, or language barriers. Moreover, all subjects know, on a soul-deep level, that what the mage says is true. This doesn’t necessarily compel them to act on that information, but ignoring or refuting this Supernal truth may be grounds for a Breaking Point. In a Social Maneuvering action, this spell may remove one door or improve reaction level by one step per level of Potency.

+1 Reach: The mage’s words don’t merely ring with truth, but call to action. If a subject goes along with what the mage said, they gain the Inspired Condition. If they ignore it, they gain the Guilty Condition.

(DAVE’S NOTE: And here’s one you might have inferred existed from previous Spoilers)

Apocalypse (Prime 4)

Practice: Patterning
Primary Factor: Duration
Rote Skills: Occult, Persuasion, Socialize
Cost: One Mana per extra Arcanum (optional)

The subject of this spell has the scales of the Lie removed from their eyes. Anyone subject to the spell, mage, Sleeper, or other supernatural being, gains Mage Sight attuned to the Aether in the manner of an Obrimos. Along with this gift comes temporary immunity to Quiescence and an instinctive knowledge of how to use Mage Sight. It does not, however, prepare the subject for how to interpret the visions received under Mage Sight, and the uninitiated are likely to suffer Breaking Points from the trauma of the Sight.

Add any other Arcanum *: As with her own Attainments, the mage may add her other Arcana into the Mage Sight granted by the spell, which costs one Mana per Arcanum.

Obrimos Pages Preview

Once again, the Obrimos splat-page writeup is by the redoubtable Malcolm Sheppard. It’s a first draft, as-yet unedited for typos.

LINK TO THE PREVIEW

Next Week!

Next week we’ll branch back out a bit into the world mages inhabit. Vote Mysterious World for a look at all the strange places mages poke their Obsessed noses into, from Hallows to Chantries, the Shadow to the Underworld. Vote LA for a look at one of our specific settings: Los Angeles.

95 thoughts on “Drawn to the Flame [Mage: The Awakening]”

  1. I should note that you can still share your Arcana mage sight with other mages at 2 dots – it’s an unveiling spell to add one of your arcana to a mage sight that your subject is using. Apocalypse specifically grants *Obrimos* mage sight, not just putting a prime or forces layer into someone elses, and it works on non-mages, too.

    Reply
    • So does that mean you can no longer give Mage Sight to a non-mage at 2 dots (But risking Quiessence as normal, for mortals)? You specifically need Prime 4 to give it to even another Supernatural?

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  2. Oh my gosh. Is it wrong my first reaction to Words Of Truth was:

    “RED TRUTH FROM UMINEKO???”

    This is great. I told my friend, he’s already making plans for creating a Lineage called the Endless Sorcerors.

    Reply
  3. By chance, have any of you read Umineko no Naku Koro ni? The rote you gave us for Prime is pretty much the Red Truth. Just wondering.

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  4. I did not expect this to be my favorite Path writeup. The way Malcolm mixed evocative revelatory imagery to produce many kinds of character concepts is truly excellent.

    Did not expect to see anything like this:

    “Glorianna calls magic a secret science, accessible through a mixture of reason and intuition. She always loved making things, and exposure to the Aether only supplemented her prodigious knowledge of physics and engineering. A techné specialist in the Free Council, Glorianna builds upon the efforts of Sleeper scientists, mechanics and engineers. She sees Hermes stir in wheels and engines, wakes him up, and makes him run his paces in everything from automata to directed energy weapons.”

    Whoa.

    I vote Mysterious World.

    Reply
    • That side of the Obrimos path leapt out of the 1e writeup’s stuff about Aether and the nature of Prime, but the description of the mages didn’t match up to what I was imagining – I’m really happy with this new version, especially with people who hadn’t thought of that side of it realising it’s there and awesome. 😀

      Reply
    • Gloriana is the first edition Obrimos signiature character – better known in fan-circles as “Unicycle Girl.” She’s been in Mage’s setting since the very beginning. It’s just that she, and mages like her, haven’t had much prominence in the line.

      Reply
      • I also like the ‘double entendre’ in that the target is experiencing an ‘end of the world’ because they’re so ill-equipped to handle the most basic of Awakened abilities. Something so essential is actually so mind-blowing, also because now the target is seeing skies of fire and Supernal monsters and werewolves everywhere it probably does seem like the end of the world

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  5. I’m sorry, given who Obtrimos are, there’s a better theme for them:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Oe7Q8OCm5I

    I will never get sick of that short. The real-world reactions to the protagonist is probably exactly along the lines of the average Sleeper, too.

    I also love Weapon, and how it’s ambiguous if he has an Integrity meter or a Wisdom one. Whatever the case is, he’s also both a failure as a Theurge (it’s in his Path’s nature to accept the amoral state of the world and help humans understand and live with it, he’s a complete victim of it given how he doesn’t seem to understand that there is a difference between morally neutral and evil power) and a complete hypocrite (the person who hates abusers planning to abuse some poor sap into an apprenticeship). Perfect Banisher.

    I vote Mysterious World, please.

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  6. Oh VERY righteous. I love the connection between the “scientific” mages (which can mean anything from people who do magic on smart phones to hyper ordered Key of Solomon dudes) and the mages appealing to the words of God. They’re both, fundamentally, about order, and an ordered approach to magic. Do X and Y, then Z happens. I also approve both of making Forces a little easier to grok and Prime a little easier to approach — I imagine the refocus on Yantras and Tools probably helped that.

    As someone living in LA, part of me wants to say that, but who am I kidding? I loves me some mysterious places.

    MYSTERIOUS WORLD.

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  7. The phrase I used to some up the Obrimos in one sentence is “Fill the universe with noise to damn the silence”. I feel this post echoes that magnificently

    Mysterious Worlds, please

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  8. Mysterious World. Love the write up. I’m also really excited to see the different ways that Prime can interact with Yantras. Placing temporary enchantments on a dedicated tool to improve it’s paradox reducing abilities? Sounds like cool stuff.

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    • I’m really excited to see how Space will change in 2nd edition. Would you say that Space share the same problem with Prime that it doesn’t do enough by itself?

      Reply
      • Yes, and it’s the same author doing Space and Prime. High-level Space spells are terrifying.

        But that’s our goal for all of the Arcana – make you afraid to cross a master.

        Reply
        • Yeah, teleportation is one of those really dangerous powers and most people don’t think about that. Being able to send an opponent anywhere you want, from the local jail, to the bottom of the ocean, to the surface of the sun, to the nether realms of IX is very very powerful and scary.

          I approve of Space being made awesome (and yes, I know some of the things I mentioned would be difficult or conjuctional effects with Death or Spirit, but still).

          Reply
  9. Good G+d, second edition Prime is awesome…. I can barely wait to see the upgrade you guys made to my favourite Arcanum, Space.

    Let’s us all join into the chorus that precedes the comming of the “Mysterious World”

    Reply
  10. Myself I’m more Acanthus kind of guy, but Obrimos always fascinated me. And now I’m a bit terrifyed of them. 🙂

    As to voting, we all need this: Mysterious World!!!

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  11. I really hope the arcana are similarly ramped up because while I’m all for getting rid of speed bumps, particularly ones that don’t fit internal logic, I’ve never really thought that the Obrimos weren’t powerful enough. Instead my thoughts have usually been around the line of “well at least its vulgar” (a line of thought that looks to be disappearing as well.)

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  12. Obrimos was probably my least-liked Paths in the previous edition, but I found this fresh look to be more to my liking. Overall, I think treating each of the Paths like a two-sided coin adds so much more texture and value to their presentation. I am a bit nervous about the changes to the Arcanum, but I have faith that everything will work out in the end.

    Words of Truth – “In a Social Maneuvering action, this spell may remove one door or improve reaction level by one step per level of Potency.”

    The wording of this is a little confusing. Does this remove one door per step per level of Potency or does it remove one just one door? If the latter, reverse the order for more clarity.

    Zoom In – Is there any condition or penalty associated with hyper-focusing one’s vision on a distant/tiny object to the detriment of one’s surroundings? If so, it should be stated.

    Exceptional Success – “affects” should be “effects”

    Reply
  13. Prime as Truths, and more powerful forces that sometimes may avoid Paradox. Heck, yea!

    I cannot wait to revamp my Obrimos Ascended Adept.

    Oh, and definitely Mysterious World.

    Reply
    • I want LA, too!

      Also: Hells yeah! I do feel that this is the Path least changed (which isn’t a bad thing; it was already pretty thematically perfect, IMO), but the new direction for the Arcana is excellent! Finally, Prime and Forces are Arcana I want to use!

      Reply
  14. I feel like using Space and Prime together is going to become very interesting.

    Also, in whatever Kickstarter may be applicable, just have a tier where we can pay Malcolm to write more of these short awakening stories. They’re great. I’d buy a book that was just them.

    I’ll vote for LA, at least half to be contrary.

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    • There’s no room for more than we’ve got in the corebook, but one day I’ll hopefully get to assign someone an entire chapter about playing through the Awakening experience, with more examples.

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  15. Can you explain a little bit more what the difference between a platonic form and a phantasm is? Can we still do things like create fake IDs by wrapping a blank plastic card in Prime magics? Can we still conjure clothing or jewelry or functional weapons out of nothing?

    I have a Legacy that relies very heavily on Prime’s ability to create phantasms for the purposes of rounding out disguises by generating needed accessories and props. I’m curious if, or how much, tweaking I’m going to need to do to keep that working.

    Reply
    • My guess is that rather than making an illusion of an ID card or a phantasmal item of clothing, you’ll instead reach into the Aether and pull out ID CARD or SHIRT – rather than looking and seeing a well-made forgery of an ID card, they see a little rectangle that speaks into their mind going I AM AN ID CARD AND THIS PERSON IS AUTHORISED TO BE HERE (metaphorically 😛 ) and they go “oh OK then”. Less illusion, more The Fundamental ID Card Of Which All ID Cards Are Mere Reflections, similar effect.

      In my mind a much cooler thing, but it may not suit your Legacy’s style.

      Reply
      • This. Platonic Forms are things like “the universe’s index-card that reads SWORD”; they’re functional (and the spell to make them even defines the equipment bonus they give,) but they’re definitely unreal-looking – constructs of light that don’t illuminate anything around them, pieces of the Aether made manifest.

        This is because they’re one of the spell effects we’ve done a bit of reconceptualizing on. When we found that the Practice-first approach was moving spells that we really *didn’t* want moved, we had to think up new ways to frame them in the appropriate Practice dots. The most obvious one of these is Portal, which is a *Fraying* spell. And not even called Portal – there’s a useful Space 3 spell that happens to have Portals as an optionally useful side-effect!

        So. We removed Phantasms from the gameline as being out-of-theme for Prime, but still wanted it to have the “summon object” functions. Straight illusions are easy with Forces or Mind, so Prime’s utility is that Platonic Forms/Eidolons are *solid* – they’re functional, to an extent that “phantasm” doesn’t convey. Use Prime 3 to make a crowbar, and it’ll work as a crowbar. It’ll even be an 8-again crowbar if you spend a Reach.

        The spells use Ruling and Patterning to force free Mana to behave as though it’s in Tass when it isn’t – you think of an object or life form, the Mana flows into its “shape” and it appears. Downside compared to first edition Phanstasms is that they’re obviously magical unless you use another Arcanum to hide them. Advantage is that you can store / drain Mana in them like Tass. And for a Reach, even use them as Yantras!

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        • That does complicate my legacy a little then. I’ll probably have to shift it to using Forces for illusions… or I suppose use Matter to swap out appropriate clothing and props if there aren’t any conversion of mass issues with the new rules.

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          • Actually, Forces should be able to generate false impressions of objects being present when they aren’t, shouldn’t it? The perception of physical texture is all heat and friction and vibration, and modifying kinetic energy would stop or push things when they came into contact with the illusion providing solidity? So perhaps the old style not really functional but still solid seeming illusion can just be a Forces effect? I’m not sure how it should be structured in terms of Practices or mechanical effect though.

    • Mysterious World, definitely!

      But more importantly: this is everything I had hoped for from my favourite Path – I never liked the portrayal as all being very religious, because I could see space for so many other approaches to Fundamental Truth. I love the framing of it as people who view magic as an ordered, formal thing, whether that be holy ritual or scientific method.

      And Apocalypse! I love that choice of name, it’s perfect!

      I am so spectacularly excited by this right now. 😀

      Reply
  16. Reread the Obrimos writeup and there is one thing I don´t like:
    When talking about Death as the Inferior Arcanum it says how it’s the Arcanum of rot, stagnation and bound ghosts, which kind runs counter to the Moros instance of Death as change and transition.

    Reply
    • That’s very much intentional, though. The different paths are expected to understand the arcana differently. From some external objective-ish perspective neither understanding of Death is more right; Death’s purview is all of this stuff related to entropy, which can be used for change, transition, rot, stagnation, and a bunch of other things. Moros have an understanding of it formed by their focus on it. Obrimos have an understanding of it formed by their difficulty with it.

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  17. Hmm. Platonic Forms is a metaphysical concept, so using the term to exclusively describe truths manifest as specific physical things seems off. Other words could work, even if “phantasm” is being avoided.

    The concept of mana: the objects are “quintessential” or “supernal”
    The concept of perfect adherence to the ideal: “essential” though that could confound people using the spirit names for things. “perfect” or “ideal” or even “idealized”
    and so on. Loads of things could work better, unless you’re holding something back that’s pretty wacky.

    It just seems off to use a term that describes *any* facet of existence to describe inanimate manifestations of a specific object type.
    I mean, the classical example is beauty, for Plato’s sake. Animate creatures can participate in some-a dat, too.

    (Mysterious World sounds more interesting)

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  18. Mysterious world. I can wait for the Hollywood setting but getting an idea on how to contextualize the World outside my window with the Fallen World at my game table has always been more important.

    That said, my tune might be different if I lived closer to L.A. still going for MW though

    Reply
    • I would love to have the Lower Depths more detailed as well, we know very little about them, it has been going for years. In fact I wouldn´t mind to have a book dedicated entirely to them as well, either as a Mage or a “blue book” supplement.

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      • The Lower Depths are my favorite part of the nWoD’s roughly-related cosmology and I have a collection of forum posts on the topic from developers and writers.

        With that said, I hope we never, ever see a supplement describing them. They are the world of mystery in a world of mysteries. Their whole point is to be off-the-map unknowns

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  19. I was doing Zoom In ever since I saw it in the Codex Alera, so seeing it here made me happy.

    Apocalypse is… “fifteen minutes ago you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.” Fun stuff. I can still hand out Mage Sight to non-mages at two dots, though? I just trigger Disbelief by doing so.

    Words of Truth is a fun expansion of Prime’s purview. The “objectively true” qualifier, though… I like Umineko as much as the next guy, but what’s to stop a Mage just trying to eliminate untruths with this spell?

    Mage A: “We think Aleister’s being hidden by wards, in the Red Key Compound!”
    Obrimos: “Aleister está en el Recinto Clave Rojo- you understood that? Yeah, spell went off fine, he’s there, let’s go.”

    Granted, the Mage needs to truly believe in it, but that’s just a question of applying sufficient Mind, and it’s a relatively small-scale applcation. What about loudly guessing at the fundamental mysteries of the cosmos on the off-chance you ping the right answer? Is that an intended application of this? It seems like it’s meant to be a personal-truth-based social magic, rather than a universal-scale litmus test for truth.

    Even before you get into deliberate exploitation, what happens when a devout Christian Obrimos wants to convince others that the Awakened are the chosen disciples of Jesus, and finds his truth-boosting spell doesn’t work on that statement? I’d think most Mages aren’t going to have a magical praxis that qualifies as “objectively true”… and, hell, then you start asking questions like “what does objectively true actually mean in a world with the Ascension War, where reality can change retroactively”?

    Reply
    • I think you’re over analyzing the notion of “truth” here as well as the spectrum of application. “Objectively true” in this case doesn’t mean that it works to eliminate untruths. It would mean that, given the available information the conclusions you come to are “true”. However mages are always seeking more knowledge/information: it’s the notion that there are still unsolved and unknown despite cosmic insight; of living in a world of mysteries. While the spell might deal with objective truths, it’s still interacting on a subjective level to those affected by the spell. Using Mind for the sake of making you think what you’re saying is true wouldn’t be that useful, since having to use magic to believe what you say wouldn’t be wholehearted belief. Besides, that eliminating untruths idea is more probable to a variation of a scrying spell.

      As for the devout example, I prefer the angle that I’ve presented in other games that have a Deception or Bluff skill: It doesn’t always convince others that what you say is true, it’s that you convince them you aren’t lying (or at least you don’t believe you’re lying). If the devout made the claim that the Awakened are the chosen disciples of Jesus, the spell would probably tell others that he genuinely believes that. With the purview of cosmic/supernatural Truth, Truth is fact, it doesn’t change whether or not other people believe it, it simply is. As a side note, faith is ultimately subjective for each individual and thus can’t really be categorized as objective.

      My vote is for Mysterious World.

      Reply
      • Your counter-objection is incoherent, because you are defending the current iteration of the spell as though it said something completely different to what it actually says.

        The current text clearly separates the conditions of “[STATEMENT] is objectively true” and “mage believes [STATEMENT] to be true”. They are distinct. The latter does not break the game, the former does.

        If a Christian Mage tries to tell someone that the Awakened are the new disciples of Jesus, her statement triggers the “personal subjective belief” condition, but not the “objectively true” condition, so the spell fails.

        Therefore, she learns that the statement “the Awakened are the new disciples of Jesus” is not as true as, say, “this fork is made of metal”.

        This is clearly laid out in the text. It is also undesirable, so the text should be changed.

        It is very… odd, to argue that you cannot eliminate untruths with the ability to eliminate anything that isn’t an “objective truth” or “Supernal truth”, simply by saying it and trying to cast a spell. If it is objectively true – a fact, that as you put it “doesn’t change whether or not other people believe it, [but] simply is” – then the spell goes off. If not, it doesn’t. Rinse, repeat.

        This is not the intended use of the spell, and is also easily the most powerful. Therefore, eliminate it.

        I am also not sure why you believe that beliefs created by Mind do not qualify as “wholehearted beliefs”. Do you think that limbs created by Life do not qualify as “real body parts”, or that metals created by Matter do not qualify as “solid materials”?

        Reply
  20. Awesome. As a man who dabbles in philosophy and religion while defining myself as an atheist, I’m quite courios to see Obrimus explored for on this angle.

    And I vote for Mysterious World.

    Reply
  21. I want to play a Free Council Obrimos Steampunk Mad Scientist now, but then I became enamored of The Children of Ether long ago. Nice to see they ended up here.

    Which is why I’m glad to see that you guys are reworking the Arcana. Back when the book came out, I was fond of Space and Matter, but I didn’t really want to play a necromancer or an Infernalist, while I liked the holders of the Golden Key, but wasn’t overly fond of Forces or Prime.

    Now, not only are Forces and Prime looking more promising, but I also feel like I can play a Mastigos without being an evil jerk and a Moros without being a dour stick in the mud. So, I’m really liking things so far.

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  22. Can the recipient of Apocalypse see ghosts if Death is added as above, or would it need to be a conjunctional effect with Death 4 like in ToM?

    Mysterious World.

    Reply
  23. I confess to being curious about the other two Paths. I mean, I had reasons to be interested in the Mastigos, Moros, and Obrimos before, but I was never really attracted to the other two.

    So far, you’ve managed to make me much more interested in the three Paths you’ve previewed, so I’m hoping you can make a full straight.

    Reply

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