Philosophy is odious and obscure;
Both law and physic are for petty wits;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile.
‘Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.
— Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
Welcome back, faithful readers!
You’ve all been patiently and not-so-patiently waiting for Mage‘s release. Every Monday Meeting blog, someone asks about it. Every time I turn up on a different forum, someone asks about it. There’s a reddit thread asking about it right now.
Last time on Signs of Sorcery‘s Open Development, I said my next blog would likely be good news. And it is.
Mage: The Awakening Second Edition will be released next Wednesday, the 4th May
This will be the Advance PDF, and after a few weeks of collecting errata and mistakes eagle-eyed readers submit on our official forum, the book will then be locked and the Print-on-Demand option turned on. If something unexpectedly bad happens to us or DrivethruRPG, it could delay release, but the game has now been cleared by White Wolf and, from our point of view, is ready to go.
I should note that the Advance PDF won’t have an index – as with Requiem and Forsaken, we’ll do that after the open errata-gathering, when we update the pdf with any corrections.
The Road Behind
December 2012. That’s when Mage became more than a thirty-second conversation with Rich at GenCon (I said “would you be open to me pitching a Mage Chronicle Book?” He said “Yeah!”)
That’s when I pitched the Fallen World Chronicle.
2013 was spent on Vampire and Demon, until GenCon that year, when Werewolf and Mage were announced and work began. I recruited the finest writing team I’ve ever worked with and reexamined every aspect of Mage, at length. In May 2014, we had a writer’s bible the size of a thin sourcebook, a clear vision of what the mechanics would look like (even if it did call Reach “Shifts” and have other minor differences to the game being released next week) and an outline. By GenCon 2014 we had a nearly-complete first draft, and I was told the book was changing title to be a proper Second Edition.
Disaster struck first two of our writers, delaying the first draft by a few months, and then me, delaying the redlining. Still, by the following spring Mage was back out to the writers and I came to GenCon 2015 with a complete second draft that had been sent to our volunteer playtest groups. In late August 2015 the book went off to editing and art direction.
Then CCP sold White Wolf to Paradox, and the game was delayed again while our new licensor tackled the mountain of tasks needed to take over the property. By last Christmas, that had all resolved and we were putting the finishing touches on it as final art came in. Then text approval, layout, proofing, and finally the last few weeks of approval to publish.
It’s been a long, sometimes difficult, but incredibly rewarding road, and I wouldn’t have missed out on it for the world.
The Path Ahead
Signs of Sorcery is in Development (which will become more Open after the core’s release) and we have support material planned for the blog; 2e mechanics for Tremere, Scelesti, and Mad Ones, and some converted Legacies; the Cryptologos, Sisterhood of the Blessed, Perfected Adepts, and Orphans of Proteus. I’ve been thinking about ways to do a formal FAQ with our forums, too.
But that’s all for the future. For now, the long wait is nearly over.
Prepare to Awaken
It’s 5 AM but I was waiting for this news, so this is fine.
May the 4th? “May The Force be with you”? 😉
It’s Star Wars Day.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/May_4
My body is ready.
Mama, put the coins on my eyes, ’cause I sure don’t believe what I am seeing!!
At last, Mage is coming. Thanks for all the hard work!
https://youtu.be/VI6dsMeABpU
AND ALTHOUGHT IT TURNED FROM ME TO WAIT IN THE PARADOX BEHIIIIIND THE MAAAAAAAGE THE AWAKENINH IS HERE INSIDE MY MINF
I’m giddy with happiness! That’s all I can say for now.
Oh, and thank you all of those involved in bringing Mage 2nd Edition to life. You have my deepest gratitude and utmost respect.
This is great news! I can’t wait to see the product of all of your hard work.
When will backers from the Beast kickstarter who have the Mage add-on be receiving their copies? I know it’s before Wednesday and I’m hoping to read through it this weekend before my job goes into crazy mode.
Yeah I’m curious about this as well, for obvious reasons. I’ve been hoping to set up a small game and it’d be helpful if I had the pdf for a few days before the players did so I could get any tweaks and similar figured out.
Thirding this question. I rather like Beast, but I ADORE Mage; the sooner I can get my hands on that PDF, the better!
Fourthing the question to be , but I think I know the answer.
I remember reading somewhere that they were sending us a link to download it through Drive Thru RPG. That means with their system this time they might not be able to send us links before it’s up for general consumption.
Someone said on behalf of OPP in the last post they would try to get the backer PDFs out as close as possible to the main release, they might have meant trying to get the links out as soon as possible after it goes out on Drive Thru RPG.
I might be wrong and go into a near narcotic haze seeing the link in my inbox before Wednesday, but I don’t think that is the case.
I would be very happy to be corrected.
Words can barely express how excited I am that Mage is going to be out on May the 4th!
Thank you for everything you and your team has done and thank you for sharing so much of the development with us!
Yall really should have gone with an even better pun: “Mage the Fourth be with you!”
🙂
*loud incoherent screaming* This is the best news all day! I cannot wait! Thank you for the update 🙂
Ideally at what time would the PDF be available in DriveThruRPG? I’ve been holding on to a day off so I can read this book in peace, so it would be very helpful to know if the book will appear at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday or later in the afternoon.
I think, and someone can correct me if I’m wrong here, that stuff generally goes up at noon Eastern time.
I will correct you, but with love. We almost always release new products on Wednesdays between 2pm and 4pm Eastern US time.
I stand corrected. And I’m super excited 🙂
Finally.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Yes! *happy dance*
They generally let polite, specific and useful criticism through. Lots of comments sections of lots of blog posts have meaningful criticism.
And now I know where I’ll be on the weekend of the 7th: huddled over my computer, working to draft the addenda to sanction this puppy for the Shadowplay International chronicle. (And if I’m *really* lucky, I might get to do likewise with The Pack for Forsaken 2e.) 🙂
Ahh, the Scion 2nd Alpha and Mage 2nd dropping within a few days of each other.
The circuit to my veins!
i can’t express how much i’m glad with what i’m seeing
Thank you!
May you be woken by kittens all the days of your life!
Finally, MtA2. Money has been set aside and campaign material prepared, all that is left is to allow my players to burn all my notes in a fire and go off on a quest to defeat the as-of-yet non-existent Microsoft. (though since I can now see that one coming they wont actually do that) 😛
Anyways, MAAAGE!
I have been longing for this day. All too long, the longing. Thank you, writing team.
Now I’m going to sulk because the Bene Ashmedai/Clavicularius are going to be something I’ll have to wait a while to see if I don’t have the mechanics in the core for Goetic Magic to convert them on my own, lol
My body has been transmuted into a physical manifestation of hype incarnate.
I have Awakened to the Path of Hyperimos, Watchtower of the Golden Hype, Kingdom of fans, abode of moar hype
Finally!
I don’t know what will be longer for me, the development cycle of this excelent game or the wait until 4th.
Hurrah! I have awaited this day! Well, I continue to await but I know how long I need to wait now so that’s nice.
*Flails wildly*
Well, I wanted to make a snarky Free Council Obrimos who moonlights as a “psychic investigator” and likes throwing fireballs at baddies, but now I feel the urge to make a farmboy-turned-Obrimos Arrow who runs around with the US army NCO sword his father used as an Attuned Weapon. Decisions, decisions…
IT’S AN ARBOR DAY MIRACLE!
YEEEESSSS!
This is going to wreak my Star wars campaign but I do not Care I have been waiting for this gem since it was first announced!
Can someone give me an idea of the cost? Is it going to be 20.00? 30.00? I need to know how many pennies to squirrel away.
Vampire, Werewolf, and Beast are all $19.99 as PDFs. I would expect it to be the same.
I had expected EX3 to that route too, I was very upset that it ended up 30.00 instead.
Ex3 was 700 pages.
Grab your Matter and Prime imbued sunglasses.
http://youtu.be/6YMPAH67f4o
Can we get a price quote? I want to make sure I have enough set aside for the PDF.
Err, never mind. I guess my previous comment did post I was unable to see it.
Strange…
Fantastic!!!! I basically already know this will be my favourite RPG ever, the open dev blogs were bursting with ideas.
Is Mage the Awakening 2nd Edition planned to be an ongoing series of supplements? Or is it a planned finite series of supplements?
At Onyx Path, we don’t have the distinction between “ongoing” and “limited” gamelines. Mage has three future sourcebooks approved at the time I’m writing this – one mostly written already – and I pitched several more recently.
Cool. Thanks for the information
Oh my god. Control my breathing, I can’t die of excitement before it even comes out!
Excellent! Rubs hands together gleefully! An early Birthday Present for Me.
L’Chaim!
It’s happening.gif !!!!
Only question: who are the main antagonists (like Strix and Idigan) in Fallen World Chronicles/2nd edition ? Plus, whats in inside in antagonists chapter ?
Thanks, OPP and WW !
Fallen World, itself, that’s why the (previous) title. 😉 In reality, main “antagonist” are the Mysteries itself – weird phenomena, ancient Artifacts, even Abyssal Intrusions. Every each one of those is a bit rattling the cage, and, in reality, whole Fallen World as it is constructed is against characters – with Abyss, various Realms and Lie that eats every bit of magic – IS “main” antagonists.
I remember that Dave was asked two years ago about this topic and answered that they wanted to stay away from Exarchs as things to enigmatic and not so sure to be in each chronicle. Fallen World was title for Chronicle, as each can be dangerous being Mystery to explore, fight or even kill it in mages hands. 🙂
No,no, what I want to know is who is the antagonist with “more pages” in Antagonists chapter. Thats why my comparison with Idigan and Strix.
I ask that because DaveB said in the post that “support material planned for the blog; 2e mechanics for Tremere, Scelesti, and Mad Ones”. Then, I ask myself who is the antagonist that will receive the “mechanics” in the book? Intruders, maybe ?
Yes, it doesn’t have one. The Chronicles are named after the element of the setting that serves as a story catalyst – in Mage’s case, it’s the Fallen World itself.
So, in a way, the wordcount spent on Mage Sight’s rules is comparable.
Promethean doesn’t have an “main antagonist” like that, either – it’s going to be The Firestorm Chronicle. Changeling is back to antagonists with The Huntsmen.
What Wyrdhamster said, plus your own *addiction* to the Mysteries. Your very soul is connected to a realm of symbolic power and it compels you to pick at the supernatural scabs of reality for greater knowledge and power. You need to try to remain Wise in the face of temptations to use power indiscriminately. Your own hubris, the Fallen World, and anything that might get in the way of your obsessions, are the main antagonists.
I HAVE TO WAIT TWO DAYS TO BUY IT CUZ THAT’S WHEN I GET PAID WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
Apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere, but will there be any plans to bring the ‘Mage: The Awakening’ version of Tarot Deck back into print? Perhaps via DrivethruCards/DrivethruRPG? To commemorate the arrival of 2nd edition? Hint-hint? 😉
DriveThruCards doesn’t have the right sized cards for Tarot decks.
While, yes, there is a “standard” tarot card size, there is nothing barring Onyx Path from creating a tarot on a standard playing card size. Been done before.
Just checking – are the Legacy updates mentioned blog material, or part of Signs of Sorcery? The post was a little vague, though it implies the former over the latter