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Ok, so, I'm trying to find which book(s) from Mage: The Awakening have a couple of things I'm looking for.
First, I know that there was a book somewhere that had 'only children can be mages'.
Second, I know that there was also a book where Magic was handed out as part of Faustian Bargains. Essentially, each mage possessing a Demon / Devil that would give them the spell they wanted / more power, if only they would just do this one thing for the demon in question.

Does anyone know where these are?
 
AshenFox said:
Ok, so, I'm trying to find which book(s) from Mage: The Awakening have a couple of things I'm looking for.
First, I know that there was a book somewhere that had 'only children can be mages'.
Second, I know that there was also a book where Magic was handed out as part of Faustian Bargains. Essentially, each mage possessing a Demon / Devil that would give them the spell they wanted / more power, if only they would just do this one thing for the demon in question.

Does anyone know where these are?
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For the second one, I'm not sure if that's a Mage book, but that sounds a lot like Greg Stolze's Better Angels.
 
Conjured Blade said:
For the second one, I'm not sure if that's a Mage book, but that sounds a lot like Greg Stolze's Better Angels.
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I am about 99% positive it is in Awakening somewhere. I remember the 'cover' fiction. Was a guy locked in a basement and his devil made him inscribe something on a wall as payment for teaching him how to get out.
 
AshenFox said:
Ok, so, I'm trying to find which book(s) from Mage: The Awakening have a couple of things I'm looking for.
First, I know that there was a book somewhere that had 'only children can be mages'.
Second, I know that there was also a book where Magic was handed out as part of Faustian Bargains. Essentially, each mage possessing a Demon / Devil that would give them the spell they wanted / more power, if only they would just do this one thing for the demon in question.

Does anyone know where these are?
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If it's alt-setting stuff, it might be in the Mage Chronicler's Guide. I think that had alt-setting stuff.
 
ManusDomine said:
I must admit that this sounds more like a Mastigos Awakening...
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It does, but this was an explicitly already 'awakened' individual. That was the 'kicker' of the whole thing. The only way to get more power, was to make a deal with a demon. To do something for a being with not but ill intent, but then justifying it. "If I know how to heal damage, imagine how many people I could save... and it's just one sacrifice. How bad could that be?"

EarthScorpion said:
If it's alt-setting stuff, it might be in the Mage Chronicler's Guide. I think that had alt-setting stuff.
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I'll admit that I only skimmed the CG. I'm on my laptop and the font isn't great in the PDF. Plus it really suffers from the thin black text on white background issues (for me anyway).
 
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EarthScorpion said:
Yep. SE: Lain is made of VAness.

(It's a good example of how I feel the purple paradigm weakens oMage - SE: Lain wouldn't be half as fun or ball-tripping if you had someone in-universe running around going 'Oh, Wired!Lain is just her Avatar" and providing explanations.)
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I shall remember this the next time I need a mental model for what Avatars are like. ^_^
 
AshenFox said:
First, I know that there was a book somewhere that had 'only children can be mages'.
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Perhaps it is from WoD: Innocents, the book which pretty much ripped off nearly everything from Little Fears, a truly grimdark, disturbing and bleak rpg which WW wishes it was. It had rules for playing children using the other splats' rules (including Promethean, because you know there are sick bastards out there that would do that just because they can).
 
HeavyBane said:
Perhaps it is from WoD: Innocents, the book which pretty much ripped off nearly everything from Little Fears, a truly grimdark, disturbing and bleak rpg which WW wishes it was. It had rules for playing children using the other splats' rules (including Promethean, because you know there are sick bastards out there that would do that just because they can).
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Does that include Changeling? Because if so that could be amusing to read.
 
Eukie said:
I shall remember this the next time I need a mental model for what Avatars are like. ^_^
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I'll just remind you that the makers of SE:Lain were hoping that the show would be interpreted differently by Japanese and Western audiences, and were somewhat disappointed when it turned out that the interpretations were about the same.

Truly the oMage-iest of shows.
 
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Does that include Changeling? Because if so that could be amusing to read.
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Of course. In fact, let me post an excerpt, just for fun:

Sample Changeling — Jackie Paper

Background: Jacqueline was stolen from her school when she was nine years old. She snuck into a storage closet to get out of taking a Math test, and something grabbed her in the dark. It threw her into a sack and took her back to Faerie, where she spent untold months carrying
messages from household to household. Over time, she found that it was faster just to let the scribes write the messages on her skin, and she became an embodiment of the message, Jackie Paper. One day, she had a brilliant idea. No one ever stopped her when she was delivering a message, so she wrote one on her arm addressed to her old school. And away she flew, back through the Hedge, until she reached the land
of her birth once more. She found that only a few days had passed, and she was all ready to reclaim her life, when she realized that apparently she hadn't left. There was another Jackie, and this one was living her life (and had even gotten an A on that Math test!).

Description: Jackie is a nine-year-old girl. To mortal eyes, she is a light-skinned black girl with curly hair and a bright smile and a strange, whispery voice. To those who can see her changeling features, her skin is crisp and papery in texture, and her eyes are deep and black, like
pools of ink.

Storyteller Hints: The characters might attend Jackie's school and notice the strange shift in personality when Jackie is replaced by her fetch. If they notice and they talk about it, the real Jackie might approach them for help. Alternately, Jackie might have a message written on her that indicates that the characters are the next ones to be snatched — who is the message supposed to go to? Is Jackie even now delivering it, without meaning to?

Still better than Beast.
 
HeavyBane said:
Of course. In fact, let me post an excerpt, just for fun:

Sample Changeling — Jackie Paper

Background: Jacqueline was stolen from her school when she was nine years old. She snuck into a storage closet to get out of taking a Math test, and something grabbed her in the dark. It threw her into a sack and took her back to Faerie, where she spent untold months carrying
messages from household to household. Over time, she found that it was faster just to let the scribes write the messages on her skin, and she became an embodiment of the message, Jackie Paper. One day, she had a brilliant idea. No one ever stopped her when she was delivering a message, so she wrote one on her arm addressed to her old school. And away she flew, back through the Hedge, until she reached the land
of her birth once more. She found that only a few days had passed, and she was all ready to reclaim her life, when she realized that apparently she hadn't left. There was another Jackie, and this one was living her life (and had even gotten an A on that Math test!).

Description: Jackie is a nine-year-old girl. To mortal eyes, she is a light-skinned black girl with curly hair and a bright smile and a strange, whispery voice. To those who can see her changeling features, her skin is crisp and papery in texture, and her eyes are deep and black, like
pools of ink.

Storyteller Hints: The characters might attend Jackie's school and notice the strange shift in personality when Jackie is replaced by her fetch. If they notice and they talk about it, the real Jackie might approach them for help. Alternately, Jackie might have a message written on her that indicates that the characters are the next ones to be snatched — who is the message supposed to go to? Is Jackie even now delivering it, without meaning to?

Still better than Beast.
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I don't get what's so horrible about that write-up. I mean, the fact that the True Fae are doing horrible things to children is horrible, but that's actually a pretty decent write-up, and I'm glad they didn't go some other route with it.

linkhyrule5 said:
... That sounds like a really interesting story, actually.

I mean, depressing as all hell obviously, but.
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Seconded. A good Changeling Durance story.
 
The Laurent said:
Seconded. A good Changeling Durance story.
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I'll third that, it sounds like a really interesting plot hook.

Sure, kidnappings aren't good at all, but it could have been done in a way that would have completely broken the kid. running messages unopposed, and getting back a few days after you left, without having aged years in that time? most changelings could only dream of a durance that nice.
 
Compared to Little Fears, the story isn't even that depressing. We're talking about a game with an anthropomorphic personification of child rape after all. Fortunately AFAIR Innocents dodge this particuliar bullet.
 
HeavyBane said:
Of course. In fact, let me post an excerpt, just for fun:

Sample Changeling — Jackie Paper

Background: Jacqueline was stolen from her school when she was nine years old. She snuck into a storage closet to get out of taking a Math test, and something grabbed her in the dark. It threw her into a sack and took her back to Faerie, where she spent untold months carrying
messages from household to household. Over time, she found that it was faster just to let the scribes write the messages on her skin, and she became an embodiment of the message, Jackie Paper. One day, she had a brilliant idea. No one ever stopped her when she was delivering a message, so she wrote one on her arm addressed to her old school. And away she flew, back through the Hedge, until she reached the land
of her birth once more. She found that only a few days had passed, and she was all ready to reclaim her life, when she realized that apparently she hadn't left. There was another Jackie, and this one was living her life (and had even gotten an A on that Math test!).

Description: Jackie is a nine-year-old girl. To mortal eyes, she is a light-skinned black girl with curly hair and a bright smile and a strange, whispery voice. To those who can see her changeling features, her skin is crisp and papery in texture, and her eyes are deep and black, like
pools of ink.

Storyteller Hints: The characters might attend Jackie's school and notice the strange shift in personality when Jackie is replaced by her fetch. If they notice and they talk about it, the real Jackie might approach them for help. Alternately, Jackie might have a message written on her that indicates that the characters are the next ones to be snatched — who is the message supposed to go to? Is Jackie even now delivering it, without meaning to?

Still better than Beast.
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To be fair, most things in CoD and WoD are better than Beast.

Xyzarach said:
I'll third that, it sounds like a really interesting plot hook.

Sure, kidnappings aren't good at all, but it could have been done in a way that would have completely broken the kid. running messages unopposed, and getting back a few days after you left, without having aged years in that time? most changelings could only dream of a durance that nice.
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I fourth that.

ManusDomine said:
I generally can't see any issues with Innocents, and think it's a great book.
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Yeah, Innocents is one of those books that could have been God-awful but came out really good. For a long, long time I stayed away from Innocents because... well a book about children in the CoD, or the WoD for that matter, could be rather messy and I remembered books like Secrets of the Black Hand, Changing Breeds, and of course Gypsies. But I kept hearing good things about it from all over until one of friends picked up a PDF copy from DriveThruRPG and said how good it was. So I borrowed it from her and discovered just how good it was.

While I doubt I'll use the material or even play an Innocents game, it is an interesting take on the CoD and well worth the read.

ganonso said:
Compared to Little Fears, the story isn't even that depressing. We're talking about a game with an anthropomorphic personification of child rape after all. Fortunately AFAIR Innocents dodge this particuliar bullet.
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...Yeah I think I'm going to avoid that one.
 
AkatsukiL13 said:
...Yeah I think I'm going to avoid that one.
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The setting is basically every horror movie ever that doesn't end with humanity going extinct or the earth being destroyed, all existing simultaneously, except that going through puberty erases your memories of anything not "normal" and adults are physically incapable of realizing that anything wrong is happening.

Monsters are real and they hunt children like you from the shadows. All you have are your wits, your belief, and the friends by your side.
No adults can help you.
No one else can save you.

Vampires, witches, werewolves, magic, and more await you inside these pages.
Find your courage, fight the monsters, become a hero.

You're not scared, are you?
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Basically Little Fears' gist is that it exists a secret dimension named Closetland where monsters plan the destruction of childhood, innocence and the like. Under the Demagogue, the master of this hellish realm serve seven Kings and Queens each associated to a Deadly Sin.

The Defiler is the King of Lust and can possess adults. Trivia: he was renamed the Destroyer in the French version and put more in self-destructive behaviours than rape.

What's interesting about this game is that this is apparently the third iteration of the designer's project. The first was only "kids fighting closet monsters and boggeymen". The second created after he was exposed to how much the world can suck for children was apparently so depressing it was unpublishable and nearly entirely focused on human evil. The final version toned down on that but talks still about child rape, slavery and other such subjects.
 
davebrookshaw said:
Faustian Magic is one of the alt-setting hacks for 1e in the Chronicler's Guide. It starts on page 32
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Thank you. I regret only being able to give you this one like as payment.

HeavyBane said:
Perhaps it is from WoD: Innocents, the book which pretty much ripped off nearly everything from Little Fears, a truly grimdark, disturbing and bleak rpg which WW wishes it was. It had rules for playing children using the other splats' rules (including Promethean, because you know there are sick bastards out there that would do that just because they can).
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I'll double check, but I didn't see it when I was skimming last night.
 
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