What's the necessity of the Exarchs and the Seers to this theme? Seems they provide an easy "RAWR RAWR FIGHT THE POWER" that would detract from this since they are just plain straight evil unlike the Technocracy.
Diamond Mage: "Man, the world fucking sucks; it's straight up nigh-impossible to get any kind of mysteries risk-free and when they're there, there are Sleepers everywhere."
Diamond Mage: "Sure would be nice if there were some kind of way to get easy mysteries and be free of those damn Sleepers."
Diamond Mage: "In fact, what do they even matter? They just ruin magic when they see it, they live in a world full of mysteries and they can't even appreciate them!"
Diamond Mage: "Man, the world fucking sucks; it's straight up nigh-impossible to get any kind of mysteries risk-free and when they're there, there are Sleepers everywhere."
Diamond Mage: "Sure would be nice if there were some kind of way to get easy mysteries and be free of those damn Sleepers."
Diamond Mage: "In fact, what do they even matter? They just ruin magic when they see it, they live in a world full of mysteries and they can't even appreciate them!"
The Exarchs exist to make it less viable to commit genocide on or ethnically cleanse the Sleepers, which is not a bad idea if you're a mage.
They are also made incredible assholes so they don't accidentally become the good guys of the story, because White Wolf learned from Mage: the Ascension that making the guys who exist as a combination of obstacle to your intended game experience and reason as to why this world looks like the real world possibly the good guys might be interesting, but it certainly changes the tone of the game if it's not intended.
Diamond Mage: "Man, the world fucking sucks; it's straight up nigh-impossible to get any kind of mysteries risk-free and when they're there, there are Sleepers everywhere."
Diamond Mage: "Sure would be nice if there were some kind of way to get easy mysteries and be free of those damn Sleepers."
Diamond Mage: "In fact, what do they even matter? They just ruin magic when they see it, they live in a world full of mysteries and they can't even appreciate them!"
You know, it's impressive to compare the handling of the Tremere (who are a fucking blight on the gameline who as per Left Hand Path actively make the game less interesting by murdering off other Reaper legacies so they can get their special snowflake double-Attainments) with the Daksha.
The Daksha don't need authorial handjobs to be great antagonists (which the Tremere can't even manage [1]). All they need is to be people who are nominally on the same side as you are, but who are also a bunch of theosophist assholes who provide a foil to Mage attitudes by openly holding Sleepers in contempt and backing all kinds of hardliners.
[1] "Blah blah blah DOUBLE ATTAINMENTS blah blah blah we get the worst chapter of Left Hand Path all to ourselves blah blah blah look at us being a fucking oWOD reference who, much like the oWoD Tremere, actively make the game worse."
I dont see why needs to be a thing considering it fits asshole thing that was meationed earlier. I mean sleepers are also your biggest obstacle in ancension yet i dont see pcs planningt to hijack nuclear submarines to kill shitton sleepers that butreess the technocracys infanstrature: afterall its a lot easier to kill them then to change their minds running across simlair strain of logic proposed here.
I dont see why needs to be a thing consideig it fits asshole thing that was meationed earlier. I mean sleepers are also your biggest obstacle in ancension yet i dont see pcs planning hijack nuclear submarines to kill shitton sleepers that butreess the technocracys infanstrature: afterall its a lot easier to kill them then to change their minds running across simlair strain of logic proposed here.
Sleepers are your biggest obstacle, which is why convincing even a very small number of sleepers in M:tA has a significant, massive, benefit to all your magic casting. A pretty small number of people who believe in your magic lets you throw down literal automatic successes on casting rolls, which is hugely significant and lets, say, your starting character Mage orbital death laser someone (Forces 3/Correspondence 3) from literally a continent away easily and reliably. Or jack themselves up on the borrowed power of God himself and tear a werewolf's arms off and beat their entire pack to death with those arms.
Ritual magic + automatic successes is fucking ludicrous.
Also if they believe yours is the True Way of doing magic, and other people's magic is wrong and dumb, they can simultaneously do that while protecting you from hostile magic.
The Sleepers are the biggest resource you have in Ascension. Nephandi get all sorts of author fiat bonuses because unlike the Traditions or Technocracy, they don't have the same ease in getting stable, useful cultists. The Technocracy can literally pick up a bunch of special forces hard-men, have them assigned to a NWO Operative, and have a bunch of cultists ready-made with a little bit of 'extra training' and 'prototype equipment.' The Traditions have a whole host of rich historical (and ahistorical) veins to go find true believers in. The Nephandi get... delusional nihilistic death-cultists, serial killers, and other nastiness.
Well, I mean, you could be a low Quiet Marauder in some depictions. The kind who are self-aware enough to realise that it's not them who are crazy, it's everyone else in the world who's seeing things wrong (as opposed to not realising anyone disagrees with them).
And yeah, the Diamond contain lots of anti-Sleeper bigots, a broad social movement the game called Iconoclasts. Especially the Mysterium, who were created by the merger of the "we must hoard knowledge against the ignorant masses and occasionally debate about whether to release any of it for the greater good" Keepers of the Word and the "we fucking hate Sleepers and wish they would all die so the Abyss would close" Pancryptiates back in the middle ages and still haven't ironed out the rough edges from that.
The Daksha, wonderful assholes that they are, are symptomatic of a larger problem in the Mysterium's teachings. They're only kept in check by the Silver Ladder, Guardians, and - in later years - Free Council.
And yeah, the Diamond contain lots of anti-Sleeper bigots, a broad social movement the game called Iconoclasts. Especially the Mysterium, who were created by the merger of the "we must hoard knowledge against the ignorant masses and occasionally debate about whether to release any of it for the greater good" Keepers of the Word and the "we fucking hate Sleepers and wish they would all die so the Abyss would close" Pancryptiates back in the middle ages and still haven't ironed out the rough edges from that.
The Daksha, wonderful assholes that they are, are symptomatic of a larger problem in the Mysterium's teachings. They're only kept in check by the Silver Ladder, Guardians, and - in later years - Free Council.
Though I never got the impression that the Mysterium was majority anti-Sleeper bigots, or at least bigots in the sense of more than upturned noses and sniffing about people not being worthy fo secrets. Or at least, the Order as a whole doesn't seem to approve of the attempts that have been made to do the latter?
Some factions within the Mysterium of course are more or less attuned to Sleepers. Notably, some Egregori groups are rather permissive by the standards... well of Mages in general, but certainly the Mysterium.
Oh, sure. Not all Mystagogues. Not even most Mystagogues. But way more Mystagogues than Guardians or Arrow. (Espousing those ideals in public in the Ladder or Free Council is a good way to get Sympathy-knifed)
As for the Tremere... I like the version of the Tremere in my head, where they're a broken failure state like the Mad who've fucked their Gnosis up and their Houses are the shreds of Legacies they can still manage rather than being a super-Legacy. And their 300-year stint as the sixth Diamond Order makes interesting history, and highlights the Big Gap in the existing Orders (that mages have lost more lore on souls and their working than they know).
Hopefully, we'll get to do them, Scelesti, and Mad Ones again.
Maybe the plan is to kill off everyone else in existence and thus attain absolute cosmic power since it is now your will alone that defines Consensus and you don't have to worry about that pesky Paradox anymore.
Oh, sure. Not all Mystagogues. Not even most Mystagogues. But way more Mystagogues than Guardians or Arrow. (Espousing those ideals in public in the Ladder or Free Council is a good way to get Sympathy-knifed)
I think that's a fair evaluation, and one that I'll keep in mind for the purpose of drama/themes/plot in my Quest, where the main character seems like she's going to join the Mysterium.
It might no doubt start more than a few arguments.
As for the Tremere... I like the version of the Tremere in my head, where they're a broken failure state like the Mad who've fucked their Gnosis up and their Houses are the shreds of Legacies they can still manage rather than being a super-Legacy. And their 300-year stint as the sixth Diamond Order makes interesting history, and highlights the Big Gap in the existing Orders (that mages have lost more lore on souls and their working than they know).
Hopefully, we'll get to do them, Scelesti, and Mad Ones again.
As far as I'm concerned, the core problem (that is, the one which wasn't "we have to make oWoD references!") is that the Tremere are utterly and completely unnecessary as an organised thing. Why are they are a Legacy? Especially a Legacy that someone felt had to be given all kinds of stupid special things to?
Why isn't it "yep, any mage who finds a free soul can eat it for life extension", in the same way that any mage can carry out blood sacrifice for mana (being basically an extension of the same principle - personal benefit by taking from others)?
Who's the soul eating lich among you? Your mentor who's self-justifying that he just needs a few more years and then he can reach archmastery. The Interfector who's developed a heresy that says that by him eating the souls of condemned criminals, these inferior souls can't pass back to other bodies and no one else has to tarnish themselves by becoming an Interfector. The hierarch himself because he says that the Seers are out there and if there's a handover of power they'll be weak and vulnerable. It could be anyone, because it's a temptation for any elderly mage who feels that they can't die yet and their work isn't done.
And that's basically every elderly mage out there.
Once something like that is baselined into the Mage splat, then if you want a weirdo group who've build some philosophical ideal around immortality or soul eating (perhaps they believe that once 144,000 Awakened are alive at the same time, Atlantis will return in the Rapture, and therefore as many mages as possible need to live as long as possible and fuck the Sleepers) then they can be their own thing. One that doesn't use a lame reference name dragged in from the oWoD.
(that means that the Reaper Legacies out there can be much more esoteric with what they do with souls - like the Echo Walkers, who I love as a bunch of weirdos who pull out people's souls to use them to try to scry for Atlantis and the Supernal. Those guys are great.)
Description: A Supernal Entity that has been known at least as early as the conquests of Alexander, and likely earlier, it takes the form of a flowing-stone-like spirit, its form shifting constantly only to freeze briefly before moving on. While very intelligent, it acts somewhat aloof, requiring the Summoner to act in a manner befitting the request made, no matter how tired or exhausted they might be by the act of summoning already.
It is not hostile, and fighting is its last resort, though if it is forced to, it has its own ways and methods, of course.
When taken out of its shell, its nature is that of a fan, someone who approves of art and artists, at least and especially those who work in stone and clay, and to it, the spell that it is most known for is just that. Another way to make art, and beauty, and one that it is happy to share with those that are similarly enthusiastic.
Trial: When one summons it, one is advised to bring clay or stone, or some other building material. While one doesn't have to be a great artist, one must be dedicated, and before it will grant the requests of the Summoner, they must prove that they have some talent and imagination. Its standards are not superhuman, and passion can certainly replicate skill in this case (as represented by Willpower spent), but if one is not willing to try…
If one fails, and there is still material, one can try again, and again. As long as there is time: a bad artist, or someone who was clearly just going through the motions for the purpose of artwork for no reason other than a desire for power, will find it difficult.
Services: It can, of course, help instruct a Moros who has already achieved great things in regards to Spirit, their weakest Arcana, in even finer points of the Spirit Arcana, and for this being, the divide that so frustrates Moros is a false one, one which a greater understanding of the similarities between the two often suffices. In this it is rare among its own kind, but far from unique, for the limitations that mortals face in combining strange forms of magic is just that: a mortal limitation.
As well, it can serve as a rather good guide to strange artwork out there, especially statues, and more than a few odd Moros have called it down sheerly to discuss their careers with it, encounters that leave Aesyscus feeling rather charitable towards the Willworker.
But most of all, people call upon it to Freeze Spirits. This strange and rare spell takes a spirit of up to Rank 5 and turns it into a statue. Aesyscus can itself hunt down the spirit if need be, but most often it is presented to the Supernal being, who then usually binds it as a statue, placing a conditional duration on it of the Mage's choice. That this fire spirit may only be freed from stone when the Mage cried, "All is lost, and all shall burn!" Or that this dangerous and predatory spirit, hidden deep down where it can do no harm, is only freed by a set of very unlikely circumstances.
Some Mages use his services repeatedly, and while a clever Mage might unravel these statued spirits, there have been those who create entire gardens, the spirits trapped in a bizarre and fascinating statue that seems to perfectly capture their nature, despite them having once been non-corporeal.
This spell has been duplicated, though if it has ever been used as a Rote, then it is not common knowledge, and has not passed down throughout the ages.
I actually altered a spell meant to turn a person into a statue for this, so if anything doesn't quite work, please do tell me. If you don't use the, "Get rid of three Attributes and go back to nine" for spirits like I've decided to do, then the Withstand would be its Resistance.
Spirit-Shaper can use this spell, which it seems to have created (and thus there is no Rote for it currently) in order to turn a Spirit into a stone form, which has Structure and Durability appropriate for a solid stone object of their size and composition.
Spirits turned to stone are not dead, but they aren't "alive" either; the target is rendered unconscious and unaware for the Duration of the spell, during which they do not age or hunger. If the statue is damaged in any way, the target receives comparative wounds when turned back to its spirit form, but is otherwise unaware of any harm done to them. If the damage is repaired before this time, no harm occurs. If sufficient damage is dealt to reduce the statue to Structure 0, the target dies, and reconstructing the statue does nothing to restore them.
Petrified targets, despite their quiescent state, can be communicated with. Mind spells that allow the reading of minds or telepathic contact can interact with the victim. The target might not be able to understand the context, being as they are spirits, but they can become at least somewhat aware of their situation.
When cast by Spirit-Shaper, it is almost always cast with a conditional duration of the Summoner's choice.
Summoning/Obscurity: Its strange spell has made it something of a curiosity, and among both the Silver Ladder and Guardians of the Veil, the mastery of Spirits represented by this creature's effects are appreciated. Silver Ladder Mages tend to display them, to revel in the power they have over "mere spirits", whereas Guardians of the Veil generally use the Spirit-Shaper to lock away Spirits that they have reason to want not merely bound by a spell of a mortal Mage who might die or might in some error release the spell, but bound eternally or nigh-eternally by a spell that cannot be easily reversed.
To summon it, works of statuary art, spirits of art, stones soaked in blood, and objects that belonged to a great sculptor who is now deceased will all work nicely.
******
A/N: Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Be thankful for Hubris frozen in stone. That totally will never backfire ever.
Maybe the plan is to kill off everyone else in existence and thus attain absolute cosmic power since it is now your will alone that defines Consensus and you don't have to worry about that pesky Paradox anymore.
Well, I mean, you could be a low Quiet Marauder in some depictions. The kind who are self-aware enough to realise that it's not them who are crazy, it's everyone else in the world who's seeing things wrong (as opposed to not realising anyone disagrees with them).
What's the necessity of the Exarchs and the Seers to this theme? Seems they provide an easy "RAWR RAWR FIGHT THE POWER" that would detract from this since they are just plain straight evil unlike the Technocracy.
Based on @ManusDomine's critique? The same reason Hellblazer's villains are all unrelentingly monstrous & vile. Because the protagonist is a pretty awful person, most of his associates are little better, and throwing literal demons and cannibalistic soul-eaters at them is the last desperate gambit to avoid total audience apathy setting in.
Like, that post is a fucking revelation that's removed most of my interest in the game. I don't need more "everyone is a bastard, also here's some serial killers" setting where magic only exists to give hideous, bloodstained life to mankind's inner monstrousness while alien overlords cackle in the distance.
That wasn't really my point though. You can be better, but the path of wisdom is hard and grueling, you are objectively sacrificing chances of power if you choose to walk the path of wisdom, you are going to end up weaker than mages who don't, but it's still the ideal of the Orders (Except for the Silver Ladder where it's a hindrance to the glorious cosmic communist revolution). The Order most willing to kill of them all, most willing to commit crimes in the name of a higher goal will hold you as the very example of a mage because you are hindering your own power to be a good person.
(Also the Seers and the Exarchs fit in because they're the ultimate example of hubris and a Guide To What Not To Do.)
I don't know about you but in a game about hubris and the price of power, the ability to look yourself into the mirror and say "I am a good person," without the slightest hint of self-deception or irony is a pretty good trade as far as I see it.
It's not Vampire where the descent is inevitable and everyone is a fleshy, bloody monster at the core, it's telling you that yes, Emperor Palpatine was an awful person and yes, power at the cost of wisdom is an awful, terrible idea.
Notice that it's a sin against Wisdom to take an action with the use of magic that you could have just... not used magic for? If you want to be wise, and you want to be good, you're going to have to accept that there is more to life than addicting yourself to the mysteries and becoming just another junkie substituting the newest stuff he can poison his veins with for the newest piece of magical lore he can fill his mind to the brim with.
If that isn't for you, fair enough I won't judge, but I think your take on it is pretty reductionist, although it is one interpretation and I understand where you're coming from.
I don't know about you but in a game about hubris and the price of power, the ability to look yourself into the mirror and say "I am a good person," without the slightest hint of self-deception or irony is a pretty good trade as far as I see it.
"Vampires are backstabbing, treacherous, greedy monsters who can't trust another vampire as far as they can throw them, and they call themselves 'Kindred'. Mages call themselves 'the Wise'."
