White Wolf's World of Darkness

[The Laurent]

VTR: Sundered Nights

The vampires in this room were the first, best hope for a government in this city. It was a thought that made Po' Richard's heart sink as he tapped his fingers against the desk.

"You can call it whatever you want," a Gangrel said, his beard long. He looked old, but he'd only been around for six months. Even in a city like this, that was new. "It's still tyranny. It's still the rule of a few bastards over all the rest."

"And if you don't govern wisely, then what? How do we depose whoever winds up in charge?" a fat, hard-eyed woman asked, glaring at the Mekhet's in the corner, perched on a desk, glaring at everyone as if they were one loud noise from feasting.

Po' Richard wasn't going to speak yet, he was just going to listen. They needed to work together. There were strange things going on in the city, and the Kindred, the people of the dark night, they needed to, just this once, stand together.

But he thought about the Metalsmiths and the God's Botherers and his own Lance Corp, and knew that none of them would accept the other.

The city was doomed.

The Sundered Night:

Tonight there will probably not be tomorrow night. You're a parasite, a monster, and if you live to be ten years old, you beat not merely the average, but a startling number of your peers. Vampires squat, collecting and then losing knowledge and power, parasites on the neck of a beast, society, far bigger and stronger than any individual bloodsucker.

To call themselves princes of darkness is a delusion, for they live street by street, moment by moment, and form organizations, societies, families that all fall apart. For a bloodsucker is subtle, but a bloodsucker is also cruel, and there are many who would say that vampire culture was an oxymoron.

The world is a series of questions, and nobody has the answers. There are no ancient vampires who saw the fall of Rome, at least none that any of the kindred would like to meet, and there are no secret conspiracies that run the world.

Hell, there are few conspiracies that even run the life of vampires in a single city, and instead there is just the constant struggle: what was once a human being, reduced down to a single instinct. Feed. Survive. They are the same thing, and the costs, the price you pay for every night, knowing that you'll likely to die before you get old, pile up at your feet.

The truly innocent die within weeks, perhaps months, but the guilty drag on and on.

And only the real monsters last a century.

But the Kindred, for all that they are not human, for all that they are broken, do try to form something. They study, they experiment, they question the meaning of life and death, and they do so knowing that even more than among the living "It too shall pass."

These are not the nights where the masters of the universe drink deep in the secrets of the world. These are the nights of a scared predator surrounded by dangerous prey, the nights where your best friend and your worst enemy change with every night.

What is this:

The idea is simple enough. This is meant to be a low fantasy sort of take or alternate shard (in a way) on the Vampire the Requiem experience. That is to say, whereas Elders are rare in the normal V:TR, in this version, they're practically mythical, and meeting one is about what one would feel if you met some legendary monster: not awe, but absolute terror.

In this world, not only do most vampires die before they would in life, as is the norm, but most vampires have lifespans that even a terminal cancer patient would balk at. If you last a decade, you are a seasoned and grizzled veteran of what passes for the society of the Damned, one that possesses great wisdom that should be listened to… or simply stolen.

This fragmentation also means that the Clans as some distinct entity isn't quite the same. There are less vampires, and bloodlines are more central, and even two who are "Mekhet" do not really share as much as they might in other sources. Instead, Sire and friends, and enemies, those are what matters, for there are no Covenants in the universal, world-wide way that one might speak of the Ordo, and most cities do not have Courts and Princes, though a few do, through hard work and effort that might well collapse within decades.

Thus, what it is to be a vampire is something constantly discovered, disputed, and lost. It is hard to define what the mechanical impact of this is, but as I'll be getting to, there's not a simple list of all of the Disciplines, and knowledge such as the impact of Humanity on various aspects of the vampiric life are, even more than these abstractions were in the main game, unknown.

So mechanically, I could imagine playing the power level down a little bit, but I'm going to try to, for the most part, focus on the thematics, which is what spawned this. The idea of playing each of the Covenants instead as a general set of *trends* among vampires, trends that see themselves expressed in dozens or hundreds of different organizations, some of which might even include elements of different trends in different ways, and none of which regard themselves as being "Invictus" in the same way.

In part this is inspired by a look at how to play a low-level vampire game in one of the VTR books, but I hope that I'm treading some new ground in detailing a less simplistic way than I believed it presented of taking the Covenants.

Another inspiration was the Factions of the Mage: The Awakening Orders. At least in theory, these are trends more than groups, and as I'm going to do, I'll be doing a write-up of such a trend, and then I'll give an example organization that fits squarely within it.

Hopefully this will inspire others.


Themes:

After the end: "It's the end of the world every day, for someone."--Margaret Atwood

The Embrace is an end, but without the comfortable beginning. There is no fully formed social structure, even one corrupt and weighted so that the young die and the old survive. Everything one has can be lost, and one clings to it as if there was nothing else. A vampire might not have a sire to even tell him that garlic is not death, or that he can enter a church without bursting into flames. And even if he does, that sire might be all that he knows for some time, for while there are dozens of vampires in any large city, they often miss each other, and even more often hide.

Human knowledge is gained standing on the shoulders of giants, or perhaps like a beach washing up more and more debris until at last it builds something up, but vampires wash themselves away constantly. They do not, by and large, know a great deal about centuries past any more than they can say they know where they will be in a single decade.

The life of a vampire is almost post-apocalyptic, going through and discovering things that vampires a thousand years ago discovered and then lost, digging through the remains of this and that old vampire (old being Ancilla or more) for some understanding that, you ultimately discover, even he lacks.

The Danse Macabe marches on, with no evidence that there was a time when vampires were truly reunited. There is no golden age in the past, nor in the future, and yet the world of the undead lives in devastation, without start or end.

--You think you're going to kill someone. Joseph was almost a century old, and one of the wisest vampires around. The oldest in the city, and old enough that sometimes other vampires came from other cities seeking what he knew. And a bunch of angry Neonates burned him alive, found out his weaknesses and made him pay for it. Everything was lost, including his deep knowledge of ancient vampire lore that he learned from his Sire, who could at least trace his ancestry back to the 18th century. Now it's all gone, and it'll never come back: perhaps you should teach them a lesson, and then sift through the ashes.

With friends like these: In a world where all else has fallen apart, one's friends, one's enemies, one's Sire and family and the groups that one joins are everything. And yet one isn't spoiled for choice. One cannot choose one's Sire, and a person who waits for a good, honest, loyal vampire friend might as well live their short unlife alone.

You have to compromise, and deal with the fact that everyone around you, perhaps including yourself, is imperfect and broken. You stick to the loyalties you've made, and hope that they don't turn out to be a problem. For night by night, minute by minute, friends and enemies shift rapidly without any warning.

It is better to be in an abusive relationship than in no relationship at all, a vampire might agree. It is better to have a dozen friends that you hate, but that share the same hobby as you, then just one true friend.

It is a broken way to live, but don't tell me you forgot, silly? You're already dead.

--You don't much like him, but he's the only vampire you've met that hasn't tried to attack you, or seduce you, and the only one that truly tries to learn what you are. You share your ideas on the nature of fire and sun, and he talks about his study of what he calls "Ghouls." One day you walk into his study and he has a photo, and needs help. He's trapped a human, and wishes to study the effect of torture and blood-loss on the blood-bonding and ghouling process. It is someone you know, and you object to it strenuously. He smiles and nods. The next day, he has three photos, and he, concern in his eyes, sure that he's done the right thing, asks whether you know any of them. He's all you have: you tell him no, and you help him. At least it's not a friend of yours that dies that night.
--They're rich assholes, even if they went to the same college as you, but what's the choice? There's the Escatic Children, who are these crazy, party-hard anarchists, and there's God's Rosary, and you're Catholic which means they think that you are Satan's handmaiden. So the Brotherhood of Blood (what a stupid name, you think for the fifteenth time) are the only people you can trust. It is the kind of thought that makes a man want to walk out into the sun.
--She's done you right for three months straight. She used to be a prostitute, and she now helps lure them to a spot. She calls it a "Feeding Frenzy" and says the only rule is that no girl can die. That's it. You're starving, and if you don't eat tonight, you'll probably die, but something feels wrong tonight, unlike every other night you've gone here. It's like a taste in the air, but you know if you hunt yourself, there's plenty of ways that things can go wrong, especially since for some odd reason your tastes are too specific. You have no choice… you have to trust her, but you know you shouldn't.

Shards of Humanity: Congratulations, you cannot hold down most jobs. Congratulations, your best friends and lovers are both the only thing that keeps you sane, and the tastiest treat of all. Congratulations, you must kill and destroy to survive, and if you can't, then to bad. You're thrown out into a world that is all too human and all too inhuman at the same time. The turnover means that the culture is constantly shifting, and if you don't keep up, then that's that, and vampires exist with all of their human prejudices intact, because there is not enough of a real sense of what some wag might call vampire nationalism. Your city apes humanity in a cracked funhouse mirror sort of way, and yet it is a community founded on exploitation and destruction, one that turns against itself just when it should work together.

You have to hold on to every piece of humanity, because nobody else will help you do so. But the grudges from before the grave drag you beyond it, and every human pettiness and misery can be found alongside every inhuman misery imaginable, all of them crowding out the best wishes, the hopes and dreams of those who are truly Damned.

--This group has a parliament. That group consists entirely of businessmen on the stock exchange. This third group is made of the fans of this one grunge-rocker who all died in a single mass-embrace ritual or something like that. They don't take non-fans. And you lost your job after a week of not showing up. You lost your wife after your hunger overwhelmed you. You eat rats and crouch in the corner of a neighbor's garage, waiting for him to go to sleep. A year ago, she said she wanted to try to get pregnant. A year ago you dreamed of a family. Now you're glad you never bothered.


A Dark World: Vampires have no more knowledge of the universe in the dark than a ghost might of what truly happens to a soul once it dies. They're ignorant. Many would be shocked to learn that ghosts exist, and would be baffled and terrified of a spirit, except for those who live by their knowledge of spirits. If mortal wizards exist who use vitae and blood magic, they might well know more about the nature of this dark world than a vampire does, and yet the vampire is powerful, the vampire is dangerous, but the vampire is also terrified.

The world doesn't make sense, and peek around a dark corner and you'll see something that seems impossible. You'll learn not to look on the right nights, and to try not to hear the screams of strange beings in the night. Some of them are vampires. But some of them might not be.

And even if one speaks of vampires, what did you truly know of what vampires are or what they can become? When a rumor comes around about a so-called "Elder" every vampire hides in terror, for there are dark stories of what such rare monsters--and to survive centuries you cannot leave anything human behind--are capable of. They aren't part of society any more than the monsters of human myths were.

(This is an invitation to introduce dark little question marks. Strange monsters that might share an origin with vampires and be the spawn of any number of myths, or blood cultists, or Vitae-Wielding Thaumaturges who ape the power of vampires but are, ironically, quite likely more knowledgeable in some ways despite their power. You don't have to, of course, and all of this is optional. What isn't all that optional with the feeling of this Shard is the feeling that you don't know anything, that you're stuck in a world and that you did not, in fact, read the whole rulebook. It's an open invitation, in other words, for the ST to get creative and fuck with the player's assumptions that they understand the World of Darkness, because this is a Shard where that understanding is ultimately a threat to the mood that I'm kinda trying to go for.)

--It screams at you. You wished you'd never killed her, because now she follows you. You can see her out of the corner of your eye. She throws things around in your presence, she hates you and yet she needs you, and you're scared to say that you don't always hate the company. What you do hate is the guilt. And if you kill again, will you have yet another such 'friend' to stalk you?
--The humans fell to their ground and worshipped her. She blinked, confused and yet oddly gratified. She was a god to them, some dark goddess of blood and power, and it felt good, it felt great. So what if they wanted her to kill a few other vampires, and those people in power who belittled this sad little cult. And so what if the leader of the cult eyes her as one might a particularly worthy sacrifice. She might be dead in a year, so she might as well enjoy herself now.
--You did not know a vampire could do that. Is it some bloodline? Can you copy it? Can you understand it? You might not get a chance to ask any of those things if it kills you here. "Please," you beg, "show me how you… did that."

********

A/N: Alright, so here we go. This is the first of many things. Starting with ten different articles. Which means this might take a long, long while, but I hope even just this document helps or interests some people. Please leave comments, feedback is vital for something like this.

 

[The Laurent]

VTR: Sundered Nights-- The Invictus Inclination

"You cannot take it with you? Watch me."

Introduction: Power is a common desire, one that is shared by both the living and the undead. But not just power, but control. In a chaotic, confused world, the idea that one is not cursed, but instead has abilities that can allow one to thrive, is something tempting for many vampires, and those vampires who form groups around gaining power and control, not only of their own lives, but the mortal world and, to a large extent, the world of the vampires, can be said to have an Invictus inclination.

And throughout the world there are many organizations of vampires, most short-lived, but some a few centuries old. Among these organizations, most do not stretch beyond a single city, and those that do do so through a network that has far more to do with a support group for the powerful than anything else.

A political organization might be a front for vampire self-help, sending money to some vampires across the country, and yet with a footprint in any one place that is essentially non-existent. Such organizations lack the heft and power that vampires need to survive in a world as hard and dark as the one they inhabit, and yet they do sometimes attract attention and support.

Most organizations are simpler: a few power brokers use their vampiric might to carve out a niche. They use their power over police, or a gang, or simply the wealth they accrue, to provide themselves with that most rare attribute of vampiric life: stability. And once they have obtained that, they seek power, and then more power, and other vampires flock to them, willing to trade quite a bit for the promise of power. Or even the promise of safety.

This, normally, is how the average Invictus-style Covenant begins. There are other origins, and other reasons for beginning it, but in general at least, it sprouts up like fungus around the rich soil of success. An individual vampire rises to power within this group, and begins trying to order it.

This order is not in fact necessarily feudal. What it is, though, is inherently elitist. It is an organization in which one person or a group of people hold the majority of the power, and others work for them. There is no particular hatred for democracy inherent to vampires that have such an inclination, but the power structures they create are inherently hierarchical, and the general pattern is that, rather than create a set of rules and some for of bylaws, the average such Covenant establishes and gains power, and only then either codifies standing custom as their rules, or has to hastily scramble to create some set of rules only when crisis forces them to consider the results of their actions.

Most Invictus Covenants die because they are highly personal in nature. Highly personal, and yet highly competitive. Thus, when a particular power-broker collapses, then so does the organization which only sometimes has an ideological core (though this has changed some in recent nights, see below), and it becomes a bunch of squabbling vampires.

On the best of nights, the most optimistic vampires like this consider the fact that those that survive the fallout gain knowledge of how to manipulate mortal institutions, knowledge that does get passed on to other vampires. Most of it is lost, of course, for the life of a vampire is short and brutal, but over the centuries, some think that in places, something real is getting closer and closer to be built.

Others think that this is folly, that building a sandcastle time and time again when the waves just crash in is the essence of folly.

Yet what choice is there, someone of the Inclination would ask. Cower before their nature? Ape normal humans and reject power and hide somewhere?

The Many Ways to Power: The stereotype is that such vampires are rich assholes who decide that they don't want to be any less rich, or any less assholish, now that they're vampires. They're afraid of the way that becoming a vampire might destroy their lives, and yet they're hopeful that they can trick, cheat, and murder their way to even greater wealth and power. Now, this is a type of person that does have the right mindset, but in fact, the first category is far broader. It is those with power, who seek to keep that power. A Judge that is embraced, or a respected doctor, both have a lot to lose, and if they can turn their mind to what they have to gain, or come to gather power, then they too are this type of member.

Any profession or lifestyle that grants power grants an expectation that this power will continue. The bureaucrat, the banker, and the surgeon all expect something more than cringing and hiding, and so they are all just as likely to find themselves gathering power in the shadows, manipulating their former colleagues to clear the way to everything they ever desired, handed up to them on a silver platter.

But the opposite motivation, in a sense, also drives people. The poor and downtrodden, if put into the right circumstances, decide that with this newfound Majesty, or this or that ability, they can quickly steal and acquire money and more and more power: everything they wanted for, wrapped up in a neat little bow and presented to them. The man who could never get a date says, "Now, I can get what I want" just as the janitor might drain dry the executive who treated him like shit.

The difference between someone who walks the Carthian path and one who joins an organization, or founds an organization, along these Invictus lines can often be mere circumstance and luck, as much as anything else, and often depends on what the other vampires of the area are like.

The final 'type' of Invictus member is simple. There are those who look around at the squabbling of vampires and shake their head. Whether they are a cop who think that the squabbling vampires need to be crushed underneath the kindly boot of police brutality until they submit, or a believer in something a little… less than democracy, or even someone who comes to the rather unfounded belief that vampires are superior and then extrapolates to justify the exploitation of mortals: they exist.

They exist, and they're often the driving force behind those few areas that resemble the quasi-feudal Domains of normal VTR, though these are exceptions to the rules of what such ideologues do. Like those of a more Carthian bent, they want to have some sort of government or control over something, but that is where they tend to part ways, theorizing tyranny and control as the only means by which vampires can survive and thrive.

To those who ask, "Then why aren't we thriving" they say that they need more people to follow them.

Invictus-style organizations can be founded on all sorts of things. A hospital, a sorority, or a corporation as the basis is just as likely, if not more, than some sort of feudal farce. To create such an organization, one has to imagine a few things. First, how it came to be, second, what it runs on, what actions and activities it does that are so important, and third, what it's place in the world is.

Thus, having a type of association can be a useful link. All of the members of a single rich family being embraced by a mad Patriarch works, as does the few Damned members of a popular mortal sorority getting in contact and using their mortal friends (now tools) to influence the area. But then, so can some eccentric billionaire collecting vampiric hanger-ons like he might have once collected trophy wives, staving off his inevitable death.

Moods

--Every eye is on you. They all want to bring you down, and you want to bring them all down. You were a star, a celebrity, an actor, albeit a B-list one, but now that you're a vampire, that's all lost. You have the rolodex, though, you have ways you can use what you have to get power, but when will people start asking questions?

--For all of your delusions about being a master of the universe, about manipulating everyone else, you are vulnerable, you are scared. You know, deep down, that people at the hospital don't buy that you suddenly took ill, and yet you can slip in the shadows and watch the patients. You pick off a few of them to kill, and then control their minds. They change their wills, giving them to mortal patsies you control… and then they die. It's a sweet deal you have going on, but why doesn't it make you feel any better?

--You're in the middle. That means you're the guy in the center of the chain. You shit, and are shit on, as your father would have said. He's dead now. You run errands, you search for victims, and you try to ignore what he would have thought, that his little daughter had joined a gang. A gang that had been hollowed out. The parasite at the center was almost sixty years old: he'd existed back when the Mob was a thing, and he didn't truly understand how to run such an organization beyond the obvious. It's down to people like you to do it. But… why not make a play? If you're going to be in Hell, why not rule?

Characters:

--Jordan wears the face of another boy. It's not hard, really. His mentor has told him that he can get what he wants. He's only sixteen, and he was pretty ugly, sure. But that.. .b… girl! Shouldn't have turned him down. But now that he was a vampire, he was told, he could take what he wanted. So he played her boyfriend perfectly, smiling and trying to dance as well as his clumsy feet could. And then when they got into her car… he drained her dry and left her corpse by the side of the road. What did she matter, really? That was the lesson his Sire wanted him to learn: they were cattle, and he was not.
--Ysmin was quite the fixer, all things considered. She was smart, polite, and powerful. She knew everyone, and everyone in the Night-life, as some called it, knew her. She didn't really believe in the religious antics of some, and she didn't care about the nature of ghouls the way that others did. But if you wanted to find someone, she knew them. And not just blood-bags either. She knew people who would take the bullet holes out of a car without saying anything, she knew people who would bury bodies, for the right price. And she took a cut in the middle, always.
--There's no theory for it, but he's going to make ones. The world as it stands is rotten, but vampires need not bask in their silly delusions that they are people. Not when they can be more. And if they are not human, than the structures that humans delude themselves with are just as unnecessary.

Mechanics:

Now, this was just a thought, but a lot of the Invictus merits in 2e, and possibly 1e, are based on a structure that doesn't exist. I'm not a mechanical maven, really, but I did get an interesting idea on how to portray the advantages of being in an organization that primarily exists to gather and use power to get more power (IE, one that is "Invictus Primary").

Such an Invictus Primary organization has this rough draft of a very simple rule.

Decide what resources they have. These can be Allies, Contacts, Resources[1], Retainers (some of them Ghouls) and so on. Anything that specifically involves social clout and attainment, which means it can also be hiding spots, or access to a Herd.

Then, here comes the part I'd have to play-test. Each Chapter, a player can use the common resources of the organization, essentially asking favors and calling in support, a number of times equal to their Covenant Status (which in this case covers a specific organization, not all "Invictus Primary" organization), and in some way gated off by Status as well, so that a 1-dot member cannot be given five dots of Resources no matter whether it's the first time or the tenth that they've asked for it.

Thus, the higher the Status of the member, the more the organization benefits them in a concrete way. All resources so gained operate as 'normal', for a duration of time that cannot outlast the chapter. If you get access to the Retainer, how long they are seconded depends on a lot of factors that, let me be honest, I'm not 100% sure how to represent mechanically.

Resources are available for one single purchase, or a series of purchases 'adding up' to the total dot value you can afford. Roughly. Again, this part is subject to a lot of change.

As well, of course, you cannot double-dip on some things. Resources are an exception, since the most powerful organizations might have far more than just one individual's wealth on access, usually. Generally, just to make this easy, it's assumed that all resources are open, but at an ST's discretion, based on the plot or other events, they might be in use, as long as this is not used as an excuse to deny the results of the merit dots to the PCs.

If a PC wants an Ally or Contact that does not come on a time-limit and might not be available, they are advised to just buy it themselves. Every Invictus-style vampire has not merely the resources that any organization can get them, but extensive personal resources, though in some cases the two blur together.

[1] If anyone has an idea of how to do organizational resources, feel free to tell me, but for now it's the regular sort.

*******

A/N: And so here we go. The first of the Covenant Leanings sort of system. And yes, I really do want to talk about the mechanics. I'm not *horrible* at mechanics, but advice would be good. I do know that for the way this world is set up, the traditional sort of Invictus Merits don't really work, unless I'm remembering them wrong, because they're mostly based on an established Vampire Community that they can then be rich-bitch top dogs of. Similarly, the Carthians won't be getting their weird Spirit of Democracy Merits, don't you worry.

 

[The Laurent]

The Wraith of Eyes, Pandemonic Demon of Perspective

Spoiler: Stat-like things

Name: The Wraith of Eyes
Kind (IE, what is this?): Wraith (Pandemonic Supernal Entity)
Rank: 2
Arcana: Mind 2, Space 2, Time 1*
Mana: 15/15
Virtue: Empathy, Vice: Cruelty
Attributes: Strength 0, Dexterity 4 (when it matters, almost never), Stamina 3, Intelligence 5, Wits 4, Resolve 6, Presence 5, Manipulation 7, Composure 6
Size: 5 (or nothing, it's incorporeal normally)
Corpus: 8
Defense: 4
Willpower: 10/10
Speed: 5
Ban: Cannot look through the eyes of any being that is not, and has never been, human. (Spirits, other Supernal Entities, Goetia, etc, etc).
Bane: The touch of a blind man.
Numina:
--Dement: The entity may torture its victim's mind via psychic assault, rolling Manipulation+Rank. This Numen costs one Mana. The activation roll is contested by the victim's Intelligence + Gnosis. If the entity succeeds, the victim suffers an irrational fit, automatically rolling a chance die for any action involving composure, ranting and raving on often-paranoid delusions. This lasts for a scene.
--Superior Hallucination: The Wraith of Eyes may create an illusion experienced by a single target, using its Intelligence+(Rank*2): It can be anything from a sight or sound to an imaginary person who holds a conversation. The Numen costs one Mana and is contested by the victim's Wits + Composure + Gnosis.
--Supernal Sympathy: For all magic involving scrying, in relation to their service, they automatically have a Strong connection to any target whose name they know, and a Connected Sympathy if they are provided with the target's Sympathetic Name. Using this power costs 3 Mana.

*Alternate Rule: 2e notes that it rolls Power+Finesse instead of Gnosis+Arcana, it is altered here to instead be Rank*2+Arcana, because I decided to listen to ES and elminate the whole 'thing' of having Power, Finesse, Resistence or whatnot. Thus a Rank 5 Supernal Entity is rolling a truly absurd set of dice (10+5), because fundamentally it knows its magic better than any Mage, and can do things so impressive that even the strongest Mage might seek them out for aid.
*I'm not really sold on a lot of the mechanical stuff here, note. But it's something for you to use if you want to, or modify if you want to.

Description: The Wraith of Eyes is one of the better known Supernal Wraiths out there, a statement that does not mean that it is frequently talked about, but while traumatic and sometimes dangerous in a mental sense, what it has to offer is often thought to be well worth it, and any library on Pandemonic Entities (Wraiths and Imps) will likely have a book with an entry on the being, and even some libraries that focus on Mastigos interests in general (Mind, Space, the Astral) are likely to have at least something on the being, making researching it far more viable than some more obscure entities.

It appears as a thousand eyes surrounding the summoner, eyes bleeding or weeping pus, but as the trial is passed, these eyes congregate until, for the summoner alone, they see only a single glowing eye almost surrounding them.

It has no physical form, and this itself is a hallucination that only the summoner can see: anyone outside would see merely a blurry, hovering shape, and only then if they use Mage Sight.

It is an understanding but brutal being: its ability to empathize with others is merely a tool for its testing torment, which always seeks to expose the weaknesses and flaws of its targets. For all of that, it has never been known to physically harm anyone, and even its greatest cruelty has not, at least in living memory and record, led to death.

Trial: When it appears, it does not waste its time. Instead it immediately barrages the summoner with its challenge. For the Wraith of Eyes is all about seeing from the eyes and perspectives of others. Using its skill at Mind and Space, it learns as much about the summoner as is possible, and then crafts hallucinations, in part made from memories it has seen, in part from its own empathic understanding of different people. These hallucinations are always tailored to their target.

The secret atheist living in an oppressive theocracy might have a vision of being a heretic burned at the stake: a hypochondriac might find themselves lying in a hospital bed, receiving chemotherapy, or the abuse victim might find themselves suddenly in the shoes of an abuser.

In all cases, they must endure and stand up without backing down--and at any time a person can choose to give up, and the Entity leaves--as the visions get worse, each carefully made to test the summoner.

In mechanical terms, it is an extended Resolve+Composure roll with a goal of five successes. For each roll after the second, they must spend a willpower (not in the roll, though willpower may be spent on it) to continue going on, up to their limit of Resolve+Composure. If they fail a roll, the Entity picks one, resolve or composure, and eliminates it: thus from then on they roll only Composure or Resolve. Failing a second time turns it into a chance die, and failing a third time means that the Wraith of Eyes leaves, often after using Dement as a parting gift.

Services: The service that it is most well known for is its ability to allow you to see through the eyes of anyone, enemy or friend. This 'view' lasts just a few minutes, and is based on what they are doing at the time. Thus summoners often time their summons so that it falls on an important time and place, since it is entirely possible to go through all of that work and the whole trial only to see nothing more than the inside of someone's eyelids or exactly what the Tremere Lich likes to cook for breakfast.

While few seek out other services, the Wraith of Eyes is also very experienced at the nature of minds, and can provide information and analysis both of the summoner and of others that are described, or otherwise conveyed to them (such as through opening one's mind for examination). Its empathy is often bizarre, in that it can understand the motives of mass murderers and explain them just as well as it can explain the motives of a victim, and with a similar level of deep understanding only sometimes clouded--after the trial is done of course--by its malice.

Obscurity and Summoning Guide: The Wraith of Eyes is relatively well known, as was said. One suffers no penalties to searching for basic information about the Wraith in any library that might have any material at all related to Supernal Entities or Mastigos interests, and a +2 to all extended research rolls in a library which covers/includes Pandemonic beings. Research in such an area, or among the memories of those who have successfully summoned the Wraith, can grant a +3 bonus to all research and actions done using Intelligence+Occult in order to prepare the way for the summoning. (As outlined in the 2e corebook, you can remove successes required for summoning by getting successes on an Int+Occult roll to set the stage. I'm pretty sure, however, that this could be altered to fit 1e if you wish.)

Some successful actions that have increased the likelihood of the Wraith of Eyes showing up are listed as follows. Blinding one eye, whether physically, magically, or merely through a patch, for a period of twenty-four hours before the ritual. Keeping ones eyes closed all throughout the summoning ritual, moving only by memory and perhaps one's understanding of Space. Covering the walls of the summoning area with representations of eyes. Removing the eyes of someone and placing them in the center of the ritual circle. Living for one day prior to the ritual as someone else, using Life or Mind magic to get into the perspective of a life drastically different than their normal one has been shown to create nuances of their mind that are reflected in their magic that the Wraith finds interesting. There are of course other ways, recorded in the various grimoires. By doing some combination of these, one can improve the ease by which it is summoned.

******

A/N: This is really rough, and I think the mechanics are probably borked, but I liked the ideas and I think that while it's something of a long list, that the list of actions done as part of the ritual preparations for the summons helps captured how weird Mages should be.

It's something I'd need to work on, but I felt like I might as well release it and see what happens.

 

[The Laurent]

The Laurent's Supernal Shoppe--"Snips" (Sassinnital), Imp of Pandemonium

Spoiler: Character Info

Rank: 5
Arcana: Space 5, Fate 5, Mind 3, Life 3
Attributes: Strength 5, Dexterity 6, Stamina 4, Intelligence: 6, Wits 7, Resolve 6, Presence 5, Manipulation 6, Composure 7

Other information could be provided, but that's what really matters? Its Attributes, its Arcana, and its Rank. Everything else can kinda be inferred if you need it? Like, okay, claws are sharp and dangerous: news at eleven. Don't fuck with a Rank 5 Supernal Entity, News at twelve.

Description: An incredibly powerful and dangerous Imp, it appears as a humanoid entity with red skin, but with a form that seems almost like melted wax. It smells of a dying man: often times a smell that seems oddly familiar to any Mage who has had a loved one who died. At the end of one of its arms is a set of razor-sharp, silvery claws, while the other has a sticky looking mess of yellow-white goop that drips down. It has no clear gender, but many call it a 'he' merely from the lack of breasts, despite also lacking any particularly features of a man anyways.

With these, it can but and cut, editing and changing things at its will, though these claws also serve as a very effective weapon should it be attacked. Called by some an assassin of sorts, and by others the nickname "Snips" he is keen and thoughtful, presenting himself almost as a confidante, willing to help you, but always for just some small price.

Most of all, he seems to love liars, or those who remake themselves or conceal themselves. As such, those who go through great changes in their lives, as well as conmen, thieves, secret heretics and perverts, all find some measure of dark understanding in this being. For similar reasons, it seems to have--if not a soft spot--then at least a fundamental understanding of the Guardians of the Veil, and in fact it does seem to know the Masques by name.

Trial: Once summoned, Snips tends to converse at length with people. Even this itself can lead to dropped tidbits, though it often lies or distorts the truth, sending people down a wild path. If one allows it, one might learn everything there was to know about the going-ons of Antarctic Penguins--for with all of the powers of a Master of Space and none of the limitations, such knowledge is easy for it to gain--and nothing of the grave purposes for which one would summon such a being.

Beyond that, its Trial is relatively simple. It offers a deal, perhaps even multiple deals, using its knowledge of a person's minds and Fate, that would seem to benefit both the Mage and those they care for. These deals are traps, but ones that a Mage who summons Snips without knowing what they're getting into might well believe, for they often require suffering ahead of time, a price that might well be the trial, if they do not realize it is so. Those who do not have special information must roll Intelligence+Occult+Gnosis vs. Snips' Rank+Manipulation to see through its tricks.

A deal, if taken, is honestly given… but meant to be twisted. The love that is created between the Mage and their dear friend becomes obsessive and unhealthy. The good fortune that they wish for their child comes at the expense of their character.

Instead, one must reject all forms of deal-making and use ones own skill at Space to forge and then strengthen to the strongest possible levels a Sympathetic Connection between Mage and Demon. This very connection, far more than ephemeral deals that vanish and turn out to be tricks, is what allows the Mage the right to dare to ask what he asks for.

Services: Many are the things that a Supernal Entity that has Mastered by Space and Fate, and is a Disciple both in Mind and Life. But it is known for two things, in particular.

First, it does know of the Masques, and outsiders seeking knowledge of Guardian ways might carefully plumb its talents, as long as they are aware that it sometimes learns, and intentionally passes on, misinformation. Guardians summoning Snips (which is rather more common, see below) can get practical advice and magical help (including powerful Life spells, Mind alteration, and Sympathetic magic) in the achievement of a particularly difficult Masque for a particularly important task.

Second, sometimes people need a new life. This can be for benign purposes: the alterations to the body of a hopeful trans person with a lot of magical talent, but no skill at Life, and lacking the special attributes of Snips' Space talents, is well within its remit. But this can also be used as a way to escape past obligations, abandoning everything and slipping into a new life.

For while even a Master of Space cannot give a person a Lasting Sympathetic Name. They can change a person's Sympathetic Name, but… at most it can be indefinite, but like any spell it could be unraveled.

Lacking many of the human limitations, Snips can bypass this. Thus, a person may gain a new Sympathetic Name, which many find, for obvious reasons, incredibly useful.

Obscurity and Summoning: The Guardians of the Veil take a special interest in making sure the name and most information about this Imp is at least hard to find. They cannot entirely eliminate knowledge of it, since there are references to the Imp in some Mysterium sources, and the truth is that the Imp, as dangerous as it is, is little threat to the Veil. But it is the sort of knowledge that the average Guardian would prefer was kept locked away deep down, because Liches, Left-Handed Mages, Reapers, Seers… the number of malcontents who can abuse Snips' power is vast: and obviously, a cynical wit might say, they want Snips for themselves alone to be able to abuse.

Which is true, but then monopoly of force is not such a new concept. Thus, finding any real information about it in the average Mage library, even one that might have some small tidbits on it, is a -5 roll, -4 if one is a Mystagogue, for they have some sources that they keep hidden from anyone else, and -2 if it is a library devoted to Imps or Pandemonium. Guardians, of course, take no such penalty, and among some Left-Handed Legacies that dig deep into Space, Fate, or sympathy in general, this knowledge can be passed around in a far less academic and far more rumor-bound sort of system.

Methods one can use to make the summoning more likely to be successful include personally and at randomly strengthening and weakening as many Sympathetic Connections as the Mage has in the day up to the summons, though this can cause havoc in their life. Living a full day in an alternate identity, whether a Masque, a cover identity, or out and passing. Any ritual that abjures or rejects one's Sympathetic Name. Refusing to be addressed by one's Sympathetic Name and weakening sympathetic bonds with any that call you by it. The cutting of hair can be very symbolic, and covering the summoning circle in cut hair is thought to help sometimes. There are other methods outlined, for with such a powerful entity, one might need everything one can get.

******

A/N: And here we have the Imp. I liked the idea that this was one Supernal Entity that to some extent was well-known in certain circles, but basically unknown in others. And I thought that the "Lasting Name" thing was a good way to make a point: that Supernal Entities can do things that even the most powerful Mage Ally cannot. It's really just a "+Infinite Reach" version of a Space 5 spell, the thing that makes Snips such a big deal, but! It's something that's otherwise impossible.

 

[The Laurent]

The Laurent's Supernal Shoppe: Arcadia and its Fae

What is Arcadia? First, what is it not: it is not the place of Changeling: The Lost. I had a longer rant planned, but really it's not useful. We're here to talk about Mage Arcadia here, a place of constantly changing norms. For time wears away all features, and anything can be found here, if it is fated to be found. Rivers and mountains that are there one moment and gone that next, and weather that cannot be controlled or understood. There is only one absolute, and that is the binding power of words. All things pass in time, but a pledged oath remains.

To drag a Fae from Arcadia is to grip on a strand of Fate itself and then tug and demand it, open oneself up and force it onward and onward, until, if the venture is not ill-fated, the Fae arrives.

The Fae of Fate are called the Moira, and they are beings of possibility. They know the course of destiny and their limitless potential means that they are often far more varied than expected, and likely to get the best of their summoner if given the chance. A Moira of Mind might be like a spinx, giving out riddles that reveal the doomed fate of the Mage, while a Moira of Matter might be able to literally stitch a destiny into one's clothing, or might represent the Fate of objects: of things that outlive any person who might wield them, such as Artifacts. The example I will use is Ash, the Moira of Plagues, which teaches Mages about the way that sickness and disease can alter the course of fate, felling Empires that some claimed would last a thousand years in a matter of years: such is fickle fate, and so is the fickle rat.

The Fae of Time are called Anachronisms, and represent that which was, that which is, and that which will be at the same time. They might be represented by extinct animals, some technology that never-was and never-will be, while Anachronisms skilled in Space might be able to travel both anywhere and anywhen. The example Anachronism is the Thawing Glacier, within which is a creature that claims that it existed long before man. Freeing it is dangerous, and yet only then can one gain its knowledge, of that which was buried and frozen, be it ancient treasure of Norse Mages, or cryptic hints of lost civilizations in the mysterious arctic.[1]

[1] This is the world of darkness. You should be as likely to find the Mountains of Madness as you are to find evidence of global warming in the Arctic/Antarctic. There are things buried there, beneath the ice. Watchful, lurking things.

 

[The Laurent]

The Supernal Shoppe: Ash, the Plague Rat, Moira of Fate

Spoiler: Character Sheet

Rank 3

Moira (Fae of Fate)

Fate 3, Life 3, Mind 1, Death 1

Intelligence 6 (and it knows it), Wits 5, Resolve 4, Strength 1, Dexterity 4, Stamina 1, Presence 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 2
Any other details can be improvised by a QM.

Description: When one actually successfully summons the rat, one might not see it at first. It is no bigger than any other rat, though its eyes are dark and strange things, and it can speak in Supernal, though those without such knowledge can also speak to it in the tongue of beasts. This small, black rat possesses great wisdom, though its body is frail and it is no more dangerous in purely physical combat than any other rat.

It is a small thing, but as it teaches, even the smallest of things can topple empires. It speaks of fate, and speaks in stories: for it, the history of the world is not the progression of time that an Anachronism or human might see, but instead an endless tapestry of destinies and possibilities that clashed and created new truths, and so it does not tell one story, but the manifold stories that could be told.

It is a master of talking in metaphor, and given to lecturing, crawling up the arm of a Mage, spouting words as it bites and nibbles.

Trial: When it is summoned, it begins by reading minds to find a few small key details about their life. It then begins to attack the Mage, biting and nibbling, and yet if the Mage tries to crush or kill it, not only does he find it a bad idea, but he has failed the trial. Instead, he must stand and witness its efforts, which invariably sicken (but not with a disease) the Mage, weakening his body and bringing him low.

This is the lesson he must learn: how to endure and how to, more than that, notice, for at the end of the Trial, the rat asks what has been learned, and taxes a Mage on their every word, for there is vanity in this position, vanity well-earned, but vanity which a wise Mage plays to in praising the sagacity of Ash.

Eventually it either grows bored and refuses to speak further, which means that the whole summoning is pointless, or it decides that the Mage has learned the lesson and flattered it enough. In this it is often rather unreliable.

Services: While it cannot teach a mage to create diseases, it can teach them about the possibility of Life magic to heal the sick, and of Fate magic to steer a person towards sickness and towards health. It is an expert on curses, and this knowledge is often very useful. It has a mind especially given to finding the small weaknesses of a person and taking them down with a single well-placed curse.

In addition to this, it has knowledge of the Destinies and Fates that have been ravaged by illness. It will tell--as stories, rather than history, as if it knew these people--the names and deeds of famous people who died of disease, suddenly swept away, as well as of great plagues. This information is often fascinating, yes, but it can also reveal secrets or avenues of study, such as when a Mage asking Ash learned of the fate of a certain Mage who, cursed with a magical illness, fled into the desert, and then into the Shadow. The Mystagogue who learned of this staged an expedition using the clues given and was able to recover a somewhat useful Artifact.

Often, the information is far less amazing, but one sifts through it, and learns what one can learn, for as long as Ash is there, and it is a creature that is happy to spend as long as the Mage can safely allow it.

Summoning/Obscurity: It is a Fae that has been separately discovered and then forgotten a dozen times. During the plague of Justinian and the Black Plague, it was discovered and then lost, providing consolation and information on the Fate of such actions, and yet leaving behind no footprints except references to books lost to time--despite the efforts of the Mystagogues--though not to the memories of some of their Savants.

In the late 19th century it was finally recorded down, having been rediscovered by a Silver Ladder in Russia, and from there, information has spread somewhat slowly, but interest in the being tends to resurge whenever an illness, whether influenza, smallpox, or in a more modern vernacular, HIV, has changed the Fate of the world.

To summon Ash, one can smear the walls of the summoning area with ashes, one can slaughter at least a dozen diseased rats and spread them throughout the chamber. One can also keep on hand a sample of a deadly contagion, as well as objects that are associated with someone who died of a disease: whether it be a used needle, a smallpox blanket, or merely the memento of an uncle who died of a foreign illness. Finally, if the user himself has an illness, whether fatal or normal (such as the flu), this is thought to help encourage the rat to arrive, curious and ready to talk on it.

******

A/N: So here we have a mid-level Supernal Entity. I tried to make one that wouldn't just provide a single service and leave, but one instead that might be subject to a long discourse, and thus one that 'Make the summoning harder so you can keep it around longer' makes sense for, mechanically.

 

[The Laurent]

The Laurent's Supernal Shoppe: Thawing Glacier, Anachronism of Arcadia

Spoiler: Character Sheet

Anachronism, Rank 4

Time 4, Prime 4, Forces 3, Matter 1

The statistics of the actual bound entity can vary wildly, physically. Some are weak and squishy, some are strong and powerful, but a universal is that its Intelligence, at 8, is staggering and overwhelming, and thus even when it is a creature that can and might well rend a person from limb to limb, it acts and moves with beyond-human intellect. Thus, it is not a being called down lightly, and it can often, in its unpredictability, be more dangerous than even some Rank 5 Entities.

Description: A strange Fae indeed, it is a tricky one, and one that claims to be something that many Mages doubt is impossible. It appears as a huge block of ice, within which is a… humanoid, usually, but always non-human creature, one that generally looks alien and yet plausible. The exact appearance does shift and change, but most often it is bipedal, and yet without eyes, though the being claims that it seems things in a different way, through senses that humans do not have.

For that is the controversial and rather strange claim it makes: that it was not always a Fae, and that it is part of a species long ago lost to time and rewritten out of existence, one that came before both man and 'Dragon' alike, and whose ruins could be found in the Antarctic. At least thus far, no evidence has been found of this, though using its instructions, a few strange Artifacts and objects have been found that are claimed to be proof.

Whether it is lying or not[1], the creature within is often dangerous, its talent with Time and Prime great enough to be terrifying if it is unleashed and is hostile. But of course, if one wishes to learn its secrets and use it, one has to break the ice surrounding it, which always seems to be in the act of melting away, only for this to reverse all of a sudden.

[1] This is, obviously, for an ST to decide.

Trial: It takes more than just Forces to melt the ice. If not done in conjunction with a Time spell to accelerate the process, or alternatively to slow the reversal. This itself is hard enough, requiring skill in multiple Arcana, but once it is freed, what comes next depends.

For reasons unknown, it sometimes attacks the Mage, wielding vast fury and power, sometimes even trying to rewrite his whole timeline, other times burning him where he stands. If in danger of being destroyed, it tries to retreat to the puddle of its prison and escape, but if successfully subdued without being killed, it can then be questioned.

And yet, sometimes it dispenses with this, seemingly at random, talking and communicating with the Mage as if there were no risk. It is speculated by some Mages that perhaps it was using its prophetic sense, or some other, alien sixth sense to make some decisions whose logic makes no sense.

Either way, it is certainly an entity that, no matter how much harder it is to summon in the presence of your cabal… definitely would benefit from it.

Services: First, and most obviously, it tells stories of its civilization. These stories at once contradict stories it has told other Mages, and yet shares certain central points: that they were a species in-tune with the Arcana, especially Fate, Time, Prime, and Mind, and that they were there before everything, but were destroyed by some means, and that the Thawing Glacier's status is both involuntary and purposeful of those that so imprisoned it and made it as it (it does not remember or identify by any particular gender) is now. And perhaps always was at the same time, if it is to be believed. Its mad hints often lead to dead ends, or even worse, traps and dangers that seem to have nothing to do with its words, and yet are certainly real.

Sometimes it has led to small hints, and there are many who summon it who continue to search for more information, working towards a breakthrough.

But others summon it for another reason: anything lost or hidden in ice is well-known to the being. Whether it be the treasure of viking mages, buried deep beneath the earth, or the last known words of a Mage lost in the arctic, or even mundane information such as the location of perfectly preserved animal specimens from before the last ice-age.

Summoning/Obscurity: It was discovered relatively recently, all things considered, in the first decade of the 20th century, and in some circles (especially Mystagogues and curious and heterodox seekers of all Orders) it is well known, but in many others it is practically unknown, and if one is searching for information on it and not asking one of the Mages who obsess over it and theorize around its claims, one would have to find a library purely on Anachronisms to have any luck.

Fossils can help, as can chilling the room with dry ice, and it often is drawn to people whose mental state is… uncertain. Something that a friendly Mastigos could surely help them with, if they haven't already got there themselves. Finally, a simple Veil of Moments on the entire area of the summoning tends to help attract it, at times.

******

A/N: And here we have a plot hook, and a really, really dangerous sort of thing to summon… especially since it's still a sin to kill something like this, even if it was coming right for you. It's still a Supernal Being, even when it's being hostile, inscrutable, and bizarre.

 

[The Laurent]

The Laurent's Supernal Shoppe:Stygia and its Shades (Intro)

Stygia, a land of both transformation and stillness. It is death, yes, but it is also Matter, changing endlessly in form: the beings of this Realm, far from cold and unchanging, are instead beings of an end. They are beings of shifting matter and shifting vitality, and to call them down is to starve oneself, or kill another,it is to cut one's arms into bloody ribbons or to visit a place whose nature is painful to one. It is to toss aside one's great wealth, or make from nothing something, and at the end of it all, you summon either a Spectre, a Shade of Death, or an Aperion, a Shade of Matter.

Spectres represent the intangible aspects of death. They might come in the form of a poisonous mist, or the owl that hoots before men die, or the grim reaper, scythe ready at the harvest. They know death and its mysteries more than the average mere mortal understands life, and their forms can range from the fascinating to the grotesque. The Spectre I'm going to be sampling today is Birth-In-Death, a Spectre that represents the conjunction of death and life that can exist in every childbirth. Kind and yet unyielding, her nature forces the Willworker to choose, and yet this choice brings great benefits.

Apeirons represent the change and shifting of matter, and they can be a puddle of mercury or a weathered stone, an old achemist or a strange golem. They can shape matter in ways that might seem impossible, and indeed some have even created Artifacts, seemingly out of nothing at all. The example Apeiron is Aesyscus, the Spirit-Shaper, whose appreciation for artwork is only matched by its ability to turn spirits into stone, freezing the ever-mobile beings into a single form, for the amusement of Mages, or the detriment of the spirits.

******

A/N: So here's another one of the intros.

 

[The Laurent]

The Laurent's Supernal Shoppe: Birth-In-Death, A Spectre of Stygia

Spoiler: Character Sheet

Rank 1

Shade (Specter)

Death 1, Life 1

Description: Birth-In-Death is a low-levely Stygian entity that nonetheless is only sometimes and carefully summoned. She comes in the form of a woman in the middle of childbirth, and can materialize a physical form, which it always does in the case of a summoning.

She appears different each time, but this one fact is true: she is always a heavily pregnant woman in the middle of a child-birth that, if one were to examine her body, was surely fatal. As to her appearance otherwise? Through some means or another her appearance is based on that of the summoner. Perhaps she resembles the summoner's mother, or their wife, or a sibling who is going through or went through a tough pregnancy, or even someone they knew that died in childbirth. Perhaps they resemble the Mage themselves, or a friend or loved one, and if all else fails, it usually at least shares basic physical characteristics that tend to make one define it as part of the 'in-group.'

The woman's age, too, varies, but the facts are simple: she is dying to have this baby, that might well die anyways, and despite this she is… in pain, and yet not furious, not hateful. She displays remarkable wisdom, and acts in a way that many have called motherly, and hers is a kind sort of death… but death it is indeed, and her Trial is highly traumatic.

Trial: Make a choice. And then stand by it against all comers. She cannot be saved, no matter how great the Life magic, and in fact she seems bizarrely resistant to magic in general, spells having a penalty against her. Thus it often falls to all but the most powerful Mages to do the trial by hand… and by tool.

For there is a choice: the Mage must either save the child, or save the mother. In either case, one or the other dies, horribly and bloodily, and it is always and only the Mage that does it, always and only the Mage that makes the choice. And few are the Mages that can fully separate the strange empathy and the physicality of it to tell themselves that it is 'only an Entity' and fewer still are the ones that can do that that Death-In-Life would allow to pass, for those of a low enough Wisdom (far below that of any Mage who hasn't fallen very, very far) find that she scorns them and their goals.

Once the mother is saved, she can be talked to, and if the baby is saved, then the shriveled, grotesque infant, still attached to its mother by the umbilical cord, screams and cries with words that somehow communicate in the voice of Birth-In-Death.

Services:

It is not powerful, in a magical sense. Life 1 and Death 1 are its only spells, and these a Mage has stepped well beyond, though she is very talented with what little magic she has.

Mostly, though, there are two categories of services that people call her for. First, the mundane. She has a knowledge of the human anatomy, childbirth, and pregnancy that outstrips, even to this day, the knowledge of medical doctors, and yet is purely and wholly natural, and thus can be taught: millennia before the first hint of an idea among Sleepers that doctors might pass on postpartum infection, Mages who talked to her could know this and deal with it.

While the mortal tools to put her advice into action have advanced, talking to her is a good crash course for basically any doctor, OBGYN, or midwife, and her range of knowledge extends, albeit somewhat spottily, to caring for and raising a baby, though she confesses no understanding of how to deal with older children, those beyond perhaps one year in age.

Second, for a price, she is willing to aid the Mage in a very special way. The creation of a Supernal Familiar is a very difficult process, and one that often involves investment, time, and careful efforts to summon the right sort of entity, for the right sort of uses.

One can ask her, and through a sacrificial gesture, obtain from her, the right to such a familiar. The sacrifice varies. It might be a memory, it might be a very physical sign for what is going to be created, it could be any number of things, but it has no physical XP cost. If Birth-in-Death is then summoned one or more months later, it has a bouncing baby Supernal Entity to deliver, one whose nature is decided both by Birth-in-Death, the identity and character of the Mage, and the memento they gave her.

It often, but not always, takes the form of an infant or child, and it is relatively loyal, if odd and very drenched in its experiences.

(The Player must pay the normal XP cost, and the entity functions with the same rules and guidelines as a Rank 1 Supernal Familiar, as found in this 1e Merit, and this updated version of the 1e Merit. What the player gains is some control over the nature of the creature, and a source of gaining it, in exchange for a time-limit that one must wait first.

Spoiler: The 1e and 2e (Homebrew) Supernal Companion Merits

Supernal Companion (•••••)
Prerequisite: Awakened
Effect: Smart mages that decide to pursue Supernal summoning magic start by calling up something small that can easily be dealt with, in case something goes wrong. More often than not, the mage sends these minor entities home after a cursory examination, impatient to move on to bigger and better things when she is sure her magic works properly. Other mages find themselves enamored of the creatures that they summon and decide to use such entities as familiars. In addition to the experience points cost of this Merit, which indicates time spent in study learning exactly how to bind a Supernal creature to her, the mage must complete the Supernal summoning ritual to call her new familiar (see p. 68). Binding a Supernal entity requires the mage to spend one dot of Willpower and to reveal her real name to the
creature. Supernal Companions are created using the guidelines shown in Mage: The Awakening on p. 83 for Twilight familiars.

A Supernal Companion spends most of its time in Twilight but can manifest at its master's side by spending a point of Essence (this ability is separate from the single Numen allowed to familiars at creation). In addition to the other benefits gained by a mage for owning a familiar, she can drain up to two Essence from the Supernal Companion for an equal amount of Mana once each day. Note that the process of binding a Supernal entity to oneself in such a manner permits the being to survive indefinitely away from its realm of origin. Forcibly subjecting an unwilling Supernal spirit to the familiar bond (and many of them are, indeed, unwilling to be confined to the material realm), however, is an act of hubris, requiring any mage with a Wisdom of 3 or greater to roll two dice to resist degeneration.

(2e Homebrew Conversion Version, no promise of quality)

Supernal Companion (••• or •••••)
Effect: Your character has helped or forced a lesser being from the Supernal Realms into a state similar to conventional Familiars. While Supernal beings of all stripes do not suffer from Essence Bleed, they normally are limited in how long they can stay out of the Supernal World before the Abyss comes to get them. By transplanting a bit of your soul with your Companion's, and they likewise (though not nearly enough to qualify as a soul stone, and your magic potential remains the same), the bond confuses and wards against the Abyss, and allows the Supernal Entity to exit the Supernal World whenever and as long as it wishes. This essentially makes the Supernal World into the Companion's version of Twilight, allowing it to spend Mana to jump between states of being, and reforming outside a Supernal Verge if killed.

The Companion is treated as a normal Familiar in all aspects. However, it can perceive the Supernal World as well as you do when you activate Mage Sight, and has the experience of a native. A Supernal Companion's expertise gives its bonded mage a bonus on all Scrutiny rolls when examining a Mystery, depending on how close the majority of the Arcana composing it is to the Companion's native Realm and own Arcana. This is +1 if it is the Realm's Common Arcana, and +2 if it is of the Ruling Arcana. A Supernal Entity also adds an additional +1 to Scrutiny rolls made with a given Arcanum if it possesses at least one dot in it.

A three-dot Supernal Companion is Rank 1, while the five-dot version is Rank 2.

Drawback: While there's no shortage of denizens of Supernal Realms eager to explore the world outside theirs, the nature of the Supernal means that the Mage must summon his potential Companion and succeed in its Trial to make the bond. Alternatively, he may contact a higher-ranked Entity such as the Beast Keeper to direct him to such a Companion, with the effort made to enact the summoning being rewarded with an easier bonding process. In addition to the difficulty of acquiring it, a Companion is still vulnerable to Paradox or Dissonance. If slain by either, it reforms as per normal, but its master takes a Paradox Condition that cannot be Scoured, only Resolved in the same manner as normal Paradox Conditions.

Note: Technically, it's also possible to bond a more powerful and/or unwilling Companion using a Prime/Death spell, but beyond being an Act of Hubris against Falliing Wisdom, said beings are not represented by Merits so much as plot hooks.

Summoning/Obscurity: Throughout history, she has been reasonably well known, especially because of the frequent mentions of her in Mage works that have very little to do with Stygia. Many medical works having to do with female fertility and pregnancy mention her, and she has also been mentioned in the religious/mystic tracts of Mages, and overall, while she is not well known in the way that the controversial or particularly dangerous Supernal Entities are, finding out basic information about her isn't all that difficult. Finding extensive information is slightly harder, but any library devoted to Stygia will have an entry on summoning her, and she is also sometimes summoned automatically by any Mage that has the requisite skill at Life.

If the Mage has recently lost a loved one to death after pregnancy, this calls to her. If they are pregnant, this especially calls to her, even more so if they fear death or have reasons to be uncertain and unstable in their choices that brought them there. Barring this, umbilical cords, fetal material, the blood of a woman who died in childbirth, or a large collection of objects obtained or stolen from a baby shower all work for summoning her.

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A/N: And so here's another one that kinda just came to me, and I felt I might as well introduce both a 1e canon Merit and a 2e Homebrew Version of it. Not sure how good the 2e Homebrew, but it's something to work on and work with. Either way, I liked the 'idea' of it I suppose?

So I was a huge fan of old Mage, but I'm thinking about making the switch to new Mage. Anyone who's a fan mind selling me on it?

Click to shrink...

Maybe I'll try sometime.

 

[The Laurent]

The Laurent's Supernal Shoppe: Aesyscus, The Spirit-Shaper, Aperion of Stygia

Spoiler: Character Sheet

Rank 4

Aperion of Stygia

Matter 4, Spirit 4, Fate 2

Intelligence 6, Wits 4, Resolve 5, Strength 2, Dexterity 8, Stamina 6, Presence 4, Manipulation 4, Composure 6

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.

Spoiler: A spell

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.

Freeze the Spirit (Spirit **** + Matter ****)

Practice: Patterning
Primary Factor: Duration
Withstand: Stamina
Suggested Rote Skills: Craft, ???

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.

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A/N: Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Be thankful for Hubris frozen in stone. That totally will never backfire ever.