/CofD/ &/wodg/ Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness General

It's more like a comparison between the Awakened and a user of the Magic Merits.

One's changing reality, one's using the principles of reality.

They're actually pretty fucking scary. Proximi are weak sauce compared to a Sorcerer.

A Sorcerer can do anything a Mage can do, but it takes them decades to get up to power. Mages get their power fast. For example, all Mummies are Sorcerers and they can do some fucking scary spells at higher levels, such as removing concepts from the universe, turning people into dragons, and binding gods to their wills.

Other than being safe from the 14" razor studded strap-on of paradox what's the major appeal? Besides role-playing of course.

DEEPURY UNNACCEPTABRE!!

seeMost of the Order of Hermes Mages were Sorcerers before Awakening, the Order also has a stupidly high number of Sorcerers. As does the Technocracy. Science is actually based on Sorcery.
Mages make something, the Sorcerers replicate it until it becomes part of the Consensus. That's how the Ascension War has been fought.

As you can imagine, being able to do all the Wizardy stuff in WoD without the backlash of paradox sounds way more fun that sitting around not being able to throw a fireball. Mages can't really do any flashy magic without exploding into sparkles from it, which is why people like Sorcerers.

>Sorcerers before Awakening
Does a Mage retain their ability to perform Sorcery after Awakening?
I would imagine that some Sorcerers would be quite unhappy with the limitations of Magick upon Awakening, and would want to fall back to the security and stability of Sorcery?

Artist is Ben Newman

>Does a Mage retain their ability to perform Sorcery after Awakening?
That's something hinted upon in the Sorcerer book. In 2e WoD, it was you lost all your Sorcery upon Awakening, where you would just get an XP refund for Spheres which would make some scary ass Mages.
In Revised they changed it to either the 2e or you'd keep it. The argument they being that it would make sense that the Order of Hermes would keep teaching it, as would the Technocracy, since you could use it to cover up your True Magick. The community tends to favor the latter.
That being said, a person tends to Awaken before becoming good at Sorcery so it's not a big deal. But sometimes people Awaken as a skilled Sorcerer, which is where the water gets muddy, which is pretty typical for a PC.

Interesting fact to note, no Sphere covers the laws of Sorcery.

The Sons of Ether revised book, I believe, also allows them the ability to take the more Science-y Sorcery Paths (Alchemy, Shape shifting via genetic fuckery, and a few others.).

Has a storyteller's guide come out for 2E mage? I'm trying to figure out how to stat NPC mages.

Right now it's that everyone is expected to become a master in one of their path arcana within 4-5 years of their awakening with further degrees of mastery taking similar amounts of time. Mastery, being the minimum requirement before they can be an active voting member in counsilia politics or taking on students. Second degree masters are rare but not exceptionally like seeing someone with a doctorate. Third degree+ masters are like astronauts or olympic gold medalists rare and influential.

I'm thinking about using a 2/3/4 system going for every mastery you'd have two arcana up to adept, three up to disciple, and four up to apprentice.

Something useful to do was to get the most blatant spells, say fireball, as sorcery spell and throw it like crazy and keep the magick reserved for the other spells.

Yeah they talk about it here and there. The Dreamspeaker book has shit on Spirit Sorcery.

Sadly, most of the Sorcery paths are shit compared to the ones in Sorcery Revised, but the rules for Sorcery Revised are terribly written since they're supposed to be highly editable. Couple that with the fact that they didn't have an editor for the book, so the rules are just flat incompatible between PAGES is a problem.

I'd love to see DaveB take his had at making them. Mage the Awakening feels a lot more like Sorcery++ and he could turn the nob down a bit to make it fit Sorcery perfectly.

What cool shit can I do with spirit magic? I can't wrap my head around it.

You're a spooky pokemon master

There isnt one yet. So its mostly whatever you game need. Personally i mastery of any arcanum is like having a doctorate. And 2nd degree masters are like astronauts. But i prefer low powered games and archmastery is for gurren lagann wankers

Okay, so there's a second level of reality where Spirits live. Some stay there, needing to survive based on conditions which make the area hospitable to them, and others dwell in basically another dimension, and can come across easily at these breaches.#

You can summon, command, awaken, bind, enhance, and bargain with these Spirits.

Even if your GM doesn't want to make a spirit Ecosystem for you to get used to, just use the Summoning spell (Spirit 3) to summon the requisite Spirit to you.
Vampires causing problems? Summon a Fire Spirit.
Need to find a Murderer? Local Murder Spirit will likely be able to feel his Resonance.

Also you can use Twlight to become invisible and intangible, then enchant your axe to hit things regardless

Can I go all anime and awaken the spirit of a weapon to make it more powerful?

Can anyone sum up what is wrong with Genius: The Transgression? It seems like a cool game to me.

No, but you can bind a spirit to it to make it ore powerful

People's brains break and they tap into the Ork field, letting them glue together improbable contraptions with "mania".

Concepts in Ascension that didn't make the cut for Awakening incompetently ported over by butt-hurt autistics.

I don't see anything wrong with that.

Can you be more specific? I haven't read Ascension.

Isn't it that without a space conjunctional a spirit that isn't with sensory range when the spell goes off has to travel to your location? So if you call for an ice spirit in the middle of the sahara you may be waiting a while.

Oh wait, your asked what was wrong.
Okay, well they take that decent concept, and then staple every Gonzo SciFi cliche on to the end, especially the ones that don't make sense.

With lizard people empires, Green Martian invasions, "cyberspace" and so forth. Also unlike every other splat, they see no reason to hide, and have themes woefully out of keeping with most other groups.

Basically I wouldn't mind it so much of they dropped like 95 % of the setting, and didn't have even a single crossover.

>Finned

Are fetishes mechanically different than enhanced/imbued items or do they work the same way? Like what's the difference between a dagger imbued with Control Fire and a dagger with a fire spirit bound to it?

Also I just flicked through the standard Forces spells, is there really no spell to create fire? I could have sworn there was a Firebolt fraying spell.

Here's a World of Darkness play by post Roleplay

gamefaqs.com/boards/2000115-roleplaying-and-fanfiction/74860798

Powered by essence which is significantly easier to get ahold of than mana and not subject to paradox. Downside is it's not as versatile as awakened magic and it still suffers from the spirits ban and bane.

So that fire spirit you bound to a walking stick could make a great flamethrower for torching the vampire controlled business encroaching on your turf but it might not work in the rain and could be destroyed by coming into contact with baking soda.

>gamefaqs

Are people actually trying to argue that sorcerers are somehow the equal of mages?

What's so wrong about gamefaqs? It's got better archiving than Veeky Forums

The spells in the book are only examples. You can create fire with Forces •••••, turn residual energy into fire with Forces ••••, control ambient fire with Forces••, or intensify ambient fire with Forces•

Says the namefag who obviously uses Gamefaqs.

That link doesn't even work, that's how bad it is.

Well you must not have a Gamefaqs account anyways

david please

>Need an account
>Good
Pick one.

Imbued Items cast the imbued spell entirely as it was Imbued.
Enhanced Items contain a constant duration spell.

Fetishes contain a Spirit, and allow you to use its Numina and Influences as you desire. They're also powered by Essence, which is CRAZY easy for a Spirit Mage to get.

I know that the spells in the book aren't the only spells around, I'm just surprised that there isn't any spell to just shoot off fire the same way that Thunderbolt shoots off lightning.

So they're basically better than imbued items. Could any mage use a fetish or would they have to know Spirit? Like if a Thyrsus owed me one could I have him make me a fetish?

Lightning is more thematic and iconic for Forces given the standard symbolism of the Aether, and having two functionally identical/similar spells is a waste of book space, so not that much when you think about it.

Still you can make it yourself with Forces 4. Add in a Reach effect to perhaps set them on fire dealing 1 more Lethal each round until extinguished.

They're quite hard to make, Influences are rarely as powerful as spells, and if you let them accumulate too much Essence they disintegrate. Also some Spirits might take offense at their presence, and a key ingredient is a slumbering Spirit, and getting one of those powerful enough to justify making a Fetish can be a challenge and a half.

Anyone can use a Fetish if they have the know-how, and that'd be as significant a favor as "hey, can you build me an Imbued Item". You're asking him to spend a Willpower Dot to relinquish it safely, which while being like, 1 Experience, is still significant.

Also the crafting will likely incur Paradox. Possibly fairly significant Paradox.

So he'd have to owe me more than one and it might end up not being worth all the trouble. Why is spending a willpower dot significant? Don't you get it back after a full night's sleep? Or does relinquishing it knock down your max willpower capacity by one?

Could you use a familiar as a banner warden for extra spell control?

Since a familiar is considered 'connected' that's potentially an additional 3 spells.

Pretty much. Fetishes are most useful for Spirit Mages, who have powers which synergise with them and their use.

Willpower dot expenditure decreases maximum willpower until you spend 1 Experience to get it back.

Willpower points come back every night.

>Willpower points come back every night.
Or faster than that with Mind, Time, or Life magic.

Familiars can't hold spells, because they don't have Souls.

If you somehow manage to get a Soul INTO your Familiar, that might be a different matter.

But until then. No.

>Implanting extra souls into your Sleepwalker retainer so he can carry more spells for you

They are equal to mages. They just take a hell of a lot longer to reach their power.

I guess Willpower dot expenditure is the only way to really discourage players from making a dozen imbued items. Although Tome of the Mysteries offers some cool alternative relinquishment costs.

Indeed, as will signs of sorcery so start brainstorming ideas for technoarcana.

That's nice. Keep making shit up.

This weekend should be interesting.
The fallout for the players doing all of their 'we attack Pentex with influence and downtimes!' has resulted in huge Influence blocks in town, and a dispatch of Project Twilight to the city because they didn't cover up enough stuff.
And one of them is going to try to dominate/presence up the lead FBI agent on scene (who is essentially the main character from Fringe).

It will be a really long Saturday.

The willingness of your players to make incredibly poor but exciting decisions is never not entertaining.

Glad you enjoy. Sometimes I feel like i'm the only LARPer who comes to the board, or at least the only LARPer who hasn't had the 'hurr durr goth girl sex' LARP experience.

Our staff has also converted some of the TF Valkyrie weapons to LARP stats as Twilight weapons. I feel sorry if that Toreador does not do things well, and if they continue to breach the Masquerade.

...

>I haven't read Sorcerer Revised or Mummy

You gents know of good starter pre-made chronicles for Mage: The Ascension?

I would like to get into the setting seeing as we never ran one and I figure it would be a good starter

Are you really comparing mummies to traditional sorcerers?

oWoD? Where sorcerers are explicitly watered down mages? The Order of Hermes seems to be an authority figure on that fact. Have fun dealing with archmages that can turn off gravity in the entire universe causing every star to go supernova.

An Elder Mummy can beat the shit the fuck out of an Archmage first off.

Secondly, any Sorcerer can learn the same Sorcery. There's literally no cap on power for Sorcery except that it take hundreds of years to get dots above 5.

after being party to this argument, The venerable house of Tremere is starting to make a lot more sense

That's nice headcanon there. Keep dreaming.

Also, we're winding up for the end of the world. Our game ends in November (to be replaced by Apocalypse at the start of 2018). Some things on the docket...
* The Withering will start and will start out slow, with low-Gens being affected throughout as we advance.
* The avatar of Lasombra has one target left in town, not sure if he's going to show up in town again.
* The Sabbat get their final event to determine if they survive to the final night.
* Giovanni/Setites are building the Independent Alliance.
* One lonesome little Premascine Giovanni is trying to fix the fucked up Underworld.
* Our 'Child of Lilith' thin blood 'Malkavian' is ramping up his religiousness and preparing to take control of the Thin-Bloods in LA from Jenna Cross.
* Gangrel Methuselah named Echidna is arming up to deal with Warlord Karsh. No one knows she's actually eliminating anti-Ennoia Gangrel.
* The Nosferatu have been driven out of the city or killed (open for new PCs, but the NPCs are gone) due to Pentex releasing Samsa Mockery Breed cockroach shifters into the city.
* An Archon is coming to the domain soon to assess the fallout of the Tremere blowing themselves up.
* Lots of insanity...

BIG FISH DICK!

tell me about your last Mage story Veeky Forums

was it nWoD or oWoD?

Mummies beating Archmasters? That's funny. Sorcery of any kind is static and by definition HAS a cap. Magick is dynamic and has no limit in potential.

Do mummies have sorcery 7+? If so page number's plz.

I played a Thyrsus homeless man wandering the world with his partner spirits Grandfather Bear, Right Husband and Left Wife. He was a half-Ainu shaman Arrow who was following the trail of a destructive spirit. He ended up with a young Forces Mage as an apprentice. The game didn't go very far after the first four sessions of just establishing stuff though.

An abnormal number of children were being admitted with terminal cancer. Upon inspection we discovered the kids were crudely made 'clones' of the real children.

Turns out the local pylon was given some sort of artifact that could quickly point out the location of sleepwalkers (which in our game setting is more common among children but as kids hit puberty most go back to sleep). Long story short they were turning the kids into grigori at an industrial scale.

Currently we're trying to figure out a way to wreck their fucked up operation.

I assume its nWoD since I have no clue what you are talking about :D

how many players total? Would you like there to be more? Less?

What made you stop with the sessions homeless dude?

Sorcery doesn't go higher than 6 dots. Same goes for werewolf gifts.

Only mage and vampire has a higher standard. And even then archmages (and the more powerful things they can become) will utterly annihilate antediluvians.

Static powers just don't equate to dynamic ones.

What's so cool about OWoD mummies?
Other than the Year of the Scarab being the best year.

All the girls in his art are dtf with the monsters.

It was NWoD Mage the Awakening. I was playing, not running. We had four players. The game fell apart due to a number of scheduling conflicts (work schedules that got moved to third shift, made it difficult to have the game).

trips for victory

bummer man, I h8 when chronos die due to IRL shit

You really want to get into a game, don't you?

aplogies, sincerely. I meant that it is oftenplayed a wacky AND that is makes no sense to get it as a result of trauma.

It happens. I had fun with that mage though. His backstory was he was the son of an American photojournalist father and an Ainu (native Japanese northerner) shaman mother who was an Apostate Mage. He grew up in the Ainu culture until his mother passed away, and he eventually left home as a Kai Chang Kain-esque wanderer ala Kung Fu. He ended up running afoul of a powerful destructive spirit just after he got to the US and followed it all around.

He ended up getting a young, newly-awakened Forces Mage as a combat apprentice and to teach about magic and Mage society. It was an... interesting dynamic, such as our 'wake up' routine which involved attacking him from nowhere in the middle of the night.

Bear had a good run for the short time the game was going, and he was the most murderface mage as he was a master of Life and Spirit, and shapeshifting and buffs were his bag.

that really spurs imaginatinon man. loads of fluff in this one to be sure.
did he meet the bear spirit in the states?

>>implying a rural gook Shaman would accept filthy Yankee seed

not even a Mage can make this happen

The spirits that he was partnered with (he had the Familiar and Additional Familiars Merit) were family spirits that had been familiars of his mother for years, they were part of the culture there.

As for that last part, eh? Whatever floats your boat, dude.

You're forgetting an important fact.

Sorcerers don't suffer Paradox.

>rules for Sorcery Revised are terribly written
I didn't get that from reading it at all. Why do you say it's broken?

The Garou could, back in the Old World....

Why so mad? Your ass is so roasted I can toast marshmellows on you.

I like how you never actually bother to read the books and still think you can convince people of your limp and insipid arguments, Aspel. Eat your own severed dick and fuck off.

A really good adventure to find your feet with was Loom of Fate, if memory serves. It has multiple branching paths, Marauders, Progenitors, secret labs and enough information about San Francisco to run a few games there with some homework, as well as asking bigger questions about destiny and free will.

Failing that, pick up a copy of the book they did for Las Vegas and play some Fear and Loathing in the Ascension War.

Except that Mummies don't get paradox, and they don't need to even get 5 dots in their Hekau paths before they can call down a meteor strike to level a city, or erase a person from existence. Also, they can't die permanently and hold grudges for MILLENIA. Take away the fancy spellcraft and Mages are still mortals.

Don't bother with classic mummy. I much prefer the new one. 2e has yet to arrive.

Tremere was described as a piss poor mage in life. Converting to vampirism boosted his capabilities but blocked him off from true power. Not that he isn't strong.

Calling down meteors from the heavens isn't really that impressive by mage standards, sorry.

Mages don't care how invincible you are. They will lock you down indefinitely and thoroughly study you. Which is arguably worse than death.

Erasing someone from existence is a very mage thing. Mummies are not unique in this manner.

>"Though much is taken, much abides; and though
>We are not now that strength which in old days
>Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
>One equal temper of heroic hearts,
>Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
>To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. "
>--- Lord Tennyson

I never got into Mummy the Resurrection. Point of fact, I fucking hated it for killing off the true, old Mummies. That older game may have had it's flaws, but it was an opportunity to play *true* immortals. It was an amazing metaphor for being old enough to bury your friends and watch the world change beyond recognition, and trying to accept that without sinking into dementia. It had the "spiritual evil" stuff from Werewolf but with a distinctly Egyptian flavour, the underworld from Wraith and you ostensibly got to curbstomp the Setites from Vampire. You lived long enough for sweeping historical campaigns, got to walk a thousand battlefields and live so long you couldn't even remember it all, and hanging over your head was the ultimate horror - that there was no escape from this world. You could lose your Humanity and your mind and become a shambling undead horror, but your life would continue. Forever.

FISHED