What games did you play in 2020, and more importantly, what hacks, mechanics, settings, and ideas can we take from them to bring into Mage? Mike from Darker Days Radio talks Sanity from Call of Cthulhu, quick stats from the Pip system, focus from Soulbound, and more as we review the games we played in 2020.

Games mentioned

Podcasts mentioned

A bonus episode to go with our episode on Dragons of the East.  

Adam Simpson offers some ideas for bringing East Asia into your Mage Chronicles.

Seven Branch Sword

Books

Dragons of the East vastly expands Mage Revised’s territory by outlining the Awakened world in large parts of East Asia. Adam and Terry review the major points like the mysterious new groups ranging across Mongolia’s steppes to the dense forests of Vietnam and an ancient conspiracy of the Dalou’laoshi that lurks in the edge of the Technocracy....maybe.

Notes

For over twelves centuries the Order of Hermes has pushed will as the key of magick, where do they stand in the 21st century? Stephen Michael DiPesa authored Tradition Book: Order of Hermes and Blood Treachery and shares where he thinks the Hermetics would be today.

Stephen's written for a number of other games and White Wolf lines and shares his experiences as an RPG writer.

WoD Books:

The Order of Hermes is cut off from the Horizon Realms that form the basis of its power and struggling to find its footing after realizing they can no longer destroy the Technocracy. What's a Tradition to do? Decvlare war on the Tremere to try and get their stuff back! Blood Treachery advances the Revised metaplot with a bang weaving a tale of magick, blood, hubris, and guncotton in an exploration of what the Order has become but might yet be.  Adam and Terry walk through what's changed from the Hermetic magick that makes your blood explosive to the new Astral Courts and the revelations as to the true reason Mistridge fell.

This book: Blood Treachery

Next book: Dragons of the East

Others references:

JFK was just been inaugurated as president, Patrice Lumumba is assassinated the Berlin Wall is built, Elvis returns, Motown is founded, and the Cold War is in full-swing but what's going on in the Awakened world? Mage Developer Satyros Phil Brucato walks through ideas in using the 1960s as a chronicle setting, how it's informed by what came before, and how it sets the stage for our modern Ascension War.

References:

Satyros

With the master's gone, how is an Adept to achieve Mastery? By learning the secrets of the ancients through a mix of cultural outreach and maybe a little grave-robbing.  Dead Magic explores the magic of the cradle of humanity, the ruins of Babylon, the forbidding tracts of North American of Arctic, and the visceral practices of Greece. Adam and Terry tour through the ruins of past magick and give recommendations on how to bring the contents into your game. Warning! This is a Black Dog Game Factory supplement and is a bit more gorey and bad-touchy than most Mage books.

This book: Dead Magic

Next book: Blood Treachery

Shaping up the Giant’s Playground should remain within Revised Edition’s parameters of keeping things on Earth so no portals to the Umbra or Horizon Realms.  Making it mystically interesting goes against Revised Edition’s rich character development but I swear I’m going to print some T shirts with the message “Rage Against the Rich Character Development”.  Yes, this is a reference to page 81 of The Bitter Road.

The Giant’s Playground is a popular destination for visitors to Namibia although very few suspect its true significance.  Mages who venture beyond the most popular rock formations and explore the interior will eventually reach a point where their mystic senses are aroused (Awareness + Perception or Wits, diff 6).  Those who score 3 or more successes get a sense that space is stretched and wound differently than normal.  Those with less successes get a feeling the place is special somehow and are free to try their first level Sphere senses.  Those who botch become convinced someone has set a trap for the Awakened and will want to leave.

The first level of Correspondence is enough to let mages perceive an entrance to the Playground’s true interior.  The first level of Spirit should also be enough to let a mage open their senses to the spirits of the land who will guide the mage to the entrance.  Once inside the true Giant’s Playground the visitors disappear from the view of aerial observers and Sleepers.  The old, squarish rocks loom higher and closer as the visitors walk and form a labyrinth.  Visitors will need an excellent sense of direction or the favor of the local rock spirits to find their way out safely.  Correspondence magic is more difficult to use here, as if normal notions of space, volume and distance don’t apply.

There is a palpable sense of power here.  Old designs scratched into the stones hint at forgotten rituals.  Those with Spirit magic will find it markedly easier to communicate with rock spirits here (Axis Mundi pg. 122).

Some passages of the labyrinth, always open to the sky, lead to chambers that surround low, flat rocks roughly 10 feet in diameter.  It isn’t hard to imagine the mages of long ago conducting rites here but information on what was done or who did it is lost to time.  All Sphere magic used to scry here is blocked.  The mage sees an image of an enigmatic stone idol.

Members of the Ngoma claim the site is sacred and forbid others to visit.  However, they do not guard it or interfere with anyone who has visited.  The members of the Mad Zimbabwe sect of the Euthanatos will not speak of it at all.

Rusted Icon is the licensed provider of World of Darkness glassware, badges, decals, and LARP tools other neat stuff including a full line of Mage Sphere glasses, and Tradition and Convention decals.  Khris talks about running a small business, working with White Wolf, and his love of roleplaying. Between now and December 1st, use the code 'MTP20' to get 20% off of your entire order.

Rusted Icon's web page

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World War II stands as a pivotal and maybe the pivotal event in the 20th century, but how did it change the Awakened world? Matthew Webb of Jackalope Live Action Studios talks through the war and post-war period from the war within the Technocracy, the split in the Traditions, the fallout for the Crafts, to how it set up the revolutions of the 60s.

Media Mentioned

Mage sources

In the wake of the Avatar Storm, Mage Revised refocused on earthly chronicles. What kind of games can you run there? How do you set a game at a college or office park? What's does Node 4 mean when your chantry is mobile? The Bitter Road sets up the world of Revised and gives a dozen ways to run games in it. Adam and Terry share the best and worst parts.

This book: The Bitter Road

Next book: Dead Magic