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:

• House of Tremere - Information the historical Tremere
• Clanbook: Tremere - Revised book outlining the hierarchy
• Tradition Book: Order of Hermes - Revised book on the Tradition written in the wake of the Wizards March.

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:

• The Avengers - British espionage TV show
• Get Smart - American spy parody
• James Bond - British secret agent movie series based on books by Ian Flemming
• Gojira - 1954 kaiju film introducing Godzilla 
• The Warmth of Other Suns - Book about the internal Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson 
• Sun Ra - American composer and experimental musician with a cosmic philosophy
• Parliament-Funkadelic - American funk collective headed by George Clinton
• Baader-Meinhof Group - Far left German militant organization about which numerous films were made
• Velvet Underground - American rock band headed by Lou Reed
• The Drowned World - J.G. Ballard book set in an earth rendered largely uninhabitable
• Slaughterhouse-Five - Book by Kurt Vonnegut
• Music: A Subversive History - 2019 book on the cultural importance of music
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Tarantino film set in 1969 LA
• The Prisoner - British avante garde science fiction film
• The Doors (movie) - Film about the music group the Doors through the 60s and 70s
• Malcolm X (movie) - Documentary based on Malcolm X's autobiography
• Standing in the Shadows of Motown - Documentary on the story of the Funk Brothers

Satyros

• Valhalla with a Twist of Lethe - Satyros' book of short fiction
• Satyros Patreon 
• Mage Made Easy - Satyros' guide to simplifying M20

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

Rework of Giant’s Playground by Adam

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

Rusted Icon on Instagram

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

• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - Title says it all
• The Book of the Five Rings - Book on the five elements of proper battle written in about 1643
• Come and See - Movie where actual footage is used to create a creepy and effective anti-war film
• Hardcore History Destroyer of Worlds - Episode on the ramifications of humans having access to nuclear weapons
• Nuclear Shadows - Images left by objects destroyed during the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• The Stranger on the 3rd Floor - Early noir film
• The Asphalt Jungle - Later Noir film
• Blitzed - Book that argues that much of the military success and then failure of the Nazi's could be attributed to amphetamines
  • The Manhattan Project - Book composed mostly of first hand sources discussing the building of nuclear weapons
• Gods and Beasts: The Nazis and the Occult - Again, the title kind of tells you
• Unholy Alliance - Another book on the ties between the Nazis and the occult

Mage sources

• Dragons of the East - Supplement to outline the war and its effects on East Asia
• Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah - Wraith supplement on the war dead
• Virtual Adepts Tradition book - Gives information the VAs during WWII

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

Mage has a history that spans millennia and the entire globe, so how can we explore it in a modern game? Correspondence magick can take a mage anywhere and Time magick can bring a mage to any when but there are options well beyond that. Charles Siegel joins to discuss ways to bring your game to wherever or whenever you want using the tools given across all of the World of Darkness books.

Night-Folk references:

• Temporis - True Brujah power of time manipulation
• Chronos - Changeling power of time manipulation
• House Criamon - House of seers and prophets within the Order of Hermes
• Shade Realm of Time - Realm where moving through it causes you to move through time
• Time Archsphere - Big Time Travel

Books references:

• Infinity Tapestry - Contains Courts that may help with time-appropriate Realms and time travel. 
• Book of Mirrors - Storyteller guide that includes bits on previous time periods.
• Digital Web 2.0 - Lots of Sectors that are restricted creating a type of time travel

Revised created a whole new world for Mage but not everything could fit in the core rulebook. How do I make Charms or Periapts? Who are the Taftani? Can I have more deets on the Avatar Storm? Adam and Terry talk what you need to know and what you can skip in the Mage Storytellers Companion.

Books mentioned in the intro:

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials - Illustrations created for various non-Earth species

Barlowe's Inferno - Illustrations of what a hell could look like with few touchstones to Christian thought

Next up: Bitter Road

Today we tackle two vital questions: How could you make a Mage the Ascension video game and how would go about dating an archmage. Kris Newton of the MegaDumbCast joins to help tackle these questions and more. Also, Kris gives us some tips on how to steal things from Palladium's over-the-top trenchcoat horror classic Beyond the Supernatural.  

• MegaDumbCast on Twitter
• MegaDumbCast on Podbean
• Beyond the Supernatural, MegaDumbCast's current project
• Masters of the Art - Archmage Book!
• Masters of the Art episode - Mage the Podcast talking about archmages

Mage Revised is often called a seismic shift in the world of the Awakened with a directionless Technocracy, confused Nephandi, and shattered Traditions but what really changed? Adam and Terry walk you through the lore, tone, theme, and rules changes for the book that set the stage for everything to come until Ascension.

Wayne Peacock Letter - A letter from one of the early playtesters for Mage of the new system.

Revised Storyteller vs Revised Edition - Revised can me two things in World of Darkness. This explains the difference.

Next book: Storyteller Companion - Everything that couldn't fit into the core book.