How do you do The World of Darkness in the happiest places on earth? What's magick like when the sun doesn't set for weeks at a time? How does the Syndicate deal with social democracy? What are trolls really like and what is a well-pisser? Karl Erik Larsen Hoftaniska of the Symposium Podcast answers these questions and more.

Correction! Erik corrected himself to say that the Nordic countries were Social Democracies but the sound for that portion was garbled.

Notes!

• Kurt Anderson's Fantasyland  - Book on how America has always been a little bit crazy
• Scholastic movement
• Sami People - Culture of the way north

Mage things!

• Difficulty of being a necromancer - Every line does it a little differently
• Mage: the Awakening arcana fate vs death
• Werewolf the Forsaken - Chronicles of Darkness game
• Exarchs - Possible big from Mage the Awakening
• A giant discussion of Sorcerer's Crusade
• Valdaerman - Fellowship from Dark Ages: Mage 
• Itarajana - Magickal fellowship
• Spirit-Talkers from Dark Age: Mage
• Gabrielites or the Cabal of Pure Thought, the precursors to the New World Order
• Seiðr - Shamanic sorcery

Other!

• Trollhunter movie - They can smell Christians
• Vices and Virtues - Album by Panic! at the Disco

Creatures!

• Trolls - Not the ones from Changeling
• Elves
• Fossegrim - Water spirit
• Brunnmigi - Well Pisser, yep, that's what they do
• Draugr - Pretty well the same in lore
• Mare or Nightmare - They sit on your chest
  
  

The Council of the Nine Mystick Traditions in response to the nascent Technocracy over 450 years. After nine years of squabbling, the Council sent out the First Cabal to spread the message of the Council and counter the Order of Reason but it fell to betrayal from within. Was Heylel a traitor, savior, or insane? Victor and Terry discuss the rise and fall of the First Cabal in reviewing The Fragile Path: Testaments of the First Cabal, Mage's in-world book on those who were there.

The Fragile Path - The book we're talking about
Sorcerer's Crusade - Historical setting for Mage
The Order of Reason  - Flawed book about the founding of the Order of Reason
Ascension - Where we finally learn the identity of Heylel's twins
Fishmalk - Problematic types of crazy
Further details on Heylel
Further details on Eloine
Further details on Akrites

Motet - French musical form
Worf just getting beaten up

Victor's other work:
Walking Away from Arcadia - The definitive Changeling: The Dreaming Podcast
A Phoenix Rising - a chronicle quickstart built around the reconstruction of the New Horizon Council
The Symposium - a rambly podcast sometimes about Mage

You've introduced vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts, and even changelings into your chronicle, now what? How about a fellow who learned to electrocute people by watching electric eels or if that's too subtle a psychic madman who's gotten their powers from an ancient meteorite? If those sound good, listen to Kris Newton of the MegaDumbCast go through ways to jam the lore, mechanics, and mood of Street Fighter into your Mage chronicle.

Kris's Podcast - MegaDumbCast

Mage is a game of Urban Fantasy in a gothic punk setting and Destiny's Price helps turn a city from merely a backdrop into a character in the story. Adam and Terry discuss how cities and city life has changed in the 25 years since this book came out under the Black Dog Imprint and what has and hasn't aged well regarding drug use, organized crime, and violent crime in the United States.

Mage is a game of infinite possibilities and for some players, at least to start, that's too much. Sebastian Freeman, Onyx Path Contributing Author has written two publications for starting cabals, one Believe in Magick (it's free!) is an introduction for players on the adventures you can have in Mage. The second is The Hallean Effect a first chapter for adventures in Hollow Earth, the realm of conspiracy and pulp fiction.

Sebastian's Work:

Works Including Hollow Earth:

Join our discord server here!

Ascension's Right Hand was all shotguns and robots in dive bars, but maybe some brandy in a high-leather chair while discussion psychic phenomena or an ether frolic after some reading about vampyres*? If this sounds more your speed, get ready for the intrigue, investigation and interior design in Halls of the Arcanum. Adam and Terry guide you through the operations of the Arcanum, a secretive mortal research organization from the London Foundation House house to the lodges dedicated to finding Damcar, secret city of Arabia. Just don't get caught in the war between the White Priests and the Red Priests....that is if there is a war.

*-(Mage the Podcast strongly supports the use of dedicated drivers. Consume responsibly and in accordance with local laws and paradigms)

References!

Year of the Hunter - A year where White Wolf produced mortal or hunter guides for each line.

The Rosicrucians - European esoteric order

Thule Society - German Occultist group

Occult episode

Cheap maps on DriveThruRPG

Call of Cthulhu Chaosium

Lost Continents by L Sprague De Camp

Next up!

Destiny's Price

Mage 2nd Edition

The second and final Gencon interview show, but first some updates on Mage: The Podcast projects!

Duplicity, the Mage the Podcast Twitter Chronicle has finished its 3rd week and you can read it here. Talk to Ira Grace @magestoryteller if you want to get involved or follow the action.

Join the conversation on our Discord Server

Friend of the show Charles Siegel has released Sources of Magick, a supplement which gives you way more than you ever thought you wanted about nodes. 

Mage the Podcast is starting to record instructional audio/video for how to play Mage through winter of 2020.  Stay tuned for more information.

Interview with Victor Kinzer of Walking Away from Arcadia

Interview with Carol Darnell, game editor who's worked on Mage: The Ascension

Hire Carol 

Interview with Matt Webb of Jackalope Live Action Studios

Elysium Chronicles a Jackalope Prestige LARP

Jackalope studios on Facebook

LA by Nights - popular V5 actual play 

Mage: Eclipse. Options on how to advance the Mage metaplot 

"Changelings are the dreams and nightmares of it, werewolves are the anger of the world, and vampires are death. Mages are the Hope of the world."

Mage can be a game about the inner journey towards Ascension through self-perfection.  But someone still needs to take out the garbage...and shoot invading Technocracy cyborgs and mutants while that's happening. Ascension's Right Hand brings to light the unsung heroes of the Ascension War who work side-by-side with mages, knowingly or not to protect, aide, and serve our playing characters. Adam and Terry guide you through consors, acolytes, familiars, and creatures stranger in Ascension's Right Hand. Also, Terry sings briefly.

In the Mage the Podcast World!

Adam's further recommendations: 

Other things we talked about:

The first of two episodes collecting interviews done at Gencon 2019. Josh Heath, the newest member of the MtP team, talks about running Scion, Aeon, and Mage (Gods and Monsters) one shots and advice for your first game convention. After are four short interviews Terry did at Gencon with Nathan Siever of 25 Years of Vampire the Masquerade about their community chronicle, Matt McElroy of DrivethruRPG, Buckle from the Hunter the Vigil liveplay Uncanny Valley and the Geist writer Mike Tomasek. 

Josh Heath

Terry Robinson 

Interview with Nathan Siever 

Interview with Matt McElroy 

Buckle from Uncanny Valley 

Mike Tomasek 

Some factions consider the Ascension War a metaphor for the fight for reality. Others consider the War to be internal. Some factions consider it a full on total war and the New World Order is one of them. Propaganda, manipulation, strategic violence, and sometimes a chaingun are all appropriate focuses in the procedures required to bring about Safety and Security for the Masses. When your enemies are this bad, what methods could possibly go too far? Adam and Terry walk through the Convention book that gave us the SPECTRE limousine, mindscaping, and Room 101, how their tools work, and how to use them in your chronicle.

Get NWO as part of Technocracy Assembled Volume I on DriveThruRPG

Top Secret RPG

Spectre clip "we have people everywhere"

The Prisoner (BBC Series) or on Amazon

Magickal Fiasco (Terry's Mage supplement)

MIB "I make this look good"