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Old 09-13-2017, 05:20 PM   #62
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: my new campaign ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
The Nephandi aren't part of an good versus evil conflict, they are part of the same trinity that runs through the whole WoD. Technomancers belong to the Weaver, the Marauders to the Wild, and the Nephandi to the Wyrm. It's order/creation/entropy. The Traditions (including Euthanatos) are the synthetic faction (which most of the default PC factions in the WoD are). If the Nephandi seem mad, it is because they are, the Wyrm is sick and the cosmos is out of balance.
(a) I've always ignored that stuff because it doesn't make any sense to me. It certainly doesn't seem to be integrated into Mage: The Ascension in any meaningful way. Maybe if I'd come in via Werewolf: The Apocalypse it would be different, but really, though I've read that game more than once, I've never gotten an intuitive grasp of it, and I don't think I could ever run it.

(b) The Euthanatos are specifically defined as the Tradition whose Sphere is Entropy. If the Wyrm is Entropy than doesn't that make the Euthanatos devotees of the Wyrm, and no different from the Nephandi?

(c) Or, conversely, if Entropy is a necessary part of the whole, then shouldn't the Nephandi be capable of being portrayed as doing something basically good, but taken too far? I mean, the Technocracy give us natural science and engineering and medicine and economic growth and a bunch of other really good things. The Marauders at least embody radical individualism and refusal to submit. What do the Nephandi give us?

(d) If the Nephandi aren't part of any good vs. evil conflict, then why are they such a perfect fit to our cultural models of evil? The statement "The Fallen Ones are not merely evil -- they are corruption incarnate" (Mage 2nd p. 54) seems pretty clear. If what you say is accurate then WW seems to have been sending mixed messages.
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Last edited by whswhs; 09-13-2017 at 05:25 PM.
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