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Old 07-26-2016, 02:49 AM   #1
davidtmoore
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Default [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

Okay, thought exercise that may develop into a campaign.

The premise is fairly straightforward: the Earth of the Banestorm setting is the Earth of World of Darkness (original, not reboot), and the Banestorm brought much of our world's weirdness to Yrth with it.

I've got some ideas, but I wanted to shake the forumbrain first.

So some initial thoughts:

Ascension: Yttaria

- There were and are traditions among the Elder Races, some of which have leaked into human society, but not hugely.

- Elven traditions emphasise Life and Prime, and use dance and song and natural cycles (Elven mages tend to have Primordial essences); Dwarven traditions emphasise Matter and Correspondence, and use craftsmanship and patterns (Dwarven mages tend to have Pattern essences); Orcish traditions emphasise Entropy and Forces and favour martial prowess and asceticism (Orcish mages tend to have Dynamic essences).

- The Ascension War is essentially reversed. The magical praxes of the Order of Hermes and the Celestial Chorus are so accepted by the masses that a mage can wave a wand and throw a fireball and still qualify as coincidental. The downside is that traditional mages are very tied down to rotes and foci; they free themselves of foci more gradually, and are at a penalty to cast spontaneous magic.

- Outside their regional homes (the Nomad Lands, etc.), other Traditions - the Verbena, Dreamspeakers, Euthanatoi and so on - lose some paradigm support, but not much. (I envisage a paradigm scale similar to GURPS Mana Levels - Megalos, Caithness and Cardiel are High Paradigm for Hermetic and Celestial mages, but Normal Paradigm for other Traditions, etc.)

- In turn, the Order of Reason are the underdogs. Technomagic is almost always vulgar, Devices are unreliable and vulnerable to Paradox. But they're highly flexible (Technomages basically all have Gadgeteer) and of course have access to TL4 (and some TL5) kit.

So what's happened? Where do the various traditions and cults have power? What about races from other worlds?
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Old 07-26-2016, 04:36 AM   #2
johndallman
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

What's the relationship between WoD magic and the traditional spell magic of Yrth?

I could see WoD magic becoming a "more advanced" form of magic, but that would be more straightforward if the skills and advantages of spell magic were useful in learning WoD magic.
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Old 07-26-2016, 04:57 AM   #3
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
What's the relationship between WoD magic and the traditional spell magic of Yrth?

I could see WoD magic becoming a "more advanced" form of magic, but that would be more straightforward if the skills and advantages of spell magic were useful in learning WoD magic.
Think Realm Magic from Thaumatology.
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Old 07-26-2016, 05:04 AM   #4
johndallman
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Think Realm Magic from Thaumatology.
Ah, I wasn't clear. Yes, Realm Magic is the way to do WoD magic: I was asking about the societal relationship between the magic systems.
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Old 07-26-2016, 06:15 AM   #5
LoneWolf23k
 
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

I think the implication is that Realm Magic rules replace the standard Magic system in this scenario.
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Old 07-26-2016, 06:29 AM   #6
johndallman
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

If so, the Traditions have no major advantage over the existing magicians of Yrth.
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Old 07-26-2016, 07:17 AM   #7
davidtmoore
 
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

I would use standard GURPS spell magic on Yrth (and to represent Sorcery/Thaumaturgy from Earth).

My understanding in Mage is that most of the traditions maintain bodies of traditionally trained sorcerers from which they recruit most of their potential Awakened (the Order of Hermes Tradition Book roughs out the idea some, but I think most of the traditions would have similar). So true Mages get the advantages of versatility and theoretically higher power limits.

True Mages would effectively be the leadership of real-world organisations; most rank and file wizards would effectively be junior members of the Order of Hermes or similar groups.
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Old 07-26-2016, 07:36 AM   #8
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
If so, the Traditions have no major advantage over the existing magicians of Yrth.
Except that the original races of Yrth have their own Realm Magic traditions. I think the implied concept here is to just drop regular Spell Magic and use Realm Magic in its place.

Perhaps instead of Mana Levels, different regions of Yrth have different Gauntlet levels affecting Paradox?
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Old 07-26-2016, 07:42 AM   #9
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

Well, one of the major themes of Old Mage is that reality is majority rule, which...meshes very badly with literally any other system. But to try and be helpful -

The initial banestorm is pulling primarily from 2 closed and non-intersecting paradigms; the European one, composed of a patchwork of regios of the Order of Hermes, Celestial Voices, Verbena, Solificati and Cabal of Pure Thought. The Islamic one, composed of the Ahl-i-Batin, Sahajiya (CoE) and High Guild, possibly with a few Taftani at the margins. There is no paradox - an effect either works or it doesn't. If you're not from one of the local traditions, that's "probably doesn't". The old paradigms probably stabilize along the same lines as the First Earth with no meaningful changes until the second banestorm.

The second banestorm has the Council of Nine and the Order of Reason, paradigms bleeding into each other and the Scourge (Paradox, open beta version; drawing from Mage: the Sorceror's Crusade). It probably kicks the old houses down and forcibly establishes the new order, much like M:tSC.

The big question is whether the established Cabal of Pure Thought and High Guild, even if they conclude they must join forces going forward, accept the new Order of Reason types as equals and valued contributors, or demands their submission. The Cabal in particular is...poorly disposed to secularists. the Hippocratic Circle and Craftmasons are quaint and pointless when healing magic and making and breaking are so widespread. I think the new setting is partly defined by the fact that the Traditionalists receive a reasonably warm welcome and the Order of Reason doesn't. the Artificers, Craftmasons and the like will be given employment offers they can't refuse, not welcome partnership. The Craftmasons may bugger off to the Dwarves and Elves. Dwarf Craftmasons may retain a civil but frosty relationship with the human High Guild.

The second question is how the surviving Solificati react to the news that pride, infernalism and treason ruined them on the First Earth and their few survivors are pariahs or refugees within the Order of Hermes. My suspicion is that they would reject this new Council of Seven (Akashic Siblings, Euthanatoi and Dreamspeakers are going to be so rare they won't be full members) and go their own way.

So the final question is whether the extremely Christian CoPT partner with the secular-muslim High Guild (unlikely, imho), become the eighth member of the Council (also unlikely) or, like the Solificati, insist on going their own way. In the final analysis, I see a High Guild much stronger in the Muslim lands than the Christian opposing a Council of Seven Traditions, with the Solificati and Cabal of Pure Thought functioning as non-aligned spoilers.
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Old 07-26-2016, 06:29 PM   #10
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Ascension: Yttaria

I'd approach it differently, because Yrth history is not Earth history. In particular, the first wave of human settlers on Yrth saw the rise of Megalos. Its founding was roughly 50 years before the Mistridge incident on Earth; and for these purposes, I'd have it spark Yrth's counterpart to the Ascension War — but in this case, it's an alliance of the Order of Hermes and the Cabal of Pure Thought that gets aggressive, attracted by dreams of Megalos' greatness. This alliance isn't as aggressive as the Order of Reason is on Earth; it seeks to conquer rather than exterminate. As such, Yrth's “Ascension War” takes on a somewhat different form, with different alliances.

In addition, mages on Yrth operate out in the open, and their counterpart to the Ascension War folds into the politics of the day. the OoH/CoPT alliance is part and parcel to the Megalan Crusades; and instead of a Council of Nine forming in the 1400s to oppose them, the newly-formed nations of al-Haz and al-Wazif become home to the Web of Faith (on Earth a predecessor to the Council of Nine, consisting of the Ahl-i-Batin, the Taftâni, and factions that would eventually join the Celestial Chorus, the Cult of Ecstasy, the Dreamspeakers, and a Hermetic House) and the Mokteshaf al Nour (an arabian precursor to the Order of Reason). Let those three sects be the primary ones on Yrth, with the remaining Traditions generally ending up as the equivalent of Disparate Crafts hiding on the fringes of the Megalan Empire, if they can't find homes among these three power players.

So, the factions (first draft):

Megalos: Order of Hermes
• House Bonisagus
• House Flambeau
• House Fortunae
• House Quaesitor
• House Solificati
• House Tytalus
• House Ex Miscellanea
Megalan Church: Cabal of Pure Thought
Araterre: Void Seekers
Al-Haz: Mokteshaf al Nour
• Hands of Mercy (medicine)
• Observers of Fate (astronomy/astrology)
• Seekers of Truth (mathematics, alchemy, engineering)
• Riders of the Wind (trade, travel, and navigation)
• Keepers of Law (politics, law, and philosophy)
Al-Wazif: Web of Faith
• Ahl-i-Batin
• Righteous Ghazi (Celestial Chorus)
• Dervish (Cult of Ecstasy)
• Sheikha (Dreamspeakers)
• House of the Crescent Moon (Order of Hermes' House Shaea)
Sahud: Akashic Brotherhood, Dreamspeakers, Verbenae
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