Ascension's Landscape Setting Refinements and Story Hooks for Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition

Sample file Terry Robinson Credits Special Thanks to: Written By: Terry Robinson Chazz Kellner of the The Story Told podcast for bringing Developed By: Terry Robinson a non-fanboy perspective. Chazz’s continual reminder to answer the question “how does this affect the game” Cover Illustration: Image by Виктория Бородинова from helped turn what was originally a philosophical treatise Pixabay, additional photos Peter H, Iván Tamás, WikiIm- into something much more usable. ages, TheDigitalArtist, Angela Yuriko Smith Charles Siegel for Charles’ encyclopedic knowledge of the Edited By: Terry Robinson lore of Mage and consideration of some of the corners I Opening Poem By: Logan Rollins failed to inspect. Contact me: @terryrobinson on Twitter, phillycuriosity on the Travis Legge for reminding us that if you put your back into Onyx Path forums, or terry.r.robinson at gmail dot com. it, you can make something pretty good. Find an error? Contact me! If I release an update and I agree Josh Heath for commentary and feedback. that the purported error is indeed an error, I’ll make the Joseph Aleo and Adam Simpson of Mage: The Podcast for change and credit you here. encouraging me to put my fingerprint on the community. Satyros Phil Brucato for carrying a very heavy football a very Honored Rolll of Those Who Pointed Out Mistakes: long distance for a very long time. Stefan Carton, Brad Meng, John “Puppetcancer” Beckwith The users of Mage: The Podcast’s Discord Server for helping me with strange questions. Edition: 31 May 2020 The listeners of Mage: The Podcast for being a wonderful community. Authors have been driven from Mage due to the toxicity of some of the fans. I’ve yet to encounter any of them as listeners to the show. I hope this streak continues.

Piracy Notice: I started reading Mage books in 8th grade when I think I had a $4.00 allowance. Saving for a copy of Traditions Gathered took a month and the Revised Core Rulebook was a birthday present. I totally get not having the means to pay for a game book especially when so many other needs demand our resources. I'll gladly give a free copy to anyone who sends me a note and simply says "I don't have the means to pay for this". No questions asked.

FEEEEEEEDBAAAAAAAAACK: If you found an error a type and want to tell me, Click here to submit feedback! ( or navigate to: bit.ly/ascensionslandscapefeedback)

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3 Ascension's Landscape Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction 5 Chapter Two: Through a Setting, Darkly 9 Chapter Three: Queries 23 Chapter Four: Putting It All Together 53

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4 Sample file Chapter One: Why this book?

Someone convinced you to storytell Mage? — Every Mage Storyteller, while drinking Two of Dynamism Associations for the tarot card: difficult choices, indecision, stale- mate Mage: the Ascension is a game about human ambition magnified a thousand- fold by the ability to directly shape reality via true magick. Mages function in societies both magical and mundane and operate in a world shaped by forces both natural and supernatural. So what happens to a world that is otherwise mundane and suddenly magick, , or the War of Rage is introduced? That world shouldn’t be the same as ours. Once you’ve established as a Storyteller that there will be mages, how does the world differ if 1 in 100,000 mortals Awakens versus 1 in 5,000,000? This book tries to answer those kinds of questions. I never liked the default setting of Dungeons and Dragons because in a world where magic was essentially free, why hadn’t magic been mobilized to build great civilizations? Not like “ooh a castle” great, but “continents in the sky” great. Why were people toiling in fields when a single class of wizards casting Create Food could free up society to be artisans and scholars? If crystal balls existed, why weren’t there crystal ball telecommunications networks? The World of Darkness is urban fantasy and with a little planning it’s possible to build a world that won’t fall apart quite so easily under inspection. Good science fiction or fantasy will address how even subtle changes in a world lead to wildly different outcomes. Mage partly de- mands a Storyteller ask “if magick exists, why is the world so similar?” andSample “why hasn’t the World of Darkness fallen apart?” and this book file guides tables through answering those questions. The first step to changing the world is realizing that it can be

6 changed and this book hopes to give Storytellers an idea of as- Storyteller find an interesting event or idea to include, there’s sumptions that can be modified and how those modifications usually a way to get there. then change their world. The central thesis of this book is that by exploring how Names and Such a game setting works and the assumptions that underlie it, a The book is littered with names, factions, and organizations Storyteller can find interesting and unconsidered opportunities with no prior existence in Mage. These are provided to help for stories. A secondary thesis is that Mage players generally breathe life into the text and are strictly ornamental. Storytellers enjoy thinking about cosmological what-if scenarios and may should change the names in any story hook or chronicle idea find the mental exercise of adjusting the knobs of the world if it doesn’t suit their Chronicle and sensibilities. NPC names to be fun in its own right. were created using liberal use of random name generators. If a name is offensive or improperly formed like listing an obvious A world of darkness and The World of familial name first in a culture that generally lists familial name Darkness second, please contact the author. When used, The World of Darkness (capitalized) refers to the setting of Mage as delivered across most of the books of the line. This is considered the canon setting as well as all variants directly supported by Mage’s text such as through the Future Fates sidebars included throughout M20 and subsequent books. A world of darkness (not capitalized), is a variant and may depart from canon. The World of Darkness has a Council, the Technocracy, the Nephandi and such where a world of darkness may forego one of these factions with the Council possibly scattered or the Disparate Alliance taking center stage. A world of darkness will still share some theme or mood ele- ments with The World of Darkness otherwise a table is just using Mage for mechanics which may be somewhere between nostalgia and masochism. Chronicle Ideas and Story Hooks Throughout the book, small sections labeled Chronicle Ideas and Story Hooks are listed. Chronicle ideas in general require something to be present from the beginning of play. If a chronicle idea depends on the characters being part of The Shattered Union, a collective of Anti-Nephandi agents that exist after the Technocracy was destroyed in the Mass Layoffs of the late 2000s, that organization needs to exist in chronicle before characters can be a part of it. Players should buy into the chronicle idea before the world is set up, otherwise Storyteller and player expectations may not align. Sometimes a chronicle idea requires a specific event having happened such as a spe- cific state being an autocracy or a fictitious war having been waged. If the event is big, such as the Technocratic Civil War, the , the Greylocke Incident or what have you, the characters should already be familiar with it even if the players are not yet. A Storyteller should provide appropri- ate background notes or be ready to explain what a character would reasonably know about an important event. Story hooks require less to be built into a game like “char- acters are asked by a cabal ally to help kill a mad Archmaster before they become a Marauder so their Avatar can be freed”. A chronicle idea can often be used as a story hook with some workSample and vice versa. Maybe the characters aren’t members file of The Shattered Union but are asked to join it regardless of their existing status as Disparates or Traditionalists. Should a

7 Ascension's Landscape What This Book Includes read such a book, the author has no intention on writing one. Chapter 1 - Through a Setting, Darkly outlines ways in System changes to support the narrative changes are also which a given world of darkness can be dark. This chapter sets not presented. While this would be a logical next step, it's a out the foundational questions that will determine the mood bit beyond scope for a text that started out as a 10,000 word and theme for a chronicle. pamphlet and has since grown to a 30,000 word small book. Chapter 2 - The Questions goes through questions orga- nized by type on considerations a table may wish to answer But What About... before starting. These questions provide detail and landmarks This book presents what the author thought was a set of in a world of darkness and describe options for how the tradi- core questions about the World of Darkness setting as well as tional factions in the Ascension War behave. specific questions about the world of Mage: the Ascension. Some questions were dumped as being too picayune such as Chapter 3 - Putting It All Together gives sample worlds "how common are Umbral Realms" and "how common are created from a few starting assumptions along with plot ideas Talismans and Devices". The definition of "too specific" is that come from these worlds. somewhat idiosyncratic as questions like "what is the nature What This Book Does Not Include of scientific discovery" are included which some may dismiss as pointless to include. But, such is the tyrannical power of Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has done the author on a community-content portal. very little to advance a canon metaplot and has continued to use the Future Fates sections first introduced in Sorcerer's Crusade. This book doesn't create new forward-looking metaplot nor are the options presented necessarily aligned with the Future Fates options presented in M20. This book also is not a Mage version of Shards of the Ex- alted Dream or Chronicles of Darkness: Mirrors. This book assumes the world is or at least at some point was similar to the gothic/punk setting of the Classic World of Darkness books. There's no conjecture as to how to move the game into deep space, a fantasy realm, or another place that doesn't look like a somewhat contemporary earth. While the author would love to

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8 I will find you again. Spirit of my heart And cadence of my soul On that forgotten horizon Seen so long ago

What paths did you choose To bring your heart to mine What doors did I close to lose you?

They say it was Whispers And the long forgotten paths That betrayed our sacred bond. Deed and choice are similar; And fate can clash with destiny On the shores of yesterday.

Winds of loss push us ever down a road And that which we call magic is but Will A will that sees us through the brightest night and darkest day A will that builds a haven to call a home Sample file

9 Ascension's Landscape Chapter Two: Through a Setting, Darkly

Why is it The World of Darkness?

The World of Darkness is billed as a dark satire of the cutting edge with access to the equivalent of 90s era computers real world. It’s sufficiently similar that readers expect it to in terms of power. Maybe mobile phones are significantly less behave in understandable ways based on their experiences in ubiquitous or everyone just has flip phones. Plane flight may reality, that is once one ignores the supernatural elements. be a rare luxury requiring mystickal means of travel more often. Players can assume that roads are traversable, convenience Differences propagate and can eventually create a world very stores operate normally in most developed places, and the different than the reality outside the game for most material police will be called if automatic gunfire occurs in most cities considerations. “Society has as much material wealth as dur- and towns. If everything in the World of Darkness is basically ing the 80s” is probably not what most people think of when the same as in the real world but darker, why care about the they think World of Darkness (unless the game in question causes of the darkness? Because knowing helps build a world is set in the 80s). that makes sense and helps makes obvious the stories that can Maybe the rich and powerful in the World of Darkness are happen in it. As an example, what would make wealth darker even more rich and powerful than in the real world. But how in a world of darkness? does a Sleeper keep their billions in a world with the Dominate Discipline, the Mind Sphere, the Arts of Chicanery and Sov- Darker Wealth Traditionally, the dark in World of Darkness suggests that day to day life is in some way worse for the majority of people but what is this worse? Is the world simply poorer in terms of money and resources? If so, even small differences in economic growth will compound and make a world much different than the world outside the game. For instance, if the World of Darkness grew 1% slower economically than the real world since 1945, the average global citizen would have about half as much money. For the average American, this Samplewould mean families having likely no more than one car, file smaller houses, fewer conveniences, a less varied diet, and less advanced home goods. The Virtual Adepts may be considered

10 ereign, the Lore of Humanity and Radiance and any number big bad event, their characters will know about it. If the change of other mind influencing powers? Maybe the megawealthy are is a general difference in mood, they’ll need to roleplay it. largely supernaturals with some resistance or are mortals with Eventually, though, differences will accumulate causing Iron Will. Maybe the 0.01% are not just economically vampiric reality and a given world of darkness to differ great. This di- but actual Embraced vampires. Maybe every billionaire employs vergence may take decades of in-game time but a Storyteller some sort of service to not fall victim to supernatural influence, should remember that small changes accumulate. Anyone who’s such as Syndicate-provided “meditation aides” or Progenitor visited the pedestrian-friendly Time Square of recent history nootropics that help keep the mind clear. Billionaires could won’t recognize the trash-strewn porn haven of the Time Square all employ other protective services that are fronts for linear accurately (for the time) presented in Bonfire of the Vanities. mages, vampires, demons, or even the amulet makers of the Simple interventions like changes in policing, shifting crime Kher-minu as a check against mental intrusion. Answering the rates, and removing a lot of lead from everything transformed question of “so how do the wealthy keep their wealth against squalor to a nearly pristine tourist trap. an onslaught of Night-Folk?” provides interesting answers that The larger the difference between a world of darkness can be used in a chronicle. What happens when the Syndicate and the reality outside the game the quicker the two will likely withdraws support, the linear mages go on strike, or the Kher- diverge unless something is present to make them look simi- minu return to the Web of Faith? There could be vast wealth lar. A world with twice the violent crime rate will have lots of up for grabs to the less scrupulous and that can spell plot. knock on effects in terms of focusing on security and bodily Supernaturals protecting against supernaturals answers one safety and a chronicle with higher crime rates should shift to setting question of “so where does everyone get their money reflect it. As crime rises, insurance is harder to get or more from?” Some tables enjoy the game of balancing a mage’s day expensive and shops are better protected. Fewer businesses job with their role as a member of the Awakened but not all do. open and store hours tend to shorten. Chronicles involving Mages doing periodic high-paying jobs to interdict meddling breaking and entering to get supplies should involve higher forces provides both money for characters and stories for players. difficulties to reflect better security systems or maybe the Lar- “Inequality darkness” may not suit your tastes and may ceny, Streetwise, or other appropriate Ability is scaled. Maybe be simplistic. Similarly, a world of darkness where people are a novice in this world of darkness would be an adept thief in simply meaner and more callous presents certain problems. If a less locked-down world. everyone is simply meaner, characters fighting for peace may There’s a draw to simply double a given indicator of bad- just be out of place. Base-line changes to human nature can ness but this can be extreme. Homicide rates in the US in the be difficult to implement globally. If you choose to up some 90s were close to where they are currently in Afghanistan and negative human character trait, provide a world justification. doubling current rates in the US would make it as dangerous Do the constant machinations of the Wyrm make everyone just as Mali or Uganda. Small changes accumulate to big changes a bit more violent? Does the influence of changelings produce and big changes accumulate to seismic changes. more artists? Are vampires behind some global conspiracies Before picking the causes of a world being dark, consider shrouded from mortals? Are mortals simply idiots? the themes that will be explored as well as the preferences of the A world of darkness may be an iron meritocracy ruled by play group. Players in college towns in areas where the manu- a self-perpetuating elite. Those in charge are in charge because facturing base has been hollowed out may have no interest in they’re more capable but only due to an accumulation of ad- going in a world that is like theirs but worse. Players may lean vantages over their lifetime where most others would do just into a certain type of darkness because they wish to fix it. If you as well. Another world of darkness may be dark due to radical players are Robin Hood types, exaggerated inequality makes populism or paranoia or a failed socialist putsch that leaves sense and chronicle focuses should be agreed on ahead of time. millions cynical and yet more paranoid. What counts as dark Not all interpretations of darkness need to be grungy and is each table’s call but an explanation may help shape a game. overtly dangerous. Dark can also mean that which isn’t revealed Questions of mood and atmosphere are fundamental enough more so than that which is simply bad. There are many ways that Storyteller’s may wish to brainstorm with players. If it’s a to get darkness in a world that is still recognizable. Types of Darkness

Warning! This section at times isn’t a happy one. Vio- Many of these darknesses already exist in the real world lence, property crime, death, suicide and other causes of and to say otherwise would be either callous or naive. But lossSample are discussed. While it’s often in clinical terms, if the within a world of darkness, thesefile forces may be ramped up reader would rather not consider these specifics, consider considerably. Wealth inequality in the US has risen since the skipping sections. recent minimum in 1970 but it is still below the 20th century

11 Ascension's Landscape maximum in the early 1930s. A given world of darkness may businesses for most buyers and chain stores with low operating reflect an equal wealth distribution as the 30s with Great margins become more common. The economy may be more Depression-like characteristics of starving masses ignored by volatile with more booms and busts and people may be more the wealthy in country estates or high above in skyscrapers. likely to hoard cash and resources leaving less available in the The causes of darkness are so important in defining a game open markets. Maybe heavy regulation has led many businesses world that players should have a good idea of why a world of and economic transactions to work in an underground economy darkness is darker than their world. Sharing what brings dark- where there is no recourse to the police or law enforcement. ness to the world explicitly before a chronicle starts can help Chronicle Idea: Characters are “Distributionists”, mages who players visualize the world and figure out what appropriate target supernatural entities that have accumulated wealth and backgrounds and builds would be during character creation. Just put it back out into the hands of Sleepers. This may involve as important is indicating what aspects are likely changeable. returning artifacts that sorcerers have accumulated, Characters may wish to right global wrongs and the world- loosening up the pockets of Pentax’s bane-infested executives, building discussion should answer whether that is possible. and releasing a miser wraith who’s gold stash is a fetter for them. If creativity is gone because an Incarna of Inspiration is dying or imprisoned, characters may wish to fix that. If creativity is Chronicle Idea: The Children of Desolation in the Stockyard gone due to a kind of bleak despair, that may prove harder for neighborhood of Cleveland are tired of living hand to mouth characters to tackle except for maybe in small areas. when they have magick at their disposal. Players choose a Many worlds will have a mix of factors making them dark questionable venture they wish to run to make money and the but here they are discussed individually. chronicle tracks their trip to the lap of luxury and the difficulties they’ll encounter. Characters may run an Entropy-influenced underground casino or may use Time and Data to predict Economic/Power Inequality market movements...or Matter and Forces to cause them. As The rich and corrupt are exceptionally more so and no characters acquire Resources they may also acquire hangers counterbalancing forces exist. Class is more rigid or getting on and others looking to get a part of the action. Players may ahead requires being more ruthless. At some point, unless a choose to lean into luxury and possible temptation or spread world of darkness is actually richer in terms of expenditure, the their model of Awakened success to other areas. standard of living of everyone outside of the elite goes down. Houses become smaller or more run down or dwellings are Story Hook: A new housing development opens in a cleaned more commonly shared. Less spending money results in fewer

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12 up Superfund site and the occupants all seem to be normal are employed in security operations or more hard-line police happy families...which are exceedingly rare in this world of tactics are accepted or kickbacks to focus on particular areas darkness. Most of the inhabitants appear to have low paying increases. Blackbag operations and abductions become harder jobs and the companies that purportedly built the housing if everyone is armed and the police operate at high readiness. don’t seem to exist. Six times a year, all of the houses seem The tools of violence also become more prevalent whether on empty for one night. the open or hidden market. Violence chews up resources that could go elsewhere in a society. Story Hook: A popular politician advocating redistributive policies appears to have a heart attack during a campaign speech and If a Storyteller doesn’t wish for a world with more inter- a recording surfaces of an audience member making strange personal violence, deaths of despair from alcohol, drug abuse, hand motions and then leaving moments before the incident. and suicide may be more common. The population of Russia dropped by approximately five million people between 1992 Story Hook: A reclusive billionaire has created a grant to and 2008 due to a sudden drop in birth rates and higher death revitalize poor neighborhoods and is offering an additional rates from non-violent causes like drug abuse and suicide. $20 million to build “places of public reflection”. This could Storytelling a world where more people have simply given up be an opportunity for a cabal to protect/redirect/promote ley can be exceptionally dispiriting but provide opportunities for lines, protect Nodes, and serve a reality zone friendly to their a cabal to provide hope. paradigm and for other factions to try to do the same. The cabal A world with more death and violence has a different feel can use whatever means they find reasonable to get their plan to it. At very high levels, fatalism tends to set in and people in approved but may be willing to go much further when they violent areas tends to view their lives as not in their control. A find out others have darker plans for the funds. world with more death and violence in it allows for characters to enact more death and violence without consequence from Violence and Destruction the state but with a higher expectation of people taking justice The world is a more violent place with people being flat out into their own hands. If your goal is to create an environment more likely to die at the hands of others. Adjusting the violence where killing someone will have high moral ramifications, your knob can cause large changes to the shape and feel of a world. characters will either need to be held to higher moral standards For instance, the homicide rate in the United States is about 5 by themselves or the world. Technocratic and Tradition mages homicides per 100,000 people per year. Say there's two vampires alike may consider themselves “better” and refuse to kill. per 100,000 people and they each kill two people a year. This If a Storyteller wants a world with higher property crime, would nearly double the murder rate in the US and that's just consider how more theft causes an area to change. Alarm systems due to vampires. The last time the homicide rate in the US become more common, more areas are patrolled by private was around 9 per 100,000 was during the violent crime highs security forces, goods in stores are behind more locked cases or of the 70s through the 90s which helped cause a flight to the purchases are made by making requests through a speaker grill suburbs. Vampires may be particularly good at making murder in 2” Lucite. Cars are more likely to have theft-resistant features look like an accident or may feed on those whose departure like remote kill switches which may make a high-energy action wouldn’t be missed. Feeding, though, isn’t the sole cause of movie feel harder to create. Everyday people may be more likely vampire-induced homicide. Masquerade breaches, the Jyhad, to carry firearms making Mind effects that influence the actions sect warfare and blood sacrifices are just a start. What would of a crowd much more lethal. More buildings may have metal be a reasonable increase to also reflect actions of the Wyrm, detectors and require searches to enter making espionage harder. Sabbat, the Thallain, spectres, Syndicate clean-up squads, and Chantries are more likely to be broken into without some sort everything else that Night-Folk could do? Once murder rates of magickal protection and Allies, Contacts, and Ties are more hit about three times the current US city average, personal likely to be harmed randomly making these Backgrounds harder body guards, security fencing, and weapon ownership by pri- to maintain. Storytellers who don’t wish to punish a group vate citizens tends to rise and cities look more locked down. may allow the group to re-apply Backgrounds who have been Areas with open drug cartel warfare tend to have murder rates incapacitated in some other way like “our Contact was killed between 40 and 80 per 100,000 per year. but he left us instructions on where to recover a Talisman”. In other countries with lower murder rates, just intro- ducing vampires would cause an almost unimaginable rise Chronicle Idea: Characters serve as bodyguards to very impor- in homicide. Introducing vampires would quadruple the rate tant magickal dignitaries which may be the head of a Craft, of murder in France which would be unimaginable to most a Primus, or a member of the Inner Circle. Besides dealing French. Why bring this up? At some point the level of violence with mundane threats, characters may discover the object of shapes society and things quickly diverge. As non-state violence their protection isn’t all they’re cracked up to be, leading to increases,Sample people are more likely to try to protect themselves. questions of loyalty. file Suddenly firearms may be more common or every bystander Chronicle Idea: Characters have their Chantry in a bad neigh- may have brass knuckles or pepper spray on them. More people

13 Ascension's Landscape borhood that is seeing rising violent crime rates. The Chantry or incomprehensible things just out of view. In the World of needs to decide to double-down and clean up the area or try Darkness there are actually shadowy figures and those incom- to move the Chantry or flat out abandon it. Staying will in- prehensible things are indeed there and in some cases may be volve either heavy fortification or coping with more crime the very definition of incomprehensible. Mortals react as one and leaving may cause a reality zone to wither. would expect when encountering the supernatural by possibly freaking out, forgetting, telling everyone or telling no one, but Story Hook: A local medical college offers a small payment to those who are too curious are either dealt with or the super- those willing their bodies to be used for research. Recently, natural tend to obscure what they do. At other times, Sleepers those that agreed have started to have a disproportionate interact with dark forces to become ghouls, acolytes, cultists, number of lethal accidents. worshippers, or otherwise hangers on but these activities ripple Story Hook: Riots are more common and string of Adepts and out into the wider world and can be noticed by the discerning. Apprentices in a major city have been killed during riots tak- Some areas of the forest are suspiciously devoid of bird songs, ing place near Chantries. Some of the riots start as politi- the homeless go missing on certain blocks, and Tilly’s Diner cal rallies where others begin with store smash and grabs or is always closed on Tuesdays. are triggered by officer involved shootings. To confuse things To keep the “darkness” in place, mechanisms exist to further, even known Technocratic Fronts also seem to be suc- conceal the supernatural activity done by at least some of the cumbing to civil violence. larger supernatural factions. The Reality Deviant-hunting prac- tices of the Technocracy, the Camarilla’s Masquerade, and the Story Hook: A local chantry with a store as a front has been Hierarchy’s Dictum Mortuum are all veils placed between the approached by agents of a protection racket to prevent “bad supernatural world and Sleepers but they still have spillover things” from happening to the store. The agents seemed re- effects. When all of the ghouls in an area are killed before a sistant to magickal coercion and seemed to know what the Justicar visits or when a particularly skilled psychic is repeatedly chantry is capable of. shut down over health code violations, Sleepers may get a dim Strange Things in the awareness that something odd is in their midst. Mages have no Samplesuch protections beyond Mind magicks, file the tendency of Sleepers Shadows (supernatural) to explain away things they don’t understand, and occasion- Many feel like there are figures moving in the shadows ally Paradox doing some clean up. As always, the best option 14 is subtlety as much as players and the Taftani often loathe it. not seem to be intentionally malicious or outwardly creepy to Storytellers should flesh out how a supernatural conspiracy the people who chant in robes around a hot dog stand every of silence affects everyday life. If everyone is trying to keep their Thursday after the stand closes. Ascension War-ing on the down low, plots will be slow, subtle, A twist on the standard trope of “something normal and possibly vast. A Nephandus trying to gain control of a Node is actually supernatural” is the opposite: “something seems near a historic site may have to infiltrate the zoning board to supernatural but is entirely mortal”. When coupled with get an area’s designation changed but only after convincing a Paranoia, these two considerations can heavily influence the local historical society that the historic battleground or cem- game environment. If someone has all their kids dress up like etery that designation is based on was actually elsewhere. Only house cats and everyone’s cool with it, that suggests a wildly after that, can the developer be black-mailed to have the new different world than one where that person’s house would be loft apartment building have an elevated first floor so that the burned down after calling Child Protective Services. basement and sub-basements can be kept for darker purposes. The two types of Strange Things in the Shadows can be Conspiracies are slow and often spread out. Sussing out the mixed to provide confusion. A Malfean cult may encourage plot inclines players to interface with mortal power structures odd activity so what they do in contrast doesn’t seem extraor- and the reminder that they too are human. dinarily strange. Distractions and red herrings may waste the time of investigators so the cult can finish the Rite of Obsidian Story Hook: A demon cult is attempting to get building per- Exsanguination on the fifth unsuspecting victim. Storytellers mits to build storefronts and public art installations to ad- should be careful with too many red herrings as players may just leylines making their diabolic lords easier to summon. quickly tire of spending precious game time on leads that will A cabal’s contact on the street, in the city’s bureaucracy, or never pan out. someone sensitive to the strings of Quintessence between the city’s Nodes alerts the cabal. The cult can be blocked bureau- Story Hook: A group of gang members break into people’s cratically, physically, or spiritually. homes and steal jewelry and children’s dolls setting up displays Story Hook: A rare cache of early writings on Vodoun mys- on overpasses just say “you’re next”. No obvious “next” has ticism has been auctioned off as part of an estate sale and been found. researchers publishing papers based on the corpus are disap- Story Hook: Someone in a neighborhood is stealing house pearing. The cabal has lost a Contact to this phenomenon number signs and using the digits to mark how long certain and they have a suspicion that the works didn’t relate to mor- people in a graveyard have been dead. Their stolen house tal practitioners. numbers all seem to be construction workers or those in the Story Hook: A prominent medium has gone silent after years building trades and the graves being marked are all for those of doing stage shows involving “contacting the dead”. On in- who have died under the age of 41. vestigation, the characters find that the Hierarchy has sent Story Hook: Red Honda Civics are having their windows smashed agents after the medium for violating the Dictum Mortuum in and their license plates stolen. The group behind it considers but the players only know that when asked the medium indi- a red Honda Civic to be a crime against dignity. cates they’re meddling with powers beyond what they know. Story Hook: The Font Liberation Front has moved into a local Story Hook: Strange creatures that look like shambling piles of area and is defacing signs and billboards that use the font dirty clothes live in the sewers. These creations possess lim- Papyrus. Print materials using it are collected and burned in an ited telepathy that they use to try to convince people to flush abandoned parking lot once a month as part of a “grand purge”. down the drain their favorite foods, high-protein breakfast cereals and expired acetaminophen. The creatures provide Story Hook: A group of former pastors and priests gather every psychic rewards in the form of a sense of well-being and being Tuesday to fold comic strips into paper airplanes which they cared for in exchange. In extreme circumstances, the entities then dump into a lake saying “it helps God ignore them”. themselves may appear top-side to remove those bothering their feeders. Paranoia People are more alert and concerned by the activities of Strange Things in the others and specifically outsiders to their identity groups. Ra- cial or economic tensions may be higher and nations are less Shadows (Mortal) trusting of each other. Even small international gaffs likely to People just do more weird things in this world of darkness cause tension in foreign relationships. Trade still continues but or their oddity is more obvious. An old man dines entirely on this may be only due to greed outstripping paranoid concern. runawaySample pets or a child makes doll dresses out of discarded Mages can serve as superpowered file peacemakers in this setting bandage wrappers. This variant can be entirely atmospheric and and will actively resist the forces leveraging this chaos. helps convey that things are different here. The actions need

15 Ascension's Landscape Remember, paranoia exists in the real world, it’s just yet higher in this world of darkness. While areas sometimes experi- ence racist or bigoted violence, it’s much lower on average than it was a decade ago. Maybe in this world of darkness hate-crimes are still at 1970s levels with civil unrest (riots) and extrajudicial killings or racially targeted violence more common. Storyteller’s should be very cautious before ramping up rates of racial homi- cide. There are certain areas of verisimilitude players don’t wish to deal with or may not in every game. A game with a more satirical bend may use non-standard forms of “identity group” such as people persecuting others for seemingly innocuous choices like haircut length or color of footwear. At the international level, nations may wish to draw alliances between other nations on the same side of the tomato potato line or something equally banal. Sometimes though the innocuous is simply a proxy for something else so be careful when choosing. Paranoia can be introduced into a chronicle by a Storyteller innocuously noting behavior changes in NPCs or other characters which may or may not mean anything or by spotlighting odd sensory notes like an off smell or strange colors. Characters may only interact with members of their faction in back alleys or via secure channels and few mages use their real names. Characters may see wildly distorted media coverage of events in which they’ve participated showing that the media is controlled or can’t be trusted. Characters may not completely trust their superiors or be sent on seemingly odd missions with strange targets. Mind magick may be ubiquitous to verify identity or to probe the thoughts and feelings of others. Leaning into mortal paranoia works to make normally non-menacing environments more unsettling such as suburbs, shopping malls, hospitals, or amusement parks.

Chronicle Idea: Characters are part of the legion of messengers that used to communicate between Chantries or Constructs. Characters deliver a message or information and then have their memories cleared. One time this wipe fails and the characters each receive a bit of disturbing news about their superiors that they may wish they had forgotten. Story Hook: A small diplomatic misunderstanding has taken on a life of its own and the cabal has been contacted to smooth things over before a trade dispute escalates. The cabal must erase all evidence that anything ever happened before word gets out requiring them to both be thorough and to act quickly. Story Hook: An area set for urban renewal is facing zoning opposition from a group of “concerned” citizens worried about who may move in. There’s reason to believe that existing tension has been actively elevated by some agent provocateur or by dark forces that wish to happily profit from growing sales of security systems and firearms. StorySample Hook (with strong reality zones): An area next to an up-and- file coming neighborhood starts experiencing shattered windows, flattened car tires, mystery doorbell rings, and other acts 16 of vandalism and nuisance with seemingly no culprit. On the existence of werewolves. Strong skepticism allows the Sto- investigation, the acts appear to be triggered by the collective ryteller to invert or eliminate the trope of there always being a belief of the residents assuming that their neighborhood is true believer looking to share what they feel is really going on. going to soon go downhill. The mages would need to shift the parameters of the reality zone or otherwise allay the concerns Chronicle Idea: After the collapse of the Chantry, Horizon, of the neighborhood for the phenomena to stop. characters are attempting to rebuild its renowned library. Using a fragment of the Virtual Adept memory dump taken of the Note: The idea of Strange Things in the Shadows plus Mortal archivist Nicodemus Mulhouse, the characters are trying to track Paranoia is explored deeply in Chronicles of Darkness. This down and copy important tomes. Some consider the mission setting is generally less gothic punk and less intended as satire noble and participate willingly, others are skeptical and view and boy howdy does it lean into weird sometimes. it as an attempt to take advantage of the destruction of the Horizon library to steal or copy hard-won magickal knowledge. Knowledge not Shared or Story Hook: Characters are being terrorized by an annoying but High Skepticism not deadly Paradox Spirit that seems resistant to normal methods This world of darkness sees human behavior being less of dispelling. The characters must either get dispensation to open. Maybe everyone is more judgmental so people may be less go to the Horizon Archives or find a willworker with previous likely to post all but the most banal content on Wikipedia and experience and the characters don’t know where to start. social media. This creates a world where information is generally scarcer. Finding lore and data tends to require footwork to find Story Hook: One or more members of a cabal have come down sources and even then the people with that knowledge may be with some sort of supernatural sickness nicknamed “the Avatar’s less likely to share. This can either be a world where there’s a Lament” which causes the Awakened to bleed Quintessence. norm that’s highly protected (outsiders are ostracized more so) The cabal doesn’t think it’s widespread until another cabal is or one where people keep to themselves. Stronger norms of found concealing the illness of one of their members. When privacy may create inadvertent safe spaces as even judgmental approached, the few emissaries across groups choose not to folk are unlikely to commit the faux pas of asking a personal comment and refuse to share what they may know. question or commenting on someone’s appearance. Even Story Hook: The characters receive word that something has communication across and between Traditions may be at low crashed in the farm town of Le Claire, Iowa but are having volumes. Within canon, the tight lid kept around the issues troubling finding eye witnesses. Most in the town heard an with the Consanguinity of Eternal Joy point in this direction as explosion coming from Dunsany Farms but most townsfolk well as multi-Tradition cabals being out of vogue for centuries refuse to inquire as it’s not their business and don’t wish to (see the Compact of Callias, Horizon: the Stronghold of Hope disturb the small success in rural tourism the town enjoys. Even p 41). Even mages may be expected to keep to themselves out though there’s some evidence that a creature emerged from the of courtesy or possibly fear. craft, the few witnesses refuse to give into the “UFO craze”. The Skepticism differs from paranoia as fear and anxiety characters may have to go to considerable lengths to even get are not generally tied in. People don’t share because well they basic information as witnesses give conflicting causes whether don’t share and that’s the way its always been. Characters that it be kids playing with fireworks, a known tinkerer tricking out meddle in another’s business are just being nosy and are likely a combine, or the old standby of igniting swamp gas. to be considered busybodies or annoying. This assumption invokes the hidden nature of knowl- Broken Institutions edge in the default World of Darkness. Sure, people know Organizations tend to shift from principles-based (maximize things, but mages jealously guard their information so you some value) to rules-base (maximize compliance) over time and likely won’t get another mage taking cell phone pictures of a as they scale. If the rules and principles are aligned, the organi- hidden tome and dropping it into a Dropbox folder to share... zation can cause change well beyond what most mortals could unless that’s the chronicle being run. Even though everyone ever dream but aligning rules and principles isn’t a given. Bad has a secret, no one may admit to it or recognize it in others. things happen when an organization or system is optimized People in this world of darkness may simply be more skepti- for harmful goals. Racist policing practices doesn't necessarily cal. Organizations like the Arcanum in the default World of require overtly hateful racist police. Racist practices can emerge Darkness setting are full of people who consider their conspiracy when someone identifies a "hot spot" in a minority community theory to be highly supported but all other such theories to resulting in a larger police presence which then notices more be ridiculous. Similarly, most vampires would have mocked crime. This cycle then reinforces itself and law enforcement the very idea that vampires could exist until they themselves then uses the increase in arrests to justify the initial scrutiny as wereSample Embraced or maybe just before. Now that they’ve become a purported crime spike is identified file with a people or area. The Kindred, they may be no more likely than before to believe in crime spike would have happened in almost any area. It’s rare that all crime in an area is detected by the police so as resources

17 Ascension's Landscape are put into finding crime more crime tends to be found. The custos has no government-issued ID and is in detention while cycle is a by-product of this style of policing and says little about waiting for a pre-trial hearing set for 60 days from now. Do the the criminality underlying an area. If politicians then provide mages try to spring their friend, putting everyone on the police’s incentives to leave a “crime-ridden” area and soon a thriving radar, use magickal influence to speed things along, or engage community with a small increase in minor crimes suddenly the dizzying bureaucracy of the state to fix this minor error? is considered a blight because of statistical artifacts and poor methodologies. At every step, the organization was following Story Hook: An arsonist has been causing havoc throughout its rules but failed to follow its mission and the misalignment a city finding areas that are poorly covered by the local fire between the two destroyed a community. department ladder companies. To combat this, fire departments have implemented a system of fire response grading where only Here, darkness comes from the the downsides of blind blazes within six minutes of a fire station will be responded to. adherence and the “just following orders” mentality regarding This has shifted the coverage zone such that a large section of the rules of an organization or thoughtless maximization. In this the city along a leyline used by the cabal is unprotected. Is the world of darkness, few institutions are truly welcoming and few arsonist doing this on purpose and what is their motivation? institutions are truly principles-based above a certain size. One Can the cabal shift fire department procedure or do they need can trust the local Girl Scout Troop but probably not the city’s to defend against the conflagrations themselves? police force. Metaphysically, this is a world where the Weaver has more power. Think more Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and less Story Hook: A Tribunal is called to address a reckless mage who The Dark Knight. This world of darkness is ripe for satire but is continually violating the Protocol “Protect the Sleepers; they also clever player actions. Cops never investigate crimes without know not what they do” and the cabal is offered considerable obvious reasonable suspicion, bank loan officers approval all rewards by the defendant to help plant evidence that bystanders loans that meet certain criteria, bureaucrats are willing to do were actually Extraordinary Citizens, Infernalists, psychics, and anything not strictly banned by the rules of their organization, other entities that may not technically count as Sleepers. The and even the Council of the Nine will only Censure exact reward of Talismans, Resources, a potent Ally may come to a violations of the Precepts or Protocols. group willing to show that the reckless mage has not in fact violated the letter of the Protocol which is all the bureaucrats Chronicle Idea: Fed up with constant police harassment, the on the Council care about. characters have chosen to try to reform the local constabulary from within by either becoming police or faking being police. Existential Threats Characters quickly learn that performance objectives, political The world lives in the shadow of forces that are alien to pressures, desire to respond to community problems, and Sleepers. The world is nearly identical on a day to day basis maybe something more sinister make police work harder than but some great force, entity, or event threatens humanity. it first looked. Much like the world in Men in Black or Doctor Strange comics, Story Hook: A custos has been picked up accidentally by the there's some counterbalancing, and likely hidden, force keep- police for matching the description of a robbery suspect. The ing the world safe. This could be a set of mortal secret agents,

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18 the Technocracy, a network of linear mages, or something and blow the thing up? else. This kind of chronicle promotes high adventure and an epic quality. Maybe a story arc is the first hint the world gets Just Dark for Night-Folk of these dark forces when the red star appears or Czar Vargo's The narrowest interpretation of “darkness” could be that descendants come knocking having found the Lost Fleet. This things are just bad for Night-Folk and specifically for those of the differs from Strange Things in the Shadows out of sheer scale characters’ type. Vampires are constrained by the Jyhad, mages and the need to deal with the threat. A vampire feeding from are hemmed in by Paradox and the Technocracy, and Wraiths the homeless and the Zigg’raugglurr attempting to consume have great difficulty moving on but mortals take no notice. This creation have different feels to them. world of darkness is nearly identical to base reality except that Existential threats very much change the emotional the supernatural exists and is marginalized and separate from resonance of a chronicle. A character may still pursue love but the mortal world. Maybe Paradox Spirits constantly hound what does that mean when Al-Aswad walks the earth again? almost all practitioners of magick making mages peripatetic While there are any number of near-end-of-the-world scenarios, and unable to cling to much mortal life. Vampires may have the book Ascension provides several which can be toned down great difficulty getting willing blood dolls or ghouls and every slightly to provide a scenario that simply may end the world mortal having a cell phone makes feeding much harder. Maybe rather than will. A curious Storyteller with crossover interest Night-Folk have a sort of fellowship and support one another. may wish to look at the other Time of Judgment supplements for Maybe just mages are hit and magick is dying. the other World of Darkness lines for ideas. The supplement, Magick may be nearly gone from the world and charac- Time of Judgment includes several for Hunter: the Reckoning, ters are the last of their kind or they may simply be excluded Demon: The Fallen, and Mummy: The Resurrection which from greater mage society. Paradox Spirits may be much more are probably easier to lift than the Werewolf and Vampire end conscious agents like they were in 1e rather than being mani- time scenarios. festations and forces as they were later.

Story Hook: the Unnamed One has decided that the time Chronicle Idea: Characters are Outcasts from the Society has come to pit the forces of creation against the forces of of Enlightened and Awakened Practitioners, the umbrella destruction. Al-Aswad has been regrouping since the failed organization consisting of the merged Traditions, Crafts, summoning of a Thing that Should Not Be after WWII and and Conventions formed in the wake of the failed attempt feels the current political instability marks an excellent time by Grandmother to destroy creation. There are 21 approved to summon something from the Outer Darkness. Creatures of Fellowships and the characters refuse to be a part of any of them. notable size begin to sluice through the Gauntlet in Hong Kong, Characters will be dodging Awakened police, both mystickal Poland, Turkey, England, Chile, Sudan, and the Democratic and technomagickal as they try to make their way in the world Republic of Congo. In some cases, much larger creatures have outside of the constraints of being a “licensed practitioner”. made it through. The Gates of the Four Inverted Essences have opened in four cities around the world. The characters Story Hook: There’s just enough magick left in the world for must seal the Gates of Obsession, Madness, Compulsion, and one last portal to open to Horizon. Your mages have little to Degeneration before yet larger horrors can creep through the their names and need to make it to the Himalayas in 14 days fraying walls of the Consensus. to catch the last bus out of town. Any Sphere effects above 2 dots don’t seem to work any more and even simple magick Story Hook: The entities labeled “Threat Null “are frustrated by requires a point of Quintessence. The characters having a their inability to cross the Gauntlet. The Agents and Residents collective pool of 10 points between them. Can they catch the have convinced Rorg, the Incarna of the destroyed planet that last bus off the mudball? is now the asteroid belt, to declare war on Earth. Rorg as a Totem of both war and calamity decided to fire a warning shot Story Hook: An Ally tired of being hounded by Paradox Spirits at earth and Void Engineer satellites notice an asteroid about makes a deal with one where in exchange for turning in other 3,000 ft across (large enough to throw up a cloud of dust that mages the spirits are pursuing, the spirits will ignore the Ally’s would globally dim the sun for a year) headed towards earth. vulgar indiscretions. The players notice the Ally is getting away Can Rorg be placated? Can another Incarna be threatened or with more than they should and the Ally purports to know convinced to intercede? Can the players go all Armageddon a way around Paradox if only they join the Ally for a retreat. Variants in Time or Place SampleA frequent but not necessarily true assumption about a to use and allows for consistency fileas characters travel through world of darkness is that things have largely always been dark wheres and whens but it is by no means the only option. and that they are dark everywhere. This is a simple assumption Things may have one been brighter, and shadows may not 19 Ascension's Landscape fall everywhere. If the world isn’t universally dark, one needs to partly explain why. The answer may be culture, historical happenstance, weather, or any number of other reasons, the important part is to have one. A Partial Darkness Are things dark everywhere or just where your characters are? One interpretation of Orwell's 1984 is not that the world is divided up into totalitarian states, but that just England is the lone soul-crushing panopticon and everywhere else is largely fine. Another example would be The Handmaid's Tale where the US has become an oppressive theocracy with nuclear weapons therefore the rest of the world tends not to interfere. In such a world, getting out from under an oppressive regime could be a story unto itself as could trying to liberate others. The darkness could also be varied with one region dealing with high drug crime and violence where other areas are safe but more paranoid.

Story Hook: A small number of Eastern European countries have been completely taken over by the Technocratic Union and most cities host large MANAR (magick-detecting Devices) installations allowing even coincidental magick to be quickly detected. The players are asked to help evacuate a Craft consisting of mages who lack the mundane means to escape. Constant surveillance makes any use of magick a significant risk to the operation. Story Hook: Tired of constant fighting, a large sect of vampires has decided to simply take over lightly populated Wyoming and declare themselves the top of food chain both literally and figuratively. Extensive use of Dominate and Presence (vampire powers similar to the mind control aspects of the Mind Sphere) have lead Sleepers to act as cattle and other Night-Folk have been warned that the area is under the strict control of the Kindred. A common variant is to have a town controlled by vampires, demons, or other creatures, but dealing with a much larger political unit that’s been compromised is another problem entirely. The Recent Split Any of the above factors if left to run long enough would result in an unrecognizable world. Paranoia left to run long enough triggers wars whether in markets or on battlefields and violence shapes society in untold ways that impede progress and flourishing. One option is that the World of Darkness got bad only recently. Up until some point that’s not so recent as to be fixable but not so long ago as to have remade the world completely, something bad happened and that's where reality and the World of Darkness split. Maybe the 2007 Financial Crisis never had a bounce back and the world is dealing with a protracted depression or the Russian invasion of Crimea Sampleset off a new Cold War. A pandemic file may have erupted that proved just problematic enough to have people heading to cities to get centralized treatment or maybe cities are partly 20