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) © 2020 White Wolf Entertainment AB. All rights reserved. Vam- pire: The Masquerade®, World of Darkness®, Storytelling System™, and Storytellers Vault™ are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of White Wolf Entertainment AB. All rights reserved. SampleFor additional information on White Wolffile and the World of Dark- ness, please, visit: www.white-wolf.com, www.worldofdarkness.com and www.Storytellersvault.com. 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 Sample file 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, vampires, 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 Second Inquisition, 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.