Setting idea

[Alamantra]

Hi everybody! I have this idea for a mage campaign and I'd like if you can help me with it. I think it's good because it has a lot of mysteries but this is my first campaign.

The core idea is this: the city had a full Council, the five Orders present but something happened and now everybody is dead. And for everybody I mean mages. The PJs are the only ones alive. They don't belong to the Orders, they awakened just after the incident. They must uncover what happened and learn about the Diamond Orders and Free Council from what is left behind. I'd like to see the PJs braking into a sanctum, bypassing the ward spells and uncover all the Mysteries step by step, instead of being indoctrinated by some elder mage.

Something like the LOST tv show, where the heroes uncover the ruins of Dharma Initiative stations and learned about it. Buy with magical orders and ancient secrets. And spells.

Do you think it may work? What should I pay attention into? Thanks!!

[Mrmdubois]

Yeah, it'll work, a lot of people have done basically that already.

[Alamantra]

Great! That means it works... I'd love if someone can share his/her experience running this kind of campaign setting

[wyrdhamster]

Tried to run that with my latestmage group - they did not like it, so we moved to the area with living

They must uncover what happened and learn about the Diamond Orders and Free Council from what is left behind. I'd like to see the PJs braking into a sanctum, bypassing the ward spells and uncover all the Mysteries step by step, instead of being indoctrinated by some elder mage.

PJs I assume are PajamasJoggers? Or did you mean PCs - Players Characters?

Assuming second - there is one, very big problem with that scenario - Communication. For PCs to be 'proper' mages, they need to understand High Speech, as most Grimoires or lore elements are written in it. ( Orders would not make anything less, as HS is great coding and learning technique. It also differents them from Nameless that, on general, don't use it. ) Unless you will give PCs proper mentor that will teach them this - and the only one working is some Ghost Mage - they will have now clue what all those relics and inscription will mean. Only that they are 'weird' ( from their Mage Sights ).

[Tessie]

Every Mage automatically understands High Speech when they Awaken. The Orders grant the High Speech Merit that allows the Mages to use High Speech as a Yantra.

[wyrdhamster]

Every mage can instantly translate anything written in language? Because I thought they only can get 'listened' form.

[Mrmdubois]

Every mage can instantly translate anything written in language? Because I thought they only can get 'listened' form.

Yes, High Speech in any form automatically translates.

[WHW]

High Speech is less of a language and more of a new sense. You might not know how to communicate to your buddy that you perceived a red bull, but you can see a red bull, and both of you will see the red bull when looking at it.

High Speech Merit isn't about being or not being able to understand or use High Speech, it's about being trained in the art of arranging these symbols in specific ways that can boost your spells. Kind of like anyone spend skill points in a computer game, but unless you are lucky, you must have deeper understanding of the system to spend them in optimal way that might unlock greater benefits.

[wyrdhamster]

I then try to understand how in Mage canon Grimoires and Order lore is written all over with High Speech. Does it mean that any Awakened can ready any text found in Orders libraries or Athenea? Even if for Sleepers occultists they are written in different languages, some even particular Awakened does not have? And he can still can read them?

[21C Hermit]

I then try to understand how in Mage canon Grimoires and Order lore is written all over with High Speech. Does it mean that any Awakened can ready any text found in Orders libraries or Athenea? Even if for Sleepers occultists they are written in different languages, some even particular Awakened does not have? And he can still can read them?

Well, why not? To Sleepers they'll look like something out of the Voynich Manuscript. It appears to be a language, given its constistency, but Sleepers will have no clue how to read it because they have no point of reference to translate it by.

[wyrdhamster]

I'm English Awakened, I go to the Arabia Ruins of Time Before, finding writing on the wall in Arabic High Speech. Just by that I understand everything what is written then?

[Mrmdubois]

I then try to understand how in Mage canon Grimoires and Order lore is written all over with High Speech. Does it mean that any Awakened can ready any text found in Orders libraries or Athenea? Even if for Sleepers occultists they are written in different languages, some even particular Awakened does not have? And he can still can read them?

High Speech isn't written in different languages, it's written in High Speech the symbols of which are derived from the patterns that mana make when released from a Mage while using Focused Mage Sight.

You're referring to that High Speech variant thing, that didn't make High Speech a different language, it just used the inflections of a different language to mask the way High Speech sounded a bit. It was still just High Speech.

[21C Hermit]

Digged up an old post by Dave Brookshaw here.

So it seems that High Speech can indeed be written in a nonsense string of real languages, or the rune-shapes that rise up when you release Mana in Focused MS. Mages understand both versions just fine.

EDIT

I'm English Awakened, I go to the Arabia Ruins of Time Before, finding writing on the wall in Arabic High Speech. Just by that I understand everything what is written then?

If what Dave said back then in the above link holds true still, then yes.

[Michael]

There's an interesting question about how much information High Speech can convey. If you think about it, for a grimoire the High Speech component could well just convey the basic rote itself, but there's potentially a lot of information about it that might need to be written in a normal language.

For example, if your magi digs up a grimoire in Arabic, they may be able to read the rotes in High Speech, but not the warnings in Arabic that they're all scelesti rotes.

[WHW]

Language is the package for your message that needs to be properly unpacked to obtain what's inside.
High Speech skips the package and gives you just pure message.