[Open Dev]Signs of Sorcery-Introduction and Advanced Mage Sight

[Axelgear]

Nothing I've seen gave me the impression that the book was doing anything other than what you want it to do. May be a difference of interpretation; I was definitely getting a "most mysteries aren't Supernal magic" vibe without feeling like Mages weren't looking to understand them in Supernal terms.

Hell, that's reinforced by the fact that any of these can be Obsessions and grant Arcane XP - you can increase your understanding of the Supernal by unravelling any mystery, whether it's based in direct manipulation and manifestation of Supernal symbols or is as Supernal as a rock or a tree.

(And then we add Legacies and the like, many of which can be viewed as driving into the easily-overlooked mysteries of what it means to be a rock.)

It'd be nice to have the Word of God on that one. As it stands, I feel a bit uncertain on it still.

Well, the Supernal is a realm of symbols and forms, and the Exarchs are just some especially unpleasant symbols...

Are they? They're symbols of exerting power to enact control. We only call that tyranny when it's universal and/or cruel/excessive by whatever metric we consider appropriate. The rest of the time we call it government, law, order...

The Exarchs are right bastards because they're largely indiscriminate, but there's a reason that the Seers of the Throne and the Silver Ladder outright used to be the same school of thought.

I can think of a dozen reasons to call on the Exarchs, even while plotting their downfall, and the hypocrisy of that is one of the reasons the setting is so delightful.

[Satchel]

It'd be nice to have the Word of God on that one. As it stands, I feel a bit uncertain on it still.

A small and rambling collage of things to consideration:

Vampire's Gangrel clanbook includes a passage that describes Hurricane Katrina as "[N]ot an eye as you might think but instead, a mouth. A terrible hungry mouth, a vacuuming vortex[, s]piritual and terrible[.]"

In the Fallen World Fiction Anthology story "Crimson Lips," Early describes Awakened magic as "[A] fire inside of [a mage, s]omething that we kindle with new knowledge. […] It's about finding things out, and using that knowledge to make ourselves stronger[.]" (I also vaguely remember a theory that the Awakening is the universe trying to understand itself, but that could just be somebody cribbing from Babylon 5 and/or Cosmos.)

Promethean's alchemical lore equates the act of dismembering a body to be reassembled into one of the Created with the process of digestio.

The word we use for finding an answer to a problem shares a Latin root with solvent and dissolve.

I've mentioned once or twice how one of the reasons that springs to mind that crossover bleedthrough doesn't happen very often is that the systems of metaphysics a lot of gamelines deal with are at least partially sentient and averse to incorporation by each other; consider in this context that the post-Fall Supernal is described as largely subjugated and/or subdued and that the most evident examples of the above hostile cosmologies in Mage are greater Abyssal entities.

To know something is to have consumed it, and to consume something is to make it part of oneself.

[Kumiko]

Well, the Supernal is a realm of symbols and forms, and the Exarchs are just some especially unpleasant symbols...

Whatever makes you sleep at night I guess.

[Kumiko]

A small and rambling collage of things to consideration:

Vampire's Gangrel clanbook includes a passage that describes Hurricane Katrina as "[N]ot an eye as you might think but instead, a mouth. A terrible hungry mouth, a vacuuming vortex[, s]piritual and terrible[.]"

In the Fallen World Fiction Anthology story "Crimson Lips," Early describes Awakened magic as "[A] fire inside of [a mage, s]omething that we kindle with new knowledge. […] It's about finding things out, and using that knowledge to make ourselves stronger[.]" (I also vaguely remember a theory that the Awakening is the universe trying to understand itself, but that could just be somebody cribbing from Babylon 5 and/or Cosmos.)

Promethean's alchemical lore equates the act of dismembering a body to be reassembled into one of the Created with the process of digestio.

The word we use for finding an answer to a problem shares a Latin root with solvent and dissolve.

I've mentioned once or twice how one of the reasons that springs to mind that crossover bleedthrough doesn't happen very often is that the systems of metaphysics a lot of gamelines deal with are at least partially sentient and averse to incorporation by each other; consider in this context that the post-Fall Supernal is described as largely subjugated and/or subdued and that the most evident examples of the above hostile cosmologies in Mage are greater Abyssal entities.

To know something is to have consumed it, and to consume something is to make it part of oneself.

Or to realize that there are histories, timelines, civilizations (Atlantis itself) that never were but fully exist and are completely true.

[Solar]

I guess I am just uninterested in supernatural phenomena which are not manipulate-able and understandable through the Supernal just like non-supernatural phenomena is. Everything in the Fallen is the reflection of the Supernal, that's how the cosmology works and I like that it works in that way. The Abyss is then the anti-truth, the anathema to a Mage's power, it takes the role of The Enemy. It's The Exception, and is relevant in being The Exception

I'm fine with coming across weird Supernatural shit a Mage didn't do, but I don't think there's much merit at all in this silly idea that arrogant mages need to be slapped down by powers explicitly outside their purview. The "problem" of Mage supremacy is entirely invented, IMO, and crossovers with other game lines doesn't interest me. If there is something vampire like in a Mage game I run, it's not out of Requiem, and it doesn't have any special snowflake protection or separation from the Arcanum. For a start, I'd have to buy and read Requiem!

[Ephsy]

Isn't the very notion of an abyss of unreality separating the ultimate reality from Earth enough to justify your need for everything being light casted down from there thru the corrupting lenses of an abyssal layer?

It's your easy way out of your philosophical conundrum.

Of course, there's no way to prove it. But it'll let you sleep at night.

[MCN]

everyone needs to believe in something

Are they? They're symbols of exerting power to enact control. We only call that tyranny when it's universal and/or cruel/excessive by whatever metric we consider appropriate. The rest of the time we call it government, law, order...

The Exarchs are right bastards because they're largely indiscriminate, but there's a reason that the Seers of the Throne and the Silver Ladder outright used to be the same school of thought.

I can think of a dozen reasons to call on the Exarchs, even while plotting their downfall, and the hypocrisy of that is one of the reasons the setting is so delightful.

Whatever makes you sleep at night I guess.

Except that atamajakkiis right. The Exarchs pretty much are symbols. They're expressions of control and tyranny. And, frankly speaking, its not hard to fall into the trap of invoking their power without conciously meaning to. What do I mean by that?

What are the symbols necessary to cast a spell to mind control someone? Or dominate a rebellous spirit? Mages cast magic through the use of symbols and Yantra. Its not hard to imagine that a mage could end up using some of the tyranical symbols for what they feel are good reasons without realizing that they're using the symbols of the Exarchs. Sure, invariably, we're going to have such spells end up being Wisdom breaking points, but every Order has their Wisdom blind spots in their philosophies, and CofD games expect for one to drop in one's Integrity equivalents. Ignorance is not an excuse in this case.

And we know for an absolute fact that we can use the symbols of Tyranny in spell casting. The Seers are renowned for it, in fact.

[WHW]

Every Mage is just a small, larval Exarch :P. And yeah, I also got the vibe of "many of the Mysteries are just quirks of the world that happened on their own, instead of being puffed into existence by Supernal [magic]", instead of "many mysteries come outside of this gameline".
Like, Ghosts and Souls, they are non-Supernal Mysteries. Or self-immolation. Or dogs suiciding from a certain bridge. First one would be Death Mystery, second one...Forces or Life or Spirit or etc, third one Mind or Spirit or Fate or...and so on.

[Justin Sane]

I'd love to see some more non-Supernal Mysteries, I love the random weirdness from the blue books. Like from Tales from the 13th Precinct, with that cop that died in his sleep without anyone sending him a memo about it, so he just got up and went to work the next morning.

[Solar]

Isn't the very notion of an abyss of unreality separating the ultimate reality from Earth enough to justify your need for everything being light casted down from there thru the corrupting lenses of an abyssal layer?

It's your easy way out of your philosophical conundrum.

Of course, there's no way to prove it. But it'll let you sleep at night.

Sure. There's plenty of weird shit in a Mage's life not caused by a Mage or a Supernal entity or whatever but through some strange snarl of magic in the Fallen world, a twisted reflection of some very obscure symbols as filtered through the Abyss perhaps would be one way to explain it. But as above so below, and vice versa. All things exist in truth and in imitation of Truth. There is nothing not covered by the Arcana, apart from the Abyss, an explicit rejection of the Arcana.

[Axelgear]

-words-

I think you miunderstood me; I was disagreeing with the "unpleasant" part, not the symbols part.

[WHW]

I guess it means that there will be more rules for turning fluff of "Guardians of the Veil using hated symbols that noone would touch but someone has to" into real thing.

[wyrdhamster]

I guess it means that there will be more rules for turning fluff of "Guardians of the Veil using hated symbols that noone would touch but someone has to" into real thing.

Exarch's Banishment Ritual?

[Joker]

Sure. There's plenty of weird shit in a Mage's life not caused by a Mage or a Supernal entity or whatever but through some strange snarl of magic in the Fallen world, a twisted reflection of some very obscure symbols as filtered through the Abyss perhaps would be one way to explain it. But as above so below, and vice versa. All things exist in truth and in imitation of Truth. There is nothing not covered by the Arcana, apart from the Abyss, an explicit rejection of the Arcana.

I think you are conflating 'supernatural stuff that isn't the result of Supernal shennanigans' and 'supernatural stuff that is outside the Supernal frame of reference'.
When the blog talks about "vast majority of mysteries aren't Supernal" it's talking about the former, not the latter. A Vampire may not be a supernal mystery, but it is still something that is covered by the Supernal and can be analyzed by the tools supernal magic offers Mages.
AFAIK the only phenomenom in the entire CofD that fits the latter definition is Promethean's divine fire, and nothing about 2e Mage will change how unique that is.
I am pretty sure that when the blog post talks about most mysteries not being supernal in origin it doesn't refer to stuff that is "not manipulate-able and understandable through the Supernal".

[Isator Levi]

I think the significance of a vampire as a non-Supernal mystery is just that a mage wouldn't look at one in Stygia and be able to immediately conclude "Fallen Shade". Look at how the Mage Sight spoiler suggested describing a werewolf.