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[Dataweaver]

Is it a pantheon, though? It may not be. All that the original post mentioned was pieces of Americana presented in Scion terms. I could see that with the majority of the book, perhaps the entirety of it, dealing solely with Followers, Guides, Relics, and so on.

[Dataweaver]

Depends how long the game runs. If you never get to winter, its penalties won't matter.

[Dataweaver]

The reason I asked about it is because that particular supplement is a compilation of rotes from every edition of Mage. It isn't really a how do you do that book; but considering that the one thing for spheres that earlier editions of the game had that M20 lacks is sample effects, EG plugs that hold nicely.

[Dataweaver]

Honestly, it would depend. If I was trying to stick as close to “canon” as possible, I'd go with mesmerists and stalwarts; because Doyen Barrier. (Though I might tweak mesmerist DE to be less about “reaching” and more about synergy between mesmerists.)

If I were going for something where canon goes out the window, I'd backport Superiors and either psiads or psions into the present.

[Dataweaver]

What is your opinion of the storytellers Vault product, enlightened grimoire?...

[Dataweaver]

It would be cool if we got a different take on the various branches of Inspiration in Ægis: say, “psionic” characters who feel a bit less like “powers of the mind” and a bit more like “mystical rituals” (e.g., something that's not a reprint of the Aptitudes but also isn't the Psychic Gifts of Adventure!); or Heroes with Masteries (like in Assassins, but without hiding in the Shadow or being focused on the art of assassination).

[Dataweaver]

Or you could go the Superiors route. The “Psions in the Modern Day” section of Æon Æxpansion includes a suggestion of “officially, psions require Prometheus Chambers; but what if they were a naturally occurring phenomenon?” Likewise: officially, Superiors require the Nakamura process; but what if they didn't, and that's just how the superhuman branch of Inspiration manifests?

[Dataweaver]

The “Psions in the Modern Day” chapter in Æon Æxpansion is about alternate settings; it does not say that psions are a thing in the modern day setting; only that if you want them to be, here are some things to consider.

[Dataweaver]

The Syndicate is the “greed is good” crowd. A big part of their Focus is the primacy of competition — the notion that the open market is driven by greed; and that that's a good thing, because it also drives innovation, which ends up improving everyone's lives:

Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

The last thing they believe is that money without greed can solve...

[Dataweaver]

If you go with the notion that mesmerists are what psiads were while the doyen shield was up, and that the doyen shield wasn't broken until the aberrant age was unleashed, then there should be mesmerous in the modern day, not psiads.

But yeah; I thought the mention of psions was weird, too.

[Dataweaver]

The reason why the Syndicate fits in the Technocratic Union is because it's members don't believe in a purely open market. They believe that those who rise to the top should be able to do whatever they want. And that includes guiding the market. It's why their central Paradigm is “Might is Right”. I would expect the true advocates for a free market to be found in Navalon, whose economist sub-faction would be more Austrian than Keynsean.

But if a Syndic buys into a Noblesse Oblige mindset, he can end up resembling a free marketeer. Like every other Syndic, he would still view the...

[Dataweaver]

Fair enough. My own approach would be to go with modern-day mesmerists instead; but that's just me.

[Dataweaver]

I'm not so sure about that, because M20 doesn't use Paradigm in a sense that's larger than Focus. In M20, Paradigm (e.g., “Might Makes Right”) is a component of Focus, and Practice is another component of Focus. Focus is the overall “how mages see the world, and how they think magic works”. And Focus and Instrument are not even remotely the same thing; they're literally as far apart as two concepts relating to how magic works can be. M20 juggled the terminology around, like so:

M1/2/Rev → M20
Paradigm → Focus
Philosophy/Theory→Paradigm
Style/Practice→Practice...

[Dataweaver]

I'll get to the rest later. But this? This isn't a difference; this is a misunderstanding. I was using “Focus” in the sense that M20 uses Focus, which is how earlier editions used Paradigm. For clarity, M20 uses Paradigm the way earlier editions used Philosophy or Theory, and uses Instrument where earlier editions used Focus....

[Dataweaver]

Just about anyone in Mage is, if you look at them properly....

[Dataweaver]

I'd be careful about this; it's far too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that “financial wizard”=Syndicate. With that in mind, let's look at what The Rich Bastard's Guide to Magick has to say about the Syndicate:

Progenitors and Void Engineers hold grants. Ivory Tower chairs and directors managed budgets. Some mystics are even intelligent enough, or subversively influenced enough, to recognize the worth of investing. They want to feed their family after all, keep a roof over their head, by that third yacht they've been drooling over. I'm like their peers, Syndicate agents don't merely

...

[Dataweaver]

Yeah; it's a pretty cool bit of head-canon; but sadly, I think that's all it is.

[Dataweaver]

Ever hear the saying “too many cooks spoil the broth”? I have no problem believing that a book with 20 authors, editors, and consultants feels disjointed.

[Dataweaver]

And there's nothing saying that you can't bring back a form of the 1e metaplot; just present it as a rogue faction within Proteus instead of being approved by Proteus leadership; and present it as something that started out as a response to the Terat that got out of hand, rather than as something that was always intended to be targeted at Novas in general.

[Dataweaver]

I'm pretty sure that the “vampires drinking the blood of children” thing is still very much viewed as “wacko fringe” stuff. But yeah, ideas such as “the government has been subverted by a shadow government” have gained traction in recent years.

I'm not sure that that's a valid reason for Hunter the Reckoning to go to the other extreme, though.

Though it might explain the absence of the Imbued. While The Messengers were not described as angels, the parallels between the Imbuing and the “God told me she was demon-possessed!” stereotype of the religious right...