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[Dataweaver]

You might also want to look at Mantles of Washington.

[Dataweaver]

And if you like the God-specific Virtues found in the Republican Pantheon, you can use the Theoi Virtues as a baseline, and then optionally replace one or both with whichever Virtues that god is associated with. So a Scion of Columbus could have Ego and Kinship, Patriotism and Kinship, or Ego and Patriotism.

In particular, Saints of the Republican Pantheon would be an extremely diverse bunch — and likely would be extremely common compared to Saints of other Pantheons, as the neoclassical philosophy is the core of this Pantheon and the Gods are secondary. As such, “culture heroes”...

[Dataweaver]

Officially, no. She was scheduled for Mysteries of the World; and you'll even find her in the picture on page 64; but the write-up for her was deemed inadequate and was pulled from the book.

Unofficially, there's a Nexus product called the Republican Pantheon which is basically a Theoi “sub-Pantheon” tied intimately to the American Revolution and the Neoclassicism popular among the Founding Fathers.

The Republican Gods include Athena, Apollo, Juno, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Persephone, Pluto, and Vulcan; with other important gods including Columbia, Fidelia,...

[Dataweaver]

I'd stat it up as a regular Deviant. The fact that it's an “animal uplift” is no more unusual than how some Deviants are, in effect, robots.

(Still waiting for the Clade Companion, with IIRC will have a lot more to work with when designing Deviants that aren't quite so human.)

[Dataweaver]

If I recall correctly, the Taftani are supposed to be based on pre-Islamic beliefs in that region....

[Dataweaver]

That's why I said “…but done right.”

[Dataweaver]

To be fair, I think the thing they're most likely to get right would be making the mechanics of magick more robust. I share your fear, though: what they're likely to get wrong will be the Focus. To me, the biggest weakness of the early editions of Mage was the idea that their approaches to Magick are crutches that need to be let go of — that they are, in a sense, fake. I fear that M5 will return to that notion and double down on it, making Paradigm, Practices, and Instruments lies to be overcome instead of being at the heart of the character....

[Dataweaver]

I'm not saying that the free-form should be removed; that's a front-end thing, and I explicitly said that that should stay in place. What I'm thinking of is something kind of like How Do You Do That?, but done right. Thus, Steve Kenson.

Put another way: the Spheres determine what Effects you can work. That would remain just as open-ended as it is now. What I'm suggesting is that more effort go into the mechanics of how the Effects work. And I think that should be in the core book....

[Dataweaver]

So, it's like V.

[Dataweaver]

What are you looking for that the Dreamspeakers and Void Engineers don't provide?

[Dataweaver]

Personally, I wouldn't mind if they would hire Steve Kenson to overhaul the Magick system. One issue I have with every version that's been published so far is that they're all a little too freeform; and I think M5 could benefit from a more solid system of what sorts of Effects a mage can perform and what the game systems are for each. And I think that Mr. Kenson has solid credentials for designing such a thing, with his past experience on various superhero RPGs: if there's anything that matches the sheer diversity of effects that a mage ought to be able to work, it's the sheer diversity of powers...

[Dataweaver]

I don't know if this will be it “going wrong”; but V5, H5, and W5 each are blowing heavily from their Chronicles of Darkness counterparts. H5 went so far that it bears only a vague resemblance to the first edition; it borrowed some of the 1e terminology, but recasts it so that it's now being used to mean something completely different.

With that in mind, I expect that M5 will borrow heavily from Mage: the Awakening. Depending on how they do this, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. If they do things like porting in Wisdom or the Paths, it's going to be bad; on the other...