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The Supernal Suburbia
Close enough to Chicago for an easy commute, but far enough away to avoid the...less than savory aspects of the Windy City, La Grange is a Cook County suburb that some would say is a boring alternative to city living. Many families choose to live in this area for a number of convenient factors: less congestion than its neighboring villages to the east, quick CTA access to the city and nearby towns, and a downright pleasant feeling that scratches the suburban itch that so many middle-class American families are seeking. Locals are quick to brag about La Grange's quality schools and that, yes, the actor David Hasselhoff is from here. What more could you ask for?
However, very few people, locals or otherwise, will let conversation linger on topics about the strange occurrences that have plagued parts of their town for years. It's a simple fact here: If you don't talk about it, it's not really a problem. Suburban lives goes on...except when they don't.
So no one talks about, for example, the way that kids from Lyons Township High School sometimes go missing for a week or two at a time, only to show up in town with no memory of where they've been or what they have been up to. People prefer to quickly change the topic when someone asks about the distant howling they heard coming from the woods at night on the north side of town. And no one really knows, and certainly never talks about, why these disruptions to their idyllic suburban life happen in very specific pockets of town while others have almost never reported these same problems. No one in their right mind discusses how absolutely dreadful all of those bizarre experiences are in Chicago, only a short train or bus ride away.
But you have Awakened. You don't just talk about these odd happenings; you can't get enough of them. And suburban life, it turns out, has a lot of secrets hiding behind its white-washed fences and nicely furnished homes.
Current Player Characters
1. Kvitebjørn Kong Valemon - Lynx, Thyrsus Mystagogue, animist/college student (old character sheet here: Lynx)
2. Second Chances - Eurydice's Heir, Moros Arrow, neopagan obsessed with ephemeral beings
3. DrSteve - Morganna, Mastigos théarch, soccer mom / con-woman
4. DArchon5 - Fatewise, Acanthus Mystagogue, high school grad with supernatural family problems
5. squidheadjax - Caliginosa, Obrimos Guardian, magical thief and artifact remover
Inactive Player Characters
1. Beans - Dr. Asphodel, Moros theoretical physicist
2. MagicSwordsman - Binder, Mastigos bookstore owner/family man
3. Caladriu - Moonstone, Mastigos Sleepwalker-turned-mage
4. crapcarp - Phoenix, Obrimos Hunter-turned-mage
5. Haberdasher - Ragnar, Acanthus Renaissance man
6. Thorbes - Ouroboros Ophis, Moros occult physician
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Table of Contents
OOC Thread
Storm Chasers (Old group - Game no longer active)
Chapter 1: "Eyes Wide Open"
Chapter 2: "All in Order"
----------------
Taken by Storm
Prologue: “The Calm Before the Storm”
Chapter 1: “Distant Rumbles”
----------------
Awakened La Grange
In many ways, La Grange is a stereotypical Midwestern suburb. It has picturesque streets, a healthy blend of chain restaurants and unique local attrractions, and convenient access to the city. For mages, there are also additional perks of living in the city. Suburban "culture" means that no one looks too closely at strange occurrences, creating a natural layer of protection that allows mages to practice their arts with minimal intrusion. While mages, Kindred, and Uratha battle over territory in Chicago for ease of access to crucial resources, conflict between these supernatural in the suburbs tends to be less deadly and less common. Sleepers aren't the only ones who might turn a blind eye to strange occurrences in the suburbs. With this kind of atmosphere, it's no surprise that many mages would gravitate towards suburbs like La Grange for their sancta.
The weight of suburbia can cause other problems for mages, however. In some places around the city, the Lie settles in more strongly than other regions -- as if the city itself feeds into the Lie. Spellcasting in these areas can be impacted unexpectedly in a variety of ways, such as risking higher Paradox, being more vulnerable to Dissonance, or worsening Quiescence in Sleepers who observe obvious magic. Awakened Scholars haven't been able to pin down precisely why some regions are affected more than others, but they have observed that local events -- LT High School winning a big football game against a rival, a headline news story about an armed robbery in a wealthy neighborhood -- can cause the Lie to settle more heavily on different parts of town. This can be particularly frustrating when one of these zones moves over a sanctum.
The Guardians of the Veil are very active in the suburb of La Grange. They are charged with protecting the secrecy of Awakened society, and the moving "Lie zones" make their jobs easier in many cases. However, more than once they have needed to race to the scene of a ritual gone wrong because a mage overreached and summoned a monster from the Abyss. The Silver Ladder, in contrast, work even harder to guide Sleepers to Awakening to compensate for the heavy weight of the Lie in this suburban town. Their work has understandably led to tension with Guardians in La Grange, as well as the Adamantine Arrow, who more recently lean in support of the Guardians' mission.
Over the past few years, there have been additional unusual occurrences targeting the youth of La Grange. About every month, a student from La Grange's Lyons Township High School has been going missing. In almost every case, the teenager suddenly showed up a week or two later, with no memory of what had happened to them or where they had been. There have been two notable exceptions, in each case of which the teen's body was found with no identifiable causes of death. For the adolescents who go missing and do return, the community has made it a habit to just pretend that nothing strange happened, and that the teenager was out of town on some kind of vacation -- or perhaps it's the Lie that prevents them from remembering? So far, no mages have been able to figure out what, or who, is causing these teens to disappear.
Places of Interest:
Brookfield Zoo: Although technically in Brookfield rather than La Grange proper, the zoo draws crowds of Sleepers and mages alike. mages in particular visit the zoo because there are several hallows scattered throughout and around the area. The Gauntlet also fluctuates here in a peculiar fashion; it is thick during the day, but razor thin during the quiet hours of the night.
Bemis Woods: This 480-acre forest is located on the northwest side of La Grange. Sleepers come here for a fun, outdoorsy day of hiking and enjoying nature. mages come here primarily to collect mana from its many hallows, and some reclusive mages even hide away in their sancta here. However, Uratha frequent the area as well, usually because dangerous or powerful spirits try to use Bemis Woods as an access point to the material world.
Rumors Nightclub: This gay bar has only opened in the past year, and already it has been received with excellent reviews. The welcoming, raucous atmosphere inside provides a great cover for mages trying to hide in plain sight while they meet and discuss recent Awakened politics. However, Kindred and their ghouls also frequent the bar, using the popular night scene for easy feeding.
Marlin's Books: Marlin Matheson's bookstore is located here in La Grange. Although he hasn't previously known it, mages have come here investigating to see how much true occult knowledge Marlin has accumulated, especially thearchs and Mystagogues.
Flying V Martial Arts: The martial arts studio where Garrick Royce works part-time as an instructor is also located in La Grange. He has good relationships with a number of quality students and other instructors. It also provides him with opportunities to keep honing his physical skills, and it does help pay the rent.
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Awakened Chicago
Chicago is a busy city with a richly diverse urban atmosphere. Men and women from around the world travel here for business or pleasure. There are many large and well-respected universities and colleges, a thriving entertainment industry, a vibrant music and art scene, and a wealth of knowledge available through museums and public seminars. It also has its fair share of corruption, scandal, and poverty, as well a potpourri of gangs and common thugs.
For "normal" humans, Chicago can be a dangerous but exciting place to visit or live. For the Awakened, both of these extremes are sharply magnified.
On one hand, Chicago is home to some of the richest, most compelling, and most potentially lucrative Mysteries in the Midwest. Legend has it that Chicago rests on an ancient battleground where the first mages made war against the Exarchs, before the fall of Atlantis. Despite the fact that modern cabals of brave mages have scoured the city for over a century, forays into the heart of Chicago today still often find imbued items, pieces of Supernal lore, and even the occasional artifact. The exact reason for the sheer number of these items appearing is unclear. Some Mystagogues believe that the city's core resonance allows for Irises to other realms to form at regular intervals, opening into parallel worlds or Emanations where this Atlantean war is still being raged. Mages who return from these Emanations only come back with glimpses of knowledge that don't seem to fit with where or how they remembered discovering these objects -- if they remember anything about their journeys to these otherworldly realms at all. Regardless, it is now common knowledge that these items are more likely to be found after unusual weather patterns, which may be related to their Supernal nature: thunderclouds with red lightning, hail falling in the height of summer, and other odd events. Mages with Prime Mage Sight can identify these magical weather fronts and refer to them as Highstorms. In fact, mages are experimenting with ways to incorporate these storms into their spell casting as a yantra, which has so far enhanced Prime spells and other magic that connects the material world with other realms.
But this knowledge comes with a price. Some of the items are cursed, or at least cause extreme damage to those who use them without proper precaution. Many appear tainted with the Abyss, tainting an unwary mage's imago or calling attention from horrific beings that have no known name. Mages have not been able to consistently identify and purify these items of their curses, although Masters of Prime have been the most successful to date.
Furthermore, mages are not alone in Chicago. Kindred and Uratha alike have flourishing societies or pockets of influence throughout the city, and they are constantly on the prowl for any sign of supernatural beings out of fear of predation. The safest times for mages to travel into the city relatively without fear of harassment are at peak hours during the day, but obviously at the risk of being surrounded by a sea of Sleepers. Even those times are not safe, as werewolves and their wolf-blooded kin have no problem being active during the day, and vampires' ghouls can equally act in sunlight without their masters' same limitations. Kindred and Uratha may lack mages' knowledge about Highstorms, but they can detect mages in their own ways, and they know that each Highstorm often leads to an influx of Awakened invaders on their home turf. Many a cabal has met its untimely demise searching for artifacts downtown -- but not enough to entirely deter the hubris of others. And there are other supernatural beings that may be fewer in numbers, but not necessarily less dangerous.
Most of the Orders still hold regular meetings downtown, due to a desire to have central meeting locations. The meetings often occur in private meeting rooms at public institutions during the lunch hour, with strict rules about not casting any spells on the premises. Each month, they also meet in varying outlying suburbs on a rotation system, where they are allowed to practice magic more freely. Guardians of the Veil are tasked with ensuring that mages follow these protocols during Order meetings, but also serve to protect mages when downtown. The Silver Ladder has been at odds with them for years; they believe that Mystery Cults downtown are especially important to give Sleepers a chance to have their eyes opened, believing that the Highstorms may be used somehow to facilitate their Awakening. The Free Council has been pursuing humanitarian efforts downtown with the homeless population of Chicago as well as the local LGBT community. They're also actively allied with researchers, including both mages and Sleepwalkers, at several universities downtown.
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Recent Events & Awakened Politics
The game begins on October 3, 2020. Until very recently, the Chicago Consilium was headed by a Hierarch named Atlas. Historically, the Chicago Consilium has been a republic by nature, with the leader from each Pentacle Order serving on a council that is overseen by the Hierarch. Atlas, an Obrimos Mystagogue, encouraged communication among the Order leaders but was primarily interested in his agenda to study and catalogue artifacts discovered after Highstorms. He had few policies or care for issues involving Kindred or Uratha, except to caution mages from causing more trouble than was necessary. Atlas was a pleasant but relatively reserved man, clearly brilliant and gifted but not always practical; most mages had nice things to say about him, but thought he could be more decisive or involved in major decisions pertaining to Awakened society.
On September 8, 2020, a particularly large and powerful Highstorm struck the city around dusk. Pitch-black fog seeped up from the ground beneath the entire span of the city proper, rose like mist into the sky, and formed boiling, black clouds lit by red lightning. A surge of mages traveled from the Chicagoland suburbs into the city in hopes of finding artifacts or some rare knowledge.
That evening, 32 mages were killed.
The victims were fairly equally distributed across Path and Order, although the Adamantine Arrow and Guardians had relatively fewer, while deaths among the Mysterium and Free Council were higher. With a previous population of mages somewhere between 300 and 400, the sheer number of deaths was a sizable blow to the Orders. Disturbingly, many of their bodies were found in isolated areas with a powerful Abyssal taint; Death spells to ascertain the nature and time of their deaths caused more than one Moros to scream in agony and fall comatose for a period lasting hours to days. Most of the mages killed included Nameless or newly Awakened, but a few were even verified masters. All of them had a look of horror transfixed on their face.
As a result of this incident, infamously referred to by many as the Deathstorm, a sudden shift in political power led to Atlas grudgingly stepping down as Hierarch in place of a Latina woman known as Cielo, a Thyrsus mage who was serving at the time as the Adamant Sage of the local Adamantine Arrow chapter. Cielo is part of a small but influential, all-Latina cabal known as Medianoche. Cielo and her "sisters" Luna and Estrella are all masters in their own right, but Cielo is a local legend rumored to have never lost a fight or a Duel Arcane.
Cielo's chief policies are straight to the point: Defend mages from danger. Subdue Kindred and Uratha if they pose an immediate threat; otherwise, don't pick a fight. And above all, strike down those who willingly seek to support the Abyss or Exarchs. With the full support of the Consilium, she and her cabal led strike teams against several Seer pylons and even some Scelesti in the city and routed them. Her approach has been criticized by a minority for being too extreme, but most have applauded her emphasis on getting results.
The Deathstorm has had some other subtler effects on Pentacle mages, too. The Free Council has been severely restricted in their ability to pursue some of their humanitarian efforts among the homeless. The relationships between the Silver Ladder and Guardians have grown even more tense. And a number of Nameless and newly Awakened mages have turned to the Adamantine Arrow, either out of admiration for Cielo or fear of being killed by some Abyssal monster without means of protecting themselves. Mystagogues have been arguing amongst themselves about whether it is more important to keep seeking new artifacts and knowledge from Highstorms, or if they should focus on studying the knowledge they've already accrued to ascertain what might have led to the events causing the Deathstorm.
Close enough to Chicago for an easy commute, but far enough away to avoid the...less than savory aspects of the Windy City, La Grange is a Cook County suburb that some would say is a boring alternative to city living. Many families choose to live in this area for a number of convenient factors: less congestion than its neighboring villages to the east, quick CTA access to the city and nearby towns, and a downright pleasant feeling that scratches the suburban itch that so many middle-class American families are seeking. Locals are quick to brag about La Grange's quality schools and that, yes, the actor David Hasselhoff is from here. What more could you ask for?
However, very few people, locals or otherwise, will let conversation linger on topics about the strange occurrences that have plagued parts of their town for years. It's a simple fact here: If you don't talk about it, it's not really a problem. Suburban lives goes on...except when they don't.
So no one talks about, for example, the way that kids from Lyons Township High School sometimes go missing for a week or two at a time, only to show up in town with no memory of where they've been or what they have been up to. People prefer to quickly change the topic when someone asks about the distant howling they heard coming from the woods at night on the north side of town. And no one really knows, and certainly never talks about, why these disruptions to their idyllic suburban life happen in very specific pockets of town while others have almost never reported these same problems. No one in their right mind discusses how absolutely dreadful all of those bizarre experiences are in Chicago, only a short train or bus ride away.
But you have Awakened. You don't just talk about these odd happenings; you can't get enough of them. And suburban life, it turns out, has a lot of secrets hiding behind its white-washed fences and nicely furnished homes.
Current Player Characters
1. Kvitebjørn Kong Valemon - Lynx, Thyrsus Mystagogue, animist/college student (old character sheet here: Lynx)
2. Second Chances - Eurydice's Heir, Moros Arrow, neopagan obsessed with ephemeral beings
3. DrSteve - Morganna, Mastigos théarch, soccer mom / con-woman
4. DArchon5 - Fatewise, Acanthus Mystagogue, high school grad with supernatural family problems
5. squidheadjax - Caliginosa, Obrimos Guardian, magical thief and artifact remover
Inactive Player Characters
1. Beans - Dr. Asphodel, Moros theoretical physicist
2. MagicSwordsman - Binder, Mastigos bookstore owner/family man
3. Caladriu - Moonstone, Mastigos Sleepwalker-turned-mage
4. crapcarp - Phoenix, Obrimos Hunter-turned-mage
5. Haberdasher - Ragnar, Acanthus Renaissance man
6. Thorbes - Ouroboros Ophis, Moros occult physician
----------------
Table of Contents
OOC Thread
Storm Chasers (Old group - Game no longer active)
Chapter 1: "Eyes Wide Open"
Chapter 2: "All in Order"
----------------
Taken by Storm
Prologue: “The Calm Before the Storm”
Chapter 1: “Distant Rumbles”
----------------
Awakened La Grange
In many ways, La Grange is a stereotypical Midwestern suburb. It has picturesque streets, a healthy blend of chain restaurants and unique local attrractions, and convenient access to the city. For mages, there are also additional perks of living in the city. Suburban "culture" means that no one looks too closely at strange occurrences, creating a natural layer of protection that allows mages to practice their arts with minimal intrusion. While mages, Kindred, and Uratha battle over territory in Chicago for ease of access to crucial resources, conflict between these supernatural in the suburbs tends to be less deadly and less common. Sleepers aren't the only ones who might turn a blind eye to strange occurrences in the suburbs. With this kind of atmosphere, it's no surprise that many mages would gravitate towards suburbs like La Grange for their sancta.
The weight of suburbia can cause other problems for mages, however. In some places around the city, the Lie settles in more strongly than other regions -- as if the city itself feeds into the Lie. Spellcasting in these areas can be impacted unexpectedly in a variety of ways, such as risking higher Paradox, being more vulnerable to Dissonance, or worsening Quiescence in Sleepers who observe obvious magic. Awakened Scholars haven't been able to pin down precisely why some regions are affected more than others, but they have observed that local events -- LT High School winning a big football game against a rival, a headline news story about an armed robbery in a wealthy neighborhood -- can cause the Lie to settle more heavily on different parts of town. This can be particularly frustrating when one of these zones moves over a sanctum.
The Guardians of the Veil are very active in the suburb of La Grange. They are charged with protecting the secrecy of Awakened society, and the moving "Lie zones" make their jobs easier in many cases. However, more than once they have needed to race to the scene of a ritual gone wrong because a mage overreached and summoned a monster from the Abyss. The Silver Ladder, in contrast, work even harder to guide Sleepers to Awakening to compensate for the heavy weight of the Lie in this suburban town. Their work has understandably led to tension with Guardians in La Grange, as well as the Adamantine Arrow, who more recently lean in support of the Guardians' mission.
Over the past few years, there have been additional unusual occurrences targeting the youth of La Grange. About every month, a student from La Grange's Lyons Township High School has been going missing. In almost every case, the teenager suddenly showed up a week or two later, with no memory of what had happened to them or where they had been. There have been two notable exceptions, in each case of which the teen's body was found with no identifiable causes of death. For the adolescents who go missing and do return, the community has made it a habit to just pretend that nothing strange happened, and that the teenager was out of town on some kind of vacation -- or perhaps it's the Lie that prevents them from remembering? So far, no mages have been able to figure out what, or who, is causing these teens to disappear.
Places of Interest:
Brookfield Zoo: Although technically in Brookfield rather than La Grange proper, the zoo draws crowds of Sleepers and mages alike. mages in particular visit the zoo because there are several hallows scattered throughout and around the area. The Gauntlet also fluctuates here in a peculiar fashion; it is thick during the day, but razor thin during the quiet hours of the night.
Bemis Woods: This 480-acre forest is located on the northwest side of La Grange. Sleepers come here for a fun, outdoorsy day of hiking and enjoying nature. mages come here primarily to collect mana from its many hallows, and some reclusive mages even hide away in their sancta here. However, Uratha frequent the area as well, usually because dangerous or powerful spirits try to use Bemis Woods as an access point to the material world.
Rumors Nightclub: This gay bar has only opened in the past year, and already it has been received with excellent reviews. The welcoming, raucous atmosphere inside provides a great cover for mages trying to hide in plain sight while they meet and discuss recent Awakened politics. However, Kindred and their ghouls also frequent the bar, using the popular night scene for easy feeding.
Marlin's Books: Marlin Matheson's bookstore is located here in La Grange. Although he hasn't previously known it, mages have come here investigating to see how much true occult knowledge Marlin has accumulated, especially thearchs and Mystagogues.
Flying V Martial Arts: The martial arts studio where Garrick Royce works part-time as an instructor is also located in La Grange. He has good relationships with a number of quality students and other instructors. It also provides him with opportunities to keep honing his physical skills, and it does help pay the rent.
----------------
Awakened Chicago
Chicago is a busy city with a richly diverse urban atmosphere. Men and women from around the world travel here for business or pleasure. There are many large and well-respected universities and colleges, a thriving entertainment industry, a vibrant music and art scene, and a wealth of knowledge available through museums and public seminars. It also has its fair share of corruption, scandal, and poverty, as well a potpourri of gangs and common thugs.
For "normal" humans, Chicago can be a dangerous but exciting place to visit or live. For the Awakened, both of these extremes are sharply magnified.
On one hand, Chicago is home to some of the richest, most compelling, and most potentially lucrative Mysteries in the Midwest. Legend has it that Chicago rests on an ancient battleground where the first mages made war against the Exarchs, before the fall of Atlantis. Despite the fact that modern cabals of brave mages have scoured the city for over a century, forays into the heart of Chicago today still often find imbued items, pieces of Supernal lore, and even the occasional artifact. The exact reason for the sheer number of these items appearing is unclear. Some Mystagogues believe that the city's core resonance allows for Irises to other realms to form at regular intervals, opening into parallel worlds or Emanations where this Atlantean war is still being raged. Mages who return from these Emanations only come back with glimpses of knowledge that don't seem to fit with where or how they remembered discovering these objects -- if they remember anything about their journeys to these otherworldly realms at all. Regardless, it is now common knowledge that these items are more likely to be found after unusual weather patterns, which may be related to their Supernal nature: thunderclouds with red lightning, hail falling in the height of summer, and other odd events. Mages with Prime Mage Sight can identify these magical weather fronts and refer to them as Highstorms. In fact, mages are experimenting with ways to incorporate these storms into their spell casting as a yantra, which has so far enhanced Prime spells and other magic that connects the material world with other realms.
But this knowledge comes with a price. Some of the items are cursed, or at least cause extreme damage to those who use them without proper precaution. Many appear tainted with the Abyss, tainting an unwary mage's imago or calling attention from horrific beings that have no known name. Mages have not been able to consistently identify and purify these items of their curses, although Masters of Prime have been the most successful to date.
Furthermore, mages are not alone in Chicago. Kindred and Uratha alike have flourishing societies or pockets of influence throughout the city, and they are constantly on the prowl for any sign of supernatural beings out of fear of predation. The safest times for mages to travel into the city relatively without fear of harassment are at peak hours during the day, but obviously at the risk of being surrounded by a sea of Sleepers. Even those times are not safe, as werewolves and their wolf-blooded kin have no problem being active during the day, and vampires' ghouls can equally act in sunlight without their masters' same limitations. Kindred and Uratha may lack mages' knowledge about Highstorms, but they can detect mages in their own ways, and they know that each Highstorm often leads to an influx of Awakened invaders on their home turf. Many a cabal has met its untimely demise searching for artifacts downtown -- but not enough to entirely deter the hubris of others. And there are other supernatural beings that may be fewer in numbers, but not necessarily less dangerous.
Most of the Orders still hold regular meetings downtown, due to a desire to have central meeting locations. The meetings often occur in private meeting rooms at public institutions during the lunch hour, with strict rules about not casting any spells on the premises. Each month, they also meet in varying outlying suburbs on a rotation system, where they are allowed to practice magic more freely. Guardians of the Veil are tasked with ensuring that mages follow these protocols during Order meetings, but also serve to protect mages when downtown. The Silver Ladder has been at odds with them for years; they believe that Mystery Cults downtown are especially important to give Sleepers a chance to have their eyes opened, believing that the Highstorms may be used somehow to facilitate their Awakening. The Free Council has been pursuing humanitarian efforts downtown with the homeless population of Chicago as well as the local LGBT community. They're also actively allied with researchers, including both mages and Sleepwalkers, at several universities downtown.
----------------
Recent Events & Awakened Politics
The game begins on October 3, 2020. Until very recently, the Chicago Consilium was headed by a Hierarch named Atlas. Historically, the Chicago Consilium has been a republic by nature, with the leader from each Pentacle Order serving on a council that is overseen by the Hierarch. Atlas, an Obrimos Mystagogue, encouraged communication among the Order leaders but was primarily interested in his agenda to study and catalogue artifacts discovered after Highstorms. He had few policies or care for issues involving Kindred or Uratha, except to caution mages from causing more trouble than was necessary. Atlas was a pleasant but relatively reserved man, clearly brilliant and gifted but not always practical; most mages had nice things to say about him, but thought he could be more decisive or involved in major decisions pertaining to Awakened society.
On September 8, 2020, a particularly large and powerful Highstorm struck the city around dusk. Pitch-black fog seeped up from the ground beneath the entire span of the city proper, rose like mist into the sky, and formed boiling, black clouds lit by red lightning. A surge of mages traveled from the Chicagoland suburbs into the city in hopes of finding artifacts or some rare knowledge.
That evening, 32 mages were killed.
The victims were fairly equally distributed across Path and Order, although the Adamantine Arrow and Guardians had relatively fewer, while deaths among the Mysterium and Free Council were higher. With a previous population of mages somewhere between 300 and 400, the sheer number of deaths was a sizable blow to the Orders. Disturbingly, many of their bodies were found in isolated areas with a powerful Abyssal taint; Death spells to ascertain the nature and time of their deaths caused more than one Moros to scream in agony and fall comatose for a period lasting hours to days. Most of the mages killed included Nameless or newly Awakened, but a few were even verified masters. All of them had a look of horror transfixed on their face.
As a result of this incident, infamously referred to by many as the Deathstorm, a sudden shift in political power led to Atlas grudgingly stepping down as Hierarch in place of a Latina woman known as Cielo, a Thyrsus mage who was serving at the time as the Adamant Sage of the local Adamantine Arrow chapter. Cielo is part of a small but influential, all-Latina cabal known as Medianoche. Cielo and her "sisters" Luna and Estrella are all masters in their own right, but Cielo is a local legend rumored to have never lost a fight or a Duel Arcane.
Cielo's chief policies are straight to the point: Defend mages from danger. Subdue Kindred and Uratha if they pose an immediate threat; otherwise, don't pick a fight. And above all, strike down those who willingly seek to support the Abyss or Exarchs. With the full support of the Consilium, she and her cabal led strike teams against several Seer pylons and even some Scelesti in the city and routed them. Her approach has been criticized by a minority for being too extreme, but most have applauded her emphasis on getting results.
The Deathstorm has had some other subtler effects on Pentacle mages, too. The Free Council has been severely restricted in their ability to pursue some of their humanitarian efforts among the homeless. The relationships between the Silver Ladder and Guardians have grown even more tense. And a number of Nameless and newly Awakened mages have turned to the Adamantine Arrow, either out of admiration for Cielo or fear of being killed by some Abyssal monster without means of protecting themselves. Mystagogues have been arguing amongst themselves about whether it is more important to keep seeking new artifacts and knowledge from Highstorms, or if they should focus on studying the knowledge they've already accrued to ascertain what might have led to the events causing the Deathstorm.
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