1000 Mage Plots

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

This can also include the Technocracy and the other groups (including Sorcerer was well).

1) Fat Chance: This is very satirical. With the rising of the fat acceptance movement, the Syndicate is in a bit of a dilemma. Some of them want to capitalize on this by encouraging the ideas of diets not really working, designer clothing for women over size 23, making stories about obese superheroes and fantasy warriors and helping out feeder sites. While others who support the diet and fitness industry are fighting back against it. Not to mention that many of Progenitors aren't too happy since they want people to be healthy. Will the players try to stop this or watch all the sides make fools of themselves (and watch me possibly get a backlash)?

[Bluecho]

2) Six Guys Just Hanging Out: In a major city, six men were discovered murdered one morning, all from slit throats. All six were suspended from ropes tied to one of their feet, their corpses arranged visually like the Hanged Man Arcana. In all cases, they were left in high locations, often on rooftops or top floor rooms; locations were all difficult or impossible to reach, much less carrying bodies. Each also had a number carved into their chests, from one to six. When the locations the bodies were found is plotted to a map of the city, and lines drawn in sequential order, it naturally forms a six-pointed star. No concrete evidence is forthcoming.

The police are baffled, and the press are having a field day on the sensationalism. It may not be a five-pointed star, but the public is engaged in a full-blown Satanic Panic over the devilry afoot. To make matters worse, one pop occultist making the rounds in the media has made public observations of his own. Like how the bodies were arranged like the Hanged Man, which was the number 12 Major Arcana. Likely to drum up attention, he's theorized that this set of killings is only half of the work, a task to be completed with another set of six bodies. And that, because the bodies were found following the night of the New Moon, it could happen again between two weeks and one month later, to coincide with either the next Full Moon or New Moon.

Of course, even if the original killer(s) didn't intend such a thing, the authorities are fearful of copycats, looking to fulfill the prophecy themselves...

[Killerclown]

The Shadyveil Incident: It was supposed to be simple, rescue your friend from a Technocracy-owned mental home. Most of your original plan worked out finely, until that nosy security guard saw you and raised the alarm. You managed to fight your way through most of the security and NWO agents that responded to the alarm. But, during the middle of the showdown someone let all the patients out of their cells, which caused the loony farm to go under lockdown. Now, you have to find a way out while avoiding the escaped lunatics and Technocratic agents trying to keep anyone from escaping.

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

3) The Avatar Storm/Threat Null is rapidly growing again as it's starting to tear through more realms at a quick pace. Can the Factions put aside their hate to stop it and even get help from the Shifters who are also getting their realms attacked? If you want, you can have the Black Spiral Dancers losing bits of their turf and starting to make offers to the Mages.

[Bluecho]

4) The Big Plan: The king of Brobdingnab - umbral Realm and home to the Bygones of the giant age - sired a child with a human. The huge progeny of that union has Awakened, and been charged by his father to pave the way for his giant brethren to march back into the material world.

The Giant Son has multiple prongs to this endeavor. First, create or capture as many Nodes for his cause, so that giant Bygones may enter the world for a time without fading away. Second, to research and perfect methods - occult and scientific - to push against the natural (or unnatural) forces that hamper the health of gigantic humans. When the world sees that men can exist in larger sizes without terrible health effects, they will become more willing to believe in ever larger humanoids. And third, begin a breeding program for human-giant hybrids, no matter how many test subjects and experiments need to happen.

You are either Technocrats taking issue with hostile extradimensional ultra-humanoids, or Traditionalists who find any of the above dangerous or unsavory. One of the cabal may also be descendant of giants, looking to make sense of their origins, and put a stop to Brobdingnab's reckless plots.

[Bluecho]

[How about something for Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade?]

5) A poster has been placed on the wall of a major trade city. Upon it are blasphemous illustrations, that drive those who see it violently mad. If one of Awakened/Enlightened mental fortitude (or simply a strong Will) can overcome the maddening designs, they can find a message printed at the bottom:

"To those steel of will, that can stare into the product of dark artistry without flinching, thou garner our respect. We relish thy prompt interference, should thy wit match thy will.

Sincerely,
The Unnatural Philosphers Guild"

[Bluecho]

6) Saving The Kids From ADVENTURE(!): One or more children belonging to the player characters have been picked up by Vrum Vrum Boom, an autonomous Etherite vehicle that can go basically anywhere, and has a mind of its own. (See Technomancer's Toybox, p. 41, for more details). Maybe the car sensed that the children were bored, or desired for their parents to have a greater involvement in their life (for indeed, being a Mage often monopolizes one's time). Whatever the case, Vrum Vrum Boom decided the solution to their problem is to take them on an Adventure! Whether or not either the kids or their parents wanted it. Vrum Vrum isn't very smart. Nor does it have a proper perspective on danger, as it has the mentality of a children's book (fitting, since an Etherite children's book author created it). No one ever really gets hurt when you go on Adventures(!), right?

Vrum Vrum Boom takes the kid(s) off to the Umbra, looking for trouble and excitement. The players must now chase after them, before something horrible happens to the children. Not everything in the Umbra is nice or safe.

[Muad'Dib]

7) An Adsinistratus is in need of redemption, and is willing to take it!... Well, actually she is honestly looking for a lover from among the Traditions. The Celestial Choir is not invited.

[Muad'Dib]

8) A young Ecstatic has been delving into Tarot as a foci...fuelled by 60-80 hours cocaine binges. Just yesterday he got 3 cards for the week - the Fool, the Hierophant, the King. All three burned to ash before he even considered them. Are the Aswadim involved??

[Bluecho]

9) Queen of the Mechanical Underground: The local Technocracy is contacted by a most unusual individual: a hideous hemovore, who smells of the sewer. The Nosferatu came calling on behalf of his Clan, to ask the Union to "kindly get the techno lunatic out of the sewers. She is one of you folk, right?" When asked why the vampire thought they had any relation to the "techno lunatic", he responded, "the army of junky robots and the cybernetic implants were dead giveaways".

Apparently, a woman with heavy damage to her right eye, arm, and leg, found her way into a storm drain a while back. She was next spotted with her missing appendages replaced with crude mechanical implants, hauling loads of electronic parts around the tunnels. Soon enough, Nosferatu plants within the municipal utilities noticed massive amounts of electricity being diverted to unknown locations, and reports of more and more thefts of machine parts cropped up throughout the city.

Then, the robots started to appear, patrolling the tunnels. Often little droids at first, able to squeeze into pipes and the like. Then, bigger walking robots. Both the Nosferatu and this new technomancer knew about each other's presence - it was a small underworld. Once the big bots appeared, though, their relationship changed from one of cautious avoidance to hostile takeover of territory. Their mistress apparently caught on to the fact that the vampires could command vermin, because they've been systematically exterminated in the sewers. Large bots have been working to drive Nosferatu away from more and more sections of the tunnel system. Eventually, it came to blows...and while the vampires can hit hard, the robots can tank hits, and deal them back.

Disconcertingly, the Nossies have been losing their engagements, though they've only been committing slightly to the conflict, for a desire to feel out their opposition. Now, the vampires have decided this situation is too severe, and have called in people who understand the problem. That being the Technocratic Union, whom this particular set of Nosferatu understand to be specialists in technology more advanced that is permitted to the public (and, really, the Kine have access to enough tech that could destroy them all). The vampires are willing to offer information - on everything from activity on the streets to the broad strokes conflicts among Kindred - in return for the Union going down and dealing with "one of their own".

The Union, while wary of trusting the hemovores, are concerned with this news enough to seriously consider acting. They don't tell the vampires that the technomancer is likely not a part of the Union - they don't need to know about the Ascension War with the superstitionists and techno-traitors. But it's a matter that could be quite grave, if the rogue genius is creating an army of automatons.

One other bit of info from the vampires has the Union concerned: the robots are moving great quantities of earth and rock from the lower tunnels. For whatever reason, the Queen of the Mechanical Underground is digging.

[Bluecho]

10) Retrieve the Master's "Clothes": A disciple at the local Akashic dojo contacts the party in a panic, asking anyone who will listen that his master has gone missing and needs to be found. However, he'll be cagey about what exactly is going on, unless pressed.

In truth, it's not the master who is missing, but the master's body. Accomplished in the art of Mind, the master regularly goes on astral journeys, leaving his body behind with his students. Not that the body is supposed to need tending, as the master implanted a sophisticated "autonomous" intelligence in his head, capable of tending to its needs and fighting off attackers if needed. The students are just there as extra insurance, to keep the body inside the master's sanctum.

However, the disciple made some kind of error (probably leaving a door open or something), allowing the body to wander free. What matters is that the body is wandering the streets of the city, feeding himself with whatever food is within reach, relieving himself wherever, and getting into fistfights with whoever takes exception to his behavior. The disciple doesn't know where the body is, and cannot track him (for the master ritually severs any sympathetic connections with his possessions, for obvious reasons). The master's mind doesn't appear to be returning any time soon, meaning the only one who could find the body unerringly is away. Moreover, the disciple is terrified, both of the master's body being lost, and that his mistake will be discovered. So he needs the body found as quickly as possible, before something terrible happens.

For added hilarity, remember that the body is without a spirit, and has left the safety of its owner's warded sanctum. Ergo, a juicy target for any spirit looking for a host. There might even be one possessing the body by the time the PC cabal finds it.

Good luck!

[Bluecho]

11) The Man In The Painting: An Awakened scholar of art charges the PC cabal to investigate a painting completed in the early Edwardian era (~1904). The painting was a group portrait, depicting five gentlemen dressed in the style of contemporary English elite. Or that's how most records of the painting describe it, and how photographs depict it on the website of the art museum that displays it. The reason the scholar has interest in the item is because, after reading publications printed during the time of its unveiling, they realized that the earliest records make mention only of four gentlemen. Sometime after 1918, all records (sparse though they be) claim the current five. This was also the time the painting was found and donated to the museum, after the disappearance of its creator. As the art scholar's attention is focused on other matters, the cabal is asked to investigate this anomaly.

Should the PCs elect to do so, they might begin by traveling to the museum and examining the portrait. A Prime 1 check will reveal that the painting is magical in some way. The museum curator may inform the cabal of the Artist who painted the portrait, which may lead them to investigate the man's life. Digging around may reveal signs that the Artist - a reclusive man who abhored photos - was a Mage, and that he disappeared in 1918, shortly before the painting was donated to the museum by his next of kin. Further investigation may reveal that the Artist had four university pals, all of whom perished in the Great War.

If the cabal hasn't yet filled in the blanks, looking up the descendants of the Artist - his only living relatives - turn up a little information ("He was eccentric, or so grandma always said."). More importantly, the relatives may offer to show the cabal photographs of the Artist, when he and his pals were at university. Thus far, the only photographs of the Artist in existence (for he avoided having his photo taken, and evaded press, despite his minor celebrity). Unsurprising, the men depicted in the photos are all men also depicted in the portrait, including the Artist as a young man (the one in the portrait is older).

Returning to the portrait, the cabal may be inclined to speak to it, telling it what they've learned. They may also have skipped the information-gathering stage, and tried to unweave whatever enchantment was on the portrait. Or, through a Matter 1 or Life 1 spell, learned that some organism inhabits the painting. If at any point they openly make note of this fact when around the painting, the extra gentleman will turned to face them (until that point, he'd been looking sideways at his companions). He will promptly climb out of the frame, standing before them in his full Edwardian costume. The Artist will explain (if the cabal isn't already aware) that, after the horrors of the Great War - the war that claimed each of his best friends - he grew weary of the world, and retreated to this portrait. The portrait painted for his schoolmates, and the only place where they remained as he remembered them: young, whole, and full of promise.

He will speak perhaps of his time as a Mage, and ask how the Ascension War progresses. He will take the answers gravely, then decide that he's mourned long enough. He yet has work to do. Before he leaves via teleportation (taking his portrait with him, much to the bewilderment of museum staff when they discover this), he will offer the cabal a reward, as thanks for rousing him from his slumber.

The Artist tells them where to find a hidden cache of his accumulated riches, and the spoils of his Magely adventures. Turns out THAT was the adventure hook all along.

[Bluecho]

12) Cash For Silver: A group of individuals contact a PC with Craft (Weaponsmithing), looking to purchase silver ammunition (small arms, shotgun pellets, etc). If the mage (jokingly or otherwise) asks if the people are going to hunt werewolves, they'll laugh it off uneasily. Still, their money is good, and they provide the raw silver and other supplies. If the mage agrees, they may find the group returning again and again for more product. As they interact more and more, the mage begins to know these folks a little better. They're genuinely nice people, and will in time admit to being monster hunters. Depending on what the mage's Focus is, the hunters may begin to notice the mage for what they are. Not that this makes them hostile - the mage is a human, not a monster. It does mean that, eventually, the hunters are going to start fishing for great advantages. One of them may have been badly injured in their hunts, maybe losing an arm. They'll ask if the mage can "hook them up" with some more magical tools. If the mage is capable of producing Charms, all the better; if not, they could say they can't help much, or agree to ask around among other mages with Charm-making skills, or the knowledge on how to gain them.

Eventually, after the mage has really gotten to know this group, they may start talking about mysterious "backers", willing to provide them with equipment, arms, and certain...mystic advantages. This assuming the mage can't or won't go that far for them. If the mage has access to Spirit 1, they may sense a subtle spiritual corruption in one or more of them.

As one can guess, the werewolf hunters get tapped by Pentex, looking to produce more expendable tools in their fight against the Garou. Is the mage able - or willing - to intervene? Would they even know to? At some point, this situation is going to spiral out of control. This may or may not drag the mage into it, one way or another. One or more hunters might go full Fomori, and the group begs the mage to help him. They might inadvertently draw lupines to the mage's place. They might disappear shortly after they brag about their new backers, and end up dead on the evening news. It's a complex situation that the Storyteller and player need to work out for themselves. As is how the plotline eventually ends.

[Warpwind]

snip.

I would say that dumbass really deserves everything that's coming for him.
Could also turn it around and play as a group of werewolf hunters, that has come across a friendly, nice, honest wizard who is all too happy to provide ammo and charms against the terrible monsters. Then show them why werewolves are good guys in the World of Darkness and how terrible 'human' can get.

[Warpwind]

13) You grew up amongst monsters. From as long as you could remember yourself, you have heard about garou, the greatness of warriors, the righteousness of the cause and the noble fight for the soul of Gaia. As long as you could, you wanted to be one of them. To change into a wolf and to run with the spirits, to fight for the very world. Yes, they explained to you that you will never change, that you simply were not born that way. But damn it, you never lost the hope, you could feel it, something awaiting you. They could be wrong, they had to.
When a white, unmarked wan cut of your way and several man, who had to be pentex, tried to wrangle you into it - you fought. THIS had to be it, this was the moment, this was the moment you had to change. Of course you didn't. When they beat you up and threw you into it, when you understood that there would be no grace of Gaia, no miracle... something broke in you and with it something broke free. While your body refused to change, your soul did. It spat fire and tore attacker to bloody limbs. So hold your Primordial nature, your Avatar of the great Wyrm/Dragon and prey your friends and family don't smell anything amiss.

* you are not really corrupt or a vidderslainte. You just start with Primordial essence and the Avatar in the form of great wingless dragon, e.i wyrm. Good luck and better invest in dat Arcane.