alternate universes where each of the different Traditions Paradigms become dominant?

[The Nilbog]

Great, now I want to write up an alternate timeline where King Suleiman lost the War of Enslavement thanks to large factions of human Mages siding with the Djinn. This, in turn, fosters healthier, more equitable human-spirit relationships. Umbral practices remain fairly reliable and easy to do, and spirits and humans help eachother well enough that there is no pressing need for the Order of Reason or Council of Traditions to come into existence. Instead, the practices develop along more Umbra-oriented lines, and the largest unified body is made up of various spirit mages who maintain travel and diplomatic relationships between humans and various classes of spirit, divided by the entities they specialize in invoking and interacting with. There would be ersatz Choristers who work with angels, ersatz Void Engineers/Etherites who work with aliens, ersatz Hermetics/Taftani who work with djinn, and of course the most respected of all, the venerable alliance of ancient shamans who deal with nature spirits: the Dreamspeakers.

I will grant, it's hardly an especially Dark world, but I think it would be a fun one to run games in...

[Accelerator]

Hermetics would probably not be like ours. For starters, from what I remember, Hermetics are *not* happy with sharing out their knowledge. They're a mystery cult. So powerful overlords, people who are in the lower level of hierarchy having linear sorcery, and with peasants at the bottom.

[No One of Consequence]

Hermetics would probably not be like ours. For starters, from what I remember, Hermetics are *not* happy with sharing out their knowledge. They're a mystery cult. So powerful overlords, people who are in the lower level of hierarchy having linear sorcery, and with peasants at the bottom.

Hmm. A divergence point revolving around the early machinations of Tremere and his inner circle, in this case their plot to frame House Diedne as Infernalists gets discovered and the Tremere are ultimately purged around 1000AD instead of Diedne. Because of this, there is no Wizards' March against the Tremere at the start of the 13th century, and when the Craftmasons try to siege Mistridge in 1210, the defenses hold and the artificers are routed. Because this attack isn't mistaken as an attack by the (non-existent) Tremere or as just an accident of the Albigensian Crusade, the Order crushes the Craftmasons.
Because the Order tends to keep itself apart from mundane politics and culture, they don't really get involved with politics or history. However, House Mercere's tasks are expanded to keeping an eye out for any more potential problems like the Craftmasons. This includes them undermining - and with the help of House Jerbiton, coopting - much of the power of the High Guild, and House Verditius absorbing a number of Greek artificers fleeing the falling Byzantine empire. Meanwhile, House Diedne and Bjornaer have absorbed many of the former Old Faith under their banner.
The main potential threats to the Order at this point are the Gabrielites, who have by now mostly corrected/destroyed the Messianic Voices, and the Web of Faith in the Islamic world.

I'm not sure where it would go from there. I sort of have a vague idea in my head of a world that stopped at Renaissance or Enlightenment level technology but is augmented with ritual magic/alchemy into a sort of rapiers & airships style fantasy setting.

[Accelerator]

I think that a member of the technocracy or at least the order of reason can arise in a hermetic controlled world.

Just make it so that they're a bunch of people who've 'discovered' that most of the complicated rituals are just dross set up to confuse the common man and have made it their mission to simplify it for everyday use.

I'm more interested in an Akashic world. Technocracy would be those guys using giant robot suits rebelling against super martial artists.

[No One of Consequence]

I suppose the Virtual Adept world would be humanity uploaded into the Digital Web into something akin to the more interesting aspects of The Matrix and Ready Player One.

[Dataweaver]

You know how Adventure! could be thought of as “what if the Sons of Ether won the Ascension War?” Well, there's this other game that can be thought of as “what if the Virtual Adepts won the Ascension War?” And that would be Eclipse Phase.

[Alucard]

Hmm. A divergence point revolving around the early machinations of Tremere and his inner circle, in this case their plot to frame House Diedne as Infernalists gets discovered and the Tremere are ultimately purged around 1000AD instead of Diedne. Because of this, there is no Wizards' March against the Tremere at the start of the 13th century, and when the Craftmasons try to siege Mistridge in 1210, the defenses hold and the artificers are routed. Because this attack isn't mistaken as an attack by the (non-existent) Tremere or as just an accident of the Albigensian Crusade, the Order crushes the Craftmasons.
Because the Order tends to keep itself apart from mundane politics and culture, they don't really get involved with politics or history. However, House Mercere's tasks are expanded to keeping an eye out for any more potential problems like the Craftmasons. This includes them undermining - and with the help of House Jerbiton, coopting - much of the power of the High Guild, and House Verditius absorbing a number of Greek artificers fleeing the falling Byzantine empire. Meanwhile, House Diedne and Bjornaer have absorbed many of the former Old Faith under their banner.
The main potential threats to the Order at this point are the Gabrielites, who have by now mostly corrected/destroyed the Messianic Voices, and the Web of Faith in the Islamic world.

I'm not sure where it would go from there. I sort of have a vague idea in my head of a world that stopped at Renaissance or Enlightenment level technology but is augmented with ritual magic/alchemy into a sort of rapiers & airships style fantasy setting.

Sounds very cool. Would love to play in that setting.

[Zennis]

I RAN A post apocalyptic game with the technocracy being wiped out. the void engineers and virtual adepts folded into the etherites and basically they went out the door and into the umbra for the most part.

the traditions had run of the world again and were united enough after the nephandi orchestrated apocalypse hit (which actually came back to bite them in the ass as the void they unleashed upon the world came to consume them as well, they unleashed the dark masters or anti oracles upon the earth and it destroyed them when they couldn't destabilize reality enough to destroy it completely) essentially the council of nine became the greatest world power, though many nephandi survived and continue to terrorize reality and the problems of mages are many.

Now, the region of the pacific north west is under the rule of the hermetic masters of greylocke chantry (see NWO revised), as well as various dream speakers in the area, they have a peaceful relationship and there are also some other mages in the area, mostly choristers.

the rest of the world isn't fleshed out so much but I decided that the traditional strongholds remained viable for many of the traditions.

oh, and the Ahli'Batin came back when the digital web was shattered and reclaimed it as their mount Khaf/web of faith and thus became a super power of the traditions as they were not hit by the death of many of their great masters by the avatar storm and thus reclaimed their seat on the council and evolved into a new and powerful tradition

[Accelerator]

I suppose the Virtual Adept world would be humanity uploaded into the Digital Web into something akin to the more interesting aspects of The Matrix and Ready Player One.

.... where would that leave everyone else, though? What are the tenets of the Virtual adepts, anyway? Information wants to be free, connectivity everywhere, L33T hackers, able to change reality using hacking and coding.. what else?