Alternative Traditions Origins

[Kakost]

I… don’t think the Order of Hermes as presented is that directly related to Hermeticism IRL as you presume here, and I don’t have much say about what you are talking here about Hermeticism and (pseudo-)Jewish mysticism in Europe, because it contradicts what I already know about them so much that I’m willing to stay silent until I figure things out, so uh, okay?

I’ll just simmer for awhile my ideas for the Lacustrine Covenant Tradition and its Schools, such as the Shaolin.

And as a Korean I’m slightly miffed about the post further above

Ok, so I didnt know the names in English (Qabalah and Kabbalah, fair enough).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Qabalah

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah

Now, obviously the christians were not jews, but Christian Kabbalism is basically the Jewish Kabbalism.

As for the Hermetic Qabalah, is a weird mix of everything imaginable. It's the real "medieval Theosophy".

As for the Mage game, yeah the Order of Hermes of the game isnt exactly the same as the Order of Hermes of the real world (particularly because the "mages" of the real world dont go around throwing fireballs and making golems... Or at least, I think), but they are also not almost completely (but not entirely) the opposite of the Order of Hermes of the real world.

The game ones were based on the real ones, even if they are not a carbon copy.

About Korea... Yeah, it's sad. Sorry about it my friend, but if you're Korean you know better than anybody how the history of Korea is a sad tale. There's absolutely no way that both the Chinese and Japanese mages that would undoubtedly be part of all the countless invasions of Korea, there's no way they would ever let a Korean Tradition live.

EDIT: but yes, I do understand the argument, in so much that yes, the Order of Hermes of the game was basically to serve the purpose of the pointed hat Wizard from D&D. Yes, when Mage the Ascension was first written, each Tradition was more or less a stereotyped kind of D&D "class" - so the Hermetics were the "Wizards", the Chorists were the "Clerics" (which is perhaps the reason why they are sort of "theosophists" rather than mystic christians), Dreamspeakers are the "Shamans", Verbena are the "Druids" and so on, with the Akashics being the "Monks" from D&D.

All from those D&D classes they tried to fit on real world groups and cultures, and thus the Order of Hermes fitted like a glove. That much is true, yes.

Still, the real and fictional group has a bit more in common than just the name (even if initially they were that much 1D "Wizards")

[Kakost]

"The Hermetic Qabalah is the basis for Qliphothic Qabala as studied by left-hand path orders, such as the Typhonian Order."

Huh. So, we even have real life Nephandic groups. That was... Unexpected.

I just hope that human sacrifices are regulated by authorities. Just imagine the sanitary conditions!

[Kakost]

In my modest view, the two best representatives for both the Order of Hermes and the Celestial Chorus, are precisely the Kabbalists or Qabalists (sorry, in English Im not exactly sure what's the precise term, in portuguese it's just "Cabala" for both) from Hermetic or Jewish origins (yes yes, there is the Christian Kabbalah, but that's pretty much just an adaptation, the jewish one is the origin of it all).

Like I told to Ramnses in the thread about the Ahl-I-Batin, who would best be represented by the the islamic tradition of Sufism, which is "Islamic mysticism", which I said is not mainstream, but likewise Judaic-Christian mysticism is not mainstream either, but exists, and THIS is the main source of it, the Kabbalah (not the Hermetic one thou)

One thing that I like is that both the Jewish/Christian Kabbalah AND the Hermetic Qabalah are elist movements, practiced basically by aristocrats (either by the nobility or even SOME - but not all - clergy). Just like islamic Sufism too.

That goes VERY WELL with the game concept of the Magi (the hubristic self entitled "Awakened" or "Enlightened") to be a bunch of presumptuous a holes living at the top of (sometimes literal) ivory towers.

Thank the Cosmos the Order of Reason kicked those arrogants butts, so that their elitist asses could be replaced by the also elitist views of the Technocracy that went on to also become a bunch of presumptuous a holes living on ivory towers.

I wonder if the ability to shape reality to your will and holding secret knowledge has something to do with those types believing themselves better than the common "masses" hmmmm.... Nah, it's probably just a coincidence...

[Dataweaver]

Note that the Sorcerers Crusade Companion included a number of Disparate factions (that is, in fact, where the term “Disparate” first appeared), most of whom got incorporated into M20's Disparate Alliance. The most notably exception was the Lions of Zion, a group of Jewish Kabbalists. I suspect that they were left out because it's far too easy to play up real-world antisemitic conspiracy theories with their inclusion.

On your mention of a specifically Japanese mystical group, let me point out that one of the groups that's described as candidates for membership in the Disparate Alliance is the Go Kamisori Gama, “a clan of hypertech ninjas who have their own reasons for wanting to topple the Technocracy.” Doing some digging, their only other appearance was in Dragons of the East, and I suspect that Brucato was planning to do a complete overhaul of them similar to the one that he did for the Taftani in M20 — though opposite in effect: while his revised Taftani embrace technology far more than the original write-up did, I'm guessing that the new version of the Go Kamisori Gama would incorporate more traditional Japanese beliefs alongside their hypertech tendencies.

Unfortunately, I know of no Korean equivalent; just as I know of nothing that addresses other Southeast Asian cultures (Vietnam, Siam, the Philippines, etc.) Though I know that Victorian Mage highlights Siam as an Akashic stronghold against the Order of Reason.

As I've said elsewhere, I don't consider the Chakravanti to be death-oriented, even as written; I view them as having that reputation solely on the grounds that they're the only Tradition that's willing to acknowledge that death is a part of the Wheel of Fate, and therefore the only Tradition that incorporates assassins and necromancers into its ranks without stigmatizing them. For a Chakravanti rewrite, I'd lean heavily into the idea that even in their ranks, the death-mages are a minority; they're just a much larger minority than they are in any other Tradition, and they aren't looked down upon by the Tradition. Instead, they're viewed as having their own role in maintaining the Wheel of Fate, just as the other Chakravanti do. Kali is both a creator and a destroyer. And because the death mages are so openly accepted within the Tradition, that's what the other Traditions' stereotypes of the Chakravanti center around: to hear them talk about it, every Chakravanti is an assassin, when the truth is that large parts of the Tradition deal with cultivating the fates of the living: more fortune tellers than thread cutters.

[Ramnesis]

In that regard, I'd say that the Akashayana are supposed to be both Buddhists (in terms of their “reincarnated souls” thing) and Taoists (with the whole Yin, Yang, trigrams, hexagrams, Bagua, and I Ching stuff).

I think their core is a very bare bones Buddhism (like, the none-existence of the self, reality as samsara, and the goal of gaining enlightenment). However, the various internal organisation can add on extra elements, like ideas from Taoism, or Confucianism.

Yes, Eastern religions are a lot more prone to syncretism than those in the west. Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism, all of those have some overlapping and intermingling. Unlike in the West, were Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Paganism are all mutually exclusive.

This is the sense I get as well. Buddhism, and indeed many of the religions of India and East Asia work well with others. So much so that it is doubtful that any Tradition that comes out of those regions would be one specific religion.

Would it then work to focus on those Tradition's approaches? Perhaps the [Akashics], with the strongest Buddhist thread, focus on the perfection and enlightenment of the self while the Wu Lung focus more on harmony and the proper order of things.

As I've said elsewhere, I don't consider the Chakravanti to be death-oriented, even as written; I view them as having that reputation solely on the grounds that they're the only Tradition that's willing to acknowledge that death is a part of the Wheel of Fate, and therefore the only Tradition that incorporates assassins and necromancers into its ranks without stigmatizing them. For a Chakravanti rewrite, I'd lean heavily into the idea that even in their ranks, the death-mages are a minority; they're just a much larger minority than they are in any other Tradition, and they aren't looked down upon by the Tradition. Instead, they're viewed as having their own role in maintaining the Wheel of Fate, just as the other Chakravanti do. Kali is both a creator and a destroyer. And because the death mages are so openly accepted within the Tradition, that's what the other Traditions' stereotypes of the Chakravanti center around: to hear them talk about it, every Chakravanti is an assassin, when the truth is that large parts of the Tradition deal with cultivating the fates of the living: more fortune tellers than thread cutters.

This resonates. Without this, we have an entire Tradition that is an extremely niche approach to what should be a much wider set of ideas.

[Michael]

Would it then work to focus on those Tradition's approaches? Perhaps the [Akashics], with the strongest Buddhist thread, focus on the perfection and enlightenment of the self while the Wu Lung focus more on harmony and the proper order of things.

Yes. IMO, the Wu Lung have huge potential that hasn't really been tapped in the setting.

[Kakost]

This is the sense I get as well. Buddhism, and indeed many of the religions of India and East Asia work well with others. So much so that it is doubtful that any Tradition that comes out of those regions would be one specific religion.

I dont think one (or several) Tradition exclusive to China is far fetched. China was basically the Rome of the Eastern Hemisphere, it was a full world into itself, "the Middle Kingdom" after all.

On the other hand thou, being at the "center of the universe" means that the periphery absorbs much of what is produced there. China's cultural influence is present in all of Asia that isnt bellow the Himalayas (aside from Middle East). Just like the European "barbarians" became the "spiritual" descendants of the romans, so too all of East and South Asia have absorbed much from China, so on the same vein it is not too far fetched to have a Tradition that spreads beyond it's borders.

For instance, the might Mongol horde that conquered half the world, when they took over China, instead of setting a Tengri Animistic religion of the Father Sky, the Mongols... Became chinese. Instead of turning China into Mongolia, they took the Mandate of Heaven for themselves. That's how powerful the chinese influence were.

And the mongols werent the only ones to do so. The Manchurians for instance at one time were a people that also took the "Mandate of Heaven".

Chinese culture was so powerful (until the commies) that anyone that "conquers" China, becomes chinese instead.

India is an entirely different world however, but likewise, between the many many different kingdoms and nations that existed in the subcontinent throughout the centuries, there is an overall cultural umbrella that unites even the hundreds of different languages of the region, which primarily is Hinduism, much much more than even Buddhism itself, that funnily enough became a lot more popular outside of India, and even more funnily, Hinduism never spread outside of India in any meaninful numbers.

Would it then work to focus on those Tradition's approaches? Perhaps the [Akashics], with the strongest Buddhist thread, focus on the perfection and enlightenment of the self while the Wu Lung focus more on harmony and the proper order of things.



This resonates. Without this, we have an entire Tradition that is an extremely niche approach to what should be a much wider set of ideas.

In a very very simplistic way, Akashics Buddhists, and Wu Lung Taoists? Yeah, that works perfectly.

[Ramnesis]

Would it then work to focus on those Tradition's approaches? Perhaps the [Akashics], with the strongest Buddhist thread, focus on the perfection and enlightenment of the self while the Wu Lung focus more on harmony and the proper order of things.

If we go down this path there are two major challenges with the [Akashics]. They are cohesive conceptually but not organizationally. Their style would be widespread, but much like the Seers there's little reason to presume any kind of common identity. We need a reason for them to organize as a singular Tradition or cluster of traditions and we need a reason for them to join the Council.

My preference is to use conflict with the protoconventions and unrecorded supernatural history to drive that. So the Verbena had strange conditions from the fall of the Roman Empire and conflict with the [Gabrielites] to unify them. I'm not sure where to set this up for the [Akashics]. Conflict with the Wu Lung would work, especially if we make the Wu Lung early participants in the Order of Reason, but that only works for the [Akashics] near China.

Is there an opportunity for one of the other early Conventions to be active in the India and Tibet areas?

Is there an opportunity for a secret history? For instance, it has been speculated that the eruption of Krakatoa might have been responsible for the Mongol Invasions (due to loss of grazing ground). Could that have had a larger supernatural side that caused certain events to happen?

[Kakost]

If we go down this path there are two major challenges with the [Akashics]. They are cohesive conceptually but not organizationally. Their style would be widespread, but much like the Seers there's little reason to presume any kind of common identity. We need a reason for them to organize as a singular Tradition or cluster of traditions and we need a reason for them to join the Council.

My preference is to use conflict with the protoconventions and unrecorded supernatural history to drive that. So the Verbena had strange conditions from the fall of the Roman Empire and conflict with the [Gabrielites] to unify them. I'm not sure where to set this up for the [Akashics]. Conflict with the Wu Lung would work, especially if we make the Wu Lung early participants in the Order of Reason, but that only works for the [Akashics] near China.

Is there an opportunity for one of the other early Conventions to be active in the India and Tibet areas?

Is there an opportunity for a secret history? For instance, it has been speculated that the eruption of Krakatoa might have been responsible for the Mongol Invasions (due to loss of grazing ground). Could that have had a larger supernatural side that caused certain events to happen?

Oh, the Mongol hordes could be a good reason. The "Kamikaze" Gods of wind that saved Japan from the Mongol horde could well have been not a coincidence...

In the "Hidden World", the Mongol Hordes could have had a "Tengri Horde" of Mages waging their own secret supernatural war against every body - and thus, all those secret societies answer accordingly by unifying.

That's one way. On the other side, you have the secret Himalayan wars against the Euthanatoi, that one is pretty much official.

I just think that 1 single conflict for the largest and most populous continent in the world over a period of 3.000 years is not quite enough. Just saying "and in the Asia, the Kung-Fus and the Necromancers fought... Once. And then nothing else happened for 3.000 years".

Very little involvement with the Wu Lungs, Southeast Asia and Japan basically dont exist and that's it... Oh and the Mongol conquest didnt exist either. Doesnt make sense.

In Asia, there could be a LOT of things happening over several different historical periods to unify them.

Or, the Akashic could well be a chinese-only tradition, like the Wu Lungs. But in this case, it would become necessary to crate traditions for Japan and Southeast Asia.

[Dataweaver]

I like the idea of using the Wu Lung as a sort of Order of Reason style group in China: almost literally, the Wu Lung would be to the Middle Kingdom as the Order of Reason was to Europe. It means downplaying or ignoring the “Elemental Dragons” from Dragons of the East; but frankly, that's not a huge loss. If anything, I'd be inclined to make the Elemental Dragons be a relatively new group, dating no further back than the 19th century and really coming into their own with the communist takeover of China; prior to that, the Wu Lung represented the Chinese establishment.

[Kakost]

I like the idea of using the Wu Lung as a sort of Order of Reason style group in China: almost literally, the Wu Lung would be to the Middle Kingdom as the Order of Reason was to Europe. It means downplaying or ignoring the “Elemental Dragons” from Dragons of the East; but frankly, that's not a huge loss. If anything, I'd be inclined to make the Elemental Dragons be a relatively new group, dating no further back than the 19th century and really coming into their own with the communist takeover of China; prior to that, the Wu Lung represented the Chinese establishment.

I agree. Wu Lung as the embodiment of Confucionism, and the backbone of the Celestial Bureocracy.

Hell, the highest of their Archmages could even hold the title of "Jade Emperor"

Hmm... The Wu Lung could even be eunucs... Like many of the advisors of the Emperor of China. The price for "Enlightenment" lol

[Ramnesis]

Oh, the Mongol hordes could be a good reason. The "Kamikaze" Gods of wind that saved Japan from the Mongol horde could well have been not a coincidence...

In the "Hidden World", the Mongol Hordes could have had a "Tengri Horde" of Mages waging their own secret supernatural war against every body - and thus, all those secret societies answer accordingly by unifying.

I like the idea of using the Wu Lung as a sort of Order of Reason style group in China: almost literally, the Wu Lung would be to the Middle Kingdom as the Order of Reason was to Europe. It means downplaying or ignoring the “Elemental Dragons” from Dragons of the East; but frankly, that's not a huge loss. If anything, I'd be inclined to make the Elemental Dragons be a relatively new group, dating no further back than the 19th century and really coming into their own with the communist takeover of China; prior to that, the Wu Lung represented the Chinese establishment.

I like the idea that in the wake of the Mongol conquest the world was stranger. It strains things if they brought all the strangeness with them, but perhaps they drew it out.

All along this thread I've presumed that there are some civilizations that are just hard to reach, hidden cultures, kingdoms, beyuls, etc. These are populated by human and human adjacent (e.g. djinn) peoples. They're mostly unreachable now due to the actions of the Technocracy but they were not quite so impossible to find in the past.

Perhaps we can use the following arc. Some event (perhaps the Samalas eruption) in the early second millenium opened the way to these places more than usual. Instead of being remote myth, they were rumor and heresay.

When the Mongols came it pushed these peoples even further into the open, both because they actively joined in defending against the horde and because the Mongols road and communications networks opened the paths even further. The result was a proliferation of strange kingdoms and geography. This would persist until the Order of Reason set about closing the roads to these kingdoms that (they said) should never have existed.

Ironically, the [Akashics] don't have any special connection to these cultures other than proximity. They don't descend from any specific society of secret masters, but since many [Akashic] traditions pursued enlightenment in out of the way locations they were more likely to happen across them. The distinction was missed by most people and so a false legend started. Likewise when the [Explorators] (and maybe [Taftani], see previous posts) started pushing those remote places off the map, many [Akashics] found themselves caught in the crossfire.

Meanwhile, when the Ming took over China the Wu Lung used the opportunity to restore Taoism and push out the Mongols, the strangers, and all the [Akashic] groups that didn't play well with their philosophy. They specifically targeted Tibetan forms of Buddhism, and while the [Akashics] as a whole are not Buddhist, there are many Buddhists among them and many that look enough like Buddhists to be caught in that purge.

With the more open [Akashic] orders under fire from the Wu Lung in China, and the more remote orders under threat from the [Explorators] there was ample reason to join forces with the Traditions.


On the flip side, I don't think the Himalayan wars make much sense anymore. That conflict is possible for a unified Akashic Brotherhood with a strong ideology about the nature of the wheel and a Chakravanti with a strong focus on trimming said wheel. The [Akashics] here have neither the unity nor philosophy to engage in that kind of fight and the Chakravanti may not be as focused on trimming the wheel anyways. The war may have happened, but by the time of the Traditions the factions that fought it had long since faded into history.

[Dataweaver]

Canonically, the Himalayan Wars persisted as long as they did because of reincarnation: belligerents on both sides reincarnated with the animosity of their previous lives, and carried on the fight long after everyone had forgotten exactly what had sparked the war in the first place.

I'd keep the Himalayan Wars, but I'd emphasize that it was triggered by a misunderstanding and lasted as long as it did because of bull-headedness on both sides.

[Ramnesis]

Even if it wasn't a misunderstanding, it still makes more sense as a battle between specific cadres of souls/avatars and the ideologies of the time. It doesn't say much about the Chakravanti and the [Akashics] as they are now. So if the Himalayan wars are to be a major historical element, we should really look into what they did to the setting. How did they change the land? How did they change the umbra? What changes did they make that mages of the region are still dealing with? That sort of thing.

[Kakost]

On the flip side, I don't think the Himalayan wars make much sense anymore. That conflict is possible for a unified Akashic Brotherhood with a strong ideology about the nature of the wheel and a Chakravanti with a strong focus on trimming said wheel. The [Akashics] here have neither the unity nor philosophy to engage in that kind of fight and the Chakravanti may not be as focused on trimming the wheel anyways. The war may have happened, but by the time of the Traditions the factions that fought it had long since faded into history.

I have an expressive amount of ZERO problems with that. I never really liked neither the Himalayan wars nor the "kind-of-generic-necromancer-role-from-India" for the Chrakravanti. (Because lets be honest here, OoH are "Wizards", Chorus is "Cleric", Verbena is "Druid", Akashics is "Monk", Dreamspeakers are "Shamans" and Chakravanti "Necromancer").

I think it is far better to completely move away from the whole "death-mages" thing for them, and get more with the ideas of balance and spiritual improvement and purity and the "cicleness" of all things