Ask a simple question, Awakened edition

[monteparnas]

the problems it presents for a werewolf don't go away from being able to use Awakened magic to pull you out of it any more than they do for a pack full of Elodoth.

Just to make myself clear, I'm not defending that it should be harder to affect. I don't really care either way. I'm just commenting on thematic differences for what it represents to the splat, and in that I think it has a more fatalistic sense of a force of destruction within, while in Vampire it is more like the presence of the alien entity slowly stripping you of agency and identity.

Not to be nitpicking anything, but, uh, I thought it was the other way around…?

Rage in Apocalypse is a resource, and have heavy undertones of righteous fury. Pure in a moral sense, but not conceptually, as in "unadulterated". While it may get out of hand and certainly isn't as unquestionably moral as Garou like to pretend, the themes and mechanics of the game are about embracing your Rage, using it regularly, directing it to good deeds (as you define them).

It is also spiritual more in the religious sense, since while Garou are part-spirit, they're so in a sense of holiness instead of strangeness.

Forsaken delves more into the notion of otherworldly, inhuman and derived from ideas. More importantly, Uratha are half-spirits in a more literal sense than Garou. They are not wolves, they're the essence of wolves, including the notions that only exist in culture and myth. And their frenzy comes from there, from the idea of the murderous beast, the cursed skin changer, the Beast of Gévaudan terrorizing people.

Pure as in undiluted. The loss of higher thought to the beast within, beast in a sense that never existed outside human myth.

[21C Hermit]

Rage in Apocalypse is a resource, and have heavy undertones of righteous fury. Pure in a moral sense, but not conceptually, as in "unadulterated". While it may get out of hand and certainly isn't as unquestionably moral as Garou like to pretend, the themes and mechanics of the game are about embracing your Rage, using it regularly, directing it to good deeds (as you define them).

It is also spiritual more in the religious sense, since while Garou are part-spirit, they're so in a sense of holiness instead of strangeness.

Forsaken delves more into the notion of otherworldly, inhuman and derived from ideas. More importantly, Uratha are half-spirits in a more literal sense than Garou. They are not wolves, they're the essence of wolves, including the notions that only exist in culture and myth. And their frenzy comes from there, from the idea of the murderous beast, the cursed skin changer, the Beast of Gévaudan terrorizing people.

Pure as in undiluted. The loss of higher thought to the beast within, beast in a sense that never existed outside human myth.

Oh so that’s what it was.

Regardless, I still think Uratha Rage isn’t too sacrosanct compared to vampiric Frenzy, precisely because it’s not-exactly-holy-but-instead-otherworldly nature.

I mean, they’re called ephemeral beings around here.

But yeah, we probably shouldn’t get mired up on this. It’s a relatively minor business compared to blasphemies I’ve been pondering, like “Can I homebrew up a Mage Legacy about stealing Gift-brands via Prime and Spirit magic?” To which the response should be “Wait what?”

[KaiserAfini]

Oh so that’s what it was.

Regardless, I still think Uratha Rage isn’t too sacrosanct compared to vampiric Frenzy, precisely because it’s not-exactly-holy-but-instead-otherworldly nature.

I mean, they’re called ephemeral beings around here.

But yeah, we probably shouldn’t get mired up on this. It’s a relatively minor business compared to blasphemies I’ve been pondering, like “Can I homebrew up a Mage Legacy about stealing Gift-brands via Prime and Spirit magic?” To which the response should be “Wait what?”

I have seen something similar being homebrewed for Geists, but it inherently required them to destroy or eat a Geist in order to join, with the only other alternative being a deal with a Kerberoi. This would lead to tense situations when the truth would come to light. Perhaps that can serve as a starting point for your idea.

[Isator Levi]

Incidentally, it's funny to me that you can still cast Knowing Time spells on a mummy, as I would have assumed part of the point was to prevent using Postcognition to see things in their past.

[TempleBuilder]

Incidentally, it's funny to me that you can still cast Knowing Time spells on a mummy, as I would have assumed part of the point was to prevent using Postcognition to see things in their past.

Oh, I thought it was to prevent Shenanigans with either adding or subtracting a few decades to a Mummy’s Descent. Also the Arisen are outside of Time, interacting with it, but not a part of it, so there is that to consider.

[Satchel]

Incidentally, it's funny to me that you can still cast Knowing Time spells on a mummy, as I would have assumed part of the point was to prevent using Postcognition to see things in their past.

Postcognition's Unveiling, using it for that purpose requires temporal sympathy and half an idea what you're looking for, mummies sleeping through the ages means they aren't doing anything interesting in the vast majority of recorded history, and if this was the goal we'd have seen it pop up in other gamelines where the unreliability of memory is a thing.

"It risks Paradox and gives you a Paradox Condition that risks more Paradox as the demon-gods made of suffering have noticed you" feels like a reasonable price to pay, given this doesn't give the Arisen reliable information about previous or future Descents and messing with their Memory is also hard-locked from outside tampering (albeit without its own extra consequences).

They're the terrifying patrons of secretive cults who hide them away in tombs where they sleep for years, decades, or centuries, and when they wake up they might remember the last time you saw them, the time they first woke up thousands of years ago, the time they will wake up thousands of years from now, the time they awakened in a parallel timeline to tilt the currents from a tide of death, or nothing at all on account of this being the first time they've arisen ever from their perspective. Getting information about their history through magic is only going to make things more confusing, which is the entire point of the section where the sidebar detailing their interaction with Awakened magic appears.

[ArcaneArts]

On a semi-relevant side note, being shown your past is not the same thing as experiencing Memory, any more than watching a video of your childhood is an experience of Memory. It can trigger memories for you, sure, but even if one assumes you have the context for what is shown, it's not immediately the same thing as coming upon them yourself, particularly since any given Arisen's chain of memories is now part of the cloud of unintended effects of the Rite and therefore has metaphysical signficance when the collisions of magic and psychological sympathies line up.

But a little more on point, the Judges stake is in making ensuring their second-hand agents of edification and judgment that they got from their ungrateful and faithless kids keep up what they're supposed to do in this game they've got going on with Sutek's impositions. Despite the flaws of the Rite, and with the whole damn world, the Judges aren't particularly worried about Apotheosis all that much, and know they couldn't actually do much about it even if they tried-Sutek's decrees pretty much guarentee they can't close that door. For the most part, their investment in the Arisen that manifests against outside tampering is to make sure that the second-hand game pieces play mostly like their supposed to, and not get thrown the fuck off course by some-any-petty ante sorcerer with delusions of godhood.

Let the Arisen remember-what good will it do them as the tide pulls it away, when suffering is still the dominant law of reality? So long as the pieces are on the board, all but the most unfortunate will eventually end up playing the game. That settings include the far flung future where the rest of humanity has returned to the dust but the Arisen still act is a testament to how much the Judges really have to worry about this passing breeze called Memory.

EDIT: On the off chance a certain element of this wasn't clear, though:

In a world where people can produce all matter of physical "evidence" even without magic, implant fake memories, or change their appearance or any number of other things, the Judges are about as concerned about a mage using Postcognition as they are a changeling using Skinmask and a camcorder-not very much, since the near universal Chronicles maxim of "Not everything is as it seems" is as useful a blinder as it is a lens.

If there's anything like a hole the Judges should be worried about, it's that, depending on how seriously you apply this post to your games, there's a huge hole in the defense that demons, of all people, could exploit. If you apply Bunyip's take, you know someone amongst the 42 assholes is slapping their head(/approximate appendage/symbol/concept) over that oversight.

[Isator Levi]

Postcognition's Unveiling, using it for that purpose requires temporal sympathy and half an idea what you're looking for, mummies sleeping through the ages means they aren't doing anything interesting in the vast majority of recorded history, and if this was the goal we'd have seen it pop up in other gamelines where the unreliability of memory is a thing.

"It risks Paradox and gives you a Paradox Condition that risks more Paradox as the demon-gods made of suffering have noticed you" feels like a reasonable price to pay, given this doesn't give the Arisen reliable information about previous or future Descents and messing with their Memory is also hard-locked from outside tampering (albeit without its own extra consequences).

They're the terrifying patrons of secretive cults who hide them away in tombs where they sleep for years, decades, or centuries, and when they wake up they might remember the last time you saw them, the time they first woke up thousands of years ago, the time they will wake up thousands of years from now, the time they awakened in a parallel timeline to tilt the currents from a tide of death, or nothing at all on account of this being the first time they've arisen ever from their perspective. Getting information about their history through magic is only going to make things more confusing, which is the entire point of the section where the sidebar detailing their interaction with Awakened magic appears.

Sincerely good to know.

Arc, I don't think I've seen a post of yours in writer mode thus far. It's nice to see, and compelling stuff.

[Hyuse]

I think it's reasonable to let a Nameless character have the character creation rotes on the assumption that somebody was able to teach them some custom mudras and mnemonic recall principles, but maybe make it a complication in learning further rotes.

For Acts of Hubris, I'll point out that the list given for Understanding Wisdom includes binding a being to a task. I think it's reasonable to say that even for a spirit of fire, pinning it to work involving burning things can be an Act of Hubris, because the central thesis isn't being bad, it's acting without proper consideration for or comprehension of the consequences of your actions. The spirit might be perfectly fine with what it's been commanded to do, but the outcome of commanding it, both in what it does and in what it then becomes unable to do, may go off in directions that are not great. There are also elements of the ethics of taking choice away even if the subject might well choose to do that thing of their own accord, and how the mage is taking on responsibility for actions beyond themselves on a deep spiritual level.

That's not to say that Command Spirit would be an Act of Hubris on every occasion under those conditions; you could command it to do something of smaller scope or shorter term, that aren't throwing things too much out of harmony.

On the other hand, the provided list of Acts of Hubris is not supposed to be exhaustive or proscriptive, and the first paragraph about losing Wisdom states that different mages doing the same thing might not have the same risk of degeneration. So I'd say it can also account for things like how one generally portrays the character (the degree to which they act cautiously and observe spells in action carefully), or else what they're doing around this spell in particular to manage its risks. Commanding an ephemeral entity can be Hubris if it's an ad hoc thing then left to its own devices, but if you've got a good handle on the situation and supervise it, then I think you wouldn't need to roll.

In any event, I'd still say Wisdom is written to be something characters risk with decent frequency. It's just part of the general tone of the game, that mages really dance a lot with becoming unconcerned with what their actions cause.

(Incidentally, I'm strongly of the mind that actions that aren't magic should still be capable of risking Wisdom, because I see the whole point of that stat as being that the mage's Awakening and Gnosis makes them sensitive to a general interconnectedness of things that makes the management of their place in the grand scheme relevant to the stability of their souls. It's like, connection to the Supernal hardens your soul against those things that once risked its Integrity, but the substance of what reinforces it also creates a certain rigidity and is formed from a deeper presence in the Tapestry.)

It isn't so much that I am worried about dodging Wisdom degradation, it is more of the long the lines of a more meta understanding of what the limits and bounds of Acts of Hubris are. Our Storyteller doesn't want anything innured, so playing careful with what spells can or cannot do before starting to interact with Hubris seems to have much more weight in our game than it otherwise would.

[Isator Levi]

It isn't so much that I am worried about dodging Wisdom degradation, it is more of the long the lines of a more meta understanding of what the limits and bounds of Acts of Hubris are.

Oh no, I didn't mean to insinuate anything; the line about risks coming up often was really intended to stake a position on what the meta function would be.

Our Storyteller doesn't want anything innured, so playing careful with what spells can or cannot do before starting to interact with Hubris seems to have much more weight in our game than it otherwise would.

Well inuring can only be done for one spell per Gnosis dot, so I don't think it really works out as something that massively shifts how things would play out anyway. Maybe in the case of a particular spell that the player wishes to be a signature of the character without constantly rolling for degeneration.

Although bringing it up does point me to the wording about how an inured spell doesn't risk loss of Wisdom "no matter the action", which I think reinforces the idea that few spells are blanket Acts of Hubris. Spells to bind a spirit may or may not be hubris depending on the action, even if inuring makes it permanently not so.

[Tessie]

I believe inuring any spells at all is quite rare. In order to inure a spell, you need to end up losing Wisdom from using it, and predict that you're using that particular spell often enough in ways that are Acts of Hubris. On top of that, you must also consider the added Paradox risk (or increase of existing Paradox risk) to be worth it despite it being a spell you plan on using multiple times in the future. On top of all that, I wouldn't be surprised if most players just straight up forget that inurement is a thing during the few times they end up losing Wisdom.

[KaiserAfini]

Inuring also means having to deal with Paradox every single time. Which means its a balancing act, since the mage uses the spell often enough and in a way that is damaging to Wisdom. Now every time they cast that specific spell there is a cost benefit analysis, because either they need to expend the resources to contain the Paradox, deal with the Paradox Condition or the consequences of unleashing it. Since Paradox accumulation is a cascading effect, it means they need to use it sparingly or they could end up summoning anomalies, make someone possessed by an Abyssal being, summon an Invader into reality or even corrupting a sacred site. Imagine if the mage needs to cast a spell to deal with an emergency during a summoning, when invading another's Sanctum (Seer, abandoned workshop, rival's, etc) or when investigating an Aedes. Now they could potentially corrupt the summon, taint the Hallow, twist the Aedes into an Aberrance or worse, which could create far worse Acts of Hubris. Inuring doesn't eliminate the risk to Wisdom entirely, it merely changes the risks associated with casting it.

[KaiserAfini]

Lets say a mage finds a dying Sleeper. This mage is a master of Time, so they figure that since change is in the Arcanum's purview, then they can use an Unmaking to undo all negative change, a Time Heal that is analogous to Deny The Reaper. Since the subject is a Sleeper, it means that they will suffer a breaking point from it, so would healing them be an Act of Hubris ? Its arguable that deciding their life is more important than their soul's stability could be seen as one. However, its could also be argued that just being there and having the power to do something means the choice will always be up to them, since apathy or, to give a Greek equivalent, Acedia, could be seen an inability to judge when to use magic. Would this be a case of the Act of Hubris being subjective depending on the individual's perspective ?

On an unrelated question, when Interconnections detects sympathetic connections between subjects, does it allow them to understand the nature of them and track them ? Since this is an area where Space and Fate seem to overlap to a degree, it makes me wonder if similar Reach effects could be applied.

[Isator Levi]

Lets say a mage finds a dying Sleeper. This mage is a master of Time, so they figure that since change is in the Arcanum's purview, then they can use an Unmaking to undo all negative change, a Time Heal that is analogous to Deny The Reaper.

Just for a start, it's not necessary to be a Master to do this. Temporal Summoning (Weaving Practice) explicitly says that it can be used to heal injuries, in the form without requiring the Sympathy Attainment even. You'd have the issue of them returning to the damaged state when the spell ends, but so does Deny the Reaper.

Since the subject is a Sleeper, it means that they will suffer a breaking point from it, so would healing them be an Act of Hubris ? Its arguable that deciding their life is more important than their soul's stability could be seen as one. However, its could also be argued that just being there and having the power to do something means the choice will always be up to them, since apathy or, to give a Greek equivalent, Acedia, could be seen an inability to judge when to use magic. Would this be a case of the Act of Hubris being subjective depending on the individual's perspective ?

I'd say the last one, although I'd lean more often in favour of it risking degeneration (albeit with a bonus like what acting in accordance with Virtue gets). I'm personally inclined to rule towards Wisdom not generally being risked by a mage being most reserved and cautious.

On an unrelated question, when Interconnections detects sympathetic connections between subjects, does it allow them to understand the nature of them and track them ? Since this is an area where Space and Fate seem to overlap to a degree, it makes me wonder if similar Reach effects could be applied.

Well I'd start with noting the distinction where Interconnections is an Unveiling spell and Correspondence is a Knowing one; the former works through allowing the mage to perceive new things, the latter works by transmitting information to them directly. It also means that the Fate mage is only really seeing the links so far as is within their sensory range. Space is also a bit more comprehensive with it with sympathy being more firmly under its purview.

That being said, I could see a separately cast Knowing of Fate being able to give some sense of the nature of a connection between two or more subjects on the basis of how they affect one another's journey towards respective Fates. Hmm, I'd be inclined to make that function a bit differently than just straight up telling you the form of their relationship, and communicate it more in terms of the impact they're having. A Fate spell won't straight up tell you that this person's connection is to a romantic partner, but it will tell you that it's a tie to somebody guiding them towards disaster.

[KaiserAfini]

I am a bit confused, I thought Temporal Summoning simply loaded your state at one point in history into your current one.

But Deny The Reaper and Temporal Healing would be Unmaking, which means the entropy or negative change were deleted altogether. In other words, much like healing with Life, the effects are Lasting, which is why they are Potency primary.

The revival effect in Deny The Reaper is the only one that seems to have a set duration and it requires enough entropy to be reversed such that the corpse was in a state where it was within the spell's target interval (such as using multiple casts reverting the 200 year old skeleton to how they looked 3 months after death before they could be revived).

If that is not the case, wouldn't that mean the healing spells in Life should also only have temporary effects ?