New 2E Legacies, expanded

[21C Hermit]

A bunch of new Legacies were introduced in Nameless and Accursed... but only partially, up to the Third Attainment at most. Looks like that's the level where the sample characters reached (or not; I only skimmed the character sections for now).

Well, before I resume my original homebrew project of updating 1E Legacies to 2E, and before my new ambitions of fully homebrewing up Legacies that were mentioned in name only (both 1E and 2E), and any other ambitions of homebrew, I decided to retrain myself by expanding these new Legacies. Some of which were in 1E, and some of them I already covered, but still.

EDIT: So Dark Eras 2 also has new Legacies partly introduced, like the Kitchen Alchemists... I’ll be adding them too to the list.

The list (from Nameless and Accursed) is:

• House of Ariadne: The Metropolitans practice "city-walking," making them skilled urban diviners and trackers. (Acanthus, Time)
• Perfected Adepts
• Nighthawks: The Nighthawks are master thieves and raiders, conveniently 'freeing' magical items from current ownership. (Moros, Prime)
• Tyrian Archons: The Archons are self-styled sovereigns claiming having been granted divine authority, ruling over their subjects with an iron fist. (Obrimos, Prime)
• Chronologues: The Schedulers are manipulators serving The Prophet, determined to grind down free will into a divinely sublime grand plan. (Acanthus, Time)
• Shapers of the Invisible
• Logophages
• Reality Stalkers: The Sneaks break into off-limit areas and liminal spaces, snooping in and out of the fabric of reality to god-knows-where. (Mastigos, Space)
• Stone Scribes
• Keepers of the Chrysalis
• Illumined Path: The Guides believe Awakening is a spectrum, and intends to lead Sleepers and Sleepwalkers into Awakening. (Obrimos, Prime)
• Hand of Destiny

The list from Dark Eras 2 is:

• Keepers of the Covenant: The Elders seek to marry the material world and the spirit world, taking roles of shamanistic arbitrators and oath-keepers. (Thyrsus, Fate)
• Kitchen Alchemists

But as always, don't expect me to be quick about this!

[TempleBuilder]

I'm excited! Do you have an idea of which is the first one in the queue? Or is the list you posted intended to be the queue? I'm in no rush for these, but the Illumined path with Prime and Forces is interesting. Arguably that makes more sense than Prime and Spirit, but I see you already did that one.

[21C Hermit]

I'm excited! Do you have an idea of which is the first one in the queue? Or is the list you posted intended to be the queue? I'm in no rush for these, but the Illumined path with Prime and Forces is interesting. Arguably that makes more sense than Prime and Spirit, but I see you already did that one.

Probably in the listed order, the same as the book's. But the Illumined Path is in Keys to the Supernal Tarot, which I have fond memories of because that's what brought me to MtAw and thus nWoD in the first place (as opposed to just cWoD), so I might go there first. It helps that Lucius, the sample character for the Illumined Path in KttST, is heavily implied to be a potential Lucifuge member who Awakened; the sort of weird outlier things that "modern" CofD seems to take glee in. So far, I'm reading on both House of Ariadne and the Illumined Path.

[KaiserAfini]

I feel the Illuminated Path are more suited for Prime and Spirit.

At the lowest levels they could make crafted occult items (as per Hurt Locker) maintain their effects longer or use a Shielding to give extra dice against breaking points.

Higher levels would involve indefinite Stealing Fire and making them Claim a spirit.

The idea would be to not only open Sleepers up to degrees of enlightenment more easily, but also equip them with the tools to deal with the supernatural dangers that come with it.

Really looking forward to the Tyrian Archons and Chronologues.

[21C Hermit]

I feel the Illuminated Path are more suited for Prime and Spirit.

At the lowest levels they could make crafted occult items (as per Hurt Locker) maintain their effects longer or use a Shielding to give extra dice against breaking points.

Higher levels would involve indefinite Stealing Fire and making them Claim a spirit.

The idea would be to not only open Sleepers up to degrees of enlightenment more easily, but also equip them with the tools to deal with the supernatural dangers that come with it.

Really looking forward to the Tyrian Archons and Chronologues.

Good points. All things to consider, though I might not find enough room to fit them all.

But then again... the 1E writeup for the Illumined Path also comes with a Left-Handed version... maybe this “Reversed” version in 2E has an “I’m waking you up to the supernatural, searing your eyes out if I have to” attitude, instead of the original “discourage Awakenings and kill the unworthy” attitude...

[lladas]

A bunch of new Legacies were introduced in Nameless and Accursed... but only partially, up to the Third Attainment at most. Looks like that's the level where the sample characters reached (or not; I only skimmed the character sections for now).

Well, before I resume my original homebrew project of updating 1E Legacies to 2E, and before my new ambitions of fully homebrewing up Legacies that were mentioned in name only (both 1E and 2E), and any other ambitions of homebrew, I decided to retrain myself by expanding these new Legacies. Some of which were in 1E, and some of them I already covered, but still.

The list is:

• House of Ariadne
• Perfected Adepts
• Nighthawks
• Tyrian Archons
• Chronologue
• Shapers of the Invisible
• Logophages
• Reality Stalkers
• Stone Scribes
• Keepers of the Chrysalis
• Illumined Path
• Hand of Destiny

But as always, don't expect me to be quick about this!

21C Hermit It's great to have you back working on these. Your work homebrew has always been an inspiration for me when it comes to quality and creativity. Really look forward to seeing what you do with these.

[21C Hermit]

Guest It's great to have you back working on these. Your work homebrew has always been an inspiration for me when it comes to quality and creativity. Really look forward to seeing what you do with these.

Thanks. Hope I can match up to the expectations.

[21C Hermit]

The House of Ariadne is here. Now that I look at it, I think I haven't quite explored what it means for the Legacy's parentage to be Seers and Guardians... Oh well, hindsight is always perfect, as they say. As it is with homebrews, feel free to point out and/or change things.

Oh, and the parts where the font is different is text I've taken directly from Nameless and Accursed. There's gonna be a lot of that now, since this thread is about expanding on that book. The other parts are either stuff I've (re-)interpreted from the original 1E material, or ones I plainly made up. Just like my other Homebrew thread.

EDIT: Hmm, the font stuff needs some working...

EDIT: Corrected the fonts... by cutting them out. The parts directly from Nameless & Accursed are noted by being written in blue. I hope it's not too sore to the eyes.

EDIT: An alternate list of the Attainments' Optional effects can be found here.

---

HOUSE OF ARIADNE

You remember sharing a beer with that man last night. Apparently that's the only thing you remember that matters now; this morning you went to work, and no one remembers you. Neither did your neighbors when you returned home confused. Now you're walking aimlessly on the open streets, and it all feels like a labyrinth.

Walking an Urban Labyrinth

The Metropolitans believe the myth of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur in the labyrinth is a metaphor for finding Supernal enlightenment in the heart of the urban jungle. With so many threads of Time and Fate tangling together, the city is a whole that far exceeds any one of its myriad parts. They traverse every nook and cranny of the city’s streets and secret corners to divine its past and future, investigate its omens to solve its Mysteries, and follow the threads that connect every piece of it to a higher Truth.

Origins

Parentage: Acanthus, Seers of the Throne, Guardians of the Veil
Background: Most Metropolitans are born city-dwellers, who knows every nook and cranny of their home. Some are suburbanites and country folk who felt the city 'call' to them, which Metropolitans congratulate as a latent sense for finding "Ariadne's threads."
Appearances: A Metropolitan might look sharp and high-class, looking down the city from sky-high rises, or rag-tag and street, shuffling in the city's underbelly. In any case, no Ariadne appears as what the local people identify as "suburban" or "country-side."

Doctrine

Prerequisites: Time 2, Fate 1, Streetwise 2
Initiation: Patience is a virtue. The tutor takes the candidate to a random spot in the city, then tells her to walk. They are inducted when they successfully find "Ariadne's thread," the thin golden lines connecting a city's meaningful events and resonant places. Even if the initial attempt fails, the induction is not over until the candidate officially gives up; some have wandered the city for weeks and months before finally finding a Thread.
Organization: A given city has only one House of Ariadne present, though what Metropolitans identify as a single city does not always match legal boundaries. Trackers are younger members, still practising finding Ariadne's threads by doing errands and randomly walking. Weavers are seniors, who are skilled enough to move the city by tapping the city's "Knot" of Threads.
Theory: Cities are magical. All cities are symbolically descended from the Awakened City, and thus each city a 'god' of sort to be invoked by the Wise. By mastering a city's Threads and its god-mind, we can find the "Labyrinth's Exit" through which Ariadne herself Ascended.

Magic

Ruling Arcanum: Time
Yantras: casting in a crowded place (+1); successfully using Contacts, Allies, or Streetwise to gain information related to the spell (+1, or +2 if rolled); a famous landmark associated with the city (+1); walking Ariadne’s thread (+1 per hour walked, maximum +3).
Oblations: discovering or exploring something in the city you’ve never seen before; watching a sunrise/sunset from a place that overlooks the city; visiting a tourist attraction; attending a private or elite event.

Attainments

First Attainment: Attune
Prerequisites: Initiation (Time 2, Fate 1, Streetwise 2)
The mage spends the ritual preparation of this Attainment walking through a city at random, tracing
the maze of its streets for at least a few hours. Metropolitans call this process “walking Ariadne’s thread.”
Once complete, this Attainment emulates the Time 1 spell “Postcognition” (Mage, p. 187) regarding the history of the city, something or someone within it, or the mage himself, with regard to a valid subject he chooses. The mage may seek a particular kind of moment to view, such as “the last time someone died in this alley” or “the day this building first opened its doors,” but the Storyteller decides the precise moment he sees, as the city’s Fate calls his attention to the most relevant one for his (and its) needs. This Attainment is Withstood by temporal sympathy, and assigns its fixed Reach to
sensory range.
Once per scene, as long as the mage has previously Attuned to the city he’s currently in, the Storyteller may offer the player an Arcane Beat for the character to receive this Attainment’s benefits without walking the thread or deliberately activating it, as the city reaches out to make a request or express a need through vague omens and symbols. If the player accepts, he must follow up on the vision within that scene to gain the Arcane Beat.
Subsequent Attainments require the mage to have previously Attuned at least once to the city where he uses them; he may Attune to any city. This Legacy’s Attainments only function in urban environs, though a small city is just as urban as a sprawling metropolis for these purposes; the legal definition of a place as a “city” or “town” is less important than the way the inhabitants think of the place. The mage enjoys a +1 equipment bonus to Social rolls in a city to which he’s previously Attuned (+0 in the suburbs), but suffers a −1 to the same in rural environments or wilderness.
Optional: Space 1
When the Metropolitan views the past with this Attainment, he also learns one of the subject’s sympathetic
connections per level of the Attainment’s Potency, as the Space 1 spell “Correspondence” (Mage, p. 172), as long as that connection was within the city at the viewed time or is now.

Second: Discovery Meditation
Prerequisites: Time 2, Streetwise 3
The Metropolitan trusts the city to reveal what she seeks. This Attainment emulates the Time 1 spell "Divination" with the mage herself as its subject. Reach is assigned to instant use and making specific inquiries. However, the mage may only ask questions in the vein of "Where must I go?" or "Which way should I look?"
Furthermore, any Metropolitan who reaches this level has their aforementioned Social equipment bonus amplified to +2 (+1 for the suburbs), and the penalty to -2.
Optional: Fate 2
Fate and Time intertwine to give the City-Walker more than just a direction. Right as the mage divines a general direction as above, he may identify the immediate next step to take as the Fate 1 spell "Serendipity." Reach is assigned to instant use and enabling Skill substitution towards his goal.

Third: City-God Invocation
Prerequisites: Time 3, Academics 2, Occult 2
Older human cities were often dedicated to specific tutelary gods. The Metropolitan knows that a city doesn't merely have a god; it is a god. This Attainment is similar to Supernal Summoning, but it contacts a city's god-mind instead. Use the summoning rules, but with the following differences;

• The Metropolitan must be at a Knot; the nexus of Threads within a city, much like what a node is to ley lines. Typically, each city has one Knot.
• 'Rank' indicates the city-god's general level of awareness. Rank 1 minds might as well be talking in sleep, while Rank 5 minds can speak in eloquent sentences, albeit often heavily poetic or full of jargon and oblique references.
• 'Duration' is how long the city-god can speak. City-gods do not have Corpus to be damaged, and instead immediately falls back to slumber when their 'lifespan' ends. Without any success allocated to duration, the city-god only has enough time to speak a word before fading back.
• Abyssal intrusion cannot occur, but should the conditions for such be met, an Environmental Tilt is released on the area, and the summoning fails. Successes can be allocated to ward against this.
• City-gods are not affected by any conditions or modifiers according to the summoner's Path and Realm alignment. However, the summoner can still incorporate items and conditions reflecting the city's identity and history to reduce the target number of successes, as if she was incorporating Realm correspondences.

A summoned city-god does not have Traits, impose Trials, grant Boons, or use Arcana. It merely speaks to the Metropolitan who summons it.
Furthermore, any Metropolitan who reaches this level has their aforementioned Social equipment bonus amplified to +3 (+2 for the suburbs), and the penalty to -3.
Optional: Space 2
The city-god watches its citizens, and a City-Walker can borrow its sight. The mage can use Ariadne's thread as a sympathetic connection; he has a Weak connection to anyone in contact with the same Thread he is in contact with. People with city-wide reputation (most likely represented by Fame), actively walking Ariadne's thread, or using the Citywalker Supernatural Merit, have a Medium Connection.

Fourth: Geomantic Meditation
Prerequisites: Time 4, Space 2, Streetwise 4
A city remembers far back, and thinks just as far ahead. So does the Metropolitan. By walking Ariadne's threads and then spending one Mana, she emulates the Time 4 spell "Prophecy" in conjunction with Sympathetic Range. Reach is assigned to sensory range. This spell targets an Ariadne's thread in the same city as the mage, and reveals what events would conspire on or affect the Thread.
For the purposes of this Attainment, the Metropolitan herself counts as the sympathy Yantra needed for Sympathetic Range. If she has performed the City-God Invocation Attainment within the last month, she counts as knowing the city's sympathetic name.
A Metropolitan at this level gains 9-Again on mundane Social rolls within her Attuned city. She loses 10-Again on such rolls in rural environments and wilderness.
Optional: Fate 4
Urban geomancy empowers the future prophesized by the City-Walker. After using Geomantic Meditation, the mage may shape fate to access a number of Social Merits that guide him into realizing and protecting his Prophecy. This emulates the Fate 3 spell "Shifting the Odds" with Reach assigned to instant use and Advanced Duration.

Fifth: Ariadne's Own Thread
Prerequisites: Time 5
Older records of the Legacy claim Ariadne was no metaphor, but a historical Cretian mage who vanished one day without a word. Without a word, yes, but her last steps transcend time to reach the Metropolitan, and the Metropolitan's reach out to her too. Whenever a Metropolitan walks Ariadne's thread for any purpose, including ritual preparation for using Legacy Attainments, she sees visions of what other members of the Legacy saw, are seeing, or will see while walking Ariadne's thread. This grants her one of the Informed, Inspired, or Steadfast Conditions, or alternatively a point of Mana.
Optional: Fate 5, Prime 1
The City-Walker leaves his footprints on the web of fates of the city. By spending a point of Mana, he may inscribe a rote on the city itself, as the the spell "Scribe Ariadne's Thread." Reach is assigned to instant use, scribing directly on a Thread, and making the inscription Lasting.

Tools of Ariadne

Spell: Scribe Ariadne's Thread (Fate••• + Prime•)
Practice: Weaving
Primary Factor: Potency
Cost: 1 Mana
Withstand: Total Arcanum dots used in the rote
Suggested Rote Skills: Streetwise, Occult, Survival
The House of Ariadne, a Legacy specializing in studying the city's lines of divinatory resonances they call Ariadne's threads, use this spell to scribe rotes into a streets of a city. The very windings of the street become a Grimoire. Mages must walk randomly through and around the street-Grimoire in a meditative trance to access it.
If a mage learns how to sense Ariadne's thread, typically through the initiation ritual of the House of Ariadne, she may "walk Ariadne's thread" as she invokes the Grimoire for a +2 equipment bonus to casting its spells.
+1 Reach: The mage may scribe the Grimoire directly onto an Ariadne's thread. Mages who can sense Threads can access the Grimoire from any part of the same city.
+1 Reach: For a point of Mana, the spell is Lasting.

Spell: Cul-de-Sac (Fate•••)
Practice: Fraying
Primary Factor: Potency
Withstand: Composure
Suggested Rote Skills: Streetwise, Politics, Investigation
Urban mages such as the House of Ariadne often weaponize the city itself, trapping enemies in dead ends and blind alleys.The subject of this spell becomes unable to escape the street, alley or similar space he is in for the Duration, as he is buffetted by coincidences that harass him whenever he tries to leave.
Add Time •••: The subject experiences minor time dilation within the cul-de-sac; at an extreme, she might enter an alley at dusk then leave it at midnight.

Merit: Traffic Charmer (•)
Prerequisites: Fate•, Direction Sense
Effect: The mage is blessed at navigating through the busiest urban environments. She can always intuit the fastest or least busiest way to a given destination within a city, and once per chapter she can invoke the Charmed Condition on herself for purposes of navigating to or away from a location.


Secrets of the Metropolitans

• Digital Caches: Metropolitans often serve as treasure hunters and bloodhounds for the Awakened society, either from goodwill or as mercenaries. Thus a Tracker, and the Weaver they become and answer to, eventually grows into a walking library of information. City-Walkers who accrue dangerous secrets end up walking the city not just out of ritual but of security, never staying for long in one place. The digital age has been a boon to them, enabling modern Metropolitans to collect, keep, and access vast swathes of information in conjunction with more esoteric methods.

• Spiders of the City: Metropolitans tend to characterize themselves as humble street lifes and vagabonds, and many do look the part because of the Legacy's practices. What they don't bother to tell other mages is how deeply they integrate themselves into the mortal authorities of the city. In old cities where the House is strong, the entire municipal government, all its facilities and functions, and even major interest groups and civil movements may be under the Legacy's influence, either as cultists or pawns. This is part of the reason why even junior Metropolitans are so adept at 'divinations' and manipulations, compared to similar urban mages.

• The Theseus and the Minotaur: A House in a city holds three yearly celebrations; one to celebrate the city's birthday, one to honor mythical Ariadne, and one to meditate en masse on the city's Knot to plan for the city's future. A lesser known part of the last celebration is that the House nominates the city's Theseus and Minotaur. The former is a mage who betrayed the House's trust or otherwise crossed them last year, and the latter is a powerful supernatural entity or a particularly dangerous Mystery whom the Legacy plans to manipulate 'Theseus' into defeating this year.

• Citywalking: Some Metropolitans know of Sleepwalkers who are also able to perceive Ariadne's threads. And they do more than perceiving - several Houses have witnessed them using Threads to teleport to other cities; something even the Legacy has not been able to do, outside of using 'normal' Space magic. Metropolitans would like to study them, but whenever they try, coincidences and circumstances arrange themselves to halt them. Also related are reports of silver threads that only these Sleepwalkers can perceive, from which monsters follow unwitting walkers.

• City of Gods: The House holds Ruins of Before in great reverence, and have led multiple expeditions into larger Ruins whose structure as a city is relatively more intact. There they attempt to trace and walk its Threads, and even Attune themselves with it and its god-mind. Most fail, to various degrees of disaster, but every once in awhile someone succeeds. Such mages retreat entirely into the Ruins, seemingly unhindered by or uncaring of any of its perils. Metropolitans are not sure whether this draws them closer to the Labyrinth's Exit, i.e. Ascension, or to a trap binding them to broken gods.

[TempleBuilder]

Nice! This is good. One question though, why would a creative thaumaturgy spell that turns a city’s streets into a Grimoire be fate? Shouldn’t that be space? ( I get why for the legacy, but why would it work for mages outside the legacy?)

[KaiserAfini]

Nice! This is good. One question though, why would a creative thaumaturgy spell that turns a city’s streets into a Grimoire be fate? Shouldn’t that be space? ( I get why for the legacy, but why would it work for mages outside the legacy?)

Space and Fate overlap when they deal with emotional drive and intent, so much so that Corresponce and Interconnections examine the same things under different lenses.

In this specific case, you want someone who is aware of the Grimmoire and intends to use it. That level of finesse is better achieved by Fate rather than Space, which would instead drive the knowledge into any mage within that felt strongly about the street (maybe even a key emotion). One requires an emotional connection to access the hidden knowledge, the other requires a focuses wish to perceive it in the fractal nuances of fate of that region, making it much easier to find when required.

[proindrakenzol]

House of Ariadne

I like the primary Attainments, but I'm not sold on the mix of Arcana for secondary Attainments, also I feel like even if you do alternate between Space and Fate (which, eh...) the third Alternate should still be Space 3.

[21C Hermit]

Nice! This is good. One question though, why would a creative thaumaturgy spell that turns a city’s streets into a Grimoire be fate? Shouldn’t that be space? ( I get why for the legacy, but why would it work for mages outside the legacy?)

The books mention the House doing that already, using Fate to encode grimoires, so I went with that.

The in-universe explanation is probably what KaiserAfini said. The key concepts here seem to be Fate’s purview over Intentions, and how Fate is the Ruling Arcanum of the guys whose main theme is Choice and Consequences, which fit the concept of a bustling city better IMO than the other guys.

[21C Hermit]

I like the primary Attainments, but I'm not sold on the mix of Arcana for secondary Attainments, also I feel like even if you do alternate between Space and Fate (which, eh...) the third Alternate should still be Space 3.

I was going for something unorthodox in its progression this time, so I’m guilty of that one.

Maybe using solely Fate for the Optionals might’ve been better, after all.

[proindrakenzol]

I was going for something unorthodox in its progression this time, so I’m guilty of that one.

Maybe using solely Fate for the Optionals might’ve been better, after all.

I like the unorthodox approach, taking risks and exploring new space is good!, I just feel like this time it's a bit confusing.

I feel that the official first attainment misses the mark in having a Space Optional when Fate's Interconnections could have worked just as well and not required an Acanthus Legacy to pick up a non-Ruling Arcanum that just sort of... hangs there.

I think having non-Ruling Alternates, switching the Arcanum for Alternates, or even having multiple Alternates can work if it's limited enough in scope: for my update to the Orphans of Proteus I added Matter and Forces optionals to the Fourth (Transform Life) and Fifth (Shapechanging) Attainments, but they supplement the list of options available rather than adding new spells the way most optionals do.

[21C Hermit]

Alternatively, I could axe Fate from the House’s Optional requirements, using solely Space.

City-spells like Scribe Ariadne’s Thread will simply be something the House would naturally learn to cast, but other mages not caring enough to learn (or even not knowing it’s possible to cast things that way), like the Cul-de-Sac spell.