What stops mages from killing [Insert hostile supernatural] here en-masse?

[orathaic]

If that's Psychic Domination, that's going to affect every thinking being within the boundary unless any of them have already had the Fate spell Warding Gesture cast on them.

Sure, an order could be phrased in terms of "if, and only if, you are a vampire, do this thing".

But people under that spell know that they're doing a thing based on an impulse that does not originate within them, so that's going to lead to hundreds of people being made to actively think about whether or not they're vampires.

Which means that many people are having Integrity checks from the violation and that the spell has to roll for Paradox with the rote quality. Things that might be troubling to the mage, and will certainly raise the ire of the Consilium and Guardians of the Veil.

And you having splashed your signature Nimbus all over a large area.

Plus, considering that vampires have their own mind control powers, somebody with a Devotion to provide greater defence against that is a more likely occurrence than not.



The 3-dot Auspex power provides some decent latitude for picking up information. If a mage is the owner of that PO box, that can be answered in the question of who owns the PO box. Even if their association is more indirect, it's the start of a trail that can be followed that, even if it does not lead directly back to the mage, can draw a vampire towards associates in a way that is most inconvenient. Maybe it's not a good idea to put one of your Mystery Cults in that firing line.

That's before considering Devotions including Auspex that might have the potential to be more discerning and powerful. I'll say it again, while not every vampire will have such a power, it pays for mages to be more discriminating, to actually make determinations about the capabilities of beings before making provocations to them.

One thing to consider about vampires is that they can close ranks a bit more readily than the Awakened can. The Consilium is not a government, it is a body of arbitration; it's more concerned with making sure mages maintain a standard of law and order among themselves than seeing to their protection in a proactive sense. The vampire domain is a feudal state, and while the prince may rule from on high as autocrat, part of the foundation of that rule is magnanimously ensuring the safety of those who pay them homage. If somebody goes to their prince saying that something remotely mind controlled them into doing a thing that seems to compromise personal security, that prince can be roused to act. Especially if it seems to be an action that preludes violence against the entire domain. You might not target a vampire who has the power to look for you, but if they can invoke the protection of their liege then that vampire can oblige those who do have such powers to investigate and pursue.

All other considerations aside, it's a bit silly to refer to being an Adept of Space in this equation as though that's a trivial or common occurrence.

The Adepthood is only to free up one reach, on an otherwise rather difficult to cast spell.

I was thinking of Psychic Domination (notably a mind ruling spell, which any starting level mage could possess, and nearly every mastigos would) Adepthood not required (but it would help to reach that dice pool).

I was thinking about doing it with a custom Imago, but you're right every valid target in the AoE, you'd be better off casting a Death spell like Quicken Corpse, (which also allows one word commands) but use it to control vampire bodies instead of corpses.

Doing a death conjunctional to only affect the minds of dead thing (which is mostly just vampires, sin-eaters and ghosts) would also avoid massive paradox exposure. Fate optionally is just one alternative.

Actually using the Vampires close knit social structures against them might be abbetter plan. Ie tracing sympathic connection between various parties and then using the Prince to order various others to follow your commands.

I think creating a PO box witout connection back to you is the easiest part of this, doesn't actually need to be your own PO box, you just post something to a random PO box with a sympathic connection to you, and then cast a scry on it, creating a sympathic connection between you and your spell's subject (the box) or stealing/copying a sympathic connection from the actual owner...

Definitely the feudal structures are something you would actually want to take into account. But the resources required to cast a spell at -26 dice pool at pretty heft to begin with.

What is that, Gnosis 3-5, + Arcana 3-4, + rote skill* 5 (since you have mind to increase that skill), + cabal theme/shadow name 4 (if applicable) +sacrament 1-3, if you out in enough effort, +soul stone 2-3 = 17-24 dice pool base before ritual casting. +3 for willpower, +5 for extra ritual durations is 25-32. Plus any successful dice rolled by teamwork assistants (presumably they also suffer the -26, do they need their own yantras, like one use sacraments? This is a huge amount of work just to set up the 'net' ).

And presumably one you will want to use multiple times over different city neighbourhoods...

EDIT: I think leaving your Nimbus splashed around is the least concern. Vampires able to clash of wills against this kind of mind control are a problem, one requiring the Mage to use sunlight or mind controlling their ghouls instead....

[Lysander]

Other thing I'm thinking is the fact is how small any given supernatural community is any given city and how even amongst them the truly potent is even smaller. Boston Unveiled the signature city of Mage The Awakening has a good sized population. But they what represent not even 1% of the total population of the metro area and outlying regions and the number of powerful adepts and masters are even smaller. My closet city has a population of 1.3 million and we have at best a couple hundred magi of some type and that is not even close to 1% of 1% of the total population in our game.

[Isator Levi]

The Adepthood is only to free up one reach, on an otherwise rather difficult to cast spell.

I was thinking of Psychic Domination (notably a mind ruling spell, which any starting level mage could possess, and nearly every mastigos would) Adepthood not required (but it would help to reach that dice pool).

Then bringing up Space 4 is irrelevant.

I was thinking about doing it with a custom Imago, but you're right every valid target in the AoE, you'd be better off casting a Death spell like Quicken Corpse, (which also allows one word commands) but use it to control vampire bodies instead of corpses.

A vampire is not a corpse, and the closest equivalent magic to seizing control of something that can move under its own power is also a four dot spell.

Mind, Animal Minion is also one where how it interacts with some spell factors becomes a tad ambiguous, in a way that casts doubt over casting it over an area.

Doing a death conjunctional to only affect the minds of dead thing (which is mostly just vampires, sin-eaters and ghosts) would also avoid massive paradox exposure. Fate optionally is just one alternative.

I wouldn't find that consistent with how the use of conjunctional Arcana is typically depicted, broadening the scope of the spell rather than limiting it.

Actually using the Vampires close knit social structures against them might be abbetter plan. Ie tracing sympathic connection between various parties and then using the Prince to order various others to follow your commands.

Something that still requires having a vampire to start with, and kind of trivialises the premise of controlling a prince without regards to any of the other points about the potential scope of vampire powers through Devotions, and the assumption that a prince is a fairly strong vampire.

I think creating a PO box witout connection back to you is the easiest part of this, doesn't actually need to be your own PO box, you just post something to a random PO box with a sympathic connection to you, and then cast a scry on it, creating a sympathic connection between you and your spell's subject (the box)

The box wouldn't be the subject of the spell, the item within it would be. A connection to the actual box would still require the usual association or another spell.

How many spells is all of this running somebody up, anyway? Your typical mage can manage three before they have to start Reaching for every subsequent one.

All of that being said, I feel as though you're disregarding points asserting that Auspex or derived Devotions could find traces of other supernatural powers or similar personal associations.

And you're talking about establishing this connection through sending an object to the box. The past contents of a PO box are the kinds of things The Spirit's Touch can discern. The first thing a vampire is going to do is pursue the actual owner of the PO box, and if that person turns out to be a dead end it can then become a question of what objects might have been sent to it stand out, and if that can be traced then it does end up being something with a personal connection that Auspex can discern.

Also, in the course of doing this, the mage ends up pointing a potentially hostile vampire at an innocent bystander.

Definitely the feudal structures are something you would actually want to take into account. But the resources required to cast a spell at -26 dice pool at pretty heft to begin with.

What is that, Gnosis 3-5, + Arcana 3-4, + rote skill* 5 (since you have mind to increase that skill), + cabal theme/shadow name 4 (if applicable) +sacrament 1-3, if you out in enough effort, +soul stone 2-3 = 17-24 dice pool base before ritual casting. +3 for willpower, +5 for extra ritual durations is 25-32. Plus any successful dice rolled by teamwork assistants (presumably they also suffer the -26, do they need their own yantras, like one use sacraments? This is a huge amount of work just to set up the 'net' ).

You know, in all this confusion I forgot to even consider the issue of the original premise acting as though it was a trivial matter to go all over a city casting a Knowing or Unveiling spell with a -10 penalty just for the area, before any necessities of Potency.

I think leaving your Nimbus splashed around is the least concern.

It's a concern if you're doing something that other mages will be hostile towards in a way that you want to be discrete.

See, the thing about this is that they're not totally insurmountable obstacles. The value of bringing them up is to provide a basis for making such a conflict something dramatic and interesting, a lot of move and countermove and investment of energy, rather than the mage just rolling over anything in opposition with ease because they have the supremacy in all conflicts.

And I suppose to provide a plausible explanation for how a city could ever possibly be home to both vampires and mages if it's assumed to be likely that so much as one mage is hostile to the vampires.

If one asserts a whole community of mages that are united in hostility to the existence of vampires (which I think stretches the extent of unity they're typically portrayed as displaying)... probably that's a conflict that favours the mages (barring the presence of some vampire with especially potent capabilities) if they want to act hard and fast and without much regard to collateral damage that could be caused as vampires violently flail against the force being brought to bear on them (especially against any non-mage associates they can get their hands on). Being more precise and discerning feels like the sort of thing mages will generally prefer based on considerations other than the solely tactical, but that is also the kind of thing that could give more opportunity for vampires to gain ground, coordinate, play to their strengths and build those up.

[orathaic]

Then bringing up Space 4 is irrelevant.

Perhaps, it is just one way to make the reach slightly easier...

A vampire is not a corpse, and the closest equivalent magic to seizing control of something that can move under its own power is also a four dot spell.

Mind, Animal Minion is also one where how it interacts with some spell factors becomes a tad ambiguous, in a way that casts doubt over casting it over an area.

Animal Minion with a Mind 2 two thoughts one mind, might overcome this limitation... But yes, as you say, it should probably require Adepthood (of Death) to completely control a vampire's body in this way.

And so that breaks the OPs premise of a bog standard average mage (a Mastigos with Gnosis 3, mind 3 and space 2, let's say).

I wouldn't find that consistent with how the use of conjunctional Arcana is typically depicted, broadening the scope of the spell rather than limiting it.

Fair point, i think i should he aiming for the opposite then, a Death spell with Mind conjunctional, so back to zombie summoning, but with Mind to give the body specific commands. It think that would be broadening the scope of Quicken Corpse (or not that specific spell, but a Death Weaving spell in general) as usual.

Something that still requires having a vampire to start with, and kind of trivialises the premise of controlling a prince without regards to any of the other points about the potential scope of vampire powers through Devotions, and the assumption that a prince is a fairly strong vampire.

I mean, yes, controlling the Prince might be a much riskier proposition. But it does make for far more interesting plot i think.

The box wouldn't be the subject of the spell, the item within it would be. A connection to the actual box would still require the usual association or another spell.

How many spells is all of this running somebody up, anyway? Your typical mage can manage three before they have to start Reaching for every subsequent one.

No, you can scry into it, and then target the box with a remote sensory range spell to get your sympathic link*.

Interesting that auspex can now find the item which in the past provided the mage with the link... I like that. Might be pretty easy to miss. But the Mage is unlikely to have thought about veiling it.

At that point, hmm, one big spell, the net, one scry and a third spell targeting the box. Plus you get extra free spell control while within your own Sanctum (is it +merit dots extra spell control so long as you don't leave your Sanctum?)

All of that being said, I feel as though you're disregarding points asserting that Auspex or derived Devotions could find traces of other supernatural powers or similar personal associations.

Yes, i don't know enough about their powers... Having only really read a bit about blood magic, (and played VtM) so i kinda have to shrug...

<Snip>

Also, in the course of doing this, the mage ends up pointing a potentially hostile vampire at an innocent bystander.

I never said this genocidal spree was a wise proposition.

You know, in all this confusion I forgot to even consider the issue of the original premise acting as though it was a trivial matter to go all over a city casting a Knowing or Unveiling spell with a -10 penalty just for the area, before any necessities of Potency.

Yeah, i do not think it should be easy.

For yantras, a +3 sacrament is by definition hard to acquire. And you need one for each neighbouhood. For cabal theme/shadow name, you need to invest heavily in that in advance, so it feels really shifty just hand waving it like whatever. For the Rote skill, ok if you are casting Psychic Domination, i can see that being a rote most orders can teach you... But now we are moving to esoteric BS of Death weaving conjunctional Mind.... Nah bro, you can't just have it as a rote unless you make it, which requires mastery.

That said a +3 soul stone should be easy... Just gotta have a low enough Gnosis and most soul stones from other mages give you +3...

It's a concern if you're doing something that other mages will be hostile towards in a way that you want to be discrete.

See, the thing about this is that they're not totally insurmountable obstacles. The value of bringing them up is to provide a basis for making such a conflict something dramatic and interesting, a lot of move and countermove and investment of energy, rather than the mage just rolling over anything in opposition with ease because they have the supremacy in all conflicts.

Yeah, my goto complication would be assuming that some of the city's vampire actually have ties to that city's Seers.

At least some of the Seer Ministries must appreciate how Vampires mess with humans. Maybe the servants of the Raptor like how Circle of the Crone predators make humans feel like they aren't apex predators, or maybe Mammon gets along with the Invictus methods of control and coercion. (Nevermind the Exarchs having the use of non-seer based cults who could recruit vampires).

So suddenly you go from "oh shit Devotions" and blood magic, to, yeah, the Exarchs will send someone for you.

And I suppose to provide a plausible explanation for how a city could ever possibly be home to both vampires and mages if it's assumed to be likely that so much as one mage is hostile to the vampires.

If one asserts a whole community of mages that are united in hostility to the existence of vampires (which I think stretches the extent of unity they're typically portrayed as displaying)... probably that's a conflict that favours the mages (barring the presence of some vampire with especially potent capabilities) if they want to act hard and fast and without much regard to collateral damage that could be caused as vampires violently flail against the force being brought to bear on them (especially against any non-mage associates they can get their hands on). Being more precise and discerning feels like the sort of thing mages will generally prefer based on considerations other than the solely tactical, but that is also the kind of thing that could give more opportunity for vampires to gain ground, coordinate, play to their strengths and build those up.

Look, mages with any sense, and operating as a group would have Time and Fate magic telling them when and who to strike first, some kind of plausible deniability/misdirection (so blame other supernaturals that you want to get rid of) and make it look less like a direct attack.

Also sending someone to take care of the herd/ghouls of a missing vampire, to minimise fallout. A consillium wide conspiracy of Mages is much more capable if they actually wanted to remove the Leeches. Might just bind them all in the Underworld as a more 'humane' punishment...drain the blood and force into torpor? Bury them rather than kill.

Lots of fun options to make thing more interesting. Also, why would you kill all the vampires in one city, only to have an influx of new vampires come and replace them (and all the chaos that filling such a power vacumn would entail) vs allying with one of the vampire factions (maybe the Cartians or the Ordo Dracul) and using them to control the behaviour of the others (after you remove the most powerful from the equation).

Better the enemy you know.

*How long does said sympathic link last to the subject of your spell?

[ArcaneArts]

And so that breaks the OPs premise of a bog standard average mage (a Mastigos with Gnosis 3, mind 3 and space 2, let's say).

Yeah, the premise that a bog standard mage (actually, let's lay it out as it is, a new mage character from the corebook) could easily wipe out a coterie basically never really worked as nicely as originally thought, and I say that as someone who technically owes the Arrow fans a write up on how to be devastating with Space.

Don't really have time to look at everything, but I feel like i never hurts to re-point this out.

[jsnider3]

You don't need to do a city-wide "Locate Vampire" spell. Vampires are social creatures, just hang out in good feeding locations until you find one, then follow them until they go to the weekly Lancea bible-study, then follow the leader of that until they go to the Prince's bimonthly status meeting. Detectives have spent decades unravelling the social networks of suspicious individuals with patience and elbow grease, there's no need to make things complicated. Plus, there are plenty of attack-spells that would be easier to cast on a few dozen individuals separately instead of all at once.

If that's Psychic Domination, that's going to affect every thinking being within the boundary unless any of them have already had the Fate spell Warding Gesture cast on them.

Sure, an order could be phrased in terms of "if, and only if, you are a vampire, do this thing".

But people under that spell know that they're doing a thing based on an impulse that does not originate within them, so that's going to lead to hundreds of people being made to actively think about whether or not they're vampires.

This just seems like a funny scenario to me. You can have your High School Occultist Club hanging in the library trying to research what's up with the abandoned morgue off Main Street when they suddenly hear a booming voice "ARE YOU A VAMPIRE? IF SO, VOMIT UP ALL YOUR VITAE AND FALL ASLEEP ON YOUR FRONT LAWN.".

[Isator Levi]

You don't need to do a city-wide "Locate Vampire" spell. Vampires are social creatures, just hang out in good feeding locations until you find one, then follow them until they go to the weekly Lancea bible-study, then follow the leader of that until they go to the Prince's bimonthly status meeting. Detectives have spent decades unravelling the social networks of suspicious individuals with patience and elbow grease, there's no need to make things complicated. Plus, there are plenty of attack-spells that would be easier to cast on a few dozen individuals separately instead of all at once.

Not all vampire Clans have Obfuscate as one of their particular Disciplines, but it's a Discipline that any vampire can learn without requiring a teacher.

[orathaic]

Not all vampire Clans have Obfuscate as one of their particular Disciplines, but it's a Discipline that any vampire can learn without requiring a teacher.

Obfuscate is a mind based effect, right (like incognito presence). So a Mind based knowing/unveiling spell would clash, but a forces/death based spell would automatically fail? Is my understanding of the rules correct here? (I know the example in the mage core rules doesn't make much sense to me.)

[ArcaneArts]

Not all vampire Clans have Obfuscate as one of their particular Disciplines, but it's a Discipline that any vampire can learn without requiring a teacher.

Uh, yeah they do. Any Discipline a vampire doesn't inherently know requires them to find another vampire who knows it and getting into a blood bond with them. Admittedly not a typical teacher, but definitely a case of the same problem.

[Satchel]

Uh, yeah they do. Any Discipline a vampire doesn't inherently know requires them to find another vampire who knows it and getting into a blood bond with them. Admittedly not a typical teacher, but definitely a case of the same problem.

Per the quick-ref page from Requiem 2e Core: "As well, Disciplines sometimes require teachers. Kindred may develop their clan Disciplines without a teacher. Also, any Kindred may develop Animalism, Celerity, Obfuscate, Resilience, and Vigor independently."

The "Learning Disciplines" subsection of the intro to the Disciplines section likewise reiterates that it's clan-specific Disciplines like Nightmare and Dominate that require a teacher.

[Lysander]

Per the quick-ref page from Requiem 2e Core: "As well, Disciplines sometimes require teachers. Kindred may develop their clan Disciplines without a teacher. Also, any Kindred may develop Animalism, Celerity, Obfuscate, Resilience, and Vigor independently."

The "Learning Disciplines" subsection of the intro to the Disciplines section likewise reiterates that it's clan-specific Disciplines like Nightmare and Dominate that require a teacher.

That makes considerable sense that certain disciplines like Dominate, Majesty, Nightmare & Protean would need somebody to teach it as they come across as quite specialized.

[Isator Levi]

Also, for the point of vampires being vulnerable during the day, that's what ghouls are for.

[Lysander]

Another thought came to me. I like to read lots on historical figures like Alexander the Great, Julius & Augustus Ceasar, Genghis Khan and Cleopartra among others and one of things you have to watch for is power vacuams when a leader dies. So lets say the mages decided to kill off the vampires in there city. Well nature abhors that and you could wind up making your rivals much stronger as they might swoop and gobble up the assets of the kindred. Maybe the wiser amongst them might decide we would rather deal with the devil we know then the one we don't.

[Niknokk]

I've been noodling about something that bugs me that's related to this, which is that Mages are not Hunters. Banishers kinda-sorta act like hunters and if you want to have Banishers going after Beasts or ritual sorcerers or Risen or whoever in the background when there aren't any other Mages around I don't even think it'd be that out of character for them, but they're a special case.

But Mages spend a lot of time turning over rocks and poking their noses into strange corners of the world, and since this is fundamentally a horror setting a lot of what they find is likely to be pretty icky. Why don't they act more like Hunters? (I'm not saying they should; the game tells us they mostly don't so I'm trying to dig into why that is.)

It seems like people have one of three responses when they encounter the supernatural.
1. Denial, pretend you didn't see anything and go about your life.
2. Join it; read some books, join a conspiracy-theory forum and eventually maybe a cult, or get dragged in involuntarily.
3. Fight it; create or join a Hunter cell.

Mages are solidly in option 2, most of them. Hunters are in option 3.
I don't think Mages have "fight the monsters, save the people" embedded in their collective psyche the way Hunters do. Even if a lot of them do, at some level, want to protect, educate and uplift humanity as a whole, Priority Number One is... picking at their Obsessions, working out the Mysteries, unravelling the Lie, breaking the cage.

If you assume Mages are normal people with magic powers, I can see why you'd assume a bunch of them become magic superheroes and fight the monsters. Except they aren't normal people, even before the powers, and those powers make it impossible for them to continue being normal people in any case.

A Mage might fantasize about destroying every vampire everywhere, but no non-Banisher Mage is going to fantasize about living in a completely normal, non-magical world, right? They fundamentally don't want a safe world, since magic isn't safe.

Speaking of safety, Mages don't live on Olympus idly deciding who to smite with lightning after lunch. Every time they poke their nose into a new strange place they risk getting horribly killed or possessed or whatever, and Mages who make a habit of poking magic wasp nests out of moral outrage probably have shorter service lives than most. In a world of darkness where every shadow hides a monster, would Unseen Senses make you want to proactively hunt down and kill everything you sense, or would you be really careful about which shadows you step into?

Even passing info to the real Hunters is dangerous, because even if these Hunters aren't going to take a shot at you, Hunters talk to other Hunters and eventually someone will, and any other big players who discover that you're effectively using Hunters as personal attack dogs are going to take that personally and return the favor.

Mages aren't Magic Hunters and I think the differences are interesting.
Thinking about how the different splat's subcultures would actually interact is also interesting but outside of examples like the Chicago books you pretty much have to build your own and game out the interactions depending on the specific characters and contexts you've invented.

[jsnider3]

Speaking of safety, Mages don't live on Olympus idly deciding who to smite with lightning after lunch. Every time they poke their nose into a new strange place they risk getting horribly killed or possessed or whatever, and Mages who make a habit of poking magic wasp nests out of moral outrage probably have shorter service lives than most. In a world of darkness where every shadow hides a monster, would Unseen Senses make you want to proactively hunt down and kill everything you sense, or would you be really careful about which shadows you step into?

Even passing info to the real Hunters is dangerous, because even if these Hunters aren't going to take a shot at you, Hunters talk to other Hunters and eventually someone will, and any other big players who discover that you're effectively using Hunters as personal attack dogs are going to take that personally and return the favor.

Yeah, I think evolutionary pressures are a much better explanation than they seem at first glance. Suppose you get 10 new wizards a year. One-third of them are bookworms who just want to study magic while staying out of trouble and two-thirds are the type who might kick down the doors to haunted houses in order to see what secrets they have. If you assume 5% of your bookworms die each year while 20% of your action heroes do, then in the long run your Consilium will have 66 homebodies and 33 adventurers.

I assume that vampires and mages are both equally common in the World of Darkness, so you then have 33 adventurers trying to fight 100 vampires, only you don't have 33 adventurers because most of them are busy fighting Seers and the Abyss. So, you then have 10 or so wizards who might try to wipe out like 100 vampires and that won't be a cakewalk even if they are the type to just kill all of them, instead of the type that just polices them and kills the bad ones.