The Mysterium and their Contribution to Mage Society

[Errol216]

So, over in the other thread, we had this comment, which I agree with:

I kinda agree. I like the Mysterium ideology a lot, but their book seems to be rather unsure of what exactly they do for the wider community. They're scholars, but that doesn't really seem to matter all that much in a society of scholars (it's somewhat useful to have an actively maintained library but it's not obvious that magi would be any less able to practice their magic without them, and they're presented as being incredibly defensive about it, to the point I kinda wonder why the other orders put up with it). Plus, their book actively excludes other magi from their internal structures. I mean, the SL get by because they actively work to make the Lex work, and they include everyone in it. The Mysterium could have a really interesting role as a regulator of the trade in magical items*, but the book chooses to say that that only applies inside the Mysterium. I also always wondered why the Mysterium didn't offer it's athenaeums as storehouses for other magi's use; there's a trust issue perhaps but if you can get past that, your artefact is probably much safer inside the ancient magic fortress defended by a cabal of Arrows than hidden under your bed.

*It's one of the interesting bits of the setting that the Mysterium actually enforce an idea of right price that resembles a sort of price control or market oversight. Meanwhile it's the Free Council who seem implied to be ok with people being ripped off.

I think that's worth exploring in more detail.

I had the idea of likening them to the Federal Reserve, but I have absolutely no idea how that'd work. I have another idea of framing them as priests-for-mages, but I need some time to hammer that out before I try posting about it.

For reference, here's the 2e Spoiler for the Mysterium: http://theonyxpath.com/endless-wonde...the-awakening/

Discuss some ideas to create detail for this kind of thing, and especially things that the Mysterium can do for the larger Pentacle society that mages generally can't on their own. Make it so that, if the Mysterium vanished from the setting, the setting would seem like there's a hole that needed filling.

Please keep this thread positive. If you want to talk about how evil the Mysterium are (and they totally are), either make it their contribution to the Pentacle (um..) or take it to the other thread.

[Ephsy]

"Mystagogues on international trips hunting Mysteries take the news with them. [...]there’s no better method of secure communication between far-flung Caucuses."

The thing about the Mystagogues is that they embrace their mystical obsession completely. Backed up credentials Caucus-wide by greasing the wheels with local Concilia by providing token rotes stolen from Nameless Orders from the other side of the world thus allowing them to go in and basically steal artifacts from the other orders with no one being the wiser, then dropping their hard earned trophies in Athenea continents away.

There's no order better equipped to deal with full-blown abyssal intrusion, no better order equipped to piece together the convoluted machinations of the Seers over several Caucuses. Their Censors can behave like the Awakened's Interpol.

[wyrdhamster]

Mine own idea, based on Mysterium's philosophy shown in their Order book. It comes from here.

As Atheneum is semi public service of local Consilium, any Pentacle mage can ask access to it's knowlegde. The only problem is payment for it. As Mysterium favors the knowledge and actions in getting it, any knowledge can be bought by equally important knowledge. But as your actions are also important, duties to the Mysterium Order or the Consilium itself could be enough. Mark only that not in all Consiliums work for the Ruling Council could work to access the Atheneums informations - if Curator is in bad standing in Consilium, or the Council has a public opinion to be corrupted, Mysterium can limit access of people working for the community Order is abstaining to take part of. But in places where Atheneums works with Ruling Council, most of workers for Consilium can use their position for getting access to knowledge in it.

Any character can also take Favor on the Atheneum, to "repay his debt" later, with knowledge, item or even Artifact. Tradition says that only 3 unpaid Favors can be on each mage for the Atheneum, but local Curator is deciding on this policy.

Mechanics: Any Pentacle character in good standing can gain access to Athenum's information without making direct exchange of knowledge on two ways - by the Favors he takes on himself or by using his Status in Mysterium or Concilium ( if both groups cooperate in region ).

Taking Favor for the Atheneum grants character access to any non-Censorium knowledge on once visit. But character takesFavor ( Atheneum ) Condition.

Using Status to get knowledge is using your previous deeds to be payment for the information you want to get, in the eyes of Mysterium dogma. Will work for the Consilium is commonly seen as part of the Guan Xi and promoting the cooperation Mystygoges favors, it's not as worth it as direct uncovering and reclaiming knowledge. In game terms, using Status (Consilium) to access Atheneum is counted as one level lower than the list below. So the characters with Status (Consilum) 1 - Properly recognized cabal, that fulfilled it's duties to Consilium - is treated as Status (Mysterium) 0 members. Charcter need one level Status higher to borrow the piece of knowlegde from Atheneum.

Status - Level of Knowlegde granted by Curator
0 - Sleepers occult information. Things that can be found in any library, but Mysterium cataloged and collected it for years for the use of Awakened.

1 - Basic Awakened knowledge. Workings of Arcana, Supernal, Mana, Realms Invisible ( Astral Space, Shadow Ream, Hedge, any other near-Earth Realm ). Mysterium is known for it's meritorious research on those topics.

2 - Basic Left Hand Path informations and Atlantis knowledge. Rumors and hearses on Abyss, Scelasti, Lich, Reapers and others - but nothing concrete or what would be in Censorium. Atlantean traditions, myths and various informations on Time Before.

3 - Censorium level knowledge on Left Hand Path. Awakened society secrets like accounts on Archmasters.

[Mrmdubois]

The priest niche is already filled by the SL.

The Mysterium are the Order most dedicated to looking for Mysteries though. The other Orders show up when a Mystery gets found, but because of their obsessive exploratory nature the Mysterium are the most likely to dig one up where no one else was looking. This was considered boring in the other thread. I don't know why.

Anyways, once the Mysterium stumbles across a Mystery they'll compare notes with other members via the Egregore. More Mysterium show up dragging their non-Order cabal mates along. Inter-Order/Cabal conflicts kick up, the Mysterium act as go betweens because they're naturally affiliated in a friendly way with each other by the Egregore. That and the head start on gathering local intelligence make them indispensable enough to step out of most of the political stuff that occurs while they continue research.

[LokiRavenSpeak]

There's no order better equipped to deal with full-blown abyssal intrusion, no better order equipped to piece together the convoluted machinations of the Seers over several Caucuses. Their Censors can behave like the Awakened's Interpol.

While i think of them on the same veins, i ran on the problem that the mysterium moves by quanxi and quanxi is horribly explained on the book.

It said that a knowledge for knowledge or personal favor for knowledge is the way the mystrium deals. Thats good and i can dig that, a less...evil setites in a way, they give you what you need in exchange for stuff.

But, then the books doesnt provide for measurements of what thing cost. Can one a "save" favors as to cash them for a bit piece of knowledge (Ex: i cut you grass for 10 years and i get a grimoire)? How much personal favors does it cost a rote?

Same thing with knowledge for knowledge, if i am using the mystrium as a sort of knowledge fountain for my player what "knowing how to kill a vampire" would cost? What could possibly offer a newly awakened mage that is worth for a atheneum?

I kinda like their role a person who set a "price" for knowledge, kinda like the price of history but with a magic! but i found myself having to make stuff up for that because the book present an economic system central to the order but then proceeds to not explain it.

[amechra]

I don't think the Mysterium needs to do something for the Pentacle at large.

Hear me out:

I think the Mysterium sticks with the Pentacle because it's convenient, and the Pentacle lets them slide with just a little library access because it's better to have the Mysterium on your side than to be competing with them.

Given their focus, they have what are probably the largest libraries of grimoires and Rotes you can find anywhere. They have a planet-spanning sympathetic network which can allow for stupid levels of Space and Time shenanigans at the very least. As Mrmdubois says, they are the most willing to go out and find new Mysteries - and since they are professional obsessives, those Mysteries are going to be catalogued and put in those massive libraries they've got.

There are probably Guardians that wake up screaming due to nightmares of the Mysterium turning on the Pentacle. It's a good thing that they aren't interested in running things and see violence and such as an unpleasant step in the way of research. It's a "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" arrangement - the Mysterium lets you see your libraries, and you keep people off their back so that they can spend time researching.

[Ophidimancer]

All of the Orders have their magical researchers, but none of them make that a religion as much as the Mysterium do. The other Orders have Obsessions to do with temporal concerns, like politics or doing good or preventing harm. In no other Order would you find so many mages absolutely consumed, body and soul, with the Arcane Mysteries as the Mysterium. And magic, in return, rewards that obsession. The Alae Draconis they are called, the Wings of the Dragon, and they are the ones that make mage society truly fly to the heights Supernal, not only learning new things, but also recovering and saving ancient knowledge.

Also, with the direction 2e is taking, the Pentacle is not a monolith, it's an alliance. So we don't have to think of the Orders as castes that somehow fit together into a working society, we have to think of them as oh ... allied nations that work together against the axis of the ministries.

[Ephsy]

While i think of them on the same veins, i ran on the problem that the mysterium moves by quanxi and quanxi is horribly explained on the book.

It said that a knowledge for knowledge or personal favor for knowledge is the way the mystrium deals. Thats good and i can dig that, a less...evil setites in a way, they give you what you need in exchange for stuff.

But, then the books doesnt provide for measurements of what thing cost. Can one a "save" favors as to cash them for a bit piece of knowledge (Ex: i cut you grass for 10 years and i get a grimoire)? How much personal favors does it cost a rote?

Same thing with knowledge for knowledge, if i am using the mystrium as a sort of knowledge fountain for my player what "knowing how to kill a vampire" would cost? What could possibly offer a newly awakened mage that is worth for a atheneum?

I kinda like their role a person who set a "price" for knowledge, kinda like the price of history but with a magic! but i found myself having to make stuff up for that because the book present an economic system central to the order but then proceeds to not explain it.

There's no way an economy based on favors could work without you being able to call them back on a future date. On the cost of resources such as a grimoire that could teach someone to attain mastery on an Arcana? Tutelage to the pupil of your choice until such height of knowledge on a different Arcana is achieved by him.

Your problem is that you apparently need everything spelled out. Fill the gaps. Knowledge for knowledge. Why would you need someone to tell you how to kill a vampire so urgently as to trade favors with the virtual Venetian Bank of Rotes & Artifacts when a simple Knowing spell of the Death Arcana allows that? No, you need to make shit more dramatic.

You give them what you know about Mysteries. I'm talking Secret Concord from Salem; Atlanthean Geomantics from Chicago, that kind of knowledge, or say the actual location of a Gulmoth.

[LokiRavenSpeak]

its amazing you are 100% wrong, i mean nothing you wrote has being right.

There's no way an economy based on favors could work without you being able to call them back on a future date.

This is not what i meant, what i ask was if favor were cumulative. Small favors in exchange for a big one. Example, in real life you could cut my grass for 50 years for free but that still wouldnt make me donate you my kidney. There are 2 ways to handle a economy of favor, a favor for a favor of equal value only (so a arcanum 3 rote can only get you another arcanum 3 rote) or a series of lesser favor that can mount to a bigger favor (three arcanum 1 rotes can get you an arcanum 3 rote). The book fails to answer which one and both make sense for the order for different reason but present a big change of game depending on the choice.

Knowledge for knowledge. Why would you need someone to tell you how to kill a vampire so urgently as to trade favors with the virtual Venetian Bank of Rotes & Artifacts when a simple Knowing spell of the Death Arcana allows that?

Oh i dont know because as i said.

Same thing with knowledge for knowledge, if i am using the mystrium as a sort of knowledge fountain for my player what "knowing how to kill a vampire" would cost? What could possibly offer a newly awakened mage that is worth for a atheneum?

I could be using the ractain strain, or the tremere. The new mages could encounter something like a vampire but different enough that they wanna know what the local atheneum has on the subject. Something that a knowing death spell wouldnt tell you. And a good way to introduce new mages to the working of the atheneum

On the cost of resources such as a grimoire that could teach someone to attain mastery on an Arcana? Tutelage to the pupil of your choice until such height of knowledge on a different Arcana is achieved by him.

Which bring me again to....

Same thing with knowledge for knowledge, if i am using the mystrium as a sort of knowledge fountain for my player what "knowing how to kill a vampire" would cost? What could possibly offer a newly awakened mage that is worth for a atheneum?

No, you need to make shit more dramatic.

You give them what you know about Mysteries. I'm talking Secret Concord from Salem; Atlanthean Geomantics from Chicago, that kind of knowledge, or say the actual location of a Gulmoth.

What do you mean by this? No seriously that 3 sentences make no sense. I give them what i know about the mysteries? I as a DM? The atheneum? The censor? Why would they give "them" that knowledge? Are you not an english speaker? I seriously ask what you saying here.

Im gonna leap of faith here and theorize that you mean that the atheneum should only be use for big stuff like the concord. If that so then thats a huge waste of the atheneum.

If i only present the atheneum for the big stuff then it just become a roadblock for players. Some chore they suddenly gotta do just to get the piece of information relevant to the "main quest". Any kind of mystery and investigation get reduced to "just check on the library" after gathering 10 kobold heads for the censor. It devalues the interaction of the atheneum to a filler sidequest and a deus ex machina. Worse of all it robs the player of agency, the big mystery of the campaign? Yeah that was gathering dust on the atheneum, no biggie.

The book presents the Quaxi as the everyday MO of the order, from big stuff to little stuff. When making a game with new PCs then the atheneum should be presented and used for the player from little stuff building up for the bigger stuff. Then it becomes an setting element of it own and not a cheap deus ex machina and a filler sidequest.

Player should get to interact with the atheneum as a valid resource that the fluff sells you it is since the start, using it for little stuff, personal stuff and sometimes bigger stuff.

Remember

Fill the gaps.

Yes of course i can fill the gaps but then thats a weak defense for a book of 27 to 32 dolllars. If the book introduce a system that if the bread and butter of the order, it should dedicate a big chunk to explain it. Otherwise why would i pay for reading a book that just shrugs and a says "whatever" for something that supposedly vital for the order

[Errol216]

This is not what i meant, what i ask was if favor were cumulative. Small favors in exchange for a big one. Example, in real life you could cut my grass for 50 years for free but that still wouldnt make me donate you my kidney. There are 2 ways to handle a economy of favor, a favor for a favor of equal value only (so a arcanum 3 rote can only get you another arcanum 3 rote) or a series of lesser favor that can mount to a bigger favor (three arcanum 1 rotes can get you an arcanum 3 rote). The book fails to answer which one and both make sense for the order for different reason but present a big change of game depending on the choice.

Really quick, but it's not about numbers. If you're tracking numbers, you've already failed to understand guanxi.

A gifter gifts according to their ability; if the receiver is unimpressed, then sucks to be you. That's how a favor economy works (and why a money economy is better in some ways). An apprentice might not have anything worth donating to the Athenaeum, but if he tries, then that counts for something. How he tries also matters. Sure, pulling some tass out of the air is pretty much meaningless (has some objective value; has no real subjective value). But if he visits several other Mystagogues, asks them thought-provoking, constructive questions about their research without getting in their way, and then creates a summary based on that, maybe with a few of his own insights added, to donate to the Athenaeum? That'd be worth a lot, even from an apprentice.

Why? Because he showed that he's willing to do legwork. Because he showed he got along amiably and professionally with other established and respected members. Because he showed he was capable of understanding what he was told. Because he showed he was able to repackage knowledge in a way digestible by others. Because he showed he was able to think originally. Because he showed that he knows what knowledge is, the how and why it is valuable. For a master Mystagogue looking at the results of that work? This apprentice is fucking useful to our community and I'm happy to teach him whatever rote he wants. It is worth my time. And if his offering is weak the next time he comes knocking? He's banked up some credit and I'll give him some leeway before my regard of him drops down a notch.

...that was not quick. /facepalm

[Michael Kenner]

Just a quick note that although I've read every 2e spoiler as religiously as a mage following an obsession, I still don't really grok the 2e worldview yet since I haven't been able to read the book in its entirety. So this is mostly going to be a 1e point of view.

i ran on the problem that the mysterium moves by quanxi and quanxi is horribly explained on the book.

I also had a lot of trouble understanding the guanxi system just from reading the book. I had to figure out my own way of handling it. I'll try to explain my own personal interpretation but I can't guarantee that this matches what it was meant to be in the canon lore of the books.

At its simplest guanxi is simply stating that the Mysterium believe that merit should establish whether a person is given access to a particular resource. It doesn't end up ever being quite that simple though. It ends up being an unholy hybrid of post-graduate academic research grants, job application, popularity contest and running for political office. The whole system is often so subjective and nebulous seeming that outsiders to the order just resolve it on a case by case basis by 'doing favours in exchange for resources'. This isn't really how it's meant to work, but you can have unscrupulous Mystagogues trading in on outsiders' ignorance for their own advantage or well-meaning Mystagogues simplifying it for the benefit of an outsider.

So how does it actually work? The Mysterium ranks your worthiness for resources on five main factors:

Your ability to use it: Do you know what you're doing? How solid is your grasp on magical theory and what is your gnostic insight like? For someone inside the Mysterium this is easy, they often know you personally or may have read some of your research. For someone outside it depends on what you've established in your public usage of power. Because of their academic tilt the Mysterium often admires someone who has 'published' or at least shared some theoretical knowledge with other mages.

Your wisdom and caution: Are you going to take the resources the Mysterium's given you and cause problems with it. Do you have a habit of splashy Paradox backlashes? Have you revealed the mysteries to sleepers before? Are you likely to lose the artifact or damage it?

Your job history: Have you ever been a herald? Sentinel? Councillor? Etc. Any positions in Mage society help to show worthiness in a lot of different ways. (More selfishly though it can be judged as a way of getting in good with the high ranking members of the Consillium).

Your contributions to magical society: Doesn't matter how good you are if it doesn't help the rest of society. This tends to be from a Mysterium point of view so they judge it often on what knowledge you've given, artifacts you've procured, etc. However they're not so blind (most of the time) as to ignore the steadfast loyalty of an Adamantine Arrow or the political achievements of a Silver Ladder.

Do we like you: The sad fact is that this often covers up bigotry, people's personal biases and just regular old interpersonal problems. Some Mages get more by volunteering to mow the lawn of an elderly Mystagogue and being seen as that "kind, helpful young apprentice" than a scarred and bitter Adamantine Arrow might have earned through a lifetime of devoted martyrdom for others if he's grumpy and doesn't get invited to parties. At the end of the day Mages are people and they're rarely unbiased by their emotions.

In some cases it's so obvious that a person deserves access to a resource that they're given it straight away. In other cases it's so obviously a bad idea that they are refused out of hand. In the middle though is an entire spectrum of uncertainty. The 'favour-trading' aspect of Guanxi comes in three forms.

1) You're told you're not ready so you do something to demonstrate that you are: The curator says you haven't established your magical knowledge yet, so you write a massive research article on that exact topic and get it published. You ask again and this time you're told that you're ready. It wasn't that you did this as a favour or in trade, but in doing so you established that you were worthy.
2) It's seen as a bad investment BUT the addition of the favour makes it worthwhile anyway: The curator judges that you shouldn't be given the resource, but it's still a pretty close call. He says "How about you do X favour for the order and we'll say yes this time?"
3) Beating the rivals: If there are two people wanting the same resource and it can't be given to both, then anything either side can do to rapidly increase their worthiness or to sweeten the deal for the curator might be all it takes for your application to be approved.

I don't have a formal mechanical system but I thoroughly recommend using the Chronicles of Darkness/GMC update social combat system for resolving Guanxi. It interfaces almost perfectly.

Edit: Wow, that was longer than I thought it was going to be. Sorry for getting carried away a bit.

[Ephsy]

its amazing you are 100% wrong, i mean nothing you wrote has being right.

Surveying the thread... Nope, I don't think I am.

[Mrmdubois]

LRS: They had examples of guang xi in action in the book. You could have taken cues from that.

If you don't feel like that's enough structure (And guang xi in real life is vague, so that was just the game taking cues from life) then you could just use the Pact system from Summoners.

[Michael]

I had the idea of likening them to the Federal Reserve, but I have absolutely no idea how that'd work.

Well, they already have structures for trade in place, it's just that the book says that the other orders won't abide by it; just change that. Perhaps create a new post (or add this to the Censors role) for overseeing trade deals like the Factotums of the Ladder oversee the Lex (or maybe have it be that Mysterium Factotums specialise in it).
As for storing stuff, I don't really see that it needs to be too complicated. The Mysterium believe that magic needs protecting, other magi like their stuff protected, that's a win-win. Also, it gets around how the Athenaeum actually get stuff. People actively give them stuff to look after at the price that other people get to look at it too.

Discuss some ideas to create detail for this kind of thing, and especially things that the Mysterium can do for the larger Pentacle society that mages generally can't on their own. Make it so that, if the Mysterium vanished from the setting, the setting would seem like there's a hole that needed filling.

Actually I think we can work around it as written to a degree. A lot of people are getting down on the Mysterium as completely ammoral and materialistic but I dont' think that's totally right. There's their roles as teachers. If you worship gnosis itself, then that gnosis requires people to inhabit; in fact you actively want to spread that knowledge. I think it's important to differentiate between the Guardians who actively want to limit the spread of magical knowledge, and the Mysterium who merely think a person has to be ready for it. The idea of hoarding magical secrets actually seems slightly contrary to that idea.

If we're stretching things a bit more, just remove the almost ban on other magi going to the Athenaeum. They really don't need to treat other magi with total contempt. I mean, the Guardians have an idea of... True(?) magi; that is members of other orders who abide by the Guardians rules. I'm not saying throw open the doors to anyone, but if your Mysterium cabalmate says you're an honest person, and you don't have a criminal past (by Lex standards) then they'll let you look through their stacks.

All of the Orders have their magical researchers, but none of them make that a religion as much as the Mysterium do. The other Orders have Obsessions to do with temporal concerns, like politics or doing good or preventing harm. In no other Order would you find so many mages absolutely consumed, body and soul, with the Arcane Mysteries as the Mysterium. And magic, in return, rewards that obsession. The Alae Draconis they are called, the Wings of the Dragon, and they are the ones that make mage society truly fly to the heights Supernal, not only learning new things, but also recovering and saving ancient knowledge.

Here's an interesting question: are the Mysterium therefore better magi on average? I think that's where my issues began. If the answer is no, then it means their activity is relatively redundant. Plus, if you restrict your knowledge to just the Mysterium, you're not even helping the rest of Pentacle society.

Also, with the direction 2e is taking, the Pentacle is not a monolith, it's an alliance. So we don't have to think of the Orders as castes that somehow fit together into a working society, we have to think of them as oh ... allied nations that work together against the axis of the ministries.

That's fine, but I don't think it works that way. They've been in an alliance for hundreds of years, and most cabals have members of multiple orders. The seperate nation thing only works if they don't mingle that much. If you did that, then yeah, the Mysterium would make a lot more sense. Further, while I referred to caste, I could equally refer to role or niche. What I mean is, the other three Diamond Orders (ignore the Seers) each provide some benefit to the greater community that allows the alliance to continue. In the Mysterium's case, it's almost a negative of that, they have these great resources, but as presented they really hate to let anyone use them even a bit. That seems like a rather toxic situation.

[Mrmdubois]

The only stuff the Mysterium doesn't willingly share is the really bad stuff that even most Mysterium don't get to see. There's generally a fee attached in order to stave off Pancryptia, not because they're greedy, secretive bastards. In crises situations the Mysterium actively digs up whatever it can find that would be helpful to everyone. In those instances, resolving the crisis is the payment.

That's also the difference between them and the FC. The motives for the FC taking favors, resources, etc for access to their Lorehouses is purely mercenary. To the Mysterium paying for that access is necessary to keep magic alive and safe.