Walking in the World [Mage: The Awakening]

Mage: The Awakening, Open Development, Projects

Welcome back, increasingly faithful (and patient) readers!

I know, I know. It’s been a while.

Signs of Sorcery is nigh-Developed. It’s 93,000-out-of-97,000 words Developed. That last bit is proving tricky, but our long international nightmare will soon be over and I can get on with things like Tome of the Pentacle or Fallen Worlds.

In response to requests for more, a little something for you.

Aedes and Boons

Oh such a long time ago, when I was describing the changes to Awakening we intended to make it the then-upcoming Second Edition, I wrote one of these blog posts about the Supernal World. We had changed it from being something mages never see but only theorise about (that would be the Supernal Realm) and linked it to our beefed-up Mage Sight: the five Supernal Worlds of Arcadia, Aether, Stygia, Pandemonium, and the Primal Wild are now what mages see when they use their Sight. From the information-gathering spells with extra rules of first edition, Mage Sight now plunged the Awakened into hallucinatory perceptions of the world around them, beset by environments and creatures only they could interact with. Supernal Entities as a thing mages regularly interacted with were only introduced late in first edition, in Summoners — we wanted them to be in the core, and to sometimes appear in reaction to mages using their Sight too deeply.

In short, we wanted Mage Sight to be less “Detect Magic” and more, well… This.

Wordcount, though, is a harsh mistress, and we couldn’t get as much into the core about what Mage Sight was like as we wanted. Chapter Two of Awakening mentions things like the quicksilver thorns of Arcadia, shining manifestations of branching timelines as opposed to the more literal brambles of Changeling‘s Hedge (but still sharp, and full of Shrikes). Supernal Entities had the bare bones of their systems included along with Spirits, ghosts, goetia, and Abyssal entities, but they lacked the power and versatility of their presentation in Summoners.

We’d get back to it, we figured, in an appropriate sourcebook.

Like this one, for example!

The excerpt we’re sharing here covers Aedes (Supernal environments like the thorns, that mages of the correct Path using their Sight interact with, while all others are entirely unaffected) and Boons (special abilities for mid- and high- Rank Supernal entities on top of their Arcana.) I have given the core rules and the examples for one Path of each, chosen at random; the Thyrsus Aedes and the Obrimos Boons. Lastly, this excerpt is from the same chapter as the previously-released excerpt about advanced Mage Sight rules. When it talks about Building a Mystery, the Page XX reference is to that, not to the corebook.

AEDES AND BOONS EXCERPT