Death is the Road to Awe

Mage: The Awakening, Open Development

Hey folks!

It’s another busy week in Awakening towers, as I’m sick. Powerful, addictive painkillers sick. Also, I’m woefully behind on a few things (thanks, in part, to the sick) so I can’t spend the time the Orders deserve to explain how they’re changing. This is for the good, though, as the Council of Free Assemblies (better known as the Free Council) won the vote last time, and the author of the Order section is going to give the Libertines a little bit more spit and polish before we show them to you.

As with our last layover week, we’ll fill the time in with one of the splats you haven’t seen yet. In continuing alphabetical order, that makes this week’s spoiler the Path of Doom.

Three things about the Moros, this edition;

Alchemists (and Necromancers) not Necromancers (and Alchemists)

We’ve spilled a lot of ink and pixels about “the Moros problem” in the years since Awakening‘s publication. A lot of fans wrestled with them, especially early on–the other four Paths have paired Arcana that seemed to come together in more intuitive fashion than Death and Matter, and I’ve seen more mono-focused Moros than any other Path. We’re keen to make why Death and Matter go together much clearer this time around; and the Moros “theme” was the first one we decided on, before extending it to the other four. Moros are about change, the transition between seemingly permanent states. They know that no matter how unending something appears, it is changing, even if that transformation can only be measured in the life-cycle of stars. They were the first Path we thought of the alternate name for, without even trying; even if we only had one for each, the new Moros would still be called Alchemists. We think it gets the essential core of the Path across better than Necromancer, even if they do spend a lot of time ghost-bothering.

The Underworld

Mage‘s original corebook mentions the Underworld in a couple of places — high end Death spells summon ghosts “back” from it, for instance, but it wasn’t until Geist: The Sin-Eaters four years later that the Great Below was detailed. Well, it’s detailed now, and Awakening Second Edition doesn’t shy away from it. The Underworld, like the Shadow, is a cross-game setting element; Book of the Dead was a sourcebook for World of Darkness, not for Geist, and so we’ll be talking about it in Mage. It won’t have as big a section as the Shadow, but our setting chapter does describe the basics, and several Death spells deal with it in a more obvious fashion than they used to. Combined with the ghost rules (part of the revised Storytelling system since God-Machine Chronicle), that’s a lot of support for budding necromancers.

Matters of Spell Balance

The two Paths you’ve seen so far have been relatively unaffected by our drive to pin every spell firmly to its Practice; barring some Space spells that were on the “wrong” dot-levels, Acanthus and Mastigos players shouldn’t see too much different in their character’s capabilities.

And then we come to Matter.

One of the design decisions we made early on was to remove the speed-bump element built into several Arcana, which is especially obvious in Matter, Life, and Forces. “Base”, “Median”, and “Higher” Life no longer requires increasing Life dots. You don’t have to be an Adept to Compel certain Forces. And, for the Moros, different states of matter do not require different levels of the Matter Arcanum.

Spell Preview

Three spells for you, two from Matter and one from Death – one already got spoiled on rpg.net, so it’s a repeat, but the others are new.

Lodestone (Matter •)

Practice: Compelling

Primary Spell Factor: Scale (Area)

Suggested Rote Skills: Crafts, Larceny, Science

The mage chooses a substance or type of object. As long as the spell remains active, those objects within the spell’s Area are drawn to the mage: dropped coins bounce toward her, water flows in her direction as long as she’s standing downstream, and so on. Unless the object is capable of moving under its own power, this spell can only nudge the object when an external force is imparted on it: a ball might roll across the floor, but a heavy book won’t fly off a table into the mage’s hand. (It might, however, tip and fall off a shelf if it was precariously balanced to begin with.)

Alternately, the mage can repel objects from her in the same fashion. This spell isn’t strong enough to deflect a weapon swung or fired with intent to harm, but it can certainly keep the mage dry in a rainstorm or keep a cloud of tear gas at bay.

Alchemist’s Touch (Matter ••)

Practice: Shielding

Primary Factor: Potency

Suggested Rote Skills: Crafts, Survival, Persuasion

Draped in the leaden shrouds of Stygia, the mage may handle even the most dangerous of substances without fear. When the spell is cast, she chooses a particular form of matter: she is largely immune to its deleterious effects. The material cannot inflict bashing damage on her at all, and she reduces the damage from lethal sources of harm by the spell’s Potency.

This spell only protects the mage from harm that comes due to an intrinsic property of the material. The damage from a gun or a sword, for example, comes from the force behind the impact and thus isn’t reduced by this spell. However, a mage under the protection of this spell can walk across molten lava or through a cloud of chlorine gas with no ill effects.

+1 Reach: The mage chooses an additional form of matter to be protected from.

+2 Reach: The mage is immune to bashing and lethal damage from the material, and reduces any aggravated damage by the spell’s Potency.

Quicken Ghost (Death •••)

Practice: Perfecting

Primary Spell Factor: Potency

Cost: One Mana (Optional)

Rote Skill: Persuasion, Socialize, Medicine

The mage bolsters a ghost, making low Ranked ghosts more powerful and aware than they once were. Each level of potency raises one of the ghost’s three Attributes by one, but may not exceed its Rank maximum. Potency not used on Attributes heals any damage to the ghost’s Corpus at a rate of one point per level.

+1 Reach The mage may spend 1 Mana to increase the ghost’s Rank by 1 for the spell’s Duration, increasing its maximum Attribute levels and Essence pool, as well as granting it one new Numen or Manifestation.

Moros Preview

And without further waffling, here it is.

Link to Moros Preview

As ever, remember that this is a first draft. There’s no use pointing out spelling mistakes in it – we haven’t even hired the editor for the new corebook yet.