The Onmyodo [Mage: The Awakening]

Mage: The Awakening, Open Development

As selected in last week’s poll, here is the full first draft of Tokyo in Awakening Second Edition’s setting chapter. Along with London, Tucson, Los Angeles, and Salamanca, it serves as an example of how Mage works in a specific setting, rather than the general terms we write most of the books in.

Tokyo, as you may be aware, holds a special place in the second editions of the World of Darkness; whether it’s vampire domains, werewolf hunting grounds, or changeling courts, Tokyo is always one of the examples. As with the other faces of Japan in the nWoD, the Tokyo Mystery comes by way of David Hill.

Tokyo: The Onmyodo

Awakened magic holds a unique seat in the world’s largest city. In Tokyo, spaces as small as rooms, or as large as entire neighborhoods can become magical “dead zones” where Awakened magic ceases to function, and where Mana bleeds instantly from any Pattern within.

The Awakened take these dead zones, these “Ansho,” very seriously. They’re charted and catalogued, studied and experimented on. After all, anyone traveling through Tokyo must avoid these spots, lest they find himself defenseless and drained.

Because of this, Tokyo’s Consilium stands mostly dominated by Mysterium interests. They’ve taken it upon themselves to spearhead the efforts to map the Ansho, and to disseminate up-to-date information to the city’s Awakened.

A History of The Awakened

The Awakened of Tokyo goes back nearly five centuries. The first known mage in the area was a (probable) Thyrsus called Nakatomi. The stories say that Nakatomi used his or her Life magic to empower the local fishermen to great success. At the time, Tokyo, or Edo as it was called during the period, was nothing more than a little-known fishing village.

Nakatomi’s magic helped the fishermen achieve great renown, which drew in much of Honshu’s growing population. For the next century, the influx of Sleeper citizens to Edo came with it an influx of Awakened residents. The Awakened flocked around Nakatomi’s guidance, and formed one of the oldest surviving Consilia in the world.

Edo grew rapidly, and remained successful long after Nakatomi vanished from record.

In the early 18th century, Tokyo became the first city in the world with over one million residents. Tokyo remained ever fresh and new, as it suffered frequently from wars, fires, and earthquakes which devastated its landscape, essentially forcing the city to start over and rebuild. In the Consilium, this has sparked countless debates, since many of the records have went with the fires. This includes all records concretely confirming Nakatomi’s existence, or any of Nakatomi’s words or behaviors. Every extant record is rumour and third-party heresay. No Consilium member still standing remembers Nakatomi, or even any true record of Nakatomi’s existence. Some claim to have Nakatomi’s first Consilium charter, but in a reproduced, unprovable form. This caused the Consilium to fracture into distinct factions.

In the past century, since World War II, Tokyo’s seen a radical uptick in mysterious phenomena all around the city. From hauntings, to new places of power, to clusters of rapid Awakenings, Tokyo seems every bit the eye of a supernatural storm.

Nakatomi-En

The standing Consilium is called Nakatomi-En, and maintains three major factions, each viewing Nakatomi with a different perspective, and following their teachings with a different driving philosophy. The factions refuse to use names, each referring to themselves as “The First Faction”, and the others as “The Second Faction (as a singular, not recognizing a third faction)”. They could be loosely named after their perceptions of Nakatomi.

One faction, Nakatomi-Sama, espouses that Nakatomi as a deified entity, as something beyond human, and beyond the Awakened. Their version of Nakatomi was a fisherman, he lived amongst men until Awakening, then ascended into something greater entirely. They believe that Nakatomi still exists, and he walks with them, guiding their actions. They hold up a series of writings attributed to Nakatomi-Sama, considering them the first law, and that of the utmost priority. While they do believe the Consilium can forge new laws, they may never amend or change the laws as set down by Nakatomi-Sama. This puts them at ends with all other mages in the Consilium, as dated laws define rigid roles within Awakened society, and refers to customs and practices that would have been considered archaic and outdated two centuries ago.

The city’s current Primus, called Kamakura, is a member of this faction. He cannot enact all his deeply conservative agendas thanks to the rest of the Consilium, but he does try. For example, none of his currently appointed advisors are women, thanks to a narrow reading of Nakatomi-Sama’s laws.

Another faction, Nakatomi-Senpai, teaches that Nakatomi was simply another mage, a renowned Thyrsus who helped raise Edo into a great city. Their version of Nakatomi was a young woman married to a fisherman. She Awakened during a time of famine, and her magic was able to bring Edo to greatness. She led and fostered the first Consilium through direct action, through example, and through community organization. Unfortunately, the faction has little concrete evidence of their stories, as all physical rolls and meeting notes from Nakatomi’s original Consilium were destroyed in the 1657 Great Fire of Meireki.

Now, this faction dominates the current Consilium electorate. They advocate strongly for citizen involvement, and attempt to give every Consilium member a role and responsibility as part of their citizenship. They also fiercely push to break Primus Kamakura’s prohibition on women in high governance. Unfortunately, the current Consilium law allows him veto power over fundamental changes in structure. So as it stands, he’s allowed appointing whomever he wants to advisory and delegate roles.

The last faction, Nakatomi-no-Mikoto teaches that Nakatomi never properly existed in a traditional sense. That it was something of stories. If it exists as a god or legend, that it’s irrelevant, because it has no noticeable hand in daily life, and no voice, mortal or Awakened, can influence it in any way. They believe that to lead Awakened society, one must become like unto legend. One must become more magically significant, and that the greatest masters of the art are inherently those which should shepherd the flock. They’re a stark minority group in the Consilium, which looks like a clique, a cult to most of those on the outside.

Their current leader, Taiyo, is a rumored archmaster. He’s easily the most potent Obrimos in Tokyo, and has been for a great many years. He may very well be the strongest mage in the city in terms of pure personal power. However, he’s outclassed by some of his ‘inferiors’ in social and political power.

This is particularly important because they believe Nakatomi never once laid down any sort of law, or even existed in the Consilium. Their belief, in its simplest form, is that the other two factions’ beliefs and even their doctrines are completely invalid. They believe the Nakatomi-Sama faction’s writ of law was pushed through illegitimately to avoid the will of the people. They believe the Nakatomi-Senpai faction push for social agendas that exclude merit and magical advancement from their natural state of rulership. If they have their way, control over Hallows and magical phenomena should be the metric for political power within the Consilium. It comes as no coincidence that their faction controls a wildly disproportionate number of these places.

Phenomena in Tokyo

The following oddities occur within the wards of Tokyo. The Consilium, and members of the Mysterium across the three factions track, map, and catalogue these occurrences.

Note that these things occur all across the Tokyo metropolitan area, and for an indeterminate distance outside it. The affected areas are quite massive, and ultimately comprise all of the formal Tokyo Metropolis, as well as parts of the Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Saitama, Nagano, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, and Chiba Prefectures. As one gets further from the heart of Tokyo, they become less and less frequent.

The Ansho

The Ansho is the single most debated and studied occurrence for the Tokyo Awakened. Spots of the map, whether they be little alcoves or city blocks, are magical dead zones. A mage traveling through an Ansho finds herself quickly robbed of all Mana, and incapable of using spells.

Some mages (and more than a few Seers) have used the Ansho as ambush points, drawing their enemies in, remaining outside, and laying down attacks. In one famous case, in 1971, the Consilium Primus called Ikaruga was tricked into a warehouse Ansho, and a gang waiting for him inside stabbed him over one hundred times. The bureaucrat in charge of mapping the local Ansho kept this location secret, so none in the city knew of its existence. Since then, the incoming Primus Kamakura demanded that Ansho must be the purview of an entire Order (the Mysterium), and never should a single mage be the sole holder of any information pertaining to them.

The Mechanics of an Ansho

Every turn a mage remains in an Ansho, she loses a point of Mana. She cannot cast new spells at all. Her existing spells fade after a number of turns equal to her Gnosis. Spells targeting those within the Ansho have their Potencies halved each turn (round down) until they cease to exist.

The going theories are that Tokyo has small pockets of Abyssal energy that neutralizes Supernal forces within. Masters of Prime have had limited luck in shrinking Ansho through extensive rituals, but the effects are always temporary, and the costs far outstrip the benefits.

New Ansho come about only rarely, with roughly three to five new ones per year across the entirety of Tokyo. This is frequently enough that the Mysterium is justified in constantly searching for new ones. Their current, most successful method was inspired by astronomers’ research into black holes. They send out magical pulses, slow effects expected to bounce back. They scrutinize the return Supernal energies, and track gaps and slow points within the return signals. They chart these results, move locations, and “ping” again to triangulate before actively moving in to verify. This is typically done with a cabal sending a single member inside the suspected Ansho, who attempts to spellcast in numerous places to find its boundaries.

Beacons

There’s a saying in Japan, that the stake that sticks up will be hammered down. For the Awakened, this is a harsh reality of magic. Whenever a mage in the Tokyo area suffers from Paradox, it sends out a “beacon” that alerts those sensitive to the supernatural. It doesn’t inherently identify the offending mage, but all such creatures in a certain distance notice that something unnatural has occurred, and from what general direction it came.

Functionally, this affects vampires, mages, werewolves, and other characters that exist as mostly supernatural beings. It affects “lesser supernatural beings” such as vampire ghouls, and shapeshifters’ close relatives if they possess any Supernatural Merits pertaining to their conditions. As well, human characters with Supernatural Merits are affected. The beacon goes out in a radius 10 meters per dot of the mage’s Gnosis, plus one for every success on the Paradox dice pool. The dice pool must be successful for this to occur. Characters are affected as if they possessed the Unseen Sense Merit. They do not know the source, nor do they understand it in any way. They just know something is “off”, and from what general direction it came. Curiously, an Ansho blocks the effect radius of these beacons.

Tokyo’s Orders

The Awakened Orders exist in Tokyo, as with most cities. The five (or six) stand strong and populous among the metropolitan area’s nearly 40 million people.

The Adamantine Arrow acts as the front line against the strangeness. Inevitably, many of the phenomena that occur within Tokyo are followed immediately by manifestations of the Abyss. Younger Arrow refer to these monsters jokingly as “random encounters”, as a way to diffuse the utter horror they face as their friends and compatriots fall at the tentacles, teeth, and miasmas of the unknown. Unfortunately for their efforts, the Consilium stymies many of their more important agendas by drowning every military excursion in extensive red tape. The Arrow cannot take action without three delegates from Kamakura’s advisement panel, or a majority vote from the city at large. This means getting over one hundred Awakened to both congregate, and agree on a single agenda. (This also assumes a unanimous vote, since over two hundred Awakened reside in the metropolitan area.) Surprisingly, this has occurred three times in the Consilium’s recorded history. In two of these missions, the delay brought on by the vote nearly meant the end of the city as a whole. In one, the delay meant the monster in question collapsed under the weight of its own Paradox before the Arrows arrived.

The Free Council runs around like a desperate, dying animal. They have numbers and potential, but they’re spinning their wheels constantly, trying to lobby and fight for the Nakatomi-Senpai faction. They push hard for women’s representation in the council governance, and they fight hard to push out Kamakura so the Consilium charter can be amended. Kamakura’s defense against their efforts has been to put into place an extensive system of replacements that are each presented politically as worse than him. Some are downright fascist, and he manipulates these perceptions well to denigrate the works of the Free Council. So the Councilors toil endlessly in a political, PR, and logistical war they’re unlikely to win in their lifetimes.

The Guardians of the Veil act mostly as an internal affairs department for the Consilium. They’re a small group, barely recognized to have any significant power in Tokyo. But the Consilium will empower them to act against problem elements. Unfortunately, these priority targets tend to be members of the Free Council, and any other currently dissenting group. Kamakura barely hides his contempt for his enemies, and wields that transparency as a weapon. Everyone knows that speaking too loudly will leave you open to attacks. The Guardians know this, and see it as a regrettable truth of their situation. Ultimately, they will only strike down a Consilium member that has made mistakes, so their public warning to Tokyo is to keep everything above the table, and don’t take major risks.

The Mysterium heavily overlap into both the Nakatomi-Sama and Nakatomi-no-Mikoto factions. Almost all the Nakatomi-no-Mikoto faction hail from the Mysterium. Many of the Nakatomi-Sama faction, including Kamakura himself and all his advisors are of the Mysterium. Clearly, the Mysterium receives grossly preferential treatment. Mysterium members get first pick of territories, and this is always couched under coincidental terms. Nearly every Hallow in Tokyo beyond a tiny Mana trickle is under Mysterium control.

While they are clearly a significant power in Tokyo, maintaining that status keeps them from the levels of advancement, research, and exploration they’d like. Most of their efforts are spent establishing and defending an unassailable position in the city.

A single (but large) Mysterium cabal singlehandedly spearheads research, investigation, and procurement for all occult phenomenon in Tokyo. They’re sufficiently large that they contain smaller splinter cells tasked with specific areas of specialty. For example, they maintain a sub-group responsible for charting Hallows all across the city.

The Silver Ladder are nearly an independent interest in Tokyo. While they exist within the Consilium, they mostly deal with the Sleeper world, trying to manipulate it into their ideals. They do this separate of the Consilium’s bickering and politicking, except in the rare cases where Consilium law debates focus heavily on Sleeper relations.

The Silver Ladder’s agenda in Tokyo focuses on pushing the exploratory spirit among the Sleeper population. This is a holistic approach, focusing on religion, art, and the sciences. They push the populace to think in new ways, and to innovate. This even means approaching long-established and religious principles with a new mind. This puts them at odds with the Seers of the Throne on occasion, but the Ladder works closer with organizational politics, rather than the mass media.

Most Ladder members maintain at least nominal leadership or advisory positions in Sleeper organizations, corporations, temples, or other facets of local culture. The current head of the Order stands at the head of an international corporation’s board. This corporation, called The Hototogisu, has a hidden branch which interacts diplomatically with other supernatural entities in Tokyo, including vampires, obake (shapechangers), and other, stranger things. This puts the Silver Ladder in a position of unique privilege, since they can make connections with things outside the Orders when in specific need. These favors do not come cheap, and often ripple outward into unforeseen consequences, but can bring massive and near-immediate benefits.

The Seers of the Throne struggle a conceptual battle in Tokyo that keeps them from actively engaging the Five Orders. Tokyo stands as a dichotomy between the Exarchs’ interests and a push for Awakening. In one block, you may have an eighteen story building with video arcades, movie theaters, computer stores, and other altars to the worship of Sleeper science. On that same block, you might have a Shinto shrine that sees thousands of visitors daily, many of which never question the truth of a spiritual otherness in all things. While people text message on smartphones fitted with processors that would have been considered supercomputers a decade ago, they ask you your blood type because they believe it comes with an ingrained personality archetype.

The Seers battle in the media. They push hard into television, radio, and magazines. They influence popular comic books, attempting to discredit and poke fun at occult interests. They market science fiction as a series of admirable goals. They present Shintoism and Buddhism as “old Japan”, trying to present the culture the possibility of moving forward and away from religion and animist spiritualism. They’ve had some success, but the Orders scoff, claiming that if the Seers were really making any progress, ATM machines would be open past 7pm.

(DAVEB’S NOTE – of everything in this section, It’s this Seer bit that stuck out at me while redlining. Seers aren’t cMage Technocrats, and they should absolutely use Sleeper’s religion against them as well, so expect the wording of this part to change a bit)

The Conceptual Ki

The Awakened of Tokyo use the word “Ki” (pronounced “Key”) for what most mages call Mana. However, this word has many other meanings. It refers to the air, the atmosphere, flavor, heart, mind, spirit, emotion, humor, intention, and the human will. While it isn’t inherently the word one would use commonly for all those concepts, it’s an umbrella word that contains all those ideas. It’s important to note that this is both a linguistic and cultural difference. Japanese is a highly contextual language. For example, the word for “foot” and “leg” in Japanese are the same. Without context, a reader or listener might not understand of which you speak.

When a Tokyo mage speaks of Ki, she may be speaking of any of these concepts, or all of them. Awakened society sees this as a boon, since it allows for more and more open speech. A discussion of Ki at a local ramen bar might seem a little quirky, but not completely unordinary because of the context. Similarly, they don’t linguistically differentiate Mana from Tass; Ki covers both concepts just fine for them.

Next Week

We continue to bounce around Awakening like a pinball machine, looking at one of two prongs of the magic system: Creative Thaumaturgy or Attainments?