Following are the Families (Paths) and
Organizations (Orders) for Awakening players.
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Paths |
Acanthus
The mages of the Lunargent Thorn have a reputation as the most capricious of the
Awakened. To their friends, that makes them “free spirits,” or “a breath of
fresh air.” Their detractors are more likely to apply terms such as “unstable,”
“immature” or “childish.” Many mages see something fey or otherworldly about the
Acanthus, and the Enchanters themselves are hardly in any position to deny it.
Maturity and stability are not the strengths of those on the Path of Thistle.
They are visionaries with extraordinary insights into events both past and
future, but they may not always make as much of their insights as they could —
much to the chagrin of other mages. Their peers accuse them of being flaky or
even irrational, but those allegations seem not to phase the Acanthus in the
least. Many reasons have been put forth for their odd behavior. Some have
suggested that those on the Enchanter’s Path are so inundated with the endless
branches of the time stream that nothing seems impossible and no decision seems
irreversible. In their defense, the Path of Thistle truly does promise much more
than a mage can handle until she grows into her magic.
Because so much of her magic takes the form of uncanny good fortune, it’s
possible for a mage on the Path of Thistle to imagine herself merely
extraordinarily lucky, and many show a tendency toward superstition even in
their magic. For this reason, many believe that Acanthus epitomize the tarot
trump of “The Fool,” relying on dumb luck to guide their journeys. Their sense
of wonder and endless possibility often inspires hope in others, for to an
Acanthus, the odds are never unbeatable and there are always second chances.
Acanthus are drawn to crowds, but they seem destined to be stuck on the edges of
any crowd they hang with, always “the new guy” no matter how long they’ve been
with a group. Their charming ways often make great first impressions, but charm
goes only so far, especially once the going gets rough and the Acanthus expects
others to pick up his slack.
Mastigos
Those Awakening to the alluring nightmare of the Path of Scourging are fated to
be among the least trusted mages in existence. Their connection to the Kingdom
of Nightmares bestows upon them a creeping, seductive urge toward manipulation
and subversion. Despite the constant temptation they experience, however, they
remain in full control of how they express that urge. While many Mastigos grow
into their bad reputation over time, many take pains to use their extraordinary
talents in ways that ultimately serve the common good. Some see themselves as
serving a Darwinian role. By honing in on others’ flaws, they prod people to be
more selfaware of their weaknesses and so work to shore them up. Although this
seems rather ignoble to some, many Awakened judge things more on their
evolutionary results rather than on a merely ethical basis. When the end goal is
ascension to the Supernal World, one’s weaknesses can prove to be fatal. It’s
better to have a friend in the role of catechist than an enemy.
One of the problems Mastigos frequently encounter in the earliest stages of the
Path is the impression that they are surrounded by people hiding secrets.
Certainly, the Mind Arcanum does leave them with the sensation of being
surrounded by other presences, all of whom have their own secrets. This
sometimes makes Mastigos suspicious and leaves them with a proclivity for spying
and manipulation that serves them in good stead — but for which their
reputations suffer.
Mastigos acknowledge none but themselves as masters.
They eschew any code of behavior that they did not establish for themselves. In
some cases, this results in hyper-strict codes of conduct that one would expect
more from an ascetic monk than from a Warlock, but others on the Path of
Scourging use their particular brand of nihilism as an excuse to indulge in any
behavior that feels good — regardless of the consequences to themselves or
others. Many associate them with the tarot card of “The Devil,” a powerful will
unfettered by moral concerns.
Magically, the hallmark of the Mastigos is subtlety. Their magic is rarely
flashy or blatant, and many on this Path are acutely uncomfortable using any
kind of obvious magic. Many other mages assume that all Mastigos are inherently
corrupt, but this conflates Warlocks with the lowest applications of their
philosophies. It is true that a mortal who is already inclined toward mayhem can
make the most of that inclination once he Awakens as a Mastigos, but it is just
as true that an inherently beneficent mage can exert his will for the common
good with equal facility.
Moros
Many on the Path of Doom Awaken after a near-death experience, with the violence
of their close call and their brief trip to the lands of the dead opening their
eyes to the existence of magic. These mages often describe their Awakening as
hearing the noise of the world die away and being wrapped in a shroud of
tranquility. It is this shroud that allows them to maintain their c o m p o s u
r e once they gain the capacity to hear the shrieks and pleas of the restless
dead.
More than anything else, the Moros Path is concerned with transition and
transformation. Its magics focus on the transformative edge where life becomes
death, lead becomes gold and ignorance blossoms into understanding. Necromancers
are fascinated by the edges of objects, places and states of being, where shore
becomes sea, where coal becomes diamond and where the land of the living segues
into the land of the dead. It is little wonder that they remind others of the
tarot card of “Death,” a card of transitions.
Necromancers are often hypersensitive to the brevity of life and understand just
how little time they have to gain the transformative secrets they crave. They
often become obsessive about their studies, sleeping only a few hours each night
to leave enough time for their research. Moros mages who have mastered the basic
arts of alchemy are free from the quotidian financial worries that plague some
other mages, as they can create fortunes in gold and gems with only a modicum of
effort.
Obrimos
Mages who Awaken with a connection to the Kingdom of the Celestial Spheres often
recall their Awakening as being struck by divine lightning and becoming the
thunder. With no warning and no clear understanding of why, they are overcome
with the absolute certainty that they are the champions of the Divine — though
how they define “the Divine” seems to vary drastically. Some feel the Divine to
be a patriarchal god of judgment. Others sense the Divine as a manifestation of
immanent Nature, while still others feel it to be an ongoing sentient process of
self-aware coincidence. Whatever they feel the Divine to be — and many take
years trying to discern just what force it is they serve — the Mighty all agree
that they were Awakened to serve as Its warriors.
Ultimately, no particular faith unites mages on the Path of the Mighty. It is
their shared conviction in doing the right thing, fighting the good fight and
making the will of the Divine manifest on Earth (and elsewhere). Obrimos are
committed to doing what they see as just and right for the greater good. As they
see it, the world has lost its way, and they have been charged with putting it
back on track — by any means necessary. Others associate them with the tarot
card of “Strength,” wielding an indomitable will with unwavering purpose.
This sense of divine right gives the Obrimos a confidence that is hard to shake.
They suffer from self-doubt less than most others and frequently suffer from a
rather ironic case of hubris. An Obrimos mage is aware that the world is made of
energy and magic, and he’s been given the right to wield it. Lacking any direct
communiqué from a divine being, many come to the conclusion that their own wills
are the divine will. What they say goes, even if it conflicts with what another
mage says — even another Obrimos.
Thyrsus
Mages who Awaken with a link to the Realm of the Primal Wild tap directly into
the primordial forces of vitality that drive creation. Their hearts beat with
the pulse of the world, and they are moved by a passion and vigor that sets them
apart from their Awakened peers.
Many Thyrsus are already in unusually good health when they Awaken, while others
are sick or injured and Awaken in the course of their fevered dreams. Once they
gain sufficient mastery of the Life Arcanum, many reach a level of physical
fitness and sheer hardiness that few besides Olympic-level athletes could ever
hope to attain. Many of the most physically powerful of the Awakened travel the
Thyrsus Path.
Shamans’ connection to the Realm of the Primal Wild is not entirely beneficial.
It often gives them an intensity that others find disturbing. Upon Awakening,
Thyrsus gain insights into the mysteries of life and the spirit world that
almost invariably shift the focus of their lives to a drastic degree. They may
come across as somewhat distracted or impatient with those who possess less
vitality and drive than they. Some may seem antisocial or vaguely feral.
Emphasizing this is the fact that mages on the Thyrsus Path commonly have more
energy than their peers, and they invest vast wellsprings of passion into
everything they do. Those they love, they love with an incandescent passion.
Those they hate, they despise with a terrifying intensity. They pursue their
goals with a fervor that would lay low lesser mortals (or mages, for that
matter), and others sometimes see them as obsessed because of it. In the grip of
their passions, Thyrsus may seem positively amoral, like forces of nature in
their own right, more akin to animals or spirits in human guise than mortal men
and women. They may seem callous or crude at times, discussing matters of life
and death almost flippantly, but then that’s hard to avoid given their
perspective. Life and death follow each other in an eternal cycle. Calling one
“good” and the other “bad” is ludicrous to these amoral mages.
To others, they seem like the embodiment of the tarot card “The Moon,” with
their animal passions and keen instincts.
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| Orders |
The Adamantine Arrow
There are weapons that bring death, and weapons that grant life. The Adamantine
Arrow embraces both. Every order practices essential occult defense techniques,
but the Arrow goes further, internalizing the metaphor of war. It is the order’s
political stance and occult praxis. For some, it’s a hard, ascetic path that
burns away cowardice and encourages action over contemplation. Others see the
order as the perfect platform to lead the Awakened’s secret battles, selling
services to the highest bidder or even seizing Demesnes away from the weak.
Above all, the Adamantine Arrow <I]ACTS< i>. Members are not given to
purposeless cloistering, navelgazing meditation or weak pacifism. They know the
Awakened are in the midst of an esoteric war, and bring a strong hand to bear
for the right side.
But there’s the question: Which side is the right side? Once, the Arrow
protected Atlantis against all threats, internal and external. They were called
the Ungula Draconis, the Talon of the Dragon. None could deny that this was
righteous work, because it kept the flame of human power alive in an age rife
with conquering monsters and renegade witches. When it came to Atlantis, there
was no doubt and no compromise, even if the hinterlands suffered raids and ruins
for its Awakened glory. In time the ideal turned to warmongering and conquest. A
mere soldier in the gleaming streets of the city could become a god in the
wilderness. And if there, why not in the heavens?
Arrogance led to the Fall, and the Fall led to the Exile. Atlantis fragmented
and the Adamantine Arrow guarded the shards. The Arrow has always claimed to be
above politics, devoted to the pure duty of defending the secrets of magic from
its defilers. Now, however, doubt and opposition wrack the old orders. Every
time an Arrow mage chooses a side, she shapes the political arena. It’s little
wonder that such mages often grow impatient with mere guardianship and strive to
seize power for themselves.
The Free Council
Can you feel it? Magic still exists, like a stunted tree twisted under the
weight of the Abyss. Nations call fire from the skywhen it’s time for war.
Voices drift on invisible waves from New York to Jakarta, from Mogadishu to
Moscow. The world is fullof sigils and runes. Men and woman will die for a flag
or work themselves ragged for a brand. This is an age of power and opportunity.
And the Awakened can see Supernal shadows overlaying it all… if they look at it
the right way. But it’s an age of horror, too, because power doesn’t have an
ethos. The tools of power are there for the taking, but the management is bad.
Very bad indeed.
The Free Council means to change that. This age, this time of glorious chaos,
needs to be translated into Awakened wisdom. In a new kind of alchemy, the
Council will change the trappings of the Sleepers’ Quiescence into its undoing.
Atlantis is a worthy dream, but to the Free Council, other mages make the
mistake of casting their lot with the past, ensuring that they will always be
lesser than their ancestors. The order sees the Awakened City as a spiritual
ideal, but doesn’t believe that its old rites are the best way to renew Awakened
power. It holds that virtually any method, as long as it captures some genuine
meaning, can be used to invoke the Supernal Realms. Humanity found the essential
spark of Awakening in prehistory, and never forgot. The Quiescence can only
subdue it; human beings recreate the signs of wisdom all around them. Even this
Fallen World contains countless treasures for the Awakened seeker.
Arcane power is not wisdom. The Free Council discovered that truth when it
questioned the Atlantean orthodoxy. For all their power, even great masters were
blind to the new truths of the quickening age. It was time to drop the old
hierarchies and seek the truth through democracy and consensus. Levels of
initiation and secrets barred from the so-called unworthy were all the worse
because they replicated the values of the Exarchs and their Seers of the Throne.
The Free Council insists that humanity was never meant to abase itself for the
sake of occult training. Magic exists now, and it’s moving forward as swiftly as
a thought. Cling to tradition, and you’ll get left behind.
Guardians of the Veil
Magic is a secret Art. The Guardians of the Veil keep it that way for a reason.
The order believes that Atlantis was defined by its humanity. It rewarded the
fruits of human brilliance and reflected its flaws. Atlantis was as close to
Utopia as ever existed, but it was not perfect. The Guardians of the Veil say
that perfection belongs to individuals. Societies are always flawed. Even
Atlantis needed wardens, spies and killers. The Fallen World is no different.
The Guardians of the Veil, also called the Visus Draconis, or Eye of the Dragon,
secretly protected Atlantis from internal strife and treachery. They say it was
a thankless job in which mages underwent personal quests for enlightenment for
the good of the Awakened City. Even in its greatest days, Atlantis had subtle
enemies: great beasts, demons cloaked in human flesh and rebels who threatened
the city out of madness or avarice. The order was hated as a matter of ritual,
if not reason, because condoning the Guardian’s role would question the
legitimacy of Atlantis itself. Like their companions in the Adamantine Arrow,
they were to be viewed as instruments of Atlantis — never masters. But while war
was the province of honorable, overt volunteers, the Guardians of the Veil were
charged with more subtle matters of state. If revealed, they would undermine the
ethos that Atlantis was ruled by humans, without fearing the night or barbarous
tyranny. Sometimes that ideal held true, but in the city’s latter days, whispers
accused the order of spying and killing to serve itself.
Atlantis’ reign was partly predicated on the secret work of the Guardians. They
discreetly removed foreign enemies where they could, moving beyond supernatural
threats to press chieftains and lords for boons, and if necessary, toppling
kingdoms by fanning the fires of insurrection from within. Some of these
kingdoms did indeed threaten Atlantis, usually through the plots of non-Atlantean
mages, but most only posed potential threats — potential that Guardian
mage-spies expertly identified and then squashed, all without implicating
Atlantis. If Atlantis seemed like a Utopia to its people, it was partly due to
keeping down any power that could one day threaten it.
Even after the Exile, the Guardians practice their subtle arts on Sleeper
regimes, spinning useful conspiracies and myths out of the loam of history, and
using plots, lies and knives to protect mages from enemies both Sleeping and
supernatural. Even though their aims are pragmatic, they are not without occult
significance. The order believes that every Paradox widens the Abyss, so magic
must remain hidden. Their own dark deeds are an occult sacrifice. They defile
their own karma so that other mages may hone their own, free from witch hunters
and other, fouler dangers.
The Mysterium
Forget Fallen World governments and occult politics. Knowledge is power. Over
time, mystic lore trumps worldly ambition. The members of the Mysterium believe
their order to be the purest, because it shuns mundane power. These mages prefer
to seek pure magical knowledge. That doesn’t mean there aren’t influential
mystagogues, as mages of the Mysterium call themselves. The order does not
dictate individual ambition, but members of the Mysterium seek out knowledge
first. Power is the welcome side effect of holding the chief currency of the
occult: sorcerous lore.
The stereotypical Mysterium cabal is a group of lonely sages minding mouldering
grimoires and corroded Artifacts. There have certainly been occasions when this
image rings true. Witch hunters and ignorance has, throughout history, forced
the order to seclude itself, waiting centuries for human curiosity to defeat
dogmatism. Old mystagogues still tend ancient library-fortresses, but the modern
order is more adventurous. Today’s mystagogue is an archaeologist, cryptographer
and master of riddles who scours ruins. He soothsays the layout of city streets
and programming codes. But aside from these puzzles, enemies threaten the
Mysterium. Ancient curses and cultist bullets try to keep the secrets of
Atlantis submerged and mages ignorant, and must be dealt with. The modern order
values its scholar-adventurers as much as its librarians.
The modern world is a storehouse of secret lore, waiting to be retrieved,
catalogued and developed for the good of the Awakened. Mysterium mages travel to
obscure corners of the globe to add what lies there to the sum of occult
knowledge. Don’t assume, however, that the order freely shares its hardwon
research. Some knowledge is too dangerous for general consumption or too
valuable to just give away. Exploration takes its toll in money and lives, and
the Mysterium needs some leverage to fund, staff and protect future quests.
The Silver Ladder
Mages once ruled. Never forget that. Do not believe that hubris felled Atlantis,
that humanity deserved to be cast into darkness. That is a subtle part of the
Lie. Do not let the Exarchs imprison the dreams of mages as much as they
imprison magic itself. The conquest of reality — the war for the Imperium
Mysteriorum — proceeds as it should. Expand your perspective and see that the
fall of the Awakened City was just a skirmish. A setback? Yes, but there are
other battles to be fought — thrones to topple from the enemy’s Supernal
strongholds. Cast your lot with humanity and with Awakened destiny, and you will
embrace the Silver Ladder.
It’s a potent promise that has lasted through the ages, articulated even as the
Exile forced the théarchs to gaze back at the ruins of Atlantis. They say it is
fitting that such devastation should follow a struggle for the ultimate prize,
but hardly discouraging, for the Silver Ladder has a potent weapon that the
Exarchs can never possess: Sleepers.
For all their schemes, the enemy’s minions, including the Seers of the Throne,
are slaves concerned with keeping the Sleeping rabble quiet and ignorant. The
Silver Ladder claims it supports unenlightened humanity and spreads the flame of
Awakening as much as possible. The Quiescence makes this practice dangerous, so
it is necessary to release a trickle of the truth so that dedicated men and
woman follow it to the flood of full Awakening. Mages must be prepared to accept
these new apprentices. They must cooperate to expand Awakened influence and
train themselves for the battle to come. The Silver Ladder wants nothing less
than an army swelled by Sleepers and forged by conspiracy before it builds a
tower to the gods once more.
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