Mage: the Awakening: Twenty-Five Lighters

Twenty-Five Lighters

A Storytelling Campaign of Ambition and Passion set in Houston, Texas

Run by Martys on the RPGnet Forums

Thread Info

• Recruitment
• OOC
• IC

The Setting

Overview and Recent History

Now boasting a population of 2.6 million in the city proper and nearly 7 million throughout the greater metro area, the City of Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States and the largest city in the South. Historically the nation's primary hub for the oil and gas industry, the city suffered an economic slump in the wake of the 80s-era oil bust, but soon rebounded after successfully diversifying its economy. Previously ignored by most mages for the first hundred years of its existence in favor of such cities as New Orleans and Miami, after the one-two punches of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ike, Houston has now overtaken New Orleans in the number of mages that base themselves in the city.

There are between forty and fifty mages known to inhabit the Greater Houston Area (as a general rule of thumb, this includes the entire area within a fifteen-mile radius of downtown Houston). The Diamond Orders have thrived in the region since the Second World War, with their first wave of migration beginning with the wartime mobilization, the second wave following the general 60s-era Sun Belt migration and the third wave coinciding with the late 80s tech and financial services booms. The Mysterium and Guardians of the Veil are the dominant Orders, having long since concentrated themselves within such Sleeper institutions as academia, the aerospace industry, law enforcement, public services, and the health care industry. The Silver Ladder and Free Council both maintain visibly active presences in the region, with their cabals working together in a shifting web of alliances and mutual partnerships. Most new self-Awakened mages tend to get scooped up by one of those two Orders, though the Silver Ladder is happy to find another home for those mages who don't fit its ideology. The Free Council boasts a larger number of mages and has thoroughly worked its way into the local telecom and energy industries. The Silver Ladder claims the greater number of cabals and has gained a stranglehold over the region's occult communities; its influence over the local religious activists and social justice organizers is no less pervasive. The Adamantine Arrows keep the lowest profile, apparently having suffered a crippling blow in September 2008 during Hurricane Ike. The Arrows are currently composed of two cabals which concentrate on their own projects and rarely ask assistance from or communicate with the other Orders. The remaining unaligned mages number a little less than a third of the total population and either remain completely aloof from the larger mage community, or maintain loose affiliations with the Free Council.

Places of Interest

• Consilium
  • The Maxine Gavriel Collection serves as the physical location from which Houston mages coordinate their activites, air disputes, trade favors, etc. Located on a small private estate in the Upper Kirby District owned by the Gavriel family for six generations, the Consilium consists of a small chapel with a capacity of 100 persons, an art gallery displaying the family's private works, a private library containing various occult and historical volumes, a courtyard with a level 4 Hallow, four spirit Guardians and a permanent staff of eight Sleepwalker acolytes loyal to the Gavriel family. The chapel, courtyard and art gallery are open to the public, but only on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 10am to 4pm.

• Y'all Come Back
  • A bed & breakfast located in the center of the Hyde Park District and run by the Silver Ladder mage known as Xenios, one of the city's two Heralds. All nonresident mages intending to remain in the city more than 36 hours must ensure that the Hierarch is aware of their presence, with most expected to quarter themselves at Xenios's lodgings unless another resident mage volunteers to provide his own hospitality.

• Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park
  • Still stubbornly referred to as Transco Park by locals seven years after the 2003 Galleria expansion that reduced it to a third of its former size, the Hines Waterwall Park sits adjacent to the Galleria retail complex in the Uptown District. Though the park is privately owned, it is open to the public from 10am to 10pm. Until recently, the park was used as neutral ground for meetings between Pentacle mages and Seers when face-to-face meetings were necessary.

NPCs of Interest

Ruling Council

• Heirarch: Renee Gavriel (Mysterium)
• Provost Primus: Julius (Guardians of the Veil)
• Provost Secundus: FuX0r (Free Council)
• Herald Primus: Xenios (Silver Ladder)
• Herald Secundus: Jackson Rusk (Silver Ladder)
• Sentinel: Kirpan (Guardians of the Veil)
• Sentinel: Maid Marian (Mysterium)

Councilors

• Acanthus: Laarsen
• Mastigos: Logos
• Moros: Samael
• Obrimos: Hsing Sun
• Thyrsus: Assita Falls

Diamond Orders

Adamantine Arrows

• Fiery Analemma cabal

Guardians of the Veil

• Cui Bono cabal
• Lightning Razors cabal

Mysterium

• Men of Letters cabal
• Lone Star Environmental LLC

Silver Ladder

• Thalassa, Magna & Assoc. LLP
• Staff & Serpent cabal

Free Council

• 4-Tay cabal
• Raditek Consultants

Left-Hand Path Mages

• Order of the Bennu cabal

Seers of the Throne

• Roderick Saxon

Banishers and Mad Ones

• "IX"
• Kadmon

Unaligned and Solitaries

• Alessandro Ficino
• Haroun
• Fleur de Noire cabal
• Black Fist

Sleepers

• Saul Gavriel
• Simon Gavriel
• Special Agent Etta Battles
• Johnathan Core
• Francisco Reyes
• An Shen-Li

Local Rumors and Legends

• A suspected serial killer is stalking the Sharpstown and Neartown areas, with police blaming four ritualistic murders on the killer over the last three months based on the Roman numeral "IX" branded on the back of the victims' necks. So far the victims were all last seen within a few blocks of either the Botanica Eleggua yerberia or the Magick Cauldron pagan supply store.
• Black Fist, the flamboyant Solitary mage formerly associated with the Fiery Analemma cabal, has been spreading whispers to the effect that the Arrows are preparing to emerge from seclusion.
• Younger mages in Southeast Houston report signs of a massive abrasion of the Gauntlet near Ellington Airport, the airfield formerly used by the US Air Force.
• Majority stockholder and AZB chairman Aydin Arvin has gone into hiding days after federal agents raided the AZB home office. Financial analysts predict that the real estate magnate Roderick Saxon will acquire all AZB assets if the company goes into bankruptcy. AZB held the leases on hundreds of acres of retail and residential properties in Pasadena, South Houston, Downtown and the Medical Center.
• Copies of the mysterious recording known as the Hildebrandt Tape are circulating through the Houston underground. Some report that the last three owners of the Tape have either been committed or have attempted suicide.
• Horakhty, the shadowy leader of the Order of the Bennu cabal, is quietly searching for a lost text known as the Book of the Luminous Ib. Some report that the Order will pay as much as twenty pawns of Tass for the text.
• Graffiti defacing a mural on the University of St. Thomas campus: KADMON BECOMES OMNIA MUTANTUR NIHIL INTERIT Concerned that this may mark the return of the Mad sorcerer Kadmon (whom the Council insisted had been destroyed in the series of magical battles following the Ike landfall), Heirarch Gavriel has authorized Provost Julius to investigate, with the authority to "deputize" any mages as he sees fit.

Misc Info

House Rules

• I'm using the "To the Limit" rule from Tome of the Mysteries, which allows mages to cast an improvised spell of one dot higher ranking than normal, if the mage has at least one dot in all of the Arcana necessary to complete the spell. Base casting pool will always be Gnosis + Arcanum, but the mage must spend one Willpower point in order to complete the casting. Also, the spell is automatically vulgar, and three additional dice will be added to the Paradox roll (which can still be reduced as normal by using magical tools or spending Mana).

• When using a rote, the Base Paradox Dice Pool as detailed on p.123 of the corebook is reduced by an additional die. So, a mage with Gnosis 3 or 4 will not roll for Paradox when casting by rote, while a mage with Gnosis 7 or 8 will have a base Paradox pool of 2 dice in a similar situation.

• After the game starts, XP cost for acquiring new rotes will be one point per dot.

• Spell Tolerance = Stamina + 2, as opposed to Stamina + 1.

• PCs effectively possess two dots of Consilium Status and two dots of Order Status, with all the benefits and drawbacks thereof.

• The PC cabal controls a level 4 Hallow and Sanctum pool of 6 dots, with a Library rated at 4 dots.

• Hallows generate their level in Tass and twice their level in Mana each day--i.e., a level 4 Hallow generates 8 points of Mana in addition to 4 points of Tass. However, Mana from a Hallow cannot be transferred directly to a Mage without the use of Prime 3 (thus, oblations will not replenish Mana unless the character has learned a Legacy) except by consuming the Tass itself in some fashion.