You were walking down the street, late for work, as usual. Your boss is probably going to fire you now, you were already on probation. Its not entirely your fault you think as you hop the bus, dodging around that same single mother with mousy brown hair and bright blue eyes, that seems to always be exiting the bus just as you get on. As she passes you, you swear she whispered something in your ear. You have no idea what but continue on to work anyway.
After several soul-crushing hours of menial office labor in the cubicle labyrinth, you hop on the bus again, this time headed for the bar, and once again, you swear that the single mother is whispering something into your ear as you pass. Is she into you?
You spend the better part of the night celebrating your unexpected promotion at work, dancing the night away with a pair of women you’ve never met before and probably never will again. You leave the bar moderately happy and then get on the bus again. There’s that same single mother again. What is she doing this late out at night? And this time, you quite clearly hear what she whispers into your ear: “You’re almost out of time.” Out of time for what? You try to ask only to have the bus doors slam shut. You tell the driver that you’ve changed your mind, you want to walk home tonight. He shrugs and lets you off before the bus had gotten too far from where the strange brown-haired woman had gotten off. You quickly pick up her trail, remembering the smell of her perfume and somehow, you manage to follow it. Or is that right? You don’t remember her wearing a perfume before… but there was definitely something about her that stood out to you. And then you realize, you never talked to her… so how on earth do you know that she’s a single mother? Is that just something you assumed? Yet… why are you so certain of it…
And then, your vision shifts, the city around you seems to open up to you with a vision that even the purest doses of LSD couldn’t hope to match. Not that you’d know that of course. Everything around you seems to be resplendent with wonder and mystery… the lamp post seems to change into an ancient withered oak… and the woman appears, only now it is as if you are finally seeing her clearly for the first time in your life. She wasn’t a brunette… in fact her hair is such a vibrant, dazzling shade of red that you are shocked you never noticed your error before, and her face seems to be that of a goddess. She tosses a small silver object at you, and as if guided by some pull of history, you catch it perfectly. its a watch… you study it for several minutes, as you can somehow feel all of its miniature inner-workings clicking and clacking away as keenly as you could your own heart beat. Then you look up again. The woman is gone, the cityscape has fallen away entirely, revealing only one great tower in the middle of a dark forest. You have never seen its like before, yet you feel as if you have finally found the place that will answer every question you’ve ever had about your every misstep… as well as reminding of the joys you experienced BECAUSE of those errors in judgement. You approach the tower… ready to carve your name into it, as if that were the most natural thing in the world to do upon seeing such a monumental structure.
That dear reader, and prospective player is the Awakening. The final trigger that flips a switch in your head and at last allows you to see the world for what it really is: a lie. A shadow of its former self… once all the world was rife with magic and possibility, but now… because of the hubris of a few ancient sorcerers, the world has been plunged into an eons-long Dark Age where magic is utterly unheard of, where things are not as they should be.
And in this case, things are even stranger than before. This game is set in Seattle, Washington… but not the one you or I know today. Well, it was as we know it now before you went on your little soul trek to whichever Watchtower of the Supernal Realms your soul was drawn to as you took your first steps toward becoming a Mage…. but when you returned, you found things were a little different, and worse, only you and those who Awakened at the same time as you did seem to remember that things were ever different. That for instance, England was not the first territory that France conquered on its path to dominating most of the Western half of the world. That the Land of the Free never came to be, and instead is ruled under the thumb of France’s mysterious, and very pale Queen. And above all… you don’t remember various supernatural groups operating quite so openly as they are now. Vampires run the corporate world, the news is rife with tales of Changeling support groups and Hunters devolving into Slashers… and a host of Sin Eaters appear to have formed into the biggest terrorist ring in the world these days. What the hell happened? Was the world always like this and you never noticed? Are you going insane? Or did something very strange happen while your soul wandered to the Watchtower…
WELCOME TO MAGE: THE AWAKENING.
This game is based on the tabletop rpg of the same name, however I will be fully using Storium mechanics here… which means no dice rolling, no stat checking… and more importantly… that I’m going to be a bit loose with the magic system. Which means I will not be trying to adapt spells into asset cards, and instead, whatever your character should be able to do, they can… it just depends on whether you played a strength or weakness card.
The only things I will require you to do during character creation aside from making your own strengths, weaknesses, subplots and a compelling character bio (which I’ll take in any form, whether a detached bio or a writing sample or whatever… just be sure NOT to mention anything about your Awakening or magic in general, aside from maybe some odd things you had been noticing for a few weeks before the story starts.)…
well, all I ask aside from that is the following:
Age:
Physical Description:
Likes:
Dislikes:*
Friends/Family: (this is absolutely required, as there can be plenty of interesting story possibilities here)
Occupation: (the job you had before becoming a mage)
Path: Leave this blank for now, wait until we go through your Awakening in-story.
Order: Ditto.
And any other details you’d like to mention outside of your main bio.
Aside from that, card art isn’t required but always welcome! (especially if you do what I try to do and use images that reflect how your character associates certain concepts with certain images)
Oh… and you are free to make your own natures as well, but try to keep them to the broad archetypes that I did. No jobs, classes, races, whatever… all of that can change… but the idea with my natures is that they represent broad archetypes that can describe the core of your character’s personality, who they are as a person rather than what they are or what job they have. You don’t have to keep up the kind of “modern tarot arcana” feel I had been going for, but again, if you do it is greatly appreciated!
And if you have any questions feel free to PM me or ask me here: https://storium.com/forums#/category/lfp/thread/pmy7zv
EDIT:
Changing this to NSFW because its a World of Darkness game, so it is very likely going to have graphic violence, sexual themes, and other disturbing or at least non-PG material involved.
Hosted and narrated by:
Amberly West (TheDoctor455)
Started 05/11/15.
Scenes played: 3
License: Community License
