ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

Let's face it: Mage pretty much blows when it comes to detailed information on the Traditions.

Magickal traditions are a mainstay of both RPG and "real world" magickal and occult study. They provide the basis of study of the esoteric arts. Every country in the world has its own take on the way magic works and the Mage RPG does a good job of providing the underlying metasystem for explaining all of it.

But the promise that Mage makes us falls down in those awful 2 page spreads on the traditions in the Mage: the Ascension rule book.

I took up the challenge of fixing this glaring problem in early 1994 with the creation of the first Paradigm Pages. These were intended to be handouts to my players so they would understand that magick isn't just about casting spells. It's a whole worldview, a way of life.

Since the creation of the Paradigm Pages, many other people have also taken up the challenge of explaining the variant paradigms of the World of Darkness' magickal traditions. Many of these people are extremely well versed in the religious and occult philosophies of the "real world" traditions upon which the World of Darkness traditions are based. This expertise comes through in the quality of these supplements: I believe they are some of the best and most useful Net.products available for Mage.

In our game, we use the Paradigm Pages like this: the page explains the tradition's outlook on the various "spheres" of influence described in Mage. However, it does so by ignoring the Magespeak that makes a Shaolin Monk sound like a Cyberpunk. The spheres, therefore, have been renamed and recast to reflect the philosophy of the tradition.

This is important: if an outcome lies outside either the scope of that tradition's sphere or the knowledge of the caster, it cannot be performed by the mage. Since the World of Darkness is a metropolitan place, though, there is often a sharing of knowledge — if two magi from differing traditions even recognize one another as fellow magi!

There are as many subsets of the Traditions as there are religious sects in the real world. Therefore, these pages don't profess to encompass the entirety of the tradition's philosophy. If you disagree with what you read here, that simply means you espouse the beliefs of another sect! Feel free to use this format as your own to create new variations on the Traditions and their beliefs.

Pay attention to the subtle differences in philosophy found in the definitions of the various traditions. For example, the Sons of Ether call the paradigm "The Model," suggesting that it is to be played with, altered, experimented on. The Cultists, on the other hand, call it "The Experience," suggesting that they take reality as a passive, karmic event. And so on.

Because of the nature of the differing Sphere definitions, some tradition mages will be capable of outcomes that are wildly divergent from "canon" Mage. For example, I suggest the Virtual Adepts access cyberspace as a function of Spirit (which they call Information), while the Hermetics treat Spirit as the Anima, the animating force that gives motion to the living. Very different interpretations.

The Paradigm Pages are a work in progress. We still have not yet developed pages for the Dreamspeakers, the Verbena, the New World Order or the Progenitors. Feel free to post your own versions of these — I plan on posting my Verbena page in the very near future.

The following people were involved with the creation of the Paradigm Pages:

Paul Beakley: Initial concept, Virtual Adepts, Sons of Ether, Cult of Ecstasy, Void Engineers
Anders Sandberg: Order of Hermes, Celestial Chorus, Iteration X, Euthanatos
Bill Bishop: Sons of Ether (Keplerian model)
Robert Ingdahl: Syndicate
Tetsu: Akashic Brotherhood