ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

A Scenario Transcription

An Ancient Call is a Mage scenario I ran. I have posted the highlights of that scenario in a effort to share my experiences with Mage. I have not included any Mage notes but left it in a kind of rough outline. You will know what is going on but not exactly how it takes place unless the players made it an effort during their play. Consider yourselves omniscient observers of the events as they happened. My goal is to show how I tell a story in Mage and maybe it will help others as they arrange their storylines. At the end of the Act, I will go over the key points to help new Storytellers find story elements that could add to their play quality. I hope it helps.

Ancient man has been believed to have had visitors from another world. There are many monuments and traces of mankind's attempts to communicate with these beings from beyond. What if those communications were not in vain? What if it were possible to actually get an answer from those beings? Would anyone know what to say?

Dramatis Persona

Celestine
Odin — Powerful Elder and mythical being from a place called Asgard. Called One-Eye or Traveller.
Loki — Stepson of Odin, called Lord of Lies and Lord of the Flame.

Magi
Peter — Occupation: Technical Writer - Magick: Shaman/Occultist
Toya — Occupation: Writer/Student - Magick: Mindmage/Seer
Emily — Occupation: Archeologist - Magick: Mindmage/Healer
Jon — Occupation: Student - Magick: Unlucky Bastard/Entropy
Barton — Occupation: Computer Engineer/Programmer - Magick: Seer/Time Magic

Act I - Wanted: Ancient Artifacts

Scene I

Our story began with our players enjoying their new Chantry, just created by their membership. This is the second tale. Having survived the first adventure, almost all of the party has elected to stay together and actively discover what has happened to them. They have some understanding of their abilities, but not enough to consider them reliable. They are a group of Orphans who have had their Avatars awakened by an elder being that calls itself Odin. Odin Awakens them and tells them that there is a great danger to their world and perhaps to other realms as well. Odin describes to them certain articles that should be found with great haste and that he cannot assist them. He sends his son, Loki, to tell them what they need to know.

Peter, the resident occultist, recognizes Loki and invokes the rules of hospitality, hoping that this might protect them from Loki and his mercurial nature. They are told that these Talismans are required by Odin and that procuring them would go a long way toward repaying their debt to him for awakening their Avatars. At no time does Loki explain what the devices are or what they are to be used for. One is a Meso-American shield, several thousand years old, another is a large blue diamond, one of two in the world and the last is a weapon of unbelievable power in the middle of a South American jungle. The protagonists are to simply find these devices and bring them to a designated pickup point once they have gathered them.

Scene II

The teams split up and attempted to gather the items. The shield was called the Eye of the Fiery Sun and was in a museum in New Mexico. The heroes, Peter, who at this time was a burgeoning shaman spiritualist, Barton a computer scientist/engineer and timejockey by magick, Emily, an archaeologist by trade, mindmage by magic, Toya, a student and also a mind/spirit mage and and Jon, young student and a seemingly unlucky entropy mage set off on a road trip with a rented car. They made a stop in Reno to augment their money since none of them were very well set financially and needed money to complete the trip. Some minor gambling took place and as Toya was leaving with her earnings she was assaulted by an invisible attacker who killed both of the hotel security guards and left her untouched. Peter, communing with nature, was approached by a mysterious spirit entity who threatened him and then left.

Scene III

They continue their trip into New Mexico and eventually find the Museum with the Eye of the Sun there. As they are viewing the Eye, the museum falls under attack from a strange and powerful being whose powers seem to strike down ordinary mortals with its mere presence. More stalwart viewers are attacked by his protean blobs of blue tentacled death that struck with incredible speed. Our heroes, opting to escape with their lives (and figuring that security has been compromised) break the glass where the Eye of the Sun is held and Bart runs with the Eye out of the building. The rest of the mage's fight a rear guard action.

Jon is the first to fall. He reaches out with his senses and sees that the mage is relatively human and attempts to stop the entity's heart, especially after seeing how ruthless the mage is in his search for the Eye. Jon's attempt is partially successful and the alien mage falls to his knees. Jon too, falls almost simultaneously as an unusual energy courses around his body. He grows pale and lies still. Peter, having some martial arts skills deflects several tentacles that were directed toward him and begins searching the spirit realm for some assistance. The entities that Peter is able to summon are simple and can only follow simple instructions, so Peter directs them to not allow anyone else to come up, by locking all the doors between the front door and this location.

The two ladies, Toya and Emily attempt to simply repel the alien mage with a bolt of pure psychic fear. They join hands and concentrate. As they attempt their magic, the mage gestures and both ladies bolt from the room. Jon awakes after Peter revives him and looks up to the skylight that the mage and his creatures came in through. Jon wonders just how heavy one of the timbers would be in the skylight and watches as it comes tumbling down on the alien mage, pinning him to the ground. The alien blobs attempt to free him from the fallen debris but the ladies return and turn their psychic attack on the creatures who have no such magical defenses and are killed almost instantly. One creature, in its death throes, strikes out and wounds Toya with its razor-sharp tentacles.

Scene IV

The alien mage remains pinned under the wreckage of the skylight and Emily attempts to read its mind. Only a few fragments of its thoughts are able to be understood. Emily helps Toya to stand and notices that Toya's injuries were not quite as bad as she thought and they attempt to probe the mind of the alien again before anyone comes up. Toya is successfully able to intrude on the entity's thoughts and as it dies, she learns much about its mission. The feedback from its dying causes her to black out. The creature and its minions then sizzle, smoke and leave nothing but burn marks on the floor and seven dead bodies in their wake to show that they were even here. Our protagonists leave in great haste.

Notes

An Ancient Call is a multipart, multi-dimensional storyline that has a lot of twists, but should not be too hard to follow. One thing that I did that was different was that all of the players played themselves with Mage abilities. They wrote themselves up as objectively as possible and then were given mage abilities based on their personalities and predilections. As with any good story, you need several things.

A hook to get the characters interested

In this case, it was a matter of debt, performing a small service to pay for having their Avatars awakened. Had they opted out, I would have had to work harder to get them into the story, but I did have a backup plan. I always recommend one or two backups, just in case they don't bite initially.

Unusual people that the players don't know and secrets they don't need to know (at first)

In this case, the heroes were not told all they needed to know in order to make an informed decision about this request. Odin and Loki both neglect to mention the status of Asgard at this time and why these artifacts are wanted. Such subplots can often become new stories or part of the main story later, as you will see in this case study.

A chance to use their powers for their own benefit (if it suits the character types)

Remember that mages are people too, and are subject to all of the human frailties such as greed, anger and frustration. These things can make for good substories as well. As a matter of fact, human frailty elements and substories should be moving at the same time as your other storyline. This is assuming you can do this for everyone. If not, then focus on one person's frailty or strength per session.

Combat and a chance to test one's power

This often leads to people discovering weaknesses about themselves and learning new ways of using their abilities. Botching and failing do not have to make the story turn bad. In some cases, it can make the story humorous, as when Emily and Toya ran screaming from the mage when they botched their psychic fear attack. They had to run around the corner and pull themselves together. It was hysterically funny during the game.

Leave clues for your players

Treat them as crumbs for them to find their way to the next part of your story.

Create living and breathing NPCs

When you care about the NPCs, so do your players.

Use less important NPCs and innocents as monster fodder to heighten the tension in a scene

Remind your players often that they are heroes (or should be) and they are supposed to be protecting the unAwakened from the menaces from the fringes.