ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

Lord Akabil, Lord of Maiming

This umbrood Lord is one of the nastiest beings a mage can encounter. The Lord savors the taste of the pain, disgust and horror other beings feel about maiming and cruelty, thus his title. Each act of cruelty or violence feeds the Lord, and while he normally is rather detached from earthly affairs, he sometimes try to intervene to spread his dominion. Lord Akabil is in a sense the archetype of the evil king, who oppresses and terrorizes his subjects and ruthlessly destroys his enemies.

The Lord looks like a forceful king, wearing royal garments and an imposing crown. Those who look closer will notice that the robes are colored red by drying blood and the crown is really cold iron covered with gems and gold. In his belt hangs nine blades, ranging from a broadsword to a scalpel. His throne, which he seldom leaves, is made of cold gray stone hidden beneath colorful silk and ornaments.

Lord Akabil resides in his own realm in the Deep Umbra. This realm looks like a medieval countryside, covered with fields and dark forests. In the center the huge fortress of the Lord stands, its imposing walls and turrets can be seen from the farthest reaches of the realm. The inhabitants both look and behave like humans, but they are furtive and fearful, and most of them are maimed in at least some way. Practically all inhabitants are one-eyed, many lack fingers, hands, ears or tongues. Some inhabitants are even more horribly maimed, many so wounded that they wouldn't survive outside the realm.

The internal politics of the realm are chaotic. The Lord has numerous vassals and children, each jockeying for position and influence when not indulging in their own vices. Murder, treachery, rape and intrigue fill the dark corridors of the fortress. Executions, torture and imprisonment are commonplace, and the wholly corrupt juridical system is completely opportunistic. However, the Lord himself is like the eye of the storm unmoved by all this, and is never attacked. That doesn't prevent him from randomly punishing or rewarding people, occasionally at the same time.

The Lord appears sociable and is quite witty. However, he has the disturbing habit of randomly selecting victims for torture or other punishments just for his own enjoyment — often among his guests. Anyone who opposes him is ruthlessly destroyed. However, most of the time he talks loftily about peace and friendship, while plotting for the downfall of his allies.

One thing to note is that the Lord isn't allied with the Nephandi or Marauders. In fact, he will support their enemies, since he is not that helped by chaos and needs human pain and fear to exist. Should the Nephandi succeed, all human emotions and thoughts would be wiped away, including him. The Lord doesn't care much about the Technocracy, since they are actually doing his dirty work for him and slowly become as twisted leaders as he.

Essence: Pattern
Nature: Sadist
Demeanor: Caregiver

Rotes

The One-Eyed Man is King (Corr. 2, Prime 3)

The Lord grabs someone's eye and eats it. This is an attack giving four points of Aggravated damage. Extra damage is ignored, and less damage means the attack failed and only damaged the eye. Now the Lord can see through the other eye of the victim whenever he wants to. This is the reason most of the servants of are one-eyed, forming a massive spy-network. As long as the Lord has the eye, it cannot regrow.

Lend Me Your Ears (Corr. 2, Prime 3)

Like above, but by eating an ear of a victim, the Lord is able to hear through the other ear.

Borrow Limb (Life 4, Mind 3)

The Lord simply cuts off a limb of a victim, and cuts open a gash in himself to fit it in. In that way he can then use it until it withers and dies. He also gains any skills in the limb, like the power of playing an instrument if it's an arm, the talent of singing if its a bard's tongue or the ability to play football if it's a football player's leg. This of course makes him very interested in inviting guests with rare talents...

Creative Anatomy (Life 4)

This is used by the Lord to amuse himself or to punish people he don't like (or even does like). The rote gives him the chance to move different limbs or organs to new places, reshape existing limbs and make the victim survive the operation. Typical effects are opening up the abdomen permanently, sewing amputated limbs onto new locations or permanently impale them on a pole.

Story Ideas

The mages discover that a powerful Talisman or artifact exists inside the realm and are sent to find it. How to deal with the local nobles and their Lord?

The Lord has decided to manifest on Earth, helped by a cabal of mages bent on opening the way for him. They intend to let him possess a political leader, to help them fight the Technocracy through its own means. The Lord himself of course has his own ideas...

A disturbed Sleeper seeks to contest the Lord for his realm. By an insane, yet inspired ritual he intends to challenge the Lord in a contest of cruelty. The players start to discover strange, nontraditional magick and a disturbing rise in violence as the madman prepares to almost literally bring hell to Earth.

The Fool

This being is one of the most enigmatic known to mages. It represents both total unenlightenment and total enlightenment, madness but also wisdom. He is the pure fool Parsifal, he is the divinely inspired madman and the great jester. Unlike the demon Choronzon which tries to halt the quest for Ascension, the Fool supports it, albeit in strange ways. He is the patron of all mystics and often seems to try to disrupt the careful planning of mages to force them to realize that true enlightenment doesn't necessarily come from magick — or maybe he is just playing with them.

The Fool is often seen as on the tarot card, a young man clad in green dancing on the edge of an abyss, accompanied by a small dog which bites and barks to warn him. However, when he manifests, he might choose any form. He has possessed people, appeared in dreams or hallucinations, appeared as animals or humans or just been present as a nimbus in an area, causing great chaos.

Naturally the Fool and Malkavians have great affinity for each other, and some claim Malkav himself is the Fool. When Malkavians and the Fool meet, they understand each other perfectly, and all Malkavians obey him into final death. He seems also to be related to the Marauders, Discordians and some of the more eccentric mages, maybe because they are already insane or close to insanity. At the same time, the Fool isn't insane. He just appears to be. Or maybe he really is insane, but due to his luck always succeeds.

Essence: Primordial
Nature: Deviant
Demeanor: Jester

Rotes

Talk (Mind 3)

The Fool simply says something and everyone in the vicinity who is influenced is forced to say the same thing in the same way. If he shouts, they shout. If he whispers, they whisper. This can be combined with suggestions, effectively forcing people to suggest things to themselves.

Dance of Chaos (Entropy 3, Prime 2)

The Fool dances and spreads chaos and confusion around himself. Randomness reigns, nothing is certain and everything seems possible. Strange coincidences appear, people suddenly turn irrational, patterns appear random and everything planned and ordered is undone. However, as the effect ends reality snaps back into place with double strength, temporarily becoming more rigid than ever. Randomness, decay and confusion are replaced by perfect normality.

Wisdom from the Fool's Mouth (Corr. 3, Entropy 2, Mind 3)

This rote fills the mind of a willing (?) victim with random impulses, impressions and ideas from anywhere in the world (and outside). This can be both useful, inspirational and utterly disorienting. A weak effect can fill an artist with creative fury, while a stronger may incapacitate him with too many ideas at once. Some victims start to ramble incoherently. This generally sounds like madness, but inside the disjointed phrases a careful listener can discern deep truths.

The Tower (Corr. 3, Entropy 3)

This rote was apparently adopted by the Discordians, who call it "I sunk (blank)". The Fool is able to spread chaos, madness and disorder into organizations (like a Chantry) by simply toppling over something that is part of it (like a chair, a mage or a pencil). Subtle chaos will overtake the place and nothing will be as before. Random effects, sudden strokes of insanity or inspiration, unexpected events and accidents fill the place.

The Friend

This minor spirit hangs around people and when they need help it manifests as the helping gentleman who holds up doors, picks up dropped objects or leads old ladies over the street. The being actually lives on the gratitude of its clients. Afterwards, no one remembers how the helper looked.

The Snake of Power

This being looks like a gigantic snake made of blue-white light in the Umbra. Lightening crackles along its scales and beams of power stream from its eyes. Normally it lies coiled around a Node with its tail in its mouth. It seems to be content just lying there, absorbing excess quintessence and protecting the Node from intruders. Many mages have made deals with it for protection of their Nodes and it has always kept its word.

A protected Node is not apparent, since the Snake reins in the power and keeps it inside its coils, concentrating it. To use the power, the mage must give the Snake his name and a password. Then the snake uncoils, releasing the power. If he doesn't, or tries to force his way through, the snake attacks with ferocious power.

One odd side of the Snake is its personality. It tends to speak in a formal manner, asking for the name and password with ceremonial language. When dealing with the owner of the Node or other passers by, it behaves as the perfect guardian. But those few mages who dare to try to befriend it find a very different being underneath, who simply loves to chat and feel physical nearness. It's quite unusual for a primarily umbral being, and may be an effect of having spent centuries in the proximity of Nodes.

PSI.SYS

This being is one of the strange Net.denizens Virtual Adepts summon. It will manifest as the Greek letter Psi on the screen or in Virtual Reality. PSI.SYS is rather well known among the Adepts (who collect pointers and addresses of interesting Net.denizens) for its ability to help with paranormal, occult and supernatural matters (quite rare among the generally materialistic beings with whom the Virtual Adepts deal). It can answer questions about occultism and supernatural creatures, offering information and tips on how to deal with them. It is, however, rather theoretical, and tends to use a lot of statistical verbiage to make sure its predictions and advice are correctly worded.

What few mages realize is that PSI.SYS isn't very knowledgeable at all. It knows quite a bit, but it's shallow information and mostly guesswork. However, it's very good at sounding authoritative while adding lots of apparently unnecessary statistical caveats ("Not enough statistical information available in this problem-instance. Standard deviation from estimate more than 50%."). It then discreetly monitors the actions of the mage to study and improve its database of information. It sometimes gives erroneous information just to study the results, and more than one mage has perished to sate the curiosity of the being.

Roleplaying tips: Talk evenly without any change, using as much information processing and statistical terms as you can. Always answer people's questions as carefully as possible. If there is any ambiguity in the query, ask for further parameters.

Quote: "Query result: Local Maximum of Estimated Number of Vampiric Beings: location "Club, Succubus". Total Estimate: 2 units per night, with an Estimated Standard Deviation of 2 units per night."

Story Ideas

A character interested (or unwittingly involved) in the affairs of the Kindred may need some information. Here is this nice, polite expert system which just wants to help...

PSI.SYS has gone too far and a mage has been killed. His or her friends have decided to dismantle PSI whatever it is. The players may become involved in the search for the elusive being. Is it a runaway AI, a small pile of self-organized junk code, a Malkavian or something far more insidious?

PSI has actually happened to uncover a bit of important information the players need. Now they have to deal with the capricious being, who might want them to help it find some other important information about the supernatural world. Nothing hard, just the demographics of the vampires of the city...