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The Mage Storytellers Handbook is a sourcebook for Mage: The Ascension with ideas for building a Mage Chronicle.

Summary[]

From the White Wolf catalog:

Initiation into the Mysteries
 
Confused by Paradox and paradigm? Not sure just what conflicts and struggles face modern mages? Want to run players through Seekings but not sure where to start? These questions and more are answered here, along with tips for making Mage anything you want it to be — here are the tools to do it. By your will, it is done.
Drawing Back the Curtain
More than just Storytelling advice and rules clarifications, the Mage Storytellers Handbook covers many and varied angles of approach for the game. Examine ways to run a game in a totally different timeline. Rebuild the Traditions and setting to fit your desires. Run crossovers with other World of Darkness games. Open the floodgates of creativity and make Mage the game you've always wanted to play. Anything's possible!

Contents[]

Introduction: Weaving The Tapestry[]

Chapter One: The Craft[]

Errata, addenda and answers to those burning questions and errant loopholes you've always wondered about. Sure, some rules have had minor corrections over time. (Nobody's perfect.) You'll find answers to your questions here as well as some ideas on why things were done the way they were.

Additionally, this section includes a boatload of optional rules and rules to change around the game. If it's a rule that would totally alter Paradox, or change Abilities or alter the Spheres, it's in here.

Chapter Two: The Awakened Struggle[]

Unlike many roleplaying games, Mage can often seem overly subtle and abstract. The villain is obscured and may not be a villain at all when viewed from his own perspective. The various sources of dramatic conflict and the possible antagonists central to Mage's metaplot are introduced here, along with ideas for using them to drive stories and plots.

Chapter Three: Awakening The Storyteller[]

Advanced advice for Storytellers who want to spruce up the game or who keep having problems running it. Setting up in advance, advice for quick game solutions, ways to simplify your systems and paperwork. Motives, themes, and methods. Plus a dissertation on the basics of philosophy and how you can apply that cerebral angle to Mage.

Obviously, if you're running Mage you're probably a pretty advanced Storyteller already. Chapter Three's advice covers unusual situations, offers a little back-up when players get out of hand and shows you how you can bring your game up to speed by combining advance planning with some quick time-saving templates or pared-down records.

  • Suggested Reading
    • The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant
    • Republic, Plato
    • Ethics, Aristotle
    • Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche
    • After Virtue, Alasdair Macintyre
    • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn
    • After Philosophy, compilation of essays

Chapter Four: Avatars and Seekings[]

Vital to a mage's magical development is the Seeking, a sort of magical mystery tour initiated by a willworker's own Avatar to goad him toward enlightenment. But how in the world do you devise and execute one of these strange trips in a story? This chapter tells you how and produces myriad ideas for Avatars of all Essences.

Chapter Five: Alternative Settings[]

From fanciful worlds of magic to spins on the outcome of the Ascension War, this chapter covers several sample of chronicles that veer far afield from the usual Mage fare. Plus a checklist for making your own chronicles, ideas on things you can tweak or change, and a bunch of material to enhance your specific themes for otherwise usual chronicles.

If you've been itching to run a Mage game that's a space opera, or you want to play around with mages in a fantastic setting out of comic books or movies, this is the place to look. Before the World of Darkness becomes passé or repetitive, browse through these ideas. Some of them might spark a new direction for your chronicle or spawn a completely new one.

  • Optional Rule: Extras
  • Promethean Characters
  • From Screen to Gaming Table
    • General Themes
      • Brazil
      • Dark City
      • EXistenZ
      • Highlander
      • In the Mouth of Madness
      • Lost Highway
      • Videodrome
    • Akashic Brotherhood
      • Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
      • Silk and Steel
    • Celestial Chorus
      • Lost Souls
      • The Prophecy
      • Stigmata
    • Cult of Ecstasy
      • The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
      • Dangerous Liaisons
      • Lord of Illusions
    • Dreamspeakers
      • Altered States
      • Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
      • Thunderheart
    • Euthanatos
      • The Crow
      • The Professional/Leon
      • The Sixth Sense
    • Order of Hermes
      • Pi: Faith in Chaos
      • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
    • Sons of Ether
      • Atlantis: The Lost Empire
      • The Rocketeer
    • Verbena
      • Practical Magic
      • The Witches of Eastwick
    • Virtual Adepts
      • Ghost in the Shell
      • The Matrix
    • Iteration X
      • Blade Runner
      • The Terminator
    • New World Order
      • Art of War
      • La Femme Nikita
      • Mission: Impossible
      • The Truman Show
    • Progenitors
      • Alien: Resurrection
      • Gattaca
    • Syndicate
      • Jackie Brown
      • The Boiler Room
    • Void Engineers
      • 2001: A Space Odyssey
      • Event Horizon
      • The Wings of Honneamise: Royal Space Force
    • Directors to Watch Out For
      • David Cronenberg
      • David Lynch
      • Darren Aronofsky
      • Jean-Pierre Jeunet
      • John Woo
      • Ridley Scott
      • Stanley Kubrick
      • Wim Wenders

Chapter Six: A World of Magic[]

A long, hard look at crossovers and where mages fir in a unified World of Darkness - and what you want to watch out for! Ways to integrate other game themes and characters. Expanding the World of Darkness to encompass other ideas beyond the core of Mage.

  • Knowledges
    • Vampire Lore
    • Mage Lore
    • Werewolf Lore
    • Hunter Lore
    • Mummy Lore
    • Kindred of the East Lore

Background Information[]

  • At the back of the book are the following ads: Manifesto: Transmissions from the Rogue Council, Mage: The Ascension Backlist and Demon: The Fallen (11-02).
  • On the page containing the Credits, this is also mentioned: "Mea Maxima Culpa: P. David Gill, in addition to being cool roleplayer and all-around nice guy, wrote an entire chapter of the Guide to the Traditions - for which he wasn't properly credited. Whoops! Consider this our make-up call."

Memorable Quotes[]

Characters[]

  • Chapter One: The Craft
  • Chapter Two: The Awakened Struggle
  • Chapter Three: Awakening The Storyteller
    • Beth - Hollow One
    • Luthor - Son of Ether
    • Randall - Dreamspeaker
    • Conrad - Euthanatos
  • Chapter Four: Avatars and Seekings
    • Gage Cressner - Son of Ether
    • Marne Wells - Verbena
    • Mr. Marcus Jackson - Euthanatos
    • Tyrone Williams - Young Awakened Mage, Orphan
    • Doc - Tyrone's former mentor
  • Chapter Five: Alternative Settings
    • Milosevich
    • Pirsig
    • Khwaja al-Akbar
    • Meng Lei - Dragon Wizard
    • Nightshade
    • Sh'zar
    • Star-of-Eagles
    • Lord Dashwood - Ministry of Swords
    • Lord Henstridge - Ministry of Swords
    • Mr. Baker - Ministry of Swords
    • Charles Mann - Ministry of Swords
    • Virginia Wife - Ministry of Swords
    • Kaven
    • Dante
    • Abigail
    • Dutch Singleton, "Bully"
    • Artis Cotton, White Buffalo"
    • Andrew
    • Christopher Biscocchi - Complete first protype Etherical Engine
  • Chapter Six: A World of Magic
    • Brother Michael - Mage
    • Master Joreau - Mage
    • Olof - Brent's character
    • Nikolai - Crime Boss

Terminology[]

Æsculpian Order, Acolytes, Adren, Aided, Amenti, Amkhat, Analytical Reckoners, Ancilla, Angelics, Animalsim, Antediluvian, Apophis, Arcanos, Arcanum, Ars Cupiditae, Ars Praeclarus, Art, Artificer, Ascension War, Ashukhi Corporation, Assamite, Asthika, Astral Plane, Auspex, Autochthon, Autumn Person, Avatar (Pattern Avatar, Dynamic Avatar, Primordial Avatar, Questing Avatar), Avatar Storm, Avatar Storm Paradox, Avengers, Babylonian Court, Bane, Black Coats (Black Hats; Lightkeepers), Black Spiral Dancers, Blood/Vitae, Blood Doll, Blood Point, Brotherhood of the Jaguar, Brujah, Bygone, Bystander, Cabal of Pure Thought, Caern, Cainite, Camarilla, Camelot, Cathedral of the Sun, Celerity, Celestial Masters, Celestines, Cerberus, Chakravanti, Chamber, Changeling, Chi, Children of Isis, Children of Osiris, Chimerstry, Circle of Hippocrates, Circle of Red, Collegium Praecepti, Compact of Callias, Concordia, Conjunction, Consanguinity of Eternal Joy, Continuum, Convention of the White Tower, Conviction, Cosians, Crafts, Craftmasons, Creed, Cult of Bacchus, Cult of Cybele, Cult of Isis, Cult of Mercury, Cult of Vesta, Curse, Deep Umbra, Defenders, Demonics, Demonologist, Department X, Dharma, Digital Web, Discipline, Dja-akh, Doissetep, Dominate, Dreamsingers, Eastern Court, Echoes (Autumn Echo, Spring Echo, Winter Echo, Summer Echo, Night Echo, Day Echo), Edge, Elder, Electrodyne Engineers, Embrace, Enlightened Society of the Weeping Moon, Enoch, Essence, Etherical Engineers, Explorators, Fae, Fellowship of Pan, First Cabal, Fomori, Force of Will, Gaia, Garou, Gauntlet, Ghoul, Gift, Gilgul, Glass Walker, Gnosis, Grand Convocation, Grays, Guardian, Harbingers of Avalon, Hekau, Hermits, High Guild, High Umbra, Horizon, Horizon Realms, Horus, House Tremere, House Tytalus, Hun, Hunter, Imbued, Imkhu, Infernalist, Innocent, International Brotherhood of Mechanicians, Invisible Exchequer, Ishmaelite, Judges, Ka Luon, Keepers of the Sacred Flame, Kindred, Kinfolk, Kitab al-Alacir, Koldunic sorcerers, Kuei-jin, Lightkeepers, Li-Hai, The Lions of Zion (Factions: Watchers of the Temple, Protectors, Prophets, Keepers), Lodge of the Gray Squirrel, Lord, Low Umbra, Ma'at, Malleus Nefandorum, Marauders, Mars (Shard Realm of Forces), Martyrs, Massasa War, Merinita, Messengers, Messianic Voices, Middle Umbra, Ministry of Swords, Ministry of Works, Minor Sphere (Minor Sphere of Fire), Mistridge, Mithraic Guard, Mummy, Nephandi, Nephilim, Obfuscate, Obtenebration, Old Faith, Order of Hermes-Trismegistus, Order of Reason, Order of the Three Circles, Osiris, Outsider, Paradigm, Paradox, Penumbra, Pluto (Shard Realm of Entropy), P'o, Pogrom, Pomegranate Deme, Preceptor, Presence, Prometheans or the Children of Prometheus, Pure Ones, Quiet, Rage, Reborn, Reckoning, Redeemer, Resonance, Resurrection, The Rogue Council, Sabbat, Scourge, Second Sight, Sending, Seeking (Dynamic Seeking, Primordial Seeking, Pattern Seeking, Questing Seeking), Shadowlands, Shemsu-heru, Shi Ren, Sixth Maelstrom, Sleeper, Sleepytown, The Solomonic Code (Magical Text), Sons of Zimbabwe, Special Affairs Division, Sphere, Spirit, Spirit Storm, Spirit-Talkers, Step Sideways, Supersleeper, Tapestry, Technocracy, Tellurian, Tesla Designers, Thaumaturgy, Transmogrification, Tribe, Tzimisce, Uktena, Ulyssian Guard, Umbra, Umbrae, Umbrood, Underworld, Valdaermen, Vampire, Ventrue, Virtual Pioneers, Visionary, Void Riders, Watchers of Fortune, Waywards, Weaver, Web of Faith, Werewolf, White Out, Willworld, Wraith, Wyrm,

References[]

Previous release Game Books Next release
MTAs: Tradition Book: Hollow Ones Buy it from DriveThruRPG! Now in Print! Mage: The Ascension books MTAs: Manifesto: Transmissions from the Rogue Council Buy it from DriveThruRPG! Now in Print!
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