Skyfall - A Mage Chronicle

Introduction

At the turn of the millennium a mana font was discovered around Lake Sabine, on the border of Texas & Louisiana. The font is capable of producing massive amounts of magical energy, a scarce and powerful resource for anyone powerful enough to claim it. Much debate was had within the Houston consilium over what to do about this discovery. The local chapters of the Adamantine Arrow and the Guardians of the Veil argued that control of the font was paramount to the security of the Consilium, that others could not be trusted with access to so much power and its bounty could be used to improve the city's magical community. The orders employed their control of the council to make a move for the font.

Neighboring Consilia held a similar opinion, this discovery was an opportunity that could not be missed. Diplomatic talks were initiated, with high hopes of finding a way to share the font. Negotiations with neighboring consilia were tense, came to a standstill and broke down after many months of talks. Hierarch William, leader of the Houston Consilium, consulted with his advisers and they planned to wage a war to secure the mana font. They believed that a quick and decisive strike against the opposing consilia would guarantee their capitulation within a season.

The Hierarch gathered the forces of the Consilium and launched a surprise attack. The fighting went harder than expected and the consilia under attack formed a defensive alliance to fend off the invasion. The Alliance under the command of Hierarch Clemenceau of Baton Rouge waged a bloody war of attrition that lasted for four years. Through the use of magic the mages fought their secret war unobserved by sleepers. Battles were fought and wizards perished  in sanctums, warehouses, and city streets; unseen and unheard. Ultimately, the Houston concilium was defeated and driven from the field. Hierarch Maximillian, rather than face the wrath of his people for losing a war in which he promised victory gathered his council and fled, never to be seen again. The flight of the previous government left a power vacuum in which an unprecedented alliance of formerly opposing orders -- The Silver Ladder & The Free Council -- formed a coalition government. With the military threatening to disband if a peace treaty was not signed soon, the new coalition government hastily signed one on highly unfavorable terms.

That was eight years ago, and since then the Consilium has been forced to pay reparations for the conflict with the Free Council & The Ladder being responsible for their collection. The terms of the treaty and the collection of payments have not endeared these orders to the community at large. The high strain these reparation placed on the community, along with the Guardians and the Arrow falling from power, has led to political instability and sometimes violence. A few members of the new government have been assassinated. Traditionalists and enemies of the Free Council, while out of the current council government, still control the courts and when the killers face their day in court they either walk or are dealt lenient punishments. 

Stability is also threatened from the outside as Seers and other supernatural groups take advantage of a weakened consilium. There have also been a few mages who have rebelled and attempted to overthrow the government. The government has relied on the Arrow to put down rebellions, entrusting its safety in a military that loathes its existence. The Consilium was forced to demilitarize by the treaty, severely limiting the size of its army and if reparations are ever halted, the allied consilia have the right to invade Houston and take their payment by force. In response, the Arrow has shrunk in size but its members have simply been hiding in other orders. Instead of giving up their military ways, they simply train with other mages as part of militias or self-defense groups. As a result, the entire consilium balances on a razors edge.


But things are not as dim as they first appear. With the return to peace and rise of the Free Council, a magical renaissance is underway with new discoveries occurring every month. Rights of personhood have been extended to sentient constructs and familiars. New forms of magical architecture allow the construction of ever more elaborate Sanctums in less time and at lower costs. New spells are being developed to take advantage of mortal technology and new ideas. Occult researchers travel the southwest conducting archaeological digs and studying the strange geomancy of the area. Groups of young supernaturals have decided to use their powers to fight crime and other social ills. Your characters start in this world as natives of the region; you have survived the previous conflict and you stand strong and ready to handle whatever fate next throws at you

Character Generation Guidelines

• We are employing the rules from God Machine Chronicle including beats, breaking points and the wonderful wonderful merits revision. If you want to use a merit from another book please clear it with me first. 

• I encourage you to make your characters together; you can make a more cohesive team that way. The chronicle starts with the players being an established Cabal so you've had years of living together in your back stories.

• On the back of your character sheet please write 3 goals that your character wants to achieve, examples are: start a business, get rich, become head of my order, etc. Also write three beliefs that your character has about the world, examples are “All people are good”, “everything is a shade of grey”,etc. This is to aid us in constructing storylines and personal motivations for your character.

• You've been mages for at least 5-10 years, so incorporate that into your backstory

• Write up your character concept in a paragraph or two. You dont need to mention how lovingly embroidered your mothers scarf was, I just need an idea of your character. For those of you who are new to the game the small details will have to be changed anyway as you grow more accustomed to the setting and its workings.

• Pooling merits such as sanctum is heavily encouraged, it saves you all xp. Feel free to make use of other group merits such as Athenaeum (Mysterium book)

• Have a few dots in a combat ability, you don’t need to be the best warrior but you survived the war by being really hard to jump in a dark alley

• You are all members of an order, Apostates are put to death

• World of Darkness Texas does not have weapons laws, so you can own and carry whatever you want

• Use the starting character from the core mage book with the following changes
• 1 free dot of Status(your order)
• 25 xp

House Rules

All XP costs have been replaced by the following chart. These costs are static meaning that they DO NOT rely on the current rating of the trait. Traits such as Willpower and Arcana levels must still obey their caps.

• Attribute: 4xp per dot
• Skill: 2xp per dot
• Specialty: 1xp
• Merit: 1xp per dot
• Wisdom: 3xp per dot
• Willpower: 1xp per dot
• Rote Spell: 2xp
• Ruling Arcana: 3xp for the First and Second Dot, 6xp for the Third and Fourth Dot, 9xp for the Fifth dot
• Common Arcana: 4xp for the First and Second Dot, 8xp for the Third and Fourth Dot, 12xp for the Fifth dot
• Inferior Arcana: 5xp for the First and Second Dot, 10xp for the Third and Fourth Dot, 15xp for the Fifth dot
• Gnosis: 10xp per dot
• If you take a legacy that has a primary Arcana that is already ruling for you the cost for increasing that Arcana becomes 2xp for the First and Second Dots, 4xp for the Third and Fourth Dots, and 6xp for the 5th dot
• Realism is not allowed, this is fiction damnit
• You are entitled to one character re-customization available to be cashed in after the second session. You may have thought a merit or power was cool when you were building your character but discovered while in play it sucks, or you may realize that your stats don't reflect your concept. You may even have spotted a way to optimize yourself. It doesn't matter; you get a do-over no questions asked.
• If you extended cast a spell and have a huge dicepool, don't bother rolling because it takes too long. Assume 33% of your dice came up as a success. 
• Rotes that are extremely utilitarian exist across all orders (e.g. mage sight rotes)
• You can purchase a merit called Respect(insert order here) Mechanics: you get a bonus die to social rolls as if you had a status in the order equivalent to your respect dots. You can also learn rotes of a level equal to your Respect -1, meaning the greatest of an order’s secrets are off limits to everyone but members. Purchase of this merit means that occasionally you will be called in to do favors for the other order.
• Custom derangements are allowed as not every mental illness was written into the core book, plus there need to be a few unique derangements that mess mages specifically

Rules Clarifications

• Bullet proof vests turn lethal damage from bullets into bashing damage
• WoD is a game system aiming for simplicity so skills are very broad, multiple crafts that are distinct in the real world are rolled into one skill for ease of play. 
• Legacies can grant an additional ruling arcana
• Legacy oblations are rituals you can perform to gain mana, with no need for a hallow just time to do them. Upon completion of an oblation roll Composure + Gnosis to determine how much mana you receive. 
• Not all rotes are worth buying, the primary reason for getting rotes is a bigger dice pool and most spells only need one success. Ancillary benefits of rotes are avoiding the additional mana cost for improvised spells, and a -1 to the paradox pool.
• Magical tools graint a -1 to paradox pool
• Paradox can only be reduced to a chance die, only Demesnes can negate paradox
• You can extended/ritual cast any spell you are capable of casting, including a rote
• Exceptional Luck and Superlative Luck do modify all rolls that qualify as actions or tasks. Thus they modify spell casting rolls but not wisdom rolls.  
• You can do fancy things with improvised spells by taking dice penalties, fancy things with extended spells cost more successes to achieve. These fancy things are listed in the Core Mage book
• Spell casting is an extended action and you can roll a number of times equal to your Gnosis