Virtual Adepts
‘There’s a new world out there,
waiting for us to touch it. I’ll give
you the senses and open the door…you just have to step in.’
Specialty Sphere: Correspondence
Associated Abilities:
Ranged, Enigmas, and High-Tech.
No Tradition mirrors the modern world so much as the Virtual
Adepts. These former Technocrats embrace
technology and its ability to empower people, and they strive to make that
technology available to everyone. While
most Traditionalists concern themselves with antiquated ways and renewal of
ancient practices, the Virtual Adepts are on the horizon searching for the
cutting edge. The Virtual Adepts ride
the wave of the computer revolution, and they use these machines to expand
their minds, enable worldwide communication and model novel visions for
reality. By spreading computer and
communication technology to the Masses, the Virtual Adepts help people enrich
their own minds. The spread of
information makes everyone richer and leads to better versions of the world,
leaving behind antiquarian notions, physical suffering and social inequity.
Tradition Paradigm: We
should embrace and understand the modern world, not fear it.
Philosophy: Information
is the ultimate power and the ultimate tool.
Devices, magic, tricks and Traditions can do great things, but only when
guided with the proper information.
Therefore, the Adepts want to learn as much as possible, and to open the
world by discovering new loopholes and shortcuts, innovations and dreams. Eventually, people will learn that
information is their key to sensing and mastering the universe. Once that happens, it’s a simple matter to
make a better universe – Reality 2.0, so to speak – that can be modeled,
shaped, simulated, tested and streamlined, made real and embraced. The virtual elite lead the way so humanity
can benefit.
Naturally, as masters of the computer and the fledgling
internet, the Virtual Adepts excel in all sorts of information processes and
internet exploration. According to the
Adepts, information has a flow all its own, a direction and a velocity,
sometimes even purposes and motives.
Virtual reality, real reality, it all comes down to information and the
manipulation thereof. And there are
always new facts to find.
The Virtual Adepts aren’t all about their technology,
however. The Adepts look past the toys
themselves to focus on the meaning of the technology – breaking down barriers
and reducing the distances between people, and allowing previously-secret
information to become open to the masses.
The telephone began the revolution, bringing families together into one
room even though they might be hundreds of miles apart. The difference engine, or computer, came
next, allowing the common man to quickly perform calculations that used to take
days to perform. Recent years have
brought the personal computer, and within the last decade, ARPAnet,
the predecessor to the modern internet, has been rapidly advancing. The Virtual Adepts have already set up
several small internets, and the results have been astounding, making
information freely available at any time of day to anyone who needs it. The Adepts dream of a day when everyone will
be connected to everyone else, and all information will be available to
everyone who seeks it.
Furthermore, the Virtual Adepts don’t deny magic; they are
aware that, even with their fancy computers and high-tech rigs, what really
matters is the Mage behind it all. True
Magic exists – it’s just that the Adepts prefer to work their incantations
through computers, rather than rituals and alchemy. It is this awareness of the importance of the
individual and the spirit that keeps them from becoming robots, controlling the
technology rather than letting the technology control them.
The Adepts still seek acceptance among the other
Traditions. They were once part of the
Technocracy, called the Difference Engineers then, and the question of
accepting their admission into the Council of Nine caused a bloody war among
the Cabals of Horizon. They were finally
allowed to stand beside the other eight Traditions – but the Adepts still have
few friends.
Failings: The
Adepts are rebellious as a whole, not only rejecting society but often spurning
the very people they want to help – the unenlightened masses of humanity who
‘just don’t get it.’ Adepts strive to be
on top and look down on those below, with the Tradition’s leadership being a
constantly changing factor of who’s the most elite. Eventually, the Adepts will either implode,
or figure out some organized leadership structure. There are some true visionaries among the
Adepts, but the younger Adepts are too focused on their machines to listen.
Likes
Cult of Ecstasy: These guys know how to party! We both seek new experiences – we focus on
the virtual, and they focus on the physical.
They may be short-sighted, but they make useful allies.
Verbena: They wouldn’t admit it, but they’re rebels just like
us. They turn to Wicca and rituals in
order to reject society and Christianity.
They just want to be free to do their own thing in their own way, and
that’s a spirit we can approve of.
Dislikes
Akashic Brotherhood: The body has limits; we learned that a long
time ago. It’s not bad to try to improve
your body and mind, but to say that your body and mind are all that really
exists? There’s a whole world out there,
Buddha, and you’re a thousand years behind the times.
Euthanatos: Creepy. These
guys kept us from joining the Council of Nine for a long time. A good scrap can be fun from time to time –
but these guys make fighting and killing the focus of their entire
existence. Why do we need Mage assassins
running around? The elite will thrive, the weak will die, all on their own.
Order of Hermes: These guys seem to pull a lot of the shots on the
Council of Nine. They’re an archaic
bunch, though, too focused on their spell lists and ancient tomes to learn any
new tricks. We adapt, they don’t, and in
the coming years we’re going to run circles around them.
Sons of Ether: These guys were quacks when they were in the
Technocracy, and they’re still more about bullshit than any real science. Still, we have to admire them for leaving the
Technocracy decades ago; if we had known then what we know now, we would have
left with them.
Hollow Ones: We do the ‘urban outcast’ thing way better than these
whiny goths.
They keep using us as an example of why they should be on the Council,
but the difference is that we already had organization, ability, and purpose
long before we tried to join the Traditions.
Right now, they’re just a bunch of orphans trying to play with the big
boys.
Hates
Celestial Chorus: We don’t care about your god or your ‘One.’ We got enough preaching from our parents when
we were kids. Why do you think we
started messing around with computers? Because the virtual world is better than the real world, and it’s
better than your stuffy church. A
bunch of boring losers who think that holding a cross makes them better than
everyone else? Get real.
Dreamspeakers: March of Progress 1, Native Americans 0. Get with the times, man – your lands aren’t
gone, they’re just improved, bigger and better, faster and smarter. And yet you hide out on your reservations,
sticking your head in the sand while the world leaves you behind. We’ve given you the technology, the freedom,
and the power to really make your lives better, but you throw that all back in
our faces.
Factions
Cypherpunks
These code-makers and
code-breakers use their talents to control the flow on information. By encrypting information, they keep it out
of the hands of their enemies. By
decrypting information, they put it in the hands of the Virtual Adepts. They successfully fight back at the
Technocracy at their own game, with their own tools, and their own codes.
Faction Paradigm: Control
who has information, and you control everything.
Chaoticians
These data-masters crunch
numbers for the Tradition, becoming masters of chance and probability, and
happy to tell you whether your plan has a chance in hell of succeeding. Using chaos theory, the Chaoticians
can affect the present and predict the future.
If a butterfly flaps its wings in
Faction Paradigm: With
the right analysis, nothing is ever truly up to chance.
Reality Coders
This
faction seeks out the fundamental truths of the universe – the source code, so
to speak. Once they know what makes
reality tick, they can break it down and rebuild it – Reality 2.0, the
realization all the dreams of the Adepts.
They work to gain acceptance of virtual reality among the Sleepers – not
for boring research like the Technocracy, but as a limitless world of
possibilities.
Faction Paradigm: Reality
is flawed, but we can build something better.
Nexplorers
These
cyber-warriors escape from our world into the digital world, loving the freedom
that the virtual space offers. If they
had the option, they’d spend all their time in the Digital Web, but they also
find time for their duty, working on Reality 2.0 with the Reality Coders. They may seem immature, but if you’re ever
stuck in digital space, you’ll want a Nexplorer
warrior on your side.
Faction Paradigm: The
body is just a shell, and there are places only the mind can go.
Elite Cabal: The
Elites
To be ‘Elite’ is something
special among the Virtual Adepts. These
are the best of the best: hackers, coders, codebreakers
and scholars who have done what’s never been done before, seen the impossible,
and come back grinning. The rest of the
Virtual Adepts are well-known for puffing themselves up and blowing hot air,
but once someone has gained the reputation to call himself Elite, and stand
beside other Elites, you know he’s for real.
Cabal Paradigm: We
know we’re the best; now let’s do something with it.
Requirements: High-Tech
at 5, Ranged and Enigmas at 4, Correspondence at 3, one other Sphere at 3.
“You call this a reality? Let me show you another one – Reality 2.0, if
you will. Cleaner, safer, more democratic
and wide open for creative expansion.
Which would you prefer?”