Welcome!

Thanks for coming here and taking a look at the system. There’s a lot of information on these pages, so we thought it would be helpful to give you a little guide if it’s your first time here.

What is Mage?

Mage: The Ascension, published by White Wolf Studios, is a game which simply asks, “What if the legends of magic were real?” The answer is the world of Mage – a game of secret societies and magic-weavers, hidden behind the façade of ‘reality.’ In the modern world, we trust science more and more, and we consider magic to be a child’s game, mere trickery and illusion. For the first time in history, people want to live without mysticism, without belief, and without magic. The balance of power is upset, and the Mages are trying to decide what direction they should pursue in the next hundred years – and if true magic will even last that long.

You will play a member of one of the Nine Mystic Traditions, each of which represents a different aspect of magic which has evolved throughout the centuries. There are the traditional wizards (Order of Hermes), shamans and spirit-talkers (Dreamspeakers), those who weave power through divine faith (Celestial Chorus), zen-meditating martial artists (Akashic Brotherhood), and many more. Whatever kind of Mage you want to play, there should be a place for you.

So what exactly is a Mage? A Mage is a willworker – they create changes in the world around them by wishing it to be so. Some say that once, every human was able to use magic, but that over time, humanity became lazy and complacent, content to suppress their wills and be ruled over. Now, in the modern age, there are only a handful of Mages (also known as the Awakened) left. Each one was a normal person, until something reawakened their Avatar – their magical spirit – and opened their eyes again to the world of magic.

Mages were once human, but their lives have become much more complex than that now. Even before the game starts, you’re going to have a character who has been through complicated and traumatic life experiences, and has overcome them to become one of the Mages, one of the Awakened, one of the most powerful creatures on Earth. The question is, what will you do with your abilities?

What is LARPing?

LARPing, or Live Action Role Playing, goes beyond the boundaries of tabletop role playing and immerses you in the game world. For the three hours that the game runs, you are your character. Everything you say, everything you do, every sideways glance and nervous shuffle, is in-character, and will affect the way other people interact with your character. If you want to get up and talk to somebody, you get up and talk. It’s really quite simple.

It may also make sense to think of LARPing as improvisational theater. You have a character, and you have a role, but beyond that, you make your own stories. I’ve seen grand stories unfold out of LARPs, epics of justice and betrayal, and emotionally moving masterpieces. And you get to be in control of it all.

Of course, there are some boundaries for safety. If you want to hit somebody, you won’t just run up and hit them. When you’re trying to use your character’s abilities against another character, we’ll go ahead and use your character sheet, a list of your character’s abilities and specialties, and see which character is more skilled at the task at hand. But once that’s done, we return to being in-character, and you have to deal with the effects of what you’ve just done.

What system will we be using?

The system for this LARP is a homebrew – a system which is fan-created, not professionally published. Everything you need is online on this webpage.

A few years ago, White Wolf published Laws of Ascension, a book for LARPing as Mages. However, I find the system there clunky and very difficult to use successfully in a LARP. I was motivated to write my own system – hundreds of pages of it, detailing the setting and rewriting the system, and tweaking the Mage world to make it fit better into a LARP setting.

Everything you need to know is online – you don’t need to buy anything for this game. The rules may still need some final playtesting, but everything that we need to get started is finished.

What is ‘The Fragile Path’?

The Fragile Path is a book in the Mage world, written by Master Porthos Fitz-Empress. It describes the First Cabal, made up of one member of each of the Nine Traditions, their friendships, rivalries, and hubris, and how betrayal led to their downfall. Our LARP is set at a similar time in the history of Mage – when the Nine Traditions are gathering together, not quite sure if they should trust each other. You walk a fragile path – at the end of the road is Ascension, but a single misstep will spell disaster.

Where should I start?

Start with the Timeline page, to get the history and the setting of our game. There’s a lot of information there, but it will give you an idea of some of the conflicts you may be dealing with, and give you a place to start thinking about your character.

Then, take a look at the Character Creation Checklist. That will guide you through some of the details of Mage, such as what the Traditions are, and what you need to know to play in the game. You don’t need to start on a character right away, just look through the various hyperlinks on that page.

For an idea of what kind of characters I’m looking for, the Character History page is a great place to start. Read over the questions at the end, and keep them in mind as you look over other parts of the rules.

Once you’re ready to learn a little bit about the world of Mage, read the Lexicon, the History of the World, and any of the Mage Terminology that’s unclear to you. Feel free to e-mail me and ask questions, I’m here to help.

Take a quick look over the System page, which will tell you how to use your character sheet. Follow the links to get more information, but don’t worry about trying to memorize it all before your first game.

Finally, when you’re ready, you can start making a character. Before you come to your first game, make sure you look at the Pre-game Checklist, and confirm that you’re all set.

Good luck, I hope it all makes sense, and e-mail me if you need any clarification!

- Barry Figgins

Head Storyteller