Hacking Concordia
over 2 years ago – Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 09:41:10 AM

Hacking Concordia

I’m in! Anyaza crowed triumphantly to herself. The enchanted virtual reality gear strapped to her body and wired straight into her neural network gave her a unique perspective on the city which normally took tremendous magical power to access. Well, still took. Anyaza’s VR gear had taken years to craft. More than Wonder, more than modem, her equipment had at long last granted her access to the legend among mages: Concordia.

Anyaza’s elation faded quickly. At first, she thought her gear needed some percussive maintenance. But banging on cords and outlets and relays proved ineffective. She returned to the visual output. The framerate hadn’t broken. But the frames. Something was wrong with the frames. Or, what they depicted.

Anyaza’s perception shifted wildly second by second. She saw a majestic alabaster city. A smoking ruin. A stainless steel metropolis. Another smoking ruin, different from the last. A fairytale castle. Stranger ruins. Mars? At first, she didn’t know what to make of these images, and reached out to pull the plug. Then, as another iteration of Concordia flashed before her virtual eyes, this one overrun by vampires, she realized.

She wasn’t hooked into Concordia as it was. Somehow, her bypassing the Gate of Correspondence led her to Concordia as it existed across the multiverse. Concordia ruined, Concordia surviving, Concordia thriving. She hadn’t hacked into one Concordia, she’d somehow found the place where all Concordias existed, everywhere.

The Adept jerked her hand back from the power cord, and checked her logs. As she had suspected and feared, the data had become irreparably corrupt. She might parse something useful out later. But without a valid record, she couldn’t hope to replicate the processes which had brought her to this strange crossroads of Concordiae.

This wasn’t a one in a lifetime opportunity, it was a one in a dozen lifetimes opportunity. She indulged in a moment of self-congratulation. What she’d just accomplished, she didn’t think even Porthos Fitz-Empress could have done. Only a moment, however. Anyaza had work to do.

The Virtual Adept pushed onward, watching the landscape flicker and fade around her. A bit disorienting at first, but her eyesight adapted quickly. She began picking out patterns, convinced that some of the ever-changing Concordias were the same. A wrecked spaceship appeared in some versions, a constant signifier of a Technocratic victory. The fairytale castle’s architecture seemed not to change much, either.

Clearing her log, Anyaza began recording data of a different sort. The castle appeared only 3.24% of the time; the spaceship, 13.46%. Did those numbers correlate to the likelihood of each outcome? How often each Concordia manifested across the multiverse’s infinite variations? Could she somehow stabilize a variant of Concordia and explore it?

As Anyaza walked, the flickering images began holding still the longer she observed them. Instead of each reality lasting micro-seconds, the images begin lasting a few heartbeats longer. Extending her magical senses and flipping a few switches on her VR gear, Anyaza seized hold of one particularly intriguing reality. She’d seen it only 1.25% of the time but wanted to know how in any reality vampires might overrun Concordia.

She held onto the image, and to her delight, found this reality resisted shifting as long as she concentrated on it. Almost immediately, however, Anyaza regretted her victory. She shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that a vampire’s ideas of conquering reality included pens full of miserable, anemic blood-pets and an eternally clouded, gloomy sky. Anyaza flipped a switch back and released her hold on this reality. Immediately, the vampire-reality dissipated and gave way to an alabaster city.

Anyaza gasped in wonder, catching hold of this reality before it faded. Horizon, before the fall. Or perhaps a never-fallen Horizon. Anyaza observed crystal spires reaching into the sky, an architectural detail she never remembered anyone who’d been to Horizon describing. Not the Horizon she knew, then. One which had grown strong enough to resist attacks by the Technocracy.

Beautiful golden gates stood open, welcoming her to the city. No one stood guard, but even the rankest neophyte could sense the crackle of heavy warding magic surrounding the entrance. No doubt some terrible forces waited to vaporize an enemy. Or trap its soul in a crystal bottle. Or… Anyaza thought of any number of awful fates.

Well, nothing for it. She’d built her VR gear with more than a few fail-safes. Any lethal attack should just transport her back into her body. She’d be a bit nauseous, but alive. Steeling her nerves, Anyaza stepped over the threshold.

Energy buzzed over her, while tendrils of inquisitive magic reached into her mind. Anyaza had no time to react before the magic finished and faded. She passed whatever test the gates had. Onward, then.

Anyaza fought the temptation to see what other Concordias waited for discovery. The alabaster Concordia only appeared .75% of the time. Vampires would sooner take over the city than the whole of magery achieve this. She saw market stalls selling any number of alien fruits, identified representatives of every Tradition (and some she couldn’t place at all) walking peacefully through the streets.

Before she knew it, she was there. The grand library of Concordia, grander and more expansive than her wildest dreams. Unlike the gates to the city, however, the doors here remained firmly locked. The security mechanism was unlike anything Anyaza had ever seen. Unfamiliar inlays conducted magical energy to a central console. A keypad of some kind? Anyaza poked at it a bit. Light flashed in response, the universal red of warning.

She backed off, frustrated. Then, inspiration struck.

Another flip of a switch, and Anyaza stood on a wide, blank plain. A Concordia never settled. A moment passed, and she stood in a far more familiar Concordia. The acrid smell of burnt paper hung in the air, the buildings around her reduced to rubble. A few sparkly stone shards glittered from under the ruined shelves, the remains of smashed and destroyed Wonders. The library door, little more than burnt cinders piled at her feet.

Anyaza held onto this Concordia just long enough to position herself firmly within the library’s ruins. All the books were gone from this iteration of Horizon. Stolen or burned or, less likely, rescued. Anyaza allowed herself a moment of grief. This was the Concordia she knew. She looked over the ruined shelves with a tinge of irony. Broken and bare. She hadn’t thought everything would be gone. If she’d succeeded in her original goal, she’d have arrived here bitterly disappointed.

Anyaza released her hold on this reality, then began gasping for air. Water! Deep enough that her eardrums reacted immediately to the pressure. She struggled against the lightless water, not knowing which way was up. The life-preservation protocol on her gear initialized and Anyaza reached out with a desperate No!

She fell to her knees gasping when the water disappeared, leaving another Concordia in its wake. Not quite the gold and alabaster library, but at the very least a Concordia that had neither drowned nor burned. Anyaza decided to hold onto this one, seeing shelves full to bursting with old leather-bound books and a monk-like man pass holding a high-end computer tablet in his hands.

Time to get to work.

Faces of Magick expands....
over 2 years ago – Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 04:03:08 AM

Hello Magi,

Well, we've added another few Stretch Goal accomplishments to our list. Let's look at what's happened since we last unveiled these targets...

ACHIEVED! - At $85,000 in Funding – Faces of Magick II – This PDF Supplement will be enlarged, adding more mages for use in your chronicle.

ACHIEVED! - At $90,000 in Funding - Mobile Wallpaper – Take your magick on the go with this mobile-sized version of the Lore of the Traditions wallpaper. This reward will be added to the rewards list for all backers.

And just like that, as predicted and projected, we've expanded the size of the Faces of Magick PDF supplement. As we're entering into the mid-campaign plateau period, we're gonna flip our milestone marker and our supplement goals for this next bit, but it is time to revisit our other supplement and remember more of the Forgotten...

At $95,000 in Funding – Lore of the Traditions VTT Token Pack – Digital assets will be created to support online play for M20 games using the Lore of the Traditions artwork. This online asset pack will be added to the rewards list of all backers.

Ooh, one for the Virtual Adepts, we'll get some online gaming support with this Lore of the Traditions VTT Token pack! And now to expand our supplement...

At $100,000 in Funding  – Forgotten Ones & Forbidden Orders II – Additional orders, from the Bata'a to Solificati (and some in between) will be detailed will be added to this expanded PDF supplement.

We'll celebrate hitting $100K by expanding the subjects of this supplement to include even more of the Forgotten & Forbidden. I'm super-excited for these supplement Stretch Goals, and love helping to pump them up!

As noted, we're entering into the quieter middle weeks of the campaign, but already so far ahead of what was expected. I *think* we'll be able to add these on to our list of accomplishments before the end, but we'll have to do our best to maintain our momentum and enthusiasm.

So, please continue to share in your social circles and on your social media, and let's see if we can't get another few Stretch Goals unlocked before we end!

#LoreOfTheTraditions

#MageTheAscension

Sahajiya Preview
over 2 years ago – Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 06:40:18 AM

The Cult of Ecstasy/Sahajiya Preview: Disciplines of Madness

Life loves her little ironies. The irony of seers blindsided by a future they helped create seems more delicious than usual. For centuries, the Ecstatic Tradition has prided itself on riding the cusp of cultural transformation and personal experience — of “seeing ahead,” as it were. For all their vision, however, the inherent contradictions of an “ecstatic tradition” appears to have escaped many of that group’s members. Now, as the Consensus shifts faster than even these time-spanning mages can perceive, the Cult finds itself caught in a crisis of identity the likes of which its more “traditional” members could not have foreseen.

Despite preconceptions, “the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll mages” were always more than they seemed to be. The group’s distaste for hierarchy, formality and caste reinforced the Cult’s image as stoner weirdos when compared to their Hermetic and Celestial comrades. Yet the Traditions themselves (at least as Ecstatics tell the tale) would not exist if not for the seer Sh’zar. That legacy earned the Cult grudging respect among its peers. The Arts they pursued, though disreputable and often sinister, had ancient pedigrees, too. Even the most hidebound wizard had to accept the efficacy of tantric metaphysics and Taoist alchemy. In the shadows of an “Age of Reason,” Ecstatics became the mad poets and rebel voices where art and magick merged; from the blood and ashes of two World Wars, the Cult emerged triumphant, blasting gospels of sex and liberation and magick to the Masses.

And then?

Ecstasy breeds excess. Excess brings backlash, and Ecstatics haven’t always been careful about where their Arts and passions lead. Although the current era validates this Tradition’s social and metaphysical ideals, the ways in which its members have gone about pursuing those ideals can be… well, careless. To fulfil the promise of its principles, the Ecstatic Tradition must confront its excesses, move outside its comfort zones, and embrace a future that few seers could have foretold.

Reflection and Reform

This newer breed of Sahajiya is, for the most part, socially aware and furious. To them, strictures of identity and culture are limits worth destroying. Social media provides a wider awareness of the world at large, and a larger canvas for one’s place within it, too. Compassionate malcontents that they are, many Ecstatics rally against injustice the way they rallied in the Sixties against war.

To the chagrin of certain long-term Ecstatics, this fury turns, at times, against the sexism, privilege, appropriations, and other careless behaviors that often mark the Cult’s more hedonistic aspects. Consent has been vital this Tradition’s ethics for almost as long that word has existed in the English language; still, the definitions of consent, who can and cannot consent, and the situations surrounding that consent have all changed considerably in recent decades. Getting high and having sex used to be a fixture of Cult activities; historically speaking, initiation into Ecstatic cultures often occurred long before what’s now considered legal age; Cultists intrigued by foreign ideas and practices often took what they wanted without regard for the people whose goods they stole; and then there’s the age-old concept of “love spells” and other metaphysically enhanced seduction techniques. For millennia, such practices were common among magical societies. Now, they’re considered shady at best, and quite often far worse. There are reasons that Ecstatic mages, regardless of gender, have been considered dubious company. These days, over protests from certain Cult elders, the younger generation (backed by other elders) demands reflection and reform. Harmful traditions, the argument goes, were always harmful even when “traditional.” Especially for a group dedicated to breaking patterns and going beyond your comfort zone, abandoning such practices is not only appropriate to the times but true to the spirit of the group itself.

Wired Ecstasy

Ecstatics have always been subversive outsiders. In the current age, however, a gender-rebel hacktivist is far more subversive and rebellious than a rich rock star with teenage girlfriends. While sex, drugs and music have their place within Ecstatic Arts, a 21st-century practitioner is more likely to find transcendence in her computer than in her bong.

Like many mystics of their generation, these “tech-Ecstatics” reject the notion that science and magick are opposed. Instead, they use whichever tools work best for them: electronic musical instruments, smart drugs, social media, scientific workout techniques, cybernetic enhancements, gene therapy — whatever it takes to break the patterns that bind their potential. Given new tools and language through which to express their quest for something more, growing numbers of Ecstatics embrace transhuman and post-human philosophies. Time, gender, physical form, social constrictions — if they’re all illusions to begin with, then there’s no reason not to remake them. Although many Ecstatics favor anarcho-primitivism instead, only Etherites and Mercurians, among Tradition mages, can rival Ecstatics in their enthusiasm for metahuman tech.

For some Ecstatics, this potential for “wired” transcendence encourages isolation; others, though, expand connection to previously impossible degrees. A pre-industrial Ecstatic might become a hermit; a wired one seeks community online; the sort of community, as usual, depends on what that person seeks and where she finds it. A person looking for kindred spirits can find them in all kinds of places.

Cult Out, Sahajiya In

In a popular (if contentious) move, this Tradition will likely change its name. If you wish, it may have changed already. The smarmy, pot-fogged label Cult doesn’t sit well with many Ecstatics, especially not ones who stress a deeper and more serious approach. Considering that the Tradition has changed its name several times since the Convocation, and that breaking old patterns is literally what ecstasy means, that shift suits the nature (so to speak) of the Tradition.

Not everyone agrees, of course. Especially since the new /old name brings a shift in intentions, too, some entrenched Ecstatics consider it “just more Social Justice bullshit.” A fair-sized contingent of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll types still exists, and some of them prefer the wild ways. Their rivals argue that such attitudes are exactly what the Cult (under any name) was created to destroy; in the end, though, people are still people, and some folks can be stubborn as fuck.

The number of those people, the degree of their stubbornness, and the effects of that schism in Ecstatic ranks is up to your group and Storyteller to decide.

Ha! Are you ready for the full chapter? We'll have lots more than this brief excerpt available for all backers on Tuesday! In the meantime, please keep sharing your excitement for this campaign in your social circles and on your social media and invite others to join our cult - I mean cause.

#LoreOfTheTraditions

Mage: The Podcast interview
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 09:33:29 AM

Hello Traditional Council Community,

An amazing day! This campaign has now been running for just about 5 days, depending on how you slice it, and we're closing in on 1,000 backers! Internally, that's a huge celebratory milestone, and I think it's pretty amazing (or... magickal?) that we're nearing that point so quickly!

For any of those backers who have just joined in, be sure to go back and check out the earlier updates, where you'll find the manuscript preview downloads and schedule for the next chapters coming your way. We're going to have a preview from the Cult of Ecstasy chapter tomorrow.

But for today, in addition to celebrating nearly 1,000 of us supporting this project, we're also going to get a peek behind the scenes with the first of multiple interviews with the creative team of this book.

MAGE THE PODCAST

Terry Robinson and the team at Mage the Podcast have been chatting with just about all of the writers involved in the Lore of the Traditions book and we'll be able to listen to those conversations over the next three Saturdays.

Today's episode is now <available here - MAGE THE PODCAST> and features author interviews with Hiromi Cota about the Akashayana, Satyros Phil Brucato about the Sahajiya, James Sambrano about the Kah'vadi and Travis Legge about developing the project.

#LoreOfTheTraditions

#MageTheAscension

#MageThePodcast

Backers Only - Manuscript Preview #3 - Celestial Chorus
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 03:07:56 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.