Magical Tradition Revised
Author's Note: I set out to do a couple of things with this write-up. First and foremost, I wanted a format that will make it easy to introduce new Magical Traditions to the game. As much as I love the Magical Traditions book, a huge chapter for each Tradition is quite a bit to live up to. I also saw some ideas in some of the Traditions that I'd love to see applied to other Traditions. All of those goals have aligned to result in the following rule-set. Enjoy.
Contents
Merit: Magical Tradition (••)
Prerequisite: Occult 2, plus other Prerequisites based on the specific Tradition (described below).
Effects (Mortals): A mortal initiated into the secrets of a Magical Tradition gains a number of benefits, as denoted below:
- Resonance: Places where mortals have performed the rites of their magical tradition can actually alter the Resonance of those places. Individuals who participate in these rituals, items used in the rituals and the places where they are held more readily reveal themselves to fellow practitioners of that magical tradition. Divinations, aura perception and similar effects simply work more effectively when performed on such targets by someone who also practices that tradition: Instant checks gain a +2 bonus to the roll, while the Target Number on Extended checks is reduced by 2. Mortals with the appropriate Magical Tradition Merit using Thaumaturge Merits may reduce any penalties to their ritual roll by 2 as well.
- Sleepwalking: Mortals who possess the Magical Tradition Merit are considered Sleepwalkers for the purpose of witnessing the casting of Tradition Rotes by Awakened magicians. Mortals with this Merit may also purchase the full Sleepwalker Merit by paying 14 XP (rather than the normal 20 XP).
- Unseen Sense: Mortals who possess the Magical Tradition Merit are considered to have the Unseen Sense Merit, but only for the purpose of being aware of magics of their tradition. Mortals with this Merit may also purchase the full Unseen Sense Merit for Magic by paying 6 XP (rather than the normal 12 XP).
Effects (Awakened): A mage initiated into the secrets of a Magical Tradition gains access to a number of benefits, as denoted below:
- Tradition Rotes: Some rotes are designated as Tradition rotes, steeped in the magical symbolism of a mortal magical tradition. Such rotes may be cast in one of two fashions: as a normal Awakened rote, or as a Tradition rote. Any magician may use the rote as a normal rote. Casting a rote as a Tradition rote requires that the caster adhere to certain limitations, requiring the use of certain foci, casting it in a given environment or at a certain time, or while speaking a given language. Failure to cast the rote with these limitations in place does not prevent the magician from using the spell - it simply functions as a normal rote, with none of the benefits listed below.
- "Tradition Skills:" Tradition Rotes are always encoded in one of the Tradition Skills of the Magical Tradition he follows.
- "Sleeper Acceptance:" When the Storyteller is checking for a Paradox for a vulgar spellcasting, he does not add the +2 dice bonus for Sleeper witnesses.
- "Conditional Duration:" Tradition rotes benefit from the Fate 2 "Conditional Duration" modifier (see Mage: the Awakening, p.150), whether or not the mage knows Fate 2.
- "Spell Tolerance Mitigation:" The first Traditional spell cast on an individual does not count towards that target's Spell Tolerance.
- Resonance: The Tradition magics of an Awakened practitioner can alter the Resonance of a target, as described above.
- Ritual Leader: An Awakened mage with this Merit may gain a benefit from having mortals with the Traditional Adept Merit (see below) aid him in the ritual casting of Traditional Rotes.
Merit: Traditional Adept (• — •••••)
Prerequisite: Mortal, Magical Tradition Merit, Occult rating equal to Merit rating
Effects: A mortal initiated into the secrets of Magical Traditions can also learn the Tradition Rotes of that Tradition. Such an initiate may spend the normal XP to purchase a Tradition Rote, just as a Mage can. Though he cannot touch the Supernal Realms at all, he can aid the Awakened who can, helping them to anchor that power that is drawn down. When the Awakened magician casts a Tradition Rote as an Extended spellcasting, he may allow a mortal character with this Merit to assist him. The mortal must spend a point of Willpower to assist in such a fashion, and receives a penalty to his dice pool equal to the Arcana Rating of the spell being performed. Nonetheless, his successes are added as dice to the ritual leader's spell, as with a normal Teamwork effort.
Many such occultists believe that their own performances of those rotes have some kind of power. Anytime the mortal performs that rote ritually, taking at least one hour to do so, he regains a point of Willpower. If he scores an Exceptional Success, he regains two Willpower.
Advanced Magical Tradition Merits
The basics of practicing a magical tradition are expressed through the Magical Tradition Merit itself. The following Merits reflect an increased immersion in the magical tradition, learning to find the deep Supernal understanding reflected in the secrets of those traditions, and to perform feats of magic that less-enlightened magicians cannot. Each of these Merits is rated at least three dots; to purchase them, however, the mage's player need only spend 6 XP, effectively increasing the rating of the base Magical Tradition Merit, rather than purchasing a whole new Merit. These Merits increase in a similar fashion to the Fighting Style Merits, requiring the purchase of lower levels before higher ones may be gained.
The format for the Traditions is as follows:
- Name of the Tradition
- Prerequisites: This lists the full prerequisites, in addition to Occult 2, necessary for the purchase of the Magical Tradition Merit for this tradition.
- Tradition Skills: This list of five Skills denotes the Skills that all Tradition rotes are encoded in.
- Origins: A quick paragraph or two relating to the origins of the magical tradition.
- Praxis: The tradition's internal understanding of how its magic works.
- Correspondences: A listing of the sorts of foci, symbols, environments and times relevant to the practice of the tradition's magic, and often found encoded in its Tradition Rotes.
- Higher Mysteries: The additional secrets that come with deeper immersion into this magical tradition.
Appalachian Hoodoo
Prerequisites: X
Tradition Skills: X
Origins: X
Praxis: X
Correspondences: X
Higher Mysteries
- X (•••): X
- X (••••): X
- X (•••••): X
Entheogen Cults
Prerequisites: X
Tradition Skills: X
Origins: X
Praxis: X
Correspondences: X
Higher Mysteries
- X (•••): X
- X (••••): X
- X (•••••): X
Hermetic Magics
Prerequisites: X
Tradition Skills: X
Origins: X
Praxis: X
Correspondences: X
Higher Mysteries
- X (•••): X
- X (••••): X
- X (•••••): X
Kabbalah
Prerequisites: Language (Hebrew), Occult 2 plus two other Tradition Skills 2, Specialty: Religion in Academics or Specialty: Kabbalah in Occult
Tradition Skills
- Academics: Most Kabbalists are avid scholars, able to quite prodigious amounts of rabbinical lore, theological concepts and holy scripture from memory. Kabbalistic rotes involving Academics usually take the form of mental recitations of theological concepts, pairing them in new ways as mnemonics for the magics invoked. Jewish meditation through the intonation or contemplation of Hebrew letters falls within this Skill as well.
- Crafts: Practice of kabbalism, while not quite as hands-on as many magical practices, still involves a number of different skills, most notably beautiful calligraphy and illumination, as well as the shaping of clay in homage to man's genesis - particularly in the creation of the Golem.
- Expression: The recitation of scripture is an important aspect of Kabbalistic practice. The universe began with the Word, and spoken words still play a powerful role in this tradition of magic.
- Investigation: The solving of ciphers, particularly in the form of gematria - rendering words into numbers and then comparing them to other words with similar sums - is involved in many Kabbalistic Rotes.
- Occult: Kabbalistic understanding of how the pure light of Ain Soph emanates down the Tree of Life in the Lightning Path, and how the soul of the dedicated may walk the Serpent Path back up the Tree form the core of Kabbalistic occultism.
Origins: The precise origins of Kabbalah are lost to history, though rabbinical lore claims that it either began with Adam or was passed to Moses on Mt. Sinai as an oral tradition by God when he gave the Hebrew people the Ten Commandments. How long it remained in the domain of Hebrew scholars is unknown - eventually, though, Hebrew and gentile scholars shared their deep philosophical concepts, and the symbolism of Kabbalah (if not it's true practice) entered the Western occult tradition. It has served over the years as a sort of master glyph, allowing symbol sets to be divided among the spheres that make up the Tree of Life in order to derive strong sympathetic interconnections between aspects of that symbol set. It is imbedded quite firmly in the consciousness of Western occultism at this point.
Praxis: The Kabbalistic praxis embraces a number of concepts.
- Meditation & Prophecy: Also known as "going within" or "being alone with oneself," the process of meditation generally involves the sublimated intonation or chanting of specific Hebrew letters, awakening the consciousness and finding the links between aspects of the world (the cause of prophecy).
- Gematria: Rendering the letters of words into numbers and then finding other words with similar sums, the practice of Gematria can reveal a variety of secrets in the world. Wielded by an Awakened will, the practice of gematria can do more than simply prove relationships; it can forge them, by "proving" two concepts are related by gematria and altering one to alter the other.
- Tree of Life: In original rabbinical Kabbalah, the Tree of Life served a variety of purposes: to demonstrate the path by which God's light manifested in the world (called the Lightning Path, as it zig-zags down the length of the tree like a lightning bolt), and to demonstrate the process of climbing up out of animalistic needs and urges to embrace divine being (called the Serpent Path, which reverses the Lightning Path). More occult-oriented Kabbalism takes this one step further, finding in the sephria a variety of correspondences used in sympathetic principles - using the color and number of a sphere, and invoking the angel of that sphere can assist in the invocation of that sephira's powers.
Traditional Kabbalism is more about the quest up the Tree of Life, climbing from one sephira to the next, becoming closer to God in the process. Occult Kabbalism utilizes this imagery in a variety of ways. Awakened Kabbalists have found an interesting facet to the typical embodiment of power - rather than the normal process of pulling power down the Watchtower, many Awakened Kabbalists envision their Watchtower as the Tree of Life, pulling power down the Lightning Path and allowing it to "ground out" in the sephira appropriate to their spell.
Correspondences: Kabbalistic magic uses a number of correspondences, as follows.
- Tree of Life & the Sephira: The sephira are the ten points on the Tree of Life, which serve as the points of manifestation for the ineffable power of God on its way down the Tree from Kether, each stop allowing God to manifest in a new and different way, each less numinous than the last. Each of the sephira has an Arcanum, a Virtue, a Vice, an Archangel, a Color, a Number and a group of concepts associated with it that are brought to use in the creation of Tradition Rotes and the like.
- Malkut: Matter Arcanum; Virtue - Prudence; Vice - Greed; Archangel - Sandalphon; Color - Brown; Number - 10; Concept - Discipline, materialism, stagnancy.
- Yesod: Death Arcanum; Virtue - Fortitude; Vice - Sloth; Archangel - Gabriel; Color - Purple; Number - 9; Concepts - Perception, reception of ideas, security, the moon.
- Hod: Life Arcanum; Virtue - Hope; Vice - Envy; Archangel - Raphael; Color - Orange; Number - 8; Concepts - Glory of life, air element, names and languge, order and hierarchy, Mercury.
- Netzach: Spirit Arcanum; Virtue - Charity; Vice - Lust; Archangel - Haniel; Color - Green; Number - 7; Concepts - Primal urges, water element, Venus.
- Tipheret: Space Arcanum; Virtue - Faith; Vice - Pride; Archangel - Michael; Color - Yellow; Number - 6; Concepts - Balance of all things, interconnections between things in their proper places, unbrokenness and wholeness, "heart knowledge" that comes of experience, fire element, the Sun.
- Gevurah: Mind Arcanum; Virtue - Justice; Vice - Wrath; Archangel - Kamael; Color - Red; Number - 5; Concepts - Power, might, justice, destruction of the unworthy, protection of the worthy, revenge, cruelty, oppression.
- Chesed: Time Arcanum; Virtue - Fortitude; Vice - Gluttony; Archangel - Zadkiel; Color - Blue; Number - 4; Concepts - Creativity, authority, majesty, Jupiter, symbols of power and authority, moments of inspiration or enlightenment.
- Binah: Fate Arcanum; Virtue - Temperance; Vice - Sloth; Archangel - Cassiel; Color - Black; Number - 3; Concepts - Mother of all form and shape, sacred feminine and fecundity, Saturn.
- Chokhmah: Forces Arcanum; Virtue - Faith; Vice - Wrath; Archangel - Raziel; Color - Silver; Number - 2; Concepts - Divine masculine principle, progenitors of the universe, stars of the Zodiac.
- Kether: Prime Arcanum; Virtue - none; Vice - none; Archangel - Metatron; Color - White; Number - 1; Concepts - Divinity, Ascension, the Prime Mover, Wisdom, the Big Bang, unity.
Higher Mysteries
- Harmonious Magic (•••): When casting a spell that fulfills the nature of that Arcanum's sephira, the mage may reduce any Paradox incurred by one. This applies to any spontaneous magic or Tradition Rotes for Kabbalah.
- Invocation of the Sephira (••••): The power of the sephira infuses the mage's workings with the corresponding Arcana. When the mage casts a spontaneous spell or Tradition Rote of Kabbalah upon himself, if the spell is from an Arcanum that reflects his own Virtue or Vice, he gains a +1 die to the spellcasting roll. Likewise, if he knows the Virtue or Vice of a target (generally garnered through Empathy rolls or Mind spells), he may gain the same bonus when casting on another.
- The Virtue of Man (•••••): When casting a spell that fulfills the caster's Virtue, not only does he regain all his Willpower, but he also gains a point of Mana as the highest Supernal Realms reward the use of their powers towards the purity of the soul's highest nature. When casting a spell that fulfills the caster's Vice, not only does he regain a point of Willpower, but he also reduces the Paradox dice of the spell by one, as the Abyss rewards giving in to the basest urges of the soul. This applies to any spontaneous magic or Tradition Rotes for Kabbalah.
Santeria
Prerequisites: X
Tradition Skills: X
Origins: X
Praxis: X
Correspondences: X
Higher Mysteries
- X (•••): X
- X (••••): X
- X (•••••): X
Taoist Sorcery
Prerequisites: X
Tradition Skills: X
Origins: X
Praxis: X
Correspondences: X
Higher Mysteries
- X (•••): X
- X (••••): X
- X (•••••): X
Templar Mysteries
Prerequisites: X
Tradition Skills: X
Origins: X
Praxis: X
Correspondences: X
Higher Mysteries
- X (•••): X
- X (••••): X
- X (•••••): X
Theosophy
Prerequisites: X
Tradition Skills: X
Origins: X
Praxis: X
Correspondences: X
Higher Mysteries
- X (•••): X
- X (••••): X
- X (•••••): X
Name of Tradition
Prerequisites: X
Tradition Skills: X
Origins: X
Praxis: X
Correspondences: X
Higher Mysteries
- X (•••): X
- X (••••): X
- X (•••••): X
