![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ran around pretending to be a wizard for six hours yesterday. A mage, actually--apparently there is a big difference. A mage is a person who has access to a highly esoteric, occult, and powerful body of knowledge. A wizard is a person who goes around with a pointy hat and a long beard.
My character: Dr. Thora Mordrid. Dour, pedantic, snippy. (Well, I'm trying.) Wears turtlenecks, birth-control glasses, and her hair pulled back. She is a Mastigos, dealing with Hell and the Mind; Mastigos are known for being manipulative and untrustworthy (I'm a little too naive to pull that off, yet, but I'm also new as a Mastigos). Her magical aura is Lovecraftian, and her spells blah blah blah you don't really care about any of that.
The interesting part about her is her magical theories. She was a psychiatrist, you see. Now, everyone knows about the existence of Mages, yes? No? Why not? Are none of you pathetic geeks like me? I'm disappointed, I really am. Anyway, Mages are pretty much normal people until they go through things called Awakenings, which start out as "OMG there's something weird going on," go through a period of hallucinations which are actually real, then settle down slowly into their new lives as fireball-chuckers. There's also a subplot about Atlantis, but Thora is in the Free Council (bunch of lawless hippies), and she doesn't really care about Atlantis at all. So you're spared the mystical stuff. Be thankful.
Thora's backstory (yes, you do have to suffer through this): She Awakened through close study of her patients, many of whom were undergoing Awakenings instead of, as she had previously thought, simply having schizophrenic fugues. She now counsels new Mages through their own Awakenings, and is doing research on the connections between hallucinatory states and Awakenings. Contrary to popular Mage belief, she believes that within every Sleeper (non-Mage) lies a Mage, and that there must be some kind of trigger that will create an Awakening within a person. (This may involve hallucinogenic drugs. Don't rule anything out.)
So! I went up to Powers Hall, be-spectacled, be-turtlenecked, and be-doured. I brought Kathryn along with me as well, since she'd wanted to see what all the fuss was about. She ended up playing either an Awakening patient who thought she was a cat, or a cat soul within a human body. (OMG furry.) She did this by crawling around on all fours and meowing a lot, and was quite popular. (Everyone loves a catgirl.)
The evening started out normally, with a bunch of mages dead, a mage called Bladewing creating an evil evil haven house which can respond to your commands and shock you if it doesn't like you, and the Mages organizing into little cabals. Our cabal dicked around for a while, testing the house out and getting the feel of our characters. I was prepared for a fairly slow, character-driven game for a while; I even started psychoanalyzing the youngest mage there, a 15-year-old character who suffered from claustrophobia brought on by being an instinctive fighter. I was having a nice time...
...then Logan walked in.
I do not refer to Wolverine, although he reminds me of Wolverine somewhat. No, this is big, blonde, been-around-the-block-and-got-the-demon-heads-mounted-on-my-wall-to-prove-it Logan, who's been with the Camarilla since time immemorial. He tells great stories, blows smoke rings, and occasionally calls me "sweetheart." If I were straight, I'd probably have a crush on him. As it is, I happen to think he's pretty freaking awesome.
He immediately made a fantastic entrance by claiming that Bladewing was melded with a demon from the Abyss, and demanded support in overthrowing the bastard. "Oh, cool," I thought, "we're going to see some action tonight."
Alas, it was not to be. Nobody believed him. Nobody wanted to go with him. Why not? The reasons I got: A) He's a Guardian of the Veil (the Mage equivalent of the Gestapo; they are responsible for making sure that Mages don't let mortals in on the secret), and we're all reasonable, forward-thinking people, and we're not going to let him boss us around; B) Another player whose background indicates that he's known Logan's character, the Bishop, for a long time, suddenly turned around and decided to order everyone he possibly could to not cooperate with him. I thought that both of these were extremely lame reasons.
The Bishop, being a fellow Mastigos, took me aside later and let me in on a few secrets about the Abyss, Bladewing, and some other freaky shit. I was intrigued. My (comparatively) mellow little Mastigos was intrigued. After some negotiation with the various members of my cabal, I quietly took my leave and was initiated into the Weird Shit part of the game, which involves various demonic Elder God-type creatures, the Bishop wanting to take over the city, Kindred and Forsaken (Vampires and Werewolves, although now Vampires are considered to be never-human monsters entirely different from the once-human Forsaken), and a bunch of Mastigos sniping at each other. I could tell, immediately, that I was in waaaaaay over my head. Fortunately, everyone else was in over their heads, never having played the game before, and so I was in good company.
Slightly gobsmacked at the potential crossover, I left to re-join my cabal in a lame attempt at double-agent-ness. The game ended there, so we've got a little personal cliffhanger: Will Thora's cabal vote her back in? Will anyone cooperate with the Bishop? Will Logan, miffed at the aforementioned character who went around telling everyone not to trust his old buddy, actually come back next game? I hope so.
My character: Dr. Thora Mordrid. Dour, pedantic, snippy. (Well, I'm trying.) Wears turtlenecks, birth-control glasses, and her hair pulled back. She is a Mastigos, dealing with Hell and the Mind; Mastigos are known for being manipulative and untrustworthy (I'm a little too naive to pull that off, yet, but I'm also new as a Mastigos). Her magical aura is Lovecraftian, and her spells blah blah blah you don't really care about any of that.
The interesting part about her is her magical theories. She was a psychiatrist, you see. Now, everyone knows about the existence of Mages, yes? No? Why not? Are none of you pathetic geeks like me? I'm disappointed, I really am. Anyway, Mages are pretty much normal people until they go through things called Awakenings, which start out as "OMG there's something weird going on," go through a period of hallucinations which are actually real, then settle down slowly into their new lives as fireball-chuckers. There's also a subplot about Atlantis, but Thora is in the Free Council (bunch of lawless hippies), and she doesn't really care about Atlantis at all. So you're spared the mystical stuff. Be thankful.
Thora's backstory (yes, you do have to suffer through this): She Awakened through close study of her patients, many of whom were undergoing Awakenings instead of, as she had previously thought, simply having schizophrenic fugues. She now counsels new Mages through their own Awakenings, and is doing research on the connections between hallucinatory states and Awakenings. Contrary to popular Mage belief, she believes that within every Sleeper (non-Mage) lies a Mage, and that there must be some kind of trigger that will create an Awakening within a person. (This may involve hallucinogenic drugs. Don't rule anything out.)
So! I went up to Powers Hall, be-spectacled, be-turtlenecked, and be-doured. I brought Kathryn along with me as well, since she'd wanted to see what all the fuss was about. She ended up playing either an Awakening patient who thought she was a cat, or a cat soul within a human body. (OMG furry.) She did this by crawling around on all fours and meowing a lot, and was quite popular. (Everyone loves a catgirl.)
The evening started out normally, with a bunch of mages dead, a mage called Bladewing creating an evil evil haven house which can respond to your commands and shock you if it doesn't like you, and the Mages organizing into little cabals. Our cabal dicked around for a while, testing the house out and getting the feel of our characters. I was prepared for a fairly slow, character-driven game for a while; I even started psychoanalyzing the youngest mage there, a 15-year-old character who suffered from claustrophobia brought on by being an instinctive fighter. I was having a nice time...
...then Logan walked in.
I do not refer to Wolverine, although he reminds me of Wolverine somewhat. No, this is big, blonde, been-around-the-block-and-got-the-demon-heads-mounted-on-my-wall-to-prove-it Logan, who's been with the Camarilla since time immemorial. He tells great stories, blows smoke rings, and occasionally calls me "sweetheart." If I were straight, I'd probably have a crush on him. As it is, I happen to think he's pretty freaking awesome.
He immediately made a fantastic entrance by claiming that Bladewing was melded with a demon from the Abyss, and demanded support in overthrowing the bastard. "Oh, cool," I thought, "we're going to see some action tonight."
Alas, it was not to be. Nobody believed him. Nobody wanted to go with him. Why not? The reasons I got: A) He's a Guardian of the Veil (the Mage equivalent of the Gestapo; they are responsible for making sure that Mages don't let mortals in on the secret), and we're all reasonable, forward-thinking people, and we're not going to let him boss us around; B) Another player whose background indicates that he's known Logan's character, the Bishop, for a long time, suddenly turned around and decided to order everyone he possibly could to not cooperate with him. I thought that both of these were extremely lame reasons.
The Bishop, being a fellow Mastigos, took me aside later and let me in on a few secrets about the Abyss, Bladewing, and some other freaky shit. I was intrigued. My (comparatively) mellow little Mastigos was intrigued. After some negotiation with the various members of my cabal, I quietly took my leave and was initiated into the Weird Shit part of the game, which involves various demonic Elder God-type creatures, the Bishop wanting to take over the city, Kindred and Forsaken (Vampires and Werewolves, although now Vampires are considered to be never-human monsters entirely different from the once-human Forsaken), and a bunch of Mastigos sniping at each other. I could tell, immediately, that I was in waaaaaay over my head. Fortunately, everyone else was in over their heads, never having played the game before, and so I was in good company.
Slightly gobsmacked at the potential crossover, I left to re-join my cabal in a lame attempt at double-agent-ness. The game ended there, so we've got a little personal cliffhanger: Will Thora's cabal vote her back in? Will anyone cooperate with the Bishop? Will Logan, miffed at the aforementioned character who went around telling everyone not to trust his old buddy, actually come back next game? I hope so.