u/Carminoculus

I went ahead and listened to the Tomes of Magick podcast where they review Stewart Wieck's original draft of Mage "0th Edition". [Part I] [Part II]

---- THE THEMES OF THE GAME ----

In a nutshell, 0e Mage has three axes of conflict:

• the more familiar Mage "consensual reality" aspect against the materialist Technomancers, but
• also a Werewolf-shamanist axis about Mages going on spirit journeys to "fix the world" by exploring the Realms, visiting dreams and foiling the Wyrm-corrupted Nephandi in the Umbra.
• Lastly there's an internal / mundane axis in which the mages, driven by their Avatars, seek to revolutionize "human civilization" and the staid Traditions themselves.

It seems the retooling of 1st Ed. to focus on the Technocracy was a response by the WW team to make it "more like" games like Werewolf which sought to embody a punk conflict that'd be appealling and understandable to the public.

The Umbra, including an extensive "dream realm" in which Mages protect / learn from the dreams of sleepers against potentially invasive dream spirits and nephandi, plays a large role in 0e.

The sentence that captured my imagination is 0e defining Nephandi as "Umbra-only foes" and Technomancers as "material world-only foes". Mage 0e seems less of an overwhelming conflict or a central villain, but more diverse potential conflicts in an exploration game.

There are no 'cauls'. Nephandi are explicitly mages warped by the Wyrm so much they can only exist in the Umbra as deformed nightmare-creatures, where they disrupt mages' astral journeys and spiritual efforts. The Technocracy is unambiguously evil, but more like the Seers of the Throne.

To me this "second axis of conflict" - in which mages play the shaman/gnostic role - sounds like a dry run for the Awakening's "cosmic-looking" idea of trying to reconnect the world with the heavens.

---- THE ESSENCE GAME & MAGIC SYSTEM ----

One difference is that the vulgar/coincidental magick distinction feels a lot less focused on RBD/PBD HAP/HOP perceptual stuff.

To quote the podcasters reading the book, what is coincidental and isn't is "not to be laid out in a rulebook" and is called out as "to be decided at the table". On the other hand, Rotes allow Discipline-like obvious supernatural effects that depend on Skills and don't suffer Paradox.

All "non-obvious" magick (like scrying, perception, etc.) is explicitly called out as depending on attribute+skill rolls by default and never incurring paradox.

As also in 1e, difficulties are equal for coincidental + vulgar effects. The main difference is you need to spend Quint. for vulgar effects, except for vulgar effects affiliated with your Essence's spheres, which also have -1 difficulty.

The main limitation on Vulgar magick seems to be this Quint tax... and Quintessence is a lot harder to get in 0e, apparently (no Crays), so you have to be careful with vulgar magic outside your Essence's specialty spheres. The sphere by essence are,

- Dynamic has Life/Mind.

- Pattern has Forces/Matter.

- Primordial has Entropy/Time.

- Questing has Correspondence/Spirit.

Prime is special and has no essence.

The Essences explicitly form a second axis of character creation on top of the traditions, not unlike the Watchtowers in Awakening, but have a more impactful mechanical effect.

There are two "families" or streams in each essence, with a social organization in the WoD (so you're member of both a tradition and a family), and each family gives you two rotes each (so each starting mage has two rotes from Essence + 1 from Tradition, representing their special trick... Verbena get shape-changing, f.ex.)

The main reason I undertook this exercise was to figure out what the original conception of coincidental/vulgar was, and... it seems to be a very flexible idea of "subtle slow magick vs. in-your-face magick". The obvious allowance that mages *can* use in-your-face magic through Rotes just like Vampires can use Disciplines is very interesting, and I feel offers a tantalizing mechanical niche that MtAs never explored again.

The entire system of Mythic Threads (and Rotes and Essences) appears to be a way for Mages to specialize thematically and pull off Vulgar effects with more power and less expenditure of resources.

---- OTHER ODDITIES ----

The Virtual Adepts are described as members in good standing of BOTH the Traditions AND the Technocracy. "Technocrats don't hate them." The proto-Etherites don't hate the Technocracy either. I assume this means semi-friendly relations with the Technocrats are not impossible, though they're definitely an oligarchy of bastards.

The Tremere have a good relationship with the Traditions and the Hermetics, and are called out as good candidates for multi-splat games in which Tremere are vampire members/apprentices of Mage chantries as House Tremere seeks to reintegrate into Awakened society (I love this; the WoD always needed a serious check on the "everyone wants to kill everyone else on sight").

Dreamspeakers were meant to interface with the extensive Dream Magic system that got canned.

The Cult of Ecstasy were the Initiates of the Invisible World, apparently modelled on the Hellfire Club.

It just hit me two days ago that Isha is a goddess of nature and somehow i felt the urge to draw a version of her in different seasons.

I knew for Winter she had to wear fur, but i couldn't see her wearing something dead, so a live Gyrinx will have to do the job! Also got that Kitty Sleeve Action going on.

God Knows when i'll have the time to draw the other seasons (but the sketches are all done)