Mage The Ascension - Tumblr Posts
Rumours speak of a powerful lich stirring beneath Baltimore
Click on the picture for better quality!
Technocratic OCs yay
My amalgam of losers 😎
Fanfact: the only actual Black Suit here is the guy on the left. Others are from other conventions and are just dressed up for the ✨vibe✨
My Mage: the Ascension lady from the Technocratic Union has evolved in both her backstory and her looks 😌
Her codename is Marionettist (or Marie for short). She is from Iteration X and she doesn't like her pathetic meat body and wants to change it for a mechanical one as soon as she gets the chance. She already uses some mechanical prototypes, that's how she got her codename — she kinda pulls the strings of those extra bodies of hers, y'know?
About her t-shirt... I kinda headcannon that if the N.W.O. makes messed up jokes based on "1984", then Iteration X really should do so with "I have no mouth and I must scream", so there's that... I wonder what other man-made horrors can be used by other conventions. I'm open to suggestions xD
Yeah, this girl doesn't like Syndicate one bit. Actually everyone in her Amalgam doesn't like Syndicate, even the guy who is a Syndicate member. They are cautious about voicing their dislikes, though. I wonder why.
Meme on her t-shirt was made by ᛕᚤᛚⰓᛁᚹ ᛜ'ᛟᛋᛖ on Steam
My etherite OC, Xavier, thinks aloud. I like him so much. He has such a funny platonic lovehate with Marionettist (my ItXer OC, I showed her a couple posts earlier)... Two scientists (well, sort of), who respect stubbornness they share, but absolutely can't stand scientific (or not so much) theories their opponent has...
The breaking point for my Void Engineer OC, Supernova
Even more Technocratic propaganda in the form of my OC art! Can you tell I love Technocracy much more than the Council of Nine, or do I have to draw 62838392920202 more technocratic pieces? (just joking I'll probably do the latter anyways in due time 😌)
This time here is my Progenitor (to be precise, Pharmacopoeist) OC, Danaida. She's a good-hearted lady who genuinely wishes the best for everyone, even Reality Deviants. It's not her fault "the best" comes in the form of capturing RD and letting N.W.O. socially condition them 😔
I mean, she saw what Reality Deviants are capable of. The destruction they can cause to others. Themselves, too. She's aligning with Technocracy because it does offer the best option in the endless pool of awful options.
Or does it?
Art of PCs with surviving NPCs from an MtAs one-shot I've storytelled a few months ago. My brain exploded while I was trying to figure out MtAs rules, but we had a ton of fun. As a proof, here is a list of things my dear PCs achieved:
- Reached a good ending, saved the city from ghost invasion, helped with reunion of brother, sister and their ghostly grand-grand-grand-uncle (see in the upper right corner)
- Instead of running away from Technocracy went with them willingly. Technocrats were shocked. I was shocked. PCs proceeded to behave in a "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!" manner.
- Helped an NWO agent get free from nephandic influence in his life and convinced him to switch sides for the Cult of Ecstasy (Upper left corner, the guy in question is the one with dark shades – old habits die hard. The grandpa in the middle is PC, the girl on the right is another Ecstatic).
- Were saved from Room 101 by Nephandus. They didn't know his affiliation at the moment, but the fact still stands.
- Helped another NWO agent with getting rid of his evil nephandic ex. Saved another few technocrats from being hurt by Nephandi. Had a reluctant alliance. Were let go in peace after Nephandi had been dealt with, because the amalgam my PCs mostly interacted with are losers, but they are grateful-for-PCs-help losers. See lower-right corner for losers /affectionately.
- Yeeted a wolf in space (he was evil).
- Saved a sparrow. It was an important plot point, actually.
- The girl on the right in the lower left corner (yeah) got a hold of an Euthanathoi cult. I mean, she's a Euthanathoi herself, so it makes sense. But it was a huge growing step for her.
- Made quite a bit of friends among wraiths in the local library.
Yeah, the one-shot was really goofy and I was storytelling technocrats as basically clowns (in my defence, they were low-ranking and unprepared for everything that went down) and I pretty sure I messed the rules up even if I have 0 idea where. BUT. We had a lot of fun. And that's all I needed from this silly story.
❗cw: blood❗
What do agents of Technocratic Union have in their trunk? Wrong answers only.
Meanwhile, out of the trunk, from left to right we have:
- an N.W.O. agent who was a Grey Suit before being demoted to MiB for making too many decisions on his own - decisions which turned out not like both he and his superiors hoped they would;
- a low-ranking Syndicate agent who was in mob before Awakening (which was a side effect of Technocratic operation concerning his organisation...) and who technically stays in mob. I mean, Extralegal (what a word!) Division of Syndicate Enforcers is basically a mafia;
- a Void Engineer whose Horizon Construct was messed up during Dimensional Anomaly (Avatar Storm) and who now deals with paranormal on Earth out of inability to stay away from action.
So. Uhm. Remember MtAs one-shot I've storytelled months ago?
There was an NWO agent who was really close to becoming one of Technephandi.
Well, my players managed to redeem him. And get him away from Technocracy for a while. So he has spent some time with Cult of Ecstacy of all people. And now he's one of them.
He's currently on a run from both Technocracy and Traditions, because the former is obviously not glad about the betrayal and potential information leak and the latter would like to "ask him a few questions" since not every day MiB turns Ecstatic, they need to make sure he's not a double agent and also get some information about Technocracy from him. And he doesn't want to give any information to anyone, he wants to be left alone. Oh, and also Technephandi are curious about where has he disappeared to as well, but they haven't caught up on the latest events or his traces. Yet.
For now he stays with one of Ecstatic loners and desperately searches for a way to blackmail each and every organisation looking for him in a way which will allow him to have some peace. Good luck for him, I guess. I mean, he has a chance since I, the Storyteller, am rooting for him. I blame my players for making me really invested in life on an NPC who was meant to die at the end of the one-shot. What a bunch of people 🙄 /affectionate
So yeah. Have a weird conceptual piece about personal growth and putting yourself in danger for it. From NWO agent to almost Technephandi to Ecstatic. What an insane character arc.
This is my beloved girl, Evgeniya Kazarina aka "Three". Profecient in Mind Sphere, despite being only 19. One of the Hollow.
I have MtAs brainrot. Specifically, Technocracy brainrot. Send help these bastards won't leave my mind... N.W.O., is this your social processing kicking in? 🥺
Context under the cut:
This picture is honouring the fact that I got my hands on Revised edition Iteration X book and the way their relationship with Syndicate was described is hilarious to me. Check this out:
I adore how in-universe when ppl talk about Syndicate they sound like a gun is held to their heads 🤡
Oh, a bit more of explaining the picture.
Two people on the upper part are ItXers. In the lower part we have some proper Syndicate buddie. Behind him are a Syndicate Enforcer and a MiB (without his suit, a pity).
You may say: "Okay, Enforcer is maybe playing a bodyguard or smth for the higher-ranking Syndicate member, but what is N.W.O. agent doing here?". Well, here's the thing. Both him and the Enforcer actually share and amalgam with girl in upper right corner. So even if they aren't related to Iteration X needing Syndicate's money, they are still quietly mourning the fact that they probably aren't getting any financing ever again just by association with this mess.
so i've been playing mage the ascension
we're playin a bunch of orphans who all knew each other pre-awakening, went our separate ways, but are now livin in a fucked up house with very little memory of how we came to be living here. we did not know the others were mages upon moving in. as we've been forced to use magic in front of each other in life or death situations tho, we've figured it out.
the rent is free, tho, bc our landlord fucked off to the bahamas suddenly. the level of haunted is not enough to beat not paying rent.
this shitty little doodle comes from my character (the redhead) spilling weird magic liquid on herself in some seemingly-abandoned mages lab in our house's own personal backrooms (long story), being immediately forcibly thrown into a horrifying seeking (my arete was only 2 so pray for me goin forward) where she almost died and her avatar shit talked her, came back to consciousness, had this interaction with her friend, then fell into a seizure. i cannot stop thinking about this sequence of events.
Optimistic nihilist no fear of death hollow one vs. her might have already died at some point best pal
Who is your Mage character?
ok my keen was low for a hot minute there but it's bACK and im ready to ramble
Bonnie Raith-Ballantyne is an absolute monster of a mage - she doesn't have much arete, or dots amongst her spheres, or anything really: except for the three things she does have.
Monstrous willpower.
A 5-dot avatar.
Money to burn.
She is VERY Scottish, VERY enthusiastic about academia, and VERY ready to do anything and everything that she wants.
She's a totally self-indulgent character, in that I went, "hm, what's an aesthetic I like?" and just built someone who is very 'dark academia'. She's a daughter of the wealthy elite, with easy access to academic circles, and the plotline of our mage game revolves around all of us, as newly-awakened orphans, all moving into the same house, previously owned by an archmage. This is, of course, no accident, but it wasn't arranged by us, and we have very fuzzy memories of why any of us moved here, or our landlord.
The setting is peak dark academia, the character is peak dark academia, and the storyline is peak academia, it's been insanely fun.
Her awakening happened at her pretentious friend group's faux-Bacchanalia party, and the Storyteller has been dropping hints that in a past life, Bonnie may have been the oracle at Delphi, or at least in some way relevant to Apollo's cult. He's weaving plot threads that had me veer violently off my very Prime/Mind course and hurtle down Time instead.
She's the Party Face, but also the one with all the willpower, so a lot of the time she's like "right, ok, we're doing this." She's usually the first volunteer for magic experiments - although her best friend, another PC, has recently had her promise to stop almost dying, which is valid I suppose! So she's chilling out on that stuff.
She's made good friends with a local mage's familiar, but the guy all but loathes her, so that's been a fun dynamic to play out. She's also had her life saved by another guy repeatedly, but they both have incredibly manic vibes, so the closer they get, the more antics are on the horizon. I'm very, very excited about the character, and absolutely adoring playing her.
