Wizard: The Ascension

Wizard: The Ascension is an RPG, the third in the Narrative System created and developed by White Wolf to give life to a environment of supernatural creatures in a contemporary habitat called World of Darkness. In it, players play the role of magicians with amazing powers. Its original name is Mage: The Ascension and its publisher in Spain has been La Factoría de Ideas. The original game was first published in the United States in August 1993.

In 1996 the second edition of Wizard: The Ascension won the Origins award for the best set of role-playing rules of 1995, which increased the success and prestige of the game and established this edition as the best Wizard to date. the date. This award was the definitive push for the publication of more role-playing games that use the second edition of the storyteller system rules.

Settings

"Hidden from the eyes of the world, some men and women have Awakened to a reality very different from the one conceived by the paradigm of the human masses, and are capable of altering the foundations of physics with their will, mind and magic Cloaked in the shadows, these individuals band together in motley societies, drawing up plans to make the earth Their world. Thus we will find magicians from the Traditions (Order of Hermes, Verbena, Euthanatos), to Technocrats (Iteration X, NOM, Progenitors), passing through Marauders and Nephandi. All of them are commonly known as wizards."

The game is based on the World of Darkness in which the games Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, among others, coexist.

The World

Wizards are people who possess an Awakened Avatar, which is their mystical soul. This allows you to alter reality, as you understand how it works.

They are limited by the consensus paradigm, the reality created by the total subconscious of the population. This restricts his power, and when he breaks reality (making use of "vulgar magic"), he responds by means of Paradox, a force that accumulates in the magician until it causes him problems that vary from simple annoyances, even physical damage. It can also take the form of Silences (madness), Spirits of Paradox that attack the mage, and Realms of Paradox that trap him.

To avoid this they hide their magic as mere coincidences ("coincidental magic").

They are also limited by their own concept of reality and how it works, or Paradigm, which allows them to use their art only in specific ways.

All mages have a goal to achieve, and in doing so they reach Ascension, a state similar to enlightenment, which takes them and their Avatar to an unknown destination beyond the physical world. Few wizards make it, and their Avatars will keep trying in another reincarnation.

Factions

There are four major factions of mages, facing each other in a conflict called the Ascension War, in which the fate of humanity is at stake, as each faction tries to impose its point of view on the Paradigm. These are the factions, their vision of Ascension, and their constituent groups.

The Traditions are distinguished by their need to seek outside the established scheme, whether it is seeking illumination in ways not accepted by the majority, or the return to old mystical schemes. In one way or another they correspond to the human need for independence and free will.

The Technocrats strive to maintain control over Reality, classifying it, stratifying it. He justifies his actions for the good of "the Masses". They are the greatest force of staticity present in the World of Darkness.

In general terms, The Technocracy considers that the truth is unique, universal and absolute, and therefore reality must be protected from all those who can challenge it (everything supernatural except them, of course). supposed); The Traditions believe that truth is individual and unknown, and therefore can only be found through tireless spiritual quests and journeys towards inner self-knowledge, an exhausting path of secrets, mysteries and half-truths that few magicians manage to complete it, even investing several lives in it; the Nephandi believe that reality must be destroyed (Entropy (or Wyrm) destroys so that things can be reborn and return to the cycle of life and death); the Marauders, if they were able to organize their thoughts and knowledge and organize among themselves, would think that the truth is mutable, variable and random, and reality has no form, however this knowledge has led them to madness (it is the price for understanding the primordial force of Dynamism, or Kaos).

Traditions

• Virtual Adepts (joined after World War II, after detached from Tecnocracy after internal political conflict)
• Celestial Choir
• Dream account
• Ecstasy Cult
• Eutyrates
• Akáshica Brotherhood
• Sons of Ether (combined shortly before World War I, after departing from Tecnocracy after a grave conflict of interests related to the Scientific Paradigm)
• Order of Hermes
• Verbena

There is one group, the Hollow Ones, that while not officially a Tradition, they stick around, and may be part of the Council in the future (their request has been denied countless times, but events during the year 1999 could force their entry).

Technocracy

• Iteration X
• Empty engineers
• Progenitors
• New World Order
• The Union

Nephandians: Mages who instead of seeking personal power ally themselves with evil or deliberately destructive entities, rarely form groups except in the form of dark cults that seek to corrupt and twist mankind.

Marauders: Sometimes the minds of the newly awakened cannot handle the change, and their madness locks them in a dream setting, a perpetual Silence. Where things happen according to the wishes of the insane wizard. Staunch enemies of the Nephandi, the Marauders may seem immune to Paradox, but the truth is that more often than not, it "slips off" on its own. on them without causing much effect. Apparently they do not have any kind of control or diligence.

The Magic

Magic originates from the magician's will and his Areté (term used for his illumination and mystical will). Using the tools of his art the awakened can alter the world according to his paradigm. As the magician progresses, he begins to understand that his will is the only tool necessary, and he will be able to do magic without spotlights to help him. Even so, they usually remain attached to them, whenever the situation allows, since it helps them to concentrate.

An element to consider in magic is Quintessence: an omnipresent element, which makes up all the patterns of reality, and which can be used by a magician to enhance their magic. To do so, the magician must have at his disposal the quintessence of his Avatar, which he will then have to recharge through an external source (with an object that contains said element, or with a place where it sprouts naturally or Node). Quintessence is also needed to be able to create items out of thin air using Cardinal's sphere (see below).

Regarding the Paradox, when a mage goes overboard with vulgar magic, the Paradox attacks in different ways.

• Reactions and Defects: It can damage the magician and even those around him (Reaction) or alter it in ways ranging from annoying changes to deformities, but they are always temporary (Defects). Reaction or Defect will always be consistent with the type of effect the magician did.

• Spirits and Kingdoms: Bring a Spirit of the Paradox that attacks the magician or catches him in a Kingdom of the Paradox located in the Umbra, from which he cannot leave until he understands why he is there and finds the way out.

• Silence: The magician becomes temporarily mad, suffering a deviation to one of the three principles: static, dynamic and entropy. this modification in the behavior of the character varies according to which he approaches.

The Spheres

To facilitate the process of understanding it, Reality is separated into 9 parts or Spheres, which the magician studies and understands separately. These nine spheres are:

• Cardinal: the study of the primordial power of the universe from which all things, beings, worlds and thoughts are formed, to which the magicians call Fifthness.
• Correspondence: relationship between places, situation, orientation and distances.
• Entropy: the random, fortune, destiny and the primary force of universal justice: death and destruction, the cycle of life.
• Spirit: relations with the astral world called Umbra, where the meaning of things becomes real, and with the Spirits who populate it (both those who serve it Gaia and keep pacts with the Wolf Men, like those who serve the Wyrm and claim absolute destruction, through the meca-espiritus insectoides and arcnides of the Weaver or the careless, violent and annoying Kaos).
• Forces: control over all energies such as electricity, movement, gravity, magnetism, light, heat, radiation, sound...
• Matter: manipulation of inorganic matter, ability to alter the chemical qualities of any substance, making alchemical "milagros" such as transforming wood into gold... or increasing water pressure until the pipes explode, or perhaps altering the water itself to convert it into acid.
• Mind: control over perceptions, intelligence and senses of one's own and others. This sphere refers to the conscious part of the differentiated beings of their physical and biological part.
• Time: visions over time, trances that lead to future possibilities or past events, premonitions, precognitions.
• Life: the biological part of any living being, from bacteria and algae to humans.

Game system

The game system is that of White Wolf (the Narrative System) and in the case of Wizard: The Ascension the players play wizards with abilities to manipulate the (imaginary) environment of the game. To do this, an innovative game mechanic is used to invoke magical effects, known as the sphere system. Each sphere represents an area of influence that the magician knows and can manipulate. Thus, the higher the score in the Life sphere, the better it will be able to affect all living bodies (from making them grow or shrink, to killing or healing them). Magic is not arranged in a list of "spells" rather, the players must narrate the actions of their characters so that they manage to manipulate their environment.

Control over the Spheres is gradual, so in order to "perceive" a Sphere only needs to have 1 rank in it, modifying something using that Sphere implies having 2 or 3 ranks in it, and creating or spawning something from that Sphere implies ranks 4 or 5.

For example: A magician wishes to observe what happened in a room 1 hour ago. The sphere involved would be "Time", and you would need to have 2 ranks in this Sphere to manipulate it. If you also want to see what happened beyond the room, you should combine it with "Correspondence" at Rank 2. Seeing through a person's eyes would also involve combining it with "Mind" to level 3. And so on. The more complicated an effect is, the more Spheres it involves and the more ranks in those spheres will be needed.

In 1996 Mage: The Ascension won the Origins Award Best RPG Rule Set of 1995, furthering the success and prestige of the narrative system and marking the definitive push for the publication of a second edition of other World of Darkness role-playing games based on supernatural creatures such as Wraith: Oblivion and Changeling: The Dreaming, as well as spin-off games such as Wizard: The Crusade that also use the system narrative (storyteller system). In addition, as a result of the award, the system was exported for the first time to games that are not part of the world of darkness, such as Street fighter: The storyteller game.

Supplements

Wizard: The Ascension has numerous supplements in multiple languages, including English, French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish. Some of the most interesting you will find below.

• The Book of the Worlds / The Book of Worlds
• Guide to Tecnocracy / Guide to the Technocracy
• The Book of Shadows / The Book of the Shadows
• Mage Storyteller Handbook
• Telaraña Digital 2.0 / Digital Web 2.0
• Tradition Book: Order of Hermes

History of the game

Mage: The Ascension was first published in 1993 by White Wolf by Stewart Wieck, but it was not until 1996 with the second edition developed by Phil Brucato when Mage: The Ascension shot to stardom, winning the prestigious GAMA award for best role-playing game of the year. The third and last edition to be published was Mage: The Ascension Revised (2000) which did not reach the levels of popularity of its predecessor. The publisher also published a setting for the game known as Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade (in Spanish it was called Mago: La Cruzada), which put the same wizards on stage but set in the Renaissance. Taking advantage of the success of the franchise, White Wolf also published the game Dark Ages: Mage (Dark Age: magician) in which the action moved to the middle ages, with all the changes in the setting and in the magical society that this implied although with a different system of rules that based magic on pillars instead of spheres which was not liked by the fans and that compared to the others was not very successful.

The «spiritual» successor to Wizard: The Ascension was apparently Wizard: The Awakening, published in August 2005 in the United States, however in 2015 you will see light the publication of the 20th anniversary edition of Mago: The Ascension, which is expected to be the best edition of Mago to date and whose idea is to continue with the philosophy that led to the success of the second edition of the game.

Spanish translations

The first edition of the game was published in English in 1993 and has never been translated. The following two editions of Mago: la ascensión were translated into Spanish by the Madrid publishing house La Factoría de Ideas, the second in 1996 and the second revised edition in 2000.