From the makers of "Frenzy" a Vampire: the Requiem production comes a new Mage the Awakening campaign brought to you by Drizzy.
Innocent Awakenings: An Actual Play
Why: This is largely an introductory game for my players. I decided to ease them into Mage the awakening. We will start as children Mages (mixing Innocents and Mage the Awakening) in Japan and each character will start off with only one rote and 2 in one arcana and 1 in another.As we progress they will quickly gain more dots in their arcana, and more rotes among the experience points they are given. By the end of these sessions they will have the suggested starting arcana for a Mage: the Awakening character.
Setting: Some changes: there are no Paths. There are assumed to be many watchtowers. Also any character can choose to join any legacy.
Past that, the setting is in Japan. Specifically Tokyo. These children(the players) attend a school for Mages that has just opened. It is located in a Space magic created 4th floor to the Tokyo University research library. The characters in these first 3-4 sessions will learn to use their newly found abilities and pick orders.
Theme: Learning through doing. This is very much going to be a game of experimentation of magic, to let the players get used to the rules of Awakening in a fun and interactive way.
Mood: Each chapter will have a different mood, some being scary, others being heroic.
I will be writing these sessions in a much different style than Frenzy, offering you a glimpse more of the actual game play presenting it as if it were a game and not a story.
So, let the fun begin, I will post the Character Descriptions hopefully tomorrow, I am still chiseling out the specifics with one player.
The Players:
Allan (Shinko) Vega: He is the only son of the wealthy Tom and Anne Vega (of Vega Corp, Seattle Washington): two people who are married to their job and had a kid without really realizing what that meant. Allan has always had everything he has wanted in the form of wealth and items, but he has come to realize wealth doesn't replace never seeing your parents. His craving for attention lead to his violent nature in private school, punching other kids just so his parents would pay attention. After 3 private schools his family hired a private tutor and he was instead homeschooled. He felt trapped in his own body, and he dreamt of another world of bone and silver, of death and iron. Through his dream he found himself in the underworld of Stygia and found the Leaden tower. He imagined his name in the stone of the tower, and it was there. He awoke the next morning, figuratively and literally. He found a whole new world after his awakening, making friends with ghosts and sculpting clay models for the ghosts to inhabit: his only friend is death itself.
Rin (Kami) Daktari: The younger sister of Lorenzo, she is a shy young girl who is very interested in new technology and can always be seen with her PDA or gameboy, rapidly pressing buttons and accessing a completely different world. When she was younger, she found a radio tower and wanted to see how high she could climb, and wondered if she could boost the signal of her PDA if she were to climb even higher. She ended up climbing all the way to the supernal realm, finding herself on the border of Arcadia and Aether, in a realm of timeless beauty. She found a digital plack to scribble her name in with her stylus on a tower made of metal and glass. She quickly found herself back to reality, stuck at the top of a very high radio tower, seeing the world in a completely different way. She got down with the help of some firetruck ladders, but she came down a different girl.
Lorenzo (Keiji) Daktari: Older brother to Rin, he is an outgoing and abrasive boy. He seems to always get his way, even before he awakened. He was in class, day dreaming and dreamt he was upon a tower made of iron and glass, a structure ruled by the foulest of the demon and Fae. They asked him if he wanted power and he said yes. They asked him to write his name and he did. When he came to, he was standing in front of the class, he had written his name on the board and was being told to sit down by his teacher. His classmates looked frightened by him. He sat down the same kid, but now he could bend the world to his liking, bringing about the things he wanted most. You could call him young, arrogant, and sometimes a bully. He has a strong personality for someone so young and he will always watch out for his younger sister.
Ayano (Fe) Shinju: Ayano grew up on a farm in a little mountain village in Japan. She was always a nature lover and a shy young girl: she found more friends among the animals and spent most of her time in the forests around her house. One day when she was wandering through the forest, she got lost . She found herself lost in a world that was not exactly her own, the nature around her was more alive than ever, and she feat even more alive herself. She found herself drawn further into the forest and then she found a tree, a tree so large she couldn't see the top. She saw other names written on the tree and saw a spot for her own. She took out her knife and carved her name into the tree. After staying at the tree for what seemed like an eternity she finally decided it was time to leave and made her way back out of the forest. When she left this forest she had awakenend.
Chapter 0: Prelude (The First day of Class)
This wasn't really a session but more of a get together we all had to discuss the orders, the realms supernal, Mu(atlantis), the Magic System, and the Lex Magica. Ultimately it failed as a session for it was basically 3 hours of information dump where I just rapid fire taught the players what it meant to be a mage. I was criticized, rightly so, that the session felt to much like class and that such a factual dump, while maybe necessary, was not necessarily fun. We won't do that again, but mage is just so much more deeply complicated than any of the other games really are, and when all of your players haven't read a single WoD book it can get complicated real quickly.
Important things to note: there was some narrative that went along with this. Each of the characters are in different dorm rooms, Lorenzo and Allan share a bunk in one dorm while Rin and Ayano share a bunk in another dorm room. Class is structured such that the students have normal Japanese curriculum on Monday-Thursday but on Friday they have a day of purely magic and magely studies. Take Takemoto woke the children with a song Leaning ( just the first minute of the video link, which I played for the players.) They went through their first day of mage class and were asked to stay after class to tell the teachers what happened to them at the little mountain village where they were found before they were enrolled in this school. The next session will be a “flashback” session where the players will play out their characters first meeting each other and the events that followed.
There are currently 5 teachers and a Headmistress. Also there are 23 students all between the ages 7-12, 16 of which are Japanese. The five teachers are:
Take (kuu-toki) Takemoto: He is the youngest teacher, looking to be fresh out of college himself. He is pretty well liked by most of the students and staff and he is a member of the Free Council. He is the Choir, Non magical history, and Lex magica/Consilium teacher.
Hide (sei-toki) Miyata: He is the younger looking twin of the two Miyata brothers, he appears to be around 25. He is a member of the Silver Ladder and part of the Pure Sovereigns, a Legacy with an attainment for extending ones lifespan. He is the debate team leader, the math teacher, and the Auras and Resonance teacher.
Junya (sei-shin) Miyata: He is the older looking of the two twins appearing to be in his late 30s. He is a member of the Adamantine Arrow and a follower of the Stewards of the Celestial Orrery using his divinations for help to prevent or end war rather than start it. He teaches Martial Arts, Science, and Magical Places.
Mari (mei-chikara) Suzuki: She is a woman in her later 20's that always dresses to kill. She is a member of the Guardians of the Veil and part of an order The Sisterhood of the Blessed who use their social skill and luck to better themselves and others: with her connections she can erase any event she needs. She is the Art Club leader, teaches Japanese and English, and teaches Magic and the Imago.
Sachiko (shi-kuu)Yoshido: An older woman who is quiet, strict, structured, and dresses conservatively. She is a member of the Mysterium and the Shinto Ressurectionists(name pending, basically a Japanese version of the Bokor that deals with Shintoism instead of Voodoo.) She represents a musical instrument club, teaches literature, and teaches A Magical History (Mu and The Awakened World After.)
Talitha Morita: The quiet headmistress, she looks like she must be at least 80 years old and she is rumored to be an Archmaster. She was the one who founded and funded the school, bringing together all of the students and teachers. She doesn't speak much, but she seems to love children, and she quietly approves of what is going on in her school.
Chapter 1: Mountain Mother
The setting is a small mountain town in rural japan in the early 90s. Rin, Lorenzo, and their little brother are being dropped off at their Granmother's house. Their Grandmother is also a Mage: she is one of two that live in this village, the other being Shinju Ayano. Alan Vega is going to be arriving in the town as a foreign exchange student.
Lorenzo and Rin Show up at their Grandmother's with their little brother. Their brother is going through a stage in his life(he is a toddler) where he will piont at almost anything he sees and proclaim “oonchi,” the Japanese word for poop.
((seems trivial, but these little details can help make a character more real and can help the story out later))
Alan Vega shows up and Shinju Ayana's farm stead.
Alan and Shinju wake up early, 6:00 oclock to tend to the animals, especially the chickens, and do other choroes. Alan is seething: he has never had to do such manual labor. Shinju is seething: this brat from America is not cooperating.
Lorenzo and Rin were told by their grandmother to avoid the woods. But, being kids, they become bored and head outside to the woods. They don't find anything interesting, they actually notice that there is seemingly no wildlife around, and then their Grandmother calls them back to the house and they get chastised. She tells them that a little boy went missing 2 months ago, and the woods are nto a safe place to play.
Sometime around noon both groups end up at the Market.
Rin and Lorenzo are at the market with grandma and she takes their little brother around shopping. She gives them some yen and lets them do their own shopping.
Alan and Shinju are there to pick up some supplies for home. Before they leave they are cautioned about the curfew and the woods. Shinju tells Alan the story of little shinji and how he disappeared about 2 months ago.
Alan is wearing a full suit and tie in the middle of the summer.
While at the Market, Shinju senses two spirits that are very foreign to this part of town: a snow leopard and a hawk.
((Rin and Lorenzo and Shinju all have familiars: the Grandmother mage is a master of Spirit. Alan has an Artifact knife that lets him use the matter 3 spell “plasticity,” he got it from a mysterious benefactor.))
Shinju sends her snake familiar, Martin, to investigate.
Rin and both of the familiars notice the other Familiar. The snake slithers back to her. Rin hides her aura and scrutinies the other two kids, the one the snake returned to and the one in the suit. She realizes they are both Mages. She tells her brother and they both head in the other direction.
Rin and Lorenzo end up at the edge of the market at Jim's vegetable stand.
((Jim is an old man and has some of the best weed in the Japan. He is also the last remaining member of his werewolf pack and is a "retired" werewolf. He keeps the entire village and mountainside as his territory and is infamous among other packs that call the surrounding areas home.))
Shinju follows the other two from afar and Alan goes into a shop and finds an old book on fairy tails and monsters.
Jim begins to talk to the two kids about their familiars, he wonders if they know Shinju or their Grandmother.
Neither of them speak to him and Rin focuses on his aura. She sees a primal energy in him, she smells blood, and also hears drums with a low beat, like a heart.
“What are you?”
Jim answers as best he can without trying to not scare the girl, “I am a being made of both spirit, like your familiar, and man.”
Shinju shows up and talks to Jim. Jim passingly tells shinju that something has been stealing some of his vegetables from his private stores up on the mountain. She then then talks to the two kids. When they reveal who their grandmother is she says she knows their Grandmother quite well: she helped attach her familiar, Martin, to her . Alan shows up and then Lorenzo berates him for being a freak for wearing suit in such hot weather. Alan tries to punch Lorenzo a couple times, but misses, and then Jim breaks the fight apart.
They all leave the Market, things not ending on a good note.
Alan and Shinju are walking home with supplies from the market and as they walk past the Granmothers house on the way home Shinju says they should stop by for some tea. Alan isn't opposed to the idea so they arrive at grandmother's house. They talk, have tea, Lorenzo calls Alan a freak, and Lorenzo is sent to his room. At about this time all of the characters hear “Oonchi!” yelled in desperation from backyard!
They rush out to the back, both snake and hawk fly toward woods in front, Rin is the first one to make it to her little brother. He is scraped up and has some thorns and twigs on him but otherwise he is unharmed.
Shinju senses a very fast and powerful life form at the edge of the forest. Her snake tries to follow but can't keep up. Rin sends her hawk familiar into the forest and sees through her hawk's eyes. She follows a figure in a black robe go deeper into the woods until it becomes impossible through the thick trees to continue tracking it. The hawk searches more but eventually flies back.
The Grandmother ushers them all inside as the sun is setting and tells the other two children that she will drive them back to Shinju's place.
Everyone goes to bed. No one goes to sleep.
Alan stays up late and reads the story of the mountain mother and how she would snatch away children. He moves to the hallway to wake shunju but shinju is one step ahead of him and already out of bed. They both grab supplies and head out. They move to grandmothers house and find that Lorenzo and Rin never went to bed either. Those two come outside and they all decide they want to look further into this weird case and also want to figure out what happened to Rin and Lorenzo's brother.
They all end up going up the mountain side a bit to Jim's house. Jim is awake and in his shed. When they arrive Jim tells them someone has been stealing from his shed again. He says there is a trail leading to a small hole in the side of the mountain. He says he can't track past that. The kids debate whether or not they should go into the cave. Shinju and Alan decide they want to look for the boy, the other two decide they would rather not be alone with Jim, on a full moon. Jim sends his dog in to follow them, but this dog looks more like a wolf and Rin notices that this dog has the exact same aura as Jim. She suspects it is Jim, rightly so. Jim takes up the front and she always keeps an eye on him.
They meet a ghost girl. Alan talk to her, she seems lost. She says she has been wandering for a long time and can't find her way out. She misses her mom and needs to get out. Alan asks her if she has seen any women or a little boy named shinji. She says she was brought here by a woman and she has recently met a little boy. She will show them the way if they help her get out of the caves.
They eventually come to a little salt mine area, finding 3 dead bodies, a storage container and a frightened little boy name shinji. He is unhurt, but extremely frightened and takes some persuading to get him to come with the other children. Then, an old frightening woman appears in the entrance they just came through.
Alan uses a spell to find hidden doors and realizes they are not trapped but there is another exit. Jim stands between the old mountain mother and the kids. Rin gives Shinju a bottle of alcohol and then with Lorenzo takes Shinji out the secret exit.
((Rin is a bug collector and had a bottle of alcohol just in case she found some interesting bugs))
Alan begins moving earth with his magical tool knife to cover up the entrance they came through. Jim distracts the Mountain Mother and Shinju uses matches she brought with the bottle of alcohol to set the supply closet on fire. Alan eventually, after taking some damage from paradox backlash in the form of cold black frost covering his arms, seals the way they all came in, and then they all go through the secret crawlspace exit and he seals the path behind them with more rock.
The old woman is trapped in the caves, sealed in stone.
They all make it out and into daylight, as the sun begins to shine they bring a frightened boy back to the safety of his home. A couple days later school starts and they will all be attending the same boarding school in Tokyo, a boarding school for kids like them.
A boarding school for Mages.
((I'm not sure if I like this writing style as much as the last one, but it is certainly faster and gets a bit more of the point across, these games aren't so dialogue heavy as vampire, so I think a different approach is needed
Feel free to comment, question, and the like.))
DaveLongTooth:It reads a lot faster, and while it is not as entertaining that your previous Chronicle post, it is more beneficial for a Storyteller as a game example. I'm not sure you know what I mean, in short it's as good in a different way. It's loaded with story seeds :)