Mage: the Awakening Preview 1

Hey guys,

I'm really interested in how White Wolf will redefine the new Mage, and so far their first
preview of the Setting History seems to be pretty cool.

It's not the same as Acenscion but I'm still hyped up to getting it. From the history alone, I'm getting vibes of a lot more pulp and wizardry than the Matrix of the previous edition.

For those interested in checking it out without clicking on the link above, I've copied it below:

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Mythic History

The sea of time grows murky as one approaches the distant past. Ruins, artifacts, cave paintings—all this evidence of history tells an incomplete tale. Even master mages cannot part the curtains of time so far back to see what truly occurred. The magical orders have a mythology about their beginnings, the legend of a fallen civilization and a war for the throne of reality. The names for that civilization are many, most of them lost over the years, but even the Sleeping know one of them and seek evidence of its truth: Atlantis.

In the far distant past, mortals suffered at the whim of monsters, hunted by spirits and preyed upon by bloodthirsty revenants. Beset by creatures stronger than they, culled by howling beasts whenever they migrated into territories whose borders they couldn't possibly perceive, mortals found it nigh impossible to advance above their need for survival, to envision ways of living outside of fear.

Then came the dragon dreams. Certain mortals, in lands scattered far and wide, began to dream of an island, a lonely land jutting from a windswept sea far from any known coast. A spire rose from the center of the isle, pointing at the pole star; it seemed to the dreamers that this was the axis of the world, the pole upon which the bowl of the sky turned. And upon this pole, at its apex, nested the dragons.

In the dreams, these great worms of legend would rise up into the winds, one by one, circle the spire with their beating leathern wings, and set off toward the infinite horizon, to places the dreamers could not imagine. No other creature stirred on the isle and no spirit hunted there; no being dared intrude upon the dragons' lair. As the dreams progressed, the dreamers came to realize that the dragons never returned. Each night, another dragon would leave, so that the remaining numbers grew small. Finally, the last dragon took wing and glided away, to the west, never again to be seen. The dreams continued to come, but now the isle was empty; nothing moved there. For many nights the dreamers saw the isle, abandoned and forlorn, and knew that it waited for them. The island had called to them, compelling them, seeking new inhabitants.

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Oh, and from the WW boards regarding more information on the new origins of the mages:

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The magical orders have a mythology about their beginnings, the legend of a fallen civilization and a war for the trhone of reality. The names for that civilization are many, most of them lost over the years, but even the sleeping know one of them and seek evidence of it's truth: Atlantis.

For many years, uncounted in the far distant past, mortals suffered at the whim of monsters, hunted by spirits and preyed upon by bloodthirsty revenants. Beset by creatures stronger than they, culled by howling beasts whenever they migrated into territories whose borders they couldn't possibly percieve, mortals found it night impossible to dvance above their need for survival, to envision ways of living outside of fear.

Following visionary dreams of a distant island free from strife, small bands of mortals set out to sea from many different lands, each following the vision given to them in dreams. When they arrived at this promised land, their bodies entered deep slep while their minds traveled to far astral realms beyond the ken of other mortals.
There they met the others, the daimons of their own souls, the hidden twin of each soul traveler. These judges challenged them to prove by what right they came on astral roads to the Realms Supernal, and set them to a series of tests. The victors returned wit htheir souls aglow, lit by a celestial fire. They could see into the Realms Invisbile and ken the secret workings of creation, the principles and substances from which everything was wrought. With the Realms Supernal, and this knowledge they gleaned from studying realms visbile and invisible, they could calld down the ways of heaven, the higher principles that ruled over the lower realms of matter and spirit. They made their very thoughts real, imagination rendered inot matter and flesh.

The loose confderation of immigrants to the island soon organized into a city-state led by the magi: Atlantis. Over time , the enlightened founded seperate orders to fulfill the roles of governance, from mystical militia to scholars to a priesthood of mysteries to guide them all.

The power to warp the very skein of creation soon outstripped the wisdom of those who wielded it. The hubris of the magi rose unchecked. Many generations after the first had established Atlantis, their legacy turned sour, Mage turned on mage and so was born the first wizard's war.

The victors claimed atlantis as theirs and drove the losers to the far corners of the earth. Then, combing their power, they wrought a great spell and erected a ladder to the Realms Supernal. The spurned the traditional astral paths by which a sorcerer could approach the higher realms by means of a soul journey, for they sought to walk the celestial reachers in their own bodies. They stormed the heights and cliamed the thrones of the gods for themselves. Ruiling from on high, no longer bound to the earth, even their petty dictates and whims became real, for they stood over the lower arealm and influenced it with their very thoughts. The subtle veils were rent and the higher and lower worlds came together - the pure miexed wit hthe impure and the universe trembled.

Spurred by the imminent desruction and corruption of the world, the exiled mages banded together and assaulted Atlantis, climing the star ladder and wrestling with the celestrial mages in their heavenly palaces. Their struggles were terrible. The two sides clashed in a chaos of realms and the losers - sorcers on both sides - were flung from on high back into the lower realm.

The ladder shattered, disintegrating into dust, leaving the victors beyound the reach of teh earthbound mages. Where the ladder had been, reality cracked and fell into itself, creating a rift between the higher and lower realms, a terrible void that sucked life and energy into itself. The Abyss divided the realms once more, keeping the high, pure realm from the taint of the low. But this was no subtle veil, permeable to returning souls. It was a gulf of unreality, an abberation that was never meant t be. What was before a single world became two worlds - the Supernal World and the Fallen World with a vast Abyss between them.

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Interesting stuff...