Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 03:53:02 -0800

From: hyperion@aimnet.com (Thaddeus Howze)

Subject: An Ancient Call -- A Scenario Transcription

An Ancient Call is a Mage scenario I ran during the summer. I have posted
the highlights of that scenario in a effort to share my experiences with
Mage. I have not included any Mage notes but left it in a kind of rough
outline format. You will know what is going on but not exactly how it takes
place unless the players made it an effort during their play. Consider
yourselves omniscient observers of the events as they happened. My goal is
to show how I tell a story in Mage and maybe it will help others as they
arrange their storylines. At the end of the Act, I will go over the key
points to help new Storytellers find story elements that could add to their
play quality. I hope it helps. And of course, any feedback would be greatly
appreciated, positive or negative.

AN ANCIENT CALL
Ancient man has been believed to have had visitors from another world visit
Earth. There are many monuments and traces of mankinds attempts to
communicate with these beings from beyond. But what if those communications
were not in vain? What if it were possible to actually get an answer from
those beings? Would anyone know what to say?

DRAMATIS PERSONA

CELESTINE
ODIN: Powerful Elder and mythical being from a place called Asgard. Called
One-Eye or Traveller.
LOKI: Stepson of Odin, called Lord of Lies and Lord of the Flame.

MAGI
Peter - Occupation: Technical Writer - Magick: Shamen/Occultist
Toya - Occupation: Writer/Student - Magick: Mindmage/Seer
Emily - Occupation: Archeologist - Magick: Mindmage/Healer
Jon - Occupation: Student - Magick: Unlucky Bastard/Entropy
Barton - Occupation: Computer Engineer/Programmer - Magick: Seer/Time Magic

ACT I - Wanted: Ancient artifacts

SCENE I
Our story began with our players enjoying their new chantry, just created
by their membership. This is the second such tale of our chantry members.
Having survived the first, adventure, almost all of their party has elected
to stay together and actively discover what has happened to them. They have
some understanding of their abilities, but not enough to consider them
reliable. They are a group of Orphans who have had their Avatars awakened
by an Elder being who calls itself Odin. Odin awakens them and tells them
that there is a great danger to their world and perhaps to Other Realms as
well. Odin describes to them certain articles that should be found with
great haste and that he cannot leave his home realm to assist them. He
sends his son, Loki, to tell them what they need to know.

Peter, the resident occultist, recognises Loki and invokes the rules of
hospitality, hoping that this might protect them from Loki and his mecurial
nature. They are told that these talismans are required by Odin and that
procuring them would go a long way toward repaying their debt to him for
awakening their Avatars. At no time does Loki explain what the devices are
or what they are to be used for. One is a Meso-American shield, several
thousand years old, another is a large blue diamond, one of two in the
world, and the last is a weapon of unbelievable power in the middle of a
South American jungle. The protagonists are to simply find these devices
and bring them to a designated pickup point once they have gathered them
all.

SCENE II
The teams split up and attempted to gather the items. The shield was called
the Eye of the Fiery Sun and was in a museum in New Mexico, so the heroes,
Peter, who at this time was a burgeoning shamen spiritualist, Barton a
computer scientist/engineer and timejockey by magick, Emily, an
archeologist by trade, mindmage by magic, Toya, a student and also a
mind/spirit mage and and Jon, young student, and a seemingly unlucky
entropy mage set off on a road trip with a rented car. They made a stop in
Reno to augment their money since none of them were very well set
financially and needed money to complete the trip. Some minor gambling took
place and as Toya was leaving with her earnings, she was assaulted by an
invisible attacker who killed both of the hotel security guards and leaving
her untouched. Peter, communing with nature, was approached by a mysterious
spirit entity who threatens him and then leaves.

SCENE III
They continue their trip into New Mexico and eventually find the Museum
with the Eye of the Sun there. As they are viewing the Eye, the museum fall
under attack from a strange and powerful being whose powers seem to strike
down ordinary mortals with his mere presence. More stalwart viewers are
attacked by his protean blobs of blue tentacled death that strikes with
incredible speed. Our heroes, opting to escape with their lives (and
figuring that security has been compromised) break the glass where the Eye
of the Sun is held and Bart runs with the Eye out of the building. The rest
of the mage's fight a rear guard action.

Jon is the first to fall. He reaches out with his senses and sees that the
mage is relatively human and attempts to stop the entity's heart,
especially after seeing how ruthless the mage is in his search for the Eye.
Jon's attempt is partially successful and the alien mage, falls to his
knees. Jon too, falls almost simutaneously as an unusual energy courses
around his body. He grows pale and lies still. Peter, having some martial
arts skills deflects several tentacles that were directed toward him and
begins searching the spirit realm for some assistance. The entities that
Peter is able to summon are simple and can only follow simple instructions,
so Peter directs them to not allow anyone else to come up, by locking and
keeping locked all the doors between the front door and this location.

The two ladies, Toya and Emily attempt to simply repel the alien mage with
a bolt of pure psychic fear. They join hands and concentrate on the mage.
As they attempt their magic, the mage gestures and both ladies bolt from
the room. Jon awakes after Peter revives him and looks up to the skylight
that the mage and his creatures came in through. Jon wonders just how heavy
one of the timbers would be in the skylight and watches as it comes
tumbling down on the alien mage, pinning him to the ground. The alien blobs
attempt to free him from the fallen debris but the ladies return and turn
their psychic attack on the creatures who have no such magical defenses and
are killed almost instantly. One creature, in its death throes, strikes out
and wounds Toya with its razor-sharp tentacles.

SCENE IV
The alien mage remains pinned under the wreckage of the skylight and Emily
attempts to read his mind, but only a few fragments of his thoughts are
able to be understood. Emily helps Toya to stand and notices that Toya's
injuries were not quite as bad as she thought and they attempt to probe the
mind of the alien again before anyone comes up. Toya is successfully able
to intrude on the entity's thoughts and as he dies, she learns much about
its mission. The feedback from its dying, causes her to black out. The
creature and his minions then sizzle, smoke and leave nothing but burn
marks on the floor, and seven dead bodies in their wake to show that they
were even here. Our protagonists leave in great haste.

End of Act I

-----------------------------------

NOTES:
An Ancient Call is a multipart, multi-dimensional storyline that has a lot
of twists, but should not be too hard to follow, once you know who everyone
is. One thing that I did that was different was that all of the players,
played themselves with Mage abilities. They wrote themselves up, as
objectively as possible and then were give mage abilities based on their
personalities and predilictions.

As with any good story, you need several things:

A hook to get the characters interested.

In this case, it was a matter of debt, performing a small service to pay
for having their Avatars awakened. Had they opted out, I would have had to
work harder to get them into the story, but I did have a backup plan. I
always recommend one or two backups, just in case they don't bite
initially.

Unusual people that the players don't know and secrets they don't need to
know (at first).
In this case, the heroes were not told all they needed to know in order to
make an informed decision about this request. Odin and Loki both neglect to
mention the status of Asgard at this time, and why these artifacts are
wanted. Such subplots can often become new stories or part of the main
story later, as you will see in this case study.

A chance to use their powers for their own benefit (if it suits the
character types). Remember that Mages are people too, and are subject to
all of the human frailties, greed, anger, frustration, and these things can
make for good substories as well. As a matter of fact, human frailty
elements and substories should be moving at the same time as your other
storyline. (Assuming you can do this for everyone. If not, then focus on
one person's frailty or strength per session.)

Combat and a chance to test one's powers. This often leads to people
discovering weaknesses about themselves and learning new ways of using ones
abilities. Botching and failing do not have to make the story turn bad. In
some cases, it can make the story humerous, as when Emily and Toya ran
screaming from the mage when they botched their psychic fear attack. They
had to run around the corner and pull themselves together. It was
hysterically funny during the game.

Leave clues for your players.

Treat them as crumbs for them to find their way to the next part of your sto=
ry.

Create living and breathing NPCs. When you care about the NPCs, so do your
players.
Use less important NPC and innocents as monster fodder to heighten the
tension in a scene. Remind your players often that they are heroes (or
should be) and they are supposed to be protecting the unawakened from the
menaces from the fringes.

More in a few days.

Thaddeus Howze