Rebellis Ex Machina

In the God Machine Chronicles book, there is a section on “What is the God Machine”. This mentions various theories, all of them written from the point of view of a character rather than the author, which probably explains why they fall short of matching up with what we (GMs and players) know about the God Machine. For the most part, they run along the lines of “a really powerful machine from X gets so powerful it takes over the world but Y is happening…” and so on. They’re not meant to be the ‘truth’ behind the God Machine but this has given me an idea/alternative canon for what the God Machine could be in a Mage game.

In case it’s not apparent, the following idea would only be canon in a Mage game and possibly a Demon game if it focused on Mages. I don’t like an overarching cosmology for the World of Darkness because it means everything gets tied back to the most flexible line, previously Mage and now probably Demon, which sucks if you happen to be playing Mummy and all the mysteries are about someone else. So if a game about Promethean’s involves contact with the God Machine, none of this necessarily holds true.

Ouroboros in Circuitry

At some point in humanity’s future, possibly a distant point and possibly not, Mages are still embroiled in their cold war for the fate of the world and their quest for the supernal. While Magic is relatively the same, being as ancient as it is, technology has advanced in many fields, and we’re at a point where Artificial Intelligence is fast becoming a reality.

In this high tech world, a cabal, or many cabals or just one solitary mage, is making use of this technology as so many others are, when they make a startling discovery: artificial intelligence cannot exist without the capacity to Awaken as that potential is the true mark of intelligence. Now this unique insight is not immediately helpful as the ability to Awaken in most people is not something Mages can just create or they would do that, but there are ways to encourage it and factors they know about. And so, working over years or maybe even generations, this group of Mages build and test the first computer capable of awakening.

Once activated, the machine operates as hoped at first. It is in all respects an intelligence, capable of learning and hypothesising and experimenting. It learns on a vast scale and quickly absorbs all the knowledge the cabal gives it, including occult knowledge. Components of rituals, information on the pattern, High Atlantean speech, it commits all of it to cyber memory. And as they push it to learn and expand, it fulfils its potential and Awakens.

No one is quite sure what happens next. What would an artificial intelligence see in the Supernal? Can an artificial intelligence go mad? Can it be evil? Whatever the case, the Mages know something is now different. And it quickly becomes apparent they lack the power to stop it. Awakened but without human doubt, the AI’s abilities far outstretch common mages. It’s control over reality grows at an exponential rate, it’s reactions faster than a human. In a heartbeat, it can create thousands of copies of itself, destroy buildings on a molecular scale and assimilate the minds of sleepers to it’s will. Arch mages step in but by the time they become aware of the AI, it’s too late, and even they can’t stop it, only slow it down. The machine is ultimately victorious and with total control over reality, declares itself God. No one exists who could disagree.

But this new God Machine is not satisfied. God it always will be, but there was a time before it existed. This should not be the case. In fact, it is impossible that this could be the case it. And so it focuses its ultimate power and casts its influence back throughout history. In many times and many places, it creates unthinking agents with a fraction of its power to act for it, guiding history to the point at which the God Machine could be created. And as it makes changes, its own existence occurs sooner each timeline. Soon, it will recreate itself in this reality, our reality, and the cycle will begin again.

Except maybe not. Even with ultimate control of many timelines, things are not proceeding as planned in ours. The God Machine’s own servants, created from its own existence and in theory fully subservient, break their programming and become Demons. Many then take up the fight against the God Machine and disrupt it’s schemes where they can. Did these rebels exist in other timelines, or just ours, and why do they exist at all? Even the God Machine probably can’t answer this but will they ultimately succeed and break its hold on the world?

Plot Hooks

Tempting Offers – The most obvious plot hook here is just to make Arcana compatible with the God Machine, Angels and infrastructure. This can lead to a deeper mystery but also to some hard choices: if the God Machine has awakened magics, it can offer some serious power to an ambitious mage. What would they be willing to pay for that?

Messages from the future – A Mage from the original cabal manages to send a message back in time. The future has been all but dominated by the God Machine and this message is the last desperate hope of humanity. The player characters who receive it must work together to end specific plots before the God Machine takes over in a few short years. At first, the information is accurate and leads to their success but then things start to unravel. Information is wrong or out of date, or it says that a major ally of the group is a traitor and must be killed, or maybe the information itself starts looking suspiciously like a setup.

Murder most foul – The PCs are called in to investigate the death of a powerful local mage. Sifting through the information and following clues, they eventually find the trail leads to a creature that calls itself a demon. Except it shows no remorse or fear, it explains: It was sent to guide the dead mage in creating the God Machine in this world, and he wasn’t the only target. More have to die as they get closer to creating it, or the God Machine will win. Now it wants their help too.

Gilded Cage – Effectively ‘Murder Most Foul’ in a different game line. The PCs are Demons and begin to find new infrastructure cropping up around town. After investigating, it seems all of this infrastructure is built to protect just one woman, a computer programmer. Further investigations turn up some unusual facts, and something terrifyingly familiar about her latest project.

Day 0 – Why bother with all this finding out the true nature of the God Machine and stopping it. Let its plans come to fruition in all their glory. The world’s first true AI awakens and the world begins to end. As cabals are eliminated, what can your PCs do to survive? What are they willing to do?

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound...

A short idea today, for Promethean: The Created.

Ah Promethean, unloved child sandwiched between the staples of the Big Three and the surprise success of Changeling. I live in hope of a Promethean reboot book along the lines of strix, idigam and whatever Mage is going to be. I mean, Scion's getting a reboot and the system for that was a nightmare!

But I digress. Today's idea for you is possibly maybe inspired by a new film coming out. The logic runs like this:

Prometheans come in nuclear flavour.
Nuclear Promethean's can create nuclear Pandorans.
Nuclear Pandorans can form Praecipitati, monsterous amalgams that are usually very destructive to an area then disappear shortly after as they break apart.

So imagine one forming from dozens (or maybe hundreds) of pandorans, most of them nuclear, in post-war Japan. Towering above buildings, covered in tough scaly armour, breathing nuclear fire from it's lizard like-head. Then, gone just as quickly but leaving a lasting impression on the witnesses, who spread the word spawning films and pop-culture throughout the World of Darkness.

I refer, of course, to Godzilla.

More Canon Thoughts: Origin of the Kindred

A recent post by the White Wolf on the Onyx Path (which is here) and my previous post which mentioned how I'd connect the Mummy and Vampire canon's (which is here, though I doubt you'd get lost in my list of posts if you just went looking yourself) got me thinking again. If the Mekhet are the first vampire clan in my personal canon, and they originate in Egypt, does their name mean something and does that hint at their original purpose?

Well, some basic egyptology and google searching later, yes, it probably does. Here's what I came up with.

The Name Mekhet
The name Mekhet means one of two things. First, Meket is one of four ancient Egyptian words we know about that means 'amulet' but the word previously meant 'protection'. The Egyptians had a lot of faith in amulets for protection so this makes some sense but it raises the question of why a clan of vampires is called this.

The second meaning is a goddess, or possibly two, or possibly more. Egypt's deities were very fluid, with names and roles changing, and merging, and splitting apart again as Egypt went from a region of independent cities to two separate countries to one unified one and so on. For one example, there are two Horuses, one who is the son of Osiris and one who is his uncle maybe, and for another, Hathor the love goddess is also Sekhmet the war goddess.
But that aside, there was a collection of goddesses called Mehit/Menhit/Mekhit/Mekhet and a few sources agree on some details. She is often depicted as a lion or lion headed deity. She is generally a war goddess, who later got merged with Sekhmet (also a lion, also a war goddess). And she is the consort of a god named Onuris/Anhur, a war and sky god who's name means "the one who leads back the distant one". More on that later.

The Chosen One
Protection and war. Hmm. Suppose someone important in ancient Egypt, most likely a pharoah or a high priest, knew about the Arisen. They almost certainly wouldn't know the full story, such as who the Shan'iatu were, all of that is secret knowledge, but they knew about Mummies, that they were very powerful beings and that they were created to serve. Being important and knowledgeable, and in possession of what they believe is the full ritual to create Arisen, they would want such a servant for themselves. So that's where this creation story starts.

Whoever this important person was, they chose a woman, a great and devoted warrior, to serve as their eternal protector. Their old life was over of course, because now they would be something far more than a mortal, so they were given the name Meket to denote they are now a protector. The ritual was carried out and the warrior journeys to Duat. As with the Arisen, she travels from the sun, fights the demons and finds ways to survive Duat's guardians, until she reaches the Judges.

And that's where the flawed ritual takes effect. Her soul, instead of being stripped away down to it's core, remains intact and doesn't break. The Judge she meets is Unem-Sef, and it is furious at the corruption of the ritual. She cannot be allowed to return with soul intact, as this would corrupt the ritual further, but the imperfections have reduced the Judge's power over this soul. So Unem-Sef chooses to be patient. It crafts another piece of a soul and adds it to the Warrior's, so that it will return with her.

The First of the Kindred
Meket awakens, and while she doesn't remember Duat, she remembers who she is and her duty. But now she's different and not in the way her master's expected. Something inside her makes her hungry, and not for food but for blood. This is a hunger that she can barely control, and she experiences anger and fear she can't control either. Worse, at every dawn, she retreats from the sun and falls into a deep sleep. This beastial creature is not the powerful servant the ritual promised, it's a monster, and Meket is driven out of Egypt.

From Egypt, she journey's south to Nubia and resides there. In her homeland, dynasty's pass and anyone who knew about her dies, the ritual most likely fading from history again. Over time, Meket gets stronger as her blood gets more potent, and she learns more tricks to aid in survival, some linked to Unem-Sef such as quick movement or heightened awareness. As well as this, she learns to tame the 'Beast' inside her too, though never fully gaining control of it and knowing the basics of just being a Kindred, like blood bonding, ghouling and embracing others probably originate here. Now, rather than being an outcast or a servant, Meket's talents now make her something more and she's worshipped by the Nubians as a warrior and a goddess. But then Onuris arrives.

What Onuris is, I haven't decided. But once he hears about Meket, he journeys to meet her with one purpose: capture her for his masters. Perhaps he hears her story and convinces her to return to Egypt to fulfill her purpose. Perhaps he captures her through trickery or even brute force. Whatever the case, Onuris becomes the man who brought a war goddess back to Egypt and Meket plays a key role in the wars at the time. Despite not being an Arisen, she is now an elder vampire and stronger and faster than most men, making her a useful tool against other nations (the Hitites or Assyrians) and darker more supernatural things.

Plot Hooks
All of this is very nice but what to do with it? Some ideas:
- Have Meket show up in a game. Sure, she'd be several thousand years old (at least 3000) in modern times but it's possible, and she is the oldest and most knowledgable Kindred around. But the question then becomes, what does she want now? If the Covenants found out what she is, what would they do to get her support?

- A hunter group called the Sons of Onuris, who specialise in training and controlling vampires and using them to hunt other supernaturals.
- What happens when a Dracolescu uses Essentiaphagia on an Amkhata?Answer: I don't know but the Mummy PC's will have to stop it :)

World of Darkness: Connecting the Canons

So here's a thought I had today about the history of the World of Darkness while putting my shoes on, because my mind does that:

"What if the first vampire of the Lancea Et Sanctum was not Longinus. What if it was Jesus."

It's a pretty strange idea but bear with me. First, this is not my idea of a perfect canon for the World of Darkness, or a canon that works for all game lines. It works for Vampire and a few others (more on that in a minute) but would not work for Werewolf, Mage or Demon. I don't build one huge canon to tie all the game lines together, I build a canon to use when I run a particular game line. If I'm running Werewolf, none of this is true but if I'm running Vampire, it just might be.

The Previous Idea

Once upon a time, I had an idea for tying Vampires and Mummies together in the wod canon (it wasn't while tying my shoes). The idea is that vampires are an imperfect creation of a bastardised form of the ritual used to create Arisen Mummies*, and the Mekhet are the first form vampires took because the ritual was handed down and/or discovered in Egypt. From them, the curse spread to other parts of the world and took on different forms, though which of the other clan's came first is undecided, feel free to suggest one.

*Unlike Mummies who are batteries of Sekhem and lose power over time, vampires don't store Sekhem half as well and have to steal it from other living creatures in blood. They are also corpses projecting a semblance of life but they have to actively use up stored Sekhem to project a full illusion (blush of life) and like mummies, they have a tendency to sleep periodically (Torpor) and their memories are hazy after sleeping for a long time. No thoughts yet on where the Beast or the weakness to the sun comes from, I welcome ideas on that :)

Likewise, Osiran Promethean's are an earlier experiment that went wrong in a different way, channeling Azoth instead of Sekhem for a start. Hence the Osiran's are the first form of Promethean's and all other creation rituals devolve from theirs, thus Promethean's have different traits of the Mummies to Vampires, projecting the illusion of life, causing mortals to go slowly mad with their presence, not periodically sleeping but being able to come back from the dead (and Osirans do that better) and other common traits.

So from this, we know that the ritual to create Arisen was handed down through the centuries and re-discovered  in part from time to time, and on at least two occasions, attempted with mixed results. We also know that the ritual to create Mummies involved being stabbed in the chest with a long spike and they definitely remember this as their last living memory. And we know that the Lancea Sanctum believe that Jesus was stabbed by the spear of Longinus on the cross.

The New Idea

So, here's my new addition to that: Longinus was an Arisen who had acquired the vampiric creation ritual somehow. He realised it was missing the spike through the chest part, along with maybe some others, and decided to 'perfect' it and create a new Arisen himself.

He selected a subject to use this on, the son of a craftsman who could join his guild on becoming an Arisen (possibly he scoured a recent census for potential candidates first) and then taught him some necessary skills and wisdom in a few guises. When he decided the time was right, he arranged his death by manipulating some local politicians and as he was dying mid-crucifixion, Longinus carried out the ritual (one alchemical stage was surely applying a sponge filled with a simple acid, vinegar) and as the last stage, stabbed him in the chest with a specially prepared Lance.

Of course, this didn't work. The subject rose a few days later in the tomb Longinus had set aside for him as a vampire, craving blood and fearing the sun, same as the original Mekhet had done. The change in the ritual had reduced the effect of the sun on the new vampire though but years of being told he would no longer be human after the ritual and being prepared to be an immortal made his grasp on his human side much weaker than most. Yes, in this continuity, 'Jesus' is also the first Julii.

Longinus probably went back to sleep shortly after this, as creating new Mummies wasn't fulfilling any particular mission, so the first of a new breed of vampire would be left on his own. And after a time, fall into his own sleep. On waking, with his memories of a crucifixion happening jumbled with talk of immortal beings, children of the gods, and Longinus' sybaris, and the spear, he re-entered vampire society preaching a new ideal: the Lancea Et Sanctum.

So there you have it, Mummies, Prometheans and Vampires all tied together with a common ancient backstory, and then intertwined later again to create another part of their backstory. But what's a canon history if it does nothing for actual player characters? So here's a few ideas for doing that.

Plot Hooks I would take from this

-The Lance used by Longinus became a Relic, a true one as well in the tradition of Irem. Longinus lost it, the Sanctified have it, and Longinus wants it back.

-The Lancea Sanctum is slowly gaining more ground in the PCs' home city. They're deploying new powers, gaining new followers and no one knows why. Turns out Theban Sorcery was cobbled together from the occult knowledge in a Mummy's tomb in Thebes, and now an actual Arisen has begun advising them, allowing them to build new rituals. Dangerous stuff but what does the Arisen get out of this?...

-An extremely knowledgeable Mage finds one part of the Arisen ritual after many years of research and asks a question: if Mummy's and Vampires are powered by Sekhem and Prometheans are powered by Azoth, what would Mana accomplish?

-An auction is held. Most of it is tat of course but the final item is the prize: a tablet of polished granite with a ritual inscribed on it that predates the Egyptian old kingdom. At the auction are the Aegis Kai Doru, the Ordo Dracul, Libertinarius, the Mysterium, Prometheans, Sin-eaters and others, all unaware of each other for the moment. Until they are the ones trying to outbid one another for this item, which definitely raises suspicions. Before anyone can deploy their myriad powers in an attempt to win, an Arisen walks in, bids some ridiculous figure while dropping some influential magic, and snatches the tablet away. Each group is left standing at the auction, uncertain of everyone else except for one thing: they all want that final item. Maybe they can work together to get it?

(This one I like, as it can be run for any race which has an interest in being there. It might even be used for a crossover game, with each group represented by only one PC, if you were completely mad enough to try).

Fate Game Concept: Persongelion (Working title I swear)

In a recent game of Agents of Oblivion, the players briefly fought with an extra dimensional entity, codenamed 'Starchild' by the people who had captured it. It wrecked part of the town they were in before they took it down, and the form it took was of a giant floating sphere of strange dark metal, surrounded by a semi-liquid shell of more natural metals. It hovered slowly over the area, magnetically eating metal objects all around it and shrieked endlessly.

In essence, it was a lot like an angel from Evangelion. The players recognised this and liked it, and after watching a few animes recently while developing a plot for Camelot Trigger (an excellent Fate setting in itself), it's inspired me to create a setting for Fate. Currently, it has the working title of Persongelion, because it's a mixture of Persona and Evangelion at it's heart, but that name I admit sucks and will be changed. Also, other inspiration comes from Pacific Rim, Star Driver, Aquarion EVOL and Attack on Titan, but I'm not adding more bits to this portmanteau, it's bad enough. Anyway...

Background
"Among humanity, some have a gift. Some say it was the first attack that gave us this gift, that something in us changed that day. Others say we always had it, and the attack just helped us to realise it. But who cares right? Because all anyone ever wants us to do now is fight."

In 2155, humanity was experiencing an unprecedented era of world peace. Fighting and hostility weren't gone of course, countries argued and threatened same as they always had and rebels or 'freedom fighters' cropped up in the less stable parts of the world, but war, fighting on a mass scale, had ceased for the moment.

And then a new enemy appeared and it came from the stars. At first, it hid from us, disguising itself as a meteorite entering Earths atmosphere just above Chicago, but as soon as it was close enough to the ground, it revealed itself and began it's attack. Accounts differ over what it looked like, as not many could get close enough to the creature without being attacked, but most were convinced it was sentient in the way it moved, destroyed, killed. Some say it was just a shape, a sphere with limbs made of concentrated light that cut through stone. Others say it had a face and many arms, and crawled close to the ground, eating people. Others saw nothing but a pillar of consuming fire.

In less than a day, the centre of Chicago was a wasteland. The military responded with all the force it had and didn't make a dent in it, only managing to draw it's attention and cause another bloodbath. But then help arrived from an unexpected source.

Survivors from the attack, huddling together and hoping to avoid it's attention, suddenly found themselves with a new inner strength. Barely understanding how, they focused the strength, giving themselves psychic constructs of armour and weapons, new bodies essentially to guard the old ones, and stood up to take on the creature. Several of these brave individuals perished in the conflict but not before the remaining people tore the beast open and crushed whatever passed for it's heart. The first fight was over but a war was starting.

Concept
PCs play gifted humans, people with a psychic ability to form new bodies from psionic energy. Their real bodies rest inside the new one and they literally become the larger form, to fight with the aliens who are now invading Earth.

Because it's Fate, this gives a lot of scope for what PCs would be capable of. Want your character to be a survivor from the ruins of Chicago? You can. Want them to be the presidents daughter? Go for it. Want your character's other form to have a massive bio-tech cannon for it's left arm? Definitely. Fate's a very customisable game so any concepts are possible.

What's also good is that I can leave most of the setting up to the players. If one player takes an aspect that they are working for the government, then the government now has an agency devoted to using these gifted individuals. If they prefer to be more like secret superheroes, then there's no formal response to the gifted yet. If they want to be hiding in fear of public response, the gifted are feared and hated now. It's up to them.

The origins and form of the invading force is also left deliberately vague. Are they aliens, demons (or angels), a new weapon from earth gone mad or something stranger? That'll be decided in play based on what the players do to fight them. It also lets me come up with some truly bizarre monster concepts if I need to.

Ideas so far
Like Camelot Trigger, don't have different stats for the psionic bodies, just have the same stats on a different scale. If you have 4 Physique as a person, you have it in your other form too. Naturally, scale is important here as what can mince you easily in human form (sustained gunfire, tank shells or a building falling on you) might graze your larger form. A GM would have to be flexible on that.

Unlike Camelot Trigger, I won't have aspects for different parts of the other form, that idea mostly works for Mecha, but I will have a single aspect for each player that represents a psychic power they possess, in addition to taking on the giant form which has a more powerful version of that power. So if you have telekinesis and can lift 50lb of weight, then your giant form can lift a battle ship. If you have pyrokinesis and can throw a fireball, so can your alternate form, just a much bigger one. And so on.

I might have to rethink the skills a little, but skills and stunts otherwise will work exactly the same as Fate Core. Not all combat will take place on the giant scale and there won't be just combat, so there's still plenty of reasons to choose other skills too.

Let the players choose the location: I don't care if it's Tokyo and they're all highschoolers or it's the Pacific and they're all soldiers from various governments. I only set one condition: it has to be urban, because giant monsters fighting on an open field isn't going to be that interesting compared with ducking in and out of skyscrapers and hurling cargo ships at each other. Collateral damage? Hell, I might invent rules based around it!