General Discussion

I appreciate the enthusiasm Rune! Unfortunately I recognise I haven't given yall enough plot to hazard a good guess. We should revisit this again in, hmm, maybe once we finish session zero. I've been slow with the momentum in these few early posts, so that we can all get into the rhythm of this game as it grows, but we'll be able to see more as we pick it up a bit more.

We can also use this as an opportunity to express what aspects or what direction we hope this game will take. As a GM, it's nice to go along with what the table wants to play or see more of. Although I've done so for some other games, I realise I haven't asked everyone what they hope to see or hope to get out of this game. Feel free to articulate some wishes!

Thanks for putting that idea down so succinctly! It's pretty much what this first arc will do, allow discovery of the world, the veil, and themselves in relation to magick.

I hope you've noted that the die rolls I've asked for thus far are related to character development. So bear with me that some requests at this point seem a bit unorthodox for WoD. In general, Ability+Attribute relates to mundane things, although it can be affected by some supernatural Backgrounds. Rolling the Spheres is where the magick happens, your character begins to understand better how they are affecting reality.

I will be moving on to demeanor and paradigm soon as the plot chugs along.

I made two posts in a row, hope it's not too confusing for everyone!

Quick summary:

Akashic Brotherhood: Mind (Focus: Inner discipline, meditation, martial arts, and enlightenment).
Celestial Chorus: Prime (Focus: The Divine, faith, unity, and the fundamental energy of creation).
Cult of Ecstasy: Time (Focus: Experiencing the divine through extreme sensation, drugs, dance, and breaking societal taboos to see beyond the present).
Dreamspeakers: Spirit (Focus: Shamanism, animism, communicating with spirits, and bridging the material world with the Umbra).
Euthanatos: Entropy (Focus: Death, fate, karma, and the necessary destruction of things to allow for new creation).
Order of Hermes: Forces (Focus: High ritual magic, Hermetic principles, and commanding the elemental energies of the universe).
Sons of Ether: Matter (Focus: "Mad science" and alternative physics, often focusing on manipulating physical objects and inventing gadgets).
Verbena: Life (Focus: Wiccan/Pagan traditions, blood magic, nature, healing, and transformation).
Virtual Adepts: Correspondence (Focus: Cybernetics, hacking reality, digital spaces, and the understanding of space and distance)

I think we managed to edit so it's clear now Jonathan and Joe are distinct. People might also start using Joe's nickname, Jove.

New post up for @eldarin and @phoenixscientist, so that I can have everyone at the same exact point in time. In case you haven't noticed the weirdness, this Emily girl is encountering all of you at the same time ...

The weird has begun!

Btw feel free to read things I tag to others, I trust player knowledge vs character knowledge. If something is private, I will correctly tag it so.

My take on this. It's quite common that students in schools share a chat with their classmates, using a chat app, like Whatsapp, or Snapchat, etc. Different classes would have their own chats. In-game, I've signaled this to be the case in two separate instances. On a side note, this could also be true of the sports teams or club you belong to, sharing a chat group together.

Not magic, just current phone apps. I opened the worldbuilding to say we're in 2025/6, (even though Mage background is set in the 90s).

@PhoenixScientist, are you feeling that this isn't realistic, since you're thinking that there's no way this is possible? Let me know your thoughts.
Real-life, I teach in a pre-college and I can confidently say that kids use their chats a lot, and big group chats exist, such as class chats with 20-30 students in them, and some of them babble incessantly. :)

Also, background-wise, I've also multiple times that you're all from the same class, and that, unless you're a new transfer, you would have known each other for four years, (or if you imagine a school system where classes change a bit every year, then at least one whole year). So you know each other for quite a while, some of you go back a long way, some of you are good friends, even very good friends, (Some are teen frenemies.) You also know other students in school, like your club friends, sports teammates, etc, and may have known them for years. This scenario is NOT a case of seven students who are meeting for the first time.