Progress towards enlightenment

[jeregenest]

Recent discussion about tantanea has been about where the game has been. Now let us discuss where it is going.

A Keystone of tantanea is the city, this became fairly evident after the first session and it’s a theme we’ve returned to again and again. The other major keystone is alchemy. Given the recent discussions on initiations (my major theme) as I think of where to go next it quickly became obvious to me that I want to use both of these as much touch points.

I always intended to use the grandeur of the GURPS: Cabal universe for this game. That grandeur is the one of the reasons this isn’t a straight Nephilim game. So, inspired by Promethea now is the time to take a trip up the Tree, through the Sephiroth.

It is important that the players return to Earth between spheres so we can continue to develop the characters place in the Arcanum, develop their Mystery Cult and their role in New York City and in the wider world of the Cabal.

The first point is reconnecting to the Arcanum. This is problematic because it causes the characters to shatter as a group and I frankly believed I handled this poorly in the previous session. One of my faults is that I described an initiation without giving context, which is foolish given the experience of the characters and something I need to work to remedy. Luckily we had ended up at the beginning stage of the initiations so it should be possible to pick up the pace.

The goal with these initiations is to reinforce the community aspect. Lets look at who I have.

Nephilim	Arcanum	What I am thinking of
Asura	The Star	The Star in this game has been cast as the ambassadors par-excellence to Ultra-terrestrials and this is certainly a role that peaseblossom has embraced for Asura. Asura is also the Circle’s Astrologer par excellence. Her initiation needs to focus heavily on stranger themes, and hospitality. As such her initiation will take the form of the respect from host to guest, the respect from guest to host, and the parting gift from host to guest. The crucial thing will be tying it into her Arcanum. I’m almost debating making her the host and not the guest for this, maybe bringing in some of the Greek stories of theoxenia.
Amon	High Priestess	It is rather tempting for Amon’s initiation to be a rather traditional descent into the underworld to find secrets sort of thing. But I do want to stray from the traditional. Also I think the whole keeping secrets at all cost is bad for the game, there needs to be some flexibility and I’d like to give Amon some pointers for being a little more flexible while still keeping hios path. Not that I think Dan is inflexible but I’m a big fan of dynamic characters. I’m currently thinking of doing a tarot spread where each card is a secret that Amon has to come to grips with. I’m just having trouble coming up with the actual spread.
Keshditenku	Wheel of Fortune	I’m playing with two related things here, first is the idea of information forming the structure of the universe; the second as information as a labyrinth. jeffwik has been on the path of de-orienting Kesh from a violence path and I want to give him more opportunities to do that if its what he wants. Though I do want to give a few possibilities for exploring the potential of intellectual violence. Traps and pitfalls seems the order of the day here.
Nyvain  and Que Shoo Rhan	The Empress	It is interesting that both my water and my fire aspected characters are of the same Arcanum. This is a dichotomy that I would like to play up more. As such I want their initiation, which I’m planning being some large historical ball tableau as setting them in a pair. I hope to give the others players NPCs to play in what looks like its shaping up to be an historical drama.

So each initiation will lead to a point where they realize they need the Circle, an all-for-one-one-for-all moment. The trick will be to pull of the scene without alienating them from their arcane. I want the players, and more importantly the characters, to walk away from these scenes feeling like they are part of a wider community for their own damn good!

I tend to run just abut anything in a fairly laissez-faire way. In this case I’ll enter these scenes with a list of themes and set-points I want to introduce and see where it goes from there. I also have three NPCs from each Arcanum that I want to thread in nice, friendly ways.

After this it is time to begin going up the tree.

Using cities as my start point I have decided to take advantage to the premise of “as above, so below”. A goal here will be to use the cities as frameworks to make the scenery amazing, building a sense of wonder and menace, with just enough flavor to keep things strange.  It will be important to keep reinforcing the themes of initiation and community, and introduce enough elements that when the players find continuities or patterns I can play them up. Each Sphere will thus have a city, a shadow of an archetypal historical city or a fantastic city.

And then it is back to New York where a congruent thing will be happening (as above so below, remember).

So for each sphere I need a city. There are a lot of cities that have proven important in the past in game, (Babylon/Baghdad, Chichen Itza, the mythical Aryan city, Canton, Shanghai) and off-screen (Hong Kong, Alexandria, Carthage). There are important mythical spots that have been eluded to (Adeocentyn, Atlantis, Irem) that I can take advantage of.

Sephiroth	City	Current Story Idea
Malkuth	Vienna	Fin De Siecle Vienna to be exact, with its ominous mixture of opulence and/or decadence, combined with a shared prospect of unavoidable radical change. This perfectly encapsulated the place I see New York being in a magical context in the game. And the Circle. And maybe the game as a whole. Meta abounds!
Yesod	Forbidden City	I originally thought of Harran here, and heck Sin has come up in the game but frankly Harran doesn’t have any link to the players so I decided not. Plus too many Ars Magica echoes there. So for some reason Beijing came up, and the Forbidden City. With Yesod’s connections to illusion and it being the first real difficulty in the path I envision a real mask and mirror type of event. Allows me to make reference to the yellow-peril/question of the east that’s a core element of the game as well. I wonder if I can sue the muse Erato, associated with yesod, here.
Hod	Adeocentyn	Adeocentyn seems an almost easy choice here. City of Hermes. And Keshditenku did spend time here. I’m envisioning a hermetic trial of some sort looking at the circle’s role. The beginning of severity. But I don’t want it all to be adverse. I should reread this sephiroth in Promethea I remember it being one of my favorites.
Netzach		If Hod is Kesh’s, Netzach is Que Shoo Rhan’s, with her being Terpsichore. Still not sure what city though.
Tiphereth	Chichen Itza	I like the imagery of Chichen Itza being here, plus I want a glorious homecoming.
Geburah
Chesed
Binah
Chokmah
Kether

As you can see I haven’t really made it beyond Hod, but that’s easily a month from now! Plenty of time, and I’m sure these will change as play progresses. Input, brainstorming, suggestions more than welcome.

Comments

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

I worry a bit about Kesh and the Wheel of Fortune (hey, WoF!). Kesh's approach to information is as a means to an end; enlightenment comes from use of information, not from its acquisition. This would appear to contrast with the WoF's stated view.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I don't find that view point that different from the Wheel's, their whole philosophy is built on that vast cathedrals of information can be built from the humble bit, and from that cathedral is enlightenment. I see little difference in Kesh's viewpoint.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

I was envisioning the modal Wheel of Fortune member as a glorified librarian, sitting on a vast trove of knowledge like a dragon sits on his horde, as opposed to... well, say Kesh is an investment banker sort of dragon, whose horde is tied up in a well-balanced portfolio with a lot of medium-yield investments.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

The horde approach is High Priestess.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I see both the enlightened librarian working to use information as the path towards enlightenment and the investment banker with his portfolio of information yielding a dividend towards enlightenment easily fitting in the same Arcanum (as well as a bunch more). Wheel of Fortune really seems to be all about using knowledge for change.

[dkoulomzin.livejournal.com]

Why is Amon's keeping secrets bad for the game? It might be tough in terms of plot advancement when Amon knows something but won't say, but I think its an interesting challenge for me as a player and for the all of you too. And anyway, I'm hard pressed to think of any time Amon has wanted to tell someone something when its really been an issue for the game. Perhaps if this were the case, he'd have to find a way to be more flexible. I don't know, it might even be cool to have a plot element hinge upon whether or not Amon has to violate the sacrosanctity of a secret to advance himself or the circle. Or curse him so he can't keep secrets and is forced to attone for sins he committed. Or have a bad guy take advantage of this. So I guess I don't understand why it presents problems instead of opportunities.

Yes, Dan wants to be flexible, so if you think this doesn't address your concerns, lets talk more. However, this facet of the character is very important to me. This is the corner-stone principle of the character. Frankly, its just about the only solid moral he can claim to have.

Also, I'm sure you did not mean your comment in a bad way, but I am a bit worried if you think Amon is not dynamic. Maybe you just meant in terms of the secret keeping. But if not, then this is a problem because no one likes playing (with) a flat, predictable character. I want to talk about this more tomorrow.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I'm not worried about Amon (or you) being dynamic. So that was poorly worried. I just want to explore some alternate ideas of secrecy and what it means in the occult world.

that's good then

[dkoulomzin.livejournal.com]

Sure, we can explore secrecy... that seems like a reasonable thing for my character to be interested in, and probably necessary for enlightenment.