They also supply most of the union's military forces. Iteration X: Technocratic scientists and engineers who specialize in robotics and cybernetics.The Technocracy has its own set of Conventions as well: These are a group of cynics whose schtick is a post-modern approach to magic and cynically referring to all other forms as "lies." Hollow Ones: The closest thing to a success at uniting Orphans.Efforts to unify them as a single group are frequently repeated but short-lived. Orphans: Not a Tradition, but a catch-all for mages who follow their own style of magick rather than a specific paradigm.Virtual Adepts: Computer wizards and hacker mages who seek to open up technology to the masses.Also known as the gender-neutral Society of Ether or Etherites. Sons of Ether: Mad Scientist mages who embrace the weirder and more fantastic theories of Science.Cult of Ecstasy (Sahajiya): Mages who seek to alter perceptions and find new experiences, usually through the use of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.Euthanatos (Chakravanti): Necromantic mages who guide the great wheel of death and rebirth.Akashic Brotherhood (Akashayana): Enlightened monks from the Far East, and experts of Supernatural Martial Arts.Obviously, masters of the Sphere of Spirit. Dreamspeakers (Kha'vadi): Shamans who commune with the world of the spirits.Celestial Chorus: Omnitheistic miracle workers who channel the power of their faith.Verbena: Pagan and druidic-inspired witches who use healing and transformation powers.Order of Hermes: The traditional 'wizard' and user of Hermetic Magic.
There are eleven main Traditions among the Mages, each (except Orphans) specializing in a Sphere of magic around which their style revolves: Its Kickstarter was funded in 45 minutes. Like the other Old World of Darkness games, Mage has a 20th Anniversary Edition that includes options for playing any of the three previous editions, cleans up the magick system, supports playable characters from the Traditions, Technocracy, Crafts and/or Orphans, and is generally massive (they had to edit it down to 500k words, with extra material going into supplements). It was succeeded in the New World of Darkness by Mage: The Awakening, and you could keep your house warm from all the flame wars that erupt over that choice. This is a game where you can have an enlightened martial artist dispatching hungry ghosts from the Chinese Hells, a Hermetic magician preventing demon-worshippers from spreading corruption throughout San Francisco, and a mad scientist dispatching evil gibbering things in the void of space, then have them all get together to strike a blow against the New World Order. Mage: The Ascension is a game of mad, beautiful ideas. Fortunately for everything in existence, this is not the desired endgame for most mages. Presumably, if a mage were the last living being, they'd have near-godlike power and the opportunity to find out what the fundamental rules of reality are absent human belief.
Problem is, that's not what the current rules of reality say, and so it resists, sometimes even fights back. In other words, because a mage believes he can fly, he can. Do anything that's too explicitly magic, flaunt your ability to alter the way things have become, and Reality will give you a wedgie. This leads to the final hurdle between the mages and their goals: Paradox. And it's working, because if enough humans agree with the world you're giving them, Reality Itself changes to match that view. and the free-will/wonderment of magic and human potential with it. In the Modern Day, the Technocracy has turned into an authoritarian and nigh-unstoppable conglomerate set on squashing any "Reality Deviants" who threaten the status of the world.
and in the process, they went a tad too far, until they had largely succeeded in stamping out any other reality save the non-magical worldview they endorsed. In response, a group of other mages/scholars/knights/builders/etc decided to team up as the Order of Reason and fight the sorcerers (and vampires, and were-things and the Fair Folk, and so on) with Science/Art/Religion/ Not Magic to make the world better for the average Joe and Jane. Long ago, when the mages actually did have their magical playground, there were a few too many who became Sorcerous Overlord and who made life even harder for the hapless majority of Muggles. But they kind of have to, because of the second reason: The Technocracy. First, there are the competing paradigms: Every mage understands magic in different terms, be it "hyper-advanced science," "the divine emanations of the Almighty," or "the Old Ways", so trying to get any two mages to agree on anything is tricky. A few things stand between mages and the magical playground of reality, of course.