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Mod

Welcome to Venice, Virginia! Population: 14,036
Home to the Lonely Elk!

Who is Mayor Moretti?

Venice, Virginia is ruled by Mayor Moretti. Moretti is Awakened; but what he is, no one knows. Moretti is one of the few who are not aligned to any Faction. He knew this time would come; that his quiet, quaint, small coastal town had a rather large number of Potentials who would, at some time or another, experience the Awakening that accompanied their First Death. He is a prominent neutral figure in the local Otherworld politics and is an enigma to everyone. To the Sleepers, he's just some 28 year old who runs their town. Many think he is plotting something or that he is an associate with the Dreaming. He is somewhat feared by the newly Awakened, due to the rumors told of him. Maybe you should, too.

What are the Factions?

There are seven factions: The Illuminati, the Templars, the Masons, the Thule, the Hermetic Order, the Wyck, and the Green Dragon. These fractions, although at odds with one another, both strive to over throw the Dreaming. The Illuminati wish to enlighten the masses and help them evolve into transhumanity. The Knight's Templar wish to help mankind return to God and seek to keep the world of magic obscured from the people. The Masons plan to lead America into a new age of magic and glory. The Thule once worked with Nazis during WWII, and wish to replace the Dreaming as gods of the universe. The Hermetic Order have hedonistic pursuits and value individuality. The Wyck seek to reconnect people with the dying planet Earth. The Green Dragon are seen as terrorists who encourage anarchy and chaos.

There are two other Factions, to which only humans are allowed: The Inquisition and the Black Hand. The Inquisition are hunters who seek to silence any form of magic. The Black Hand are assassins for hire.

Why are we here? What do we do?

Poor soul, only a teenager; no longer a child, but not quite an adult... Whether you committed suicide, killed in a hate crime, or simply met your end by some accident, the point is that you DIED. But you didn't stay dead. You got up, crazed and insane, and for the next two hours did who-knows-what. Then you came to, and depending on what you are now, you were either deathly hot or deathly cold. And you knew. You knew that the world you lived in was a lie, and there was so much more to it: unicorns, dragons, Edens and lost lands hidden beneath the seas. You knew that magic existed, and there were things that go bump in the night - and you just became one of them. So you ask around, now able to identify those like you by Flickering, making your eyes glow - if someone's eyes glow back in response, hey, you just found a fellow Kindred. Of course, Mages and Awoken also possess glowing eyes, they just don't have the same color pallet as Otherkin do. And so you strike up a conversation and maybe, just maybe, an agent will over hear, or the Kin might already be aligned to a Faction. You learn of the Factions and you may seek them out, or one might come to you. Once recruited, you are bound to them and can not work with other Factions.

But you're a teenage rebel, aren't you? Breaking the rules and lending others your ear...and they offer you one chance to betray your Faction. When this chance arises, this is the only time you will be able to change sides. If you choose not to, your connection to that fraction is cut off and they are your enemies. This chance will appear only one - not once per Faction - so make sure that if you think you might want to leave your current Faction, play nice with one you think you might like joining. But be careful, if you are caught conspiring with other Factions, other members of your current Faction can rat you out or straight up kill you, if they can provide evidence to their superiors that you were a traitor. So stick to the shadows, for they have served as our cover for eons. Use your new abilities and exploit this town to your own ends, just see to it that you also follow orders. It's kill, or be killed; always remember that. Farewell, and good luck. You'll need it.

Down with the Puppeteers! Seize the Strings and cut us loose!

Awake!

Awake!

Awake!

Mod

Other Important Information!

The Nature of Reality

Reality in the Upper World is where anything is possible. This world is where imagination rules, and has a direct influence on the world, causing wishes to come true. However, this world is cut off from the Lower World by the Veil. By Awakening, a soul can realize its potential and gain some power from the Upper World. While still bound to their physical body that is trapped in the Lower World, they can access supernatural abilities - called Gifts - through their soul and their soul's memories of past lives. Those who remember lives when they were not human, and identify with that lifetime become Otherkin.

On Fairies and Fae

A common legend states that pixies are the souls of the prehistoric dwellers of England and that less and less people believe in them, they get smaller and smaller till they wink out of existence all together. This is half-true. The fate of the Fairies who have broken their Oaths and Geasa are doomed to be reincarnated as Fae. The Fae are "nothing more than monkeys with minor magical abilities", with each incarnation, they become less and less sapient.

These Fae are dangerous entities. They can be useful, helpful guardians if treated correctly and carefully (though they'll still steal little things and cause problems here and there) and in small doses. Most of the time, though, they invade and run amok and infest and break things and mess with electronics and suddenly nothing works right, and you've lost half your smaller stuff, and the Fae run your home (badly).

So when someone opens their door and says "I welcome the faeries into this home!" and asks around on pagan boards "How do I invite the faeries into my household? They're so pretty and glittery and wonderful and amazing!", most Mages would wince and cringe at the stupidity of the inexperienced poster. Because oftentimes it's like opening your windows and doors and setting up shiny trinkets in the windows and food in the open in the middle of Japan or Calcutta and saying "HEY! MONKEYS! You're adorable, I want you to live in my home with me! Such cute littele monkeys, come into my house, enjoy my shinies!" and then being confused and uncomprehending when the monkeys storm in, bite you, break your stuff, steal your shiny things, eat all your food, toss around your belongings, rip your curtains, and generally make an utter disaster of your house.

It's possible to have a good relationship with some Fae, and have Fae guarding your property or your person, or helping take care of your household (like Brownies), but it's still risky. They're going to still take stuff as their due (on top of whatever you're offering them as compensation anyway), at the very least.

If you can manage to form a relationship that's more help than harm, good for you. Others would rather just leave out some milk and honey as a peace-offering, "Here, take this and leave me and mine alone," and leave it at that.

taken from otherkin phenomena

Dusting - The Second, Final, True Death

Final Death is a term coined by Vampires to refer to permanent death, as opposed to Torpor or their first death as part of the Embrace. The word "true" is used because Vampires are incorrectly viewed as already dead, but also because most Awakened - not just Vampires - experienced a Traumatic Awakening, often the Near-Death/Dying Awakening variants, having perished and resurrected as a new being. Due to the possibility of an end, any creature that can experience the true death is technically not immortal. No Kindred are technically not immortal, because, despite their immunity to aging, death always finds them through one means or another in the vastness of eternity.



When Vampires(and all other Kindred) die, their bodies and clothing turned to dust in a matter of seconds, which was usually followed by a high-pitched scream. This phenomenon was referred to as "Dusting". Any foreign object touching/piercing the Vampire's body would disintegrate as well. Even weapons, such as stakes, would dust along with the Vampire if it remained in the Vampire's body when it dusted.

Mod

The Secret Of The Universe - only mages know of this, not to be mentioned in rp
(view spoiler)[
This is not the first time the universe has existed, and not the last time it will be incarnated. All things are bound to the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Even the realities in which we exist. Yes, realities, plural.

There are billion versions of you. Those behind you, those of who have existed in previous lifetimes - no, not past lives, but before the reboot of a universe - and those before you. Those that have not existed, in the future of a next universe to be made when this one dies. And there are those beside you, adjacent. Every action creates a multitude of universes where you could have taken another choice - alternate universes, the multiverse. Paradigms also created other realities - not just personal false realities or Dreams of a Sleeper - where one religion is fact and the others are myths, where there are aliens but not magic, where there are ghosts but no extraterrestrial life. The further from this reality you go, the more whimsical and surreal they become, different laws of physics or states of matter, et cetera. From these parallel worlds come the species of Otherkin not found in this reality, as all souls can travel between worlds - whereas bodies can not - because they all belong to the same multiverse, the same cycle made by the same superior god. Yes, there is an over-arching deity which encompasses all realities, as this being created all of them. This god takes many names, but in truth, it has no name. It is not a god, but a concept, a force. Not exactly sentient, no Grand Designer, it merely creates. And destroys. For, in all things, there must be duality and balance. It is the Source and the Void.

Like how every white hole needs a black hole, they are two sides of the same coin. The Yin and Yang, the Light and Dark High Old Ones. The Source stands at the highest place in all realities, where the bubbles of the multiverse exists below it, born from the energy and essence it emits. Below the multiverse is the Void, the yawning abyss which absorbs and consumes. From the Source comes all things, to the Void goes all things, to be reborn again from the Source, reincarnated. It is the gateway of birth and death through which all souls must travel. In the end, all realities and all souls will be dissolved and die, taken back into the Void. all except one soul, one spark, one dying ember. The last atom, the last subatomic particle will become the next Singularity from which the Universe will burst forth from in a Big Bang, a new Source.

The Source had multiple emanations, the gods which span across all of the multiverse, always existing since the first - if there ever was such a first universe in this endless cycle. Eternity(Time), Infinity(Space), Oblivion(death), Entropy(Big Freeze), Explosion(Big Bang), Gravitation(Big Crunch), Chaos(Big Rip). They later became known as the gods of Death, Life, Fate, Ocean, Earth, Heaven, Heat, Cold. In the beginning, on Atlantis, they walked with Man - as the same being said for God in Eden. At some point, two Mages ascended into godhood. They were known as Demiurge and Diablo, merging with the Source and the Void to become avatars and protectors of the Singularity. They were called Brahman and Kroni by the Hindu, to the Egyptians, Demigorgon was Aten, as the Source, like the Sun, provided life to the universe. To the Celts, Diablo was Cythrawl. They were Belobog and Chernobog in the Slavic nations, while the Middle East knew them as Oromazes and Arimanius. In Japan, they become known as Okami the great god and Akuma or Kishin, the demon god. The two battled, and following the Fall of the Lower World, Diablo was imprisoned in the Abyss while Demiurge was shattered into Aeons/Archons, being of great elemental power. It is believed at Abaddon is one such Aeon, keeping Diablo subdued in his phantom zone.

Now, most scholars say Atlantis is a state of mind or a state of being. Then mankind could Dream, do magic and shape reality, with ease. They were all-powerful, taught by the fundamental forces of the universe. They were like gods, and soon, an elite formed, the most powerful mages, archmages. As they pursued magic, they forgot the gods. Soon, they saw themselves as gods, and a theocracy/hierocracy/magiocracy formed on Atlantis.

This lead to a Wizard's War or Ascension War, one side seeking to gain physical entry to the Upper World and become gods, the other wishing to preserve the natural order of things. Those who sought godhood won, driving the others from Atlantis.

The leaders of the usurpators then combined their powers, building at the heart of Atlantis a ladder to the Upper World. Climbing this Celestial Silver Ladder to other planes of existence, they assaulted the rulers of these realms, cast them down and claimed their powers for their own. With the Supernal Realms of the Upper World touching the Material universe, the masters of those realms became true gods, but the universe began to buckle under the weight. Chaos reigned in the world of mortals, and the very fabric of reality began to tear itself apart.

The exiled mages regrouped and assaulted Atlantis, seizing it and climbing the Ladder themselves. They began to storm the palaces of the celestial magi. In the battle that followed, both sides suffered terrible losses. Mages on both sides were flung from the Supernal Realms back into the world, and the conflict began again in the material realm.

During the height of the battle, the Celestial Ladder collapsed and where it had been, a yawning void gaped open that drove a wedge between the Realms Supernal and the Realms Material. Stronger than ever before, the Abyss was now nearly impenetrable for souls, designed to keep an aberration like the Celestial Ladder from ever being built again. The Gauntlet between the worlds of flesh and spirit rose as the tapestry itself restructured.

The foundations of Atlantis were destroyed in the conflict, and the island city fell apart, sinking into the waves of the thrashing sea, its burning wreckage being swallowed by the dark waters(the state of harmony and high magic, living with the gods, now lost due to war and hate). The mages fled, scattered themselves across the world, returning to their old homes, and trying to regain the power they once had, in what is called the Exile.

After the fall of Atlantis, the Mages fled to their homelands all around the world, hoping to escape the numbness of the newly formed Abyss within their souls. This time is also called the Exile, as humanity was once again delivered to the moods of spirits and monsters, and the light of magic had been reduced to a faint memory.

During this period, many lost the contact to the Realms Supernal and began to Sleep, some started to hoard Atlantean artifacts in order to remember themselves of the mystical heritage they once claimed and others formed new legacies, freed from Atlantean dogma that has restricted them for so long, and finding their own way to approach the mysteries.

The Exile ended when the first Watchtowers pierced through the darkness and new Sleepers began to Awaken, so that the Awakened society could reform and regroup.

Due to the Watchtowers and the Oracles, the Mages of today have access to the knowledge of their forebearers. Atlantean customs dominate the mindset of modern Mages and many attempts have been made to rebuild the city. Others hold that simply by emulating what they believe was part of Atlantis, the Diamond generated a powerful Supernal symbol that is True whether Atlantis existed or not.

Many legacies dedicate themselves to the heritage of Atlantis either by trying to restore it or by trying to reinterpret the idea of it. They point to Thule, Hyperborea, Shamballah, Atzlan, Lyonesse and similar myths to say that there has once been a Golden Age that the Hubris of men destroyed.

In Atlantean dogma, the Watchtowers were built by the Guardians, Mages who managed to ascend alongside the Dreamers. Through the will of the Oracles, the Watchtowers pierce the Lie and the Abyss, reestablishing contact between the Fallen World and the Supernal Realms of the Upper World. Every Watchtower is associated with a Path and an Guardian that guards it against the depredations of the Dreamers. Normally, the Watchtowers call to a Mage during their Awakening, and it is through them that a Mage is able to draw on the supernal energies. (hide spoiler)]