The mage in my group is initiating. This is his first grade. He's a full mage with only the Sorcery skill group (no summoning), and a fairly limited spell list. He's also a Drake (from the SR Companion) and has the Cat mentor spirit. His tradition is Chaos, and he has joined a small, poorly organized group lead by a charismatic changeling.

I need some ideas for running him through a fairly short solo adventure for his ordeal. Thanks.

-The Dread Polack

Which Ordeal is he using? Keep in mind that, as this will be his first initiate grade, he can't do metaplanar quests yet, since he can't access the metaplanes yet. From here, you have other options, most of which are difficult to do as a session in their own right, with the exception of Deed. In this case, more info on his particular view of Chaos Magic and his Cat mentor spirit would be useful.

The easiest Ordeal for the first grade, if he is planning on staying with this group, is the Oath ordeal: taking the oaths of the group he is a part of.

I meant to say that I was running him through a Deed, specifically.

What I apparently missed, however, is that an Oath counts as an ordeal, and will do just fine. If I can't think of a sufficient deed, I might just have him swear an oath, and run him through a solo game getting him a little deeper in to the magical world. I'm sure that'll do just fine.

Any thoughts on what sort of rules and strictures a small group of chaos mages would have?

It could include anything from Exclusive Membership (you are not allowed to join any other magical group), Exclusive Ritual (you are not allowed to do Ritual Sorcery with a group unless it is this group), Belief (must adhere to specific moral or philosophical belief), Obedience (must listen to those of higher rank than yourself [Rank within the group]), Secrecy (you are sworn to secrecy and cannot reveal the nature of this group), etc.

One of my characters is apart of a group that are elven followers of the Dark Goddess. Our group strictures include Belief, Deed, Exclusive Membership, Fraternity, and Secrecy.

On top topic of Chaos mages, would a nexus be an appropriate magical "lodge"?

No, but you can include a nexus as part of your lodge, like the library for your lodge. A lodge must be at least big enough for you to move around in, as it is where you perform ritual spellcasting, and where you learn new spells.

To the OP: what about harvesting some telesma? I suggested this to my friend who was running his group's mage through his first Initiation, and he ended up hunting and capturing live devil rats in the sewers.

Ordeal ideas:
* Destroy a rival magicial order's base.
* Astral Quest (via. a free spirit's astral gateway power). Maybe the group has a free spirit that assist the group for karma? Destroy an enemy spirit on its home plane?
* Harvest telesma (I like the devil rat ideas).
* Create a new spell or focus from scratch, using raw materials and crafting skills.
* Create an ally spirit.

- J.

Bah, ritual spellcasting. Worst skill ever.

Also, due to character concept (as well as the ideas behind chaos mages) spell design would happen in an AR interface. He has to cast them that way too (yay geas!).

In any case, I do respect the fact that the lodge is a physical location.

Instead of Deed, try the Astral Quest one. It'll be a lot easier to cook up ideas there and, if significantly challenging, it could count as your Deed for your next initiation, too. (You are allowed to do Deeds beforehand, afterall.) And even if you can't astrally project by yourself, by being a mystic adept or something, there's a drug that will let you do it just fine... though I'll be damned if I can remember what it's called right now.

Unless he finds a free spirit with the Portal power (or at least it was like that in 3rd).



Deepweed? I thought that thing only let you perceive.

Nah, Deepweed is for perception. There's one that lets you project. Bah, one moment and I'll go look it up.

It's Shade, from Arsenal. It lets you project (even if you're completely mundane) for Essence + 1D6 hours, to a maximum of 12 hours at the cost of 10 boxes of Stun damage after it wears off.

Hey, that's more than enough time to hit up the metaplanes!

Maybe.

That whole "time flows differently" thing.

Considering it's longer than normal projection for the most part, of course it's plenty of time.

Once you hit the metaplanes, your Astral Timer™ stops ticking, until you re-enter the Astral, that is.

Here's a particularly devious Ordeal.
"In order to remind you of your oneness with all things, you are not to use the words 'me,' 'I,' 'we,' 'one(self),' or 'you' for # weeks."

Make the player feel the Ordeal! It is extremely difficult to avoid using those words in daily speech, and thinking of ways to get around using them changes the thought process.

Though, I don't know if that fits particularly with the nature of Cat. Hunting Devil Rats might vibe better.

The best part is I forgot his Mentor is Cat. Basically it was just harvesting reagents, and in a city the best source of reagents are devil rats.

I disagree with this... I have used Ritual Spellcasting to GREAT effect... it is somewhat limited for some games (where the majority see no real purpose for said castings), but can be somewhat powerful if approached in a thoughful manner...

Keep the Faith

Its only any good if the other runners on your team are the same type of mage.

I will admit that ritual spellcasting can be used to great effect, I just happen to think that for PCs its less than effective use of BP.

You CAN use Ritual Spellcasting by yourself... no need to actually have additional people to assist you... additional people just tend to make it easier... and you can use a spirit to spot for you if you like...

Keep the Faith

Additional casters make it worse. You get maybe a couple more dice for the spell, and everyone takes drain equally? That's a bad deal in my opinion. If drain were reduced by 1 per person after the group leader it would be better, but that's not the way it works.

Ritual 'casting is pretty good for intimidation purposes (Ritual Dream someone, letting them know you can find them and kill them no matter where they go) and for NPC actions (having an NPC do what was mentioned above), but it gets very little chance to shine in the fast-paced shadows of the 6th world.

Dammit, read "Nerd ideas for a magical ordeal", but so I'm out.

Well, with additional people, and average dice pools of 6, you would get, on average, +2dp per participant... this can add up real quick if your group is a large one... the drain thing sucks, but that is okay in my book, you have to balance it out somehow... this is as good a method as any I guess...

As for shining in the Fast Paced realm of the Shadows, I Guess that depends upon how you use it... and yes, it is VERY good for intimidation purposes in my book... My guess is that you don't see it more often with player characters as it does not have the glitz and glam of on the spot spellcasting...

Keep the Faith

Don't forget that the number of participants is limited by the LOWEST skill of all participants OR the level of the lodge. This means that the maximum group size is (realistically) 6.

Also, it is nigh impossible to do Ritual Spellcasting with a metahuman spotter without having a group member at Magic 7. First the spotter has to get to the target in astral space (not instantaneous) and watch the target for the whole duration of the ritual casting (which is 12 [minus the ritual group leaders Magic] hours). So either the group leader needs to be Magic 7 so that the ritual only takes 5 hours, or the spotter needs to be Magic 7 so that he can survive the ritual cast by someone with Magic 6. So, yeah, ritual spellcasting is impossible to do at character creation without a spirit spotter.

Which have low perception dice pools. Unless you're going to blow a wad on a high force spirit...in which case, use your one task more effectively: "Spirit, kill that guy."

Sometimes I feel like no one actually played this game before it was published.

The magical compound Shade allows anyone to project for (Essence + 1D6 hours), even mundanes. It's rather inexpensive, too.

You're still seriously limited by the skill ranks of everyone involved, means that you need a rank of 2 on 2 guys minimum in order to have a non-spirit spotter (and you''re still casting the spell all by yourself). Realistically skill maxes out at 6 (there's very little reason to get a 7th rank as every one of your other 6 "friends" would need to do it too), which means you can have 5 guys around a circle and one spotter.

Basically, Ritual Casting rank 1 is worthless, and rank 2 is dubious.

I was just pointing out that a spirit spotter wasn't the only option. Ritual Spellcasting is still shite. Like regeneration, they "nerfed" it into oblivion.

I agree with Draco18s. Ritual spellcasting is a very poor skill (for PCs). NPC groups might get some mileage out of it.

I actually just realized that it is possible for PCs to do Ritual Spellcasting at character creation, because you just need to assense the target (meaning you can find him physically and just watch him with Astral Perception). I didn't notice that part in the section on Ritual Casting.

Coming back to this for a bit, I managed to rationalize just the node to my GM* though I will be including it as a physical space as well.

UV nodes are indistinguishable from real life, right?

*In sleep deprived character background musings I thought of something cool and my GM didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

Read up on street Magic, p. 28

Just send in your microdrone to steal some hair from the target's hairbrush, and you can use ritual magic on them.

See, I just don't agree with you ere... Ritual Spellcasting has its uses, just as Regeneration does... it just seems that there are a lot of people who suffer from the "Its not an instant I win Ability, so it must be crap" mentality... I have used both to great effect and will continue to do so in the future... you are missing out on a lot of great characters if you approach them from the perspective of "gotta be awesome all the time, or they are just not worth playing."


And yes Ascalaphus, Physical or Symbolic Links are awesome when it comes to Ritual Spellcasting...

Keep the Faith