A video on the Five Conventions of the Technocracy, from the Tabletop roleplaying game, Mage: the Ascension. 00:52 Iteration X 12:32 New World Order 22:24 Progenitors 31:56 Syndicate 41:13 Void Engineers
You’re preserving some of the most amazing lore to exist in ttrpgs and I’m extremely thankful for it. I started listening to your channel this year and your steady tone and hefty backlog have helped me through a lot. My mom died last week and there’s something about wraith the oblivion, at least the way you describe it, that comforts me in some way. The amount of hours I have spent looking up all this lore on my phone over the years at 3 am while anxious or depressed, dealing with annoying wiki ads and pop ups, only to find your channel and lay out so much of what I loved in a clear manner that links everything together. It truly has been a blessing. RU-vid comments are dumb and these are all just the idiot words from a rando, but please keep doing what you do. I’ll privately fund your ass if I have to.
I wish you all the strength you need and I’m proud of you even if I’m just a internet random. To find a way to cope with reality, to carry on even if live is tough that’s truly inspiring.
@@kunstlermann appreciate it. The opening lines of the History of the Kuei Jin video encapsulate it perfectly. We’re all just on that great wheel. Life is born, life dies, empires rise and fall. Famines are suffered, all in accordance to it’s turning.
With the Technocracy, there are only a few other factions in Mage: The Ascension. The Nephandi, the Marauders, and the Disparate Alliance. And the Marauders are less a faction, more of a hazard. Then, with Mage: The Awakening, we have The Mad/Rapt, The Banishers, the Exarchs and the Seers of the Trone. I wonder when you will cover Geist: The Sin Eaters?
Love it! I really hope we get a mage game for 5th edition. I'd actually love if there was a threat that forced mages and technocrats to work together. We had a game where a 5th generation vampire was attempting to create a portal to the labyrinth in New York and we had to work with a technocrat we had been fighting for over a year in real time. As always an amazing video Laz 😄
It's so uplifting how passionate you are about all this lore, I'm actually not as versed yet you've managed to make me more enthusiastic. Again thank you so much for this channel, you are a gem from a time that mustn't be forgotten
@@justcommenting4981 No i mean they have sci fi methodologies based around Tropes like Space marines and ghost busters. That is the Pan Dimensional Corps and the Neutralization Specialists Corps
Okay I'm not the only one who thinks that the iteration X "super computer" is either an aspect of or is in fact The Weaver having taken direct control over a group of mages because there goals feel like they where taken straight out of the Weavers own play book. That and apparently the technocrats don't believe in things like spiritual corruption. Also I'm going to believe that the Void Engineers found God out in space and now God is backing the Void Engineers and I say this because it should be common knowledge that you need a spaceship to even meet God.
2006 “technocracy conventions: void engineers” In case you want to read the book spoiler free i’ll keep this vague. The book gives some history on Computer and autochthonia. Some of that info is on the wiki for computer if you want to search. unfortunately thats all i know
Only time I played this was as an Iteration X defector. I really wanted to play Void Engineer but it wasn't on the menu for the only GM we could find to run it. That was a great game.
Is there such a thing as a new Mage The Ascension storyteller these days? Cause that may be me. It's overwhelming and amazing at the same time. I am grateful for this video, as it help me not to despair in face of the sheer volume of information available (and mandatory?) to run a decent game. Thank you very much.
"A world without monsters" and "antagonists" Aren't basically all monsters besides mummy's and changelings in wod unrepentant bastards? Like it's considered insanely amazing when one thinks "hey maybe we shouldn't murder and torture everyone and everything" and then actually not be lieing. I am certain their totally evil because of course they are, their mages. But that opening statement really doesn't sound bad when most of the other splat options are legit evil just for its own sake
I fully agree with you. Though the Technocracy is a good example of how even a noble goal can lead to corruption over time. I'm a big Techy fan (NWO and Void Engineers for life!) but even I will admit that at a certain level the TU has become just as much about assuring their own power and influence as they are about trying to make the world a better place. Which is what makes characters/factions like John Courage and the Syndicate group fighting against Pentex so important, it shows that there is still something good inside of the Technocracy.
Even the Changlings are a coin flip. Mummies and some of the (non-Imbued, non-human) hunter factions (like the Children of Osiris, and Benedante(sp?)) were basically the only hero factions in the setting.
@@liliththesolarexalted2206 in my stories Technocracy still wants to guarantee humanity safety and access to advanced technology but they understood that's impossible until there will be free (irrational) choice and spiritual introspection. So they are essentially trying to wipe out free will in favour of a stricly deterministic worldview wich doesn't allow any deviation. Now my players are dealing with a swiss technocratic leader who loves to collect privately magical items using her rolento satisfy her personal curiosity about the "traditional" supernatural. She is toying with them (they are not mages but just psychics/mystics) and using them to collect objects she wants to study and use to connect with deeper layers of reality. She is actually risking to reach insight and enlightenment in her twisted and opportunistic way.
Ok, Void Engineers ARE COOL AS FUCK! HOLY FUCKING SHIT A MAGICAL SPACE EXPLORING SECT OF HUMANITY THAT USES TECHNOLOGY AND MAGIC TO BATTLE AGAINST UNSEEN HORRORS IN EVERY FRONTIER HUMANS KNOWN/HAVE? HOOOOOLY SHIT WHY CAN'T WE PLAY AS THOSE GUYS?!
Old world of darkness lore is great, but I like the mechanic system from Mage Awakening and Changeling the Lost better. And a fast talking good at word play Changeling can talk about anyone or anything into a non-aggression contract within moments.
*And another thing, it may be helpful for aspiring GMs to do a video on different enemies and enemy types they could employ in their own WoD or CoD games. I have a list of about 60 that I like to cycle through and adapt in different ways. I kind of want to do that video myself but eh, I'd also prefer if someone better did it.*
As a primarily Vampire the Masquerade player, the Void Engineers always made me feel small. I am fighting for control of a city while the Void Engineers are in some sort of Warhammer 40k/Starship Troopers/Battlestar Galactica/Star Trek shit.
Not really. The Technocracy is not trying to destroy and corrupt the world like Pentex is trying to do in the name of the Wyrm. The Technocracy can be portrayed several ways A) The best hope for humanity against the darkness encroaching reality B) A corrupt monolith entity crumbling under its own weight C) A totalitarian engine of control who wants to unite humanity at all costs, even at the cost of the indomitable human spirit D) A nephandi ridden abomination whos atrocities go far and wide to corrupt the world. E) A bastion of order and idealism who stands in contrast to old precepts of the Council of Nine Traditions. It can be all of those at the same time. Pentex is just a bunch of evil assholes trying to make everyone into Fomori and stuff.
While I'd likewise enjoy a video specifically covering Pentex, in the meantime, I'd highly suggest checking out The Gentleman Gamer's 'The Pentex Guide to Werewolves' series - it presents each tribe from the point of view of Pentex, thus presenting quite a bit of Pentex lore in the process.
Can I make you a profile picture so you don't continue looking like a second rate youtube channel? Also, a bit of work on those titles and thumbnails could go a long way. Amazing channel, amazing lore, such a shame there aren't more Sleepers who can see it and be Awakened.
It's comical that this is totally a made up fantasy game yalls and not what our governments are up to right now in 2023.😏 Great vid as always, I miss my old White Wolf days of the late 90s
I'm not sure if it's a generational thing, but the very idea of asking money to run someone through a TTRPG seems... scummy or somehow inherently morally flawed to me. It might be that for those that have never had a IRL job before, it seems like a tempting path to turn a hobby into a source of income, but the reality seems quite far removed, if the stories I've heard can be believed. To each their own, but this suggestion sounds, at least to me, quite unsavory (strictly the paid GM part, not the Patreon part).
