I’ve always loved Mage and it’s really nice to find a “third-party source” that isn’t just laughing about how overwhelmingly thick the books are, or how “over complicated” spheres and paradigms are. So thank you Mage the Podcast which, respectfully, should’ve been named Transmissions from the Rogue Podcast.
Hi! Regarding the treatment and representation of real world practices: one particularly blunt Storyteller said to a friend of mine that was getting maybe a bit too nitpicky about them "You say real wicca don't do things that way? Well... If those guys can't do magick and these guys can, maybe real wicca are doing something wrong". Note: both know each other and, by how the other players presente at the time tell it, it was as much jest as well deserved poke. It's a game! Remember to have fun!
30:00 I Awakened when I took four tabs of acid and had a mind-breaking experience with a few people closest to me. A doorway opened into the Umbra that tried to coax me in during the peak of the trip, and I saw the true face of the demon who I was dating. A few weeks before that experience though, I met my Avatar in a DMT trip and it put weird needles in my face that did _something_ to me.
The Verbena sound like a very easy Tradition to draw new initiates. Natural remedies, healing, weather control, practicality and endurance, sounds very wholesome. But eventually the mage needs to confront the fact that nature is pretty neutral by default and that sometimes sacrifices are necessary for the ecosystem to thrive. Odin needs to offer a significant tribute to see the runes or increase his wisdom, the nazaru seed must take a victim in order to provide the life saving harvest, Chernobog and Belobog are just personification of concepts that are impartially doing their jobs. I think adjusting to those trains of thought is part of the growing pains of a Verbena mage.
