Our Mage ST used to really be into flavor posts – or fiction relating to your character between sessions – and so there have been a few about Math. This one was originally posted to the list on 27 Jan 2006.
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Math admired the craftsmanship of the lighter. The normal flame guard had a large-ish circle cut out of it on both sides, and that allowed the flame down and into the pipe when he inhaled. He had had no idea that Zippo made lighters specifically for pipes – or maybe McNally had modified this one. Either way, it was nifty. The edges of the cutout glowed a ruddy red when he lit the pipe, and that felt like home.

The tobacco was mixed with some kind of sage. It smelled earthy and solid. Math was just fine with the scent soaking into his clothes, not to mention the walls of the den. Knowing McNally, he’d probably packed a crapload of the sage into air-tight containers when he was living out west. Math would just have to find it. He smiled slightly around the pipe. He was getting pretty good at finding hidden things around the house, much to Susie’s glee and frustration.

Finding the first few of the books that she had hidden took hours. When he had found the first one, she had clapped, jumped up and down, and given him huge hugs. Suddenly the world had been small, this success was enormous, and accomplishment was possible again. Math had found himself centered and reassured by the love of this little girl. For once, he let himself simply be a Dad, and Susie be a daughter. Just as all good things, this was not meant to last. Each book became progressively easier for Math to find. By the sixth book, it was getting obvious that he had found a pattern. After he’d found the last of the books, he’d stumbled upon a knife that she’d hidden in case anyone else broke in the house. Needless to say, Susie wasn’t happy with this discovery.

It wasn’t easy for Math to stay angry at and firm with Susie when he knew the dangers that she’d faced. Massive waves of guilt assaulted him, and it took most of his will to deny her the simplest of things. With Joy’s help, he managed it. She was amazing at discipline, and really quite crappy at having any fun. At least she was able to relax, now that she had help of her own.

Math puffed on the pipe, filling the den with the scent of tobacco and wild sage. He slowly cracked open an old, and quite large, book entitled The Accurate and Scientific Theorems behind H.G. Wells’ ‘Time Machine’. It was one of McNally’s books that Susie had hidden, and sounded like a fun project.

After a few months of playing this character in the Mage LARP, I decided to flesh him out. This was originally posted 26 Feb 2006.

1. What Tradition are you?

Hollow Ones

2. What type of mage are you? (mystic, technomage, etc)

Technomage

3. Do you belong to a subsection of your Tradition? What is your Specialty Sphere?

Not any more. Used to be a Mole, but things have changed due to in-game development.

4. Describe your views on each of the nine Spheres and how they relate to each other.

Correspondence – The Panopticon is here; you are always watched. Hall monitors. Security cameras. Motion sensors at traffic lights. Managers watching over your shoulder in cube-land. There is no longer a tree that falls that cannot be witnessed via orbiting satellite. If you can see it, you’re connected to it, and you can manipulate it.

Forces – Electricity, heat, light, microwaves, don’t you know that they’re all the same? Different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, that’s all they are. Hell, a simple read through the back issues of Discover magazine – for children, I might add – can tell you all about the bleeding edge of Forces. There’s even some respected theories that gravity is a form of electromagnetic attraction. How else would you explain the Strong and Weak forces that hold an atom together?

Entropy – Did you know that it’s been discovered that, in an atom, it isn’t just an electron that’s popping in and out of this reality? I mean, they’ve known forever that an electron’s location is up in the air until it’s observed. Now, they’ve discovered that the nucleus does this too. That means that without an observer, everything exists everywhere and nowhere. Once you observe, the only things that determine what’s what are chance and the observer’s will.

Prime – So, all energy is just electromagnetic waves oscillating at different wavelengths. Well, what about a wavelength of zero? What about an infinitely large wavelength? I would argue that it’s here that you find Prime, and here is where the line between zero and infinity is joined into a circle.

Matter – Matter is simply energy that is oscillating REAL slow. Huge, monstrous wavelength. Juice it up with enough caffeine, and it’s back to energy. I guess that while it’s being all sluggish, you could fine-tune it by adjusting its wavelength by tiny, tiny increments. I’ve read that the ancient Egyptians subscribed to a similar theory.

Time – Time is the only dimension that we only perceive in one direction. Just because our perception is naturally flawed, doesn’t mean that it can’t be assisted with technology that isn’t limited by our own perceptions. Theoretically, if we could create a field in which our perception of time, and the dimension (just like length, width, or depth) could be altered or disjointed, we might be able to move about in time in the same manner we move in three dimensions.

Mind – There is no separating thought and feeling, at least not naturally. The electrical impulses in our brains – the firing of our neural nets – are enhanced or inhibited by the chemical triggers of our emotions. The key to altering the mind lies in altering the triggering stimuli. Predicting the mind, similarly, lies in analyzing and predicting the patterns of reacting to stimuli. “Reading minds” is as simple as watching the brain record memories to cells just as a hard drive writes data to a magnetic platter of discs.

Life – The human body is a system, just like any animal’s body. Dissection in Junior High biology taught us that. Manipulating a system of electrical current, pumps, and tension simply requires understanding of that system. Wolverine’s healing could be accomplished today with nanite technology (don’t let them tell you it doesn’t exist) or with hacking the body’s own healing system. Have you even seen plants regenerate? Don’t you think that if a plant can do it, so can we?

Spirit – Of course I believe in spirit realms. The evidence of their existence throughout history is staggering, and science – quantum theory, specifically – has already explained it. For every choice that is made, a separate reality exists in which the path not taken, so to speak, was taken. Since time is an infinite direction, just like the other three, there are an infinite number of realities that have existed for an infinite amount of time. Of course communication happens between these realities. The choices that bring them into being imply that their boundaries are permeable.

5. Describe your Awakening. How does it affect your view of how magic works?

My Awakening was gradual, which I hear is a rare thing. It was a culmination of disquiet and unsettlement throughout my childhood and teen years. I had felt imprisoned by the public schooling system, and I put all my hope in escaping through graduation. When the Principal handed me that rolled-up piece of paper, I realized that I was just moving from one prison to another, whether I went to college or straight into the work force. All the tools to break free were around me, and around all of us, but we were cowed by a simple system of reward and punishment. That was the day that I started to pick up the tools, and I’ve been using them ever since.

6. Explain your view of magic, why it works, and how it works.

Magic is just inspiration and will. People don’t do extraordinary things because they were told that they can’t, and they believed it. I don’t buy that shit. If you are inspired by something, anything, then you question. If you question, then you start to look around you. This “magic” stuff is just the end result of fueling your will to understand with your inspiration.

7. How does magic affect your everyday life? How do you use magic in your everyday life?

Magic is everyday life. That’s not to say that you should use your greater will and understanding to get yourself a closer parking spot at the mall. There are too many watchers to fly that far above the radar. If you keep your eyes open to magic – inspiration – then you begin to see it everywhere. Magic isn’t as rare as the Traditions would like to think or the Technocracy wishes.

8. Describe the cosmology of the world. Is there a spirit world? If so, how does it interact with the physical world?

See description of the Spirit sphere.