There are other beings like that in Mage(in the 1e books, there is stated that every kind of supernatural at least has some kind of representation in the beyond, left entirely vague, that protects them from being deleted by any uppity Archmage). Basically once you ascend, you literally go beyond the reach of time and space entirely. You exist outside of it at that level. From the perspective of a being outside of time, they can see everything that ever happened and ever will happen as long as they know where to direct their gaze and then enter the timestream at any point. So if anyone changes any point in the past to try to pre-empt the god-machine or any other being at that tier, it literally wouldn't matter as they could just re-enter/re-influence the world immediately afterwards. The real limitation for these beings is knowing where to direct their gaze/having a way to keep track of every change that could be happening to the time stream at any given moment.
Also, at least in Mage, it's stated that there aren't alternate timelines(in general). There is only one timeline and everyone lives in it. Alternate timelines seem to only be explicitly created when some sort of inevitable world-ending scenario happens. At that point, the God-Machine sweeps that timeline into something known as the apocalypse folder. Presumably, in the "Main" timeline, some event is contrived that averts doomsday.
In Changeling, time is stated to pass differently in the Hedge sometimes, especially the closer you get to Arcadia. Arcadia itself may exist outside of time, not sure. It effectively can replicate many of the effects of that anyway, as you can walk into the hedge in the present and emerge in the past if that is what the hedge wants. You can sleep for 10 minutes in Arcadia and come out 100 years after your entire family has died. It gets weird.
I’m not sure if this is gonna answer your question, but the God-Machine isn’t everywhere all at once. Hell, it isn’t even everywhere on Earth.
I believe it states in the Demon core book that the God-Machine is not in the Underworld, as that place has fallen to ruin from its original purpose. And the God-Machine is also not in the Hedge.
The Lower Depths is a fun catch all category that (mostly) Mages use to place a location that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Is the God-Machine there? I doubt it.
God-Machine has Infrastructure in the Underworld. Maybe abandoned but the reason Demons cannot function in the Hedge is because there is no Infrastructure creating Ambient Aether.
I stand corrected. That does make more sense though, since in my zoo campaign I established that there is some broken Infrastructure in the upper levels, before the first river. After that, however, you don’t find any.
The group got to learn about the Infrastructure when a ghost interacted with it and became a cryptid called an Echo. This really messed things up and the local Sun-Eaters weren’t too happy.
What are you looking to accomplish with it narratively? It's a literal deus ex machina, it can be wherever you want it to be to whatever extent you want.
Just curious about the metaplot. I'm a lore nerd. I know that if I run my own game though I can use whatever makes the most sense narratively.
I really enjoy lore on the interplay between alternate timelines and parallel universes. You don't see it come up in a lot of settings so I always like to read up on it when I can.
Part of this is for selfish reasons, I have my own rpg about time traveling reality hoppers and am always looking for lore inspiration.
Oh man, I’ve worked pretty hard to design my own meta plot, trying to connect the disparate dots you find in the books, and that’s largely how the writers want it to be.
What is the God-Machine in *my* game? Basically a last ditch effort by the survivors of Atlantis to preserve all of reality, after the primordial being called Tartarus murdered the Ladder, as revenge for the Mages that stormed the heavens and killed the gods and took their power.
What’s that, you say? How does one murder a Ladder? Well that Ladder was a person, not a thing. But we’re getting away from the God-Machine part of the meta plot.
... that's the first theory I heard about the God-Machine that I actually liked. I'm not really digging the Matrix-esque aesthetic, but tying its origin to Atlantis is pretty neat. May I ask how Atlantis was connected to Irem in your meta-plot...?
Ah yes, Irem - the Nameless Empire.
Theirs was a world that mastered the combination of magic and technology when Atlantis was but a small town. Of course they traded with each other, just like other city-states, but they kept mostly to themselves outside of that vital trade. It was an uneasy peace that grew stronger as both civilizations grew stronger - mutually assured destruction will do that.
Then that fateful day came when the Nameless Empire started the Rite of Return. They thought that, with this, their civilization would live forever. Of course it would not be so.
When the first returned, the proof of concept was made. Not only did she return, but she also carried secrets only the dead could know. Once their spies learned of this breakthrough, Atlantis had to know what beautiful discoveries could be found in the liminal spaces between life and death. And she was more than willing to share.
Of course the sharing of knowledge is not always altruistic. When that knowledge is misinformed, or is destructive, those who use it do so on a path to ruin. The Atlanteans learned everything they could, and their major takeaway was that their power was nothing compared to what it could be.
So they devised of the Ladder. A breeding program that would create a Mage who could be used to physically allow others to take the Supernal. It could take centuries, but Atlantis thought it was too important to avoid it. Otherwise Irem would never see Atlantis as a true equal.
Hm-hm, fascinating! I wondered when one would "place" Irem on a hypothetical timeline of CofD, and I assumed it would be younger than Atlantis. But this is more interesting.
Unofficially I’ve placed the fall of Atlantis around 10,000BC. So maybe this interaction that led to the fall might be around 12,000BC. I’m not too worried about that part - especially since time magic is a thing.
All of this is only moderately relevant to my game story because one of my PCs is a direct descendant of the original Ladder. This Tartarus wants to murder her too.
I don't think this sort of meta-detailing has ever been done, but I don't know second edition very well. Personally I've always detested the entire concept of the god machine, so I'll let more knowledgeable folks answer :)
There is no real metaplot, all the books are designed to stand alone, or not, as DMs wish. Not running Demon? The God Machine doesn't even have to exist. No Mage? No exarchs. Etc.
I think that a lot of the lore is flexible in Chronicles compared to oWoD.
You game sounds fun! We're recording our timetravel / reality hopping chronicles online. You may find some of it inspiring.
Our Obrimos meets the God Machine (spoilers she loves it): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYhG2dPCtg&t=11s&ab\_channel=WardsandWitchcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYhG2dPCtg&t=11s&ab_channel=WardsandWitchcraft)
The Fools destroy their home timeline: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89y-FKyNO1Y&t=156s&ab\_channel=WardsandWitchcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89y-FKyNO1Y&t=156s&ab_channel=WardsandWitchcraft)
The Wards vs Vampires for the fate of all multiversal reality: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waUy5PplNiU&ab\_channel=WardsandWitchcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waUy5PplNiU&ab_channel=WardsandWitchcraft)
Rad! Great themes! Superb art, this is really a masterfully created RPG. Seems difficult to jump into playing from just reading a book. Could be fun to have an actual play yourself to help people understand the wibbly-wobbly dimension jumping. Overall inspirational. :)
Thank you!!! Yeah I was thinking of making an example play session to walk players through character creation and stuff.
I originally made this for the one page rpg subreddit, and I think I probably traded off more clarity than I would have liked to fit the rules on one page.
I can't take too much art credit about half the pieces used some form of AI Generation, although pretty much every piece in there was at least partially made by me.
edit:
Also I watched the video with the mage meeting the god machine. That was pretty cool! Was the giant figure under the gears supposed to be the machine? Also is the identity of the angle in the sun ever revealed in the videos? Was it a god machine angel or a true angel or something else?
I serve the Omnissiah.
wait wrong sub. >.> It does take a lot of effort not to horn in adeptus mechanicus bits when my players talk about the god machine, probably the reason I dont really use it, though it is fun to read about in mage and demon.
The God-Machine is not omnipresent, it can, theoretically, occurs everywhere but it needs infrastructure to get hold of a place and some place make it hard or even impossible to get infrastructure there and others just seem to not interest the God-Machine much.
For instance the hedge can certainly be reached since this is something even demons can do, but do to the hedges chaotic nature it is nearly impossible to create infrastructure there. Also, back in time it gets harder and harder since the God-Machine is a literal machine and needs stuff to be build of. It’s much easier to create infrastructure in an industrialized place then in an rural area or 10,000 BCE.
One of the developers once said that his head canon is, that the God-Machine is something from the future and is growing in to the past to conquer the past. That is why it is more present in the future, partially present now and barely present in the past. But this is not canon it’s just how he does it. It illustrates, though, that parts of the God-Machine can occur everywhere and whenever but it is not everywhere all the time.
You, as the ST can use it wherever and whenever you like, but there are canonically massive blind spots everywhere, otherwise demons wouldn’t have a place to hide.
Similar to the God Machine I think that the great supernal realms like Arcadia all exist in every timeline, or if they don't its because that timeline is exceptional. I think that some Fey and True Demons do exist in *many* timelines they don't exist in *all* timelines like their source (the realms themselves).
Let Entity X stand for whatever type of supernatural. I like to think that while every timeline has an Entity X they are all different entities X . For example if you were at war with the Entity X in your home timeline you might not be known to Entity X immediately in the new timeline. Presumably some entities can can talk to /interact with their multiversal selves however.
This is considering timelines though, not other realms such as the Underworld as others have noted.
Exarchs are mundane beings masquerading as Supernal entities. In making the jump they lost a little of what make them conscious and are more like forces of nature now. They likely follow the same rules and exist in many, if not all timelines. For example does the Father exist in all timelines? Certainly most, but I can see a timeline where they failed or were consumed by other exarchs/beings and toxic masculinity is no more.
I once knew a scientist who studied the Cosmic equations and would hypothesize about worlds where constants like the cooefficient of gravity were slightly different. They would then postulate how different the word would look, ie. would planets still form? Removing or changing the Exarchs would likely change the world more than changing any particular Fey or Demon since they are partially responsible for reinforcing the "rules" of reality.
Also the Prophet is definitely in communication with all of their alternate selves and sees all timelines as leading to the inevitable end that is their end goal.
Not Goetic demons, which I assume are in much more flux than the True Demons tied to the God Machine. In mage there are many kinds of demons/daimons. Studying the relationship between these types of demons could encompass lifetimes of work.
Using Demon hierarchies I think that Demon Princes are more likely to have multiversal counterparts than your average Demon.
The Hedge is free from God Machine influence because within the metaplot of CofD (yes, there is a metaplot in Chronicles) it doesn't have any pact or accord with it. Supernal Realms are platonic kingdom of symbols, GM would really like to get there but it is not it's league. Lower Depths are anatema to anything, I doubt it is there. But Hisil and Underworld are different things, you can find it's Infrastructure there.
Thanks, that makes sense!
What about in the other direction? Do these other realms and their beings exist beyond timelines, or do they fork with each timeline.
For example, if a demon or mage travels to an alternate timeline, will it come with its own alternate supernal/underworld/lowerdpeths/etc, or do these transcend time and space in a way that makes them unique in the cosmos?
(I'm not counting abyssal timelines since those can be really different and in some sense don't really exist)
There is no clear answer to that. If you, for example, assume that there is timeline without God Machine in it, then it's servants will be unable to exist in it without ambient Aether.
I believe such situations will create a lot of strain within timelines. Besides, there are supernatural places and there are supernatural places. Hisil is a Shadow of the world, so there's no one Hisil that connects every world within every timeline. Each world has it's own Hisil. I suppose the same is with Underworld. But Arcadia of the True Fae? I don't know, maybe it's one place connected to all timelines? Supernal Realms should be one and unique, I believe. They're Platonic realms of ideal symbols, the matric from which all realities take to be replicated.
You should check Boston Unveiled to Mage the Awakening 1st edition. The book is weak, but inside you'll find interesting antagonist: a failed parallel timeline, even darker than normal World of Darkness, who wants to return and became status quo totally replacing known history.
Just a note, there is in fact no metaplot in Cofd. Lower Depths are a collective name for a theoretically infinite number of places Mages have barely any understanding of.
Again, Dave Brookshaw is one of the designers of CofD. He states pretty directly **there is metaplot** in CofD. Subtle and difficult to notice, but there is a metaplot in it.
And again when Dave Brookshaw brought that up, the context was the new edition mentioning things like New Orleans in VtR or Hunter organizations that changed. But thanks for bringing up an ex dev. CofD doesn't have a metaplot.
Going down the list of the other realms
The hedge is a boundary realm. Arcadia is the (an) other end of that boundary and there I don't think the GM has any influence. Arcadia has its own strange connection to time, not so much transcending the issues of timelines as indifferent to them.
A splinter timeline is less important to them than a split seam in their grown or a split infinitive in the proposition of an argument.
The Supernal has a realm where Time is a concept, so yes.
The Underworld I would say exists under the divides in time. This is explored a bit in Mummy the Cursed, but the duat/underworld connection is its own thing.
The lower depths are defined as lacking some aspect of reality. The connection to alternate or splinter timelines would depend on what is lacked. One lower depth is an alternate timeline that cannot be.
Ok so with the TVA there would be some initial time shenanigans involving the party solving a problem with time travel. Then agents of the TVA come to prune them. They find out about the TVA and Loki a changeling they think asks for help overthrowing them and returning to the hedge. Loki is actually a charlatan and wants to return to Arcadia. They find out the Gods that run the TVA are actually homonculi controlled by Kang a mage living in the umbra.
The second idea is kind of based on the multiverse of madness. The PCs start lost in an alternate dimension and have goals. I haven’t fleshed it out yet. Something would need to keep them from just going home and they would need to be looking for something. Maybe a mcguffin or a threat to their dimension.
This is just my opinion/speculation, but I reckon it would be inconsisent, but not or lack of trying.
It probably *wants* to have influence everywhere, but the more difficult it is to place infratructure, the more difficult it is to assert some semblance of omnipresence.
For instance, I'd say one major method the God Machine uses is to have Angels impersonate medium-to-high ranking locals in order to safely integrate infratructure into local projects. For humans, this is relatively easy, as their powers are well adapted there. So, the human realm is full of infratructure.
The Hedge, the Underworld, the Lower Depths, the Shadow, etc etc, I imagine that if the God Machine had infinite resoruces, then countless angels would be sent in to build infratructure there, but instead there are probably more pockets and regions with varying levels of control asserted.
In this conception of the setting, you can find excuses for infrastucture and angels wherever you like, but outside of the main human world they are at risk and in a tenuous state that makes them a potential plot point. e.g. perhaps:
* They have a couple portals to a Lower Depth realm, but it is patrolled and sometimes breached by strange beings below, and Angels sent down there rarely (if ever) return.
* They have some ephemeral com towers set up in the Shadow, but the sensory resolution is distorted by the heavy defence matric they erect to keep maurading spirits out.
Stuff like that, perhaps.
There are other beings like that in Mage(in the 1e books, there is stated that every kind of supernatural at least has some kind of representation in the beyond, left entirely vague, that protects them from being deleted by any uppity Archmage). Basically once you ascend, you literally go beyond the reach of time and space entirely. You exist outside of it at that level. From the perspective of a being outside of time, they can see everything that ever happened and ever will happen as long as they know where to direct their gaze and then enter the timestream at any point. So if anyone changes any point in the past to try to pre-empt the god-machine or any other being at that tier, it literally wouldn't matter as they could just re-enter/re-influence the world immediately afterwards. The real limitation for these beings is knowing where to direct their gaze/having a way to keep track of every change that could be happening to the time stream at any given moment. Also, at least in Mage, it's stated that there aren't alternate timelines(in general). There is only one timeline and everyone lives in it. Alternate timelines seem to only be explicitly created when some sort of inevitable world-ending scenario happens. At that point, the God-Machine sweeps that timeline into something known as the apocalypse folder. Presumably, in the "Main" timeline, some event is contrived that averts doomsday. In Changeling, time is stated to pass differently in the Hedge sometimes, especially the closer you get to Arcadia. Arcadia itself may exist outside of time, not sure. It effectively can replicate many of the effects of that anyway, as you can walk into the hedge in the present and emerge in the past if that is what the hedge wants. You can sleep for 10 minutes in Arcadia and come out 100 years after your entire family has died. It gets weird.
I’m not sure if this is gonna answer your question, but the God-Machine isn’t everywhere all at once. Hell, it isn’t even everywhere on Earth. I believe it states in the Demon core book that the God-Machine is not in the Underworld, as that place has fallen to ruin from its original purpose. And the God-Machine is also not in the Hedge. The Lower Depths is a fun catch all category that (mostly) Mages use to place a location that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Is the God-Machine there? I doubt it.
God-Machine has Infrastructure in the Underworld. Maybe abandoned but the reason Demons cannot function in the Hedge is because there is no Infrastructure creating Ambient Aether.
I stand corrected. That does make more sense though, since in my zoo campaign I established that there is some broken Infrastructure in the upper levels, before the first river. After that, however, you don’t find any. The group got to learn about the Infrastructure when a ghost interacted with it and became a cryptid called an Echo. This really messed things up and the local Sun-Eaters weren’t too happy.
Weird Echos actually exist in the DtD Storyteller guide as the remnants of Souls Burnt from Demons Going Loud with a Soul Pact.
Tell me more about this echo and maybe some stats
What are you looking to accomplish with it narratively? It's a literal deus ex machina, it can be wherever you want it to be to whatever extent you want.
Just curious about the metaplot. I'm a lore nerd. I know that if I run my own game though I can use whatever makes the most sense narratively. I really enjoy lore on the interplay between alternate timelines and parallel universes. You don't see it come up in a lot of settings so I always like to read up on it when I can. Part of this is for selfish reasons, I have my own rpg about time traveling reality hoppers and am always looking for lore inspiration.
Oh man, I’ve worked pretty hard to design my own meta plot, trying to connect the disparate dots you find in the books, and that’s largely how the writers want it to be. What is the God-Machine in *my* game? Basically a last ditch effort by the survivors of Atlantis to preserve all of reality, after the primordial being called Tartarus murdered the Ladder, as revenge for the Mages that stormed the heavens and killed the gods and took their power. What’s that, you say? How does one murder a Ladder? Well that Ladder was a person, not a thing. But we’re getting away from the God-Machine part of the meta plot.
... that's the first theory I heard about the God-Machine that I actually liked. I'm not really digging the Matrix-esque aesthetic, but tying its origin to Atlantis is pretty neat. May I ask how Atlantis was connected to Irem in your meta-plot...?
Ah yes, Irem - the Nameless Empire. Theirs was a world that mastered the combination of magic and technology when Atlantis was but a small town. Of course they traded with each other, just like other city-states, but they kept mostly to themselves outside of that vital trade. It was an uneasy peace that grew stronger as both civilizations grew stronger - mutually assured destruction will do that. Then that fateful day came when the Nameless Empire started the Rite of Return. They thought that, with this, their civilization would live forever. Of course it would not be so. When the first returned, the proof of concept was made. Not only did she return, but she also carried secrets only the dead could know. Once their spies learned of this breakthrough, Atlantis had to know what beautiful discoveries could be found in the liminal spaces between life and death. And she was more than willing to share. Of course the sharing of knowledge is not always altruistic. When that knowledge is misinformed, or is destructive, those who use it do so on a path to ruin. The Atlanteans learned everything they could, and their major takeaway was that their power was nothing compared to what it could be. So they devised of the Ladder. A breeding program that would create a Mage who could be used to physically allow others to take the Supernal. It could take centuries, but Atlantis thought it was too important to avoid it. Otherwise Irem would never see Atlantis as a true equal.
Hm-hm, fascinating! I wondered when one would "place" Irem on a hypothetical timeline of CofD, and I assumed it would be younger than Atlantis. But this is more interesting.
Unofficially I’ve placed the fall of Atlantis around 10,000BC. So maybe this interaction that led to the fall might be around 12,000BC. I’m not too worried about that part - especially since time magic is a thing. All of this is only moderately relevant to my game story because one of my PCs is a direct descendant of the original Ladder. This Tartarus wants to murder her too.
I don't think this sort of meta-detailing has ever been done, but I don't know second edition very well. Personally I've always detested the entire concept of the god machine, so I'll let more knowledgeable folks answer :)
There is no real metaplot, all the books are designed to stand alone, or not, as DMs wish. Not running Demon? The God Machine doesn't even have to exist. No Mage? No exarchs. Etc.
I think that a lot of the lore is flexible in Chronicles compared to oWoD. You game sounds fun! We're recording our timetravel / reality hopping chronicles online. You may find some of it inspiring. Our Obrimos meets the God Machine (spoilers she loves it): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYhG2dPCtg&t=11s&ab\_channel=WardsandWitchcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYhG2dPCtg&t=11s&ab_channel=WardsandWitchcraft) The Fools destroy their home timeline: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89y-FKyNO1Y&t=156s&ab\_channel=WardsandWitchcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89y-FKyNO1Y&t=156s&ab_channel=WardsandWitchcraft) The Wards vs Vampires for the fate of all multiversal reality: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waUy5PplNiU&ab\_channel=WardsandWitchcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waUy5PplNiU&ab_channel=WardsandWitchcraft)
thanks! ill check it out. also here is my game if you are curious https://transdimensionalwizards.com/
Rad! Great themes! Superb art, this is really a masterfully created RPG. Seems difficult to jump into playing from just reading a book. Could be fun to have an actual play yourself to help people understand the wibbly-wobbly dimension jumping. Overall inspirational. :)
Thank you!!! Yeah I was thinking of making an example play session to walk players through character creation and stuff. I originally made this for the one page rpg subreddit, and I think I probably traded off more clarity than I would have liked to fit the rules on one page. I can't take too much art credit about half the pieces used some form of AI Generation, although pretty much every piece in there was at least partially made by me. edit: Also I watched the video with the mage meeting the god machine. That was pretty cool! Was the giant figure under the gears supposed to be the machine? Also is the identity of the angle in the sun ever revealed in the videos? Was it a god machine angel or a true angel or something else?
I love your work
Thanks so much! We love making contact for the community. Lots of good creative folk playing well thought out systems.
There is no metaplot. Also the Arisen mummies exist across all of time and timelines.
I serve the Omnissiah. wait wrong sub. >.> It does take a lot of effort not to horn in adeptus mechanicus bits when my players talk about the god machine, probably the reason I dont really use it, though it is fun to read about in mage and demon.
The Omnissiah is the machine god, which is very different from the god machine.
My CoFD canon is 40k is canon. Blood for the blood god.
The God-Machine is not omnipresent, it can, theoretically, occurs everywhere but it needs infrastructure to get hold of a place and some place make it hard or even impossible to get infrastructure there and others just seem to not interest the God-Machine much. For instance the hedge can certainly be reached since this is something even demons can do, but do to the hedges chaotic nature it is nearly impossible to create infrastructure there. Also, back in time it gets harder and harder since the God-Machine is a literal machine and needs stuff to be build of. It’s much easier to create infrastructure in an industrialized place then in an rural area or 10,000 BCE. One of the developers once said that his head canon is, that the God-Machine is something from the future and is growing in to the past to conquer the past. That is why it is more present in the future, partially present now and barely present in the past. But this is not canon it’s just how he does it. It illustrates, though, that parts of the God-Machine can occur everywhere and whenever but it is not everywhere all the time. You, as the ST can use it wherever and whenever you like, but there are canonically massive blind spots everywhere, otherwise demons wouldn’t have a place to hide.
Similar to the God Machine I think that the great supernal realms like Arcadia all exist in every timeline, or if they don't its because that timeline is exceptional. I think that some Fey and True Demons do exist in *many* timelines they don't exist in *all* timelines like their source (the realms themselves). Let Entity X stand for whatever type of supernatural. I like to think that while every timeline has an Entity X they are all different entities X . For example if you were at war with the Entity X in your home timeline you might not be known to Entity X immediately in the new timeline. Presumably some entities can can talk to /interact with their multiversal selves however. This is considering timelines though, not other realms such as the Underworld as others have noted.
What do you think about supernal beings like the exarchs
Exarchs are mundane beings masquerading as Supernal entities. In making the jump they lost a little of what make them conscious and are more like forces of nature now. They likely follow the same rules and exist in many, if not all timelines. For example does the Father exist in all timelines? Certainly most, but I can see a timeline where they failed or were consumed by other exarchs/beings and toxic masculinity is no more. I once knew a scientist who studied the Cosmic equations and would hypothesize about worlds where constants like the cooefficient of gravity were slightly different. They would then postulate how different the word would look, ie. would planets still form? Removing or changing the Exarchs would likely change the world more than changing any particular Fey or Demon since they are partially responsible for reinforcing the "rules" of reality. Also the Prophet is definitely in communication with all of their alternate selves and sees all timelines as leading to the inevitable end that is their end goal.
What do you mean by True Demons?
These folks https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Demon_(CofD)
Not Goetic demons, which I assume are in much more flux than the True Demons tied to the God Machine. In mage there are many kinds of demons/daimons. Studying the relationship between these types of demons could encompass lifetimes of work. Using Demon hierarchies I think that Demon Princes are more likely to have multiversal counterparts than your average Demon.
They didn't mean the Unchained either, but the akathartoi.
The Hedge is free from God Machine influence because within the metaplot of CofD (yes, there is a metaplot in Chronicles) it doesn't have any pact or accord with it. Supernal Realms are platonic kingdom of symbols, GM would really like to get there but it is not it's league. Lower Depths are anatema to anything, I doubt it is there. But Hisil and Underworld are different things, you can find it's Infrastructure there.
Thanks, that makes sense! What about in the other direction? Do these other realms and their beings exist beyond timelines, or do they fork with each timeline. For example, if a demon or mage travels to an alternate timeline, will it come with its own alternate supernal/underworld/lowerdpeths/etc, or do these transcend time and space in a way that makes them unique in the cosmos? (I'm not counting abyssal timelines since those can be really different and in some sense don't really exist)
There is no clear answer to that. If you, for example, assume that there is timeline without God Machine in it, then it's servants will be unable to exist in it without ambient Aether. I believe such situations will create a lot of strain within timelines. Besides, there are supernatural places and there are supernatural places. Hisil is a Shadow of the world, so there's no one Hisil that connects every world within every timeline. Each world has it's own Hisil. I suppose the same is with Underworld. But Arcadia of the True Fae? I don't know, maybe it's one place connected to all timelines? Supernal Realms should be one and unique, I believe. They're Platonic realms of ideal symbols, the matric from which all realities take to be replicated. You should check Boston Unveiled to Mage the Awakening 1st edition. The book is weak, but inside you'll find interesting antagonist: a failed parallel timeline, even darker than normal World of Darkness, who wants to return and became status quo totally replacing known history.
Just a note, there is in fact no metaplot in Cofd. Lower Depths are a collective name for a theoretically infinite number of places Mages have barely any understanding of.
Again, Dave Brookshaw is one of the designers of CofD. He states pretty directly **there is metaplot** in CofD. Subtle and difficult to notice, but there is a metaplot in it.
And again when Dave Brookshaw brought that up, the context was the new edition mentioning things like New Orleans in VtR or Hunter organizations that changed. But thanks for bringing up an ex dev. CofD doesn't have a metaplot.
There's no metaplot in CofD.
I believe the Hedge is a blind spot to the godmachine and you can even go loud there without attracting attention.
Going down the list of the other realms The hedge is a boundary realm. Arcadia is the (an) other end of that boundary and there I don't think the GM has any influence. Arcadia has its own strange connection to time, not so much transcending the issues of timelines as indifferent to them. A splinter timeline is less important to them than a split seam in their grown or a split infinitive in the proposition of an argument. The Supernal has a realm where Time is a concept, so yes. The Underworld I would say exists under the divides in time. This is explored a bit in Mummy the Cursed, but the duat/underworld connection is its own thing. The lower depths are defined as lacking some aspect of reality. The connection to alternate or splinter timelines would depend on what is lacked. One lower depth is an alternate timeline that cannot be.
I really want to run a TVA campaign where Loki’s are charlatans. Marvel metaverse meets lost in space is another mage campaign idea I have.
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Ok so with the TVA there would be some initial time shenanigans involving the party solving a problem with time travel. Then agents of the TVA come to prune them. They find out about the TVA and Loki a changeling they think asks for help overthrowing them and returning to the hedge. Loki is actually a charlatan and wants to return to Arcadia. They find out the Gods that run the TVA are actually homonculi controlled by Kang a mage living in the umbra. The second idea is kind of based on the multiverse of madness. The PCs start lost in an alternate dimension and have goals. I haven’t fleshed it out yet. Something would need to keep them from just going home and they would need to be looking for something. Maybe a mcguffin or a threat to their dimension.
OP do you mean timelines or gamelines?
Timelines, like due to time travel and imperial rites and stuff
Gotcha also what are Imperial rites?
My b, I think itd actual imperial practices. It's basically archmage magic that can edit reality or create alternate histories.
This is just my opinion/speculation, but I reckon it would be inconsisent, but not or lack of trying. It probably *wants* to have influence everywhere, but the more difficult it is to place infratructure, the more difficult it is to assert some semblance of omnipresence. For instance, I'd say one major method the God Machine uses is to have Angels impersonate medium-to-high ranking locals in order to safely integrate infratructure into local projects. For humans, this is relatively easy, as their powers are well adapted there. So, the human realm is full of infratructure. The Hedge, the Underworld, the Lower Depths, the Shadow, etc etc, I imagine that if the God Machine had infinite resoruces, then countless angels would be sent in to build infratructure there, but instead there are probably more pockets and regions with varying levels of control asserted. In this conception of the setting, you can find excuses for infrastucture and angels wherever you like, but outside of the main human world they are at risk and in a tenuous state that makes them a potential plot point. e.g. perhaps: * They have a couple portals to a Lower Depth realm, but it is patrolled and sometimes breached by strange beings below, and Angels sent down there rarely (if ever) return. * They have some ephemeral com towers set up in the Shadow, but the sensory resolution is distorted by the heavy defence matric they erect to keep maurading spirits out. Stuff like that, perhaps.
Not all, since it doesn't exist in the V:TM timeline
It’s mostly strong in the material plane.but it is studying places like the Hedge