Imagine a world where reality isn’t fixed, it changes depending on what people believe. In Mage: The Ascension, ordinary people awaken to the terrifying possibility that consensus shapes existence, and that with enough understanding and willpower, they can rewrite reality itself.
Unlike most fantasy roleplaying games, Mage isn’t about memorizing spells or leveling up. It’s about philosophy, belief, imagination, and the consequences of having the power to change the world. Every magical act asks a question: What do you believe is possible?
Whether you’re discovering Mage for the first time or returning after years away, Mage: The Podcast is your guide to one of tabletop gaming’s richest and most rewarding settings. We explore the game’s lore, rules, history, books, storytelling techniques, and the people who helped create it—all with the goal of helping you become a better player, Storyteller, and world builder.
Start with These Episodes
These five episodes are the best introduction to what makes Mage so unique. They cover the game’s core ideas, its origins, practical advice for your table, and some of the most fascinating corners of the World of Darkness.
If you’re only going to listen to one episode, start with What is Mage: The Ascension? featuring co-creator Satyros Brucato. It’s the perfect introduction to the game, and to everything that follows.
New to Mage? This is the perfect place to begin.Mage: The Ascension co-creator Satyros Brucato joins us to explain what makes Mage unlike any other roleplaying game—and why, decades later, players are still debating its ideas.
Before there was Mage, there was Ars Magica. Join Thrice Great as we explore the game that inspired Mage’s DNA—from troupe-style play and Covenants to a radically different vision of magic, wisdom, and consequences.
Not every magician is Awakened. Discover the hidden world of hedge wizards, miracle workers, alchemists, and occult practitioners as we unpack one of the most versatile, and often overlooked, magic systems in the World of Darkness.
Think one-dot Spheres are weak? Think again. Charles and Terry break down every one-dot Sphere effect in M20, showing how the smallest magical abilities can become some of the most creative tools at your table.
The Nephandi are more than villains–they’re the nightmare at the heart of Mage. We explore Book of the Fallen, unpacking their philosophy, terrifying cosmology, and the storytelling tools that make them some of the most compelling antagonists in the World of Darkness.
Perfect for: Storytellers
Beginner Playlist: Learn Mage Without Getting Lost
New to Mage: The Ascension? Start here. These episodes explain the core idea of Mage, how magick works, what new characters can actually do, and how to bring the game to the table without getting buried in 700 pages of lore.
Once a month, we’ll gather new episodes, practical resources, community discoveries, and material created especially for newsletter readers.
Opening the Circle
Mage: The Podcast has never been just about putting out episodes and moving on to the next one. It has always been part of a much bigger conversation about Mage: The Ascension: how the game works, what it’s trying to say, where all these strange ideas came from, and what players and Storytellers are still doing with them today.
We’re starting this newsletter to give that conversation a place to settle in and stick around.
Once a month, we’ll gather new episodes, practical resources, community discoveries, and material created especially for newsletter readers.
You can also expect books and podcasts worth checking out, Storyteller resources, bits of occult history, behind-the-scenes notes, and the occasional piece made just for the newsletter. We’re not looking to crowd your inbox with one promotion after another. The idea is to send something useful, interesting, and worth saving.
The website will still be the main archive for episodes, articles, guides, and resources. YouTube is where you can watch, listen to, comment on, and stumble across the show. Social media is good for quick questions, polls, announcements, odd thoughts, and conversations with listeners. Discord is where the community can gather and talk things through in real time.
The newsletter has a different job.
Social posts can vanish before you know it. Videos are often at the mercy of algorithms. Discord conversations can be lively and thoughtful, but finding that one great idea six months later can be a real chore. Email is a little quieter. You can read it when you have time, save it, search it, share it, or come back to it when you need inspiration for your next chronicle.
Mage is full of hidden histories, competing truths, dangerous ideas, and stories about how people make sense of reality. We think those ideas deserve more than a few hours drifting through a feed.
This newsletter is our way of gathering them up, keeping them connected, and putting them directly into the hands of people who might find them useful.
What’s in This Issue
This month includes a newsletter-only reflection on how Mage built its deepest lore from competing ideas, five questions you can bring directly to your next session, a starting place for newcomers, and three resources we think are worth your time.
What if an abandoned android factory were really an Iteration X construct? Adam opens Mothership’s Gradient Descent and finds a ready-made Mage scenario: a rogue AI, copied minds, infiltrator androids, hostile machinery, and a station determined to convince the cabal that they were never human.
We’ll soon be interviewing Patrick Meaney, author of Our Sentence Is Up: Seeing Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. Record a short question using your phone’s voice memo app and send it to us by August 9. Selected recordings will be played during the interview so Patrick can respond directly. No special equipment or expertise is required.
How Mage: The Ascension Turned Ideas Into Its Deepest Lore
Mage: The Ascension has gained the reputation of being one of tabletop roleplaying’s deepest and most idea-rich settings. That places it beside such venerable franchises as Warhammer 40K and Dungeons & Dragons. How did a game about wizards hiding in the urban landscape earn a seat at such an esteemed table? There were many games in the 1990s that competed for attention and featured magic. Dungeons & Dragons’ second edition and Shadowrun carved out comfortable niches and remain popular today. Mage was the only game that asked players to consider how their magic worked. Where did it come from? Not which gods or which elements but which ideas.
The bold, dynamic mages who moved the World of Darkness forward were not merely dedicated students who practiced and memorized. The sources and methods of the mystic arts in most roleplaying games are an assumed part of the setting. Wizards either learn their arts from the same source or from a select few. The details are swept aside because they couldn’t be interesting. What the wizards are doing is important. The magic is merely a means to an end.
Mage questioned assumptions up front by making each mage an innovator. To make magic, you have to step away from the ordinary. When you step away from the fields we know, you’re on your own. You have to not only build your own spells, but you have to decide what tools you will use in the effort. A table built with hand saws, hand planes, and a carving set will be quite different from the one produced with power tools. Although it isn’t required to play the game, players are encouraged to think like their characters. Magic can come from any culture, any tradition, any set of ideas. Mages must not only choose the ingredients of their magic, but they must also decide how they work together. Each mage must bring something new, something personal, to the world, or he can’t change anything.
To help players think like their characters, the writers contributing to the game offered a rich and varied set of groups to teach magic to new mages. The Verbena conducts rituals that were old when Europe was young. Virtual Adepts push the limits through cutting-edge devices and software. The Syndicate redefines what is possible on Wall Street while Hollow Ones pull mysteries from the dirtiest back alleys.
The game drew from a wide range of religious, philosophical, cultural, artistic, and technological traditions. In the process of thinking of new ways to approach the mystic arts, the lore of Mage grew organically. New fans to the game will find that lore isn’t filled primarily with events and personalities, but with philosophies, histories, perspectives. Anything can lead a will-worker to a new way of looking at the world. A social media post can stir an idea as well as a dusty old book. It’s the ideas, not the status quo, that determine where things go from here.
Players new to the game will enjoy learning about the Traditions, Disparate groups, Conventions, Orphans, and others who make Mage a rich tapestry. After familiarity grows, the challenge becomes more attractive: What makes your magic work? Where does it come from? How will those ideas change you? Will they survive contact with the enemy? Mages don’t pontificate in an easy chair. They take their mystic arts, constructed from their ideas, into a world where the unexpected will confront them. No man is an island, and an enemy as well as a friend may show a mage the other side of the coin or where the path they’re on might lead.
Mage has captured so many fans because it engages them on multiple levels. Defeating enemies and supporting allies are only the first steps. Defending their magic against other perspectives allows an intellectual challenge to accompany every physical one. Will the Ngoma of Africa show you the blind spot in your faith? Will the Euthanatoi of India point out the futility of your ideas? More than your neck is at risk when you face off with the Technocracy. Your perspective may also be in danger.
That’s the basis for Mage’s rich lore. If you’re wondering how deep the lore goes, well, how deep do you go?
Five Questions That Reveal a Mage’s Paradigm
A paradigm is more than a character’s preferred magical style. It is their explanation for how reality works, why most people misunderstand it, and what must happen before change becomes possible.
Before your next session, answer these five questions in your character’s voice:
What is reality made of? Matter, spirit, information, divine will, dreams, stories, probability, or something stranger?
Why can most people not perceive the truth? Are they conditioned, asleep, frightened, deceived, spiritually unprepared, or simply looking in the wrong direction?
What must happen before magic works? What does your mage need to understand, perform, invoke, calculate, sacrifice, or believe?
What evidence could prove them wrong? A belief that cannot be challenged may be difficult to explore in play. What discovery would genuinely shake their worldview?
What would Ascension look like to them? Personal enlightenment? Collective liberation? Perfect knowledge? Union with the divine? Escape from reality? Control over it?
Write down the answers before the next game. They do not need to be polished or permanent. A few honest sentences can give you clearer Effects, stronger roleplaying choices, better conflicts, and a much sharper sense of what your mage is actually fighting for.
New to Mage: The Ascension? Start Here.
What Is Mage?
Imagine a world where reality is not quite as solid as it looks. In Mage: The Ascension, what people believe helps shape what is possible, and a few ordinary people awaken to the unsettling truth that reality can be changed.
With enough knowledge, imagination, and force of will, a mage can push the world in a different direction.
Mage is not really about memorizing a list of spells or collecting bigger powers. It is about belief, philosophy, creativity, and what happens when someone gains the ability to make their ideas real. Every act of magic begins with a simple question: What does your character believe is possible, and why?
That can make Mage feel a little strange at first, but it is also what makes the game so rewarding. Your character’s worldview matters. The way they understand science, religion, art, technology, nature, spirits, or the human mind shapes how their magic works.
Whether you are opening a Mage book for the first time or coming back after years away, Mage: The Podcast is here to help you find your footing. We explore the game’s lore, rules, history, books, storytelling ideas, and the people who helped create it.
Our goal is simple: to help you better understand Mage, build stronger characters and chronicles, and feel a little more at home in one of tabletop gaming’s strangest and most rewarding worlds.
What is Mage: The Ascension?
New to Mage? This is the perfect place to begin. Mage: The Ascension co-creator Satyros Brucato joins us to explain what makes Mage unlike any other roleplaying game—and why, decades later, players are still debating its ideas.
Rather than offer a pile of links, we picked three resources that do different jobs: one helps you introduce the game, one helps you simplify it, and one shows what Mage can look like around the table.
Mage: The Ascension – Horoscope
A June 30, 2026 Storytellers Vault listing described as “Tradition Horoscopes.” Useful as quick character, cabal, or paradigm flavor when you want a mystical prompt rather than another rules subsystem.
A current Onyx Path forum thread comparing Mage 2e and Revised hard-copy options. Worth watching because edition-choice threads are often where practical table preferences, print availability, and “what should I actually buy?” advice surface.
Dork Tales’ Victorian Mage actual-play hub remains a strong bookmark for Storytellers mining period mood, Order of Reason pressure, and cabal-centered structure. The show page frames the Doves as four young women seeking autonomy in a world trying to tame them.
Mage has always lived as much in conversation as it has on the page. From the Chantry is where we’ll share what the wider community is thinking, creating, debating, and bringing to the table.
Recently, we asked listeners on social media:
Which setting space do you most want a Mage story to explore?
The city and the Horizon Realms tied for first place, each receiving 40% of the vote. The Digital Web followed with 20%, while the Umbra received no votes at all.
ther Mage fans are eager to explore the places where reality is built, or the Umbra needs a better publicist.
In future issues, this section will also feature subscriber replies, listener stories, campaign ideas, creative projects, and other contributions from across the Mage community.
The Question at the Door
What was the moment when Mage: The Ascension finally clicked for you, or what part of it are you still trying to get your head around?
Maybe it was a favorite character, a rule that suddenly made sense, a memorable chronicle, a good conversation, or one little paragraph tucked away in a book. Maybe you have loved Mage for years and there is still one corner of it that leaves you scratching your head.
Just hit reply and tell us about it, or come join the conversation over in Discord.
Your answer might even spark a future episode, article, or newsletter.
Coming Up Next Month
Next month, we’ll continue preparing for the multi-part Reality Deviants Book Club with selected research notes, reading recommendations, and some of the questions shaping our approach to Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles.
We would also like to hear from readers who have spent time with The Invisibles. What confused you, changed your mind, sent you down a rabbit hole, or made you see the series differently? Reply to this email with your questions, reading recommendations, favorite passages, or stories about your own experience with the comic.
Subscribers will also receive occasional material that will not appear on the website, YouTube, or social media—including research notes, reading lists, behind-the-scenes observations, and other pieces that fit better in a quieter corner of the internet.
More soon, once we have followed a few more suspicious-looking threads.
Farewell
Until next time, question the map, distrust the Consensus, and remember that every paradigm reveals something by hiding something else.
Adam examines Gradient Descent, a science-fiction horror scenario set aboard an abandoned android factory controlled by an AI called Monarch. The station contains valuable technology, discarded androids, copied human minds, unreliable allies, zero-gravity hazards, and an intelligence determined to make visitors question whether they were ever human.
The episode considers how to use the Deep as an Iteration X construct, how Monarch might connect to the Matriarch or Threat Null, and how the scenario can work for Technocrats, Tradition mages, Disparates, acolytes, or extraordinary citizens.
Show Notes
Mothership – A sci-fi horror TTRPG with OSR-style, d100 rules and stress/panic mechanics, inspired by Alien and Event Horizon.
Gradient Descent – A 64-page sci-fi horror megadungeon for Mothership, written by Luke Gearing, illustrated by Nick Tofani, published by Tuesday Knight Games (2020)
Pooka begins a new Tomes of Magic miniseries about licensed Mage books that never appeared in English.
The first subject is Le Monde des Ténèbres: France, a rare 1997 French World of Darkness supplement. Its Mage chapter presents a highly personal vision of Awakened France: Breton Verbena, technocratic influence over European institutions, Etherites at Futuroscope, an isolated French region of the Digital Web, Jules Verne working with Marauders, an awakened AI, and a system for changing the rules of reality itself.
The book is imaginative and packed with unusual chronicle hooks, but does it actually help a Storyteller run Mage in France?
Show Notes
Le Monde des Ténèbres: France – A French-language World of Darkness sourcebook published by Ludis International in January 1997. The 247-page book covers the five principal World of Darkness game lines and was intended to launch a larger French series that never materialized.
Jules Verne Museum in Nantes – While Verne never lived in the building, its surroundings reflect the atmosphere which influenced his work.
Joseph-Marie Jacquard and the programmable loom – It revolutionized textile manufacturing by using interchangeable, punched cards to automate the raising and lowering of individual warp threads.
Minitel and the history of networking in France – Minitel was a pioneering French videotex network launched in 1980. The government distributed free terminals to telephone subscribers to replace paper directories. It became a massive pre-World Wide Web success, enabling millions to shop, check stocks, and chat until the service was retired on June 30, 2012.
Minitel at the Computer History Museum – The CHM highlights Minitel as a massive cultural and technological phenomenon that predated the World Wide Web by a decade.
Official Carnac Alignments– Recognized for its breathtaking medieval architecture and dynamic natural environment, it features a Gothic Benedictine abbey founded in 708 AD and a historic fortified village.
Cité de l’espace in Toulouse– A major scientific discovery center and theme park dedicated to spaceflight and astronomy.
Guiana Space Centre – A spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, an overseas region of France in South America.
Zoning boards are where the fight against the Technocracy must needs be fiercest and firmest.
Executive Producers
Oracles
Bad Company • Buck Gregory • Christopher Phillips • Derek Semsick • DrawnCap • DrunkDez • Jason Vines • Rebecca Pool • Sean Gallagher • Spartacus • The Krewe of Erebuss
Archmasters
Berto • Brad-O-the Blue • Dan Svensson • Glacial Indifference • Jeffois • Leroy Bryce • Morgan Aran • Wolf Larryson
Acolytes
Aleks • Alexia • Ambiversion • Anders S • Ben Bandelow • Blaise Hebert • Bruno Teixeira • Bryce Perry • Bubba, The Pale One • Chartan • Cig • Curtis Hendricks • Darren Hennessey • Daniel Cuppen • Daniel Scribner • Dan Svensson • David Röhe • Ean Robertson • EBG • Eric Schwenke • Gray -Trilug- H • Guy Stewart • Ia Bull • James B • Jason Kennedy • Jenna F • Jeremy Z • Jervis Johnson • Kathleen Hailperin • Kevin Fitzpatrick • Khris Kinner • Leslie Weatherstone • Lolz & stuff • Loren Jensen • Manel Canós • Matthew Proehl • Maurice Hopkins • Melissa Krause • Michael Parker • Nebero • Nikita Kleymenov • Patrick McNamara • RobH • Ryan • Ryan Kendy • Ryan Stray • Samuel Tobin • Sev Nessus • Shell Konch • Starfish • Stefan Carton • Tyler Bryan • Will Vincent • Ygard
When I started Mage: The Podcast back in 2018, I was nervous.
Not butterflies nervous. More like, okay, you know when you’ve committed to something out loud before you’ve fully thought it through and then you just have to live in that for a while? That kind.
Which, I’ve since decided, is probably the correct amount of nervous for anything involving Mage: The Ascension.
I’d only just found the game. I’d been poking around for podcasts the way you do, found stuff for Vampire, for Werewolf, even one for Changeling (which, sidebar, still criminally underrated, we’ll get there someday) but nothing really dedicated to Mage. I wanted to understand it. I wanted someone to just talk to me about it.
So I figured, well. If nobody’s doing it, I guess that’s me now.
I want to be clear that I was not the wise old guy with the sourcebooks. I was the guy at the table with too many questions and a soda he’d forgotten about. You know that feeling when someone starts explaining a game and something just clicks open in your brain? Not because they have The Official Answer, but because they have a way in? That’s what I was hoping to find. That’s what I wanted the show to be.
For the first episode I sat down with Satyros Phil Brucato, one of the main creative forces behind Mage. I asked him the dumb obvious question. What is this game, actually?
He said: Mage is a game about reality on the brink.
I’ve been chewing on that ever since. Because it was true in the ‘90s when the game came out. It was true in 2018 when we talked. And honestly, in 2026 it might be the most true it’s ever been, which is either exciting or alarming depending on the day.
Let me explain.
The original game grew out of this incredible weird moment — occult bookstores, goth clubs, zines, cyberpunk, a very specific ‘90s flavor of paranoia and possibility, that feeling like the world was maybe about to wake up or maybe about to eat itself. Mage took all of that and asked: what if your beliefs aren’t just your own private business? What if they push back on the world? What if reality is something people are actually fighting over, all the time, and most of us just can’t see it?
By 2018 that question had gotten a lot less abstract. Nobody needed to explain anymore why two people could look at the same event and come away with completely different versions of what happened. That was just Tuesday. Mage stopped feeling like a ‘90s artifact and started feeling like somebody had snuck a warning label onto the decade.
Now it's 2026 and look, I’m not trying to be gloomy here, but the situation has gotten genuinely strange. We’re not just fighting about what’s true. We’re fighting about what was made by a person, what was generated, what was edited, what some algorithm fed you because it figured you’d stay on the app another thirty seconds. I don’t think Mage fully saw that coming. Honestly that just makes it more interesting to me. The game keeps finding new ways to be relevant without trying.
One thing that stuck with me from that first interview — Satyros wasn’t precious about the old stuff. He said yeah, the ‘90s books were great (they really were), and they were very much products of the ‘90s. Some things were ahead of their time. Some cultural portrayals were made with good intentions and not enough understanding. He was just honest about it. And I appreciated that, because a game fundamentally about belief and power and who gets to define reality cannot be the kind of thing that sits in amber and says nope, we got it right, no notes.
The world moves. The game has to move. Otherwise what are we even doing.
Roleplaying in general has changed in ways nobody really mapped out ahead of time. Your game used to live at your table. Maybe a con. Now it lives on Twitch, on Discord (oh, and join our community on Discord), on a crowdfunding page, in a three-hour actual play video that somehow has a million views. A house rule can become a whole discourse before you’ve had your second coffee. It’s a lot.
Very Mage, honestly.
The thing I keep coming back to is the concept of focus in Mage 20. Paradigm, practice, instruments. Your mage has a specific belief about how reality works, acts on it in a specific way, and uses tools that fit their worldview. Not generic spell slots. Your prayer. Your code. Your tarot deck, your lab equipment, your old family story, the cigarette you light before things get bad, the conspiracy board in your kitchen that your roommate keeps asking about.
All of that is character. All of that is identity. All of that is yours.
That’s where Mage still gets me. It makes power personal. It doesn’t just ask what you can do. It asks why you think you’re the one who gets to do it. That’s a harder question. A better one.
Going back to that first episode now, I expected it to feel dated. I thought I’d cringe a little, you know how it is. Instead it just felt like opening a box and finding out whatever’s inside never actually stopped running.
What is real? Who gets to say? What do you believe, and what does believing it cost you?
You might think those were Mage questions.
Turns out they’re just questions. The game got there first, is all.
Contact us at magethepodcast@gmail.com with feedback and comments, and please help extend the reach of the show by sharing it with friends.
Adam and Heilong talk all about Prime, the Sphere that turns Quintessence from airy theory into table-ready trouble. They tackle the “Sphere tax,” node-scrubbing, Primal Utility, Platonic ideals, and why Prime makes Mage’s reality-wrangling feel real enough to kick the furniture, and maybe rewrite the town.
Ars Magica — relevant background because the episode discusses Ars Magica’s influence on Mage’s magic system.
Executive Producers
Oracles
Bad Company • Buck Gregory • Christopher Phillips • Derek Semsick • DrawnCap • DrunkDez • Jason Vines • Rebecca Pool • Sean Gallagher • Spartacus • The Krewe of Erebuss
Archmasters
Berto • Brad-O-the Blue • Dan Svensson • Glacial Indifference • Jeffois • Leroy Bryce • Morgan Aran • Wolf Larryson
Acolytes
Aleks • Alexia • Ambiversion • Anders S • Ben Bandelow • Blaise Hebert • Bruno Teixeira • Bryce Perry • Bubba, The Pale One • Chartan • Cig • Curtis Hendricks • Darren Hennessey • Daniel Cuppen • Daniel Scribner • Dan Svensson • David Röhe • Ean Robertson • EBG • Eric Schwenke • Gray -Trilug- H • Guy Stewart • Ia Bull • James B • Jason Kennedy • Jenna F • Jeremy Z • Jervis Johnson • Kathleen Hailperin • Kevin Fitzpatrick • Khris Kinner • Leslie Weatherstone • Lolz & stuff • Loren Jensen • Manel Canós • Matthew Proehl • Maurice Hopkins • Melissa Krause • Michael Parker • Nebero • Nikita Kleymenov • Patrick McNamara • RobH • Ryan • Ryan Kendy • Ryan Stray • Samuel Tobin • Sev Nessus • Shell Konch • Starfish • Stefan Carton • Tyler Bryan • Will Vincent • Ygard
We climb John H. Steele’s Tower of Babel, a Mage novel full of creators, characters, conspiracies, and reality getting mighty leaky around the edges. It’s metafiction, Technocracy trouble, dream-tower theology, and one poor writer learning that when your fiction talks back, maybe don’t answer after drinking.
Show Notes
Tower of Babel – Book man invents fascist action guy. Fascist action guy becomes real. Magic happens. Bureaucrats get spooky. Reality files a complaint.
Bad Company • Buck Gregory • Christopher Phillips • Derek Semsick • DrawnCap • DrunkDez • Jason Vines • Rebecca Pool • Sean Gallagher • Spartacus • The Krewe of Erebuss
Archmasters
Berto • Brad-O-the Blue • Dan Svensson • Glacial Indifference • Jeffois • Leroy Bryce • Morgan Aran • Wolf Larryson
Acolytes
Aleks • Alexia • Ambiversion • Anders S • Ben Bandelow • Blaise Hebert • Bruno Teixeira • Bryce Perry • Bubba, The Pale One • Chartan • Cig • Curtis Hendricks • Darren Hennessey • Daniel Cuppen • Daniel Scribner • Dan Svensson • David Röhe • Ean Robertson • EBG • Eric Schwenke • Gray -Trilug- H • Guy Stewart • Ia Bull • James B • Jason Kennedy • Jenna F • Jeremy Z • Jervis Johnson • Kathleen Hailperin • Kevin Fitzpatrick • Khris Kinner • Leslie Weatherstone • Lolz & stuff • Loren Jensen • Manel Canós • Matthew Proehl • Maurice Hopkins • Melissa Krause • Michael Parker • Nebero • Nikita Kleymenov • Patrick McNamara • RobH • Ryan • Ryan Kendy • Ryan Stray • Samuel Tobin • Sev Nessus • Shell Konch • Starfish • Stefan Carton • Tyler Bryan • Will Vincent • Ygard
”The first spell your players experience isn't cast by a character. It's cast by the room.”
Rules matter. Characters matter. Your city matters.
But there’s another tool that's surprisingly powerful, and surprisingly underused.
Music.
Not background noise. Not a random Spotify playlist.
Atmosphere.
The right soundtrack tells your players what kind of reality they’ve stepped into before anyone says a word.
Every Chronicle Has a Sound
Mage: The Ascension isn’t just a game about magic. It’s a game about hidden truths. Urban myths. Conspiracy. Spiritual awakening. Decaying cities. Impossible technology. Late-night diners. Rain-soaked streets. Abandoned subway stations. Boardrooms where reality is negotiated one quarterly report at a time.
Your soundtrack should reflect that.
The music you choose teaches your players how to feel about the world.
Don’t Build a Playlist. Build Emotional States.
Instead of creating one giant playlist, organize your music by mood.
Awakening
Wonder. Curiosity. The impossible becoming possible.
The moment a Sleeper realizes the world isn’t what they were told.
Look for music that feels spacious, mysterious, and slightly transcendent.
Investigation
Libraries. Archives. Old maps. Occult bookstores. Corporate servers.
The quiet excitement of discovering a clue nobody was supposed to find.
Subtle ambient music works better than dramatic scores.
Urban Dread
The city at 2:00 a.m. Empty trains. Neon reflections on wet pavement. Something following you, but never quite visible.
This is where dark ambient, trip-hop, noir jazz, and industrial textures shine.
The Umbra
The Umbra should never sound comfortable.
It should feel ancient. Alien. Sacred. Beautiful. Dangerous.
Think choirs, drones, ritual percussion, and sounds that don’t quite belong to the modern world.
The Technocracy
Order. Precision. Efficiency. Control.
Minimal electronic music, glitch textures, deep drones, and sterile soundscapes help reinforce the Union’s worldview.
The Technocracy doesn’t think it's evil. It thinks it’s necessary. Its music should feel the same way.
The Traditions
Each Tradition deserves its own musical identity.
The Virtual Adepts shouldn’t sound like the Verbena.
The Akashayana shouldn’t sound like the Sons of Ether.
The Cult of Ecstasy almost certainly shouldn’t sound like anyone else.
Let your players recognize a faction before an NPC even speaks.
Our Recommendations
These artists and labels consistently capture the emotional landscape of Mage.
Cryo Chamber
Cryo Chamber may be one of the best labels for Mage atmosphere, especially if your chronicle leans toward the Umbra, Technocracy ruins, cosmic horror, abandoned constructs, occult investigation, or Nephandi dread.
The label specializes in cinematic dark ambient: deep drones, haunted soundscapes, ritual textures, post-human cities, and the feeling that reality has been quietly compromised.
Best for: Umbra scenes, Nephandi horror, Technocracy facilities, abandoned chantries, dream sequences, strange archives, and moments when players realize the world is much older and less stable than they thought.
Every Storyteller has discovered an artist, album, or playlist that somehow feels like Mage. Tell us what belongs on the soundtrack to Awakening.
Share your recommendations in our Discord, or tag us on social media. We’ll keep expanding this list as the community discovers new sounds that make the Tellurian come alive.
Because every chronicle has a soundtrack.
The only question is whether you’ve chosen it yet.
Contact us at magethepodcast@gmail.com with feedback and comments, and please help extend the reach of the show by sharing it with friends.
Adam swims with the sharks to bring you information and ideas to help you add the Rokea, the shape shifting sharks of the World of Darkness, to your games. What are the Kahu hiding? What lies at the bottom of ocean trenches? Why don’t sharks floss? Tune in and find out.
Rokea – Immortal weresharks, ancient sea-born shapeshifters who form Slews, use electric “Sending,” heal in saltwater, and ally with Mokolé.
Executive Producers
Oracles
Bad Company • Buck Gregory • Christopher Phillips • Derek Semsick • DrawnCap • DrunkDez • Jason Vines • Rebecca Pool • Sean Gallagher • Spartacus • The Krewe of Erebuss
Archmasters
Berto • Brad-O-the Blue • Dan Svensson • Glacial Indifference • Jeffois • Leroy Bryce • Morgan Aran • Wolf Larryson
Acolytes
Aleks • Alexia • Ambiversion • Anders S • Ben Bandelow • Blaise Hebert • Bruno Teixeira • Bryce Perry • Bubba, The Pale One • Chartan • Cig • Curtis Hendricks • Darren Hennessey • Daniel Cuppen • Daniel Scribner • Dan Svensson • David Röhe • Ean Robertson • EBG • Eric Schwenke • Gray -Trilug- H • Guy Stewart • Ia Bull • James B • Jason Kennedy • Jenna F • Jeremy Z • Jervis Johnson • Kathleen Hailperin • Kevin Fitzpatrick • Khris Kinner • Leslie Weatherstone • Lolz & stuff • Loren Jensen • Manel Canós • Matthew Proehl • Maurice Hopkins • Melissa Krause • Michael Parker • Nebero • Nikita Kleymenov • Patrick McNamara • RobH • Ryan • Ryan Kendy • Ryan Stray • Samuel Tobin • Sev Nessus • Shell Konch • Starfish • Stefan Carton • Tyler Bryan • Will Vincent • Ygard
Adam and Pooka discuss Dark City (1998). Another movie that paints the World of Darkness on the screen for you to see. This one aligns so closely with Mage: The Ascension (First Edition) ; watch out for Paradox. Can this inspire you to portray Sphere effects in your game? Is it a good example of a mage’s Awakening? Can bald, creepy kids boost your game to the next level? Tune in and find out!
Bad Company • Buck Gregory • Christopher Phillips • Derek Semsick • DrawnCap • DrunkDez • Jason Vines • Rebecca Pool • Sean Gallagher • Spartacus • The Krewe of Erebuss
Archmasters
Berto • Brad-O-the Blue • Dan Svensson • Glacial Indifference • Jeffois • Leroy Bryce • Morgan Aran • Wolf Larryson
Acolytes
Aleks • Alexia • Ambiversion • Anders S • Ben Bandelow • Blaise Hebert • Bruno Teixeira • Bryce Perry • Bubba, The Pale One • Chartan • Cig • Curtis Hendricks • Darren Hennessey • Daniel Cuppen • Daniel Scribner • Dan Svensson • David Röhe • Ean Robertson • EBG • Eric Schwenke • Gray -Trilug- H • Guy Stewart • Ia Bull • James B • Jason Kennedy • Jenna F • Jeremy Z • Jervis Johnson • Kathleen Hailperin • Kevin Fitzpatrick • Khris Kinner • Leslie Weatherstone • Lolz & stuff • Loren Jensen • Manel Canós • Matthew Proehl • Maurice Hopkins • Melissa Krause • Michael Parker • Nebero • Nikita Kleymenov • Patrick McNamara • RobH • Ryan • Ryan Kendy • Ryan Stray • Samuel Tobin • Sev Nessus • Shell Konch • Starfish • Stefan Carton • Tyler Bryan • Will Vincent • Ygard
