Everything we recommend for players, Storytellers, lore hunters, and reality deviants.
We’ve spent years exploring Mage: The Ascension so you don’t have to spend hours wandering the internet looking for the good stuff.
Whether you’re searching for rules help, lore, inspiration, books, podcasts, communities, or tools for your next chronicle, this is where we’d send our closest friends.
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Start with the Podcast
Start Here
New to Mage? Returning after years away? Trying to explain Paradigm to someone without sounding like you’ve joined a cult?
Start with these essentials.
What Is Mage: The Ascension?
Mage is a game about belief, power, reality, and the terrifying idea that the world might be more flexible than you were told.
If you’re new, start here before diving into the deep lore.
Recommended for: New players, curious listeners, Storytellers introducing the game
How Magic Works
Spheres. Paradigm. Focus. Arete. Paradox.
Mage has a reputation for being hard to explain, but once the core ideas click, the game opens up.
Recommended for: New players, rules-confused veterans, anyone preparing for Session Zero
The Traditions
The Traditions are not just “wizard factions.”
They are arguments about reality, history, culture, power, and what humanity could become if it escaped the prison of consensus.
Recommended for: Players choosing a character concept, Storytellers building factions
The Technocracy
The Technocracy is one of the great antagonistic forces in roleplaying games because it is never just wrong.
It protects people. It controls people. It builds the modern world. It edits the possible.
Recommended for: Storytellers, antagonists, modern horror fans, conspiracy enjoyers
Paradox
Paradox is what happens when reality pushes back.
It is punishment, correction, horror, comedy, metaphysics, and one of the best tools Mage gives Storytellers.
Recommended for: Storytellers, rules learners, players who want magic to feel dangerous
Essential Mage Resources
These are the first places we’d point anyone who wants to understand, run, or collect Mage: The Ascension.
Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition
The big book. The foundation. The beautiful brick.
Mage 20 is the best starting point for most modern players because it gathers decades of Mage into one enormous reference volume.
Best for: Everyone
Use it for: Core rules, setting, factions, Spheres, character creation
How Do You DO That?
A practical guide to turning magical ideas into playable effects.
If your table keeps asking, “Can I do this with Forces 2 and Correspondence 1?” this is the book you probably want nearby.
Best for: Players and Storytellers
Use it for: Rules clarity, effects, Sphere combinations
Book of Secrets
A companion full of character options, expanded rules, advice, and strange corners of the game.
It is especially useful once your group understands the basics and wants more texture.
Best for: Intermediate players
Use it for: Character depth, optional systems, table inspiration
Technocracy Reloaded
A major modern treatment of the Technocracy.
It gives the Union more nuance, more playability, and more ways to bring technocratic horror, order, and tragedy to the table.
Best for: Storytellers and Technocracy fans
Use it for: Antagonists, campaigns, playable Technocrats
The Book of Madness
When you want Mage to get dangerous, cosmic, corrupted, and strange.
This is one of the classic resources for the things that break reality, sanity, and the people who thought they understood either.
Best for: Horror-focused Storytellers
Use it for: Nephandi, Marauders, cosmic threats, darker chronicles
Recommended Reading Order
Mage has a lot of books. You do not need to read them all before you play.
Here’s the path we’d recommend.
Beginner
Start here if you’re new or returning after a long break.
Intermediate
Read these once you understand the basics and want stronger chronicles.
Advanced
For deep lore, strange cosmology, and tables ready to go weird.
Official Resources
DriveThruRPG
The easiest place to find Mage PDFs, print-on-demand books, Storyteller’s Vault releases, and older World of Darkness material.
Best for: Buying books and building a digital library
Storyteller’s Vault
Fan-created World of Darkness material, including Mage supplements, adventures, tools, and experiments from the community.
Best for: New ideas, community projects, table-ready extras
Onyx Path Publishing
Publisher of Mage 20 and many modern World of Darkness projects.
Best for: Official updates, previews, and related game lines
World of Darkness
The broader home for the World of Darkness brand.
Best for: Official brand news and current World of Darkness releases
Mage: The Podcast Resources
Before you disappear into the wider internet, start with our own archives.
Episodes
Hundreds of conversations about Mage lore, rules, books, factions, philosophy, interviews, and Storytelling.
Best for: Learning while driving, walking, painting minis, or questioning reality
Book Club
Our ongoing exploration of Mag books, one title at a time.
Best for: Deciding what to read next
Interviews
Conversations with writers, designers, creators, and fans who helped shape Mage and the World of Darkness.
Best for: Behind-the-scenes history and design insight
YouTube
Video discussions, interviews, clips, and Mage conversations for people who prefer watching to listening.
Best for: Sharing episodes, discovering topics, and visual learners
Discord
The Mage: The Podcast community lives here between episodes.
Ask questions, share chronicles, talk character concepts, find other fans, and discover that someone else has also spent too much time thinking about Correspondence.
Best for: Community, advice, discussion, and finding your people
Patreon
Support keeps the show going.
If Mage: The Podcast has helped your game, introduced you to the setting, or kept your obsession alive, Patreon is the best way to help us make more of it.
Best for: Supporting the show and getting more Mage in your life
Storytelling Tools
Resources that help you actually run the game.
Session Zero Tools
Before the first die roll, get everyone aligned.
Use these for tone, safety, expectations, character connections, chronicle themes, and the all-important question: “What kind of Mage game are we actually playing?”
Best for: New chronicles and new groups
Character Creation Aids
Mage characters are more than stats.
The best ones have beliefs, contradictions, obsessions, mentors, enemies, tools, rituals, and a theory of reality that can get them into trouble.
Best for: Players building deeper characters
Chronicle Planning
Mage chronicles work best when the Storyteller knows what questions the game is asking.
Is this about awakening? Conspiracy? Hubris? War? Mystery? Spiritual horror? Political collapse? The cost of power?
Best for: Storytellers building campaigns
Relationship Maps
Mage is full of factions, mentors, rivals, cabals, chantries, constructs, cults, and people who know too much.
A relationship map can save your chronicle.
Best for: Political games, mystery games, faction-heavy chronicles
Music and Atmosphere
A good Mage soundtrack can do a lot of work.
Urban dread, occult mystery, club noise, sacred music, industrial ambience, rainy streets, and impossible machines all belong somewhere in the Tellurian.
Best for: Setting mood at the table
Inspiration
Not every Mage resource has Mage on the cover.
Sometimes the best inspiration comes from fiction, film, philosophy, weird history, conspiracy culture, urban decay, technology, occultism, and art that makes reality feel unstable.
Books
Look for books about belief, systems, power, mysticism, cities, secret histories, technology, social control, and people who discover the world is not what they were told.
Best for: Storytellers and world-builders
Movies and TV
Mage loves stories where reality bends, institutions lie, symbols matter, and people wake up to hidden structures beneath everyday life.
Best for: Chronicle tone, visual language, and plot inspiration
Comics
Comics may be one of the most Mage-friendly mediums.
Magic, urban myth, metaphysics, identity, style, and impossible visuals all thrive there.
Best for: Visual thinkers and high-weirdness chronicles
Music
Every cabal needs a soundtrack.
Industrial, goth, trip-hop, hip-hop, ambient, ritual music, punk, jazz, techno, and strange local scenes can all help define a chronicle’s soul.
Best for: Mood, pacing, and character inspiration
Philosophy and Occult Studies
Mage is not an occult studies course, but it borrows energy from big questions:
- What is real?
- Who decides?
- What does belief do?
- What is power?
- What happens when a person changes the story everyone else lives inside?
Best for: Deepening Paradigm, Focus, and theme
Community Resources
Mage has always lived through conversation.
The books matter, but the game really opens up when people start comparing interpretations, arguing over Spheres, sharing campaign stories, and helping each other solve table problems.
Look here for communities, forums, social spaces, actual plays, fan projects, and places where the wider World of Darkness still refuses to stay quiet.
Best for: Finding players, asking questions, and joining the larger conversation
Adam’s Shelf
A few things Adam would hand you if you asked, “What should I look at next?”
Best First Mage Book
Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition
Because sooner or later, every Mage conversation comes back to the big purple book.
Best Practical Table Book
Because “I want to hack reality with a phone, a prayer, and a bad idea” eventually needs rules support.
Best Deep-Dive Topic
Paradigm
Because Mage becomes much easier to run once magic stops being a power list and starts becoming a worldview.
Josh’s Shelf
A few things Josh would point toward if you want to understand what makes Mage strange, difficult, and worth the effort.
Best Antagonist Resource
Because the best villains are not villains in their own minds.
Best Horror Resource
Because Mage should occasionally make you regret asking what is behind the curtain.
Best Chronicle Question
“What does your character believe so strongly that reality might bend around it?”
Start there and the game gets interesting fast.
Recently Added
This section is where we’ll highlight new discoveries, updated recommendations, fresh episodes, useful tools, and community resources worth your attention.
Reality changes. So should the library.
Still Looking?
If you’re trying to find a specific Mage book, episode, tool, rule explanation, or piece of inspiration, come ask us.
Someone in the community has probably already gone looking for the same thing.
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Know a great Mage resource we missed?
The Tellurian is too big for one cabal to map alone.