[CLOSED] Concilium - Gathering of the Mages October Venue - MAGE [1-15-2026]
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Chance Meridian
Dice Pool: 6 - Manipulation (3) + Persuasion (2) + Attune (1)
Action: Convince his mentor to get him on the taskforce.Health: 7 - No Damage
Mana/Vitae: 6
Willpower: 6
Conditions: I'm assuming magic is suppressed during Consilium. Or maybe it isn't.Description:
Chance listens from the edge of the semicircle, posture relaxed, attention anything but.He doesn’t remember the Blackout the way most of them do. He wasn’t here when the city held its breath — he was states away, cut off from Chicago by distance and a silence that felt wrong even then. No lights going out around him. No wards collapsing under his hands. Just the sudden, crawling realization that something had happened at home, and that the phone lines and sympathetic threads he relied on all went thin at once.
He came back to a city that spoke in lowered voices and unfinished sentences.
Two years later, Fayne names it for what it was — not absence, but intrusion — and Chance finds himself watching the room more than the speaker. The Arrows stiffen. The Mysterium lean forward. Guardians go still in that particular way they do when memory sharpens.
And then there’s Praevidentia.
Chance’s gaze settles on her without quite meaning to. Rhea Vale doesn’t flinch when Fayne speaks of the Abyss. Doesn’t bow her head when Night Watch is named. If there’s an emotional reaction, it’s subtle — a tightening at the jaw, a fractional stillness that reads less like grief and more like control. The kind forged under pressure, not granted by training.
She survived the Blackout. One of the few.
And now she sits as the de facto voice of the Guardians in Chicago — a woman standing on a fault line, pretending it’s solid ground.Fayne speaks of containment, not crusade, and that earns Chance’s full attention. That philosophy tracks. Spirits understand borders. So does the Abyss, even if it resents them. What worries him more are the outsiders Fayne gestures toward — foreign scholars, defectors, mages with accents and theories but no lived sense of this city’s temperament.
Chicago does not react well to strangers digging too deeply.
As the applause rises — cautious, reverent — Chance joins it quietly. His eyes don’t leave Praevidentia until the sound fades and movement resumes. When people begin to cluster and debate, he waits just long enough not to look eager, then moves.
He approaches her without ceremony, stopping at a respectful distance — close enough to speak, far enough not to crowd.
“Epopt,” [I misspelled it almost everywhere...it has a t] he says softly, voice pitched for her alone, using the title she's dutifully earned. “Fayne’s right about one thing — whatever that door is, it isn’t finished with us.”
She nods without looking at him, acknowledging hit presence, still staring into a throng of Mysterium who brought manilla envelopes to share with one another. It was like a school of fish that were just fed by an aquarium tech.
"You still dress up nice." She returns dryly.
A brief pause. He studies her expression, not intrusive, just attentive.
“I wasn’t here when the lights went out,” he continues, honest and unadorned. “But I came back to the aftermath. We’ve been dealing with what crawled out of the cracks ever since.”
His eyes flick briefly toward the edge of the hall — where unfamiliar faces linger, listening too carefully.
“Ironveil's Taskforce; you are selecting Guardians,” Chance says. Not a question. “You’ll have volunteers. You’ll have experts. And you’ll have people who don’t know this city the way they think they do.”
This causes her to turn in his direction. Not surprised, just paying attention now.
He meets her gaze fully now.
“I want in. Not for glory, and not for vengeance. Because I can help — and because someone should be watching the watchers.” A faint, wry edge touches his tone. “Especially when they’re not from Chicago.”
He doesn’t press further. Doesn’t ask for an answer on the spot, but she gives him one.
Chance simply inclines his head — an offer, not a demand — and waits to see whether Praevidentia sees the value in a man who’s learned that the most dangerous things don’t announce themselves when they arrive.
"Good. I had been considering how to approach you on it." she gives him a look over. "I think it's time you spread your wings. I want you to lead the task force, not be a part of it. We can't trust the other orders to do this right, and if we lead it and succeed, they will owe us a debt of gratitude that shall forever be repaying."
She waited for his reply, knowing he may need a moment to comprehend what she was asking.
They listen first.
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Dante - Moros Detective - Dylan
Dice Pool: Wits (4) + Occult (3) = 7 d10
Action: Aid Fayne in identifying stolen obelisk from Chicago MuseumHealth: 7 - No Damage
Mana/Vitae: 6
Willpower: 6I don’t clap.
Never have. Applause is for people who want to be seen. I let it roll over me instead, like rain on a city that’s already drowning. The room’s full of unchecked ambition wrapped in ceremony and borrowed myth, but underneath it's the same as any other backroom deal—distrust, fear, and just enough hope to get someone killed.
I stay in my chair and read the Guardians’ table like a bad magazine. Who stood when Night Watch’s name came up. Who bowed their head like it hurt. Who looked relieved, and who looked like the job just opened up. That’s your org chart right there. Not the sanctimonious titles they’ll hand out later, and certainly not the uninspired speeches they tell themselves. The real chain of command is written in body language and silence, and Chicago writes in permanent ink.
Talk of the Abyss catches my ear—three minutes and forty-seven seconds. Too precise to be rhetoric. That’s a stopwatch, not a sermon. Doors. Wounds. Beginnings. Big words for people who won’t be the ones bleeding when theory turns into fieldwork. Maybe he’s right. Maybe the Abyss really did lean in and take a long look at us. Either way, it’s not something you fight with a podium and a good tailor.
I keep my head down, eyes up. No volunteering. No lingering looks. The trick is to be useful without becoming necessary. In this town, the top of the ladder gets shot at, and the bottom gets used as ballast. I’ve got no interest in either. When another Guardian’s gaze flicks my way, I give them nothing—just the face of a man who does the work and goes home alone.
When the applause thins out and the room starts breathing again, I move.
Not fast. Not slow. Just enough purpose to look like I belong wherever I end up. Fayne’s easy to find—people orbit him like he’s got gravity. I wait my turn, then slide into his shadow when the crowd gives me an opening.
“Keeper,” I say, polite enough to pass, quiet enough not to invite an audience. “You’ve got a good memory for patterns. I’m hoping you recognize one more.”
I watch his eyes while I talk. “Black obelisk. About waist-high. Pulled from the Chicago Museum last month—official story says storage relocation, but we both know better. Stone didn’t read right. Wrong kind of old. Wrong kind of quiet.” I tilt my head just enough to sell it. “You ever see something like that in your travels? Alexandria, Lisbon, anywhere the dark likes to linger?”
I let the question hang, light as cigarette smoke. Fayne’s the kind of man who either knows exactly what I’m talking about—or knows enough to be careful. Either way, the answer matters.
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• Ken(Hideki Takashi)
Dice Pool: presence(2) + Persuasion(-1) + willpower(3)=4
Action: speak with Dante about the task force. Try and join him on it.
Health: full
Mana/Vitae: 13
Willpower: 6 -1
Conditions:
Description
Ken waits until the applause dies down and the first wave of whispered debate begins to swell. The Concilium has that sound—like a hive disturbed but not yet angry. Power murmuring to itself.
He spots Dante near the periphery of the gaurdians seating, standing rather than sitting. Dante isn’t watching the speaker at the dais. He’s watching the room: exits, sightlines, people who shouldn’t be where they are. Ever the soldier.
Ken threads his way between low tables and murmured arguments, nodding to a Free Councilor he knows just well enough not to be stopped. As he approaches, Dante’s eyes flick to him instantly.
“Ken,” Dante says, voice low. “Either you’re very brave, or very bad at reading a room.”
“Little of both,” Ken replies. He gestures vaguely toward the dais. “Got a minute? Before someone starts shouting about jurisdiction or ancient precedent?”
Dante exhales through his nose, then tilts his head toward a quieter alcove between two plaster columns. A Guardian ward hums softly as they pass it, recognizing Dante and reluctantly allowing Ken through.
They stop beneath the mural of Athena. Up close, her painted eyes gleam with restrained magic, Prime threaded so delicately it almost hurts to look at.
Ken breaks the silence first. “So. Joint task force.”
Dante’s mouth tightens. “Yeah.”
“I heard what the Hierarch said,” Ken continues. “Guardians. Arrow. ‘Any who would aid them.’ That’s doing a lot of work.”
“That’s politics,” Dante says. “Keeps people hopeful without promising them anything.”
Ken studies him. “You’re on it.”
It isn’t a question.
Dante hesitates just long enough to be an answer. “Not if I can help it.” His gaze hardens.
Ken nods. “Night Watch was… careful. Paranoid, even. If someone got to him, this isn’t just a clean hit. It’s a statement.”
“Or a test,” Dante says. “Seeing how we respond.”
“Then I want in.”
Dante finally looks directly at him. Really looks. The din of the Concilium fades into background noise—the clink of glass, the rustle of robes, the distant cadence of the Mysterium speaker beginning their address.Ken extends a hand. After a beat, Dante grips it, firm and brief.
“Careful what you wish for,” Dante says.
Ken releases his hand. “Likewise.”
They part as the room’s energy subtly shifts again—a ripple of unease moving through the wards, almost imperceptible but wrong in a way only the Awakened feel.
Somewhere, something listens.
And now, if Dante’s instincts are right, Ken might be listening too. -
Richard "Ricky Dee" Davenport - DosBox
Dice Pool: Presence (1) + Socialize (1) = 2
Potential Applicable Merits: Allies: WebLink(••) - Recently formed Free Council Cabal
Action: Making the presence of their new Cabal known: and their willingness to helpMana Pool: 12 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] (Spend 3/Turn) [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Health: 7 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Willpower: 5 [X] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Conditions: NoneDescription: DosBox comes rolling in with all the style of a pimp on laundry day. Wearing a blue, short-sleeved button down complete with pocket protector, the computer nerd arrives in his white panel van. When the sliding door opens, it reveals four impeccably dressed ladies wearing drastically different angles of the fashion agenda. Picturesque doesn't seem to have dressed up at all, wearing baggy pants and a loose fitting top. ShortCircuit is wearing full-on office attire complete with pencil skirt. Ghostcode wears a wrinkled blouse and slacks, sporting a messy head of hair. Pulsewatch is sporting an elegant black dress: the kind that might prompt someone to ask WHO she is wearing rather than what. For each of the members of WebLink, this is the attire of those going into social battle. What that entails very obviously means something different to each of them.
After DosBox hands his keys over to be valeted, the group of them enter the scene with purpose, Picturesque taking point; she'd been designated as the leader of the group because she was the most outgoing and sociable of the lot of them. What follows next is what most computer nerds would consider HELL: a social gathering where they are expected to socialize. Their goal is simple: let people know that their Cabal not only exists but is here to help any mages who might need it. Their specialty is very obviously on the tech side, but their concern is the safety of all mages as well as Chicago as a whole.
DosBox does his best to spread the word as well; he's not even the worst at it of his group, since Ghostcode's contribution is to find the darkest corner of the room, glare at anyone who comes near, and type away on her phone with the ferocity of a tiger. Apart from Ghostcode, the rest are handing out business cards, cleverly disguised as an IT Repair company, with a small bit of High Speech in the corner for those who know what to look for. To any mundane, it would just look like a QR code that doesn't work properly.
DosBox recognizes Dante, and he adopts the same type of energy any introvert does when he sees someone at a party that he knows. "Hey there, Dante. How's things on your side of the fence? Need any tech help with anything?" He asks, handing his acquaintance a card.
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Fayne smiles when Chance approaches. He holds out a hand, "Chance, nice to meet you in person. I've read much about you, especially recently. Busy. Thank you for your work, and your colleagues." It sounds scripted, but Mysterium can be like that. They attract a type.
After Chance describes the obelisk, Fayne tries to hide his reaction, but it's plain to Chance that it is intense. Fayne asks quickly, "Obsidian? And it was 16 centimeters on a side width, and 75 centimeters long, with a ring of stone about it?" which is to say, exactly how Chance had already described it.
Fayne studies Chance. He's not thinking about the object, or trying to remember anything, no, he looks to be trying to decide if he should, or could, tell something pretty important to Chance.
He finally decides its a good idea (Status Gaurdians 3, Mentor dots, he considers Chance a status 4, and that puts him at a level that he could be trusted with knowledge, and trusted to be able to do something with it.
"Uh, so, Egypt. Egypt has had a change of heart and some times of peace, where the locals have found wages excavating and treasure hunting to sell to paleontologists, and more importantly, Egyptologists. With better technology, and satellite scans, there has been a big rush to dig up the deserts. This has uncovered new tombs, new artifacts, and some other things."
He pauses, as if there is some kind of gravitas to come down. Chance can just wait it out.
"This pillar was part of a tomb complex. It was mounted outside to ward the tomb, and of course, was taken and sold off to a British museum." He pauses, so the sheer evil of this act can occur to Chance. Chance can wait it out.
"These wards were not to hold out things, but to keep something in. Now, I don't know where this tomb is exactly, and only one of these pillars had been found at the time, which was 30 years ago, and was in the personal collection of the Hierarch of Chicago, who you know, is missing. So I'm going to guess that this was stolen from his private collection at the Museum. I saw your report on it, well, the parts that weren't redacted," he gives a kind of exasperated sigh, as if to complain about the bureacracy or the secrecy of the Guardians.
"The only other one known is still in the British museum, so this one, was number 2. It bears supernal marks, ones we have found before. In the diary of Nemmut!" His eyes light up, and he waits for Chance to get excited too. When nothing happens, he explains, not with annoyance, but actually with a bit of excitement that he gets to tell someone knew something important.
"Nemmut. His shadow name was The One Who Measures Silence. He was alive during the second dynasty of the Pharoahs, and is attributed with incredible works of the time, with assisting in Ramses II great victories, and with establishing the Egyptian religion as a core system. He was an Archmage who transacted with the most powerful spirits of the underworld, and it is rumored that the Egyptian gods are modeled after spirits he had dealings with. His diary describes his journeys into the deepest parts of the underworld and hints at the secrets he found there. Secrets that would unlock the true immortality of the Pharoahs, allowing them to continue to rule for all eternity. If it was stolen and replaced, and the cover up was a released spirit of shadows or darkness, then it is highly likely that his tomb has been found, and someone is trying to open it." Fayne is visibly sweating now, wiping it onto his pant legs and brimming with excitement and fear.
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@greatsquiggy @Clubsoda022
I'll let Dante respond first to this.The business cards for Weblink are met with a mix eye rolls, great thanks, and disinterest. It seems the reputation for losing members and making a mess seems to be haunting the Weblink crew. However, a couple of the Mysterium seem very interested and mention large data sets that they are struggling with.
More than a few Mysterium have a large set of data that they need parsed for overlap and strange occurrences. To pull the occult from the mundane. It would appear that some of the Mysterium cabals are competing with the results...
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Fayne seems to switch gears and asks, almost startingly so, as if it suddenly came to him.
"Tell me Chance, how do you feel about Nazi scientists? Honestly, really. You know, the ones with the human experiments."
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Dante - Moros Detective
I take Ken first. Always have, always will.
I angle us away from the mural and the applause residue, toward a stretch of wall where the wards hum low and honest. “That task force?” I say, keeping my voice down. “It’s a clown parade. Bad optics, worse timing. Committees won’t stop the city from bleeding.” I watch his face while I talk. “I’ve got a better offer. Something quieter. A cabal. A team that treats these spirit sites like what they are … crime scenes—we secure, we document, and if we need to we neutralize. No talking points. No banners. No meaningless medals. Just results.”
I let that sit between us for a beat. “I don’t want any part of this task force, and I certainly don’t want to be muscle for someone else’s career. I want people who know how to show up, do the work, and disappear again. You fit that description.” A thin smile. “Think about it. If you say no, I won’t bother you again.”
Then the circus rolls past in a white panel van.
DosBox and his entourage sweep in like a glitch in the Matrix—business casual meets battle formation. I clock the cards, the QR code that isn’t, the High Speech hiding in plain sight. Cute. Effective. Dangerous if the wrong eyes linger too long. When DosBox hands me a card, I take it, turn it over once, and tuck it into my coat like it might bite.
“Tech help,” I give him a look. “That depends, you have a laptop that fell off the back of a truck. No serial, no paper trial, nothing that could testify against it in court?”
I lean in just enough that the room doesn’t hear us breathing. “Say a man needed a laptop that fell off the back of reality. No serial worth tracing. No paper trail. No past that could testify against it in court.” I tap the card once with my finger. “You the kind of guy who knows where something like that might quietly appear?”
He starts to answer, but I cut in with the last one, smooth as a bad habit.“My precinct’s IT is held together with prayers and duct tape. Printers that jam if you look at ’em sideways. Systems old enough to vote.” I shrug. “If a sharp guy wanted a straight job—steady pay, official badge proximity, no gun, no sermons—I could put his name on the right desk.”
I slip my own card into his coat pocket. “Just ideas,” I say. “Chicago’s full of ’em.”
I give him a nod and drift back into the crowd, leaving him with three problems to think about and the sinking feeling that he might like all of them.
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• Ken(Hideki Takashi)
Dice Pool: wits(3) + Academics (1)=4
Action: accept Dante’s invitation. After thinking and understanding what beung in a cabal would mean for Ken.
Health: 8/8
Mana/Vitae: 13
Willpower: 6/7
Conditions:
Description
Later that night, Ken finds Dante.
“I’ve been thinking,” he murmurs. “After Nightwatch—and the mess up top—you’re right. No task force. But I’ll stand with mages who know something has to be done. No red tape. No bullshit.” -
@1l0velamp
Okay, if you're 'later that night', lets move it to a new scene. I'll brew one up for you. It'll become a cabal meet up. Good idea -
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