heme:

Hidden Complexities
As every initiate learns, the Supernal Realm is hidden behind
the Abyss; it only manifests when mages use their Sight to see
its shallows, or their spells and summoning circles to bring it
fully into the Fallen. Each of the five Supernal Worlds is the
world-shaped manifestation of a deeper Supernal Realm, each
one made of two Arcana. Easy. Logical. Makes sense. You can
draw a diagram of it and relax, knowing that the Tellurian is
an orderly place.
Except, of course, that Emanations and Verges exist. Mana
pools in Hallows. Artifacts have crept into Fallen reality far
beyond the numbers explicable by the gifts of summoned en-
tities and the product of archmasters. Like a student entering
postgraduate study and learning that his lessons so far have been
vastly simplified for his level of understanding, mages quickly
realize that the interaction of Supernal and Fallen is not as
predictable as their first teachers described.
This book is about the nails that stick up, the things working
in defiance of the Orders’ theories. The enigmas that draw
mages in, tempting them to Obsession and hubris. Some mages
specialize in these Mysteries and understand them more than
their peers: devoted crafters, mages who explore the depths
of their Paths, Curators and Lorehouse Keepers who spend
lifetimes cataloging Grimoires and studying Artifacts. Though
some things elude even them, they’re the professors and doc-
tors to other mages’ postgrads.
Mood: Close to Home
Supernal Mysteries are personal to mages. It’s their meta-
physical backyard. An Obrimos can accept she doesn’t know
anything about vampires far more readily than she can face a
manifestation of the Aether that doesn’t make sense. Not only
do the things in this book challenge mages in their area of
expertise, but they’re the only ones who can confront them.
Any Sleeper with an abundance of bravery and a deficit of
common sense can hunt ghosts, but only a mage can confront
a Stygian Mystery.
13Contents | Advanced Supernal Cosmology
Contents
This Introduction sets the scene, discusses the finer details
of Supernal cosmology, describes the ruling Exarchs of the
Supernal, and defines some of the specialist terms mages have
invented for the Mysteries described in this book.
Chapter One: The Supernal Worlds covers the five Supernal
Worlds, expands on Mage’s rules for Mage Sight and Supernal
Entities, and describes the Mystery of High Speech.
Chapter Two: The Mage’s Tools expands the Yantras from
Mage into new uses of time, place sacrament, and tool.
Chapter Three: The Crafter’s Trade covers the persistent
magical effects created by magic within the known Practices; the
Perfected metals, Enhanced Items, and Imbued Items; and the
social aspects of magical-item creation among the Awakened.
Chapter Four: The Wealth of Knowledge is about the vast leg-
acy of past Obsessions a modern member of an Order inherits;
rotes and advanced rotecraft, Grimoires, soul stones, the Nim-
bus, and the storehouses of magical resources the Orders hoard.
Chapter Five: The Manifest Supernal is about those Super-
nal Mysteries that do, in defiance of beginning mage’s lessons,
sit in the Fallen World. Artifacts, Hallows, Verges, Emanation
Realms, the creations of archmasters, ruins of the Time Before,
living expressions of magic, secret peoples, and the tyrannical
reign of the Exarchs.
Finally, Chapter Six: Awakening is about just that; the great
Mystery all mages have experienced. The lore surrounding
Awakenings, how mages might observe and follow an Awakening
in progress, attempts to trigger or discourage them, the terrible
consequences for one gone wrong, and advice for Awakening
existing Sleeper or Sleepwalker characters in play.
Advanced
Supernal Cosmology
Chapter Two of Mage: The Awakening Second Edition
describes the Fallen and Supernal Worlds as mages regularly en-
counter them; the material or ephemeral realms of phenomena
making up the Fallen World, and the Supernal World of mean-
ing mages see when they look on those phenomena through
their Mage Sight. Dedicated students of Supernal Mysteries
among the Orders soon find the explanations they learned as
Initiates and Apprentices fall short, and the full extent of the
Orders’ knowledge about the Supernal is both more and less
than the version most mages use for convenience. That version
is useful for mages in the manner of scientists using Newtonian
physics — it’s good enough for most day-to-day purposes, but the
truth is more convoluted.
Getting a full picture of the Supernal Realm has one major
complication: no human mind or soul can experience it without
suffering annihilation. The only direct sources the Orders have
for the Supernal Realm are the recorded Awakening experiences
of those members who had a Supernal Journey Awakening, and
no two are alike. Supernal researchers mix those with prized
secondary sources. These include interviews with unusually
talkative Supernal entities and the accumulated evidence of over
two thousand years’ Mysteries. The Orders also cling to the few
times archmasters have spoken or written about their ability to
enter the Supernal Realm temporarily, foremost among them
the Corpus Mysteriorum, the foundational text of the Mysterium.
The Corpus was penned by an anonymous archmaster in the
Middle Ages and — among its rotes and reflections on magic —
contains a detailed description of cosmological workings lesser
mages cannot even perceive. Last, much to the chagrin of the
Pentacle, are the Exarchs themselves. The tyrant-symbols of the
Lie never leave the Supernal Realm, not even appearing in the
Supernal Worlds, but they do send Ochemata, lesser servant
entities, and dream-visions to Seer Prelates. A persistent rumor
speaks of Emanations linked to the Iron Seals, and sometimes
Pentacle mages witness Exarchal miracles or acquire accounts
after the fact.
Put all that together, argue about it at Convocations for a few
centuries, and the Orders’ model of the universe looks like this:
The first thing to realize about the Supernal Realm is that it
isn’t a Realm at all. It’s easy for a beginning mage to think of
her power coming from a place like the Shadow or Underworld,
but the Supernal isn’t really a place. It’s a way of looking at the
universe. A mage can be lost for years in the Underworld, at
the very edge of the Astral, or as far as she can go in the Shad-
ow’s unmapped sky, but her Mage Sight will always reveal the
Supernal World of her Path, waiting for her behind everything.
Just as it isn’t a place, the Supernal isn’t an idea or a concept
either. Mages are well used to traveling inside ideas thanks to the
Astral Realms, and Shadow-born spirits gorge on the essence re-
lating to their concepts. Clearly, the Supernal is something else.
Think of a triangle. A simple polygon, three edges and three
vertices. Everyone knows what a triangle is, everyone can point
to a triangular object or pattern and recognize it. But within
the scope of “a triangle,” an infinite number of triangles exist of
different sizes and angles. Even then, no perfect triangle exists
anywhere in the universe. Every single one will have a flaw, no
matter how infinitesimal.
Now extend that to a cat. Or a human being. Or love.
The Supernal is the truth; in the example, it is the true,
perfect triangle existing nowhere in Fallen reality, but it acts as
the definition for its infinite imperfect reflections. The Fallen
World is named for its Abyss-damaged and Lie-clouded state,
but it could also be called a World of Phenomena. It is where
things exist, while the Supernal is how they are defined. The
two are locked together, relying on one another. Mages argue
passionately about which takes precedence — change the Su-
pernal, say the Diamond and Seers, and everything defined by
the symbol you change must then change in turn. Change the
phenomena, say the Free Council, Tremere, and Scelesti, and
the definitions must follow.
Mages often speak of one Supernal World and five Supernal
Realms defined by Path. Others of five Worlds and one Realm.
In truth, there’s as many Worlds as mages and only one Realm,
14introduction
but both can be divided into five parts. The Supernal Realm
is all the symbols of everything that can exist. Each of the five
Paths reveals a large set of those symbols, which are then expe-
rienced by a mage looking into the Supernal World with her
Sight and viewing phenomena they define. It’s easy to think of
Pandemonium as separate to the Aether, Arcadia, Primal Wild,
and Stygia based on the experiences of mages in the Fallen
World, but there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that the
Supernal Realm is so subdivided, and lots of implication from
archmasters and Exarchal sources that it isn’t. Those sources
instead refer to individual symbolic landscapes classed by bare-
ly-understood criteria; Dhatus, Exarchates, Cintamani, and other,
rarer terms. The best known, thanks to the Corpus Mysteriorum
using it, is Lustrum, defined in its pages as the translation of a
single Supernal symbol into a phenomenon a Fallen being can
interact with. Awakened theoreticians describe Lustrums as the
reverse of more familiar things like Shadow Names and Yantras
— while the Awakened spend great effort putting themselves and
their work in Supernal Terms, a Lustrum is the Supernal Realm
putting on a mask of being a place, thing, or being. The only
ones most mages will ever encounter are their Watchtowers,
during their Awakenings. Outside of bizarre Mysteries involving
deep Emanation Realms, mages only glimpse other Lustrums in
Awakenings gone terribly wrong or in the actions of extremely
powerful Supernal Entities.
Upon learning about the Awakened, other supernatural
beings often assume mages must want to leave the Fallen for
the Supernal, but an educated mage knows that’s suicidal.
Nothing survives unprotected contact with the Supernal Realm.
Entering it is not as difficult as many assume — every Emanation
Realm has an Iris to it as its heart. Everyone and everything
that has ever gone through, however, vanishes, and in many
cases suffers additional effects; memory of the ill-fated voyager
becomes subject to Quiescence, or history quietly rearranges so
they never existed beyond subtle Mysteries of time. Awakened
scholars theorize that travelers into the Supernal conflict with
the symbols of themselves, damaging them and erasing them-
selves from existence in the process. The way that ruins of the
Time Before persist despite having impossible histories, and
the strange effects suffered by a small minority of mages upon
Awakening, point those scholars to a concept the Corpus calls
Aponoia; whether the Supernal creates the Fallen or the other
way around, interacting with the raw symbols of creation without
a Watchtower’s protection alters the Fallen World, irrevocably
and often retroactively. Entering the Supernal safely involves
somehow becoming a symbol oneself; the definition of Ascen-
sion. For a mage seeking to leave the Fallen, no shortcut is safe.
Higher Powers
The Temenos contains Goetia of every deity imagined by
humanity, and of every other primordial concept. The siblings
Luna and Helios rule over Earth’s Shadow from its sky, and
ghosts huddled in the riverside cities of the Underworld whisper
of Chthonic Gods. In strange places, gears pierce the skin of
the world watched over by metal “angels,” and long-dead cultists
from a vanished desert kingdom return again and again from a
Lower Depth, driven to sacrifice to their hungry patrons. The
Fallen World has an abundance of gods whose individual power
must not be underestimated. To the Orders, however, these
beings are worthy of respect, even obedience in extremis, but
not worship. The true gods are in the Supernal, but to most
mages that isn’t a comfort.
The Exarchs
God-Tyrants of the Lie, hidden chiefs of the Supernal Realm,
symbols of human oppression. Whether they’re the enemy,
the symbol of humanity turned against itself, or the objects of
worship and devotion, all three sects collect lore on the Exarchs
and watch for their machinations — the better to oppose or
serve them. The Seers have the overwhelming advantage in this
area of Awakened study, but enough captured or defected Seers
have been debriefed by Pentacle mages for basic knowledge of
the Exarchs — the Iron Seals’ titles, the existence of Prelacies
and Ochemata — to be widespread. More dedicated researchers
collect individual omens, incident reports, and evidence, chasing
the never-ending Mysteries of the Tyrants’ plans. Most Diamond
Orders restrict access to quantity of Exarchal lore, not quality. A
cabal might have genuine need of an intercepted prophecy but
asking the Mysterium for all such prophecies leads to a cabal
being suspected of Seer loyalties, at least until they prove they
can be trusted.
Contrary to many a young Libertine’s wish that they turn
out to be mythical, the Exarchs’ existence is not in dispute, and
any reasonably experienced mage has seen some signs of their
Supernal reign. As a rule, the Exarchs are neither blatant nor
silent. For whatever reason, they prefer to operate in the Fallen
World by indirect means — reserving direct communication for
favored Seers of the Throne and other supernatural servants
— and the missions those immediate slaves carry out reinforce
the Lie oppressing everyone else. Most individuals, even those
who’ve made opposing the Tyrants their life’s work, are beneath
the Exarchs’ notice, but when direct intervention does happen,
it comes swiftly, without warning, and with apocalyptic brutality.
An individual Pentacle mage might be the sworn enemy of a
dozen Pylons for decades without Supernal incident, unknow-
ingly cross a line one day that makes a true nuisance of herself,
and be murdered by hostile Supernal entities within hours.
The Iron Seals
Seers of the Throne construct elaborate hagiographies of
Exarchs, describing thousands of Ascended masters in a celestial
Iron Pyramid of subservience and power, but the true number
of the Exarchs is unknowable, if indeed they have what a human
mind can comprehend as individual existences at all. Where
the Exarchs touch the Fallen World directly — the Oneiroi of
Prelates, Exarchate Emanation Realms, the presence of their
Ochemata — the Supernal World warps, imprinting with com-
plex High Speech runes visible under Mage Sight. The Seers
traditionally render these runes in iron, taking them as the
15Higher Powers
Exarchs’ names and using what small portion can be translated
into human speech as informal titles. Many Pentacle mages
suspect that the Seals are like Lustrums or Shadow Names,
roles the Exarchs take on to communicate with their servants.
The Seers record ten major Iron Seals, one for each Arcanum,
and prohibit worship of an eleventh. Each Exarch is a complex
Supernal symbol of a form of human oppression and control,
open to interpretation, and the Ministries and Pylons often
disagree about finer details or list additional Exarchs. Although
grouped by Arcana, the Exarchs transcend Path. An Obrimos
Seer seeing an Exarchal Mystery of Space would still describe it
as the work of the Eye.
• The Chancellor (Matter): Queen of numbers and mea-
sures, the Chancellor symbolizes the commodification of
all material things, even people. Everything has a price.
Everyone can be bought. Everything is owned. He is
served by the Mammon and Pantechnicon Ministries.
• The Eye (Space): Symbol of omniscience and acting
from afar, the Eye symbolizes scrutiny by authority and
authority through surveillance. She knows your secrets,
and he is always, always watching. She is served by the
Panopticon and Phemian Ministries.
• The Father (Prime): Judgement. Authority. Dogma.
The Father symbolizes blind faith and obedience to iron-
clad rules and commandments in all forms, especially
religious, and is one of the most worshipped Exarchs as
a result. He is served by the Paternoster and Dolusian
Ministries.
• The General (Forces): Symbol of control through vio-
lence, division by bloodshed, and oppression through the
threat of physical force, the General teaches that might
makes right, and commands his Seers to stir hatred into
action and hurt into retribution, ripping humanity apart.
She is served by the Praetorian and Herodian Ministries.
• The Nemesis (Spirit): The law of unintended conse-
quences. Calamity from hidden events. Control through
secrets. The fear that your life is determined by forces
you cannot comprehend. The Nemesis represents not
so much the Shadow World as the Gauntlet, keeping
humanity ignorant of the monsters their actions breed in
the Shadow. He is served by the Orphean Ministry and
was served by the recently-destroyed Geryon Ministry.
• The Prophet (Time): Great Man of History, the Prophet
instills hopelessness in the face of progress, the idea that
only a handful of chosen individuals can shape events and
everyone else must follow or be crushed. She is served by
the Horologian and Kyrian Ministries
• The Psychopomp (Death): Symbolizing the fear of death,
the Psychopomp is every guardian of every afterlife from
Anubis to St Peter; the idea that only an elect may enter
heaven, and that flouting the Exarchs’ rules on earth
leads to punishment or destruction. He is served by the
Rhadamantian Ministry.
• The Raptor (Life): Symbolizing the subordination of
free will to instinct, the Raptor teaches that humans
are mere machines of meat following natural law. He
encourages people to think of themselves as “alphas” or
couch business dealings as predator and prey, to act on
their impulses and resign themselves to being “sheep”
preyed on by the strong. She is served by the Sycorian
Ministry.
• The Ruin (Fate): Symbol of control through hopeless-
ness, the Ruin is the Exarch of entropy, decay, and cyn-
icism. They direct Seers to crush the dreams of Sleepers
and make it seem their mistake was dreaming at all. He
is served by the Kyrian and Peirasmon Ministries
• The Unity (Mind): Symbol of conformity and uniformi-
ty, fear of the other, and control through nationalism,
xenophobia, and fascism, the Unity promotes impersonal
authorities from banks, to corporations, to nation states,
and teaches humans to shackle themselves to the will of
the crowd. He is served by the Hegemonic and Logothetes
Ministries.
The Defeated and Defiant
The Exarchs aren’t the only Supernal gods, but they’re by
far the most active. Seer legend speaks of a great titanomachy
during the Time Before, when the Exarchs-to-be waged war on
the Supernal and destroyed or imprisoned most of the gods.
Modern mages take the most powerful Bound to be among the
Other Exarchs
The chief Exarchs of each Arcanum are not the
only Iron Seals. The Seers recognize an eleventh
major Exarch called the Gate, who symbolizes
Paradox and the Abyss, but the other Exarchs
are very clear that their servants must never wor-
ship him or accept Mystery Commands from her.
Nevertheless, worship of the Gate is rife among
Left-Handed Seer Legacies and former-Seer
Scelesti.
Other Iron Seals encountered by Pentacle mag-
es or recorded in captured Seer libraries include
the Monarch, the Rani, the Stranger, the Traveler,
the Mother, the Cannibal, the Destroyer, the
Tutor, the Judge, the Progenitor, the Surgeon, the
Hierophant, and the Predator. It is unknown how
many of these are aliases or alternate translations
for the major Seals. At least two (the Rani and the
Progenitor) are thought to be Ascended Seers of
the Throne.
16introduction
defeated gods, exiled from the Supernal and imprisoned by the
victorious Exarchs. Other Supernal gods survive by accepting
the Exarchs’ rule, or by simply not conflicting with them, which
means not contacting the Fallen World or answering the entreat-
ies of desperate mages. Still, Artifacts linked to Supernal gods
do find their way into the Fallen World on occasion, and some
mages claim to have been contacted by Supernal entities acting
as the representatives of still-defiant gods.
Other Supernal actors have more recognizably human origins.
Archmasters may enter the Supernal Realm and deal directly
with the gods, and their manipulations of other mages can be
hard to tell apart from those of native entities.
The main opposition to the Exarchs, though, are the Watch-
towers. The Exarchs have commanded their Seers to conquer
and control the Watchtowers since the first Exarch cultist de-
veloped a Prelacy, without any appreciable success. Doctrinaire
Silver Ladder mages (and believers in other Orders) describe
the Watchtowers as the creation of Oracles: Ascended mages
from the Time Before who chased the Exarchs into the Supernal
and built the Watchtowers to guide those who came after out
of the Fallen World. If the Oracles still exist, however, they are
silent, and no summoned Supernal entity or archmaster has
acknowledged their presence in the Supernal Realm. Their ex-
istence is a hypothesis based on a noted absence in the Orders’
understanding of the universe. According to archaeomancers,
mages did not Awaken to Watchtowers in the Time Before, so
something changed during the Fall. Only Supernal beings equal
or greater to the Exarchs’ power could build the Watchtowers,
and the Diamond are not so pessimistic about human nature
to assume that every mage who Ascended in the Fall joined
the enemy. The Oracles, then, are the missing “good Exarchs,”
the wise Kings of Atlantis who made it possible for humans to
Awaken even through their counterparts’ Lie.
The Silver Ladder names the five Oracles with symbolic titles,
developing elaborate allegorical tales about them as teaching
tools for new théarchs. Other Diamond mages don’t usually
buy into the myth to that extent and state more clearly to their
apprentices that the Oracles are a theory. The other Orders
reject the myth; the Free Council see the Watchtowers as sym-
bols of human inspiration, no creator necessary other than
Fallen civilization, and the Seers assume that the Watchtowers
are simply the Exarch’s own creation or pre-existing Supernal
Realms brought forth in the Fall as counterweights to the Abyss.
The Ladder’s names for the Oracles are;
• The Youthful King of Thorns (Acanthus)
• The King of the Burning Voice (Mastigos)
• The Sorrowful King in Gray (Moros)
• The Star-Cloaked King of Thunder (Obrimos)
• The Throneless King of the Heart (Thyrsus)
Lexic