TEXT: TM
  
  When it grew towards sunset, we entered a 
  branch of a river that fell into the Orinoco, called Winicapora; 
  where I was informed of the mountain of crystal, to which in truth for the 
  length of the way, and the evil season of the year, I was not able to march, nor abide 
  any longer upon the journey. We saw it afar off; and it appeared like a white church-tower of an 
  exceeding height. There falleth over it a mighty river which toucheth no part of the side of the mountain, but 
  rusheth over the top of it, and falleth to the ground with so terrible a noise and clamour, as if a thousand great 
  bells were knocked one against another. I think there is not in the world so strange an overfall, nor so wonderful to 
  behold. Berreo told me that there were diamonds and other precious stones on it, and that they shined very far off; but what 
  it hath I know not, neither durst he or any of his men ascend to the top of the said mountain.
  — Sir Walter Raleigh, The Discoverie of Guiana (1596)
  On Friday, 2005 April 08, a hybrid eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a nar-
  row corridor which traverses the far Southern Hemisphere. . . . The path of this event 
  begins as an annular eclipse, but it changes to total about 2200 km south of Tahiti. At 
  maximum eclipse, the duration of totality is 45 seconds. Unfortunately, the total 
  portion of the track never crosses land. The path becomes annular again about 800 
  km west of Costa Rica. By the time the shadow reaches the coast of Costa Rica, the 
  annular phase will already be 12 seconds and growing. After crossing Panama and 
  Colombia, the central path ends in Venezuela where a 33 second annular eclipse 
  will occur at sunset.
  — Fred Espenak, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2005)
  Contents of the Sherborne Anomaly, as decoded from the Left-Hand 
  Script by Juana Guilfoyle, fifth-degree mystagogue, on May 8, 2005, with 
  Charon and Mercury trine in Auriga. The Fourth Rotation was used.
  TITLE PAGE [in clear English] Surveyor’s Notebook/Cook’s Statio-
  ners, Georgetown, Guyana/Reg. H.M. Pat. Off. 00498850
  [Nine pages of surveying 
  and geomantic calculations, with latitudes 
  and longitudes given that correspond to 
  locations in eastern Venezuela. Photo-
  graphic copy included under 
  separate cover.]
  
  [coded notes be-
  gin here]
  23 March 2005
  23 March 2005
  4:39 
  4:39 P.M
  P.M., Caracas
  ., Caracas — The Labyrinth twists slowly, but I fi-
  nally received my permits for the interior today. The timing is 
  too close; the annular eclipse ends at sunset, 6:17 P.M. on 8 April, 
  and I need to be there at zero point. The moon will cross the face 
  of the red sun, the Marriage of Red and White, of Rubedo and Albedo, 
  and it will become black in shadow, fulfilling the Nigredo. And around it 
  will shine a circle of sunlight, a ring of gold for me to step through.
  The path of the eclipse ends somewhere in the Venezuelan interior. My calcu-
  lations have narrowed it down somewhat, but I will have to shoot the sun from 
  the ground to pinpoint it precisely. A blank spot on the map, even in 2005, a place so 
  remote that even the RAF Tactical Pilotage Chart marks as “Relief Data Incompat-
  ible.” But I’m on the right track: it’s the same spot on Sir Walter Raleigh’s map where 
  he drew the Lake of Manoa, the Lake of Gold ringing the Island of El Dorado. I could 
  unfold his map from my jacket, but it’s not worth the risk — although nobody in Ca-
  racas is likely to recognize it, I don’t need another investigation to delay me now.
  I have it memorized anyway, and I suppose stealing it from the British Library was 
  gilding the lily. However, there’s always the chance that the map bears a con-
  cealed enchantment, to reveal more truths under this tropical sun or in the rays 
  of the eclipse. Better safe than sorry, and I do love looking at the map when I can. 
  I call it to mind now; I see Raleigh’s Lake crawling like a giant centipede across 
  the bottom of the Orinoco basin, 32 rivers skittering off it like long legs, with a 
  round island at its heart. He made it halfway there in 1595, and saw a “mountain 
  of crystal” on the horizon. I have to do better than that. Like Raleigh, I know 
  what El Dorado really is. It’s the Great Work, the Opening of the Way into a 
  golden world of ultimate truth and power.
  But he did well enough to know what he had, and to write it down 
  on his map. He was following others, of course; the Spanish explorer 
  Berreo, and the rumors of the unknown “Juan Martinez,” 
  and the horoscopes and geomancies of John Dee and the 
  Shoal of Night. On Raleigh’s second expedition, in 1617, he 
  had the alchemist Lawrence Keymis, who had al-
  ready led two journeys into the interior, and 
  he had the mysterious “Journall” that 
  somehow convinced King James 
  to free him from 
  
  the 
  Tower for a sec-
  ond stab at El Dorado.
  I have to get some sleep, but I can’t.
   Perhaps I’ll run over my computations again.
  25 March 2005
  25 March 2005
  10:00 
  10:00 P.M.
  P.M. — Landed at Canaima heliport, only four hours behind 
  schedule. Of course, Raleigh took a month to get half this far up-
  river, so perhaps I shouldn’t complain. Esteban was here to meet me; he 
  introduced me to Mario, who grew up in the interior, and Hector and Simon 
  Herrerra, who grew up in the slums of Caracas.
  Esteban and Mario and I have talked about where we’re going. It’s a mesa (or 
  tepuy, as they are called here) over a mile tall, with a bad reputation; the lo-
  cal Pemon tribe calls it Auyan Tepuy, the “Devil’s House.” The marawiton, evil spirit 
  guardians, live atop it and kill trespassers, which confirms what I heard in Algeria 
  about the Guardians of the Vibratory Barrier. The whole region is called the Rorai-
  ma plateau, and according to my Lonely Planet it was Conan Doyle’s model for the 
  Lost World. I do not expect dinosaurs on this trip. Dragons, perhaps.
  26 March 2005
  26 March 2005
  3:15 
  3:15 P.M.
  P.M. — We have finally set off down the Caroni River, which will take us most 
  of the way to the tepuy. More delay; there was some sort of commotion at the 
  pier with our gear and supplies. A porter was where he was not supposed to be, or 
  something; the Herrerra brothers had to wade in and sort things out Caracas-
  style. The malefactor was a European, by the look of him — perhaps something 
  for the Guardians to deal with? By my quick once-over, everything is still 
  here, especially the oils for the Barrier. I will take a more detailed inven-
  tory when we camp for the night.
  28 March 2005
  28 March 2005
  9:45 
  9:45 P.M.
  P.M. — Spent much of today’s travel talking with Ma-
  rio about another lost city in this country. The pilot 
  Jimmie Angel, who discovered Angel Falls in 1933, 
  was actually looking for a “river of gold” 
  discovered by someone who may 
  not have existed named 
  
  McCracken. (Raleigh 
  was also following someone 
  else’s rumor — I, at least, am following 
  my own calculations. Although it could be said 
  that in a sense I’m chasing Raleigh’s tail.) While caught 
  in a mysterious whirlwind on a prospecting flight over a 
  remote tepuy in the Roraima, Angel was blown over a “city in 
  a lake,” with circular walls and what looked like a canal. On a 
  later exploration flight, he had a mysterious plane crash in the in-
  terior somewhere, and was summarily ejected from Venezuela upon his 
  return to civilization.
  The insects are very aggressive here, but I imagine the huge flocks of tou-
  cans keep them under control. The calls of the toucans get louder at sunset 
  for some reason.
  30 March 2005
  30 March 2005
  5:12 
  5:12 P.M.
  P.M. — Disaster. About two hours ago, the largest canoe overturned and sank 
  in a whirlpool — more of a maelstrom — an estimated three miles south of an 
  unmarked fork in the Caroni. Compass swings make precise latitude difficult to de-
  termine; GPS no help. All the climbing gear is lost, half of the food, the maps, and 
  the Herrerra brothers. Worst of all, the sandalwood box from Afghanistan went 
  down with it, and the oils are irreplaceable.
  8:30 
  8:30 P.M.
  P.M. — In what he claimed was an attempt to raise our spirits, but which I sus-
  pect was meant as a plea to turn back, Esteban insisted on telling the story 
  of Percy Fawcett around the fire tonight. In 1925, as Esteban tells it, Fawcett 
  went into the Brazilian jungle trying to approach his “lost city of Manoa” 
  from the south. On a previous trip, he had seen Indians with “fair skin and 
  white hair,” which he believed to be a sign of Atlantean bloodlines. He 
  vanished in May, along with his son and a friend named Raleigh Rim-
  mel. (Does Esteban recognize the importance of these seeming 
  coincidences of names? It is so hard to be sure, and I cannot 
  risk the Sight if he is not Asleep.) Fawcett left specific 
  instructions that no search party be sent after him 
  until February 1927, which made me wonder 
  if he suspected something about the 
  effects of the Vibratory Bar-
  rier on Time.
  
  31 March 2005
  31 March 2005
  6:07 
  6:07 A.M.
  A.M. — Sunrise. I think I see the tepuy 
  on the horizon, but the mist is very thick to 
  the east. Mario says the tepuy “veils itself for white 
  men,” but I suspect it veils itself for all comers.
  8:10 
  8:10 A.M.
  A.M. — Other canoes leaking badly; some sort of contami-
  nant in the water perhaps, as the aluminum is peeling away from 
  the frame somehow. Esteban knows a track through the jungle to 
  the east of here that may serve to get us to the tepuy, although how to 
  climb it? I hesitate to invoke the Walker this far south, and I have no oils.
  2:30 
  2:30 P.M.
  P.M. — The trail is found; by my compass it runs just east of SE, but the 
  thing jiggles madly now. All sightings take much longer; I shall be forced to 
  break out the Memphite sun stick before too long and trust to dead reckoning.
  Again, Raleigh never got this far. On the 1617 trip, he fell desperately ill at the 
  mouth of the Orinoco and had to send Keymis on ahead in command. Keymis was given 
  explicit orders to avoid combat with the Spanish — perhaps Raleigh was on a deadline 
  as well — but disobeyed them for reasons that remain a mystery even today. Keymis 
  attacked the Spanish fort of San Thom�, and in the battle a Spanish musket ball killed 
  Raleigh’s son Wat. Keymis returned to Raleigh’s camp and killed himself with a dagger 
  thrust to the heart; Raleigh sailed back to England and execution in the Tower.
  I do not have Raleigh’s luxury now.
  1 April 2005
  1 April 2005
  7:22 
  7:22 P.M.
  P.M. — Good progress on the trail today. I can hear the falls from here, 
  but still cannot see the tepuy. Mario says the Pemon people call the falls 
  Kerepakupai-Mer�, “the falls from the deepest of all places.” He sounds less 
  like someone recounting a laughable native superstition, and more like 
  someone trying to give a coded warning.
  The insects are nearly unbearable; all three of us are all over 
  blood and blisters.
  2 April 2005
  2 April 2005
  6:34 
  6:34 A.M.
  A.M. — The tepuy looms completely visible 
  this morning, silhouetted against the sun-
  rise due east of here. I can see the 
  falls pouring down, just 
  
  as Raleigh de-
  scribed them. However, we may 
  be no closer to the zero point than 
  before: no matter how many dawn sightings I 
  take, it becomes increasingly apparent to me that 
  the path of the eclipse begins on the far side of the tepuy 
  and not on top of it as I had previously thought. When I have 
  time I must recheck my initial figures.
  This adds at least five miles to my journey, and time is running 
  short. However, the loss of my climbing equipment now seems provi-
  dential, even prophetic. Esteban and Mario seem relieved that they do not 
  have to brave the marawiton, and are eager to find a path around the tepuy 
  from here. I just realized that I haven’t seen or heard a toucan all day.
  7:14 P.M. — Just stumbled onto the remains of this morning’s cook fire. Compasses 
  completely useless, GPS signals out. Either the tepuy has a magnetic meteoric 
  iron core or I have finally come tangent to the Vibratory Barrier. I will perform 
  the Dho-Nha Canticle to determine which.
  3 April 2005
  3 April 2005
  12:01 
  12:01 A.M.
  A.M. — It was the Barrier. Now I must cross the threshold in the old way, since 
  the oils are gone. Rubedo it is. Esteban and Mario will meet the marawiton after all.
  3:33 
  3:33 A.M.
  A.M. — Their screaming may have attracted something else; I see white forms in 
  the jungle. I will not use language for the next 13 hours, for obvious reasons.
  [The crushed insect between pages 22 and 23 is an unknown species of Chilopoda, 
  possessing 16 leg pairs rather than the universal 15. Preliminary guess by Myrinus 
  at the British Museum indicates a superficial resemblance to Scutiger proavus, 
  a Jurassic species known only from fossil records.]
  5 April 2005
  5 April 2005
  Dawn.
  Dawn. — I have reached the base of the tepuy unscathed, al-
  though my skin is bleached white wherever I can see it. This 
  is the Albedo, then. Now I know why Conan Doyle put an 
  albino into The Lost World; he learned more from the 
  spirits than we thought.
  I will not write the Words that I heard, 
  not in sight of the tepuy at any 
  rate. I have commit-
  
  ted 
  them to memory, 
  of course; I doubt whether I 
  had any choice. They are the only thing I 
  have heard besides the falls for two days.
  6 April 2005
  6 April 2005
  The soil here is very marshy; my progress is measured in yards. 
  There is some sort of higher ground visible to the north, basalt or 
  granite stones sticking out of it at any rate.
  Sunset. — 600 yards today. From slightly closer and higher, the stones 
  are too regular to be natural features. They resemble the megalithic 
  structures in Brittany and Andalusia, but with a strong admixture of Tihua-
  naco or Mycenean style “Cyclopean” architecture. If I could get on top of the 
  tepuy I could see them from above and map them. I suspect a ring formation from 
  this angle and will try to get through the swamp to survey them tomorrow. 
  Falls maddening, and I saw a mosquito the size of my hand.
  Why am I concerning myself with trivia on the threshold of Atlantis?
  8 April 2005
  8 April 2005
  Noon.
  Noon. — Resting, though I can ill afford it, but I have no choice as my strength is 
  nearly gone. I have found a high side trail leading south around the tepuy past the 
  falls. This means I cannot sketch or map the stones on the north and west side, 
  but time is running short if I am to work my way around to the east side in time 
  for sunset. Imagine coming all this way to miss the eclipse because I was sketch-
  ing another lost city to join Raleigh and Fawcett and Angel and all the rest. 
  I shall return by the north side if I can, although once I am transfigured I do 
  not imagine I shall care much for tumbled ruins.
  Insects even worse here. I shall take strength and marrow from my 
  left arm as I have no choice but to go forward or drop here. My left 
  eye I shall save for later, when Nigredo becomes unavoidable.
  [After this entry the handwriting becomes distorted, as 
  though the notebook were moving around or resting un-
  evenly on a rounded surface.]
  Later. — I do not like the damned tepuy. It 
  squats there on the western horizon 
  line; it will block the sun-
  set. I should have 
  
  thought of that 
  before; I don’t know how it 
  slipped my mind. Too much heat and 
  noise. That thing hates me, and I cannot hear 
  anything but the falls, even with the tepuy be-
  tween me and the cascade.
  Have been approaching the site on a curve; Pythagoras was 
  right, but I must avoid the angles.
  [final entry in clear English] Sunset. — All is finally in readiness. The 
  moon is crossing the setting sun as I watch. The tepuy is still in the way
  No its transparent — a mountain of crystal — I can see through the black 
  sun inside the ring of gold
  [Excerpts from the executive summary of the report of Sandiford Laborato-
  ries to [identity redacted by London Censor], 8/8/05:
  . . . due to the extreme acidification of the paper and ink. Hence, the complete 
  destruction of the sample during fiber analysis means that results must neces-
  sarily be inconclusive. Initial sample results were consistent, however, with paper 
  milled in South Carolina during the 1990s, although the fibers were too badly com-
  pressed and eroded for specific batch matching. The acidification pattern indicates 
  exposure to air for at least 80 years, with the edges of the paper showing almost 
  complete friability, which would have set in by year 100. Past this point, no date can 
  be assigned to the paper. Although only trace amounts of ink remain on the page, 
  spectrographic analysis gives initial results consistent with any one of a number 
  of aniline-based glycol inks used over the last half century in ballpoint pens.
  . . . binding is calfskin, consistent with tools and methods used in the 16th and 
  17th centuries. The age of the calfskin can be estimated using C-14 to 420 years 
  �80. The vellum endpaper likewise.
  . . . The inscription on the endpaper “Rawley His Book Found In Guiana” is in 
  iron-based gall ink consistent with the age of the calfskin. The hand-
  writing sample is too short for definitive analysis, but matches known 
  samples of John Dee’s script.
  
  ™
  By Alexander Freed, Joseph Carriker, Kenneth Hite, 
  By Alexander Freed, Joseph Carriker, Kenneth Hite, 
  Howard Ingham, Jeffrey Kyer, Keith Winkler
  Howard Ingham, Jeffrey Kyer, Keith Winkler
  
  10
  © 2006 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction 
  without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except 
  for the purposes of reviews. No part of this publication may be reproduced, 
  stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any form or by any means, 
  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the 
  prior written permission of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. Reproduction pro-
  hibitions do not apply to the character sheets contained in this book when 
  reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire, World of Darkness 
  and Mage the Ascension are registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, 
  Inc. All rights reserved. Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage 
  the Awakening, Storytelling System and Secrets of the Ruined Temple are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights 
  reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
  The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright con-
  cerned. White Wolf’s use of the term Mysterium in the Mage the Awakening product line in no way challenges any other use 
  of this term, including but not limited to its use in Laughing Pan Production’s roleplaying game Deliria.
  This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are ﬁ ction and 
  intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.
  Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.com
  PRINTED IN CHINA.
  Credits
  Written by: Alexander Freed, Joseph Carriker, Kenneth 
  Hite, Howard Ingham, Jeffrey Kyer, Keith Winkler
  World of Darkness created by Mark Rein•Hagen
  Developer: Dean Shomshak
  Editor: Scribendi.com
  Art Direction and Layout: Matt Milberger
  Interior Art: John Bridges, Anthony Carpenter,  Jeff Holt,. 
  Vatche Mavlian, Justin Norman, Nate Pride
  Cover Art: David Leri
  COMING NEXT FOR MAGE
  Special Thanks
  Sometimes even the process of making a Mage book is sus-
  ceptible to a Paradox. In this case, two important credits were 
  inadvertently left out of the credits listings in Legacies: The 
  Sublime. For the record, Stephen Michael DiPesa wrote the 
  Fangs of Mara Legacy and the “Shaping the Soul” Appendix, 
  and the cover art was by Rick Sardinha. We apologize for the 
  error and hereby award both gentlemen with an Atlantean 
  certiﬁ cate of honor. We’d reproduce that here, but since it’s 
  in the High Speech, we’re not really sure what it says. The 
  esteemed author and artist are free to comb any rumored 
  Atlantean ruin in search of a translation, as per the guidelines 
  given in this book, although White Wolf offers no indemnity 
  against temple guardians or Atlantean wards and traps of any 
  kind. Caveat magus!
  REIGN OF 
  THE EXARCHS
  
  11
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
  Table of Contents
  Circle Around the Sun 
  1
  Introduction: Relics of a Shattered Past 
  12
  Chapter One: Atlantean Apocrypha 
  16
  Chapter Two: Beneath the Sediment 
  42
  Chapter Three: Gatekeepers and Treasures 
  82
  Chapter Four: The Living Temple 
  108
  Appendix: High Speech and Atlantean Runes 
  123
  ™
  
  12
  Introduction: 
  Relics of a 
  Shattered 
  Past
  There is a temple in ruin stands,
  Fashion’d by long forgotten hands:
  Two or three columns, and many a stone,
  Marble and granite, with grass o’ergrown!
  — Lord Byron, Siege of Corinth
  Long ago, the mages tell their pupils, there was a Golden 
  Age of sorcery when the Awakened ruled the world in wisdom 
  and glory. The wizards of that era wrought greater spells than 
  modern mages can imagine. At the center of that age stood 
  Atlantis, the Dragon Isle. The archmages of Atlantis codiﬁ ed 
  the lore of magic and became like unto gods, with their capital, 
  the Awakened City, as their shining temple.
  But that wasn’t enough for some of the wizard-princes. They 
  wanted to become gods in truth, and force the entire cosmos 
  to kneel before them. The war between these arrogant Exarchs 
  and the Oracles who opposed them broke reality itself and sank 
  Atlantis beneath the waves. The few surviving mages found 
  their magic broken as well, fading into a shadow of its former 
  power. The Atlantean survivors and their heirs tried to create 
  new kingdoms of the Wise, where magic could ﬂ ourish. Some 
  of their more successful attempts led to Egypt, Sumer, Maya 
  and other civilizations at the dawn of history — but there was 
  never another City of the Awakened. The Temple of Magic lay 
  in ruins. Only scraps and shards of Atlantean magic endured 
  to remind latter-day mages of the Golden Age.
  Still — some of those scraps and shards are pretty impressive. 
  What’s more, not all of them have been found, or they were 
  found and lost again. In hidden places around the world, At-
  lantean palaces, fortresses, shrines and tombs await discovery. 
  They still contain artifacts of wizardry no modern mage can 
  duplicate, and occult lore forgotten for thousands of years. Eager 
  willworkers follow slender clues to ancient ruins, dreaming of 
  adventure, glory and reclaimed magic of the Golden Age. If 
  they are not powerful, cunning, learned and wise, however, 
  they may ﬁ nd terror and death instead. The Atlanteans guarded 
  their secrets well, with a ruthless determination that suggests 
  all was not well in the Golden Age.
  The lost power and glory of Atlantis haunts the background 
  of Mage: The Awakening. Characters may know the mystically-
  potent High Speech of Atlantis, belong to sorcerous orders 
  that trace their heritage back to the fabled isle, or even own 
  magical artifacts of the lost land. Many mages want to discover 
  more relics of Atlantis in hopes of increasing their own sorcer-
  ous power and knowledge. Secrets of the Ruined Temple is 
  a guide and resource for players and Storytellers who want to 
  make the search for Atlantean secrets an important aspect of 
  their character or chronicle.
  What’s in This Book
  Secrets of the Ruined Temple takes an approach that some 
  players might ﬁ nd odd. You won’t ﬁ nd a complete guide to 
  Atlantis, with all the mysteries neatly explained. No, this book 
  deepens the mystery of Atlantis, by propounding multiple pos-
  sibilities and a whole lot of new questions. The purpose of this 
  book is to help you imagine your own version of Atlantis, and 
  work the clues to that version into your chronicle.
  Chapter One, Atlantean Apocrypha, takes the legend of 
  Atlantis presented in Mage: The Awakening and twists it 
  
  13
  INTRODUCTION
  through dozens of variations. Any of them might be true in your 
  chronicle, or none, or maybe more than one. Maybe there was 
  more than one Empire of the Awakened — or maybe the Fall 
  of Atlantis broke time itself, leaving shards of many possible 
  Atlantises scattered through time and space — not to mention 
  a dozen other legendary lost lands. Decide for yourself what’s 
  true, what’s delusion and what’s a cunning fraud perpetrated 
  by mages determined to hide the truth.
  Chapter Two, Beneath the Sediment, offers a toolkit for 
  designing scenarios about seeking and exploring Atlantean 
  ruins. Players can ﬁ nd motives for members of each magical 
  society to join such expeditions, methods to search for magi-
  cal ruins and a few warnings about the hazards the characters 
  may face. After all, their characters aren’t the ﬁ rst mages to 
  hunt the relics of Atlantis as “Seekers” or “archaeomancers.” 
  Storytellers, for their part, will ﬁ nd suggestions to help them 
  design Atlantean ruins, make them suitably challenging to 
  ﬁ nd — and even more challenging to explore.
  Chapter Three, Gatekeepers and Treasures, provides a 
  diverse selection of magical guardians for Atlantean ruins. If 
  the characters can overcome these gatekeepers, the characters 
  may win potent artifacts of Atlantean magic. The conclusion 
  of this chapter describes several such treasures — some awe-
  inspiring, some deadly and some just plain strange.
  Chapter Four, The Living Temple, brings Atlantean ex-
  ploration into a strange, new setting: the Astral Plane. Long 
  after falling, Atlantis still casts shadows into the collective 
  unconscious of humanity. Daring mages can explore the subtle 
  planes of dream and myth for Atlantean secrets.
  The Appendix, High Speech and Atlantean Runes, takes a 
  new look at two relics of Atlantis known to many mages: the 
  magical words and glyphs they use to increase the power of 
  spells. This Appendix lays out the mysteries surrounding the 
  speech and writing of Atlantis, describes how some willwork-
  ers try to solve those mysteries and suggests some new ways 
  characters might use High Speech and runes.
  How To Use This Book
  You could build an entire chronicle around the search for 
  Atlantean secrets. After all, both treasure-hunting and serious 
  archaeology have inspired plenty of adventures in real life. 
  Modern archaeology, of course, isn’t nearly as hazardous as 
  it used to be. Real archaeologists spend more time wielding 
  camel’s-hair brushes than pistols and bullwhips, and they value 
  ancient garbage dumps as much as any royal tomb — the dumps 
  give more information about how people really lived.
  Mages, however, probably can’t get university funding to 
  search for Atlantean ruins, or government soldiers to protect 
  them from bandits and looters. Mages may ﬁ nd themselves 
  facing the same perils of climate, disease, snakes, getting lost 
  and unfriendly locals as the conquistadors who died in droves 
  searching for lost cities of gold. The search for Atlantean relics 
  can lead mages to terror and danger, proving that the World 
  Of Darkness doesn’t need the supernatural to be horrifying.
  A Ruined Temple chronicle or story arc starts with a simple 
  structure. The characters ﬁ nd a clue to some minor Atlantean 
  ruin. For instance, the characters might acquire an earlier 
  Seeker’s journal, or notice a mis-identiﬁ ed Atlantean antiquity 
  in a museum. At this minor site, they ﬁ nd clues that lead them 
  someplace more important. As the characters progress from 
  clue to clue, ruin to ruin, they retrieve greater treasures of 
  knowledge and magic. Naturally, they also face greater dangers, 
  ranging from eldritch curses to murderous insurgents. At the 
  chronicle’s climax, the characters may not only discover some 
  awesome artifact of Atlantean wizardry, they may solve some 
  mysteries about the fabled land itself. To add complications, 
  the characters face rival mages who want to beat the characters 
  to the prize, Consilium leaders the characters must cajole into 
  supporting their efforts (or at least not opposing them) and 
  whatever personal crises with friends, family and lovers old or 
  new the Storyteller thinks would be appropriate.
  Secrets of the Ruined Temple provides enough Atlantean 
  mysteries, sorcerous wards, supernatural guardians and thrilling 
  locations for a short chronicle. More importantly, this book 
  offers guidance to help you design your own Atlantean ruins, 
  so you can continue your archaeomantic chronicle as long 
  as you want. If you prefer merely to run the occasional story 
  of Atlantean treasure-hunting, you have plenty of options to 
  draw upon.
  Players can use this book as well. Even if the chronicle 
  doesn’t focus on the search for relics of Atlantis, your character 
  might have an interest in this, and her interest might become 
  important in a story. For instance, if another mage seems to 
  have acquired an Atlantean artifact, an archaeomancer could 
  ﬁ nd himself called upon to verify its authenticity — and be 
  caught up in plots and counter-plots to possess it.
  Lost Atlantis might also shadow a character’s past. For in-
  stance, a character might own an Atlantean Artifact, Enhanced 
  Item or Imbued Item — whose powers and origin she might 
  not entirely understand, and that other mages want to take 
  from her. A character’s Mentor could be an archaeomancer 
  (successful or otherwise) — or so could an old enemy. Merits 
  such as Destiny or Dream could even hint that a mage spent 
  a past life in Atlantis — or as one of the Dragon Isle’s enemies. 
  Mysterious Atlantean forces might reach out of time to affect 
  a mage’s life. Mage: The Awakening mentions the Ananke, 
  spirits tasked by long-dead Atlantean archmasters to meddle in 
  the lives of their remote descendants; players and Storytellers 
  can devise other entanglements with the remote past as well. 
  A mage might even have Awakened because of an experience 
  with an Atlantean artifact or ruin.
  Themes
  Archaeological stories can have many different themes. When 
  the ancient ruins are Atlantean, though, “A Greater Past” is a 
  natural choice. Mages who ﬁ nd ruins from the Atlantean Age 
  encounter magic that surpasses anything possible for modern 
  willworkers. It may be faded now, but characters can see what 
  power their forebears wielded — and that they never will.
  
  14
  Atlantean ruins should be eerie and mysterious. A Storyteller 
  can create a mood of mystery by not showing or explaining 
  everything at once. One technique is simply to emphasize the 
  age and decay of a ruin: the cobwebs over the carvings, how 
  paintings or inscriptions have faded, fallen pillars and the 
  like. Once characters learn to expect this, a chamber, artifact 
  or whole site that looks new will set characters on their guard 
  and seem weird by contrast.
  The greatest mystery is the nature of Atlantis itself. Don’t 
  give the characters too deﬁ nite or reliable a picture of the 
  fabled land. Let any records the characters discover be in frag-
  ments, or contradict something they already learned. Don’t 
  feel obliged to explain every strange event, or the purpose of 
  everything they ﬁ nd in a ruin. Characters should always feel 
  that a lot more remains to be discovered.
  Storytellers can cut loose when describing a scene, though. 
  Gorgeous or grotesque extravagance can suggest the power and 
  glory (or horror) of the ancient mages. Don’t just say there’s 
  an inscription on a wall: cover the wall with runic script (and 
  then maybe destroy it before the story ends, to preserve the 
  mystery of what the characters might have learned if they could 
  have translated it all). A temple doesn’t just have a statue of a 
  god: it has a massive, jeweled idol of surpassing beauty — or a 
  ghastly stone monstrosity still caked with ancient, dried gore. 
  Extravagant settings make it clear the characters have left the 
  ordinary world and entered a place of otherworldly power 
  and mystery.
  The greater past is not necessarily a brighter past. The cor-
  ruption of power can easily become a story’s theme, too. 
  When characters see how the Atlanteans used their power, 
  the characters might be glad the Dragon Isle fell long ago. 
  Or they might simply feel envy — that’s up to the characters 
  themselves. The choice becomes sharper if the characters 
  actually can claim some of that ancient power and bring it 
  into the modern world.
  The great rewards that can come to archaeomancers make 
  greed an easy theme as well. Whatever characters retrieve from 
  an Atlantean ruin, someone else may want to take from them. 
  Or a greedy enemy may try to seize what he imagines they found. 
  (Real-life archaeologists have been threatened or imprisoned 
  by local thugs and despots who thought the archaeologists 
  were looking for gold instead of potsherds.) A valuable ﬁ nd 
  may test the bonds of loyalty in a cabal, too — especially if it’s 
  a prize only one mage can keep. If the mages aren’t careful, 
  a cabal might ﬁ nd itself playing out a sorcerous version of 
  Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
  Mood
  Searching for treasure in ancient ruins naturally suggests 
  pulp-style high adventure. Atlantean ruins can include plenty 
  of ﬁ endish traps, leering villains, gorgeous treasures and other 
  tropes of pulp adventure. Remember, though, that the char-
  acters still operate in the World of Darkness. High adventure 
  comes with an edge of horror.
  
  15
  INTRODUCTION
  Inspirational Material
  Literally hundreds of books have been written about Atlantis, 
  and nearly as many works of ﬁ ction have involved the mystic isle 
  or similar lost lands. In nonﬁ ction, these works stand out:
  L. Sprague deCamp, Lost Continents. A classic survey of 
  Atlantology by a real archaeologist (and science ﬁ ction writer) 
  who doesn’t believe a bit of it. A good “ﬁ rst book” for learning 
  about Atlantis mythology, but now somewhat dated.
  Richard Ellis, Imagining Atlantis. Another skeptical work, 
  more up-to-date than deCamp’s.
  Kenneth Feder, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and 
  Pseudoscience in Archaeology. This takes a broader view of “fringe 
  archaeology,” with lots of material that can inspire Atlantean 
  or quasi–Atlantean ruins around the world.
  David Hatcher Childress, Lost Cities of… series. From the 
  other point of view, Childress can pull a lost civilization out 
  of two piled rocks and a couple of scratches. Storytellers can 
  use his travel anecdotes as inspiration for adventures while 
  looking for Atlantean ruins.
  William Scott Elliott, The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria; 
  Edgar Evans Cayce, Edgar Cayce on Atlantis; Rudolf Steiner, 
  Atlantis and Lemuria. Seminal works for “occult Atlantis” 
  believers, and all blessedly short.
  For real-life archaeology, the Micropedia of Civilizations
  describes many places in the real world you’d think were too 
  weird for ﬁ ction.
  Smithsonian, The Journal of Archaeology and Geology magazines 
  are available at many public libraries.
  The Discovery Channel and History Channel frequently 
  show programs about ancient civilizations and archaeology 
  that can supply inspiration for Atlantean inﬂ uences in early 
  history.
  On the ﬁ ctional side, consider these for inspiration:
  Clark Ashton Smith, Hyperborea, Poseidonis, Zothique, many 
  other collections. Smith’s stories set in the fantastical past 
  (Hyperborea, Poseidonis) or an equally fantastical future 
  (Zothique) portray lost worlds where magic is powerful, weird, 
  gorgeous and scary all at the same time. The astute reader will 
  spot several homages to Smith in the present work.
  Warren Ellis, Planetary. A comic book series built around 
  “weird archaeology” and the search for histories that might 
  have been.
  The Indiana Jones movies are, of course, required viewing. 
  Pay attention to the weird and horriﬁ c aspects as well as the 
  action-adventure. Many horror or fantasy movies involve 
  ancient curses, magic relics and ruined palaces, temples and 
  tombs, but none of them are nearly as good.
  Stargate and its TV offspring Stargate: SG-1 are nominally 
  science ﬁ ction, but honestly, the “technology” of the Ancients 
  is carved from rock and engraved with mysterious symbols. 
  Stir in false gods with more “magic” items, weird creatures 
  with unearthly powers, lost races and ancient secrets, and 
  you’ve got plenty of material to steal for a Ruined Temple
  chronicle. Despite the name, the spinoff series Stargate: Atlantis
  takes a more “space opera” approach and is much less useful 
  as inspiration.
  
  16
  
  17
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  Chapter One: 
  Atlantean 
  Apocrypha
  “There, between the Orinoco and Apure rivers!” snapped the ﬁ rst gray-haired 
  mage. “A Paria Indian village called — Atlan!” He jabbed his ﬁ nger at the push pin 
  he’d thrust into the map, one of dozens. “Come on, Shake-and-Bake,” he sneered. 
  “How many more Atlantis-derived names do I have to ﬁ nd before you admit it:  The 
  Americas were once Atlantis!”
  “More humbug — Humbug!” the other mage snapped. All you’ve found is evidence 
  of Atlantean colonization. Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean, right where Plato 
  said it was, and all our traditions agree!”
  Arctos wandered away, shaking his head. He’d imagined hearing great and won-
  derful secrets at this Consilium, not that he’d ever admit his hopes to his teacher 
  Morvran. These Atlantis-obsessed Mysterium members, though, were worse than 
  Usenet ﬂ amers for endless, pointless arguments.
  A plump, middle-aged female mage caught his eye as he wandered away. She smiled 
  wryly and nodded at the quarreling duo. “Humboldt and Shabako,” she said. “They’ve 
  been arguing like that for years now.” She stuck out her hand and Arctos shook it. 
  “You’re Morvran’s new student, right? Call me Iris.”
  “Goddess or ﬂ ower?”
  “Flower. Not all of us put obscure references in our shadow names.” They wandered 
  over to the refreshment table. “The thing is, neither Humboldt nor Shabako has ever 
  been in a real Atlantean ruin. They just collect stuff out of books and what other 
  mages say, and argue about it.” She shook her head. “Mad, the pair of them.”
  “Have you been to an Atlantean site?” At last, he though, maybe he’d get some 
  ﬁ rst-hand information.
  “Oh, yes,” Iris breathed. “It was wonderful. I met one of their servants and 
  learned… the truth.” Her eyes shone. “In the previous cycle of reality, the Golden 
  Age of Kronos when the Earth orbited Saturn…”
  Arctos ﬁ xed a polite, interested-looking smile on his face while he looked around 
  for an escape.
  
  18
  We consider him a “seeker” . . . who offers explanations according to his personal views, some-
  times quite adventurous ones: which is his perfect right, since he is not attached to any currently liv-
  ing tradition and is not in possession of any data received by direct transmission. In other words, we 
  may say that he is doing archaeology, whereas we ourselves are doing initiatic science; and those are 
  two points of view which, even when they touch on the same subjects, cannot coincide in any way.
  — René Guénon, “Atlantis and Hyperborea”
  A newly Awakened mage, once the glories have dimmed in 
  her inner eye and the hum of power through her ﬁ ngertips dulls 
  into familiarity, asks the question, “How did this happen?” Not 
  just to her, or to her mentor or to the cabal she has perhaps 
  fallen in with, but to people, to the world, to Us. “Where did 
  all this come from? How did we stumble on to this treasure?” 
  The inevitable, eventual answer: it came from Atlantis, the 
  mountain of the Dragons’ Tomb pointing to the polestar, 
  the island at the center of the world, from the Land We Have 
  Lost. In the insular and inside-out thought of the Awakened 
  consensus, this is what passes for normalcy, for orthodoxy, for 
  staid conservatism. “It came from Atlantis, so don’t question 
  it.” They, the unspoken chorus adds, Knew Better.
  Of course, not every mage has given the same answer every-
  where and always. Some of the Awakened have their own way of 
  seeing Atlantis, of looking at, or of looking for, the past. Some 
  call it Thule, or Hyperborea, or Lemuria, or Mu, or Aztlán, 
  or Gondwanaland, or Lyonesse. The wise and the exalted are 
  quick to assure their listeners that those splendid lands are all 
  Atlantis, that those names really mean the same thing to the 
  harmless eccentrics who use them — the same thing, moreover, 
  that “Atlantis” means to more conventional, more rigorous 
  mages. Never mind that, by faultless magical logic, to change 
  a thing’s name is to change that thing. Never mind that even 
  the conventional meaning of “Atlantis” has changed over the 
  centuries, one generation’s orthodoxy becoming the eccentric 
  heresy of the next — and vice versa. Best not to worry about the 
  inconsistencies, the changed doctrines, the clinging vines of 
  apocrypha that coil around the trunk of True Knowledge. Best 
  not to follow those trails into the jungle of mystery, into the 
  darkness of doubt. Because if the ancient and eternal orders 
  have to keep asking questions, keep looking over their shoulders 
  and wondering just what was behind them, wondering where 
  they came from, wondering how did this happen — well, then 
  they might be brought down to the level of a newly Awakened 
  mage. And that would be unthinkable.
  The Atlantean Heresies
  This chapter follows a few of those unused trails off the 
  beaten path of the received Awakened truth about Atlantis. As 
  side roads will, they wind around in time and space, intersect-
  ing with the main path every now and again. At some times, 
  and on some subjects, the apocrypha can sound a lot like the 
  gospel for a while. The line between heresy and orthodoxy 
  gets blurred at times like these — faultlessly respectable dons 
  of the Mysterium still debate the accuracy and the agenda of 
  Plato, for example.
  The trails also often lead back toward Sleeper occultism, 
  which jackdaw mages dredge for subconscious hints, planted 
  Exarch lies and really cool ideas. Although mortals may have 
  fewer resources than mages, there are an awful lot of mortals, 
  and they don’t have to spend nearly as much would-be research 
  time dodging astral parasites. A mundane archaeologist in the 
  Greek islands, or a stodgy academic collator of legendry or even 
  a wannabe wizard with a pointy hat and a gang of credulous 
  Masonic groupies, can stumble on an entirely new insight 
  without beneﬁ t of Watchtower or Legacy.
  And sometimes, trails just taper off into dead ends, swamps 
  of illogic and pits of monomania.
  It’s easy for a self-proclaimed freethinker to say that because 
  his trail was only blazed by a small coterie of absinthe-soaked 
  Satanists in 1892, that trail must surely be more authentic than 
  the received wisdom about Atlantis that Everybody Knows. 
  Mages are more susceptible than most, perhaps, to the Gnostic 
  argument that the hidden Truth is ipso facto the real Truth. 
  But, seductive though that argument is, it is no more reliable 
  than the argument from authority that the heretics reject. The 
  truth about Atlantis is not determined by counting noses, 
  either up or down. Atlantis must be sought — in libraries, in 
  museums, in the waste places of the world and the starry roads 
  of the Shadow Realm. Because the real Truth just may be that 
  nobody knows any more. Or that nobody knows yet.
  Vanished Roads
  As the Abyss drove itself into the cosmos, shifting and re-
  shaping the Fallen World, even the survivors of the cataclysm 
  found themselves disoriented and lost. They were unused to 
  the harsh world outside Atlantis, and could no longer ﬁ nd 
  their way back to the Dragons’ Tomb. Wars and Paradoxes 
  distracted the ﬁ rst survivors, and their descendants likewise. 
  By the time a few high magical cultures had re-emerged, the 
  way back was gone. From a 21st-century vantage point, even 
  the certainties of these primordial mages remain uncertain. 
  Does the vast inﬂ ux of harpoons and microlithic ﬁ shhooks 
  into southwest Europe around 10,000 BC — the so-called Azil-
  ian culture — indicate an invasion by Atlantean survivors or 
  a renewed emphasis on maritime questing by a Cro-Magnon 
  magical aristocracy? Did the cave painters and horse-sculptors 
  of Neolithic China learn their ancient trigrams from Atlantean 
  god-kings, or invent these patterns to divine the location of 
  the Lost Mountain of Heaven? Were the Athapaskan shamans 
  who led their people across the Bering Strait seeking Atlantis, 
  or ﬂ eeing werewolves? The answers are gone, drowned in the 
  
  19
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  ﬂ ood of centuries. The only thing that seems at all certain 
  is that eventually the ancients searched for Atlantis just as 
  modern mages do.
  Modern searchers must reconstruct these antique quests 
  secondhand, or at even further removes. The story of the 
  Flood of Noah, for example, often taken as a memory of the 
  drowning of Atlantis, comes into the Bible from the Sume-
  rian epic of Gilgamesh. In those cuneiform texts, themselves 
  written centuries after Gilgamesh ruled in Sumer, the hero of 
  the Flood is one Utnapishtim. But even in Gilgamesh’s story, 
  Utnapishtim’s Flood appears as an older story, embedded as 
  a ﬂ ashback in Gilgamesh’s quest for the Flower of Immortal-
  ity and the magical island paradise of Dilmun. Gilgamesh 
  must stay awake for six days to claim the prize, but falls asleep 
  and fails. Awakened or asleep, a student looking for clues to 
  Gilgamesh’s quest must deal with at least two layers, and two 
  millennia, of distortion.
  Hence, the arguments: Does Gilgamesh’s test of sleepless-
  ness indicate that Atlantis cannot be sought in dreams? Is 
  the Flower of Immortality actually a mushroom, perhaps, 
  opening the doors of perception to the shores of Atlantis in a 
  mindspace stored in spores or pollen? Since Gilgamesh ﬁ nds 
  the Flower of Immortality on the bottom of the sea, does this 
  mean that Atlantis must be sought underwater? Even orthodox 
  mages dispute whether Dilmun is Atlantis itself, a shadow of 
  Atlantis kept alive by ﬂ owers or magic or just another one of 
  the lost successor kingdoms founded by survivors such as Ut-
  napishtim. Such controversies double and redouble for every 
  ancient myth and legendary quester, from Rama to Kulkulcán 
  to Pelican. Poetic lore and enigmatic art give a new answer to 
  every questioner.
  Ships of Standing Stone
  In at least one case, the ancients can be consulted directly, 
  but to little better result. Certain Subtle architects have 
  determined that a few of the megalithic barrows of coastal 
  Brittany and Spain are not merely passages to the afterlife for 
  their builders. These mounds are, according to this analysis 
  anyway, astral rail guns, or perhaps launching pads, aimed 
  toward long-vanished polestars and intended to propel their 
  inhabitants along the ley lines toward Atlantis. The pilots knew 
  well that the Abyss would continue to widen, their careful 
  calculations thrown off by increasing amounts each century. 
  So the barrow-wights of Carnac and Poço de Gateira emerge 
  every few centuries and shoot the new skies, adjusting the 
  menhirs and trilithons to correct for spiritual drift or cosmic 
  parallax. And by careful analysis of the relevant cycles in earth 
  and stars, say these Subtle Ones, a watchful mage can be there 
  when the ancients waken, to ask respectful questions and look 
  on as best the mage can.
  Of course, conversation with a barrow-wight has its own 
  drawbacks, even for a mage who speaks ﬂ uent proto-Basque; 
  not all of the Stone Pilots are sane, and not a few are far gone 
  in senile dementia. Some demand a price for their answers, 
  and a number of the easternmost megaliths have come to the 
  attention of the vampiric Ordo Dracul, which has its own 
  interest in living death and ley lines. And then the cutting 
  response of the orthodox mages resounds: if these withered 
  neolithics knew anything useful, they would surely have reached 
  Atlantis after 5,500 years. Why leave the road to consult with 
  those lost at the side of it?
  Sunk in a Swamp of Papyrus
  Those searching for more reliable ancient wisdom are on 
  seemingly ﬁ rmer ground in Egypt. Egyptian papyri record 
  quests into the Green Sea, the discovery of an island inhabited 
  by a talking serpent and other promising details. Pharaohs 
  regularly sent expeditions to distant lands, and their court 
  wizards likewise in their own fashion. Magical texts spanning 20 
  centuries carefully document journeys into the Shadow Realm, 
  the Underworld and other more obscure planes. Mundane 
  scholarship has classiﬁ ed, codiﬁ ed and indexed much of this 
  body of work to a high degree, saving time for purely magical 
  study. Even where the known records are incomplete, the clear 
  holes invite further research in a way that the littered chaos 
  of, say, ancient Hittite stelae do not. At some times, the search 
  for lost Egyptian records of the Pharaohs’ search for Atlantis 
  outshines the quest for Atlantis itself.
  The Egyptian accounts are so numerous, and so inter-
  locked and allusive, that they present their own obstacles. To 
  paraphrase the old adage, the scholar with one papyrus has 
  a history, but the scholar with two papyri has a controversy. 
  Egyptian bureaucrats were not above burying their rivals’ 
  reports, or, in extreme cases, burying their rivals. Even expert 
  Awakened Egyptologists have difﬁ culty telling a falsiﬁ ed claim 
  from a falsely debunked success from an allegorical legend-tale 
  intended to provide insights to the initiates of one or another 
  god-cult. Worse yet, those Pharaohs who came the closest to 
  achieving Atlantean wisdom seem inevitably doomed to murky 
  ends. Khufu, who built the Great Pyramid, and Akhenaten, 
  who built a sacred City of the Sun with strong resemblances to 
  Atlantean sacred architecture, both died suddenly and under 
  mysterious circumstances; more unnerving still, neither ruler’s 
  mummy has ever been found. Similar mysteries enshroud 
  the ultimate fates of Queen Nitocris, whose mirror reputedly 
  showed her the secrets of all ages, and the sorcerer Pharaoh 
  Nectanebo II. Thus, although most mages assume and accept 
  the vast extent of Egyptian research into the Atlantis question, 
  the thornier problem of just how much progress the heirs of 
  Imhotep made — and in just what direction such progress 
  might have gone — remains open.
  The Riddle of the Sands
  Orthodox Egyptian opinion seems to have held that Atlantis 
  lay over the sea — although the scribal controversy over the ques-
  tion of whether Atlantis lay in the Green Sea to the north or the 
  Red Sea to the east matches any modern dispute on the topic. A 
  substantial, and not unrespectable, minority of Egyptian questers 
  seems to have believed that Atlantis perhaps lay past the Gauntlet 
  in Duat, the Underworld. If Atlantis were dead and destroyed, 
  this second line of reasoning seems to have gone, the city must 
  still be in the Land of the Dead. To the Egyptians, this Land lay 
  
  20
  to the west of the Nile, where the Sun-Boat sank every day. To a 
  few Egyptian mages, that indicated that Atlantis itself rested in 
  the western deserts, buried in the dunes of the Sahara. These 
  heretics’ arguments were doubtless more recondite than the 
  reductionist versions that survive in the papyri of their critics, 
  but the arguments, in their simplest form, rest on two pillars. 
  The ﬁ rst is the clear magical equivalence of the Western Desert 
  and the Duat, accepted even by orthodox Egyptian mages and 
  insisted upon by the priests. The second is the counterintuitive 
  but seductive notion that the scar left on the Fallen World by 
  the shattered Celestial Ladder is much more likely to resemble 
  the Sahara’s moonscape of sand dunes and lava ﬂ ows than it 
  is the smooth waters of the Mediterranean or Atlantic. “Does 
  not a broken bone leave a mark, or a cut palm tree a stump?” 
  asks one heretical papyrus, which even some modern Awakened 
  ﬁ nd convincing.
  Greek mages began sifting through the Egyptian documents 
  in the seventh century BC, by which time the Egyptian records 
  already spanned 2,300 years of nearly continuous history. Some 
  of these Greek scholars came to the same conclusions as those 
  earlier (and later) doubters. Atlantis lay in the Sahara, victim 
  not of the rising waters but of the encroaching desert. The 
  Greeks noted other evidence, ﬁ rst and foremost the “mean-
  ingless coincidence” of names between Atlantis and the Atlas 
  Mountains in North Africa. To the wise Awakened, surely, 
  no coincidence is meaningless, especially not a coincidence 
  of names. The Atlas Mountains, of course, were named for 
  — and perhaps formed from — the Titan Atlas, who in this 
  reading stretched all the way from Earth to Heaven, just like the 
  Celestial Ladder, until Heracles broke him, or his mountain, 
  apart into two Pillars.
  The Pillars of Enoch
  All researchers in dynastic Egypt, Awakened and otherwise, 
  who sought knowledge of Atlantis (wherever they wished to 
  place its ruins), petitioned for access to the Temple of Sebek in 
  Saïs. Here stood two columns carved with hieroglyphics already 
  hoary with age when the Sphinx was newly sculpted. According 
  to occult rumor then and since, those were the Pillars of Enoch, 
  engraved with the knowledge of “all true arts and sciences” by 
  the seventh patriarch after Adam. Enoch (or Enmeduranki, 
  as the Sumerian records name him) learned magic from the 
  Grigori, the Watchers in the Seventh Heaven. He returned and 
  carved these insights into a pillar of brass and a pillar of stone, 
  strong enough to withstand another cataclysm of ﬂ ood or ﬁ re. 
  The story of his journey, but only hints of his recovered magical 
  lore, made it into the apocryphal Books of Enoch, condemned by 
  St. Augustine among other Christian church fathers.
  It hardly takes an unconventional mage to see echoes in this 
  legend of the ﬁ rst Watchtowers, and the days when truths of 
  the Supernal were ﬁ rst revealed to the sons of fallen Atlantis. 
  If the Enochian Grigori are actually thin veils worn by the 
  Oracles, the Grigori could well have passed ultimate ﬁ rsthand 
  truths of Atlantis, the key to the mystery, to an archmage in the 
  
  21
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  distant past. An Enochian Legacy may still guard these truths 
  against all future disasters, perhaps in some massively paral-
  lel computer database or coded in the street grid of Brasilia. 
  Such an Enochian lineage seems to weave in and out of the 
  gaudy tapestry of Sleeper occultism, from the sons of Solomon 
  in medieval Ethiopia to the Elizabethan sorcerer John Dee’s 
  “angels” and Freemason schemes to chart the Blue Nile.
  The existence of the Pillars of Enoch, or at least of two 
  pillars in the temple precincts at Saïs bearing knowledge of 
  Atlantis, is conﬁ rmed by many ancient sources, both Sleeping 
  and Awakened, as late as the visit of Krantor of Cilicia around 
  280 BC. The eventual Roman overlords of Egypt may have 
  become jealous of the crocodile priests’ relics, or the Pillars 
  may have vanished during one of the myriad invasions of Egypt 
  since. The Exarchs (or Oracles) may have stepped in, remov-
  ing such dangerous truths from the increasingly numerous 
  eyes of mortals and ambitious willworkers alike and secreting 
  the Pillars in some other lost corner of the Earth. If so, the 
  Exarchs were centuries too late, because Solon of Athens saw 
  the pillars in 570 BC and copied their contents into a book he 
  brought back with him to Greece. Passed down through his 
  family, the book eventually reached the eyes of Plato.
  Atlantis Revealed
  Virtually all discussion of Atlantis, orthodox and unconven-
  tional alike, stops — and restarts — with the Athenian philosopher 
  Plato. In 357 BC, Plato’s patron and former student Dion of 
  Syracuse seized control of that Sicilian city-state. Plato began 
  work on a trilogy of dialogues advancing his political and mysti-
  cal agenda, but only ﬁ nished the Timaios and half of the Kritias 
  before Dion’s assassination dashed Plato’s last hope of shaping 
  a “philosopher-king” in Sicily. Conventional scholarship holds 
  that Plato simply abandoned the project and died a few years 
  later. A good many mages, including some of the most blamelessly 
  conventional in all other matters Atlantean, believe that Plato 
  ﬁ nished the end of the Kritias and possibly the Hermokrates (the 
  projected third dialogue in the series) before his death. From 
  internal evidence in the ﬁ rst half of the Kritias, these works likely 
  dealt with the decadence of Atlantis and the bargain (or struggle) 
  between the Atlanteans and the gods. (On the question of what 
  happened to those hypothetical books afterward, opinion is far 
  less unanimous.) Complete or not, the surviving two (or one and 
  a half) works introduced the name “Atlantis” to the Sleeping 
  world, and revealed immensely more detail about the sunken 
  kingdom than any single source had to that date.
  Much of Plato’s information strikes the Awakened reader 
  as startlingly informed. Plato’s ﬁ ve pairs of twin kings of 
  Atlantis echo the ﬁ ve Paths and the 10 Arcana, and other 
  numerological data he gives map uncannily well to cosmic 
  harmonies heard by the Thrice-Great legatees of the Silver 
  Ladder. Plato’s sharp distinction between, and the natures 
  he ascribes to, the World of Matter and the World of Form 
  mirror the true natures of the Fallen and Supernal Realms 
  almost perfectly. Even minor elements of Plato’s story reveal 
  much to the alert magical student.
  According to the dialogues, Plato drew this information from 
  a book passed down to him by his ancestor Kritias, who received 
  it from Solon. Later sources claim that Plato also worked from 
  a Pythagorean text, which would imply a strongly sorcerous 
  element to the numerical mysticism in Plato’s story. According 
  to those sources, this Pythagorean manuscript vanished within 
  a century of Plato’s writing, as did the book of Solon (if it ever 
  existed in the ﬁ rst place). Likewise, the world no longer pos-
  sesses (if it ever did) the end of the Kritias or the Hermokrates. 
  Any of these works may have disappeared into a looter’s ﬁ re or 
  a hidden Mysterium archive, or been suppressed by the Seers 
  of the Throne as even more dangerously informative than the 
  works that managed to survive.
  Plato’s Atlantis
  Whether noble lie or revealed truth, Plato’s 
  description of Atlantis provides the most accept-
  ed, most standardized model of the lost island 
  for Awakened and Sleeper researchers alike. 
  Whether his description is used as a starting 
  place, as a checklist or as a mystical allegory, 
  almost any search for Atlantis begins with the 
  data that Plato laid down.
  The date: Plato gives the date of the war be-
  tween Athens and Atlantis as “9,000 years past,” 
  usually interpreted to mean approximately 9600 
  BC, counting from Solon’s trip to Egypt. Atlantis’ 
  founding was many generations before that date.
  The location: The island of Atlantis was 
  located somewhere on the Atlantic side of the 
  Straits of Gibraltar, called by Plato the Pillars of 
  Heracles. The sea was “the way to other islands, 
  from which you might pass to the whole of the 
  opposite continent.” According to Plato, a shoal 
  of mud thrown up by the subsidence of Atlantis 
  makes the sea in that area impassable.
  The dimensions: The island of Atlantis was 
  the size of Anatolia and Libya combined, roughly 
  a million square miles, or approximately the size 
  of India or Argentina.
  The mountain: In the middle of the island was 
  a mountain, upon which was a temple to Posei-
  don. In the center of this temple was set a pillar 
  of orichalcum (a magical metal similar to brass) 
  graven with the names of the kings of Atlantis. 
  At sacred gatherings, the kings would sacriﬁ ce a 
  bull and drain its blood out over that pillar.
  The kings: Atlantis had 10 kings, descendants 
  of Poseidon, who met in council every ﬁ fth and 
  sixth year alternately.
  The plain: Most of Atlantis was mountainous, 
  except for a coastal plain of extraordinary fertil-
  
  22
  ity about the size of Great Britain. An irrigation 
  ditch 100 feet deep surrounded the plain.
  The city: In the center of the plain was the 
  city, laid out in a pattern of concentric rings of 
  land and water inside a vast circular harbor 
  connected to the sea by a canal. At the center 
  of the rings lay the royal palace and a shrine to 
  Poseidon. An outer city wall encircled the harbor 
  at a distance of 66 stadia (roughly 7.5 miles) 
  from the shrine, enclosing an urban area about 
  the size of Chicago.
  The resources: Atlantis produced “whatever 
  fragrant things there are now in the earth . . . in 
  inﬁ nite abundance.” Elephants and “other sorts of 
  animals” inhabited Atlantis’ plains, marshes, lakes 
  and rivers. In addition to plentiful orichalcum and 
  colored stone, gold and silver were abundant.
  The empire: These resources enabled Atlantis 
  to support a navy of 1,200 ships and an army of 
  10,000 chariots, which extended Atlantis’ em-
  pire over several other islands, to “the opposite 
  continent” and as far as Libya and northern Italy 
  in Europe.
  The war: Atlantis was opposed in Europe solely 
  by the city of Athens, which ruled most of Greece. 
  Atlantis and Athens went to war, and, after a fe-
  rocious struggle in which Athens fought alone, the 
  Athenians drove the Atlanteans out of the Medi-
  terranean entirely. Whether Plato meant Athens 
  or Atlantis to represent the Exarchs in the context 
  of the Celestial War remains controversial.
  The end: “But afterward there occurred violent 
  earthquakes and ﬂ oods; and in a single day and 
  night of misfortune all Athens’ heroes in a body 
  sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like 
  manner disappeared into the depths of the sea.”
  Platonic Ideals
  Plato’s trilogy is not merely incomplete. It is also, in many 
  important ways, unknowable. Although many of the Awakened 
  read it as history or gramarye, Plato’s disciple Aristotle read it 
  as fantasy. Plato himself endorsed the telling of “noble lies” to 
  keep society orderly and stable; was his carefully crafted tale 
  of Atlantis’ primordial war with Athens a true secret hidden 
  within patriotic propaganda or a planted rumor intended to 
  divert magical Seekers from the real trail? Was Plato a Sleep-
  walking philosopher, an Awakened savant trying to open the 
  eyes of humanity or something else? Did his true inspiration 
  come from the ascetic Pythagoras and the Silver Ladder, or 
  from the tyrant Kritias and the Seers of the Throne? Theories 
  multiply with the centuries, but wherever the story of Atlantis 
  came from, it continues forward just as Plato told it.
  In short, Plato completely rebuilt Atlantis in the minds of 
  Sleepers and Awakened, to a blueprint of unknown provenance 
  and design. Some heterodox Seekers try to free themselves of 
  Plato’s solid net, changing his “9,000 years” to 9,ooo months, 
  or 900 years, and parsing “beyond the Pillars of Heracles” to 
  mean anywhere from Crete to Java, but the Atlantic Island 
  of the dialogues has taken inextricable root. Even if Plato’s 
  Atlantis never existed before, it certainly does now, in the 
  collective unconscious of humankind, the Temenos. Perhaps 
  Atlantis fell from the Temenos likewise.
  The Search Renewed
  The rediscovery of just such an astral Atlantis was the goal 
  of the Hong Fu-Sang, the Scarlet Mulberry Society in ancient 
  China. Nearly completely extirpated from ofﬁ cial histories, this 
  school most likely began in Gansu province during the time 
  of Laozi in the 7th century BC. (Later Scarlet Mulberry Society 
  texts claim him as an initiate, and push their own founding 
  back to the legendary era of the Yellow Emperors.) Out on the 
  fringe of China, with the vast Gobi Desert stretching away to 
  the north, members of the Scarlet Mulberry Society could turn 
  their quest inward, into the hollow of the mind symbolized by 
  the hollow mulberry tree. Fueled by exotic herbal compounds, 
  arcane physical exercises and the starkest personal asceticism 
  to remove all outer distraction, Hong Fu-Sang mages sent ex-
  pedition after expedition deep into Astral Space, beyond the 
  Flood of the King of Yu, searching for Peng-lai, the Fortunate 
  Island of the Immortals.
  Each explorer mapped the meditative landmarks and sym-
  bolic headlands for the next to surpass, painting ideograms of 
  thought onto the walls of the Society’s mutual Oneiroi to create 
  an atlas of dream. The Society established a great storehouse in 
  a dream country known as Fu-Sang Guo, the Mulberry Land. 
  Here, dreamers could rest, resupply and replenish their ener-
  gies before pressing further into the Astral. No expedient was 
  rejected that might return knowledge of Peng-lai. One Scarlet 
  Mulberry Society cabal used highly debatable methods to gaze 
  into the future through a lens of crystallized potential souls, 
  somehow grown from patterns found in the retinas of stillborn 
  children. Another Legacy within the Hong Fu-Sang apprenticed 
  its scholars to the shades of the last of the mammoth shamans 
  in the Siberian Underworld, hoping to track the old shapes 
  of the world through the eyes of dead beasts.
  Hyperborea Everywhere
  Such Siberian shamanic lore speaks of devil-gods sending 
  diving birds deep into the material world to dredge up earth 
  with which to build their Heaven. This perspective presents a 
  still different take on the Atlantis myth, implying that Atlantis 
  was actively pulled up toward the Supernal by the unimaginable 
  forces of the Arcana. By this reading, the Fall was somehow 
  an undeserved fate visited on the unfortunates left behind, 
  while Atlantis remains whole and inviolate in the Supernal 
  Realm. This Atlantis more closely resembles the Homeric 
  legends of Hyperborea, the “Land Beyond the North Wind,” 
  the happy city ruled by Apollo in warmth and sunshine above 
  
  23
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  the frozen wastes of the north. According to Greek occult lore, 
  Apollo’s City of the Sun maintained some connections with 
  the outside world: Pythagoras’ mentor Abaris of Scythia was 
  reputedly trained in Hyperborea, for example.
  The poet Aristeas of Marmora likewise allegedly learned 
  the secret of immortality from the Hyperboreans, spending 
  most of the 7th century BC traveling the Siberian steppes and 
  discovering the valley of the grifﬁ ns and the land of the one-
  eyed Arimaspoi. These tales may be garbled versions of Aristeas’ 
  explorations of the Temenos in raven form, which he reported 
  during occasional appearances to favored Awakened cabals in 
  the Mediterranean basin. The strong resemblances between 
  Aristeas’ poetic anabasis and the Astral cartographies of the 
  Hong Fu-Sang travelers have struck more than one heretical 
  Atlantis-Seeker. Usually, the claim goes that Aristeas founded 
  the Scarlet Mulberry Society, or that he was a rogue member 
  of that order. The Rainbow Archers, a splinter cabal of the 
  Dreamspeakers, holds that Aristeas and the Hong Fu-Sang 
  fought together in a great war against the Exarchs — or, more 
  speciﬁ cally, are still ﬁ ghting such a war forever, given the peculiar 
  simultaneity of the Dreamtime. This, the Rainbow Archers 
  claim, is the same war as the war that splintered Atlantis; they 
  seek to recruit Awakened warriors from everywhen to join them 
  and defeat the forces of hubris in all times at once.
  Something New Out of Africa
  Aristeas was only one of the earliest Awakened Seekers among 
  the Greeks to voyage far over the horizon in search of Atlantis. 
  A Sardinian willworker sailed north to icy seas with Pytheas; a 
  Trapeziote mage explored djinn-haunted caves in southern Arabia, 
  and not a few followed the tracks of the Egyptians into the desert. 
  Here, they met the Garamanteans, red-haired, chariot-driving 
  warriors with black skins who lived in the Fezzan Desert deep 
  in Libya and resembled a blend — or an ancestor? — of all hu-
  manity. The Garamanteans’ gardens in the empty Sahara had a 
  deﬁ nite ﬂ avor of the Hyperborean about them, paradises in the 
  wasteland. The gardens bloomed in all seasons, watered by wells 
  and underground aqueducts cut unguessable centuries before. 
  Some Mysterium scholars followed Garamantean priests deep 
  into those tunnels beneath the desert, seeking the “inner ocean” 
  from which the Garamantean legends claimed the Garamanteans 
  emerged millennia ago. During the chaos of Rome’s fall, the 
  Garamantean kingdom vanished under Vandal raids and epic 
  sandstorms. The Garamanteans left behind desiccating vineyards 
  of unknown vintage, from the shriveled produce of which some 
  Berber tribes deﬁ antly distill the potent Syrah Atlantide served 
  at a few very exclusive Silver Ladder banquets. The dreams it 
  grants are said to be evocative in the extreme.
  The Temple Is a Prison
  It was not a dream but a visionary journey that inspired the 
  unknown author of the Gospel of John the Fairest. Orthodox 
  Mysterium opinion holds that the pseudo-epigraphical “John 
  Calliston” wrote this Gnostic scripture some time during the 
  second century AD. This work takes the form of the visionary 
  journey of Jesus into the True Heaven, narrated during the two 
  nights he hung on the cross (this story diverges widely from 
  the orthodox New Testament account, obviously) to the “fair-
  est of the disciples.” The ecstatic torture allowed the initiate 
  Jesus to discover the truth: that Atlantis never fell at all. The 
  Temple Atlantis still stands above the Earth, but its rulers, 
  the Oracles, cast powerful spells to keep even the Awakened 
  in slumber. There is no Abyss, but rather a prison wall built 
  around the world by the mage-kings to hide the real sky from 
  us. The Astral pathways to the Watchtowers (actually guard 
  towers in this reading) are illusions, built of desperate hopes 
  and the lies of the prison-keepers. A true pathway, both fully 
  material and fully astral, exists past the Watchtowers that will 
  allow the elect to enter Atlantis, and become as gods.
  Unfortunately, that path also allows the Atlanteans to de-
  scend onto Earth in full godhood when they desire. Atlantean 
  archmasters walk among us, committing all manner of sins and 
  crimes for their sorcerous pleasure, secure in their invisibility. 
  The arts of the Atlanteans can destroy or create cities, alter 
  bloodlines and hide whole mountains should they choose. 
  Every eon, a single ﬁ gure, an Exarch, escapes the Temple to 
  try to warn the prisoners of Earth: the Serpent, Enoch, Ne-
  buchadnezzar, Antiochus and ﬁ nally Jesus, the most powerful 
  Exarch ever. The gospel ends before Jesus can fully describe the 
  secret way past the Watchtowers, as he is killed by Longinus’ 
  spear on the morning of the third day.
  The Callistite heresy spread throughout Asia Minor and 
  Egypt until persecuted into oblivion by both the Emperor 
  Justinian and the Hierarch Helena of Alexandria. The Myste-
  rium ordered all copies of the Gospel of John the Fairest burned 
  (as did the Catholic Church), but a few survived, carried by 
  Callistite or other Gnostic refugees who ﬂ ed to Persia and 
  Central Asia. Likewise, at least one copy made it into an Astral 
  library of the Scarlet Mulberry Society. There may yet be a 
  Callistite monastery on some isolated Greek island or Kirghiz 
  dreamscape, the monastery’s mad-eyed anchorites still seeking 
  the secret path to the living Atlantis, although the Guardians 
  closely examine both rumor and nightmare for such.
  Her Bed It Lies In India
  Questing Greek and introspecting Chinese willworkers also 
  met in India, following up promising legends of Svita-Dvipa, the 
  White Island at the center of the world. Here, however, they 
  encountered not just secretive priesthoods or zealous kings, but 
  a protective order devoted to keeping India’s secrets. Instead of 
  leads to the White Island, outsiders soon carried back horror 
  stories of water-breathing serpentine assassins, sentient lotus 
  jungles hungry for souls, manticore guardians, many-armed 
  martial artists of uncanny puissance, silent ﬂ ying chariots of 
  metal and glass and one-eyed stone giants with vast mental 
  force but no intelligence. This shadow army struck back at 
  any organized sorcerous effort to penetrate certain regions of 
  the Indian interior, and guarded ruined temples and bustling 
  cities alike at seeming random. The army’s nine commanders 
  were yogi rishis, rumored to have attained immortality and 
  proven to command mesmeric arts that stiﬂ ed the air and 
  destroyed the mind.
  
  24
  the Nine onto the defensive, and opened up some of the forbid-
  den zones to brief lightning tomb-raids without much fear of 
  reprisal. But, even now, some elements of the Adamantine Arrow 
  ascribe to the Nine any mysterious deaths among researchers 
  unsatisﬁ ed with Atlantean conventional wisdom.
  The Dreaming Temple
  To escape such avenger cults, individual cabals of the Scarlet 
  Mulberry Society founded entire lamaseries on eddies and 
  skerries in the Astral, places only they could enter through 
  dreams or meditation. The grandest of these, the Temple of 
  the Dreaming Butterﬂ y, sent its own expeditions out of the 
  Astral and back into the Fallen World. Dreaming Butterﬂ y 
  mages traveled to Indian jungles for specialized herbs and per-
  fumes or to Japan for exalted sexual congress with imprisoned 
  water-beasts, turning from pure Hong Fu-Sang asceticism to 
  knowledge gained at the frontiers of human experience.
  Unfortunately, the Dreaming Butterﬂ y’s explorations and 
  experiments, and especially its purchases of such luxuries as 
  the 1,000-year wine of Dangtu or the delicate wire garments 
  woven by the blind virgins of Tocharistan, attracted the at-
  tention of the decadent eunuch mandarins within the courts 
  of the later Ming. They sought to pervert Dreaming Butterﬂ y 
  techniques to mere gross pleasures, and when the Awakened 
  lamas haughtily refused such desecration, swore petulant re-
  venge. The emperor was easily persuaded that these secretive 
  magicians posed a threat to his power, and ordered the entire 
  Scarlet Mulberry Society suppressed. A brief Society resurgence 
  after the fall of the Ming likewise incurred the terriﬁ ed wrath 
  of the Manchu warlords, who well remembered the stories of 
  These Nine Lokapalas did not win every engagement, of 
  course. Battle-hardened veterans of Alexander’s campaigns and 
  mild-mannered Buddhist pilgrims alike found ways past India’s 
  secret defenders. But what fragmented sutras and etched-crystal 
  maps they brought back to Alexandria or Gansu raised more 
  questions than answers. Each of the Nine seemingly originated 
  in, or descended from, a different Atlantis:
  • The island continent Rutas, of which Ceylon is the 
  remnant.
  • Kumari Kandam, sunk off the Tamil coast of southern 
  India.
  • The Vedic kingdom of Dwarka off Gujarat, sunk beneath 
  the Arabian Sea.
  • The City of Seven Pagodas under the Bay of Bengal off 
  Mahabalipuram.
  • The Sun-City Asgartha in the high wastes of the Deccan, 
  destroyed by lightning.
  • The River Saraswati, mother of all good things, now 
  buried in the Thar Desert.
  • The metaphysical dimension Lemuria, somehow “thinned 
  out” across the globe at a longer frequency than even the 
  Awakened can perceive.
  • The Naga empire, ruled by sacred serpents and shattered 
  into the Andaman islets south of Burma.
  • And ﬁ nally, the Floating Island of Matsyodari, which fell 
  from the Moon.
  Each Atlantis fell 30,000 years ago; all were off limits to out-
  siders by the immutable order of the Nine. Eventually, steadily 
  increasing pressure by Muslim (and later British) mages pushed 
  
  25
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  cruel wizards who had harvested galley slaves and porters from 
  the dreams of northern tribesmen.
  The shattered Scarlet Mulberry Society ﬂ ed into dreams. 
  A few mighty ones recalled charms from the days when high 
  magic was easier, when a thrown yarrow stalk could carve a 
  door into slumber by main force. A few handfuls more, includ-
  ing fortunate guards, eunuchs and servants, made their way 
  through gateways and across bridges surveyed along the frontiers 
  of the Temenos in centuries of dreaming. Six monks carried 
  the ancient rock-crystal mirror of Shaxia Shan away ahead 
  of the marauders, and 13 years later followed its reﬂ ections 
  into the Astral. The young, or the wounded or the isolated 
  could not enter the Temenos directly and ﬂ ed instead over the 
  mountains and deserts of Central Asia. They linked up with 
  small local cabals in desert caravanserais and river entrêpots from 
  Yarkand to Damascus, exchanging knowledge for safety. And 
  they encountered ever more willworkers trickling out of the 
  West, looking for their own versions of the sacred kingdom 
  and the Hallows of Atlantis.
  Medieval Quests
  The ﬁ rst few European mages to struggle past the Caucasus 
  Mountains into Further Asia followed any number of confused 
  dreams, from the Garden of Eden (reputed to sit at the uttermost 
  East) to the all-spanning empire of Prester John, a Christian 
  emperor supposed to reign over “50 kings” in “Greater India.” 
  Others chased the rumors of a City of Brass, or of Iram of 
  the Pillars, in Arabia or the Persian deserts. With the Asiatic 
  mountain passes ringing with Astral warfare between the Scarlet 
  Mulberry Society and the Nine, such quests were more than 
  normally dangerous. Repeatedly, the European branches of 
  the Guardians of the Veil tried to ban all searches after “false 
  truths about the True City” on those grounds.
  Even today, an unknown but signiﬁ cant number of false leads, 
  destructive nut cults and out-and-out death traps on the road 
  to Atlantean investigation are rumored to be Guardian ploys to 
  divert the foolish and protect the secrets of magic. Some of these 
  pitfalls in the Labyrinth may be continuing operations begun 
  in the 13th century under Guardian auspices but completely 
  forgotten by all save their own fanatical membership. For a time, 
  at least, the roadblocks the Guardians threw up (with, some 
  said, the assistance of a jealous Mysterium) kept the majority 
  of the Atlantean apocrypha hermetically sealed away.
  The Cup From the East
  The ﬁ rst major leak in the Guardians’ censorship screen 
  came in Muslim Córdoba around AD 1000. Fatima bint Tashuf 
  al-Isiyah, a Tamer of Stone mage, produced a book of Atlantean 
  magic that she called the Ghayat al-Hakim, the “Aim of the 
  Wise.” Furthermore, she claimed that the work had come to 
  her in a series of trance states, channeled from “India” and 
  “the Moon.” Eventually translated into Latin for the court of 
  Alfonso the Wise, the Picatrix (as it came to be known) was 
  the greatest text of Atlantean lore to appear since Plato. The 
  Picatrix  was less a history of Atlantis than a practical guide to 
  disparate understandings of the Paths. However, the work’s 
  overarching use of astrological values and star positions al-
  lowed occult scholars — both Awakened and mundane — to 
  reverse-engineer those formulae to derive important calender 
  and historical data about Atlantis.
  Some gaps in those formulae hint at a second work, as does 
  (perhaps) the book’s Latin name. “Picatrix” takes the female 
  ending in Latin, which, along with its strong lunar orientation, 
  leaves theoretical room for a “male” Picator, perhaps dealing 
  with solar magic. Given the connection between Cities of the 
  Sun and Atlantis going back as far as Akhenaten and Hyper-
  borea, some believers in the “second text” theory argue that 
  the putative Picator would contain a more Platonic description 
  of Atlantis itself. The search for this book became a recurrent 
  fad among the Tamers of Fire from the 12th century onward. 
  The most recent outbreaks of “Picator fever” included a cabal 
  of sorcerous architects in Arizona in the 1960s that claimed 
  to have channeled the Picador in a nine-day ritual spent in the 
  July desert, and then vanished utterly on an expedition into 
  the Grand Canyon.
  The Picatrix goaded European willworkers still further. The 
  word “picatrix” (or “picator”) means “cup maker,” with obvious 
  resonance to medieval quests of all sorts. The notion that the 
  Picatrix is a Cup of Wisdom connects Atlantis to the Holy Grail, 
  with all that that implies. Some Awakened scholars believe that 
  the Picatrix may have been the “Arabic book” used by Wolfram 
  von Eschenbach to compose the Grail romance Parzival — which 
  ends with the Grail concealed in a Mountain of Salvation in 
  India. The Grail frenzy in Western Europe nearly upended 
  both the Labyrinth and the Seers of the Throne in the 12th 
  and 13th centuries; with Atlantis stirred into the mix, things 
  became almost uncontrollable. The appearance of the Picatrix 
  in Latin in 1256 was perhaps the ﬁ nal straw for the frustrated 
  Guardians; their efforts to clamp down on “Atlantean heresy” 
  redoubled after that year.
  The same questions apply to the Picatrix as to Plato, only more 
  so — its provenance, intent and reliability remain a matter of 
  pure guesswork, and not even its actual composer is known. The 
  magical arts revealed in the work provide genuine insights to 
  the Awakened student, but that hardly narrows matters down. 
  Most students of the work assume that it is a compendium 
  of Atlantean lore assembled by either the Nine or the Scarlet 
  Mulberry Society, accidentally “leaked” to the West during a 
  high-stakes Astral contest. However, a substantial minority believe 
  the Picatrix to be a genuine utterance by either the Oracles or by 
  an antediluvian Atlantean sage interested in preserving magical 
  knowledge after the cataclysm he somehow saw coming.
  Over the Ocean
  A similar vision afﬂ icted Bishop Aubert of Avranches in 
  708, when he saw a great and wondrous tower on a rock in 
  the ocean. He ascribed his vision to the Archangel Michael, 
  and ordered the construction of the Abbey of Mont-St.-Michel 
  on the Rock of the Tomb (Mont Tombe) in the middle of the 
  Forest of Scissy. By the 13th century of the Picatrix, Mont-St.-
  Michel was an island in the English Channel and the Forest was 
  drowned. To more than a few mages, the Abbey was Atlantis 
  
  26
  reborn in Norman granite. A cabal of the Adamantine Arrow 
  moved into the secret cellars and crypts below the abbey, and 
  under the motto Immensi Tremor Oceani — “the vast dread of 
  the ocean” — set out to defend this material outpost of the 
  Supernal from all comers, mundane and magical alike. Under 
  the pressure of the inspired architecture, and perhaps of the 
  vast dread of the ocean, this Cabal de Saint-Michael became 
  ever stranger. Other Arrows began to question the Michaelites, 
  especially when the cabal’s leaders continued to claim “angelic 
  revelation” as their authority to set an increasingly independent 
  policy. Fishermen told tales of an immense cold light spilling 
  from the ornate Gothic window traceries, ﬁ lling the church 
  after midnight services. Eventually, even the Sleeper monks 
  would avoid the sanctuary during the “hour of the angels’ 
  song.” The words of their angels, the cabal’s obsession with the 
  ocean and its secrets and their concomitant alienation from 
  the Adamantine leadership, drove (or drew) the Michaelite 
  Arrows into establishing a full-ﬂ edged Legacy and opening 
  membership to mages of other orders.
  Michaelites sailed Astral and actual seas to negotiate with 
  mermaids, who their revelations had taught were the purest 
  descendants of the sunken continent. The Michaelites tracked 
  rumors of mermaid marriages (and of less savory matings with 
  undersea dwellers), poring through genealogies and baptismal 
  records. Most notoriously, the Michaelites placed a branch of 
  the Merovingian dynasty under the cabal’s protection as “heirs 
  of the Quinotaur blood supernal.” (The Michaelite Legacy 
  itself split into competing strains in 1188 over the priority such 
  protection required.) The Michaelites gathered up copies of the 
  Irish Voyages of Bran and Brendan, poring over 
  them for hints of Atlantis in the tales 
  of Avalon and the Land Promised 
  to the Saints. They developed 
  magic to breathe water, 
  reinvented Alexander 
  the Great’s crystal 
  diving bell, and 
  explored sunk-
  en Ys and Dunwich. And at some point, guided by Basque 
  whalers, Skaldic mages returned from Vinland, or by their 
  angelic visions, they reached a new continent, west of the 
  Pillars of Heracles: America.
  Sleepwalking to Atlantis
  From oath-bound demons to trans-dimensional shewstones, 
  Awakened explorers have Arcane techniques and sorcerous tools 
  unavailable to mundane researchers. That said, the greatest 
  asset of Awakened researchers may yet be the countless efforts 
  and theories of Sleepers searching for and theorizing about 
  the lost continent. This list of potential Atlantises assembles 
  theories and dogmas from cranks, mystics and historians alike 
  — any Sleeper may stumble over the truth.
  America: Although Plato’s discussion carefully separates 
  Atlantis from “the continent on the other side of the ocean,” 
  scholars from John Dee to Francis Bacon to Alexander von 
  Humboldt assume that Atlantis was one or the other Ameri-
  can continent.
  Antarctica: Many modern cranks and mystics believe that 
  a sudden pole shift in 10,500 BC destroyed an “empire of the 
  sea kings” based in a subtropical Antarctica. Suggestive con-
  nections lead from this theory to both the South Polar Hole 
  of Symmes and Poe, and the Nazi explorations of an “Antarctic 
  Shangri-la” in 1938.
  Bahamas: A submerged formation resembling a pillar-lined 
  road appeared in 1968 near Bimini Island, identiﬁ ed in the 
  1930s by the Virginia dream-psychic Edgar Cayce as Atlantis.
  Britain: The only known source for tin (a possible component 
  of orichalcum) outside the Pillars of Heracles, famous for its 
  concentric circle “temples,” such as Stonehenge. Proposed as 
  Atlantis by Francis Wilford in 1805.
  Brazil: Proposed by various authorities as the original “Celtic 
  Atlantis,” confusingly known as Hy-Brasil, the “burning island,” 
  or Huy Breasal, the “fortunate island.” Colonel Percy Fawcett 
  believed that Atlantean cities still stood in the jungle interior; 
  he vanished in 1925 on a search for one such, Manoa.
  
  27
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  Caucasus Mountains: In 1799 the French scholar Delisle 
  de Sales identiﬁ ed Atlantis with the “mountains of Ararat” 
  that withstood the Flood. In 1923 the Canadian engineer 
  Reginald Fessenden revived this theory, adding a connection 
  to the Aryan homeland in Central Asia.
  Crete: Since 1909, archaeologists have suggested the story 
  of Atlantis as a garbled version of the fall of Minoan civiliza-
  tion. Some Guardians of the Veil, on the other hand, believe 
  the Minoan Labyrinth holds secrets — and perhaps passages 
  — pointing to Atlantis’ true location.
  Cuba: Psychic quester Andrew Collins identiﬁ es the “Island 
  of Youth” off Cuba as an Atlantean remnant; engineer Paulina 
  Zelitsky claims to have ﬁ lmed sunken pyramids and roads in 
  those seas in 2001.
  Cyprus: Deep-water sonar scans have discovered what might 
  be canal walls and circular buildings off the east coast of this 
  Mediterranean island.
  Ethiopia: The French architect Daniel Duvillé and the Ahnen-
  erbe archaeologist Edmund Kiss both suggested the Abyssinian 
  plateau as Atlantis in 1936; Kiss excavated the area looking for 
  fallen pieces of the moon. Atlantis may also have been the Red 
  Sea ﬂ oor, submerged when the oceans rose after the Ice Age.
  Greenland: The Ahnenerbe Society followed up on a theory 
  ﬁ rst proposed in 1646 by the tutor of the Dauphin, one François 
  de la Mothe le Vayer, that a Hyperborean Atlantis had been 
  covered by the ice sheet in ancient times.
  India: See p. 24 for nine theoretical Atlantises in the area, 
  most of which have both legendary roots and modern cham-
  pions. The most promising lead is the sunken city recently 
  discovered off Mahabalipuram.
  Indonesia: The ocean ﬂ oor near Java may have sunk as 
  recently as 11,600 BC during the end of the last Ice Age; Kraka-
  toa and other volcanoes provide suitably dramatic disaster 
  narratives. Recent discoveries of dwarvish skeletons on the 
  Indonesian island of Flores may somehow be connected.
  Iran: Based on butterﬂ y migration patterns (and perhaps 
  other occult insights derived from insect observations) the 
  entomologist Pierre-André Latreille proposed Iran as the 
  original Atlantis. In the Iranian national epic, the Shah-nameh, 
  Peshotanu (Poseidon?) rules the holy mountain Kangha.
  Iraq: The traditional location of the Garden of Eden, a religious 
  interpretation of Atlantis much favored in the medieval era. 
  Baghdad is a city built in a series of rings, much like Atlantis.
  Ireland: A large island with a central plain, intimately 
  connected to the Neolithic megalith builders and ruled by 
  quarrelsome kings. Sunken cities ring the coasts of the British 
  Isles in legend and fact.
  Malta: In 1854, the Maltese architect Giorgio Grongnet de 
  Vassé suggested this island, dotted with Neolithic barrows and 
  monuments, later colonized by the Knights Hospitaller, was 
  an Atlantean remnant.
  Mexico: The suggestive pyramids of the Mayas, Toltecs and others, 
  as well as the coincidences of the Nahuatl lost paradise “Aztlán” 
  and Mexico City’s founding on a volcanic island in a circular lake 
  have inspired many researchers to seek Atlantis in Mexico.
  Mid-Atlantic Island: The orthodox Platonic theory, accepted 
  by most Awakened and many Sleepers (including Ignatius Don-
  nelly), presumes that either the Canary Islands, the Azores or 
  both represent the last remnants of the sunken continent.
  Mongolia: The other great “Atlantis in the Sands” theory 
  places the Awakened City deep in the Gobi Desert, sometimes 
  interpreted as the smooth seabed left behind by a retreating shal-
  low ocean that ﬁ lled the Asian interior in primordial times.
  North Africa: The geographer Félix Berlioux suggested 
  the connection between the Atlas Mountains and Atlantis in 
  1874, reviving a theory posited by Diodorus of Sicily. Other 
  explorers pinpointed the Hoggar Mountains of Algeria, or 
  cited the Garamanteans (see p. 23).
  Nigeria: The Prussian explorer and anthropologist Leo 
  Frobenius spent the years between 1904 and 1935 crisscross-
  ing West Africa in search of Atlantis. In 1926, he placed it 
  among the Yoruba of Nigeria based on the plentiful copper 
  and elephants of Yorubaland, and on symbolic elements in 
  Yoruba art that he traced to a Paciﬁ c super-continent.
  North Sea: The Dogger Bank in the North Sea subsided 
  around 6100 BC; various authors have placed Atlantis all around 
  this area. In 1953, Jürgen Spanuth identiﬁ ed the island of 
  Helgoland as Atlantis, and orichalcum as amber.
  Paciﬁ c Continent: The composer Jean-Benjamin de la 
  Borde in 1791 was only the ﬁ rst to suggest a Paciﬁ c continent 
  as Atlantis, a theme taken up by the mystic Agartha-quester 
  Louis Jacolliot in 1879 and by “Colonel” Churchward’s Mu 
  books in the 1920s and 1930s.
  Palestine: Beginning with Jean de Serres in 1570, pious 
  scholars have interpreted Atlantis’ 10 kingdoms as the Ten 
  Tribes of Israel, and the Awakened City as Jerusalem.
  Peru: According to researcher J.M. Allen, a ﬂ ood in Lake 
  Titicaca drowned Atlantis and its people, from whom descended 
  the Inca and other sun-worshipping, copper-mining peoples 
  of the Andes altiplano.
  Puerto Rico: German U-boat and rocket engineer Otto 
  Muck theorized that a comet struck Atlantis north of Puerto 
  Rico in 8498 BC.
  Santorini: Known in classical times as Thera, this Aegean 
  island possessed a large circular harbor and a fertile plain 
  until both were destroyed by a volcanic eruption around 1680 
  BC. In 1939, the archaeologist Spiridon Marinatos suggested 
  that Thera and Crete were the Atlantean empire, which was 
  destroyed by the eruption and an ensuing tsunami.
  Sardinia: In 2002, the journalist Sergio Frau suggested that 
  the megalithic towers or “Nuraghi” on this island were the 
  ruins of Atlantis.
  Sargasso Sea: This thick reach of gulfweed runs east of 
  Bermuda and supports a coastal ecosystem in the middle of 
  the ocean. The geographer W.J. Babcock suggested that the 
  gulfweed was Atlantis (or the remains thereof) in 1922.
  Spain: The “silver city” of Tartessos, on the Spanish Atlantic 
  coast, disappeared during the lifetime of Solon, possibly buried 
  beneath the mudﬂ ats at the mouth of the Rio Tinto. Tartessos 
  has been identiﬁ ed as Atlantis and as the Biblical Tarshish, 
  famous for “ivory, apes and peacocks.”
  
  28
  Spitsbergen: This isolated island chain north of Norway 
  was proposed as Atlantis and Thule by Bailly in 1781 (see 
  p. 37).
  Tunisia: The Munich geologist Paul Borchardt believed 
  that Atlantis lay beneath the swamps of southern Tunisia, 
  the site of the ancient Lake Tritonis, legendary home of the 
  Amazons. Both he (in 1926) and Albert Herrmann (in 1934) 
  believed they had discovered material remains of Atlantis, 
  which Herrmann also identiﬁ ed with the legendary City of 
  Brass, in the region.
  Turkey: Tantalus, a coastal city ruled by a legendarily rich 
  and greedy king, was destroyed by an earthquake and ﬂ ooded 
  by a lake after Zeus became angry. Troy, likewise, was a rich 
  city destroyed by the wrath of the gods after losing a war with 
  Athens.
  Ukraine: Since about 1900, various scholars have suggested 
  southern Ukraine (ancient Scythia) as both the ancestral 
  home of the Indo Europeans and as Atlantis. The Black Sea 
  ﬂ ooded around 5500 BC when the Bosporus straits opened, 
  drowning a Neolithic civilization and driving survivors into 
  Ukraine and Turkey.
  Wisconsin: In 1937, the diver Max Nohl saw mysterious 
  pyramids on the bottom of Rock Lake, Wisconsin. Using a 
  blend of psychic archaeology, Winnebago Indian rituals and 
  underwater photography, writer Frank Joseph has identiﬁ ed 
  the sunken site as both Atlantis and Aztlán.
  The New Atlantis
  Even Sleeper scholars identiﬁ ed Atlantis with this new 
  American continent “emerged from Ocean” after 1492. The 
  Spanish historian Francesco Lopez de Gómara suggested in 
  1553 that Plato had somehow known of America, and the 
  magicians Guillaume de Postel and John Dee both suggested 
  naming the new continents “Atlantis” instead of “America.” The 
  alchemist John Swan in 1644 and the naturalist Alexander von 
  Humboldt (who coined the word “Aztec” as a back-formation 
  from the Nahuatl Atlantis, “Aztlán”) in 1807 likewise agreed 
  that America was Atlantis, and vice versa.
  Invisible Cities
  The reaction in the Awakened world was similarly electric. 
  The Guardians’ tenuous ban on Atlantean heresy began to 
  crumble within the century. Willworkers from Portugal to 
  Poland tramped the jungles of Yucatan and the snowﬁ elds 
  of New France searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola, the 
  Golden City of El Dorado, the Crystal Empire of Norumbega 
  and any number of other promising rumors. The mages found 
  many wonders, but nothing irrefutably establishing Atlantis 
  in America. Even the dedicated questing societies and cabals 
  came up dry. A channeled report from a Scarlet Mulberry 
  Society refugee and several impeccable divinations identiﬁ ed 
  a pale-haired tribe of Creeks far up the Mobile River as the 
  
  29
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  Sleeper assistants a few Platonic “noble lies” and promises of 
  royal preferment. The result was The New Atlantis, published 
  in 1627, the year after Francis Bacon’s death. (Whether Bacon 
  was the real author of the work the Shoal produced under his 
  name remains a raging controversy among some Mysterium 
  scholars.) The work sparked immediate denunciations from 
  all four conservative orders.
  As John Dee and others had, The New Atlantis asserted that 
  the American continent was the original Atlantis, drowned 
  in a sudden deluge but now drained and empty. However, 
  the key arguments of the book discussed a theoretical new 
  Atlantis, called Bensalem, founded on an unknown Paciﬁ c 
  island (given its size, most likely New Zealand) by survivors 
  of the ﬂ ood. Unlike Old Atlantis, Bensalem looked forward 
  to new developments in science and technology. Bensalem’s 
  king sent agents into the world every 12 years to return with 
  information, “especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures 
  and inventions of all the world.” Bensalem thus developed 
  half-mile tall skyscrapers, air conditioning, computers, sub-
  marines, aircraft and “houses of deceits of the senses,” which 
  sound either like virtual reality or propaganda or both. At the 
  center of Bensalem, a vast storehouse of magical and technical 
  arts was freely available to all. Similar to Plato’s dialogues, The 
  New Atlantis breaks off in the middle of the description, before 
  providing more than a sketch of the new Atlantis’ democratic 
  constitution.
  The reaction was intense; the Shoal of Night had essen-
  tially dismissed Atlantean wisdom as antique and useless, and 
  worse, presented a powerful case for seeking enlightenment 
  in the future from the actions of Sleepers. Adamantine Ar-
  rows stormed the Shoal sanctums in Prague, Heidelberg and 
  London, with Mysterium Censors right behind to conﬁ scate 
  the Shoal’s carefully assembled library. Guardians of the Veil 
  fanned out across Europe, arresting Shoal collaborators and 
  correspondents (many under the guise of the ongoing witch 
  hunts) ﬁ ngered by Silver Ladder ofﬁ cials. According to the 
  ballads sung by Libertines of the Free Council (many of whom 
  consider the Shoal of Night the Council’s ﬁ rst cabal), the raid-
  ers missed the great prize: the secret second volume of The 
  New Atlantis, smuggled to America on golden printing plates. 
  Today, an ideological Libertine is more likely to search Oak 
  Island or New Guinea for “Bacon’s treasure” than Egypt or 
  Tibet for Atlantean ruins. The Shoal of Night was smashed, 
  its ﬁ nal stand burnt out in 1666.
  Mundus Subterraneus
  No such fate met the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, whose 
  theories of Atlantis seemed almost tame by comparison. Kircher 
  was most likely the Superior-General of the Ad Magiorem Dei 
  Gloriem, a Silver Ladder-connected cabal embedded within 
  the Jesuit order and dedicated to reconciling Atlantis, and 
  magic in general, with Roman Catholic doctrine. The cabal’s 
  reach extended through the Jesuit chapter houses in Peru, 
  Mexico, Tibet, Japan and China, among other potentially 
  Atlantean locations; the cabal almost certainly worked with 
  Kircher to assemble his hoard of Atlantean lore. Kircher had 
  pure-blooded heirs of Atlantis. By the time the Michaelites 
  could sort out an expedition, the tribe had vanished without 
  a trace, leaving only peculiar earthworks.
  Other seemingly solid leads from roaming spirits, self-pro-
  claimed Atlantean Ascended masters or Sleeper voyageurs 
  pointed to tribes on the shores of the Cuyahoga River or the 
  Upper Missouri. Each time, the ﬁ rst Awakened outsiders would 
  ﬁ nd nothing but abandoned hill forts or strangely shaped 
  mounds. The mysterious protectors did not conﬁ ne their 
  activities to people. Artifacts, mummies, obelisks, rune stones 
  and lakes would evanesce or shift about seemingly overnight. 
  Even a gigantic pyramidal mountain disappeared between the 
  ﬁ rst sighting in the Platte River basin and the hasty Michaelite 
  reconnaissance in force that followed.
  Someone or something, it became obvious, was blocking 
  outside Atlantean investigations into America even more 
  completely than the Nine did in India, though less directly 
  and violently. Michaelites and other questers compiled rumors 
  about the unknown force: “shining ﬁ gures” dressed in silver 
  or white seen on remote hills and mountain tops in the New 
  World, gray- or black-skinned dwarves watching from gullies 
  and forests, glowing spheres hovering above Awakened camp-
  sites on the endless American prairies. Those mages who 
  had tangled with the Nine in India noticed parallels to the 
  “Lemurian” magic of those protector-cultists, but could offer 
  little useful advice. Even the friendly Awakened among the 
  native nations could provide nothing concrete, although they 
  helped assemble a mass of testimony about the Little People, 
  the Wendigo, the Ant Makers and anything else that seemed 
  relevant. Slowly and reluctantly, mages abandoned their hopes 
  for dramatic discoveries in America in favor of the slow sifting 
  of myth and folklore.
  Utopias of the Mind
  This analytical approach appealed to the Shoal of Night, a 
  cabal based in London associated with Queen Elizabeth’s court 
  astrologer John Dee and King James I’s chancellor Francis 
  Bacon (although whether either ﬁ gure was Awakened remains 
  an open question today). The Shoal of Night had tried Micha-
  elite-style direct exploration and run into similar problems, 
  from the disappearance of their admiral Humphrey Gilbert 
  in the Bermuda Triangle to the Roanoke Colony ﬁ asco a few 
  years later. John Dee’s channeled communication with the 
  “aethyrs of the Watchtowers” provided a great information 
  dump of “Enochian” lore that matched up in some intriguing 
  ways with fragmentary reports from America.
  Members of the Shoal of Night attacked the conundrum 
  by using kabbalist methods to correlate and weigh all the data 
  they possessed, and the new methods of textual and historical 
  criticism to produce uncorrupted texts of Plato, Aristeas, the 
  Picatrix and other relevant works. (Later rumor claimed their 
  agents even recovered a copy of the Gospel of John the Fairest 
  from a burned-out crypt in the Pyrenees.) Ever more obsessed 
  with their reconstructions, the cabal members recruited lin-
  guists, mathematicians, cosmographers and even playwrights 
  to work on individual pieces of the problem, feeding their 
  
  30
  the further advantage of access to the Vatican Library, and 
  he may have used the conﬁ scated books from the Shoal of 
  Night archives.
  Beginning with a close study of Egyptian hieroglyphics, 
  Kircher expanded his ambit to include magnetism, dragon 
  lore, optics, geology, music theory and Chinese myth. Work-
  ing in the tradition of the Sphinx Legacy, he assembled the 
  magical insights from all of these disciplines, interpolating 
  missing elements by rational calculation. He combined these 
  studies with his study of the “Voynich Manuscript,” a coded 
  text thought to have been produced by Roger Bacon and sold 
  to the Holy Roman Emperor by John Dee in 1584, and with 
  Egyptian obelisks discovered buried beneath Rome’s streets. 
  The result was his Mundus Subterraneus, published in 1664.
  Kircher tried to combine orthodox “Platonist” Atlantism 
  with his “Pythagorean” insights. His Egyptian research indicated 
  that the Platonic narrative was essentially correct: Atlantis was 
  a large Atlantic island, watered by six rivers and ruled by 10 
  kings, destroyed by earthquakes and sunk below the ocean, 
  leaving only the Canary and Azores Islands. However, a “Hyper-
  borean” Atlantis, guarded by dragons and mummiﬁ ed giants, 
  continued to exist in the “subterranean world” beneath the 
  Earth’s crust, linked by ﬁ re and water to volcano entrances and 
  whirlpools. He resurrected the Garamantean “inner ocean” 
  and hinted that it connected physically with the dream Atlantis 
  of the Scarlet Mulberry Society. Furthermore, he implied that 
  the World Beneath, the Inner Atlantis, somehow governed 
  surface affairs, and that it may have caused the earthquake that 
  sunk Plato’s island. Kircher’s privileged position in the heart 
  of Catholic power, or the extraordinarily arcane language in 
  which he couched such heresies, kept his magical career intact, 
  but the Mysterium mounted a steady campaign to denigrate 
  and trivialize his insights. His vision of a secret Atlantis at the 
  heart of global affairs would be neglected for centuries.
  Old World Shadows
  Instead, such new assemblies of lore and legendry in sanctums 
  across the world, and the expansion of travel and trade, started 
  to feed a resurgence in more conventional “ruined temple” 
  Atlantis questing. Dutch and Japanese mages picked their way 
  through Egyptian tombs and Mexican pyramids just as their 
  Greek and Chinese precursors had millennia ago. Although, 
  in many cases, these mages merely conﬁ rmed old discoveries, 
  or stirred up old guardians (the Nine inﬁ ltrated the Mogul 
  empire and added brainwashed armies to its arsenal), every 
  so often, the mages discovered something new.
  Cities of the Sun
  In the year 1600, seemingly by coincidence, widely scattered 
  mages from Nanjing to Constantinople to Mexico City all came 
  to the independent conclusion that fragments of Atlantis, 
  the Awakened City, could only be found in thriving cities in 
  the Material Realm. Atlantis had not so much fallen as come 
  apart, or rather extended itself. Its buildings, plazas, fountains, 
  streets and towers had rotated slightly out of normal time and 
  geometry and now appeared to the observer as normal parts 
  of whichever city they currently intersected with. A brief but 
  intense craze for sorcerous architecture and urban exploration 
  gripped many wizards over the next generation or so, and recurs 
  periodically to this day. In each generation, according to the 
  urban legend, one building, or perhaps one room, of the Silver 
  City can be entered by a prepared visitor, who can then pass 
  through it to Atlantis itself. In darker versions of the tale, this 
  chamber appears just before some cataclysm visits the city in 
  question; whispers tell of churches in 1666 London, taverns 
  in 1871 Chicago and dockyards in 1945 Nagasaki that glowed 
  violet at sunset in Mage Sight.
  Lost Horizons
  The 17th century also saw the ﬁ nal dissolution of the Scarlet 
  Mulberry Society by the Manchu warlords. These Sleepers 
  knew only fear and superstition, and put the Hong Fu-Sang 
  compounds in Gansu to the sack. The Manchu opened 
  carefully cultivated gardens of oneirurgic herbs to the Gobi 
  sandstorms, tortured or enslaved the Society’s apprentices 
  and acolytes, burned and trampled their scrolls and inks. 
  Most of the survivors ﬂ ed across Asia, although a few made 
  contact with other dream travelers and reached sanctuary. The 
  ongoing Ethiopian project to channel Enoch likely gained 
  important techniques (such as sensory deprivation by sealing 
  the Astral traveler inside the Ark of Axum) from just such a 
  Scarlet Mulberry refugee.
  A cadre of the most experienced dreamers, veterans of a 1,000 
  psychic wars against the Nine in India, managed to pull back 
  into the Temenos and seal themselves within the Temple of 
  the Dreaming Butterﬂ y. The Temple shut off its access to the 
  outside world, leaving only one gateway that only the worthy 
  could attain. The details of this gateway vary with the teller. 
  The most common version holds that an Awakened traveler 
  who hears certain combinations of tones and echoes produced 
  by specially-shaped temple bells ringing in a glacial valley of the 
  Qilian Shan (or Kunlun or Himalaya) mountains can follow 
  the sound to the Temple. Mysterium scholars speculate that 
  the Temple of the Dreaming Butterﬂ y may have summoned, 
  or become, or formed, some sort of Astral Verge, a “soft place 
  in the world’s skin” where dream and reality intermingle.
  Although the Temple could no longer afford the resources 
  to mount major expeditions into the Astral, the mages there 
  could begin the Baconian process of meditation and collation 
  learned from Jesuit mages in Tibet and Beijing. By the 1680s, 
  the Dreaming Butterﬂ y reputation for learning began to draw 
  increasing numbers of Atlantis questers into the mountains of 
  Tibet in search of the monastery, including at least one entire 
  cabal of Russian willworkers seeking Belovodye, the “land of 
  white waters,” who decided that they had found their Awak-
  ened Garden in the Temple’s Astral enclosure. The Dreaming 
  Butterﬂ y Temple became entangled both in outside rumor, 
  and occasionally in the ever-shifting Astral Realm, with the 
  Buddhist Chang Shambhala, the initiatory center supposedly 
  hidden in the north.
  
  31
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  Trails of Blood
  Not every quest aimed at inner peace, or even enlightenment 
  as such. An Awakened sultan in northern Java spent the lives 
  of hundreds of Cebuanese pearl divers (purchased at great cost 
  from the Spanish) trying unsuccessfully to recover a 95-foot 
  long scimitar unearthed on the bottom of the Sunda Strait by 
  a seaquake. The Hidden Inca attempted to Awaken his entire 
  army of Quechua peasants using a system of mirrors and ﬂ ags 
  revealed to him in a coca dream in the ruins of Tihuanaco. 
  But worse was always possible.
  In the 1750s, the court alchemist of the Elector of Saxony 
  reputedly boiled down an entire 100-weight of amber — and 
  the primordial insects preserved therein — to extract a poison 
  that sent its victims’ souls to the Atlantean Hell. He then es-
  tablished a necromantic cult, the Jailers of Pentheus, in order 
  to obtain priceless Atlantean lore from those tormented souls, 
  who after all were in a remarkable position to learn a great deal 
  from their fellow sufferers. The Jailers eventually descended 
  into total madness, worshiping their victims as gods and sac-
  riﬁ cing others to serve their tormented deities. Fortunately, 
  the ﬁ rebombing of Dresden in 1944 seems to have cauterized 
  the Jailers permanently, and curtailed the degrading market 
  among unscrupulous Moros mages for Penthean research 
  journals and tape-recorded séances.
  The mad genealogists of the Radix Regex were, if anything, 
  even more offensive to the Diamond, if only because far more of 
  their victims were fellow mages. Their society began in Versailles 
  in 1773, possibly as the result of a failed Awakened–Kindred 
  alliance to fully explore the Paris catacombs. Three sorceresses 
  in the court of Marie Antoinette discovered (allegedly with aid 
  from a vampiric crone) a method of determining true ancestry 
  from the drained blood of a subject. The more related the 
  subjects, the clearer the picture of the bloodline they could 
  build up. Intrigued by the possibility of tracing an unbroken 
  Atlantean lineage back to the Fall, the genealogists set about 
  obtaining samples from a widening swath of Awakened victims. 
  Protected by an exalted court position, the Radix Regex man-
  aged to throw suspicion onto the similarly bloodline-obsessed 
  Legacy of St. Michael and secure the Michaelites’ ejection 
  from France (and hence from their Abbey sanctum), a blow 
  that pulverized the Michaelites. (Some Guardians of the Veil 
  will still maintain that the Radix Regex was innocent and the 
  Michaelites deserved their dissolution.) The Radix Regex came 
  close to becoming the triumvir Hierarchs of Paris during the 
  Reign of Terror, but the shifting political tides drove them 
  deep underground during the Napoleonic Wars.
  Phantom Empires
  In a less metaphorical sense, the search for Atlantis also 
  went deep underground by the ﬁ rst half of the 19th century. 
  Kircher’s work, combined with new “Typhonian” papyri un-
  covered by mages accompanying Napoleon’s troops in Egypt, 
  sparked a number of descents into volcanoes or maelstroms to 
  discover passages to the Hollow Earth and the Inner Atlantis 
  therein. The astronomer Edmond Halley and the mathema-
  tician Leonhard Euler were two prominent 18th-century 
  supporters of the Hollow Earth. Although neither are known 
  to have Awakened, their calculations proved quite amenable 
  to kabbalist analysis by such groups as the Shadow of Mictlan 
  cabal (which proﬁ tably combined piracy, Atlantis-hunting and 
  Moros pathworking from its sanctum in Campeche) or the 
  Cyclopean Eye cabal in Naples (which carried out “inverted 
  Astral baptism” rituals inside the crater of Vesuvius during 
  the 1779 and 1794 eruptions). Willworkers discovered eerie 
  and suggestive passageways in the Peruvian altiplano and the 
  plains of Indochina, and mapped interior continents during 
  belladonna-fueled binges.
  Unlike the oceanic or Astral voyages of other Atlantis Seek-
  ers, journeys into the Earth were not always replicable. One 
  cabal would report vast trapezoidal tunnels running for miles 
  deep underneath an Icelandic volcano, or an arrangement of 
  rocks in Tennessee from which the proper Space spells could 
  translate the caster into a vast hall covered in phosphorescent 
  dinosaur ivory. The next cabal to try it would ﬁ nd nothing, 
  and even the initial discoverers would report failure as often 
  as not upon reattempting the passage. Some mages believed 
  that the Atlantis within the Earth was somehow protected by 
  a secret society or unknown power, much like the one that had 
  frustrated Michaelite investigations into the Atlantean founda-
  tions of America. The other, and more common, interpretation 
  was that the interior of the Earth was simply a different sort 
  of Realm from either the Material, the Shadow or the Astral, 
  with different laws of magic, and perhaps even subtly divergent 
  Arcana. To a few excited questers, this implied that perhaps 
  the Inner Atlantis had not fallen, or was perhaps itself the 
  ancestor of the orthodox island kingdom Atlantis.
  Just as earlier quests, for the kingdom of Prester John or 
  for Iram of the Pillars, sorcerous explorations of the Hollow 
  Earth spawned Sleeper imitations. However, for some reason, 
  a much higher percentage of Sleepwalkers seemed to follow in 
  the footsteps of the Awakened. This did have the fortunate side 
  effect of completely discrediting the notion of the Hollow Earth 
  among the average Sleeper, since its proponents always turned 
  out to be so very odd. U.S. Army Captain John Cleves Symmes 
  announced that immense holes at each pole, 4,000 miles in 
  diameter, led into an inner world that he grandly christened 
  “Symzonia.” He convinced a journalist named Jeremiah Reyn-
  olds, whose ceaseless lectures and lobbying in turn convinced 
  President John Quincy Adams — and at least three Atlantis-
  seeking cabals — to send an expedition to Antarctica in search 
  of the South Polar Hole in 1829. The U.S. Naval expedition 
  turned back at Chile; two of the cabals returned from points 
  farther south with interesting samples (and at least one new 
  Forces rote), but no report of a polar hole. The Brotherhood 
  of Catamounts cabal, however, never came back.
  Dreams Within a Dream
  A still more dangerous consequence of such a determined 
  assault on the South Pole rode in on the dreams of Edgar 
  Allan Poe. Later sorcerous investigation demonstrated to the 
  satisfaction of the Arrows that Poe was a deeply susceptible 
  
  32
  Worse yet, by 1849 such 
  dreams and visions increasingly began to feature one or more 
  of the Watchtowers, seen crumbling from within like chalk 
  or swaying in colossal whirlwinds similar to the maelstroms in 
  Poe’s tales. An alert Guardian of the Veil in Baltimore discov-
  ered that Poe was in the process of writing a new story called 
  “The Lighthouse,” in which the noble keeper of an isolated 
  tower fears it will be destroyed. Before Poe could complete it, 
  however, he vanished for three days, reappearing only to die 
  raving in the hospital, calling repeatedly for “Reynolds.” With 
  Poe’s death, the dreams tapered off; the Oneiric storm had 
  passed. Just to be safe, however, the Diamond orders ofﬁ cially 
  banned exploration of the Hollow Earth in 1850.
  Print the Legend
  Some conspiracy theorists among the Awakened claim that a 
  mysterious willworker in red slipped Poe the libation that opened 
  his channel to the Inner Earth. They further claim Poe as only 
  one of the many puppets and victims of a secret war, fought 
  primarily within Freemasonry, between the Garamantean Inner 
  Ocean and the survivors of the Shoal of Night. By this reading, 
  the four orders of the Diamond were mere helpless pawns, or 
  at best factionalized tools, in a new war for Atlantis. Beginning 
  in the 1830s, one particularly obsessed cabal, the Acacia and 
  Sleepwalker who in 1827 unknowingly imbibed a glass 
  of the Syrah Atlantide, pressed from grapes grown in the 
  abandoned Garamantean gardens of North Africa. The result 
  was apparently a completely unpredictable escalation of Poe’s 
  dreams, many of which found their way into his writing. In 
  “Descent Into the Maelstrom,” “MS. Found In a Bottle,” “The 
  Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaal,” and especially 
  The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Poe circled around and 
  around the idea of a passage into the Earth’s interior, a cave 
  of mysteries opening from the South Pole. In Pym, Poe tells of 
  a black island, Tsalal, located on the verge of the opening in 
  a black sea. The inhabitants of Tsalal fear whiteness for some 
  reason, but just as Poe’s narrator sees a gigantic white ﬁ gure 
  guarding a white sea, the story ends. Just as the works of Plato 
  and Bacon, Poe’s “Atlantean” work remained unﬁ nished, a 
  magical charge laid and waiting to go off.
  All these elements, and others drawn from Poe’s imagery, 
  began permeating not just the local Temenos, but, increasingly, 
  the individual Oneiroi of American mages. Transmitted by some 
  unguessable mechanism, these images and elements spread to 
  Europe, South America and even Japan, where an entire cabal 
  committed suicide in 1840 using an ingeniously constructed 
  razor-sharp pendulum. Willworkers on Astral journeys found 
  themselves inexorably drawn to Tsalal, and to the rocky spire 
  at the center of Poe’s imagined Antarctic vortex. Almost every 
  mage who sought Atlantis during the 1840s reported seeing 
  “a black island in a black sea” in the Astral Realm — and at 
  least three reports discovered Tsalal appearing in the Material 
  Realm. More than a dozen mages died mysteriously in their 
  sleep in 1847, and many more were menaced by a looming 
  white ﬁ gure before awakening.
  
  33
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  the Gold in Lyon, ﬂ ooded occult libraries across the world (and 
  not a few mundane libraries) with magically crafted forgeries 
  intended to prove the cabal’s thesis. But the Acacia and the 
  Gold had their sights set higher than mere delusional point-
  scoring. The cabal members wished to do purposely what Poe 
  had almost done accidentally, to somehow bring about just such 
  an occult struggle through sympathetic image magic, altering 
  the world with words. (Their deluge of forgeries may not have 
  created a conspiratorial shadow war, but did make verifying or 
  disproving any such claims virtually impossible for even the 
  most dedicated Awakened historian.) An American offshoot 
  of the Acacia and the Gold planned to publish an Encyclopedia 
  of Atlantis to do the same thing on a more dramatic scale and 
  simply “print Atlantis into being as Plato did,” but the cabal 
  split up and vanished during the Civil War.
  Brazilian Backlash
  Such utopian thinking was anathema to the Nameless ca-
  bals forming in Brazil during that era. Their members, drawn 
  especially from escaped slaves, displaced natives and the urban 
  poor, were not particularly well disposed to Atlantean monarchy 
  in the ﬁ rst place. Teresa Abiola, a Sleepwalking mãe-de-santo (a 
  Candomblé priestess), ﬁ rst channeled the Word of the Helots 
  in 1863, and the force of it fully Awakened her. She proclaimed 
  it to her congregation, and the Word spread across Brazil like 
  wildﬁ re, rapidly becoming a major new heresy in rebellious 
  Awakened circles. Teresa testiﬁ ed that the Word came from a 
  chorus of Helotes Velhos, “old helots,” ghosts of the slaves kept 
  by the Atlantean mage-kings now ﬁ nally able to call across the 
  Abyss and across the eons to their true spiritual descendants. 
  The new doctrine didn’t bother explaining whether some 
  change in the otherworld, or a more effective channeling 
  ritual used by the mães-de-santos, opened the “Iron Gate of the 
  Watchtower” for the Helotes Velhos. The forces of orthodoxy 
  accused Teresa and her growing number of disciples of using 
  Jailers of Pentheus grimoires, and unsettling similarities exist 
  between known Jailer texts and the Book of the Helots.
  Teresa transcribed the volume while in a series of trance 
  states between 1863 and her sudden death in the middle of a 
  chapter, of a heart attack during a channeling session in 1881. 
  In language by turns lambent and impenetrable, the Book of 
  the Helots teaches that Atlantis (which the work calls Ajuka), 
  far from the home of perfect Awakened enlightenment, was a 
  brutal tyranny that monstrously exploited not only the mortals 
  in the outer world but its own citizens. The 10 kings of Ajuka 
  reshaped the world to their whim, but doled out only scraps of 
  magical truth to even their favored toadies, carving an Abyss 
  between the kings’ hearts’ desire and the sight of all others.
  The fall of this hateful kingdom of fear, which exceeded 
  even Plato’s dreams for his totalitarian Republic, was no 
  tragedy but the ﬁ rst opportunity that any human besides a 
  handful had to rise above mud, blood and ﬁ lth. Even now, 
  say the Helotists, the Fallen Kings’ undead jaws gape wide 
  between the Earth and the Supernal Realm, swallowing up all 
  but a few of the Helotes Velhos who would try to rejoin the 
  two sides and close the moat Ajuka dug against the world. To 
  the orders, this is all bad enough, but, worse yet, some of the 
  Helotist oblations involve negotiating with the Exarchs (or 
  Exús) for access to the Supernal. One or two Helotist branches 
  consider the Exarchs active embodiments of good and justice, 
  embodiments or emissaries of the Good Fathers who created 
  humanity and magic in the ﬁ rst place. Although the main 
  Helotist congregations of the time joined the Free Council 
  in the Great Refusal of 1899, cabals of Filhexús (“sons of the 
  Exús”) still thrive in urban Brazil.
  The Agra Revelations
  A much different picture of Atlantis emerged from obscurity 
  in India, where, in the wake of the 1857 Rebellion, British 
  cabals had managed to wrench a major repository of scriptures 
  and other artifacts in Agra from control of the Nine. Although 
  many of the writings contradicted not only the orthodox ver-
  sion of Atlantis but also each other, the bulk of the material 
  could be reconciled roughly into a single narrative. Over the 
  last 150 million years or so, most of the texts seemingly agree, 
  ﬁ ve decreasingly magical races rose and fell from ﬁ ve decreas-
  ingly transcendant “Atlantises.” Each race left behind shattered 
  descendant sub-races, from whom arose the next builders of 
  the next Atlantis. The ﬁ ve stages of history as given in the 
  “Agra Revelations” run as follows:
  • One hundred and ﬁ fty million years ago, a nameless, 
  invisible, formless (but colossal) race of astral beings built the 
  Imperishable Sacred Land as a cap over the North Pole of 
  the Earth. They still exist, although the act of building their 
  Atlantis impelled a sub-race of them to take quasi-material 
  etheric forms.
  • These forms became the second race, the Hyperboreans, 
  which some texts identiﬁ ed with Nagas or with giant dragon-
  people. Androgynous and egg-laying, the Hyperboreans built 
  their crescent-shaped Atlantis in the northern wastes of Canada 
  and Siberia before abandoning their Atlantis to the ice some 
  30 million years ago.
  • The Hyperboreans’ increasingly humanoid and material 
  descendants, left behind after the Nagas’ departure, became 
  the Lemurians. They physically resembled enormous four-
  armed apes, some with three eyes and others with only one. 
  The Lemurians served as channels for higher spiritual entities, 
  who guided the Lemurians in the construction of vast cities 
  on an immense southern continent, Lemuria, which covered 
  roughly the entire Indian and South Atlantic Oceans. Lem-
  uria fell during a cosmic war with an unknown foe (perhaps 
  a returned Naga remnant) some 18 million years ago. Rather 
  than be physically destroyed, however, Lemuria attenuated into 
  imperceptibility, “thinning out” across the world except for 
  certain vortex points such as the Red Cliffs of Madagascar.
  • The only remaining Lemurians, the most dense and ma-
  terial, were two-eyed mutations that became the Atlanteans. 
  These Lemurians resembled human beings, albeit 12-foot-tall 
  human beings with obsidian skin. A series of catastrophic 
  earthquakes and ﬂ oods destroyed Atlantis (a continent in 
  the North Atlantic) 850,000 years ago, leaving a number of 
  successor kingdoms scattered over the world.
  
  34
  • True Humans descend from one group of surviving Atlan-
  teans, although the Agra Revelations differ widely concerning 
  which particular ethnic stock represents the Atlanteans today. 
  Inspired by Ascended masters within the Supernal Realm, 
  True Humans built their own “Atlantis,” which sank in its 
  own turn 30,000 (or 12,000) years ago.
  Shortly after sorcerous scholars disseminated the Agra texts 
  across the Awakened world, mages all over the globe began re-
  ceiving channeled Astral communications from beings claiming 
  to be Lemurians or Atlanteans, each with their own particular 
  version of cosmic history and magical geology. Reconciling the 
  myriad of pettifogging differences soon became a fulltime task 
  for Mysterium scholars, and, over the next several decades, they 
  quietly sidelined the Agra Revelations in favor of a return to 
  orthodox Platonist opinion. Although very little evidence could 
  be adduced to refute this new cosmogony, and a great deal of 
  scattered testimony (both channeled from “Ascended masters” 
  and deduced from mute artifacts) bolstered individual strands, 
  the preponderance of Awakened opinion remained unswayed 
  by such a convoluted mythology. Its emergence within Sleeper 
  occultism by means of a series of inspired conﬁ dence schemes 
  using a mislaid Mysterium study document also damaged the 
  mythology’s credibility among willworking savants.
  The Mother of Civilizations
  Not all the materials in the Agra cache supported the Agra 
  Revelations by any means. The so-called Naacal Tablets were 
  among the many anomalous artifacts found in the Agra re-
  pository. The Tablets are carved in four scripts: two unknown 
  alphabets (called Naacal A and Naacal B), an allusive and 
  antiquated version of the High Speech and an initiatic rune 
  system used by the shamanic priests of a corpse-eating cult in 
  the Burmese highlands. The Tablets themselves are made of 
  smooth, blood-colored stone with no marks or weathering 
  whatsoever — in fact, the Tablets are impervious to every 
  physical test so far performed on them. Use of Time spells to 
  examine the Tablets gives wildly divergent results, from trillions 
  of years old to “not in existence yet.” In 1898, a team of three 
  Awakened scholars prepared a translation of the Tablets, which 
  turned out (by their reading) to tell the story of the Queen of 
  Tears, the last monarch of Atlantis.
  Mhu, heiress to the throne of Atlantis, was courted by both 
  Qo and Aac, a warrior and scholar, respectively. She chose 
  Qo, who was promptly murdered by Aac, who claimed the 
  throne by force. Qo’s soldiers mutinied at this ﬂ agrant usur-
  pation, and the ensuing war became the great struggle that 
  destroyed Atlantis, “drowned in the tears of Queen Mhu,” as 
  the Tablets say. The translation team immediately broke down 
  in arguments about what the story signiﬁ ed when presenting 
  their work at a Convocation in London. One member held 
  that the story was an allegorical myth about the Fall, while his 
  brother argued just as strenuously (bolstered by recent ﬁ nds 
  in the Yucatan) that the Tablets were a real historical record 
  of the lost Paciﬁ c continent.
  The third member of the team, Kristina von Boden-Kabine, 
  had still a third explanation, although it depended upon 
  further mystery. While translating the Naacal inscriptions, 
  she said, they had several times changed to faultless German 
  before her eyes and then changed back. The German text she 
  saw always matched the results of later translations by other 
  scholars. Based on this phenomenon, and certain other Arcane 
  indications, Professor von Boden-Kabine claimed that the 
  Naacal Tablets were in an “eka-language,” written on a higher 
  plane of reality, from whence the Tablets also received their 
  completely immeasurable physical properties. On this plane, 
  von Boden-Kabine said, “Queen” Mhu lives, most probably 
  in a madhouse. The entire universe, both the Supernal and 
  Material Realms, is solely the Queen’s imagination; the Fall 
  and the Abyss are how we, as fragments of her sundered mind, 
  perceive her crippling madness. Our myths of the Flood are 
  memories of her tears, and Atlantis was torn apart not by 
  hubris or earthquake, but by the trauma of a being on an im-
  mensely higher plane of reality. The Tablets are the sole core 
  of this being’s sanity, a memory repressed or reconstructed 
  to allow her to heal.
  Von Boden-Kabine concluded that only by constant medita-
  tion on the Tablets by every Awakened being (Sleepers being 
  purely imaginary ﬁ ctions without even shards of Mhu’s original 
  personality or consciousness in them) can we lift the world 
  into the light of the Supernal and restore the working of true 
  Reason. Although von Baden-Kabine’s interpretation caused 
  a great sensation at the time, most of the Naacal Meditative 
  Chancels she established in Germany and Austria died out 
  during World War I. The image of the “Queen of Tears” (often 
  based on von Boden-Kabine’s own face) survives on T-shirts and 
  in tattoo art among some younger Eastern European mages.
  Atlantis and Ragnarok
  The sensation the Naacal Tablets created within the Atlan-
  tological sections of Awakened opinion was dwarfed by a new, 
  more spectacular heresy. Atlantis, claimed a growing number 
  of mages during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, had 
  not been destroyed by a noble war in the Supernal between the 
  Exarchs and the Oracles, or even by a natural disaster. Atlantis 
  had been destroyed when a comet struck the Awakened City 
  and obliterated it. That impact, not hubris or revenge, split open 
  the Abyss and sundered the Realms. The great phenomena 
  of the universe — matter and magic — happened by accident.
  Unusually, this theory entered the Awakened consciousness 
  from the Sleeper side. Edmond Halley had proposed that a 
  comet’s passage caused the Biblical Flood, and in 1788 one 
  Count Giovanni Rinaldo Carli ﬁ rst proposed that a comet 
  had destroyed Atlantis. The thesis lay relatively dormant even 
  on the Sleeper fringe until 1883, when Minnesota politician 
  and polemicist Ignatius Donnelly published the sequel to his 
  bestseller Atlantis: The Antediluvian World as Ragnarok: The Age of 
  Fire and Gravel. Donnelly’s ﬁ rst book placed Atlantis in the mid-
  Atlantic (where Kircher had 200 years before), and Donnelley’s 
  second argued that a comet destroyed Atlantis and left a layer 
  of gravel in drift patterns across the Northern Hemisphere, 
  wrongly ascribed to the glaciers of the Ice Ages.
  
  35
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  The Knight of the Comet
  Even in 1883, Donnelly’s science was considered ludicrous, 
  but his book caught the attention of a cabal of mages headed by 
  Sir James Owsley-Palmer, the Astronomer Royal for Capetown. 
  Sir James recognized that a comet, in classical astrology, repre-
  sented exactly what Donnelly had implied: a disruptive change 
  completely outside the system of the world. Furthermore, a 
  large number of anomalous astronomical and astrological 
  readings could be explained by just such an immense pertur-
  bation. Sir James’ 1885 report to the Astrological Consilium 
  at Edinburgh laid out a strong case for the cometary theory, 
  and other cabals in America, Japan and Germany joined the 
  search for further conﬁ rmation. But that mathematical work, 
  and further astronomical observations of Mars and the Moon, 
  led to a revised theory and a great deal of practical activity.
  By 1893, the new kabbalist and gravitational calculations 
  demonstrated that a single Earth impact was insufﬁ cient to 
  explain the anomalies in the data. Again, Sir James came up 
  with the crucial insight. Atlantis, he realized, was the original 
  ﬁ fth planet of the solar system, orbiting between Jupiter (repre-
  senting Heaven, kingship and the Supernal Realm) and Mars 
  (representing war, struggle, base emotion and the Material 
  Realm). The planet Atlantis, struck by a comet, exploded, leaving 
  the asteroid belt (the Abyss) and a few survivors who ﬂ ed, as 
  best they could, to the lower planets where the Atlanteans may 
  have planted colonies. Earth, Sir James theorized, might well 
  have been a howling super-tropical wilderness full of monsters 
  and spirits until the rain of fragments from doomed Atlantis 
  shot up immense dust-clouds that cooled the world and caused 
  the Ice Age. A similar rain may have started the inexorable 
  growth of the Martian desert, dooming the Atlantean colony 
  there to slow desiccation and death.
  The Bellerophon Society
  By this time, the core mages in Owsley-Palmer’s study 
  group had formed their own extended cabal, the Bellerophon 
  Society. Named for the legendary rider of the winged horse 
  Pegasus, the cabal’s announced purpose was to “improve the 
  understanding of the Heavens”; the cabal recruited members 
  among Awakened astronomers and navigators throughout the 
  world. One open priority of Bellerophon Society investigators 
  was the hunt for meteorite fragments. If Atlantis exploded in 
  outer space, shards of the Heavenly City might still litter the 
  waste places of the Earth. Bellerophontes trekked across the 
  Siberian taiga, plunged deep into the Matto Grasso and climbed 
  the Mountains of the Moon in central Africa following up 
  historical (and sorcerous) records of fallen stars, anomalous 
  craters and “thunder stones.”
  Other Bellerophon Society teams researched possible mete-
  orites of legend, from the Holy Grail (the “stone fallen from 
  Heaven” of Parzival) to the Kaaba in Mecca to Chintamani, 
  the Black Stone of the Mongols. Some Bellerophontes dove 
  into the Temenos, seeking the mythical craters left behind 
  by such stones, from the Lia Fail in Ireland to the Stones of 
  Niobe dropped across Anatolia by the tears of the goddess 
  
  36
  Cybele. But as Arcane as this research became, rumors ﬁ ltered 
  out to the Consilii that the Bellerophon Society was up to 
  something even stranger. Cargoes of worked brass and crystal 
  arrived at Capetown and disappeared into the interior. Parch-
  ments containing immensely powerful Space and Forces rotes 
  became items much sought by Owsley-Palmer’s correspondents. 
  Dreamers heard vast rumbles above the Astral Planes when 
  Mars was in close opposition.
  Sir James and the Bellerophon Society, it was whispered, 
  had constructed their own ships of space, ﬂ inging themselves 
  across the void to Mars and the asteroids. From a hidden 
  sanctum in Upper Rhodesia or some isolated Paciﬁ c island, 
  the Bellerophontes supposedly quested for Atlantean ruins 
  beside the canals of Mars and in the splintered caverns of 
  the asteroids. The Paris caucus of the Guardians of the Veil 
  investigated every story, no matter how wild. A Japanese Bel-
  lerophonte was ﬁ ngered as instrumental in Percival Lowell’s 
  rapid shift of interest from esoteric Buddhism to mapping 
  Mars. An Awakened Prussian industrialist paid a huge sum 
  for the core of the Tunguska meteorite at a secret auction 
  in 1909. Tall, thin cloaked ﬁ gures were seen shufﬂ ing into a 
  South African observatory one night in 1912, weighed down 
  as if by an unfamiliar gravitation. The Guardians even sifted 
  the channeled reports of Swedenborg and Hélène Smith 
  concerning masked (and French-speaking) initiates on Mars 
  and other worlds, trying to work backwards through the 
  Astral. But Sir James’ paranoid security precautions (and 
  possibly the Bellerophontes’ obsessive desire to monopolize 
  their extraterrestrial Atlantis) left the Guardians with nothing 
  more solid than the tissue of rumors and hints with which 
  they began. Before they could build further, the Bellerophon 
  Society splintered in the chaos of the First World War, and 
  its member cabals turtled up and added yet another layer of 
  secrecy to hide their salvaged pieces of the puzzle from each 
  other. If a grand conspiracy to seek Atlantis in space had ever 
  existed, it had sunk without a trace.
  The Outsiders and Others
  After World War I, Sir James’ pronouncements changed 
  tenor yet again. He still theorized that Atlantis lay in outer 
  space, but increasingly questioned the overarching narrative of 
  the Celestial Ladder and the War in Heaven. Atlantis may, he 
  admitted, have secured a passageway into the Supernal — but his 
  meteorite research, he claimed, indicated Atlantean exposure 
  not merely to Supernal but to Abyssal, or even trans–Supernal 
  forces. Atlantis had been destroyed, he argued, not by internal 
  dissension and struggle, but by a previously unsuspected race 
  of godlike entities he called the Outsiders. In Owsley-Palmer’s 
  1922 book on the subject, Cheiron’s Arrow, he argued that the 
  trans–Supernal Outsiders had smashed the planet Atlantis 
  with “an arrow of Abyssal energy perceptible in the Material 
  as a comet” out of fear once the Atlanteans had opened the 
  ways to the Supernal.
  The majority of the Mysterium, and indeed most conven-
  tional mages, responded with skepticism. Orthodox theorists 
  explained the Abyssal energies of Sir James’ meteorites as 
  disproof of Sir James’ chronology: obviously, these meteors did 
  not come from Atlantis, but merely passed through the Abyss 
  after the Fall. Rebuttals simply ignored or ridiculed Owsley-
  Palmer’s claims of “trans–Supernal” energies, noting that the 
  few samples Sir James allowed others to examine showed wildly 
  variant results to each experimenter. To Sir James, however, his 
  results painted a consistent picture, one that grew darker as he 
  gathered more material. In 1926, reduced to a single coterie of 
  fellow paranoids, Sir James Owsley-Palmer and his followers 
  vanished forever — self-exiled in an etheric space Ark, removed 
  to some isolated sanctum in the African wilderness or encysted 
  within an Astral oubliette, no one could say for certain. He left 
  behind a ﬁ nal manuscript, published in 1927 as The Oracle of 
  Typhon, which presented the ﬁ nal version of his theory.
  The Outsiders, he wrote, were the “higher acamoth,” beings 
  actually native to a Realm under the Abyss, which predated, 
  surrounded and transcended the “fragile bubble of the Su-
  pernal” built by the planet Atlantis. The Outsiders smashed 
  Atlantis not out of fear, but out of idle malice or, worse yet, 
  as casually and unknowingly as a man steps on an ant. Once 
  their Abyssal energies leaked “up into our perception,” hu-
  mankind was doomed. Owsley-Palmer identiﬁ ed hundreds of 
  anomalous happenings, mysterious deaths and occult rumors 
  as stemming from the activities of “acamothic cults,” formed 
  by the “wisest of the wise,” whose greater perceptions forcibly 
  realigned their sympathies toward the Outsiders. The more 
  Awakenings, the more tunnels the Outsiders potentially pos-
  sess into our Realm and the weaker reality becomes. The Fall 
  of Atlantis, Sir James wrote, is happening all around us right 
  now, inescapable and implacable.
  Time and Again
  Sir James’ various theories might have had more impact 
  in another era, but by the interwar period, challenges to the 
  classical view of Atlantis had become practically de rigueur 
  among daring young mages. Only a few of the wild variations 
  proposed ever caught on with any but a small circle of would-
  be heresiarchs. Most of these theories turned out to be either 
  misunderstood or bowdlerized versions of earlier theories lifted 
  from previous Atlantean questers or from the increasingly 
  tumultuous world of Sleeper science and occultism. A circle 
  of Awakened poets in Paris, Les Cantospheriens, reprinted 
  a number of Scarlet Mulberry codices in collectors’ editions 
  throughout the 1920s, sparking another wave of Astral searches 
  and a civil war in Mongolia. Elsewhere, a very enthusiastic 
  treader of the Thrysus named Byron Khun de Porok attempted 
  to reawaken the entire Garamantean empire in 1925 through 
  “bio-archaeo-necromancy” in the Algerian mountains.
  One of the more original variations on the Atlantean theme 
  came out of an attempt to blend Einstein and Atlantis. The 
  eccentric Lithuanian physicist Ingrid Tyaamat proposed that 
  Atlantis did not “sink” in the vertical dimension, but in the 
  temporal one. The Awakened City was not buried deep beneath 
  the waves, but deep behind the eons, hurled 900 million years 
  backward in time. The Atlanteans had slowly lived their way 
  back toward the present, evolving both magically and physi-
  
  37
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  cally until they became the great dragons that appeared in the 
  dreams of the ﬁ rst human Awakened. Just as some conven-
  tional theorists believe that a single island outcrop of Atlantis 
  remains above the waves, Tyaamat proposed that as much as 
  a week of Atlantis might remain in the present, accessible at 
  “calender chakra points.” Fragmentary seconds of Atlantis, 
  scattered across the ages like ash from a volcano, may explain 
  the Awakening of similarly scattered human mages.
  It Is All Happening Over Again
  Another relatively original theory sprang from the pen of 
  the exiled Russian symbolist poet Dmitri Sergeyevitch Merezh-
  kovsky. Although a Sleepwalker, he attracted an active salon 
  of Awakened followers within the Russian émigré community 
  in Warsaw and Paris, who treated him as something between 
  a mascot and a “holy fool.” In 1930, he published a nearly 
  impenetrable tome, The Mystery of the West: Atlantis-Europe. 
  Although Merezhkovsky plagiarized most of his supporting 
  arguments from Donnelly’s books and similar works, the central 
  argument was the Russian’s own. Atlantis, it seems, reincarnates 
  itself throughout history. In every epoch, a faction disgusted 
  by the base activities of the Material Realm attempts to raise 
  a Celestial Ladder to enter the Supernal, and a rival faction 
  wages war to prevent it. That war knocks away the Ladder and 
  destroys Atlantis all over again. Merezhkovsky was cagy about 
  speciﬁ c past incarnations of Atlantis, hinting that Troy, Rome 
  and Tenochtitlán all show suggestive elements of the pattern. 
  He reserved more of his attention to warn this epoch’s Atlantis, 
  Europe (speciﬁ cally Paris) that a “hidden hand” had smashed 
  the last empires and was raising up a new blasphemy. A new 
  war was inevitable, then, between those who sought to conquer 
  the Supernal and those who would prevent them, and, in that 
  war, Atlantis-Europe would be destroyed within the century. 
  As it happened, it only took another decade.
  The Return of Hyperborea
  The forces that would conﬁ rm Merezhkovsky’s vision, if 
  not his cosmology, had been gathering intellectual steam for 
  250 years. In 1679, the Swedish savant Olaf Rudbeck began 
  by arguing that Plato was a blind alley: Norse sagas and Ho-
  meric epics both pointed to Sweden as the original Atlantis. 
  In 1781, the French astronomer and mystic Jean Sylvain Bailly 
  used Rudbeck’s research to argue that Atlantis must have been 
  in the far north, well above the Arctic Circle. The coming of 
  the ice, in a sudden catastrophic cooling, destroyed Atlantis, 
  and the Atlanteans migrated south to found civilizations in 
  India, Greece and so forth. In 1819, the philosopher Friedrich 
  von Schlegel adapted a name from Herodotus to denote this 
  super-race: the Aryans.
  Tilted Paradise
  The “northern Atlantis” theory appealed to a faction of 
  Awakened thought as well, which had likewise neglected Plato 
  in favor of other threads to the skein. A number of cabals built 
  from neo–Druid movements in Georgian England, German 
  university fraternities and a widespread clan of Awakened 
  Tuscan nobility took part in a wide-ranging letter-writing circle 
  of occult study and occasional Astral travel. These Drachensoh-
  nen, the Sons of the Dragon, began to focus ever more closely 
  on the ﬂ ights of the dragons seen by the original Awakened 
  around the spire of Atlantis. To the Drachensohnen, that 
  ﬂ ight both preﬁ gured and symbolized the wheeling of the 
  constellations around the polestar. Thus, the study of ancient 
  astronomy was the ﬁ rst key to the study of Atlantis.
  Although the traditional Atlantis legend of the Awakened 
  describes the spire of Atlantis as “pointing at the polestar,” 
  most mages neglected that element of the story, considering it 
  merely emblematic of the role of Atlantis in magical evolution. 
  To the Drachensohnen, the pointing of the polestar was the 
  literal truth. But if Atlantis was beneath the polestar, it meant 
  one inescapable truth: the Pole was once warm. Bailly’s work 
  showed that on an Earth with a vertical axis and no orbital 
  tilt, there would be no seasons, and the world would be in 
  eternal spring. The 12-hour day of the Arctic would be a day 
  of fertility and life, allowing cultivation and cities far above the 
  modern Arctic Circle. This, then, was Atlantis: a city raised 
  on a rocky crag too far north for the monsters and revenants 
  of the primordial world to hunt but warm enough to allow 
  human civilization to grow there, protected by the watchful 
  eye of Draco, the constellation coiled around the northern 
  sky. Until one fatal day, the day of the Fall, when the Earth’s 
  axis tilted to its present 23.5 degrees, throwing the Arctic into 
  six months of darkness every winter and allowing glaciers to 
  spread over the battlements of the Awakened City.
  The notion of a catastrophic tilt in the distant past, ending 
  a Golden Age of perfection, was not original to the Sons of 
  the Dragon. The pre–Socratic philosophers Empedocles and 
  Anaxagoras both assumed axial tilt, and even Plato (in The 
  Statesman) mentioned a reordering of the Earth’s rotation 
  as a “shock that set up a great quaking which caused . . . the 
  destruction of living creatures of all kinds.” In Paradise Lost, 
  John Milton described an axial tilt as the proximate cause of 
  the destruction of Eden, and the 18th-century French naturalist 
  the Comte du Buffon had likewise explained the extinction of 
  large animals by that means. What the Sons of the Dragon did 
  was present a coherent Awakened version of the theory, and 
  tie it to the notion of a northern “Aryan Atlantis.”
  As far as any modern Awakened researcher can discover, 
  the Drachensohnen did little damage in the name of their 
  anthropological enthusiasms. They mounted expeditions to 
  polar islands, investigated the Edda and sagas of the Norse 
  and drew up elaborate charts of the stars during various dis-
  tant epochs. Of course, various dark rumors still cling to the 
  Drachensohnens’ actions, from vampiric contamination by 
  the Ordo Dracul to ritual arson and incest. Most of these are 
  probably “blowback” from the Sons’ vastly more dangerous 
  intellectual descendants, the Thule Gesellschaft of Munich.
  Armies of Thule
  If the Sons of the Dragon now wear a veil of obscurity 
  and rumor, the Thule Society is practically buried beneath 
  a shroud of such stuff. Few mages will even admit that the 
  
  38
  Thule Gesellschaft might have been a cabal, and those who 
  do ascribe it to their own worst enemies within the Pentacle. 
  Self-justiﬁ cation, slander and the chaos of World War II have 
  drowned the truth about the Thulists deeper than Atlantis. 
  All that is known are the bare facts.
  In 1918, a mystic named Rudolf von Sebottendorf organized 
  meetings of an “intellectual study group” called the Thule 
  Gesellschaft, or Thule Society, in the Four Seasons Hotel in 
  Munich. This group named itself for “Ultima Thule,” the 
  northerly land discovered by Pytheas of Massilia in around 
  300 BC, which, thanks to the Sons of the Dragon and similar 
  scholars, had entered common occult parlance as a synonym 
  for Atlantis. The Thule Society in its turn founded the Na-
  tional Socialist German Workers Party — the Nazi Party — as 
  a “workers’ auxiliary” to its aristocratic, intellectual activities. 
  After the failed Nazi putsch of 1923, the Thule Society per 
  se drops out of the records. Five years later, another theorist, 
  Hermann Wirth, posited the existence of an “Atlantean” 
  civilization on Thule (in his theory, a continent spanning 
  Greenland, Iceland and Spitsbergen) between 25,000 and 
  12,000 BC. Wirth founded the Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heri-
  tage) Society in 1935, along with his patron, Reichsführer-SS 
  Heinrich Himmler. Although the Ahnenerbe expelled Wirth 
  in 1937, it continued to seek out the remnants of Thule (and 
  Atlantis) across the globe.
  The Thulists most likely believed in a “Hyperborean” Atlantis, 
  a secret sorcerous kingdom of perfect Aryan giants hidden from 
  corrupt, fallen humankind, and spent no little effort searching 
  for it. The Ahnenerbe launched expeditions, with increasing 
  SS participation, to Iceland, Tibet, Brazil, Ethiopia and the 
  Canary Islands, among other exotic locations. Ahnenerbe 
  researchers studied rune magic, yoga, Druidism, astral and 
  dream travel, weather control and witchcraft — and ran the 
  Dachau torture chambers and V-2 rocket facilities. This much 
  is known; the rest disappeared with the Ahnenerbe records 
  during the Allied invasion of Germany in 1945.
  The rumors, by contrast, are vast and contain multitudes. 
  The Thulists have been painted as a “noble remnant” of Awak-
  ened working secretly to destroy Germany’s magical empire 
  from within, or as the black core of Nazism, puppet-masters 
  jerking the strings of Hitler, Hess, Himmler and others. The 
  Thulists were mere mortal fumblers, or masters of magics 
  completely unknown to today’s Awakened. The Thulists sought 
  the Dreaming Butterﬂ y Temple in Tibet, or the Hollow Earth 
  in Antarctica. Their lore was pure Aryan runic wisdom, or 
  technomagic of the most inhuman and futuristic kind. They 
  all died in a suicidal death-ritual in 1945, or they escaped to 
  Argentina or the Astral Realm. They were a completely inde-
  pendent group Awakened by some unfortunate coincidence 
  or evil demon, or willing slaves of the Seers of the Throne or 
  loyal tools of some faction still working its will unsuspected 
  in today’s Pentacle politics.
  Although ofﬁ cial Pentacle Consilium opinion is that the 
  whole topic is tasteless, pointless and beneath comment, almost 
  every mage has an opinion about which, if any, of the Thulist 
  personalities were Awakened, and, if so, which known or 
  existing cabals or orders they might have worked with. It does 
  beggar belief that Nazi Germany, alone of all major human 
  governments from Shang dynasty China to Castro’s Cuba, 
  would have no Awakened mages working within it. If such 
  mages did exist, they could well have been carrying out the 
  agenda of the Silver Ladder or the Guardians of the Veil, who, 
  in all other circumstances, boast of their complete penetration 
  of Sleeper politics and society. Likewise, the modus operandi of 
  the Ahnenerbe could be a model of Mysterium activities; Free 
  Council Libertines are quick to toss hints and allegations (not 
  to mention epithets such as “storm troopers”) at the Adaman-
  tine Arrows. Of course, more sensitive members of the four 
  Diamond orders then point out that the Thulist movement 
  was as rejectionist as any Free Council cabal, and the whole 
  argument disintegrates into personalities and subjectivism.
  New Views Over Atlantis
  In the modern era, Atlantis remains a symbol and a lode-
  stone, but the meaning of the symbol, and the direction the 
  lodestone draws the Seeker, are perhaps as tangled as they have 
  ever been. All the theories and speculations of the past four 
  millennia have been revived by the simultaneous ﬂ owering of 
  information on the Internet and elsewhere and disintegration 
  of orthodoxy in politics, mores and art. Even now, though, 
  most Awakened probably still hold an orthodox, “Platonist” 
  view of Atlantis: an Awakened island city at the beginning of 
  history destroyed by hubris and war in a ﬂ ood or cataclysm 
  that left behind the Abyss and scattered remnants across the 
  globe. A plurality may even still accept Plato’s word that Atlantis 
  was “beyond the Pillars of Heracles,” in the North Atlantic 
  Ocean somewhere. But even the average, conventional mage 
  (a concept that doesn’t really exist, of course) likely takes her 
  own view of the speciﬁ cs. She breathes in the dust of heresy 
  and apocrypha raised over the last 4,000 years, and some of 
  it sticks. She may believe that the Exarchs were Nagas, or that 
  Atlantis sank beneath lava in Tanganyika rather than saltwater 
  in the Caribbean. And somewhere, there’s a cabal ready to 
  stake everything on any one of those doubts.
  Apocrypha Now
  There is still room for Atlantis in the postmodern, over-ex-
  plored, evermore interconnected world of the third millennium. 
  The Congo River has only been scientiﬁ cally descended once. 
  The Gobi Desert remains a blank spot on the map. Pristine 
  valleys still reveal themselves in the Guiana highlands or upper 
  Laos. Revisionist geologists and orthodox Tamers of Rivers 
  debate underwater pyramids newly seen off Cuba and Oki-
  nawa. Sleeper archaeologists admit that there are still hidden 
  chambers beneath the Giza Plateau; Awakened scholars discover 
  unknown map tables baked into the ruins of Pompeii. Even 
  where satellites or scryers spot new and promising details — a 
  roadway through the Guatemalan jungle or a buried fortress 
  in the Pakistani highlands — civil war or environmental chaos 
  can keep whole provinces as inaccessible as they were during 
  the time of Solon.
  
  39
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  Forgotten Cities
  These ﬁ ve vanished places straddle the shift-
  ing boundary between truth and legend, history 
  and myth. The roads to Atlantis lead through 
  such gates.
  Bigo bya Mugenyi: A network of interlock-
  ing earthworks and trenches, some of them cut 
  12 feet deep through bedrock, encircles a cluster 
  of eroded mounds along the Katonga River in 
  Uganda. Iron tools and crystal artifacts have 
  been found, along with niches cut high in the 
  trench walls and a ceremonial reservoir up the 
  river at Bwogera.
  Archaeologists ascribe these mounds, similar 
  to others in the area, to the Kitara, a culture 
  that ﬂ ourished in the region between 1000 and 
  AD 1500. Others say the Bigo ruins date to the 
  Shenzi, a large kingdom destroyed by Arab slave 
  traders in the 8th century AD. The locals, how-
  ever, ascribe them to Mugenyi, the wizard-king 
  of the Chwezi, who are a combination of spirits 
  and giants possibly based on the priestly “me-
  diums” of the Kitara. The locals swear that the 
  Chwezi carry off trespassers in their ruins.
  Cahokia: On the eastern shore of the Missis-
  sippi River, opposite modern St. Louis, a 100-foot 
  earthen mound similar to a Toltec pyramid rises 
  from a base larger than the Great Pyramid of 
  Giza. “Monk’s Mound” (the largest of over 100 
  earthworks on the site) was the center of Cahokia, 
  the largest city north of Mexico until the 19th 
  century. Cahokia’s population crested at 40,000 
  around AD 1100; 400 years later, it was an un-
  known wasteland. Perhaps one reason why: one 
  skeleton, the “Bird Man of Cahokia,” was found 
  in a ridge-top mound, lying atop 20,000 seashell 
  beads laid out in the shape of a falcon — and atop 
  250 slaughtered corpses.
  Ephyra: Located in mountainous Epirus, in the 
  wild northwest of Greece, the Cyclopean fortress 
  walls here date back to the 13th century BC. On 
  the shore of Lake Acherousia, where the riv-
  ers Cocytus and Acheron met, Ephyra held the 
  famous Nekromanteion, the “oracle of the dead.” 
  Ephyra was literally the opening to the under-
  world. As such, it became a shrine to Hades and 
  Persephone, and a major cult center down to the 
  classical era. A vast underground labyrinth con-
  nected the temple buildings and provided access 
  to the “cauldron” where the dead appeared to 
  pilgrims. The Romans destroyed Ephyra in 167 BC; 
  in the 18th century, a monastery of St. John the 
  Baptist was built on the hilltop above the ruins.
  Loulan: Likely called Kroraina in the Tocharian 
  language of the city’s founders, this city in the 
  wastes of Xinjiang dominated the Silk Road traf-
  ﬁ c between China proper and Central Asia. The 
  red-haired Tocharians mummiﬁ ed their dead in 
  bright plaid kilts, and buried them in caves over-
  looking the Tarim River. The Chinese described 
  the people of Loulan as “resembling birds and 
  wild beasts,” and treacherously slaughtered the 
  Tocharian king at a banquet in 77 BC. Around 
  400 years later, the Tarim River abruptly 
  changed course, leaving Loulan in the middle of 
  the desert, where the sands swiftly buried it.
  Yonaguni: In 1985, Kihachiro Aratake discov-
  ered immense, regular structures underwater off 
  Yonaguni in the Ryukyu Islands south of Japan. 
  Later dives, especially after a 1998 seaquake in 
  the area, seemed to reveal an 80-foot pyramid 
  of stone and coral, with weathering and lichen 
  patterns indicating that its construction (if such 
  there was) dated back to 8000 BC. This “pyra-
  mid” matches both the legendary palace of the 
  Japanese Dragon King, Ryujin, and the natural 
  result of undersea volcanic ﬂ ows.
  In and out of the Mysterium, mages search ancient records, 
  or clamber across the Nan Madol causeways in Pohnpei and 
  down the Moche grave shafts in Ecuador. Algerian mages now 
  trumpet the “Atlantis in the Sands” theory, and vision-quest in 
  dreams for the vanished bison-lords of the Saharan grassland. 
  Occult architects and Awakened eco-tourists hunt for Cities of 
  the Sun in Australia and the 999 Steps to Shangri-la in Nepal 
  (and occasionally vice versa). Presumably, the spirits damned 
  by the Jailers of Pentheus to the Atlantean Hell are also still 
  imprisoned there; every so often, rumor claims that some 
  Moros mage or Clavicularian legatee has contacted or freed 
  one of the spirits out of desperation or charity.
  Driven half by kitsch and half by nightmare, the Knights of 
  Maelzel cabal in Baltimore launches an annual expedition in 
  search of the Hollow Earth during the ﬁ rst week of October 
  on the anniversary of Poe’s occultation and death. Even India 
  seems more welcoming to Atlantis questers driven by the Agra 
  Revelations, although such expeditions seldom ﬁ nd anything 
  but further twisty complications. The few that succeed seem-
  ingly require the active cooperation of one of the nine ofﬁ cious 
  and opaque directors of the Vighnaharta Secretariat in New 
  Delhi (which blandly claims afﬁ liation with the Guardians 
  of the Veil and the Silver Ladder, to the confusion of both) 
  to avoid bureaucratic entanglements, misadventure and the 
  occasional tragic accident.
  Both protectors and pilgrims take on new forms in the new 
  India. Bangalore is the “hub sanctum” for the New Shoal of 
  Night, a Free Council-afﬁ liated “hypercabal” run online by 
  Awakened scholars in India, Singapore and Hong Kong. Other 
  programmers in Spain and Finland are working on algorithmi-
  
  40
  cally interleaving the Picatrix with the “most reliable versions” 
  of the various Picators to “breed” a “pure-bred Atlantean child-
  text,” the Calix, which they believe may somehow combine 
  the features of familiar, grimoire and spirit guide. Going the 
  other direction, an anonymous cabal posting as RDX/RGX 
  claims to be attempting to crack the Atlantean genome using 
  “donated mage DNA.” Their web page denounces the “tale 
  of the blood thief” in which newly-Awakened in Lagos or 
  Caracas suffer “missing time” and mysterious wounds as an 
  urban legend unrelated to their work. Such mytho-ideological 
  chaff is grist for the mill at acacia-and-gold.net, which freely 
  and anonymously distributes top-shelf document and photo 
  forgery materials to all comers in the name of letting “a 1,000 
  ﬂ owers bloom in Dilmun.”
  Off the Net, the Helotists still draw worshipers both Sleep-
  ing and Awakened to their Candomblé ceremonies in the 
  teeming slums of Brazil and Angola, not to mention more 
  upscale temples in Los Angeles and Lisbon. Los Angeles also 
  hosts at least one moribund “Neo-Callistite Church,” and an 
  active Awakened rave club that doubles as a fane of the Queen 
  of Tears. Specialty publishers catering to the Awakened keep 
  Tyamaat and Merezhkovsky in print, and crank out endless 
  Agra Variations. Older sects and heresies likewise cling to 
  relevance, if not to reality, in shabby sanctums from Volgograd 
  to Vancouver.
  The Legacy of St. Michael has splintered into three main 
  surviving branches. The Scriptoire de St.-Michel pursues futile 
  lawsuits against the French government to be allowed to return 
  to the Mont while chasing increasingly faint genealogical trails 
  through the lesser libraries of Europe. The Daughters of Me-
  lusine ofﬁ cially disbanded in 1968, but have allegedly moved 
  their entire operation undersea to a hidden sanctum off the 
  coast of Brittany to explore parthenogenesis, mermaids and 
  “Atlantis in Ovo,” whatever that means. The last branch of 
  the Legacy, which calls itself the True Legacy of Saint Michael 
  Protector, bases itself in a compound in Montana, where the 
  members worship the theoretical “shining ones” who conceal 
  “Atlantis-America.”
  The Legacy’s idiosyncratic blend of Sioux traditions and 
  British Israelitism would convince nobody of anything, save 
  that the Legacy’s grim, crew-cut scholars turn up amazing 
  ﬁ nds, which they share with a select few mages at infrequent 
  Chicago Mysterium caucuses. Less openly, rumors persist 
  of a New Bellerophon Society, transmitting its conceptual 
  spacecraft along radio waves to NASA or ESA satellites, 
  and more grimly of a Thulskaya Soviet emerging in chaotic 
  post–Gorbachev Russia devoted to “advancing the bloodline 
  of pure Slavic Thule.” These mages reportedly recovered the 
  old Ahnenerbe library seized by the Red Army in 1945, and 
  carry on the Thulist agenda from sanctums in abandoned 
  gulags above the Arctic Circle.
  But even the self-proclaimed heretics have their own heretics 
  who question their sources and methods. At least two other 
  fringe cabals claim the “true” mantle of Thule, and there are 
  more variations on the Agra Revelations than ever. Awakened 
  conspiracy theorists accuse each other of being fronts for (or 
  enemies of) the Hyperborean Secret Masters, and occasionally 
  confess it themselves. Even uncertainty is uncertain, in the 
  postmodern magical mind. As the Age of Aquarius pours out 
  this ﬂ ood of confusion, both ancient and modern, a few new 
  apocrypha have bobbed to the surface, new lands of inspira-
  tion above the murky waters.
  Atlantis/Babylon
  Probably as a result of a Weimar-era upsurge in sorcerous 
  urbanism, a number of artists both Awakened and Sleepwalking 
  put on a 1931 exhibition in Berlin entitled “Atlantis-am-Spree.” 
  The paintings and photographs (many of them composed in 
  trance states) depicted Atlantis in existence simultaneously with 
  Berlin; even individual buildings were shown in both “blind” and 
  Atlantean “poses.” The exhibit became a founding document 
  of the Atlantean Spectacle International, a quasi–Situationist 
  postwar cabal that attempted to magically and perceptually 
  repurpose West Berlin, recuperating the Spectacle of the Cold 
  War as the Struggle for Atlantis/Babylon. To the ASI, “Babylon” 
  was the universal unitary Material City, while Atlantis was the 
  universal unitary Awakened City, which were the same city. 
  The motto of the ASI was “lose the other eye instead,” which 
  became a viral chorus in a number of punk repertoires of the 
  1970s, with unknown magical effects today.
  Atlantis Never Ended
  A postmodern Acanthus mage who goes by the Net handle 
  VALIS postulated a slightly similar theory in 1992, namely 
  that Atlantis remains all around us, “drowned beneath a sea 
  of consciousness.” In this view, the Fall was also the waking 
  of humankind to active consciousness, and Awakening is a 
  kind of return to a “sleep of incubation” in which the powerful 
  Aethyrs of the Watchtowers act within us and “see through 
  our eyes.” Atlantis “disappears by day for the same reason the 
  stars do — not because it is gone, but because we are blinded 
  to it by the sun of our mentation.” A bizarre blend of Suﬁ sm, 
  Situationism and Jaynesian psychology, VALIS’ theory en-
  joyed a brief vogue during the 1990s among younger mages, 
  especially those who found their oblations leading through 
  pharmaceuticals.
  On January 8, 2001, VALIS posted a second (or, by his new 
  reckoning, ﬁ rst) theory: Atlantis only sank seven days ago, on 
  the last day of the last millennium. Time, history and memory 
  are scrims thrown up by the trauma of the Fall, which has 
  led to a “seemingly random ordering of wealth, magic and 
  society.” These, he says, are the ﬁ rst years of chaos, and our 
  job is to “pierce the veil of the Exarchs and see the bubbling 
  maelstrom where our City can yet be saved.” Although rather 
  fewer mages seem to have embraced VALIS’ “New Old Echo-
  ism,” a handful of extreme Mastigos theorists in Japan claim 
  that his insight explains some of their more puzzling experi-
  mental data. Their truculent championing of the “Quantum 
  New Echoism” has raised hackles among some conservative 
  Guardians of the Veil, who claim to have discovered connec-
  tions between VALIS’ Japanese acolytes and the remnants of 
  Sir James Owsley-Palmer’s old Bellerophon Society.
  
  41
  CHAPTER ONE: atlantean apocrypha
  And We Shall Build Atlantis
  The most popular new apocryphon is probably 
  the New Jerusalem Movement, which began as a 
  Pentecostal church in Uganda. The pastor, Philip 
  Kalule, is an active Awakened member of the Free 
  Council with a powerful interest in all matters At-
  lantean. Through prayer, meditation and research, 
  Kalule determined that the New Testament book 
  of Revelation refers to Atlantis, which the New 
  Testament calls the New Jerusalem, to be built 
  in the perfect Kingdom of God after the tribula-
  tions of the millennium. Although this concept 
  had existed before in Christian hermeneutics of 
  Plato, Kalule’s new wrinkle was to reverse causal-
  ity. The orthodox myth of Atlantis, he preaches, 
  is backward. The effect precedes the apparent 
  cause; the legend is not past but prophecy. These 
  are not the post–Atlantean times of chaos, but 
  the pre–Atlantean times of chaos. There never 
  was an Atlantis, save for the one we still see in 
  dreams, drawing us forth to our best Awakened 
  selves. With every Awakened soul, and every new 
  magical rote, we mages build the Awakened City, 
  which we will call Atlantis and New Jerusalem. We 
  will raise the Ladder to Heaven, and walk in the 
  green and pleasant lands of the Supernal Realms, 
  one with God the Father of All Magic.
  Kalule’s preaching, and his vociferous rejection of 
  the “doom myth,” has had an electric effect on many 
  African, Asian and South American Awakened of 
  all traditions, especially those drawn to the Free 
  Council. The strong Christian gloss he puts on 
  his preaching turns off some European Libertines, 
  and orthodox mages in the other four orders reject 
  Kalule’s gospel, but demographics are for now on 
  his side. Even if the New Jerusalem Movement does 
  not remain the new face of Atlantean apocrypha, 
  the legend of Atlantis will no doubt break increas-
  ingly free of Plato and Donnelly and sail forth into 
  the dreams and goals of a new world washed by 
  the oceans of the south.
  
  42
  
  43
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  Chapter Two: 
  Beneath the 
  Sediment -  
  Ruins
  “Run!” shouted Lytton. Velleda didn’t argue. Together they sprinted out of the 
  chamber and down the tunnel. Behind them, the circle of glyphs on the chamber wall 
  spat out a huge globe of sparking, roiling Mana. The two mages ran as fast as they 
  could, up and down stairs, through galleries lined with pillars, past statues and 
  inscriptions. With a ﬂ ick of his will, Lytton sent great stone doors crashing shut 
  behind them. The violet-sparking globe passed through them like a ghost.
  Velleda tried to concentrate through the pain in her lungs and the stitch in her 
  side. The orb followed them like… like a bloodhound. What trail did it follow? How 
  would this ball of magical lightning know to pursue a mage?
  Praying her guess correct, Velleda willed her own store of Mana to rise within 
  her and concentrate in her hands. She skidded to a halt, slapped her hands against 
  a statue of a dragon-headed man and willed the raw force of reality to pass into 
  it — all her Mana at once. The wrenching but completely non-physical effort left 
  her shaking. At the end of the gallery, Lytton saw Velleda couldn’t run. He shouted 
  words in the High Speech, made a grabbing motion, and Velleda felt herself yanked 
  through the air towards him.
  But the glowing orb did not pursue. A moment after Lytton pulled Velleda away, 
  it swerved and slammed into the statue. The orb vanished in a loud crack. The statue 
  vanished too.
  “Nice save,” Velleda gasped as she bent over to catch her breath. And then the 
  second orb rolled into the other end of the gallery.
  
  44
  For the moment — an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by — 
  I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand 
  the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, “Can you see anything?” it was all 
  I could do to get out the words, “Yes, wonderful things . . . ”
  — Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen
  Mages — at least those of the Atlantean orders — revere the 
  lost glory of Atlantis as a mythical Golden Age. While Atlantis’ 
  unity and power remain forever shattered by time and the ever-
  widening Abyss, relics of the Awakened City’s art yet remain. 
  Outposts of empire and refuges of the Exiled still survive the 
  passage of millennia. The remains of other kingdoms exist too, 
  rising and falling with Atlantis and the Sundering or created 
  upon the ruins of past glory by their successors. Finding an 
  intact site from the Atlantean age is a lifelong quest for many 
  mages. In Awakened parlance, such explorers and investiga-
  tors are commonly called “Seekers,” though some of the more 
  scholastic ones prefer the term “archaeomancer.”
  Atlantis fell long ago, taking with it most of its wonders and 
  treasures. The crystal palaces and silver towers of the Awak-
  ened City are gone, as if they never were. Little remains of the 
  ancient miracles wrought in other lands, making those sites 
  yet undiscovered among the most precious of all secrets in the 
  Fallen World. Naturally, the only sorts of “ruins” that interest 
  Seekers are places constructed with enough permanence to 
  survive until the present day. The growing strength of the Abyss 
  erodes the magic empowering and preserving Atlantis’ relics, 
  so Seekers know their hoped-for prize shall not last forever. 
  Perversely, however, this entropy also reveals new sites as the 
  spells that conceal them also weaken and fade.
  Mages who quest for Atlantean secrets follow a difﬁ cult and 
  dangerous path, but the rewards can be astonishing. Even a 
  simple bolt-hole dug by post–Fall refugees might contain long-
  lost rotes, forgotten lore or artifacts impossible for modern 
  magic to replicate — as well as more prosaic rewards such as 
  material wealth or tass. Every new site likewise brings hope 
  that it contains clues revealing the truth about Atlantis’ Fall. 
  These secrets come at a high price, though — not least, the 
  naked envy of other Awakened.
  Seekers often ﬁ nd that others dog their footsteps or lie in 
  wait for them. Archaeomancers should always beware of foes 
  wresting the prize away at the very moment of triumph, or 
  rushing ahead of them to the goal. Many mages (and stranger 
  entities) would kill for a mere glimpse at Atlantis’ secrets. Others 
  would shed oceans of blood to keep them hidden. Those who 
  search for lost relics should stay on their guard — especially of 
  those who share in the quest.
  Those Who Have Gone Before
  For one brief and shining age, Atlantis stood as a beacon to 
  the Awakened. Then Atlantis Fell, leaving behind only ruins, 
  legends and fragments of lore. Although mages have sought 
  Atlantis’ remains for millennia, numerous ancient ruins remain 
  undiscovered. However, only some of these ruins are actually 
  the work of ancient Atlanteans.
  Despite the comforting fables of the Diamond orders, At-
  lanteans were not the only ancient builders and mystic masters 
  — assuming Atlantis existed as such. More than one “barbar-
  ian” kingdom or sorcery rose and fell alongside the Awakened 
  City or afterwards, the rulers following traditions alien to the 
  Dragon Isle. They, too, left monumental works — temples, tombs, 
  palaces and cities — and magical heritages of their own. Just as 
  the remains of the Atlanteans, the remains of these kingdoms’ 
  passing await discovery, but the terrors and treasures found 
  within will be exotic and strange — even for Seekers.
  Most archaeomancers in the Atlantean orders believe the 
  pre–Fall Atlanteans built relatively few sites away from the 
  Dragon Isle, making them among the most coveted relics 
  imaginable. These far-ﬂ ung locations sheltered the Dragon 
  Isle’s best explorers, researchers and guardians. In these places, 
  Alae Draconis explorers, similar to their modern mystagogue 
  descendants, scoured the world for Arcane phenomena or 
  hunted the fantastic beasts that still roamed the Earth. Other 
  explorers, more studious in their pursuits, investigated myster-
  ies of the Supernal or probed byways of magic considered too 
  risky (or forbidden) for study on the island itself. Outposts and 
  fortresses housed the Atlanteans tasked with keeping the “bar-
  barian” kingdoms in check. These stalwarts were usually drawn 
  from the Eyes and Talons of the Dragon. A few locations were 
  colonies planted by Atlantis to grow and spread the Atlanteans’ 
  enlightenment and dominion throughout the world.
  After these titans, the Exiles who ﬂ ed the island became 
  the next wave of Atlantean settlement. They founded several 
  hidden, fortiﬁ ed communities before the Sundering destroyed 
  Atlantis. The shrines and workshops erected by the desperate 
  Exiles remain amongst the most dangerous places a Seeker 
  can ﬁ nd. The Exiles studied dangerous lore and brought forth 
  Things Best Forgotten in their bid to reclaim the Dragon Isle 
  from the nascent Exarchs. Those who trespass upon their halls 
  had best be on their guard.
  However, the most numerous sites were built after the Fall. 
  These were the homes of refugees who managed to survive 
  — at least for a time — the Exarchs, the Sundering and the 
  vengeance of Atlantis’ many enemies. Some refugees ﬂ ed the 
  city as the catastrophe struck, using magic portals to any place 
  they could manage. Other Atlanteans foresaw the coming 
  apocalypse and retreated to hidden sanctums erected in haste, 
  but still mighty by the standards of modern Awakened. These 
  mages and their followers were better prepared than the ones 
  who simply ﬂ ed; some of these mages managed to save a few 
  of Atlantis’ greatest treasures.
  
  45
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  support. However, the outlanders suffered as much as the 
  Atlanteans from the Abyss’ scourge and fell prey to the same 
  foes that plagued the Atlanteans. The outlanders’ legacies and 
  secrets similarly faded over time.
  A few refugees tried to recreate the Awakened empire, 
  but each attempt was doomed to failure. It proved almost 
  impossible for the remaining mages to rule the Sleepers with 
  magic as the mages once did as the growing tides of Disbelief 
  overwhelmed their waning might. Paradoxes grew more com-
  mon and severe until many spells became too dangerous, or 
  simply impossible, forcing the use of smaller, subtler magic. 
  Even the discovery of the Watchtowers did little to halt the 
  slow decline. With fewer mages Awakening in each passing 
  generation, many practices and lineages of teaching died out 
  or retreated into a paranoid secrecy.
  Some of these scatterlings blended into their new surround-
  ings in hopes they could civilize and enlighten the barbarians 
  they now lived among — often with mixed results. Although 
  none of these mystic teachers rekindled the ﬂ ame of Atlantean 
  culture, some of them established new and vibrant cultures 
  in their own right. Today, they are sometimes remembered in 
  myth and legend as mighty gods and mythic heroes.
  Enter the Seekers
  As the Seekers search for ancient places, they enjoy much 
  the same glamorous reputation among the Awakened that 
  Egyptologists held during throughout 19th century: intrepid 
  explorers and idiotic fools. On one hand, they uncover ancient 
  lore, lost rotes and powerful artifacts of Atlantis for their or-
  ders. On the other, they face grave dangers and often awaken 
  things best left undisturbed. Many cabals have suffered from 
  powerful curses unleashed by rash explorers or become the 
  victim of horrors unleashed from long-hidden crypts.
  Modern mages enjoy an unprecedented level of success 
  in ﬁ nding Atlantean-era ruins, making this a very proﬁ table 
  pastime for those who can survive it. The pace of discovery 
  has increased for several reasons. The recent growth in global 
  population has brought the mage population to an all-time 
  high. Few places remain far from the notice of the Awakened, 
  just as there are fewer unpopulated areas. The widening of the 
  Abyss and the actions of modern man in diverting ley lines 
  frequently dissipates the ancient spells concealing ancient sites. 
  However, the most important factor may be the simple fact that 
  mages use modern technology as well as magic. Atlantean-era 
  mages and their descendants never designed their wards to 
  hide their refuges from satellite sensors arrays or ultra-precise 
  mapping by lasers and GPS units.
  Numerous sites dating back to the days of lost Atlantis still 
  await discovery — each complete with traps, curses, monsters 
  and treasures left behind by the ancient Masters. A Seeker 
  may face just as much danger in searching for an Atlantean 
  ruin, however, as when she enters it. A Seeker soon ﬁ nds that 
  other entities do not want her to claim the relics of Atlantean 
  power. These entities range from friendly rivals — who may not 
  be above a little sabotage or subterfuge — to deadly enemies 
  Shangri-La
  One myth debated by the Mysterium says the 
  legendary Timori were one such group of colo-
  nists, departing the City in secret long before the 
  Exarchs seized power. These Exiles supposedly 
  built a new city far from the conﬂ ict of Exarchs 
  and Oracles and cloaked the city with the deep-
  est secrecy. Some mages think the legend of 
  Shambhala (or its modern name, Shangri-la) 
  comes from this secret city of the Awakened, so 
  they search for it in hidden, remote valleys of the 
  Himalayas and other Central Asian mountain 
  ranges. Other tales place the “second Atlan-
  tis” anywhere from the jungles of the Congo to 
  the Hollow Earth; see Chapter One for related 
  speculations.
   Such rumors of Shangri-la and other refuges 
  of primal sorcery emerge, mutate and reap-
  pear with each generation of mages. These 
  mystic communities live in quiet contemplation 
  and strict isolation to avoid the fate that over-
  whelmed their enemies and ancestors. Skeptical 
  mages suggest that Awakened who don’t feel 
  the urge to meddle are more unbelievable than 
  survivors from Atlantis.
  Other cultures left their own signatures in the past. Several 
  traditions of “barbarian” mages lived far from the Blessed 
  Isle. While some of these groups may have derived their lore 
  in part from Atlantean custom, others produced completely 
  alien traditions of magery.
  Many of these “aberrant” or “barbarian” kingdoms resisted 
  the growing power and tyranny of the Dragon Isle with youthful 
  vigor and desperate Arcane practices. For a time, according to 
  mages who claim to preserve their heritage, these outland sorcer-
  ers thwarted the occult machinations of the Visus Draconis and 
  repulsed repeated raids and invasions by the Dragon’s Talons. 
  In the end, these sorcerers, too, succumbed to the march of 
  time and the Sundering, to leave behind only fragments and 
  ruins. These other magical traditions are distinct from Atlantean 
  ones. Too late, more than one Seeker has discovered that his 
  carefully prepared rotes fail against alien wards and his pleas 
  in High Speech fall upon uncaring ears.
  The Fall Into Nightmare
  The destruction of the Celestial Ladder did not go unnoticed. 
  The world’s other supernatural denizens faced Atlantean attacks 
  and struck back after the Fall. Cryptids and other beasts hunted 
  the survivors, as did those Awakened who opposed Atlantis. 
  Without Atlantis’ might to fear, “barbarian” wizards attacked 
  the refugee settlements, partially in revenge for centuries of 
  oppression but mostly to wrest Atlantean secrets from the 
  pitiful survivors. Many colonies perished without Atlantean 
  
  46
  drawn from the Seers of the Throne or the Scelesti. Some of 
  the latter mages do not even honor even the loose rules of 
  the Magicus. Some opponents might not even be among the 
  Awakened since explorers often disturb the lairs of spirits, 
  cryptids or stranger creatures squatting in lost ruins.
  The Orders
  The orders often provide the lore and clues leading to ancient 
  sites. Seekers often barter information in exchange for favors 
  or support, particularly when dealing with the Mysterium. 
  On the other hand, prudent Seekers should avoid attracting 
  other mages’ attention — and envy. Politics is endemic in the 
  Awakened community, and Atlantean ruins rank among the 
  greatest of prizes. Hostile Consilii or superiors in the orders 
  might strip poorly connected or impolitic cabals of their win-
  nings and award them to “more deserving” mages. Cabals 
  often seek the patronage of more powerful mages, but, even 
  with the most inﬂ uential backers, Seekers sometimes ﬁ nd 
  themselves outmaneuvered in the political arena. Wise mages 
  keep their activities secret until they can present their “betters” 
  with a fait accompli.
  Each of the orders (and their foes) has its own typical views 
  about Seeking, and ways its members can participate:
  Adamantine Arrow
  On the surface, the militant order does not appear as inter-
  ested as the others in seeking out the remains of the lost city. 
  Like so much in the Awakened world, things are not quite how 
  they appear. Few experiences challenge an Arrow’s wits and 
  valor more than the traps and guardians the Atlanteans left 
  behind. Far too often, over-eager companions unleash things 
  that ought never to have been or unearth dangerous tools and 
  artifacts — forcing the Adamantine Arrow to act.
  Those walking the Brilliant Road can become excellent 
  Seekers in their own right as mages who are more scholarly 
  seek the Arrows’ expertise in military Arcana. The Arrows 
  provide much-needed magical muscle and ﬁ repower should 
  spells or diplomacy fail.
  Free Council
  The Libertines care little for the myths of ancient Atlantis, 
  but the Free Council eagerly seeks out original sources of lore 
  and magic. The Libertines don’t trust the bastardized, bowdler-
  ized, altered, annotated and expurgated lore handed down as 
  “truth” by the Atlantean orders. The Libertines would rather 
  see what the Atlanteans themselves had to say, and decide for 
  themselves if it’s useful. After all, the Atlanteans themselves 
  didn’t draw on millennia of tradition: they invented their 
  own magic, like the Free Council itself! Libertine Seekers who 
  manage to recover “the straight goods” gain great status among 
  their fellow mages, especially if their discoveries challenge some 
  bit of hoary tradition about the Dragon Isle.
  The bewildering array of abilities at the disposal of the 
  Libertines gives them a great advantage when stalking Atlantis 
  relics. Their multidisciplinary approach and use of modern 
  science and technology often circumvents more traditionally 
  organized defenses. The Libertines’ rejection of tradition 
  occasionally gives them insights into Atlantean ways lost on 
  the more traditional orders, just because the Libertines think 
  without preconceptions about what the Atlanteans “must” 
  have done.
  Guardians of the Veil
  Guardians of the Veil seek out mysteries as well as preserve 
  them. Over the centuries, many secrets have been lost in 
  tangles of lies, but the Guardians refuse to allow the unwor-
  thy to recover such lore, preferring to thwart or outrace the 
  other Seekers. This order does its best to stop the merit-less. 
  Labyrinths and cabals test opponents mercilessly until the 
  other mages demonstrate their worth by winning through to 
  their goal — or they fail.
  As Seekers, the Guardians have access to many of the truths 
  concealed beneath millennia of adaptations, reconstructions 
  and outright lies sown by the Seers and their own Labyrinths. 
  Who better than the Guardians to unravel the secret codes 
  and ancient death-traps the ancients left behind? Although 
  all Seekers value the Guardians’ assistance and crave their 
  blessing, few mages are foolish enough to trust them.
  Despite the passing of years, the Mask Bearers have not 
  forgotten the duties and obligations they owe to Atlantis. 
  Their Labyrinths conceal things best left forgotten: rotes too 
  powerful to be trusted to the Silver Ladder, corrupting lore too 
  seductive for the Mysterium, fell creatures too dangerous for the 
  Adamantine Arrow to face and artifacts too dangerous for any 
  mortal hands. Many of the Guardians’ front groups and secret 
  vaults have themselves become lost, however, and the Guardians 
  strive to recover them with an almost religious fervor.
  Mysterium
  Knowledgeable, inquisitive and well prepared: mystagogues 
  are the archetypical Seekers. Searching out ancient wisdom 
  is the lifework for many in the Mysterium. With the other 
  orders so focused on secrecy and the pervasive isolationism 
  so common among the Awakened, many secrets have become 
  lost. Cabals drop from sight. Teaching lineages die out. Secret 
  sanctums go missing. The Mysterium has lost much since 
  the Sundering; many in the order believe the time has come 
  to seek out and reclaim their full heritage. To this end, the 
  Mysterium has become very active during the past century as 
  members seek out any trace of their forbears in ruins and the 
  other realms of the Fallen World.
  Mysterium Curators are masters at recovering and re-re-
  covering ancient trinkets from their current owners. Many 
  expeditions start when a Mysterium-acquired treasure provides 
  the ﬁ rst clue to a lost fortress, shrine or tomb. Most of all, the 
  Mysterium seeks any traces of the order’s forbears’ Athenaeums. 
  The Mysterium has labored far too long without the wisdom 
  of its departed scholars and tutelary spirits. The information 
  contained within these temples may prove more relevant to 
  the degenerate mages of modern times than even the most 
  potent Atlantean weapons.
  
  47
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  Silver Ladder
  Even before the Fall, this order struggled to bring god and 
  demon under the yoke of the Awakened. The passing of mil-
  lennia has not swayed the order from its goal; the members 
  harness anything that might aid them in their quest. They 
  would like to recover the secrets once held by the Vox 
  Draconis. Naturally, only the Silver Ladder can be trusted 
  with such power . . . .
  The théarchs vow to break the cults that hide Atlantean 
  secrets from the orders, expose the Exarchs and their hidden 
  pawns and Awaken mortals who have the wit to see. The 
  relics of Atlantis remain among the most powerful examples 
  of the Great Art. That makes them a potent tool for helping 
  Sleepers to Awaken (or at least to Sleepwalk). Other mages fear 
  that such schemes could backﬁ re and render these powerful 
  treasures worthless from Disbelief. These fearful mages believe 
  the Silver Ladder courts hubris with its plans and often thwart 
  the order’s Seekers. Despite these setbacks, mages of the Silver 
  Ladder sometimes ﬁ nd that spiritual and mortal guardians of 
  Atlantis’ heritage still heed the Dragon’s Voice.
  The Others
  Mages of the Pentagram are not the only willworkers eager 
  to claim the Dragon Isle’s lost treasures for themselves. The 
  Seers of the Throne, the Banishers and the Accursed all lust 
  after the powerful artifacts and secret lore that an Atlantean 
  ruin might contain. Each ﬁ nd might hold the key to unlock 
  the Supernal Realms and catapult the discoverers to promi-
  nence. Even non–Awakened can interfere with Seekers 
  as many ancient shrines and cities rouse the interest of 
  Sleeper archaeologists and tourists. Seekers may even 
  encounter shapeshifters or vampires in their explora-
  tion, especially when a site holds signiﬁ cance for more 
  than one “faction” in the World of Darkness.
  Seers of the Throne
  Maintaining the Lie is all. The Seers attempt to sup-
  press or control each and every source of occult wisdom. 
  Similar to the Guardians, the Seers mask the truth with 
  layer upon layer of lies. Unlike the Guardians, the Seers 
  don’t see this as a way to protect either the Sleepers or 
  their fellow mages. The Seers follow up any rumors of 
  Atlantean-era artifacts or ruins with every available resource. 
  Local pylons and Ministries will stop at nothing to control 
  any Arcane treasures, passing them on to enrich the Hidden 
  Masters. Failing this, the Seers pervert or destroy their ﬁ nds 
  to prevent them from falling into the hands of the rebellious 
  orders.
  The Seers never forget that the Exiles spirited away and hid 
  powerful Atlantean devices to prevent them from falling into 
  the hands of the Exarchs. The minions of the Exarchs most 
  persistently search for remnants of the Exiles, just as these are 
  the very places most heavily warded against the Seers. When 
  the Seers and their minions ﬁ nd they cannot enter these places, 
  at least they strive to prevent others from beneﬁ ting.
  For all their power, the Seers are more reactive than active 
  in nature. They cast their nets widely, but often their resources 
  are spread very thin indeed. Despite this, few Seekers can brag 
  of completely escaping the Seers’ notice.
  Banishers
  The Banishers show little interest in past glories or Arcane 
  histories, let alone anything as clearly bogus as “Atlantis.” As 
  they see it, demon-spawned mages take precedence over some 
  antique fairy tale. Furthermore, since most Banishers operate 
  
  48
  in small cabals or as lone hunters, they simply do not have 
  the resources to engage in long-term exploration and research. 
  However, those Banishers who manage to stumble across clues 
  — often taken from the hands of their victims — might feel 
  compelled to seek out and destroy the perversions of magic 
  at the source. A few Banishers, however, become guardians of 
  ancient sites: in their delusions, they may think a magical site has 
  given them “holy” powers to defend it from “evil” mages.
  Banishers who know of Atlantis may hate its legacy with a 
  passion, believing Atlantis to be the fount of all misery — espe-
  cially their own. Some even know of the Timori. One legend 
  passed from Banisher to Banisher says that these proto-mages 
  spread their righteous fear of magic and Atlantis far and wide. 
  Such fears and hatreds ﬂ ourished when the dragon-spawned 
  Atlanteans began enslaving humanity. According to this legend, 
  this ancestral hatred remains to this day in all pure humans, 
  and accounts for both Paradox and Disbelief.
  Accursed and other Sinister Lineages
  Seekers may encounter particularly odious competitors 
  among the various groups of Scelesti. Similar to most mages, 
  the Scelesti would like to claim the powers of ancient wizardry 
  — albeit for their own foul ends.
  The Abyssal overlords of the Scelesti maintain their own 
  interests in the treasures of Atlanteans and the other primal 
  mages. These overlords encourage their servants to recover or 
  destroy particular artifacts and caches of lore. The Accursed 
  may be sent to desecrate some ancient ward that prevents their 
  masters from entering the Fallen World. Other Scelesti merely 
  hope to become more powerful servants of Unbeing. Whatever 
  their immediate motives, Scelesti are incredibly dangerous 
  opponents. The Accursed often suffer from complete moral 
  degeneration. Mages facing the Scelesti can expect no mercy, 
  not even a quick end, from these mad cultists.
  Sleepers and Sleepwalkers
  Other groups besides fellow Awakened can help and hinder 
  Seekers. In fact, several Awakened groups use mundane explorers 
  and scholars as their “stalking-horses” to uncover lost ruins or 
  hamper other Seekers. The Guardians of the Veil commonly 
  employ archaeologists and classicists in their Labyrinths, letting 
  these scholars do the order’s legwork. Labyrinth academics 
  search dusty libraries, raise money for archaeological expeditions, 
  painstakingly examine long-forgotten rubbings of Hittite stele 
  or cross-reference the similarities of Greco-Roman pottery rims. 
  With Sleepers performing the academic drudgery, Guardians 
  and mystagogues are free to pursue any clues revealed by their 
  unwitting allies’ winnowing through minutiae.
  The Seers of the Throne deploy their minions and thralls 
  liberally in their search for signs of other Awakened. These 
  “cut-outs” are usually expendable dupes. Their masters 
  squander their minions’ lives to delay or hamper enemies. 
  Some minions are mere cultists eager to lay down their lives 
  for a delusion, while others are cunning adversaries who can 
  use all the advantages of modern technology to spy upon or 
  assassinate their targets.
  A very few Sleepers and Sleepwalkers are called by the an-
  cient sites themselves. Many of these involuntary Seekers are 
  Proximi, compelled by ancestral memory or potent vision to 
  search out some long-forgotten temple. Atlantean-era mages 
  and their pupils created these occult bloodlines; their ancient 
  sanctums may draw the descendants back to their place of 
  origin. Discovering these truths can deeply affect such Sleep-
  walkers, making them question any loyalties they may have for 
  the mages who claim the Dragon Isle’s legacy.
  In addition to the Proximi, the blood of ancient mages 
  ﬂ ows in the veins of many otherwise ordinary people. These 
  descendants of Atlantis or her rivals sometimes fall under 
  the compulsion of ancestral duties. However, these modern 
  men and women are usually ill-equipped to fulﬁ ll or even 
  understand sudden, inexplicable desires that can make them 
  wonder whether they have gone insane. The reasons behind 
  such familial compulsions might involve delayed vengeance, 
  occult entities breaking free or even spells cast by long-dead 
  archmasters of Time upon their own descendants.
  Sleepers don’t have to be pawns of the supernatural to endanger 
  Seekers, though. Sleepers’ explorations can take mages to lawless 
  parts of the world where they may encounter bandits, insurgents, 
  government death squads or tribal warfare. Looters are a danger, 
  too. Some looters are just poor local people hoping they can feed 
  their family for a week off the sale of a purloined antiquity. Others 
  belong to ruthless, organized and heavily armed gangs. Aside from 
  the risk of automatic weapons ﬁ re, would-be looters may spy on ar-
  chaeomancers — becoming dangerous witnesses to vulgar magic.
  Stranger Things
  Finally, Seekers may encounter supernatural creatures that 
  have no connection to mages. For instance, some sites of 
  ancient magic contain loci, or places where spirits can obtain 
  their mystic sustenance. These locations not only attract spirits 
  (for obvious reasons), they also draw in werewolves, who seem 
  to regard these locations as sacred — and any other creature 
  as a deﬁ ler. Certain vampires also show an interest in places 
  of Arcane power such as Hallows and ley line nodes. The few 
  mages who study the undead say that vampires of this “Ordo 
  Dracul” may cut a deal with a Seeker, but should never be 
  trusted. They have dark powers unknown to mages, and thirsts 
  for blood and power that inevitably lead to treachery.
  Friendly Rivals
  “What was once yours, so brieﬂ y, 
  is now mine, Dr. Jones.”
  — Rene Belloq
  What band of intrepid Seekers is without its ri-
  vals — friendly or otherwise? Well-played rivals 
  provide Seekers with a long-term foil, and Story-
  tellers with numerous opportunities for character 
  interaction and plot twists.
  Unlike outright enemies, the greatest threat 
  from a rival is “getting there ﬁ rst.” Relationships 
  
  49
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  with these rivals can range the gamut from 
  friendly fellow professionals to bitter foes.
  In the former case, the opponents deal amiably 
  with the characters when together. Such rivals 
  might even provide characters with a little help 
  if necessary, especially if the rivals see that their 
  fellow Seekers are in danger from mutual foes. 
  Of course, rivals are not above a little sabotage 
  — they want the prize for themselves, after all. 
  Failure brings good-natured ribbing rather than 
  the swearing of eternal vengeance. Fellow mages, 
  especially those from the same order or Con-
  silium, make good rivals. Other options include 
  an old school chum who “just happens” to own 
  the other half of the amulet pointing the way to 
  the Emerald Tablet, or an old lover from the Silver 
  Ladder who cannot take “It’s mine” for an answer.
  More dangerous rivalries pit the characters 
  against ruthless scoundrels who stop at nothing 
  to win. These adversaries often come from ene-
  my lineages or hostile orders. Therefore, they are 
  quite capable of dealing with the Arcane threats 
  posed by other mages. Woe betide the mage 
  who falls into the clutches of these ﬁ ends — the 
  mage can expect little respite or mercy. However, 
  in the best tradition of occult ﬁ ction, such rivals 
  rarely slay their captives out of hand: one never 
  knows when an expendable prisoner is needed 
  to set off a trap or as a sacriﬁ ce to dark gods.
  Shards of the Dragon Isle
  An Atlantean-era or post–Atlantean site can be deﬁ ned in 
  as much detail as any sanctum. Storytellers should give careful 
  thought to the effects any given ruin might have on their cam-
  paigns. Just as important as the contents is the original purpose of 
  the site. Was it a hidden research complex where mages unraveled 
  the Tapestry in the name of enlightenment, or a grim fortress 
  that resisted the onslaught of barbarians in the name of Empire? 
  A site’s defenses and contents depend on these decisions. In 
  addition, the Storyteller must also decide what condition the 
  place is in: a barely recognizable ruin, a disturbingly pristine and 
  efﬁ cient complex or something in between?
  Some sites may be refuges for long-forgotten spirits and 
  creatures, while other sites contain things best forgotten. Many 
  of the powers used to build Atlantean sites are ones that 
  modern sorcerers can only dream of. Of old, the Masters and 
  archmages conjured their sanctums from the living rock or 
  wove impossible materials into lofty fortresses.
  Location, Location, Location
  The temples and shrines left behind by the Atlanteans, 
  their heirs and their rivals can occur almost anywhere: hidden 
  deep beneath modern cities, carved into isolated mountains, 
  concealed beneath lakes, built upon the seabed or ensconced 
  in grottoes only reachable through Space magic. The Dragon 
  Isle spread its web across the world, and Atlantis’ refugees were 
  similarly scattered. Other peoples rose up against Atlantis; their 
  remains lie scattered down through the ages.
  Ruins of these places can occur in the most desolate of regions 
  such as Siberia or the Himalayas. One infamous site was found 
  clinging tenaciously to a spire in the Ellsworth Mountains of 
  Antarctica. Unfortunately, the guardians bound within the 
  shrine’s walls attacked the expedition and the subsequent 
  battle collapsed the entire peak.
  Appropriately enough, Atlantean-era ruins are also found 
  under the sea. Mythology says ancient lands have sunk; geol-
  ogy says sea levels rose when the vast glaciers melted at the 
  end of the last Ice Age, more than 10,000 years ago. Sleeper 
  archaeologists don’t expect to ﬁ nd anything but the occasional 
  spearpoint or hunter’s campsite in the drowned lands of the 
  Bering Strait, the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea or the 
  Black Sea. Archaeomancers know better.
  Few of the world’s famous archaeological and historical 
  sites house Atlantean-era ruins. If these sites ever did, the 
  relentless scrutiny by Sleepers and their casual Disbelief has 
  long since corroded away any relationship between the sites 
  and the Supernal. This does not preclude a historical site’s 
  importance. Studies of several locations such as Karnack have 
  led Awakened investigators to other sites that remain unspoiled 
  and unplundered. In at least one case, Seekers discovered 
  remnants of the original Atlantean-era construction concealed 
  behind a mask of historical architecture. Other times, modern 
  mages ﬁ nd the treasure-troves collected by Seekers of long ago. 
  Several years ago, a group of Mysterium Seekers stumbled upon 
  a secret shrine within the sprawling complex of Angkor Wat 
  in Cambodia that contained several ancient treasures, among 
  them a set of Mestorian Bracers (see p. 106).
  While most ruins discovered exist in the Material Realm, a 
  few are located in Twilight or even within the Shadow Realm. 
  Mages wishing to explore these places must enter Twilight 
  themselves or use Arcane means to manipulate these subtle 
  Realms. Many of these ghostly places once had a correspond-
  ing component in the material world but now only exist as 
  ephemeral memories of the past. In a few cases, the ancients 
  built sites in their entirety on the Subtle Planes. There, the 
  mages studied ephemera directly. The location of these sites 
  provides an effective shield against spies and mundane inter-
  lopers. Returning treasures from these hiding places to the 
  coarser material world might prove difﬁ cult.
  Even the Shadow Realm provides a home to relics and ruins. 
  Constructed from principles and allegory, the Atlanteans (and 
  others) constructed at least one stronghold entirely on the far 
  side of the Gauntlet. Evidence exists that some places were 
  actually pushed through it with powerful rituals. From these 
  spiritual citadels, the ancient magicians studied the shifting 
  lands beyond the Gauntlet and conducted experiments upon 
  spirits. Such spirits might remain there, as timeless guardians 
  or as bitter foes of those who tormented them.
  
  50
  an Atlantean relic and catalog it along with their more mun-
  dane ﬁ ndings. For example, clay tablets written in the High 
  Speech might be mistaken for some variant of Linear B or an 
  unknown tongue of the ur-peoples of Mesopotamia, and put 
  aside. Only when the tablets fall into Awakened hands is their 
  true signiﬁ cance understood. From these beginnings, Seekers 
  may journey from museum to archaeological dig, to the home 
  of a reclusive collector and then back to their home city to 
  unlock the gate leading to some ancient temple.
  King Scorpion’s Frieze
  Carved into an isolated cliff-face halfway be-
  tween the ancient Egyptian cities of Abydos and 
  Hierakonpolis, a frieze depicts King Scorpion and 
  a victory procession. This is the ﬁ rst concrete 
  proof of Egypt’s ﬁ rst ruler (deemed mythical 
  by generations of archaeologists) and is more 
  than 5,000 years old. Scattered throughout the 
  account are glyphs and symbols in the High 
  Speech! The writing hints at the location of 
  Scorpion’s palace, where his priests and magi-
  cians worked great spells to bring him victory. 
  Time has ravaged much of the picture, but that 
  should be no obstacle to clever mages . . . .
  Deciphering ancient scrolls, ﬁ nding Atlantean references in 
  ancient myths and similar bits of Arcane research is an exercise 
  in the Academic or Investigation Skill, depending upon the 
  resources available. See World of Darkness, pp. 55–56, 59–60. 
  Typical penalties range from –1 to –5 unless the character has 
  the appropriate specialization or research material at hand, as 
  the material is usually written in some obscure language or 
  contained on shattered fragments.
  Many Atlantean-era sites exist entirely within their own 
  realms, suspended in the pockets and folds of reality. Here 
  the sites remain, unaffected by the passage of years or the rise 
  and fall of empires. In these places, Atlanteans, their descen-
  dants and others conducted experiments into the very nature 
  of the Tapestry, striving to wrest the powers of Heaven from 
  the gods themselves. Other realms were refuges, temples of 
  contemplation and healing as their perfect isolation allowed 
  those within peace. Some were magical oubliettes where rebels 
  and abominations were sequestered.
  The dangers of investigating these hidden realms are many. 
  Some realms even disappear or collapse if violated by tres-
  passers, stranding would-be thieves elsewhere. Others sites 
  are frozen bubbles of time that preserve the contents against 
  future need. Some Pocket Realms hold fantastical creatures 
  not seen by Sleepers for millennia, protected against rust and 
  rot — only to fall to the scourge of Paradox when exposed to 
  this degenerate modern age.
  However, the most sought-after Atlantean sites lie within 
  ancient Demesnes. It is said that here, hidden and protected 
  by the most powerful Arcane wards, are soul stones belonging 
  to pre–Fall Atlanteans or their rivals. Many mages would kill 
  for the chance to study what secrets these stones possess.
  Searching Among the Ruins
  Traces of Atlantis and her rivals appear throughout the past. 
  Hints are gleaned from ancient texts, and their shadows are 
  cast by antique architecture — but only if one knows where 
  to look and how.
  Uncovering the clues leading to some ancient stronghold 
  are often adventures in themselves. This makes the life of a 
  Seeker one of careful research and meticulous investigation, 
  punctuated by episodes of travel, conﬂ ict and occasional terror. 
  Frequently, Labyrinths or archaeological expeditions uncover 
  
  51
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  On very rare occasions, some Atlantean-era treasure is discov-
  ered intact, marking the way to a new trove. These astounding 
  ﬁ nds invariably spawn a mystical “gold rush” between rival 
  expeditions. In other rare instances, an ancient place itself 
  calls out to souls naturally attuned to it by resonance.
  Advice From Beyond
  Robbing the dead suits the style of certain mages as they loot 
  tombs and call up the ghosts of the departed for interrogation. 
  Although ghosts of the Awakened — especially ghosts of Atlanteans 
  or their contemporaries — are in short supply, the servants and 
  companions of such mages can yield a wealth of information to 
  the mage willing to disturb their slumber. The Jailers of Pentheus 
  were infamous for binding their murdered sacriﬁ ces into Atlantean 
  Hells, in hopes of gleaning information from the ancient dead.
  Other mages use the Spirit Arcanum to summon advice 
  from entities that dwell timelessly beyond the Gauntlet. This 
  course is fraught with danger, but it yields staggering rewards 
  to a clever mage.
  Anyone interested in calling forth spirits to question them 
  about the ancients must realize several things. Most spirits 
  are in fact too young to remember the Sundering and can 
  provide little advice. Those spirits that might recall the days 
  of the Awakened City are often powerful in their own right, 
  and many of them have little cause to remember Atlantis 
  fondly. They have no wish to see its heirs prosper. Before you 
  can question these spirits safely, you must ﬁ nd the bans and 
  formulas of obedience set by the ancient Atlanteans — formulas 
  themselves hidden or lost for millennia.
  Unless coerced, any spirit with knowledge worth having 
  will attempt to strike a bargain in exchange for the knowledge. 
  Spirits that simply volunteer information have their own rea-
  sons for such “generosity.” Being told of an Atlantean ruin 
  “for free” should trouble any mage with an ounce of sense. 
  Occasionally, spirits such as Ananke (see Mage: The Awaken-
  ing, p. 330) might be charged with passing on their master’s 
  legacy, but such “guides” have their own agendas that make 
  them troublesome (to say the least).
  Ley Lines and Geomancy
  Many ancient sites — not just the Atlantean ones — are inti-
  mately associated with the network of ley lines that spread like 
  a web over city and countryside alike. Such juxtapositions lead 
  many Awakened scholars to speculate that the ancient mages 
  harnessed or even created these ﬂ owing channels of mystical 
  energy. Such geographic manipulation is traditionally called 
  geomancy, although spells are not necessarily involved. The 
  most well-known modern form is the Chinese art of feng shui, 
  which seeks to control resonance through the manipulation of 
  architectural form, landscape design and geological wisdom.
  As a result, Seekers who know geomancy sometimes trace 
  powerful ley lines from node to node, hoping they will lead 
  to new treasures. This is not as easy as it sounds. Over the 
  centuries, ley lines shift location and resonance as the climate 
  and landscape change. A rockslide blocks a river one year. A 
  forest ﬁ re denudes a hillside a century later. Marshes encroach 
  upon meadows. Each event changes the “dragon lines” a little 
  more and can completely alter the course and “ﬂ avor” of a 
  line over time.
  Changes to the landscape caused by humans have become far 
  more important in recent centuries. The effects on the ley lines 
  caused by terracing for olive groves or clearing pastureland is a 
  ﬂ eabite to the landscape compared to the widespread ﬂ ooding 
  for hydroelectric dams, or the vast amounts of earth and metal 
  laid down for a railway. Even so, a skilled mage may still locate 
  ancient ruins based on careful studies of the local geomancy 
  — though the task often requires the hand of a master.
  Geomancy
  Intentional geomancy requires sensitivity to 
  ley energies, best represented by the Prime 1 
  “Supernal Vision” spell (see Mage: The Awak-
  ening, p. 221), though any form of Mage Sight 
  will do. Some Sleepers develop such sensitivity, 
  perhaps through dowsing or other folk methods. 
  (See World of Darkness: Second Sight for 
  information about such Sleeper magic.)
  Characters who can feel these energies can 
  study the complex interplay of their shape and 
  ﬂ ow. The contingencies involved are so varied 
  and dependant on local situations that no concise 
  guidelines can be given. The only way to be sure 
  is for someone with knowledge of geomancy to 
  study the particular area, which is represented 
  in the game through a Mental Merit, described in 
  Chapter Two of Sanctum & Sigil. This descrip-
  tion focuses on its uses in Arcane archaeology.
  Merit: Geomancer (•)
  Prerequisite: Occult Skill Specialty in Geomancy
  Effect: The character has a sense for the ley 
  line energies in the local landscape, and can 
  apply certain principles to determine how the ley 
  lines’ path, intensity and resonance are affected 
  by construction, architecture, interior design, 
  landscaping and pretty much any activity that 
  has occurred in the place.
  The character can make an extended action 
  Intelligence + Occult roll to ﬁ gure out what has 
  affected the ley energies. The target number 
  depends on the size of the area, and how far 
  back the character wants to trace the geomantic 
  changes. Atlantean-era sites lie in the distant 
  past, and the local net of ley lines may have 
  undergone dozens or even hundreds of changes. 
  In such cases, 20 or more successes might be 
  required to map the effects of time — even consid-
  ering that powerful mystic sites tend to bend the 
  local energies and attract ley lines through all 
  
  52
  the changes. The time per roll is one day, during 
  which the character studies the area and con-
  templates how geomantic principles might apply. 
  Possible tool modiﬁ ers include classic geomancy 
  manuals (+1 or +2, depending on quality), dows-
  ing rods (+1) and even satellite imagery (+2).
  Dramatic Failure: The character completely 
  misunderstands the meaning and portent of 
  certain features of the area. If exploration pro-
  ceeds along these lines, the investigators ﬁ nd 
  themselves in some dire predicament (clinging 
  to cliffs, exploring unstable caves, trespassing 
  upon military bases, etc.).
  Failure: The character fails to grasp how the 
  area’s ley landscape has altered.
  Success: The character has a timeline for how 
  the shape and/or ﬂ ow of ley lines in the area 
  have changed.
  Exceptional Success: The character’s knowl-
  edge is so precise that other effects are possible, 
  such as uncovering possible nodes or revealing 
  the logic behind the initial network of ley lines.
  Other uses of geomancy can be found in 
  Sanctum & Sigil.
  Through the Smoke
  Visions are another source of Atlantean revelations. These 
  experiences run the gamut from peyote dreams and spirit-quests 
  to Seer-sponsored experiments using LSD on unsuspecting 
  Sleepers. However achieved, these visions gift a mage with insight 
  into Supernal truths behind Fallen World symbols. Through 
  these methods, groups such as the Shoal of Night traced the 
  symbolic truths thus revealed to their manifestations in the 
  material world. Not surprisingly, Acanthus mages favor this 
  chancy avenue of investigation more than most Awakened.
  Even a mage’s Awakening might foreshadow an Atlantean site 
  through symbols and shadow plays, encountered during Astral 
  journeys, or seen in waking dreams: a site that will become 
  crucial in the dreamer’s future. This helps set up characters 
  for a long-term campaign as Seekers or provides a convenient 
  hook for Storytellers to engage in a ﬂ ashback scene.
  Some mages choose to journey within. Setting sail through 
  the Astral Realms, these mages seek out traces of Atlantis reso-
  nating in their souls. The insights granted by this technique 
  are highly subjective but have proven their worth on several 
  occasions. This is particularly true of those mages who have 
  strong ties to an Atlantean past. Sometimes, the clues within 
  the Temenos or the Dreamtime are full-blown Atlantean sites 
  in their own right; see Chapter Four.
  Visions can break upon the unprepared mage, too. Suscep-
  tible mages may receive images of a nearby holy place on the 
  verge of desecration by Scelesti or looting by minions of the 
  Exarchs. Images of terrible weaponry or unholy forces breaking 
  free of their shackles might haunt the Awakened until they 
  act — or until it is too late.
  Hiding in Plain Sight
  Some hidden truths lie in the propaganda embraced by vari-
  ous occult groups and the “lunatic fringe.” This is especially 
  true of former or “misplaced” Labyrinths of the Guardians of 
  the Veil and orphaned Seer pylons. Careful sifting through 
  half-understood cant, partial-truths and outright lies might 
  dislodge some kernel of truth. Perhaps some occult rhyme 
  contains the location of an Atlantean treasure or the key 
  unlocking the wards of some forbidden site.
  A Muddle of Magicians
  Certain books and games are designed to dis-
  credit the occult by making it silly. One series of 
  books portrays a young boy, Mordechai Jones, 
  and how his overly active imagination and 
  belief in “magik” gets him in trouble. An astute 
  Libertine realized that the setting of A Muddle of 
  Magicians (featuring a bizarre non–Euclidean 
  library) bore a great resemblance to the lost 
  Sanguine Repository. How the clues ended up in 
  the book is not yet known, but the wealth of lore 
  more than repaid the effort of reading several 
  children’s books.
  The Exarches’ thralls, enslaved spirits and ghosts keep a 
  covert watch over many ruins. Mages who can spot these 
  guards for what they are might be able to explore a site previ-
  ously unknown to the Pentacle. Seekers should be wary as the 
  guards and their masters may actually permit intruders to get 
  past them and follow in their wake or ambush them upon 
  exit. The Exiles warded many sites against the Exarchs: the 
  Exarchs’ minions are happy to relieve the Seekers of what the 
  minions could never obtain on their own.
  Disappearances are common in the World of Darkness. In 
  a few places, people disappear at almost regular intervals but 
  no cause is ever found. Sometimes these places are associated 
  with Verges, but there may be other explanations. Such regu-
  lar disappearances may point to a lost ruin. Such places may 
  only be accessible at certain times. Perhaps the spells warding 
  the site only open at certain times or places. Rumors exist 
  of Atlantean places where even the most powerful sorcerers 
  disappear without a trace.
  Palace of Alabaster Fountains
  In the Empty Quarter of Arabia, mirages of 
  unknown settlements and strange mountains are 
  frequently seen. Travelers’ tales speak of beauti-
  ful cities and gardens hidden by jealous de-
  mons. However, if a mage knows exactly where 
  to stand, a single step brings the traveler to the 
  
  53
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  Palace of Alabaster Fountains — but only if he 
  waits for dawn. There, the joys of the ancients 
  wait the mage’s arrival. None have returned.
  Some lost places call out to mortals sufﬁ ciently aware to hear 
  them. On rare occasions, the mere proximity of someone with 
  sufﬁ ciently high Gnosis can draw the attention of spirits and 
  guardians who reach out to contact the mage. This contact 
  may be as subtle as a mystical tug leading the mage back to the 
  site. Other mages may ﬁ nd themselves abruptly transported 
  to the conﬁ nes of some hidden Demesne or a Pocket Realm. 
  Mages may ﬁ nd escape from this predicament difﬁ cult, as the 
  guardians strive to keep their new “master.”
  Hidden Shrines, Hidden Terrors
  Even after Seekers deduce the general location of a ruin, 
  they face many obstacles. Almost without exception, powerful 
  magic hides and protects any ruins that remain inviolate.
  Mages have always instinctively hid secrets and knowledge 
  to ensure that their power does not fall into unworthy hands. 
  Most especially, mages hide anything that could be used against 
  them. What deﬁ ned “unworthy” changed and narrowed as the 
  Atlantean orders grew estranged and the Dragon Isle’s legacy 
  faded from the world. Eventually, entire teaching lineages died 
  out and took the secrets of their Atlantean forebears to the 
  grave. These places yet remain, abandoned and forgotten.
  Getting In
  These ancient places lie hidden, often at the end of deep cave 
  systems and Labyrinths, hidden in trackless jungles or otherwise 
  sequestered beyond the touch of the profane material world. Only 
  mages with the proper keys and knowledge might locate an entrance 
  — though Mage Sight might sufﬁ ce for a willworker in the right place 
  at the right time. Only the most skilled and clever willworkers can 
  hope to disarm the mystical and mundane hazards that discourage 
  the unworthy from entering these sacred precincts.
  Passwords, Keys and Sigils
  Sometimes, entering a mystic site is as simple as presenting the 
  right token or saying a password — except that paranoid willwork-
  ers rarely make anything simple. The tradition has grown among 
  Seekers of calling physical tokens of passage keys, even though they 
  rarely take the form of a literal key to open a mundane lock.
  More likely, a key is a special talisman or other object. Perhaps 
  a Seeker must ﬁ t the key into a matching carving on a door; 
  perhaps the key’s mere presence lets a person past a barrier or 
  guardian. Mages who try to duplicate a key’s shape probably ﬁ nd 
  that’s not enough. A key might need to be made of thaumium 
  or some other exotic or magical material, or the key may need 
  a speciﬁ c resonance, or actually be imbued with a particular 
  spell. (Such keys might be useful items in their own right, and 
  often are needed for other purposes inside a ruin.)
  Not all keys are so easily deﬁ ned, though. Stranger possibili-
  ties include the following:
  • The key is a rare substance or combination of substances; 
  the shape doesn’t matter. For instance, Seekers may need a 
  special perfume or incense to appease a gatekeeper entity.
  • Only a particular sort of creature (perhaps a gatekeeper en-
  tity) can pass a ward or enter a region charged with some deadly 
  magical aura. To enter, a Seeker must kill the creature and cover 
  herself in its blood, fat or skin. This gives protection — for a little 
  while. Or, a mage might take the form of that creature. (For a 
  nasty example, perhaps only zombies and revenants can pass.)
  • The key is itself a creature. A portal might open only for 
  a descendant of its creator, a Seeker might need fruit from a 
  speciﬁ c, enchanted tree or the key might be a spirit or Goetic 
  entity Seekers must summon from unearthly Realms.
  • The key is actually the gate itself. If taken to a particular 
  place, perhaps at a particular time, the key creates a Space 
  portal to — elsewhere.
  Ancient mages also used passwords a lot. (So do their modern 
  heirs, of course.) Some passwords are meant for anyone with 
  a particular background to use, such as a proverb or maxim 
  favored by the order or faction who built a site. Other pass-
  words can be idiosyncratic and virtually impossible to guess 
  or research. Even a master of Time might fail to scry several 
  millennia into the past to overhear a long-lost password. Even 
  if known, a password can be made more challenging to com-
  municate. For instance:
  • A personal password might need to be spoken in the actual 
  voice of a site’s creator. Refer back to “overhear something 
  from millennia ago.”
  • A password may need to be spoken with a nonhuman 
  voice. A Seeker must use Life magic so she can speak in the 
  ultrasonic squeak of a bat, say, or an authentic tiger’s roar.
  • Or a password isn’t spoken at all, but telepathically sent 
  using Mind magic.
  Sigils fall somewhere between keys and passwords. They 
  don’t have to be pre-existing objects; a Seeker just has to draw 
  the right diagram or image to gain entry. As usual, there may 
  be complications:
  • A sigil may need to be drawn in some specially compounded 
  pigment, such as a chalk infused with particular minerals, or 
  ink brewed from special herbs.
  • The most mystically potent drawing material is, of course, 
  human blood. A Seeker may need to carve a sigil into his own 
  bleeding ﬂ esh.
  • Less drastically, a sigil might be drawn on a person’s body 
  using Life magic (or tattooing with a special pigment), turning 
  the person into a key.
  • A sigil may need to be drawn in a special way, such as 
  the pigment-spitting method sometimes used by Australian 
  Aborigines, or the Paleolithic painters of Lascaux and other 
  caves.
  Mystical patterns form a subtler analogue to keys or sigils. A 
  key might be completely nonphysical, such as a shape crafted 
  in ephemera or pure Mana. A barrier might open only to 
  a person with a particular Pattern or resonance, such as a 
  descendant of the site’s creator, or a member of a particular 
  
  54
  Path. Life magic might be needed to give a Seeker a particular 
  quirk to her Pattern. A mage might set a ward or guardian to 
  accept nothing but his own, speciﬁ c Life pattern.
  Any or all of these methods might be combined 
  in a ritual. Many ancient portals, wards or 
  guardians demand both a key and a password 
  before they let someone pass. A more elabo-
  rate ritual might call for a mage to chant a 
  formula (a password) while tracing a mystic 
  ﬁ gure (a sigil) using a special knife, wand 
  or other object (a key). A human sacriﬁ ce 
  is just an especially nasty ritual — but some 
  ancient mages thought that way, and not 
  all of them were barbarians.
  Sometimes the ritual is as simple as 
  showing up at the right place at the 
  right time to say a password or present 
  a key. Such times are usually set astro-
  nomically, such as moonrise, the vernal 
  equinox or a particular conjunction 
  of planets. Or the time might be set 
  by some sort of astronomical clock, 
  such as the one hour a year when 
  sunlight passes through a deep slit or 
  between two standing stones to shine on 
  a carved symbol. Ancient peoples relied 
  on the Heavens to tell them the time; the 
  Atlanteans, their rivals and heirs followed 
  the same custom.
  Challenging the Worthy
  Some ancient builders didn’t trust any 
  sort of key, password or other objectively 
  deﬁ nable token of passage. Physical keys 
  can be duplicated. Life magic can change 
  a mage’s appearance to fool a sentry. Even 
  resonance can be faked. A test or ordeal, 
  however, can reveal an attempt to verify 
  a mage’s identity and right to enter by 
  challenging the entrant’s knowledge 
  and qualities. The builders hoped that 
  intruders could not fake such elements 
  of character.
  Thus, puzzles and enigmas are as 
  frequent challenges as guardians. Typi-
  cal challenges revolve around virtues 
  pertinent to the architect’s order or Path 
  as well as being suited to the secrets 
  hidden within. Other challenges may 
  be based upon philosophical precepts 
  or allow entrance only to those with 
  certain Virtues or Merits. Provided 
  here are guidelines and typical chal-
  lenges based upon the Paths and 
  Atlantean orders:
  
  55
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  • Members of the Adamantine Arrow prides themselves 
  on being masters of occult defense. Mages entering Arrow 
  fortresses and monasteries must demonstrate their mastery over 
  the world. Tests of strategy and the warrior virtues of bravery 
  and service are just as common as confronting and defeating 
  a guardian. (Carving a sigil in one’s own ﬂ esh, as mentioned 
  above, would be a classical Arrow test of resolution.)
  • Guardians of the Veil are purveyors and protectors of 
  secrets. Those seeking entry into Guardian ancient safehouses 
  must demonstrate their knowledge of secrets. Seekers might 
  have to choose the necessary over the moral — and pay a per-
  sonal price of some sort. Perhaps the Seeker must offer up a 
  secret to the Guardians in payment. Alternatively, an intruder 
  might be challenged to keep a secret, no matter what.
  • Mysterium mages were Atlantis’ scholars. Spectral 
  loremasters and other gatekeepers may challenge the Seeker 
  to demonstrate her logical acumen or knowledge of ancient 
  secrets. Tests frequently involve solving riddles or puzzles.
  • The Silver Ladder values will and judgment. Those able 
  to command others through force of personality or persua-
  sion are worthy. Seekers who can determine just solutions to 
  legal and moral dilemmas are also cherished. Compelling a 
  hostile guardian to obey is a typical test; this might involve 
  riddling out its Ban, to show that one commands by wisdom 
  instead of brute force.
  • Much as other orders hate to admit it, the Seers of the 
  Throne are heirs of Atlantis too, and the supporters of the 
  Exarchs left their own ruins. Gaining entrance to the Seers 
  hidden shrines and temples may involve accepting powerful 
  oaths of fealty to the Exarchs. Nothing is acceptable except 
  complete submission.
  Some time after the Fall of Atlantis, the Watchtowers 
  arose. The mages who served them built their own shrines 
  and devised testing rituals as well. While these builders may 
  have wielded less arcane might than their Atlantean forbears, 
  sites dedicated to the Paths carry a lighter burden of history. 
  Their builders cared less about arcane points of lore than an 
  entrant’s character. Simple spells can detect the resonance of 
  a mage’s Path — but other spells can disguise resonance. A 
  mage’s choices, especially when made under stress, provide 
  a surer guide.
  • Acanthus — Arcadia and faerie partake of oaths. Mages 
  seeking entrance are often judged based on how they have 
  upheld trust and faith in the past. A quester may ﬁ nd himself 
  transformed into another shape and must regain his true 
  appearance.
  • Mastigos — These willworkers draw power from Pande-
  monium’s mind-realm of lies and nightmare. Tests invoke 
  the quester’s own mind and challenge her mastery over her 
  failings and longings. Seekers must discern truth from lies if 
  they wish to continue.
  • Moros — This Path’s tests seek to distract the quester with 
  wealth or mundane power. The unworthy crave these triviali-
  ties. Death is always present; Seekers often must overcome or 
  evade its embrace.
  • Obrimos — Mages of the Mighty face challenges of com-
  bat and righteous strength. Less violent tests might involve a 
  difﬁ cult moral judgment. Through tests of lightning, ﬁ re and 
  justice, mages demonstrate their worth.
  • Thyrsus —Only those who can exert their will over beast 
  and spirit deserve to learn the jungle’s secrets. A test might 
  involve defeating or taming a fell beast — or perhaps ﬂ eeing 
  from it. The Primal Wild’s ﬁ rst law is survival and includes 
  knowing when to run.
  Ancient Etiquette
  Ancient customs of hospitality, Atlantean and otherwise, 
  remain sacred in some holy places. Guardians may permit entry 
  only to visitors who know the proper rituals, and thereby prove 
  they are Atlanteans rather than barbarians. (Such courtesy only 
  extends to entry and is no guarantee of safe conduct inside.) Lack-
  ing further instruction from the original owners, the guardians 
  may revert to attacking intruders, especially if the mages make poor 
  “guests.” Naturally, High Speech is essential in many Atlantean 
  ruins, though modern willworkers may ﬁ nd their understand-
  ing challenged at every turn. Even the most learned mystagogue 
  couldn’t know all the variations of custom practiced through the 
  ages. Often what is believed to be “true” Atlantean practice is 
  revealed as a modern conceit or even a barbarian custom.
  Outlander Custom
  Some places, such as those built by non–Atlantean tradi-
  tions, maintain customs that seem outré to willworkers who 
  follow the heritage of Atlantis. For example:
  • Blood shed on the door-stone shows the trust of the guest for 
  his host. Intruders become vulnerable to sympathetic magic, espe-
  cially the Life and Fate Arcana, should they betray their hosts.
  • Guests must properly accept the Three Gifts of ﬁ re, salt, 
  and bread from their hosts. It is unfortunate that the remaining 
  “hosts” are now long-dead revenants — and they hunger.
  Through the Back Door
  Some ruins offer willworkers a way past the 
  trials and tribulations of the outer wards — usu-
  ally a Space portal. Almost without exception, 
  however, “back doors” have wards and gate-
  keepers as formidable as the main entrance, 
  and require very speciﬁ c keys or passwords to 
  use safely. The creator of a back door probably 
  never meant for anyone else to use it, ever, so 
  there shall be no clues or tests of worthiness to 
  help other mages. Prudent Seekers traverse “un-
  guarded” portals with great trepidation, for they 
  often dump unauthorized travelers in prison-
  cells, deathtraps or other dire predicaments. A 
  Master of the Space Arcanum might be able to 
  reset the spells controlling such a portal — but 
  this requires access to both ends of the passage.
  
  56
  Veils of Concealment
  In addition to defending ancient sites from trespassers, spells 
  of remarkable power conceal the sites from casual discovery 
  or deliberate scrying. The most common of these defenses 
  rely upon the Mind, Time, Space and Fate Arcana. These 
  spells resemble the concealments used by modern mages (see 
  Sanctum & Sigil for examples) — but are more powerful than 
  any modern mage can cast.
  Wards built with the Mind Arcanum twist the thoughts of 
  people near the site to other concerns. Simply put, mortals 
  living within the spell’s grip never think to question the 
  anomalies hidden in their midst.
  The Hill
  A hill covered in tangled forest rises from the 
  middle of a well-manicured suburb. The lo-
  cal citizens never explore the hill or notice the 
  tumbled stones at its peak; the inhabitants don’t 
  acknowledge the hill’s existence in any way. 
  People who see the hill from afar and draw close 
  soon forget the reason they came and depart, 
  never once looking or noticing the hill again.
  Powerful mental bans can prevent a site from appearing on 
  maps. People who study the area from afar with such modern 
  means as aerial photography, remote sensing and satellite im-
  agery might uncover such anomalies, but when they enter the 
  area, the investigators lose interest in their goal — distracted 
  by local minutiae — until they leave once again. Occasionally, 
  these powerful wards permanently alter investigators, who then 
  move on to other concerns. Only supernatural creatures have 
  any chance to resist the magic — and even they may succumb 
  if they venture near the source of the spell.
  Similarly, the Fate Arcanum ensures that only people who 
  ought to ﬁ nd the site ever do. Other Seekers might search 
  forever, but they never seem to locate the correct entrance or 
  unlock the warding magics on their own. Mishaps or distrac-
  tions always intervene. With luck and destiny stacked against 
  them, these Seekers should ﬁ nd and follow explorers who are 
  more favored. Let people destined for success blaze the trail. 
  Minions of the Exarchs often employ this scheme, hoping to 
  seize control as soon as other mages have threaded the maze 
  of destiny around a site.
  While not especially useful in keeping intruders at bay, Prime 
  3 “Disguise Resonance” can alter a site’s resonance, making 
  it less visible to those seeking it out. Prime 5 “Dead Zones” 
  surround some sites. This spell makes them almost impossible 
  to discover through magical means though areas where magic 
  does not work implies the existence of these hidden sites.
  The Space Arcanum is one of the primary warding methods 
  used during the era of Atlantis. Powerful magic warps the land 
  around the location, making it impossible to locate without a 
  precise map. Such maps were closely guarded in Atlantean times, 
  and probably don’t exist anymore. Trying to unravel this form of 
  ward requires careful study, perhaps by using the Fate Arcanum 
  to determine the correct path. This can be a time-consuming 
  process; Seekers might be wiser to search out a guide or map 
  instead. Variants of “Hide Space” are another common method 
  of sheltering ancient sanctums from both casual and determined 
  visitors. In several cases, ancient mages created Pocket Realms 
  whose size staggers the imagination of modern mages.
  Hints passed down through the Scarlet Mulberry Society 
  indicate that some Atlantean-era mages used powerful versions 
  of the “Future Legacy” spell to push entire temples forward 
  in time. These places remain undiscovered simply because 
  they do not exist yet.
  Blackout Zones
  Mayday! Mayday! Everything’s gone dead! 
  We’re—
  — Unheard distress call of Flight 109 over 
  Labrador
  The suppression of modern devices over a 
  wide area is an effect observed around the 
  most isolated Atlantean-era ruins. Within these 
  zones, electrical and electronic devices function 
  ﬁ tfully or not at all. Since most modern equip-
  ment relies on such principles to function, most 
  of it stops working. Helicopters fall from the 
  sky. Radios receive only static, then go dead. 
  Compasses spin wildly. In extreme cases, even 
  some chemical reactions such as explosives are 
  suppressed. Seekers trapped in such zones must 
  rely on brute force — and Arcana.
  Mages speculate why these “Blackout Zones” 
  occur. Are they powerful Forces wards? But why 
  would the Atlanteans ban technologies that 
  wouldn’t exist for millennia? (Though some evi-
  dence suggests the Atlanteans wielded a strange, 
  magical technology of their own; see “the Vimana 
  Engine” on p. 106, for instance.) Some mages think 
  these zones are actually remnants of reality as it 
  was before the Sundering and the Exarchs changed 
  the world. For all the frustration and danger of such 
  zones, these mages believe these zones may be the 
  most precious Atlantean relics of all.
  Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on 
  your point of view), “Blackout Zones” are subject 
  to the unraveling effects of Disbelief. Encoun-
  ters with modern explorers have long since 
  destroyed any of these zones near populated 
  areas — though such locations might explain the 
  inexplicable disappearance of aircraft ﬂ ying over 
  remote parts of the world. However, the shocked 
  Disbelief of passengers and crew as their equip-
  ment undergoes impossible failure usually 
  results in the zone’s destruction.
  
  57
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  Fooling the Wards
   Bypassing wards with brute force is often an exercise in 
  suicidal futility. Such arrogant foolishness usually results in 
  the detonating of wards, the arrival of guardians and all the 
  pain and suffering the builders saw ﬁ t to inﬂ ict upon such 
  interlopers. Instead, mages answering the riddles or challenges 
  posed by the guardians demonstrate the rightfulness of the 
  mages’ presence. 
  For all the care ancient mages took to keep out uninvited 
  guests, however, wards and gatekeepers are seldom infallible. 
  Wily mages can trick their way past wards by using Mind Arcana 
  to Think Right Thoughts or to read the minds of guardians for 
  correct passwords. Force rotes twist a mage’s image or conceal her 
  presence. Prime may neutralize detection spells long enough for 
  intruders to slip past. Space magic allows willworkers to bypass 
  defenses entirely by moving past them — assuming there’s no 
  ward speciﬁ cally against this Arcanum. Spirit or Death magic 
  might be used to call up the ghosts and spirits of long-dead 
  builders or their minions for interrogation.
  For Seekers without the precise lore, applying Investiga-
  tion and Occult abilities might allow a clever mage to solve 
  unanticipated puzzles or ﬁ gure out a way to deceive a warding 
  spell, challenge or guardian. Those mages with the “Enigmas” 
  specialization are particularly adept at these challenges.
  Gnosis and Arcanum: The Keys to Awakening
  Some Atlanteans (and to a lesser extent, their contemporaries 
  and heirs) apparently thought that mages with a greater Super-
  nal connection were somehow worthier than others. Gnosis, 
  rather than ability with Arcana, formed the litmus test; these 
  builders reckoned that only Atlanteans — or only Atlanteans 
  from their order or faction — could possibly possess wisdom 
  and Supernal understanding equal to their own. What hubris! 
  Later mages would curse this arrogance as they struggled to 
  acquire the Supernal lore the Atlanteans so handily gained. 
  For better or worse, though, the ancient mages constructed 
  barriers that were sensitive to the Supernal connection of 
  people confronting them. These might bar all but worthy 
  entrants to an entire site, or these barriers might protect only 
  certain, special chambers within a ruin.
  Gnosis Ward
  Some wards and gates require the person 
  passing through them to have a certain minimal 
  connection to the Supernal World. Fortunately, 
  a mage who lacks sufﬁ cient Gnosis might at-
  tempt to alter her own resonance to convince the 
  wards that she has the needed Supernal connec-
  tion after all.
  Dice Pool: Wits+ Investigation or Occult
  Each point of Gnosis the mage has provides 
  one automatic success. The mage requires 
  a number of successes equal to the Gnosis 
  Threshold to pass the barrier.
  Other closures bar mages with insufﬁ cient 
  knowledge of a particular Arcanum, requiring a 
  supplicant to demonstrate his level of mastery 
  to earn passage. Depending upon the purpose of 
  the place being warded, either method might be 
  found: a temple might judge someone by Gnosis 
  (the Supernal connection), while a mystic labo-
  ratory might require Arcana mastery.
  Beyond the Doors
  Once the Seekers locate a site and penetrate the natural or 
  supernatural barriers that shield it from Sleepers, the Seekers 
  face new challenges. Anything the ancient builders thought was 
  valuable probably has wards, guardians or concealment of its 
  own. Protective spells and spirits may be even more dangerous 
  than the outer defenses.
  On the other hand, some things the Atlanteans considered 
  commonplace might now hold great value for modern mages, 
  and have no special protections at all. Even if the Seekers can-
  not pass every test and breach every barrier, they can return 
  with valuable information about Atlantis — assuming the site 
  they explore is actually Atlantean.
  Places of Power
  Quite apart from any protective spells, some ancient sites 
  are infused with supernatural power. They may be built on 
  natural sites of power — or maybe the ancient builders could 
  shape the Tapestry to create Hallows, loci and other mystical 
  upwellings. A few ruins are so charged with Supernal energy 
  they are practically Realms of their own. Places of power can 
  make an ancient site its own reward for Seekers — but such 
  places can also present special dangers.
  Realm Afﬁ nity
  Often a site is closely associated with a particular Supernal 
  Realm. A few sites are even associated with more than one Realm, 
  but this is rare. Unconﬁ rmed tales also speak of ruins associated 
  with pairs of Arcana that don’t match the modern Paths.
  Inside, the Arcana associated with this Realm’s expression are 
  never vulgar. The Realm’s inferior Arcanum is often slighted, 
  and its use labors under some penalty. (Usually a –1 dice, but it 
  may be as drastic as rendering vulgar any use of that Arcanum.) 
  In this, the effects are similar to the effects of Paths within 
  Demesnes (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 280)
  Hallowed Ground
  Many Atlanteans built their temples, libraries and fortresses 
  around Hallows. Exiles and refugees built similarly whenever 
  possible; so did the sorcerers who lived beyond the sway of 
  the Dragon Isle. However, the centuries have not been kind to 
  the wellsprings of magic, and many Hallows are now dormant. 
  In these cases, a geomancer’s skill is required to discern the 
  Hallows’ existence. Fortunately or not, many of the spells and 
  
  58
  puzzlement and chagrin of Seekers, however, pre–Sundering 
  Demesnes seldom contain soul stones. Instead, objects made of 
  a strange, translucent ivory sustain many Atlantean Demesnes. 
  Many archaeomancers believe these objects are carved from 
  dragon bones taken from the very caves the Atlanteans used 
  for their soul journeys. Some of these objects actually look like 
  huge ribs, vertebrae or teeth. Whether or not this speculation 
  is correct, “dragon bone” crumbles into dust when taken from 
  its Demesne and exposed to the modern world. Rumors that 
  the Mysterium has somehow managed to preserve at least one 
  piece for study — and the outré powers within it — are common 
  throughout the Seeker community.
  Post–Sundering mages, Atlantean and barbarian alike, 
  built their Demesnes almost exclusively with soul stones; 
  mystagogues speculate that after the Fall, mages had to rely 
  on more primitive methods to erect their spiritual retreats. 
  Other mages believe the Sundering and the growing Abyss 
  made “dragon bone” no longer sufﬁ cient to create such havens. 
  Whatever the cause, any soul stones within an Atlantean site 
  are hidden with cunning and guarded by the most powerful 
  wards at their creator’s disposal.
  What might a mage do with an Atlantean’s soul stone? The 
  Mana and Demesne-creating power of the stone is dross com-
  pared to the chance that a link remains between the stone and 
  the soul of its creator. Can one conjure up the long-dead mage? 
  What knowledge could be wrested from such a ghost? Hope 
  persists among the most ambitious Seekers that somewhere, 
  they can ﬁ nd the soul stone of an Oracle — or an Exarch.
  arcane guardians begin to fail when cut off from a steady ﬂ ow 
  of Mana. Thaumavores such as cryptids and magical constructs 
  are the most vulnerable. These often starve or go dormant 
  until their supply of Mana is renewed — or they sleep to save 
  their last Mana, and rouse themselves only when a new source 
  comes near — such as a mage.
  In many cases, considerable quantities of tass are associated 
  with these ruins. Much of the tass constantly recycles thor-
  ough the local magical environment, sustaining the spells and 
  guardians. Harvesting such tass may prove disastrous, since 
  this deprives the site of the “fuel” it needs to exist. Desperate 
  or ruthless mages may employ such “scorched earth” tactics 
  to deny a site to rivals.
  The Hallows associated with Atlantean sites can be of any 
  size, but maintaining any remnant spells usually consumes 
  the bulk of the sites’ Mana. This is especially true when the 
  Hallow is sinking toward dormancy, which leaves little or no 
  excess Mana available.
  In sharp contrast to modern Hallows, excess Mana some-
  times imbues living creatures in or near Atlantean sites, 
  enchanting animals appropriate to its resonance. Fantastical 
  stories of geese laying Mana-ﬁ lled eggs, or the shark whose 
  ever-regenerating teeth contain tass, might originate from 
  these ancient Hallows.
  Demesnes
  Many Atlantean-era sites were constructed as Demesnes. 
  Here, free from Paradoxes, magic still rules supreme. To the 
  
  59
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  Ley Lines
   Many ruins were built on nodes of varying power — often 
  these nodes are the dwindled remains of far more powerful 
  ones. The Atlanteans were masters of the geomantic art. While 
  Exiles and refugees might use such unsubtle methods as ley 
  anchors to realign the local chi ﬂ ows, their ancestors preferred 
  to rework the landscape by diverting rivers, reshaping hills and 
  modifying the underlying geology. These changes realigned the 
  dragon lines to the form and resonance desired. Such efforts 
  go far beyond the capabilities of present-day magi, but modern 
  geomancers can study the effects.
  Some sites appear to be able to survive without access to chi 
  ﬂ ows, but archaeomancers speculate that many ruins began 
  to die when their node changed. To support this, the mages 
  point out that sites retaining their nodes contain far more 
  robust defenders than in cases where they can tell a node has 
  shifted away.
  Verges
  Very few genuine Atlantean sites exist upon Verges, but the 
  few that have been discovered are all very dangerous. Mages 
  who investigate these sites must not only deal with the guard-
  ians and wards, but also with the spirits that dwell within the 
  Verge’s boundaries. Verges attract werewolves and cryptids as 
  well — all of whom are extremely territorial. Unwary mages 
  transported to the Shadow Realm discover that returning 
  home can be far more difﬁ cult, even after defeating the site’s 
  spiritual squatters.
  Ephemeral Fortiﬁ cation
  To reduce the depredations of Shadow Realm intruders, the 
  ancients often modiﬁ ed the Gauntlet around their fortresses 
  and sanctums. In fact, the strength of the Gauntlet can vary 
  dramatically within a ruin. To keep out marauding spirits and 
  enemy mages (as well as thwart any spies lurking in Shadow 
  or Twilight), Atlantean-era mages frequently reinforced the 
  local Gauntlet, raising its strength to 5 or providing additional 
  penalties to those attempting to cross it. In some complexes, 
  the Gauntlet bristles with latent spells and guardians, waiting 
  to strike down any attempt to breach this spiritual barrier.
  Other areas, such as those used for studying Spirit or Death 
  magic, might have an abnormally low Gauntlet, or even an 
  artiﬁ cial Verge. Such spiritual “crossroads” are rare. In the 
  case of the “barbarian” kingdoms and their descendants, the 
  Verge may have a religious purpose — worship — and their 
  “god” may still wait within. Most sane mages don’t want to 
  tangle with creatures of such magnitude. Most sites oriented 
  toward studying spiritual realms employ permanent Spirit 4 
  “Spirit Roads” or Death 4 “Death Gates” as portals between 
  the two faces of Fallen Reality instead.
  Interior Wards and Defenses
  When spells to conceal a site or prevent entry fail, the internal 
  wards and spells make up the next line of defense. These en-
  chantments often protect speciﬁ c objects and locations within 
  the complex. Despite the passage of time, the spells protecting 
  the shrines and sanctums of old often remain powerful — a 
  sharp contrast to wards erected by modern willworkers, which 
  have a disconcerting tendency to erode.
  Duration and Conditions
  Many wards are coupled with a Fate 2 component that al-
  lowed the ward to be turned on and off by a trigger, such as 
  a spoken word or speciﬁ c gesture. Sadly, these commands are 
  usually long lost before the explorers arrive.
  Arcane Protections
  Many of the warding spells and rotes used by modern sor-
  cerers are the legacy of the ancient Atlanteans. However, the 
  Atlantean originals can be far more powerful. In addition to 
  being associated with a particular order, many sites are also 
  draw upon a particular Path; this linkage to a Supernal Realm 
  colors the mystical defenses arrayed against intruders. See 
  Mage: The Awakening for all named spells.
  • Death: Bound ghosts and the walking dead make effective 
  guards and servants. Death 2 “Ghostly Object” keeps important 
  items out of the hands of intruders. Death 3 “Ghost Gate” 
  (with a conditional trigger) consigns intruders to the same 
  ephemeral existence as any ghost. Death 3 “Quicken Corpse” 
  creates zombie guardians. Powerful versions of this spell cause 
  recently slain intruders to join the defenders. Death 4 “Rotting 
  Flesh” makes an exquisitely appropriate curse for people who 
  violate ancient tombs. Death 5 “Destroy Mana” robs intrud-
  ers of their means of defense. Death 5 “Quell the Spark” can 
  snuff out an invader’s most powerful spells.
  • Fate: Curses are particularly common defenses — even a 
  little bad luck can prove fatal to an explorer, especially those 
  Sleepers who somehow enter a site. Fate 3 “Monkey’s Paw” 
  curses treasures, making thieves’ lives both miserable and short. 
  Fate 4 “Gifts of Fortune” sends the keys to ancient treasures 
  into the “right” hands, ensuring the keys’ proper use. As the 
  opposite sides of the same coin, Fate 5 “Forge Destiny” and 
  Fate 5 “Forge Doom” await those fulﬁ lling certain conditions; 
  the mages’ presence at a ruin may fulﬁ ll some ancient proph-
  ecy, for their good or ill. Fate 5 “Great Curse” spells certain 
  doom for anyone foolish enough to violate sacred wards. Fate 
  workings beyond those of modern mages can weave skeins of 
  destiny that affect entire lineages for millennia.
  • Forces: In addition to unleashing powerful rotes of ﬁ re 
  and destruction upon intruders, this Arcanum has subtler 
  applications in wards. Forces 3 “Invisible Object” hides trea-
  sure and guardians alike from the sight of unwanted visitors. 
  A conjunctional Forces 3 “Autonomous Servant” spell with 
  Mind 5 and Space 2 allows magically created servants to patrol 
  the site. Forces 3 “Light Mastery” with a conditional trigger 
  can create light whenever someone enters an area — or plunge 
  the area into darkness. Similarly, “Sound Mastery” can create 
  the sounds of some guardian beast to deter intruders, or just 
  as easily plunge them into silence. Forces 4 “Friction Knife” 
  cast over an area can make anyone moving through that loca-
  tion regret he ever came. The ubiquitous Forces 4 “Unseen 
  
  60
  Hand” might be used to capture interlopers and hold them 
  until (long-dead) authorities can interrogate them. Forces 5 
  “Bestow Levitation” allow visitors to travel through fantasti-
  cally shaped lairs — or just as easily hurl them into a chasm or 
  against a wall of blades.
  • Life: Fantastical and uplifted beasts can be conjured to 
  defend a site at a moment’s notice. Some ruins are warded 
  by the plants about them, guarded by strangling vines and 
  animate trees. Life 1 “Sense Life” can alert guardians to any 
  unwanted intruder. Life 3 “Contagion” sickens trespassers, 
  or even unleashes unknown plagues upon an unsuspecting 
  humanity. When triggered, Life 4 “Transform Other” may 
  leave an unlucky Seeker unable to appear in public (or speak 
  or hold anything in hands turned to paws.) Life 4 “Trigger 
  the Lizard Brain” with a conditional trigger can instill fear in 
  anyone entering the area. Curses laid upon ancient barriers 
  taint violators with disease, enfeeblement and suffering.
  • Matter: Command over matter allows the builders to weave 
  greater strength into the building material, locks, doors and 
  ﬁ xtures. Matter 3 “Alter Integrity” can be set with a conditional 
  trigger to reinforce a door or window’s Durability. Likewise, 
  Matter 3 “Transmute Earth” might transform an innocuous 
  ﬂ oor into a quicksand death-trap. Matter 4 “Transmute Air” 
  can change oxygen into a deadly gas, although this works best 
  when the defenders do not require oxygen. Matter 5 “Annihilate 
  Extraordinary Matter” combined with a conditional trigger 
  readily damages any special “door openers” carried by intrud-
  ers. Matter 5 “Self-Repairing Machine” causes doors and walls 
  to repair damage done to them. With proper rituals, even the 
  very walls can live (after a fashion) and change under the inﬂ u-
  ence of long-dead archmages: interlopers may ﬁ nd themselves 
  contending with sudden chasms or hedgerows of spikes, while 
  walls and portals close to cut off routes of escape.
  • Mind: Frequently, Mind magic confuses or subverts in-
  truders, possibly even turning them against one another. In 
  other cases, this Arcanum is used to coordinate the defenders 
  with uncanny precision — almost as if they were all parts of a 
  single intellect. Mind 1 “Sense Consciousness” can detect the 
  presence of minds where they are not supposed to be. Mind 
  2 “Emotional Urging” can project feelings of dread or anger 
  and is effective at keeping Sleepers away. Seekers have trouble 
  deceiving guardians with Mind 3 “Telepathy” or Mind 4 “Read 
  the Depths.” Wards involving Mind 4 “Breach the Vault of 
  Memory” leave victims without recollection of what they have 
  seen or even how they got there. Mind 4 “Hallucination” 
  makes imaginative misdirection and deterrence easy. Mind 
  4 “Telepathic Control” or Mind 5 “Psychic Domination” 
  forces intruders to turn on one another in apparent “betrayal” 
  and treachery. Mind 5 “Twilight Temple” was the basis for 
  numerous sites the Atlanteans (and others) constructed in 
  the Subtle Planes.
  • Prime: The destructive aspects of the Primal Arcanum 
  make excellent wards, draining intruders of Mana and dispelling 
  protective magic against other hazards. Prime also provides a 
  wide assortment of phantasmal defenses and warders. Prime 
  1 “Dispel Magic” wards against unwanted magic such as dis-
  pelling Mind or Life disguises — or Forces invisibility — on an 
  uninvited “guest” as he enters a protected room. Used similarly, 
  Prime 4 “Supernal Dispellation” deprives foes of magic no 
  matter what Arcanum is involved. Prime 5 “Dead Zone” is 
  often used as a sort of self-destruct switch on a site. Trapped 
  ruins simply crumble into dust when the spell destroys the 
  local Mana supply.
  • Space: This Arcanum supplies basic wards for other 
  Arcana to build upon. Some of ancient sites are even built 
  within their own private worlds, accessible only to mages who 
  possess the correct keys. The Space 2 “Ward” spell is one of the 
  most common protections found in these sites. Not only does 
  it prevent unwanted scrying, but it also blocks Space Portals 
  and Teleportation spells. Space 3, along with conjunctional 
  Arcana, can introduce Bans into the Ward, blocking a host of 
  things from entering the sanctum. Space 3 “Portal” cast over 
  an area can send people who step through a certain door on 
  an unexpected trip, especially if a Mind Hallucination dis-
  guises the perceived location until after the hapless intruder 
  has stepped through. Space 4 “Portal Key” is used to facilitate 
  communications and to prevent unauthorized entry. Space 
  4 “Suspension” is a common spell for use against intruders, 
  laid as a trap to catch them in place. Space 5 “Dimensional 
  Axis” is the perfect rote for madness-inducing-yet-efﬁ cient 
  laboratories. Space 5 “Labyrinth” makes paths leading to 
  deadly traps inescapable.
  • Spirit: Guardian spirits are stock in trade for tombs and 
  shrines. However, Spirit has other uses as well. Spirit 3 “Spirit 
  Road” can summarily dispatch a visitor elsewhere. This spell 
  also provides access to areas constructed beyond the Gauntlet. 
  Spirit 3 “Numinous Shield” protects against spiritual intruders. 
  Spirit 5 “Control Gauntlet” similarly fortiﬁ es or weakens the 
  Gauntlet depending on local needs. Spirit 5 “Shadow Slaves” 
  brings forth gruesome defenders. Unlike many conjured 
  defenders, these are capable of complex tasks. A few Spirit 5 
  “Spirit Manse” structures built by Atlanteans and their rivals 
  still exist. Some of these structures are vast ethereal fortresses 
  that look jarringly out of place in the Spirit Realm.
  • Time: Places ensorcelled with Time 5 “Faerie Glade” exist 
  outside the passage of time; ancient residents who attempt to 
  leave crumble to dust as the years return with a vengeance. Time 
  5 “Stop Time” can be set as a trap (using a conditional trigger) 
  to ensnare intruders, freezing them in time until other guard-
  ians arrive and deal with them; similarly, this spell can preserve 
  guardians against future need. Mightier Time effects might put 
  entire areas into stasis to be released when the right conditions 
  are fulﬁ lled. Such traps might unleash now-extinct cryptids upon 
  explorers or preserve mortal guardians against time of need. 
  Perhaps even some Atlanteans still wait, safe within stasis.
  By Their Works Ye Shall Know Them
  The four Atlantean orders trace their heritage back to 
  institutions of the Awakened City. Members of those orders 
  might have an advantage exploring the ruined strongholds of 
  their Atlantean forebears because the order members recog-
  nize the style of the site’s defenses. Or maybe not. The orders 
  
  61
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  have changed greatly since the days of Atlantis. Characters 
  may need to succeed at Enigmas tests to ﬁ gure out that some 
  obscure symbol or ritual from their order’s tradition is actually 
  a distorted version of an Atlantean password.
  • The Adamantine Arrow typically uses guardians and 
  constructs in many of their ancient sites. Arrows prefer ﬂ ex-
  ible defenses and defenders over the static barriers of wards 
  but employ them to bar access to important areas. Internal 
  guardians react to intruders with military precision as beﬁ ts 
  the martial order.
  • Guardians of the Veil prefer that their sites remain unde-
  tected and unknown. To this end, they employed Mind, Space 
  and Fate spells to keep strangers at bay. Once inside, a Seeker 
  might never stumble onto the real purpose of the site, as she 
  falls prey to false leads and “important” treasures. Above all, 
  the Guardians strive to ensure that their secrets do not fall into 
  the wrong hands. To this end, many sites and their guardians 
  are quite capable of destroying themselves if compromised.
  • Mysterium: A mixture of wards and guardians protects the 
  order’s libraries and temples. In most cases, the nature of these 
  spells and creatures is dictated by the Arcana or topic researched 
  there. For example, a site dedicated to investigating the spiritual 
  realms might have several powerful spirits and their minions 
  at its disposal. Any wards are usually from the subtler spells 
  and are always set up with the safety of any research materials 
  in mind. Spells that simply slay or immobilize an opponent 
  are more likely than, say, ﬁ re-breathing juggernauts.
  • The Silver Ladder centers on control. These ancient 
  priest-mages used whatever creatures and powers under their 
  sway to defend their holdings. As the nigh-premier order in 
  the Great City, they could (and did) draw upon the resources 
  of the other orders as well.
  After the Fall, the Paths became more prominent. (Indeed, 
  archaeomancers debate whether the Paths existed as such before 
  the Sundering and the appearance of the Watchtowers. Some 
  mages believe Atlanteans could study all Arcana with equal 
  ease. Other mages believe the Paths always existed. At present, 
  evidence gleaned from spirits and ruins is not persuasive one 
  way or the other.) Many sites draw upon a particular Path as well 
  as, or instead of, an order. This linkage to a Supernal Realm 
  colors the mystical defenses arrayed against intruders.
  • Acanthus: Ruins built by mages of this Path are often 
  faerie-like. Time ﬂ ows differently there, and a few of them 
  seem to be actually outside of time. An intruder who evades 
  the threat of stasis, aging or being hurled into the future can 
  count himself lucky. However, the luck found in these places 
  is almost all bad, and many 
  who succeed in escaping have 
  merely avoided some doom.
  • Moros: Death and Matter 
  are the purview of the Necro-
  mancers. Shambling undead are 
  commonly pressed into service 
  as guardians or laborers. Wards 
  bearing death-curses in one form 
  or another are also feared.
  • Mastigos archmasters 
  infuse the powers of Mind and 
  Space into their strongholds. 
  
  62
  Both are extremely useful for rendering places very difﬁ cult 
  to locate and explore, either through clouding the minds of 
  searchers or by warping the space around the places into an 
  impassible Labyrinth. Once inside, the illusions and dangers 
  continue with wards that attack the minds and wills of intruders 
  or Space enchantments sending them into deathtraps.
  • Obrimos: Forces and Prime are among the least subtle 
  methods of protecting a sanctum, but subtlety is not the hall-
  mark of the Aether. Wards involving devastating Forces attacks 
  or barriers of searing ﬂ ame are as common as the challenges 
  of powerful defenders.
  • Thyrsus: Sites connected to the Primal Wild draw upon 
  Life and Spirit for defense. What life gives, it can take away. 
  Intruders who can defeat the bestial and spiritual defenders 
  or a site may still fall prey to wards of disease, poison and 
  transformation.
  Potent Conjurations
  The rotes and spells found within ancient 
  strongholds generally were created by mages 
  who had larger spellcasting dice pools than any 
  modern character is likely to achieve. Such pow-
  erful casting ability let Atlantean builders invest 
  considerable Potency in the magic they worked. 
  Without the Abyss to hinder them, the ancient 
  Masters and archmages cast spells of now-un-
  imaginable magnitude. When ﬁ rst created, the 
  wards and spells often had as much as 6 to 10 
  levels of Potency. As the Abyss grew in power, 
  more of a willworker’s effort went into creat-
  ing the spell in the ﬁ rst place than in bolstering 
  its power. Wards of lesser import or created by 
  post–Fall magicians are considerably weaker.
  Note that the Potency inherent in a spell or 
  ward can drop over time, especially if a site’s 
  Hallow goes dormant or the site’s ley lines shift. 
  Such deﬁ ciencies slowly wear away the avail-
  able Potency until only the barest remains of the 
  spell are present. Another factor dictating spell 
  Potency and ward survival is the activities of 
  any previous visitors. Seeker expeditions typi-
  cally dispel wards and breach defenses during 
  the course of their explorations. Similarly, the 
  remains of ancient war parties uncovered in the 
  rubble of many sites show how ﬁ erce the battles 
  were between the Awakened, sometimes leaving 
  even the most powerful defenses in tatters.
  The upshot is that an ancient site’s defenses 
  can be as formidable as the Storyteller wants. 
  A site that’s meant as a minor challenge during 
  the course of a chronicle might have defenses 
  no greater than a modern cabal’s sanctum. A 
  fortress, temple or tomb designed as the setting 
  for a chronicle’s climax might have defenses so 
  powerful they act as plot devices: Seekers must 
  defeat or bypass them in a certain way, and no 
  possible magic can overcome them. For instance, 
  if a guardian only surrenders a crucial Artifact to 
  a mage willing to die for it, some character must 
  volunteer to die. That’s it. No tricks. The brave 
  and supremely worthy character’s eventual res-
  urrection is just as miraculous, of course.
  Fiendish Traps
  A staple of pulp ﬁ ction and two-ﬁ sted adventure as well 
  as exploration, puzzles and traps that must be outwitted are 
  part and parcel of a Seeker’s life. While entire books could 
  be written upon the nearly inﬁ nite variety of tricks and traps 
  available, most traps fall into several basic categories: traps that 
  fall or crush, puzzles, pits, projectile traps and environmental 
  dangers. Although magic ﬁ gures prominently in creating and 
  triggering many traps found in Atlantean-era ruins, we will 
  consider purely magical traps elsewhere.
  Fortunately for explorers, traps do succumb to the march 
  of time. This makes avoiding or disarming them somewhat 
  easier than their builders’ intent. Conversely, rust and decay 
  has brought some traps to within a hair’s breadth of activation, 
  making disarming them extremely hazardous.
  Often puzzles and traps are part of the complex’s testing 
  process. These challenges often play to a recognizable theme 
  such as the underlying philosophies of an Arcanum, Path or 
  order. How the trap or puzzle is solved can tell much about 
  the intruder’s mindset. Successfully negotiating such gauntlets 
  are necessary to convince guardians that the intruder is worthy 
  of admittance rather than destruction.
  The two major components of any trap are its triggering 
  mechanism and its damage component. Triggers can vary 
  from the mechanical — such as tripwires, pressure plates or 
  simple attachment to door handles, locks and the like — to 
  magical. Magical triggers can involve almost any Knowing or 
  Unveiling spell. For example, using Mind spells, traps can 
  activate in the presence of sentient beings. Forces may trig-
  ger spells upon detection of motion or electrical activity. A 
  Prime spell might activate traps when experiencing a sudden 
  inﬂ ux of Mana (Awakened beings). Traps can become very 
  discerning in their effects and targeting through the use of 
  Bans and the more sophisticated spells from the Knowing or 
  Unveiling Practices.
  Traps fall into a few basic categories, such as:
  Pits
  Whether a simple 10’ x 10’ x 10’ pit in the middle of the 
  corridor or a bottomless chasm, the pit’s basic premise is 
  “something you fall into.” Concealment changes pits from 
  simple hazards and increases their deadliness. The types of 
  concealment range from simple coverings to pivoted lids trig-
  gered by a careless footstep or when spells detect an intruder. 
  Particularly ﬁ endish pits slam shut above the victim or have 
  
  63
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  vicious arrays of spikes and spears at the bottom. Other pits 
  may be home to monsters dwelling at the bottom or be ﬁ lled 
  with ﬁ re, acid or lava. If victims survive the experience, they 
  must then somehow climb out and escape.
  Mechanical Traps
  Things that shoot, slice, impale or otherwise attack the target 
  are all considered mechanical traps. These can include such 
  charming devices as scything blades, hails of darts, crossbow 
  bolts or similarly ﬁ endish contrivances. These traps rely upon 
  the skill or magical ability of the builder to harm trespassers. 
  Once triggered, the traps’ damage is based on the weapon and 
  any enhancements their builders saw ﬁ t to give them.
  Additionally, many traps of this type are poisoned, either 
  due to design or the buildup of rust and ﬁ lth (Often the latter 
  is the residue of the last — failed — adventurer attempting to 
  bypass the trap).
  Falling Walls and Rolling Boulders
  Falling rocks, collapsing walls and other things that fall 
  onto their victims (and, by extension, boulders rolling down 
  corridors after intruders) are all crushing-type traps. Once 
  these traps are triggered, dodging out of harm’s way or quickly 
  conjuring a defense is the best way to avoid injury.
  Damage from these traps is treated as environmental damage, 
  such as ﬁ re. Any character caught in the area of effect takes the 
  requisite damage. In some cases, a successful roll means a complete 
  escape; in others, such as running through a hall while the roof 
  crumbles, each success can reduce the damage. Use Strength + 
  Athletics or Dexterity + Athletics, depending on whether avoid-
  ing damage depends on a moment of raw exertion (jumping out 
  of the way of a giant boulder) or agility (dodging the masonry 
  falling from a collapsing ceiling). Even Wits + Athletics might 
  be used, if the ability to notice hazards matters most, (in which 
  case the roll might be Defense + Athletics), such as the myriad 
  of tiny holes concealing a torrential hail of poisoned darts.
  Depending upon how widespread the area of effect is (and 
  hence, how difﬁ cult to dodge) and what falls upon the victim, 
  crushing Damage can range from 3 to 10. Similar to explosives, 
  rockfalls and other crushing attacks inﬂ ict a certain number 
  of Wound levels automatically; then roll the same number of 
  dice and add any successes to the Damage. This is typically 
  bashing damage but can be lethal or even aggravated damage, 
  depending on the situation.
  Environmental Hazards
  Traps involving poisonous gasses, lava ﬂ ows or water-ﬁ lled 
  rooms are all environmental hazards. Again, the best defense 
  against these is avoidance, but when you are stuck in a water-
  ﬁ lled pit, this can be difﬁ cult. Damage is based upon hazards 
  found in the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 180–181. 
  Unlike mechanical traps, these traps deal damage by their very 
  presence; the victim soaks the damage directly.
  Trap or Hazard 
  Damage
  Simple Pit 
  Falling damage (World of Dark-
  ness Rulebook, p. 179)
  Mechanical Trap 
  Weapon damage (World of 
  Darkness Rulebook, p. 170)
  Rock Fall 
  3 to 4 levels + equal dice bashing 
  damage
  Giant Rolling Boulder 
  6+ levels + equal dice lethal 
  damage
  Crushing wall or ceiling 10 levels + equal dice aggra-
  vated damage when they close: 
  nobody survives becoming two-
  dimensional.
  Fiery Pit 
  2 to 6 points lethal damage per 
  turn; see World of Darkness, 
  p. 180
  Lava Flow 
  6+ points lethal damage per 
  turn; see World of Darkness, 
  p. 180
  Drowning 
  per World of Darkness, p. 49
  Toxins 
  per World of Darkness, p. 181
  Detection and Avoidance
  Detecting traps is the ﬁ rst step to avoiding or deactivating 
  them, since most traps and their triggers are concealed. Care-
  ful Investigation and Perception are the tools of any explorer 
  who wants to live past her ﬁ rst antechamber. The Larceny 
  Skill, backed up by magic and proper research, allows intruders 
  access into previously forbidden areas of a site.
  Adamas
  Many of the true Atlantean sites are constructed with ad-
  amas. This is not a speciﬁ c material as such, but a process by 
  which a building material’s Pattern is fortiﬁ ed and rewoven 
  into a new substance highly resistant to both magical and 
  physical forces.
  In most cases, adamas resembles the original substance but 
  with strong undertones of crystalline strength — the structure 
  even looks as if it possesses an unearthly strength. Adamas 
  enabled the Atlanteans to indulge their architectural whims, 
  letting them create soaring ediﬁ ces that seem almost ephem-
  eral while other structures were appropriately grim in aspect. 
  Form followed function — a soaring temple to the Supernal 
  needs to inspire the thoughts and souls of those within, while 
  a citadel-outpost must convey raw Atlantean power to the sur-
  rounding barbarians.
  Those places constructed after the Fall use less robust ma-
  terials, but even the most degenerate builders interlaced these 
  places with whatever magic they had to make the structures 
  supernaturally durable. Only durable structures can survive the 
  millennia intact enough to be recognized as an archaeomagi-
  cal site, as most sites with less potent construction are usually 
  mere rubble.
  Adamas  
  Durability 
  Reduced  
  Construction 
   
  Successes
  Standard Construction 
  8 
  1
  Reinforced Construction 
  11 
  3 
  Secure or  
  13 
  6 
   
  Military Construction
  
  64
  While adamas roughly corresponds to the Reinforced Ma-
  terials rating of a Sanctum (5+ dots), adamas is a far superior 
  material. Fixtures such as doors, windows or interior walls have 
  a Structure of 5 + Size (usually a 5) + Durability making even 
  casual Atlantean buildings remarkably durable. Since adamas 
  can be opaque or transparent when created, any remaining 
  windows are as durable as the walls.
  Adamas construction is highly resistant to Arcane ma-
  nipulation. This was deliberate, as the Atlanteans knew that 
  other willworkers were the Atlanteans’ most dangerous threat. 
  Adamas construction automatically reduces the number of 
  successes of any attempt to affect it magically depending on 
  the grade of construction. Anyone attempting to use Space 
  Arcana to bypass such materials is in for a rude (and possibly 
  lethal) surprise.
  Wonderful Things
  After bypassing wards, surviving testing and outrunning 
  any rolling boulders, Seekers can begin their investigation and 
  seek their reward. What mage is not warmed by the thought 
  of ﬁ nding an unknown library of Atlantean grimoires or a 
  fountain of pure tass?
  All too often, however, whatever glories once dwelled in 
  Atlantean sites have departed. Millennia may have passed 
  since any human trod their halls. Once-exquisite stone carv-
  ings have crumbled into dust, taking the history and wisdom 
  of the builders with them. The detritus of years covers mosaic 
  ﬂ oors with leaves, soil and worse things. Tree roots wrest apart 
  blocks with the slow patience of years. Libraries have become 
  the food of worms.
  Only the hardiest treasures remain intact in these places, 
  hidden amid the wrack and ruin. Fortunately, these items are 
  likely to be the very ones most valued by mages since Artifacts 
  and Imbued Items often possess supernatural resistance to rot 
  and ruin. On the other hand, perhaps nothing remains intact 
  — except for hints that lead to other, better-preserved places.
  Some places survive more-or-less intact because their magic 
  preserves and sustains them against the ravages of time. Guard-
  ians and spirits maintained the halls and ﬁ xtures against 
  the day their masters might return. A few sites even look as 
  pristine as they did when their long-dead builders wrought 
  them. Carvings and statues stand unblemished in unmarred 
  atriums and vaulting libraries. The supernatural luster of 
  orichalcum gleams against crystalline adamas, and ethereal-
  looking thaumium.
  Some temples and palaces are ﬁ lled with personal effects, 
  magical tools and ritual objects of those who lived there. Some-
  times, these objects are discarded as if their owners abandoned 
  them to ﬂ ee a sudden catastrophe. On other occasions, the 
  places are neat and tidy, as if the owners just stepped out mo-
  ments ago. Food remains unspoiled on plates, and experiments 
  progress in laboratories. Other sites are clean of all signs of 
  occupation, as if no one had lived there at all.
  The style of these ruins varies, ranging from the opulent 
  and aggrandizing halls of the Silver Ladder with their vast 
  chambers and ornate furnishings to the militant austerity 
  of the Adamantine Arrow’s outposts and training grounds. 
  Other ruins were the citadels and shrines of outland barbar-
  ians, their battlements and altars still defying the might of 
  Atlantis even today. Many rooms and facilities were used for 
  purposes familiar to modern mages: living quarters, libraries, 
  training rooms and so on. However, the forms these places 
  take may differ radically from modern sanctums. Some ruins 
  possess an otherworldly design aesthetic that modern mages 
  may ﬁ nd disturbing. Some places within a site may not be 
  immediately comprehensible to the discoverers and may take 
  weeks or even years of study by experts before mages learn to 
  harness their properties.
  Many chambers are dedicated workshops and ritual cham-
  bers — often associated with the site’s purpose. Some rooms 
  are prepared for strange rites and unfamiliar — or impossible 
  — magical rituals. One room might house the dead as they are 
  prepared for mummiﬁ cation, and contain a ghastly array of 
  ritual implements, embalming tables, natron pits and canopic 
  jars. Another series of chambers might be built to house an 
  ancient tome or protect some powerful Artifact from theft. 
  In many cases, the wards are to prevent intruders from being 
  used by a willful or corrupted item. What tomb is not complete 
  without some powerful scroll that simply begs to be read — no 
  matter what the cost?
  One commonly found room is easily recognized by Atlantean 
  order mages: arenas for the Duel Arcane. Disputes and feuds 
  were apparently frequent in the “perfect kingdom,” and Duels 
  were common method of settling disagreements. Far more 
  elaborate than any used today, these chambers provide each 
  Duelist with an equal footing and entertain those watching. 
  Many archaeomancers speculate that such challenges also served 
  as an art form and as entertainment in addition to their legal 
  function. The most exquisite battles were recorded for posterity 
  on mosaics and memory stones such as Atroxi Crystals (see p. 
  81); some of which have survived to this day.
  Apart from the various guardian creatures, Seekers may 
  encounter magical servitors still following the orders of their 
  creators. These may be the same sorts of entities used to pro-
  tect a site — zombies and revenants, bound ghosts or spirits, 
  animate statues and stranger things. (See Chapter Three for a 
  selection.) These entities may double as guardians; the orders 
  from their long-dead creators may include the gruesome death 
  of any intruders. However, some creatures only perform do-
  mestic duties, and merely await new commands by someone 
  who can show proper authority.
  Knowing What You Have
  Is a site pre–Fall Atlantean, post–Sundering Atlantean or 
  from some other culture entirely? The Mysterium offers the fol-
  lowing guidelines for recognizing who built an ancient site.
  Use of the High Speech and Atlantean runes are the surest 
  signs of Atlantean origin, or at least a strong Atlantean inﬂ u-
  ence. Atlantean builders carved their glyphs and sigils into 
  the walls, inlaid sigils upon ﬂ oors and worked glyphs into the 
  
  65
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  architecture in many ways — anything from a carved band of 
  fretwork that contains hidden runic script to a series of rooms 
  and corridors whose combined shape forms a glyph.
  At best, modern mages know a debased form of the original 
  High Speech. Entering such ruins demonstrates just how far 
  the modern understanding of the High Speech has degener-
  ated. Such a potent exposure to the Supernal tongue may prove 
  overwhelming as half-remembered meaning and new insight 
  crashes over the Awakened explorer at every turn.
  All the powers and functions within these places answer 
  only to the High Speech. Words of command are woven in 
  with prosaic information in a form that only the Wise might 
  notice. Such precautions are typical of the Atlantean-era when 
  only the Awakened could be trusted with such power. After 
  the Sundering, the refugees and Exiles maintained similar at-
  titudes, even though their lineages dwindled and fewer mages 
  Awoke each generation.
  Magic never because as powerful and reliable after the Sun-
  dering as magic was before. The Mysterium suggests that if a 
  site clearly could not have been built without magic, the site 
  probably dates from before the Sundering. These primal sites 
  often feature extensive use of supernatural substances such as 
  the magical metal orichalcum, or the enchanted stonework 
  called adamas. Parts of the structure may be held together by 
  spells: for instance, a stairway of disks magically suspended in 
  the air. Unfortunately, such intensely magical sites are also the 
  most fragile when exposed to the modern world, and tend to 
  collapse if anything disturbs their ancient spells.
  Atlantean sites often include draconic images in their orna-
  mentation. The Atlanteans were not the only people who were 
  impressed by dragons, though. “Barbarian” ruins from the age 
  of magic also may include images of dragons. Atlantis and its 
  outland rivals shared many other artistic motifs, too. Only an 
  archaeomancer who has studied the documented ruins of the 
  ancient world can spot crucial stylistic differences. Recogniz-
  ing such differences can spell the difference between life and 
  death: in some ruins, use of High Speech or Atlantean glyphs 
  can mark a mage as one of the builders’ ancient enemies, and 
  trigger terrible retribution.
  After the Sundering, the heirs of the Exiles and refugees 
  gradually blended with their adopted communities. Native 
  motifs and architecture eventually came to dominate the build-
  ers of ancient sanctums, making these sites indistinguishable 
  from the mundane ruins of the culture. The range of styles 
  observed in the ruins is wide enough no one is entirely sure 
  which are genuinely Atlantean — or even if there is only one 
  genuine Atlantis.
  Archaeomancers have attempted to collate the “known” 
  Atlantean art and architecture to infer different periods with 
  characteristic styles, but the mages have met with little success. 
  The body of evidence is quite small (compared to the amount 
  of information available on, say, Egypt or Assyria) and dating 
  methods are poor to nonexistent, even with the help of Time 
  magic. Scholars are further hampered by a lack of hard informa-
  tion to provide context — even something as simple as a list of 
  kings or a tale of years would be a priceless resource.
  
  66
  Orichalcum and Lunargent
  Plato said the Atlanteans decorated their palaces and temples 
  with a metal he called orichalcum. Sleeper scholars speculate 
  this “golden copper” or “mountain copper” was some alloy of 
  brass. Seekers discovered long ago that orichalcum is “perfected 
  gold,” a magically-reﬁ ned version of the metal. Mages can still 
  make orichalcum by sending ordinary gold into Twilight as 
  ephemera, and bringing it back to material form again — the 
  true meaning, perhaps, of the alchemical formula “Dissolve 
  and coagulate.” Dozens of passages into Twilight are needed 
  to produce pure orichalcum. This reduces the gold’s volume 
  and mass by a tenth.
  Orichalcum has a redder hue than pure but mundane gold 
  and is also translucent. Orichalcum seems to catch and hold 
  light, giving the metal a warm, ﬁ ery glow. Similar to mundane 
  gold, orichalcum can be drawn into incredibly ﬁ ne wires and 
  beaten into leaf. This magical metal is even more resistant to 
  corrosion than mundane gold; even the ﬁ ercest mundane acid 
  cannot dissolve orichalcum.
  Lunargent, or perfected silver, is made from ordinary silver 
  the same way. This metal is likewise translucent, and holds 
  a cool, slightly blue glow. Lunargent, too, is highly malleable 
  and chemically inert.
  The Atlanteans used orichalcum and lunargent for decora-
  tion as well as many of their potent magical treasures. Alloyed 
  together with hermium (perfected mercury), orichalcum and 
  lunargent form the wonder-metal thaumium. The Atlanteans 
  used many other alloys of perfected metals, too. Similar thau-
  mium, alloys of perfected metals require Prime and Matter to 
  produce. An item of perfected metal grants a +1 equipment 
  bonus to spellcasting to enhance or imbue an item; similar to 
  thaumium, particular alloys may have other useful properties. 
  (The subject is broad, however, and must await some other 
  supplement.)
  Exempla Loci: 
  Places of the Past
  The relics and remains of Dragon Isle, its rivals and their 
  heirs vary almost as much as the lies spawned about them. 
  Here are several locations to provide a taste of what explorers 
  might encounter.
  Ruins fall into several broad categories based on function, 
  such as makers or providers, religious, military and scholarship. 
  Also provided are the typical defenses and guardians common 
  to such places, along with an example location suitable for 
  Storyteller use.
  Always remember that even the most innocuous or utilitar-
  ian Atlantean site might be occupied and reworked by later 
  occupants. After all, a warehouse made from adamas is still an 
  uncannily strong building, and therefore a good site for, say, 
  a temple of abomination or a magical prison. Recycling like 
  this can lead to nasty surprises for unwary Seekers.
  Strongholds
  Powerful artifacts, desperate criminals, ancient evils: all 
  need protectors or jailers. These places hold the most deadly 
  wards and traps augmented by the ﬁ ercest guardians, and 
  with good reason.
  Atlantean fortresses include numerous guardrooms, armor-
  ies and training areas used by the mages, Sleepers and assorted 
  creatures charged with the fortresses’ defense. Ritual chambers 
  for recasting or reinforcing protective spells and wards are com-
  mon, too. From these rooms, explorers may glean clues as to what 
  other traps and wards defend the complex. Powerful spirits and 
  constructs rove the corridors in an endless round of patrols. The 
  spirits’ response to unauthorized intruders is invariably lethal 
  since any hesitation could mean the spirits’ destruction.
  At the heart of the complex lie the vaults. These chambers 
  might contain some of Atlantis’ greatest Arcane treasures — or 
  house the spells binding some eldritch horror away from the 
  Fallen World. The vaults are certainly protected by the most 
  virulent spells and traps their builders could devise.
  Treasure-Houses
  Atlanteans built numerous strongholds dedicated to the 
  safekeeping their most powerful artifacts — ones that if used, 
  might shake the Dragon Isle to its foundations. Both Exarchs 
  and Exiles plundered these holdings during Atlantis’ death 
  throes. After the Sundering, the survivors hid these weapons 
  once more, for many of these potent Artifacts were too danger-
  ous to use, yet impossible to destroy.
  Other treasure-houses had a more traditional meaning as 
  they “merely” housed the wealth the Dragon Isle plundered 
  from subject kingdoms and barbarous principalities. Gathered 
  into vast hoards of wealth and alien (to Atlantean) magic, 
  these treasure-houses await discovery. Similar places built by 
  the barbarian kingdoms indicate that not only the Atlanteans 
  possessed vast wealth. The mages of later kingdoms built their 
  own treasure-houses to protect the magic they looted from 
  now-destroyed Atlantean ruins.
  Prisons
  Other places protected the Atlanteans and their contemporaries 
  from internal threats. For all the Atlanteans’ enlightenment, they 
  had criminals — and in the time of the Exarchs, at least, the Atlan-
  teans had political prisoners. Any mages tainted by irredeemable 
  treachery, degeneration or murder were captured and imprisoned. 
  Sorcerous prisons might also hold captive barbarian mages. The 
  Guardians of the Veil say their Atlantean forbears did try to 
  rehabilitate criminal willworkers (though accounts differ about 
  their success rate and the humanity of their methods). With the 
  Celestial War, many prisoners escaped or were freed in exchange 
  for pledges of loyalty. Other prisoners languished in their cells, 
  abandoned to terrible and lonely deaths when their guards were 
  pressed into service elsewhere. These long-dead willworkers may 
  linger in their prisons as maddened ghost-mages.
  Bound Horrors
  The Atlanteans also imprisoned beings too powerful to 
  readily overcome. Falling into this category were hostile spirit 
  
  67
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  lords and those acamoth that the Exiles managed to capture. 
  In some cases, these beings were kept imprisoned, not because 
  they were too powerful to destroy, but because destroying them 
  would unleash even greater dangers. So long as the bound 
  horrors remain under lock and key, they preserve the Fallen 
  World from greater dangers. Often these powerful beings are 
  sequestered in Pocket Realms for all eternity — their captors 
  hoped. Despite the Sundering, many of these prisons continued 
  their vigil, staffed by fanatic and unsleeping guardians.
  The Prison of Black Jade
  Originally built to contain some the worst 
  Awakened criminals, the Hell of Black Jade 
  hangs in nothingness, sequestered within its 
  own realm of possibility. During the anarchy 
  and chaos following the Sundering, Atlantean 
  refugees hastily converted the Hell of Black Jade 
  to imprison several of the newly emerging Abys-
  sal entities.
  The attempt failed. Before anyone knew what 
  had happened, Abyssal horrors possessed 
  several of the weaker Awakened. The guards 
  were unable to regain control and abandoned 
  the prison. After sealing the portals to the Pocket 
  Realm, the guards destroyed whatever refer-
  ences to the prison that they could ﬁ nd.
  Inside, the Reality Devourers quickly turned on 
  each other in an orgy of bloodshed and betrayal 
  until only the strongest remained. For thousands 
  of years, the prison has slumbered. But now 
  dreams afﬂ ict mortals who live near the site of 
  an ancient portal as something inside the prison 
  reaches out. Over the years, the being has inﬂ u-
  enced people who can bring about its release. 
  The being’s chosen make up a small cult. Now all 
  they need is a willworker to reopen the way . . . .
  In the prison’s prime, the Hell of Black Jade 
  was heavily defended. It boasted a complex 
  series of lethal wards and some of the toughest 
  temple guardians the Atlanteans could con-
  struct. Millennia of abuse, however, leave the 
  interior badly damaged. The walls and gates of 
  jet-black adamas and crystal are scarred and 
  disﬁ gured from demonic battles. Artifacts and 
  lore may still await anyone brave enough to 
  venture inside, for the Ungula Draconis stripped 
  its prisoners of their goods and stored them here; 
  the ﬂ eeing jailers did not recover everything. 
  Deep within the prison is a vault containing rows 
  of spheres storing disembodied souls, a remnant 
  from when the Jade Hell was still a prison for 
  humans. Are these criminals? Which side did 
  they serve in the Celestial War? Are any of them 
  still sane?
  Seekers must contend with the remaining 
  Abyssal creatures stalking the corridors as well 
  as any surviving guardians — both of which 
  greet intruders with lethal force regardless of 
  their origin.
  At the core of the prison is the Jade Heart 
  — the prison’s soul and focus. Destroying the 
  Jade Heart collapses the Pocket Realm utterly. 
  Can modern mages succeed where Atlanteans 
  failed? Can the mages escape afterwards with-
  out unleashing the horrors within?
  Scholars and Explorers
  Similar the Atlanteans’ modern heirs, Atlantean mages were 
  eager investigators of the supernatural. Modern Seekers espe-
  cially prize the Demesnes and sanctums dedicated to research 
  and Arcane exploration. Most of these places had a speciﬁ c 
  area of inquiry such as Verges, other supernatural creatures 
  or experiments with particular Arcana, Supernal Realms or 
  even the Tapestry itself.
  A sanctum for scholarly Atlanteans invariably has an exten-
  sive library on the topic at hand, methods of communicating 
  with other researchers and a robust capacity for defense. In the 
  latter days of Atlantis and afterwards, these facilities became 
  prime targets for raids by other willworkers. Some attackers 
  were Atlantean, but outlanders also took advantage of the 
  chaos to plunder the Atlanteans for a change. In addition, 
  “ﬁ eld research” often entailed visiting dangerous locales such 
  as werewolf-infested loci, various spiritual realms or quick ex-
  peditions to deprive non–Atlanteans of their Arcane lore. The 
  explorers needed to protect themselves from any retaliation.
  Some sites were devoted to the Atlantean practice of hesy-
  chia (“stillness,” or trance meditation) and the incubation of 
  visions and travel within the Astral Realms. These chambers 
  look dark and featureless to a Sleeping eye, but are exquisitely 
  tuned to help the Awakened to meditate and explore the 
  Astral Realms. Such places have a greater sympathy with the 
  Watchtowers and the Supernal than most places remaining in 
  Fallen World. Before and after the Fall, these sites gave crucial 
  insights into Supernal reality.
  Laboratories
  Thaumatology, the study of magic, has innumerable facets. 
  The Atlanteans expended great effort in mounting expedi-
  tions to the (now-inaccessible) Supernal Realms and various 
  intermediate planes that brought back numerous artifacts and 
  expanded the Atlanteans’ knowledge of the Tapestry. Other 
  groups made voyages of exploration into the Shadow Realm 
  or expanded the boundaries of Astral Space. The mages’ 
  point of departure and home was a research sanctum. From 
  here, they prepared their journeys and afterwards investigated 
  their ﬁ ndings.
  Other researchers were less ambitious. Their laboratories and 
  experiments focused on the study of the Arcana and how the 
  
  68
  material and the transcendent interwove to form the Tapestry 
  of reality. Their studies of how the Supernal impressed itself 
  into ephemeral and material substance remain critical for 
  willworkers who want to imbue items with power.
  Some Atlanteans investigated the cycle of souls and rebirth 
  — attempting to contact the Celestial soul before it was en-
  folded in ﬂ esh, or to contact the soul after it had thrown off 
  the shackles of mortal existence. If they found the purpose 
  behind this mystic cycle, their records are lost — for now.
  Common among these places were diexodos, or scrying 
  chambers. These rooms greatly enhance the powers of sym-
  pathy and similarity, allowing mages to spy out foes and study 
  distant phenomenon in relative safety.
  Libraries
  The promise of Atlantean lore makes ancient libraries and 
  museums the favorite goal of archaeomancers. Fortunately, 
  the Atlanteans seldom intended to make their Lorehouses 
  difﬁ cult to ﬁ nd — at least before the rise of the Exarchs. As 
  the Awakened empire split into factions, mages hid their lore 
  from their foes. The Exiles guarded their sanctums of lore as 
  ruthlessly as their fortresses. After the Fall, refugees hid their 
  salvaged secrets from a barbaric world.
  Wisdom is never given lightly, however, and Seekers who 
  petition for entry into the ancient libraries ﬁ nd themselves 
  thoroughly tested by the guardians. With the growing insular-
  ity of the Atlantean mages, many libraries forbade (or heavily 
  restricted) mages whose order or Path differed from the owners. 
  Libraries often have additional restrictions on their informa-
  tion, restricting access to certain parts of the collection until the 
  Seeker possesses sufﬁ cient wisdom or ability. This is especially 
  true of order or Legacy-speciﬁ c libraries that might require the 
  student to be of the proper level of initiation as well.
  Interlopers unable to prove their bona ﬁ des bring down the 
  wrath of spirit and spell. These Arcane defenses are usually 
  drawn from the most powerful spells in the Arcana favored by the 
  librarians. Before the decadence of Atlantis, however, defenses 
  were rarely meant to be lethal: they existed as much to protect 
  mages from powers they couldn’t handle yet, as to protect the 
  knowledge from unworthy seekers. Later on, wards, traps and 
  gatekeepers became more deadly. In other cases, the enchant-
  ments compelling the ghosts and spirits within have failed, and 
  they now vengefully prowl the stacks and study halls.
  The information contained within these places can be 
  almost anything the Atlanteans studied. Rotes and spells of a 
  particular Arcanum or order are a frequent topic — Atlantean 
  libraries once offered hundreds of variants available for study. 
  Many of these rotes no longer work in the profane modern age, 
  but they can provide students with insight into constructing 
  their own. (Such libraries might provide Arcane Experience 
  to reduce the cost of rotes related to their favored Arcanum 
  or style). All too often, earlier visitors have looted these librar-
  ies, leaving only scraps — but even scraps of Atlantean lore are 
  precious when so little of it survives.
  While dusty rooms of scrolls or collections of rune-inscribed 
  metal tablets are common motifs for post–Sundering and outland 
  libraries, the most celebrated Atlantean library was the legendary 
  Cenacle of Sighs where the soul-stones and ghosts of long departed 
  sages answered researchers’ questions or shared their memories 
  with the mystagogues. Chambers ﬁ lled with complex illusions 
  allow visitors to experience other lives and Supernal worlds while 
  other rooms enabled the wise to journey within themselves and 
  seek their answers on the Astral Planes. Although the original 
  Cenacle perished with Atlantis, lesser libraries used similar 
  techniques. The “texts” in a library may be imprinted on crystals 
  using Mind magic, recited by spirits of knowledge or recorded 
  any other way an ancient willworker could imagine.
  Workshop of the Telescopes
  The legendary mage-smiths of Akazr crafted a 
  set of magical lenses able to view the Supernal 
  Realms. After the Sundering, the mages’ work-
  shops fell into disrepair. The survivors were 
  forced to abandon their pursuits and leave their 
  desolate mountaintop to take shelter with other 
  Atlantean refugees.
  Hidden behind a door with no key, the Work-
  shops of Akazr are protected by a Labyrinth of 
  false paths and illusions. Some creatures may 
  have drifted into the site over the ages, and 
  the departing mages left a few quick-and-dirty 
  magical wards and traps, but the greatest chal-
  lenge lies simply in ﬁ nding the right path.
  The decrepit ruins still contain relics of the 
  departed mage-smiths. Among these might be 
  the secrets of constructing their telescopes. The 
  mage-smiths’ records of their study of Supernal 
  skies might be more valuable. Even without the 
  secret of creating the telescopes, the surviving 
  components possess a great efﬁ cacy in observ-
  ing and affecting distant objects. (The lenses 
  might even provide bonuses exceeding the nor-
  mal limitations of sympathetic magic).
  Worship
  According to some scholars, organized religion played little 
  or no role in the Awakened City. However, many Atlantean 
  ruins appear to be temples, shrines or other places of worship 
  where the Awakened could commune with a variety of Super-
  nal, spiritual or Astral beings. The thought of state cults and 
  formal religions does not sit well with many modern views of 
  the Atlantean psyche, particularly their supposed submission to 
  some Higher Power. In particular, Silver Ladder members prefer 
  to believe the Atlanteans ruled or commanded the denizens of 
  other Realms, and treated with Supernal powers as respected 
  partners. Only the Awakened in the barbarian lands offered 
  fealty to spirits or fouler supernatural entities. Other mages 
  believe that religion and worship may have been the vehicle the 
  Exarchs used to seize power from the gods themselves.
  
  69
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  and meditation show few obvious similarities to each other. 
  A few shrines resemble the motifs seen in the Watchtowers, 
  though the shrines apparently predate the Watchtowers. Many 
  temples appear to have been Demesnes, or at least charged with 
  some form of Supernal power beyond the ability of modern 
  mages to replicate. To the visitor, these places seem to be at 
  once otherworldly and more real than their surroundings. 
  Adamas and other magical substances are common. Many 
  temples are simply waiting for the right visitor to rouse them 
  from their slumber.
  Propitiation of the Supernal entities cherished by the 
  Atlanteans spread throughout the world after the Fall as the 
  island’s refugees blended with other cultures. In many places, 
  the Atlantean practices intermingled with local belief-systems. 
  Sometimes, Atlantean practices became the underlying source 
  of ancient religions — a few of which continue to this day in 
  one form or another. On the other hand, some mages argue 
  the gods and religions truly came ﬁ rst, and the Atlanteans 
  merely joined outlanders in their worship.
  Spirit Shrines
  Numerous magical traditions, both Atlantean and barbarian, 
  propitiated local spirits and ephemeral entities. The sacred rocks 
  and holy groves of these spirits became the center of cults and 
  the focus of temples. Some shrines were built by “barbarian” 
  mages who asked the Unseen Courts for the power to resist 
  Atlantis. The Vox Draconis, however, built many shrines of 
  their own to the multitude of spirits and powers that supposedly 
  crowded the ancient world and the Supernal Realms. Ofﬁ cially, 
  these shrines were embassies to inferior powers. These shrines 
  did not always remain as such after the Fall.
  Ritual and ceremony channeled Mana and essence to the 
  spirits. In turn, they provide tass, rotes and lore of the Shadow 
  Beyond the Dragon Isle, however, many mages seem to 
  have worshipped or bargained with occult entities. It seems 
  ironic that outland mages may have offered worship and 
  submission to gain protection from the Atlanteans. After the 
  Sundering, many Atlantean survivors appear to have turned 
  to such practices as well, seeking to augment their waning 
  powers in any way they could. At least, Seekers claim to have 
  found indisputably Atlantean temples, whose builders were 
  not their masters.
  For some mages, worship was integral to their magical tra-
  ditions. Similar to those of their mundane counterparts, the 
  temples, shrines and monasteries of the Awakened include 
  a variety of cells, cloisters, sanctuaries and chambers where 
  ceremonies and rituals are practiced. Great statues, portray-
  ing esoteric Supernal creatures, spirit-gods and revered heroes 
  gleam in the shadows of long-desolate shrines. Only Seekers 
  who know the proper rituals might hope to pass through 
  the wards and gatekeepers placed by barbarian or Atlantean 
  priesthoods to prevent theft or sacrilege.
  Abandoned by their worshippers, the temples’ guardians and 
  wards often remain intact. Naturally, these spells are associated 
  in some way with the entities worshipped; for example, a shrine 
  to the Aetherial Phoenix draws on the powers of Forces and 
  Prime. Similarly, spirits and other entities beholden to these 
  gods are the most common types of guardians found in these 
  places. For instance, a granite ape armed with an iron rod 
  protects the Shrine of the Transcendent Monkey Sage. Traps 
  are also common, put in place to protect the site by mortals 
  less capable with the Arcane.
  Supernal Temples
  Atlantean-era conceptions of the Supernal were diverse, and 
  the Atlantean temples reﬂ ect this. These places of worship 
  
  70
  Realm to willworkers who pleased them. The spirits offered 
  more worldly beneﬁ ts, such as good harvests and protection 
  from other supernatural entities, to their Sleeping devotees. 
  Surprisingly few of these shrines are built upon loci, but were-
  wolves and other spirit-creatures likely took over any loci-based 
  sites long ago and incorporated them into their own religious 
  practices. Such powerful squatters make exploring such places 
  hazardous in the extreme.
  Fallen Cults
  The best-hidden shrines belonged to forbidden and danger-
  ous cults, especially temples built during the Celestial War and 
  after the Fall when many Awakened turned to darker magic 
  to survive. Barbarian mages also sometimes turned to dark 
  and bloody powers that preﬁ gured the horrors of the Abyss. 
  From these cultists arose the original Scelesti and other foul 
  traditions. Many of these lineages died out during the millen-
  nia, hunted down by the Atlantean orders or consumed by 
  the lineages’ vile masters — but often their secret lairs remain 
  undiscovered.
  Not all these fanes of iniquity were originally built for that 
  purpose. Some of these unholy places originally served some 
  other purpose and were refashioned by their degenerate inhab-
  itants. Now dedicated to the service of Abyssal nonentities or 
  demons, these places grate on the senses of most Awakened. 
  Horriﬁ ed explorers report glowing altars absorbing the life 
  force of sacriﬁ ces, black grails that allow celebrants to share 
  the Gnosis of their victims, grotesque and terrifying idols and 
  vast libraries of blasphemous rites and liturgies.
  With almost every mage’s hand turned against them, these 
  dark havens survived only through strictest secrecy. Spells 
  of concealment and treachery make better shelter, and the 
  resident creatures of murder and horror attempt to destroy 
  intruders before they can warn others. Once the orders dis-
  cover such a fane, they quickly organize magical strike teams 
  (which now may include modern military hardware as well as 
  potent magic). Many times in the past, however, the Scelesti 
  ﬂ ed or died, but the victors lacked the force to cleanse these 
  temples of the Scelesti’s taint. Sealed away with the spells of 
  the Guardians or the Arrow, these places still fester in secret 
  and may birth new guardians and new horrors.
  The Flame Unconquered
  A Flame once burned in isolated purity in 
  Atlantis, the Flame’s primal essence a celestial 
  beacon for the Awakened. Despite the Sunder-
  ing, the Flame burns yet, though its temple 
  vanished with the Dragon Isle itself. Though its 
  material form is long gone, the Twilight shadow 
  of the temple remains and its bright ﬂ ame burns 
  unconquered. While many say this ghostly 
  temple is not even the remains of the original 
  one but some distant descendant, the temple’s 
  power is undeniable.
  The Flame’s numerous and powerful guard-
  ians have preserved their “god” for millennia. 
  They have also moved their ephemeral shrine 
  several times. The guards include djinn who 
  keep intruders from sullying the Flame’s golden 
  purity with their impious gaze. Only the most 
  powerful Obrimos might hope to gain passage, 
  pitting their Arcane might and worthy deeds 
  against the Flame’s judgment.
  Seekers who win past the gatekeepers are 
  rewarded with a greater afﬁ nity to the Prime and 
  Forces Arcana, as well as access to the rotes 
  carved into the temple’s orichalcum and lunar-
  gent pillars. In return, the Seekers must accept 
  duties of justice and retribution to the Flame, just 
  as it did from its worshippers in ancient times.
  Warfare
  Atlantis’ power was founded upon raw power as much as 
  wisdom. The Dragon Isle left fortresses, spy-holes and train-
  ing grounds scattered across the world. Some housed strike 
  forces, Arcane battalions ready to thwart attacks on Atlantis 
  or impose its will on its neighbors.
  Anyone investigating these places should be ready for a ﬁ ght, 
  as the Awakened City spared no expense in securing its peace. 
  Any of Atlantis’ many war-machines and battle-spirits might 
  prowl the battlements or lurks in ambush in the ruins.
  Citadels and Fortresses
  From simple forts guarding distant mines and plantations to 
  extensive citadels guarding colonies, critical passes or magical 
  colleges, Atlantean fortiﬁ cations were built to last. Others are 
  the stuff of legend: castles and towers built among the Subtle 
  Planes or in the Shadow Realm, guarding fabulous treasures. 
  Unfortunately, the largest and most spectacular citadels also 
  became prime targets during the Celestial War. Although most 
  fortresses are constructed from mundane stone, brick and tim-
  ber, the surviving ones were either tough enough to survive the 
  Celestial War and the subsequent Fall or isolated enough to 
  remain hidden or ignore. The surviving fortresses are a mixture 
  of colonial depots, where mercenaries and Awakened enforced 
  the Dragon Isle’s will upon the surrounding world, and ragged 
  fortresses torn by cataclysm. Some were built underground, 
  like modern bunkers; others were buried by disasters or time. 
  Whatever the fortresses’ conditions, fortresses dating from the 
  Sundering period are amongst the rarest ﬁ nds; the struggles 
  of the Celestial War destroyed most of them.
  Usually the territory of the ancient Adamantine Arrow, 
  these fortresses served as training grounds for mages and 
  the warriors who accompanied them into battle. Citadels 
  are ﬁ lled with a bewildering array of barracks, training and 
  exercise rooms, armories, smithies, commissaries, stables and 
  guardrooms. Explorers have also discovered more esoteric 
  features such as scrying-posts that keep magical surveillance 
  on the surrounding lands, broken dock-towers for sky-ships 
  
  71
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  and magical gateways that allowed warriors to move from one 
  citadel to another with a single step.
  Outposts
  Like sentry outposts on the edge of civilization, these small 
  fortiﬁ cations provided Atlantis with a source of military 
  strength at far remove from her borders. The Adamantine 
  Arrow often maintained these outposts as bases for war, train-
  ing and research into Arcane combat. A garrison could hunt 
  down renegades or rebels from the outpost. Such criminals 
  were sent back to the Dragon Isle to face Atlantean (and later 
  Exarch) justice.
  These sites are minor as Atlantean ﬁ nds go, but do provide 
  insight into Atlantean ways. Most sites were abandoned as 
  indefensible after the Fall; the surviving garrisons moved else-
  where to consolidate their strength. (A few, however, became 
  the centers of petty kingdoms as their commanders turned 
  warlord.) Outposts used for training might retain lore pertain-
  ing to the Atlantean military. Augmented or imbued military 
  equipment might be found as well, but most troops stripped 
  their bases of everything they could carry away. If they didn’t, 
  Seekers should wonder what force could destroy them or force 
  them to leave so quickly: it may still haunt the ruin.
  Before leaving, the garrisons usually trapped and warded 
  these places, but the Awakened assigned to these outposts 
  were not the most capable. Thus, any remaining defenses prob-
  ably rely on traps and concealment rather than on powerful 
  mystic wards.
  Spy Holes
  In the Awakened City’s latter years, enemies surrounded 
  Atlantis. Some of these enemies rivaled the Awakened City in 
  mystic power, though not all of them were mages. However, the 
  Wise ensured they would receive warning of danger. Through-
  out the world, the early Guardians of the Veil established a 
  series of well-hidden refuges, secret holdings where they might 
  spy upon their enemies. Such places were invariably protected 
  by the best concealing magic the Dragon’s Eye could devise.
  The Guardians sent out their inﬁ ltrators, saboteurs and mis-
  sionaries to watch their foes, rebel and barbarian alike. Hidden 
  and usually meant to be temporary, these places have little in 
  the way of internal defenses and certainly hold no devices or 
  lore that could be used against the Dragon Isle. Concealment 
  is these places’ greatest (and often only) defense.
  Atlanteans constructed these installations with an eye to 
  minimal comfort and provided only the most basic accom-
  modations — at least by Atlantean standards. These sites are 
  sometimes only accessible through Space portals, or guarded 
  by powerful Mind effects that twist the thoughts of passersby 
  to other concerns. Within these places, Seekers can ﬁ nd 
  interrogation chambers, storehouses and secret bolt-holes as 
  well as extensive information about the surrounding com-
  munities. The Mysterium curses the Seekers of past ages who 
  found but discarded dossiers about towns and people that 
  vanished millennia before the Pyramids: such superﬁ cially 
  trivial information could give context to many other enigmas 
  from the Atlantean Age.
  The Plague Pit
  Buried deep beneath one of the world’s largest 
  cities is a terrible legacy of Atlantean cruelty. 
  In ancient times, a mighty city refused to pay 
  homage to the Dragon Isle. As a result, a terrible 
  plague ripped through the populace. When the 
  Atlanteans demonstrated their ability to cure the 
  Yellow Death, the city swore loyalty and paid 
  tribute in exchange for succor.
  The Guardians of the Veil spread the Yellow 
  Death from a hidden vault sequestered in caves 
  deep below the old city. As a surety of contin-
  ued obedience, the Guardians left the plague pit 
  intact and only sealed it with magic. The Yellow 
  Death still lurks within, barely held in check by 
  decaying magic. Recently, a mad apostate mage 
  learned of the Yellow Death from an ancient 
  stele in Mesopotamia and seeks to unleash the 
  plague to cleanse the world of Sleepers.
  Production Facilities
  Similar to unAwakened people, the Atlanteans built huge 
  numbers of the storehouses and workshops, which a civiliza-
  tion needs. Here, the Atlanteans crafted their most wondrous 
  items or gathered the raw materials that supplied the busy 
  craft-sanctums and ﬁ lled the treasure-houses. However, since 
  most of these places were not critical to Atlantean security, they 
  often show the ravages of time more than other sites do.
  These sites are both the least threatening and the least re-
  warding of ruins. One rarely hides a warehouse or defends a 
  workshop strongly, so these places also usually were discovered 
  long ago and stripped of anything valuable. Still, any place 
  built sturdily enough to last millennia must have mattered a 
  lot to someone. Wise explorers know that these goods must have 
  arrived and departed during the heyday of Atlantis — often 
  by means of portal or other Arcane transport — and use this 
  lead to ﬁ nd more promising locations.
  A simple warehouse or workshop has little in the way of 
  wards or traps and is usually occupied only by chance denizens. 
  Assuming the place wasn’t completely looted and isn’t too de-
  crepit, loading automata or caretaker spirits and other servitors 
  might remain. Workshops may include Arcane elements, such 
  as ﬁ re-spirits dwelling in a pottery kiln, or tools enchanted with 
  eversharp-charms or Durability enhancements. Over the mil-
  lennia, though, spells and servitors might become dangerously 
  erratic and create hazards the builders never planned.
  Workshops of the Awakened hold some value for the Seeker, 
  since they may still contain Arcane raw materials and enchanted 
  tools. Even though a self-spinning potter’s wheel may be of 
  questionable worth to some mages, every sample of Atlantean 
  magic gives another clue to the secrets of the Dragon Isle.
  
  72
  Farms and mines can become minor ruins as well. If an an-
  cient farm or mine can be identiﬁ ed at all, it seldom contains 
  more than the tools and devices required to process the harvest 
  or the ore. Ancient tools, winepresses and smelters might also 
  retain their imbued virtue to the present day.
  A few mines or farms produced Arcane commodities (which 
  may explain why they were built to last). For instance, a magi-
  cal foundry might smelt a Hallow’s tass into new forms for 
  transport back to Atlantis. Any willworker might covet such a 
  site, for what she could learn about storing and transforming 
  Mana. The Garamantean vineyards, which produced the wines 
  so prized by the Awakened, supposedly grew from a single 
  vine-root taken from an Atlantean vineyard.
  Retreats and Refuges
  Some places were built as mystical retreats, where Atlanteans 
  could regroup, heal between their struggles or simply pine 
  for lost glory. Some of these refuges possess healing powers 
  that were nothing short of miraculous, such as an enchanted 
  spring or sacred grove to soothe wounds of body and mind for 
  mages lucky enough to ﬁ nd the retreats. Rumors exist of some 
  shrines capable of healing those blighted in soul, or restoring 
  Patterns ravaged by time or Paradoxes.
  These rare sites are not only some of the hardest to ﬁ nd with-
  out the right magic, they are among the best-defended locations 
  known to the Awakened. If they were not so difﬁ cult to ﬁ nd, 
  they would have been found, exploited and likely destroyed 
  long ago. Anyone lucky enough to locate one of these oases of 
  tranquility guards the location as closely as the ancients did. A 
  healing refuge may have passed through dozens of owners since 
  it was built, from cabals of mages to werewolf packs or cults of 
  Sleepers, all of whom kept the secret for decades or centuries.
  Tombs
  Burial of the powerful was a serious affair in many cultures, and 
  Atlanteans were no exception. Mourners laid such mages to rest 
  with their most powerful magical treasures as well as mundane 
  grave goods. Of course, most powerful Atlanteans arranged to 
  be buried in Atlantis; their mausolea, which may have surpassed 
  the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal, vanished with the Dragon Isle 
  itself. Remaining sorcerous tombs are more commonly relics 
  of non–Atlantean mages and the primitive tribes the refugee 
  Atlanteans tried to civilize and rule. Guarded by curses and traps, 
  these sepulchers often contain clues leading to other Atlantean 
  sites for Seekers brave enough to disturb them.
  Refugee Camps
  These settlements housed the pitiful survivors of the Dragon 
  Isle after the Sundering stripped many of them of nearly ev-
  erything. Without shelter or supplies, surrounded by Atlantis’ 
  many enemies, these refugees could only rely on failing magical 
  skills for survival. Most of these wretches perished, leaving no 
  trace. An Atlantean Master left homeless without her mystic 
  tools might still be a mightier willworker than any modern 
  mage, however. An Exile or refugee who took shelter in a cave 
  might craft spells and appoint guardians who still endure. These 
  refugees preserved few of the Dragon Isle’s secrets or artifacts; 
  any Arcane goods the refugees left behind, they probably cre-
  ated themselves for their convenience.
  A refugee’s hiding place probably contains little of power 
  or value that survived the ages. In the rare instances when 
  Atlantean refugees sought to leave some testament for future 
  ages, they did not record their greatest secrets. A refugee camp 
  is more likely to contain a primer of basic magic for an ignorant 
  future than a grimoire for archmasters. A camp may also hold 
  the sad treasure of a ﬁ rsthand account of the Awakened City 
  and its destruction.
  Unidentiﬁ able
  Some discoveries cannot be neatly categorized. Among 
  these are places so devastated by war or time that their prov-
  enance and purpose is impossible to determine. Such things 
  happen far more often than archaeomancers like to admit. 
  Other places have been so overgrown by the passing millen-
  nia or reworked by later occupants that little remains of their 
  Atlantean heritage.
  The Lash of Disbelief
  The worst threat to these ancient places is neither the march 
  of time nor the greedy feuds of the Awakened but the relentless 
  pressure of Disbelief. The eye of a Sleeper archaeologist or historian 
  confronted with the impossible can push relics of the Awakened 
  past to the edge of reality and destroy unstable enchantments.
   Similar to modern sanctums, most Atlantean sites reduce 
  the chances of Paradoxes. Some sites go even further, being 
  Pocket Realms or Demesnes in which all magic is considered 
  covert — which is fortunate, since many ancient magical 
  practices are ﬂ agrantly vulgar by modern standards. Thus, 
  the shock of Sleepers intruding upon some primeval, sacred 
  place can be devastating. Spells that lasted for millennia can 
  unravel in minutes when confronted with Disbelief. Every 
  vulgar effect suffers from the bane of Paradox as long as any 
  Sleepers are present. Arcane servitors and eldritch machinery 
  crumble and rot away to scraps of metal and shards of stone. 
  In other cases, the ruins and their contents change. What were 
  once Atlantean artifacts are now only mundane relics of some 
  heretofore unknown civilization.
  The presence of Sleepers within these places is anathema 
  to the orders — and to those dwelling within! All present will 
  bend every effort to slay these dangerous unbelievers before 
  it is too late.
  The Temple of Ebullient 
  Contemplation
  An ancient temple lies undiscovered in the Turkish moun-
  tains. Built by refugee Mysterium sages, the Temple of Ebullient 
  Contemplation has survived (barely) since the Fall of Atlantis. 
  For centuries, the Temple has remained hidden in the ruins of 
  
  73
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  an ancient Christian church. Recently, clues to the Temple’s 
  location have fallen into the hands of the Atlantean orders. 
  Complicating matters, a group of archaeologists is investigating 
  the ruins, endangering an already precarious site.
  While hubris is the crime of Atlantis, there are other sins 
  equally damning to the Awakened. The mages of the Society 
  of Kittiara never overcame their fear of hubris, and, in time, 
  their passive contemplation destroyed them just as surely as 
  any cataclysm.
  A Refuge for Knowledge
  Little can be learned about the Atlantean refugees who built 
  the Ebullient Temple or of their wanderings after they ﬂ ed 
  Atlantis. They were primarily scholars from the Alae Draconis. 
  After the Sundering, they hid from victor and victim alike (and 
  in those days, it was hard to tell which was which).
  The mages decided that if they could not ﬁ nd a new At-
  lantis, they would preserve its memory until a new Kingdom 
  of the Wise arose. They build a sanctuary upon the site of a 
  Gate that once led to Atlantis. One sanctuary existed in the 
  material world; they also hid a copy within Twilight. Over the 
  years, they drew in other refugees and grew into the Society 
  of Kittiara. As the Paths and Watchtowers arose, the Mastigos 
  became most numerous among the group.
  Eventually, simple hunters and gatherers made their way 
  to the valley. They found the wise men there eager to share 
  their wisdom. The sages taught the newcomers the secrets of 
  bronze and pottery, herding and planting, but refrained from 
  displaying their power or dominating these humble Sleepers. 
  When a few of the newcomers dreamed of the Watchtowers, 
  the mages adopted those newcomers into the society.
  Time passed as the Society waited for others to rise in Atlantis’ 
  place, the mages too afraid of corruption and hubris to use 
  their gifts. Slowly, the Society dwindled as fewer dreamed of 
  Awakening. Other peoples arrived, bringing with them new 
  ways and magic. Each was, in the eyes of the Society, barbaric 
  and unworthy, and the librarian-mages despaired of passing 
  on their heritage. What good was the wisdom of Atlantis 
  when only barbarians ruled? Bereft of hope, the lineage died 
  out long before the rise of Alexander. The material half of the 
  Temple fell into ruin. The Temple’s Twilight counterpart slept 
  — except for the Librarian.
  The Librarian’s Tenure
   One of the last mages of the Society of Kittiara remains 
  in the library. In intellect and wisdom, he was a worthy heir 
  to the Awakened City. He died through a simple accident. 
  Unable to accept his death and unable to move on, he paced 
  the corridors as a ghost-mage.
  During the second century AD, pilgrims built a church in 
  the “pagan” cave-shrine. Encouraged and inspired by these 
  newcomers, the Librarian inﬂ uenced the minds of the monks. 
  In turn, they built ever-grander churches to capture the essence 
  of the radiant temple that haunted their dreams.
  Unfortunately, the Librarian’s unnatural existence attracted 
  the notice of a powerful Abyssal creature: an acamoth. It now 
  
  74
  infests the Temple’s walls, attempting to devour its contents. So 
  long as the actions of diligent monks and scholars strengthened 
  the Librarian, he kept the demon at bay. During the 10th cen-
  tury, however, an earthquake and ﬁ re laid waste to monastery. 
  Without the unwitting assistance of these Sleepers, the Temple’s 
  magic began to fall under the acamoth’s sway.
  Each year, the demon absorbs more of the Temple, and 
  the demon’s presence corrupts and perverts its remaining 
  gatekeepers. The Librarian retains considerable power to resist 
  the demon, but, in the Librarian’s current state, he does not 
  realize how the demon is bound to him. So long as he clings 
  to his false semblance of life, the demon continues to encroach 
  on the Temple.
  First Clue
  The characters may become aware of the Temple through 
  a variety of means. Perhaps they stumble upon a sketch or 
  photograph in an archaeological text and notice Atlantean 
  symbols, or see a glimpse of its architecture on a TV travelogue 
  or while browsing the web. Perhaps a friendly Sleeper draws 
  the characters’ attention to the site’s “peculiar” architecture. 
  Failing that, the Mysterium might contact the characters to 
  investigate a lead in exchange for a future favor.
  A successful Research roll of Intelligence + Occult or Intel-
  ligence + Academics reveals more information. Pictures of the 
  “Evangelical Arch” show glyphs of High Speech. They talk of 
  the Temple of Ebullient Contemplation and a legacy waiting 
  for worthy heirs of the Dragon Isle.
  Alahan Monastery
  The ruins lie in a valley between the Taurus Mountains 
  and the Konya Plateau in southern Turkey. Local guidebooks 
  describe the ruins as a “splendid example of Byzantine ecclesi-
  astical architecture.” No searching through trackless jungles or 
  faring across Astral Space here — the broken walls and domes 
  are visible from the local highway.
  A narrow mountain road leads from the highway up to the 
  ruins; an SUV can easily make the 600-meter climb to the 
  site. In the Material Realm, the site is covered by Byzantine-era 
  remains of the Alahan Monastery (so named by the British 
  archaeologists who excavated the site during the 1960s). Despite 
  extensive excavations in the 1960s, no one has stumbled upon 
  the monastery’s secrets — yet.
  Finding The Library
  Getting to the site is easy but entering the spectral shrine by 
  accident is nigh impossible. The shrine is well hidden, even from 
  magical senses. However, mages who rediscover the Temple’s 
  Gate and are versed in the ways of Atlantis might cross over 
  into the otherworldly shrine, and, if they prove worthy, learn 
  what secrets it retains.
  Careful investigation of the ruins reveals several clues about 
  the Library. The oldest part of the church is several caves. 
  Over the centuries, countless smoky campﬁ res have covered 
  the church’s paintings and murals with a thick layer of soot. 
  Key:
  1. 
  Cave Complex
  2. 
  Evangelical Basilica
  3. 
  Upper Living Quarters
  4. 
  Refectory
  5. 
  Baptistery
  6. 
  Colonnade
  7. 
  Necropolis
  8. 
  Eastern Basilica 
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  
  75
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  Roll Wits + Investigation to notice that a depiction of several 
  Atlantean symbols roughly translating to “The Guardians are 
  the Gate.”
  Near the cave-church is the famous Evangelical Arch with 
  several rows of broken columns and salvaged stonework. Grass 
  grows from cracks in the stone ﬂ ags, and rubble-strewn walls 
  loom like broken teeth.
  At the east end of the colonnade is a ruined ﬁ fth-century 
  basilica. One of the ﬁ rst of its kind, the basilica rises from 
  the cliff-face in a soaring paean of stone and faith. Only the 
  wind blows where once hymns of praise rose to the Heavens, 
  but sometimes visitors say they can feel an unseen presence. 
  Along one column are carvings that depict the Apostles. A 
  successful Intelligence + Academics roll reveals that these are 
  not in the standard Orthodox arrangement of Mathew, Mark, 
  Luke and John but are instead in the arrangement required 
  by the gateway.
  Carved into the cliffs above the complex is a small necropolis. 
  The dozen or so tombs are simple rock-cut sarcophagi set into the 
  cliff-face. A mage calling up the ghosts of these long-dead church-
  men would learn they all dreamed of a shining temple.
  A ruined fountain is located several hundred yards beyond 
  the East Basilica. Not only did it once provide the complex 
  with water but was also a powerful Hallow associated with 
  contemplation (Hallow Rating of 4). The fountain is now 
  dormant.
  Looking into Twilight or across the Gauntlet does not reveal 
  the Temple. This is due to the Temple being walled away from 
  the rest of Twilight by a powerful version of the Hide Space spell 
  (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 242). Mages with Spirit-based 
  Perception can see the Temple only if they look through the 
  Evangelical Gate. There, they can see the ﬁ rst chamber of the 
  Twilight shrine. Anywhere else in the ruins, characters using 
  Spirit Perception see a vacant, Twilight version of the material 
  ruins. The only way to the Temple of Ebullient Contemplation 
  is through the Gate.
  The Evangelical Gate
  One of the ruin’s most striking features is the so-called 
  Evangelical Gate. Standing at the entrance of a long-vanished 
  church is a stone gate carved with (supposedly) the ﬁ ve symbols 
  of the Apostles: a lion, an ox, an eagle, an angel and a man. 
  (Astute characters may note ﬁ ve symbols for four evangelists 
  — Matthew gets two.)
  Mage Sight determines that, at one point, the arch was 
  some sort of Gate, but it is now broken. Further examination 
  determines that archaeologists have reconstructed the archway 
  incorrectly. Moving the stones to the proper conﬁ guration 
  requires a successful Enigmas check to determine the correct 
  conﬁ guration. Putting the stones in the correct order restores 
  the Gate.
  Now, how to open it?
  The test is easy for an Atlantean to pass. The builders only 
  intended the Gate to keep out ignorant Sleepers. Over the mil-
  lennia, the symbols and words familiar to Atlanteans became 
  muddled, misinterpreted and transposed by Sleepers. Passing 
  the Gate requires touching each ﬁ gure in sequence and naming 
  the corresponding Watchtower in the High Speech.
  A mage with High Speech can do this with a successful 
  roll of Intelligence + Occult –2 (this is an obscure and highly 
  archaic symbolism for the Watchtowers). Characters can also 
  just experiment with different arrangements. The correct 
  Watchtowers and their beasts appear below, starting from the 
  left base and moving around the arch:
  • Lion (Mark) — Acanthus
  • Man (Matthew) — Moros
  • Eagle (John) — Mastigos
  • Angel (Matthew again) — Obrimos
  • Ox (Luke) — Thyrsus
  Once the Gate is repaired, a mage can simply walk through 
  into the Twilight shrine after reciting the names of the Watch-
  towers in the above order. Mages can also force an opening 
  using Spirit 3 “Spirit Road” (Mage: The Awakening, p. 251) 
  or Death 3 “Ghost Gate” (Mage: The Awakening, p. 139). 
  Gauntlet Strength is 3. This is vulgar magic.
   Interruptions and Complications
  The ruins present some risks. The rubble is crumbling, and the 
  surrounding cliffs and paths are treacherous. Passing shepherds 
  and Turkish peasants laboring in the ﬁ elds below the ruins are 
  all-too-frequent witnesses for a mage needing a little privacy. 
  Tourists visit the ruins several times a day. At irregular intervals, a 
  German tour bus parks along the highway, and the entire group 
  jogs up the steep path to the ruins for an afternoon of exploration, 
  picnicking and exercise. From time to time, a guard hired by 
  the local government makes a desultory patrol of the site before 
  returning to his shady table at the local teahouse.
  Archaeologists from the British Institute of Archaeology 
  frequent the site, continuing their investigations. Graduate stu-
  dents sketch the numerous carvings and inscriptions found on 
  in the rubble. Seekers will have to persuade these Sleepers to go 
  elsewhere or wait until later; at night, the ruins are deserted.
  In addition to these atsine i (foreign gadﬂ ies), locals may 
  take an interest too. Strangers, especially foreign-looking 
  ones wandering the hills, make an irresistible lure for the 
  village children. These youngsters display surprising tenacity 
  and climbing abilities. If befriended, they can lead mages to 
  a bewildering array of local ruins ranging from half-buried 
  statues to hidden rock-cut tombs.
  The Twilight Temple
  Once Seekers pass the Evangelical Gate, they ﬁ nd themselves 
  in a rough-hewn cave. In the center, a stone brazier sheds a 
  ﬂ ickering light. Behind them, an exit leads out onto a ledge. 
  Before them is an archway.
  The Twilight Temple’s architecture progresses from primitive 
  to the sublime. The changing styles reﬂ ect the rise of Atlantis, 
  starting with stark simplicity of the Dragon Caves and ending 
  with the Awakened City’s grandiose authority.
  
  76
  From the outside ledge, there is little to see. Twilight and 
  the spacial fold that hides the Temple exaggerate the natural 
  cliffs to either side of the library: one side soars thousands of 
  feet skyward and the other plunges into a bottomless abyss. 
  Between these two extremes is the Temple. It has fallen upon 
  hard times, and its once-intricate stonework looks somehow 
  corroded. At the far end, a vaulted dome rises in unblemished 
  triumph. Those observing the scene for a time notice that 
  insectoid creatures like oversized aphids cling to the cliffs and 
  stonework, gnawing at the stone.
  First Challenge: Courage
  When the archway is approached, a massive lion made from 
  shadows and silver coalesces out of darkness before the charac-
  ters. The lion speaks: “Who seeks entrance to the Library of 
  Ebullient Contemplation?” Magically, everyone hears the lion 
  speak her native tongue. Mages are welcomed, and the lion 
  explains some of the Library’s history if asked. The lion then 
  asks them for the “key.” Since it is impossible for the mages 
  to know what this might be, they must undergo tests to see if 
  they are worthy — just as the Society intended.
  Whatever the mages’ response, the lion nods its head and 
  says, “Perhaps you are worthy heirs of the Dragon Isle. We 
  shall see if you have courage.” It opens its jaws and lets out a 
  terrifying roar — and attacks.
  The guardian has an Armor of 3 and a Defense of 5, which 
  should make physical attacks difﬁ cult. However, those stand-
  ing their ground (normal Defense is allowed, but not Dodge 
  attempts or running away) are able to affect the guardian and 
  ignore its armor.
  The point of this challenge is to test the bravery of those 
  seeking the Library’s gifts. Those worthy of rebuilding Atlantis 
  must be brave enough to face any threat.
  Second Challenge: Knowledge
  Once through the First Gate, the mages enter another cham-
  ber. Stone-carved vines and thorns cover the vaulted ceiling and 
  pillars like a petriﬁ ed arbor. An eagle trapped within the thorny 
  vines perches over a set of heavily-padlocked doorways.
  The eagle asks the following riddle:
  One door leads to the City of Truth, while the other door leads 
  to the City of Liars. You are able to ask only one question to 
  determine which door is which. The door that leads to the City 
  of Liars always speaks lies, while the door that leads to the City 
  of Truth always speaks the truth. What question do you ask to 
  determine which door leads to the City of Truth?
  Possible answers: You ask a door “If I were to ask the other 
  door which door leads to the City of Truth, what would he 
  say?” Then you pick the opposite door of what he tells you.
  No matter what the answer is, the eagle shrieks out a deafen-
  ing “Wrong!” The stone vines animate, their thorns dripping 
  poison. A mage may use an improvised Life 2 or Matter 2 spell 
  to keep them at bay. Each success keeps the vines at bay for 
  three rounds. Unlocking either door requires an extended roll 
  of Wits + Larceny with ﬁ ve successes or using a Matter 3 Spell 
  such as Plasticity or Alter Integrity. However, the door (Durabil-
  ity 6 and Structure 16) is laced with adamas (see p. 63), which 
  counters one success per roll of any spell used upon it.
  The heritage of Atlantis is not for the thoughtless. Seekers 
  must prove they can perform basic reasoning (not so common 
  when the Library was built). Thanks to the rot pervading the 
  Library, the test no longer functions as it should.
  Third Test: Corruption
   Originally, this chamber held a test of trust and compas-
  sion, two qualities that were in short supply during Atlantis’ 
  ﬁ nal days, but now the chamber has fallen into the grip of 
  the Abyss. C’desith, the powerful acamoth (see Mage: The 
  Awakening, p. 323) besieging the Library, has overwhelmed 
  the original guardian.
  Small spirits resembling thumb-sized aphids cover every 
  surface of this once-great hall, feeding upon the very substance 
  of the Library. A writhing pile of insects covers the gatekeeper’s 
  remains, a minotaur. Nearby is an ancient baptismal pool 
  — narrow steps lead into the pool and out the other side. On 
  the side of the room, an open gateway beckons. As the mages 
  watch, the writhing mass of insects forms into a face. Their 
  buzzing forms words: “Welcome to the Feast of Compassion, 
  Children of Atlantis. We are all trapped here. Perhaps we 
  might help each other escape?”
  Anyone attempting to run through either arch reenters the 
  room at the opposite side. A powerful Space warding prevents 
  such an easy escape. The acamoth knows the way out and offers 
  it in exchange for a small favor. Agreeing to help the acamoth 
  causes a degeneration roll in anyone with Wisdom greater than 
  3, as this is a crime against magic itself. It’s also disgusting, as 
  the demon asks the person to open his mouth — and an aphid 
  leaps in and wriggles down his throat! Successfully degrading a 
  mage’s soul in this fashion gains the acamoth three Essence. A 
  piece of the demon is now lodged within a pacter’s soul, just 
  as if it accompanied them on an Astral journey.
  Should the mages refuse to assist the demon, its minions 
  attack. Bugs swarm over everything in the room in their 
  thousands, sucking at the vital essences of their victims. This 
  is similar to the Life 2 “Control Base Life” spell (see Mage: 
  The Awakening, p. 182). Unless kept at bay somehow, the 
  swarming spirit-bugs inﬂ ict four dice of bashing damage at 
  the end of each round. Anything containing Mana covered 
  by the swarm loses one point of Mana each round. Armor is 
  effective only if it covers the entire body, at which point Armor 
  provides only half protection (rounded down).
  Over the centuries, the demon has worked its way into the 
  very substance of the room. Spells and weapons might slay the 
  demon’s aphid-minions by the score but hundreds more arrive 
  through cracks in the walls and ceiling. All the while, the acamoth 
  offers to spare the mage if only she does it one small favor.
  The secret of this challenge is simply to walk down into the 
  baptismal font and immerse oneself completely in its pure 
  water. Anyone doing so is free to leave. Such lustral rites were 
  once very common, baptism being a Christian variation on 
  an ancient theme. A successful Wits + Occult roll identiﬁ es 
  the pool’s traditional use.
  
  77
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  The Colonnade
  Beyond the Baptismal Gate, the mages ﬁ nd themselves in a 
  long colonnade with cliffs rising on one side and dropping on 
  the other. A series of shrines line the way, each representing a 
  different Atlantean virtue, Arcanum or hero. Whatever purposes 
  they served is now lost, as they, too, have fallen to the insectoid 
  scourge. At the far end of the colonnade are the Library’s domed 
  magniﬁ cence and a massive doorway leading inside.
   If the characters cut a deal with the acamoth, they can pass 
  unmolested through the creatures here. If not, the myriad in-
  sects surge forward immediately. Clambering down the pillars 
  and walls are larger creatures resembling skeletal shadows (see 
  the “Shadow Slave” in Mage: The Awakening, p. 255). All in 
  all, the force arrayed looks overwhelming.
  When hope seems lost, the Library door opens. Standing 
  in the doorway is a middle-aged man carrying a short rod of 
  jet and orichalcum. He wears gray robes, with a golden ﬁ ligree 
  armband. The man cries out in High Speech, “Depart, minions 
  of C’desith! Depart to the void!” He brandishes the rod, and a 
  green light bathes the colonnade, forcing the creatures to retreat. 
  Turning to the mages, he says, in the characters’ own language, 
  “I am the Librarian. Are you the new apprentices?”
  The Great Library
  The vaulting ceilings of the Temple’s library rise high above the 
  mosaic ﬂ oor. Central to the chamber is a fountain depicting the 
  Five Watchtowers, its water almost visibly bubbling with tass.
  Four Marmoreal Myrmidons (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 
  329) wander through the complex. They spend some of their 
  time outside, repairing the gnawing of the acamoth’s bug-min-
  ions. Throughout the Library can be found additional statues, 
  some of which show brief signs of animation. Others appear 
  lifeless and still. Niches in the walls contain Atroxi Crystals 
  (see p. 81), many of which still glow with an inner light.
  The Librarian escorts the mages into the library itself and 
  says, “What have you youngsters to say for yourselves? You 
  could have gotten hurt. C’desith isn’t just some tame imp, you 
  know.” Without waiting for a reply, he gives the characters a 
  whirlwind tour of the Library — or what’s left of it.
  The Librarian shows his “apprentices” amenities such as 
  meditation areas, scrying chambers, ritual chambers and their 
  new quarters (a small monastic cell). Curiously, there do not 
  seem to be any kitchen or food preparation areas. If asked about 
  this, the Librarian says that the acamoth devoured those areas, 
  but since no one needs to eat here, it makes no difference. The 
  Librarian’s words may seem odd to hungry mages — and a clue 
  to the true state of affairs here. If questioned, the Librarian 
  admits he has not eaten in “several weeks,” but he does not 
  feel hungry. Every now and then, the Librarian stops and 
  spends several seconds gasping in pain while bite-marks like 
  those inﬂ icted by the aphids appear on his body, then vanish. 
  He admits to “A few twinges. Age, you know.”
  The crowning glory of the Library is a collection of several 
  dozen Atroxi Crystals, each one containing knowledge culled 
  from Atlantis itself (or so he says). Since the Fall, many crystals 
  
  78
  have become unresponsive but (he says) repairing them makes 
  a nice job for new apprentices. The acamoth has consumed 
  many of the spirits that once resided in the Crystals.
  The Temple’s collection is a magniﬁ cently eclectic hodge-
  podge of nonfunctional rotes, arcane histories, magical recipes 
  and obscure references. Among the fragments are stories of 
  Astral out-ports, manifests of Atlantean temple sacriﬁ ces and 
  even cryptic notes on several expeditions into Supernal realms. 
  Sorting through the dross to ﬁ nd any gems of wisdom requires 
  years of research. Fortunately, the Librarian can direct his 
  “students” to the appropriate information they require (as-
  suming the collection has it). Unfortunately, he is obsessed 
  with continuing the training of his new “apprentices” and is 
  far more interested in questioning them about their magical 
  education.
  Stealing the Prize
  Some characters may choose to steal the 
  Library’s treasures. Taking the Atroxi Crystals or 
  tass from the fountain has dire results. The Crys-
  tals are one of the powers that allow the Library 
  to resist the Abyss. If the Crystals are removed, 
  the site falls to the Abyss immediately — an im-
  mediate gain for the characters, but a long-term 
  loss for reality. Draining the fountain of too much 
  tass causes the spells sustaining the Temple to 
  collapse. Since the Temple’s Hallow is dormant, 
  the site must sustain itself on its own inherent 
  Mana. Stealing more than a dozen points of tass 
  from the fountain disrupts the Temple within a 
  few hours and causes its collapse.
  The Librarian has an Arcane link to both the 
  Crystals and the fountain. If they are threatened, 
  he and the Myrmidons immediately act to guard 
  them with lethal force.
  The Librarian cautions the characters that a few rooms have 
  become unstable since the arrival of the demon “a few weeks 
  ago.” One room, in particular, he cautions that they never 
  enter — it is too dangerous.
  Oh, and leaving? The Librarian refuses to let the characters 
  leave the Library until they undergo the same training regimen 
  he took. With diligence and hard work, they can return into 
  the Profane World (as he calls it) in a decade or so.
  The Forbidden Chamber
  This chamber once served the Society as their bath. The pools 
  here would have made a Roman Emperor green with envy, 
  but now the waters lie still and stagnant and the fountains are 
  dry. Underneath the surface of one pool is a skeleton, its neck 
  cleanly broken. This is an ephemeral remnant of the Librarian, 
  who slipped and fell so long ago. The same gold armband the 
  Librarian wears still circles the skeleton’s arm.
  Resolving the Situation
  The characters’ choices determine the Temple’s fate:
  • They can do nothing (or maybe just steal some Atroxi 
  Crystals) and leave the Librarian trapped in the Temple, 
  ﬁ ghting a slow, painful and ultimately losing battle against 
  the acamoth. If they try to return to the Library, they ﬁ nd it’s 
  gone: the Abyss has won.
  • They can try convincing the Librarian he’s a ghost. This 
  provokes an immediate crisis (see below) that leads to the 
  Temple’s destruction, one way or another.
  • They can try to destroy the acamoth. Good luck, and the 
  characters should have their wills made out. If the characters 
  somehow succeed, the Librarian no longer needs to defend 
  the Temple. He transcends to whatever destiny awaits great 
  and good souls — and the Temple vanishes with him.
  Releasing the Librarian requires a mercy that puts wisdom 
  ahead of greed. However, mages who free him from his long 
  vigil ﬁ nd that their compassion may prove more useful in the 
  future than “mere” Arcane power.
  • The characters can try to destroy the Librarian’s ghost. 
  This destroys the Temple, and the characters gain little or 
  nothing.
  Freeing the Librarian
  The characters probably soon guess that all is not well with the 
  Librarian. His insanity has caused the slow degeneration of the 
  Temple and the loss of many of its treasures to the Abyss.
  Convincing the Librarian of anything contrary to his mono-
  mania requires an extended, contested roll pitting Manipulation 
  + Persuasion against the Librarian’s Finesse + Resistance. 
  Characters can combine their efforts (see “Teamwork” in the 
  World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 134). The leader receives a 
  +1 bonus for each proof they have of the Librarian’s deathly 
  state. If they confront him with his own corpse, they receive 
  four bonus dice. Each character who accepted the acamoth’s 
  offer has a –2 dice penalty — the Librarian instinctively dislikes 
  them. Convincing him of his death requires ﬁ ve successes.
  When the characters free the Librarian of his delusions, he 
  looks aghast. He cries, “What have you done?” His body ripples 
  and fades as he ﬁ ghts to remain intact. “You’ve woken me to 
  the truth. Unfortunately, that means my end. And with my 
  passing, the acamoth will have everything. Unless—”
  The Librarian pulls a Crystal down and says, “There is a 
  spell I — we could use. I am no longer alive, after all. We must 
  undo the spell that created the Library. This is its heart. It 
  must be destroyed, or the acamoth takes all.” Dancing inside 
  the Crystal is a spell of incredible complexity and beauty.
  The Crystal Heart 
  (Imbued Item ••••• ••••)
  Durability 7, Size 1, Structure 8
  The Crystal Heart creates and sustains the 
  Temple of Ebullient Contemplation as a very 
  
  79
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  large “Spirit Manse” (see Mage: The Awaken-
  ing, p. 256). A version of “Hide Space” hides 
  the Library from viewers in the material world. 
  These spells have a Potency of 6. The Crystal 
  also carries three points (not dice) of counterma-
  gic; the Crystal’s Merit cost increases 1 further 
  because its magic is continually active.
  The Crystal and the Librarian sustain the 
  Temple together. If either one is destroyed, 
  the acamoth drags the Temple into the Abyss. 
  Destroying the spell as the Librarian transcends 
  destroys the Temple of Ebullient Contemplation 
  — but saves it from the Abyss.
  A Righteous End
  Simply breaking the Crystal doesn’t end the enchantment, 
  though doing so does remove the countermagic. To unmake 
  the spell and destroy the Temple, characters must use spells 
  such as Prime 1 “Dispel Magic” (and have dots in Matter 
  and Spirit, the Arcana used to create the Temple), Prime 3 
  “Controlled Dispellation,” or Prime 4 “Supernal Dispellation” 
  (no additional Arcana needed). If they break the crystal, they 
  can attempt direct countermagic using Matter and Spirit: 
  The spell’s Potency must be overcome using both Arcana, 
  though individual characters can devote their efforts to just 
  one Arcanum. If they can dispel the Spirit Manse, the other 
  spells unweave as well.
  Overcoming the spell’s Potency instantly imposes a –12 dice 
  penalty. Dispelling the enchantment as an extended casting 
  requires accumulating seven successes. Countermagic requires 
  six successes for each Arcanum. If the Crystal isn’t broken, the 
  characters must also contend with its countermagic, of course.
  The characters can 
  attempt a group ritual 
  to undo the Crystal’s 
  magic. If everyone spends 
  Willpower and uses High 
  Speech, they might undo 
  the magic in one time 
  increment. The Librarian 
  can join the effort, too: he 
  remains present as long 
  as he focuses his mind 
  on the spellcasting task. 
  Characters also gain a +2 
  bonus to teamwork rolls, 
  because the Librarian 
  tells them exactly what 
  to do.
  As a third alternative, a 
  character can try to claim 
  the Crystal’s magic as one 
  of her personal spells. 
  This can happen only 
  once the Crystal is broken. It’s like relinquishing the spell 
  to create an Imbued Item, only backwards: by sacriﬁ cing one 
  dot of Willpower, a character links the spell to her own soul. 
  Then she can dismiss the Crystal at will. The Librarian can’t 
  do this because the Temple fetters him to the Fallen World. 
  His cooperation is needed to claim the spell, though.
  A character who cut a deal with the acamoth cannot 
  participate in an attempt to unmake the Library, though he 
  won’t realize this at once. The player can roll dice to join in 
  a dispellation attempt, but any successes rolled don’t count. 
  Any dramatic failure counts, though.
  Acamoth Attack
  With the breaking of the Librarian’s madness, the demon 
  pushes itself through the walls as the barriers around the 
  library weaken. The demon’s myriad aphid-spirits swarm into 
  the building and start to devour everything. If the demon can 
  be held at bay long enough for the Crystal to be destroyed, 
  the demon is banished. The Librarian might be able to hold 
  it off long enough with his rod.
  The worst case is if the characters break the Crystal and one 
  of the characters made a deal with the acamoth. An aphid-
  creature bursts out of the character’s mouth and jumps for the 
  knot of unprotected spells. The characters have one chance to 
  grab the creature before it leaps into the spell-weave and claims 
  the entire Temple for the Abyss. This requires a successful Wits 
  + Dexterity or Dexterity + Brawling roll, –4 for the small size 
  and agility of the aphid-thing.
  If the acamoth wins (for whatever reason), the Librarian 
  screams as dozens of aphid-things rip through his skin and 
  devour him. The Temple shakes, rots and twists into shapes of 
  horror. The characters have one minute to run for the Evangeli-
  cal Gate before the entire place falls out of reality.
  
  80
  Power + Finesse is rolled. If successes rolled for the lion equal 
  or exceed those for the spell, the spell is countered.
  Terrifying Roar (dice pool 10). This Numen has the same 
  effect as the spell Trigger the Lizard Brain (see Mage: The 
  Awakening, p. 191) except that this Numen affects everyone 
  hearing it and costs one Essence.
  Ban: The lion cannot attack someone who has successfully 
  resisted its roar and does not Dodge or run away. Such individu-
  als may enter the gate the lion guards without question.
  The Librarian
  Quote: Ah! You must be the new apprentices. You’re late . . .
  Background: Centuries ago, he tripped and fell and broke 
  his neck. All his power could not save him. As one of the last 
  of the Society of Kittiara, he felt compelled to remain and pass 
  on the legacy of the Temple.
  In Twilight, the Librarian walks the corridors of his shrine 
  to knowledge, unable to leave. Each day he looks for the ap-
  prentices he knows should be here, to learn the ways of Atlantis 
  and receive his duty as caretakers of the Temple.
  Description: An ordinary-looking man wearing gray robes 
  of a vaguely Hittite design, with a gold ﬁ ligree armband. He 
  keeps his thinning, gray hair in a tonsure. The Librarian’s gaze 
  is disconcerting, as his eyes are solid green.
  If asked about his eyes, the Librarian claims they have been 
  that way since an accident. While he appears to be a living hu-
  man being, he does not eat, breathe, sleep or have a heartbeat. 
  That is, so long as he is not thinking about them.
  Storytelling Hints: The Librarian is not sane. He is in a deep 
  state of denial about his death and fanatical about passing on 
  the legacy to those who are worthy of Atlantis.
  He has spent more than 2,00 years here, though he does 
  not realize it. The Librarian’s manner is vague and distracted, 
  constantly interrupting with some fact or question about occult 
  trivia. He no longer remembers his name.
  The Librarian defends his territory with a fanatical devotion. 
  Only threats to his beloved collection deter him from using 
  the most lethal “spells” in his arsenal.
  Rank: 3
  Attributes: Power 8, Finesse 6, Resistance 7
  Willpower: 15
  Essence: 20 (max 20)
  Initiative: 13
  Defense: 8
  Speed: 19
  Size: 5
  Corpus: 12
  Inﬂ uences: Scholastic Inquiry 1, Fate 3, Mind 5, Matter 4, 
  Prime 4, Spirit 5
  The Librarian frequently used its Scholastic Inﬂ uence to 
  inspire and aid the monastery’s researchers. The Librarian can 
  also use its Inﬂ uence to distract investigators into spending their 
  time examining the ruins of the Library, or to engage in study 
  of Arcana (hardly a difﬁ culty when mages are the target).
  Aftermath
  With the end of both the Librarian and the sustaining spell, 
  the Twilight ruins crumble with appalling speed to match their 
  mortal counterparts. However, not all is in vain. If the mages 
  helped the Librarian transcend, they ﬁ nd that as the Spirit 
  Manse unravels, the Librarian glows with light, his eyes widen 
  in surprise and he disappears.
  For those helping the Librarian transcend, the characters’ 
  mystic perceptions follow his soul. They get one brief glimpse 
  of the Supernal World. They also hear the acamoth scream in 
  frustrated rage as the Temple and its keeper are snatched from 
  the acamoth’s jaws. From this, characters gain three extra Arcane 
  Experience. As an alternative, the Librarian might return as a 
  “friend on the Other Side” surprise Mentor.
  In addition to this reward, characters ﬁ nd that several 
  Atroxi Crystals remain behind (admittedly, in the Shadow 
  Realm). What information they contain, if any, is up to the 
  Storyteller. Much of it is trivia or descriptions of ancient rote 
  mudras (especially from the Mind, Matter and Spirit Arcana) 
  that no longer function in the current era. The centuries of the 
  acamoth’s inﬂ uence has also eroded and twisted the knowledge, 
  so important details may be missing or incorrect. However, the 
  Crystals can provide clues for researching modern versions of 
  these rotes, provide clues to other Atlantean sites and secrets 
  or otherwise supply hooks for further stories.
  For what it’s worth, the characters also learn the True Name 
  of an acamoth. Maybe someone can ﬁ nd a use for this.
  On the other hand, characters who assisted the acamoth or 
  who took callous advantage of the Librarian’s plight characters 
  may face degeneration rolls.
  Denizens
  Lion Guardian
  Background: This variation on the Marmoreal Myrmidon 
  moves as swiftly as the lion it resembles but is as tough as 
  stone.
  Description: A massively built lion made from stone and 
  shadows. Powerful muscles ripple underneath its exquisitely 
  carved ebon pelt. Eyes like pits of starlit night glitter over a 
  roaring maw ﬁ lled with sharp teeth.
  Rank: 2
  Attributes: Power 5, Finesse 5, Resistance 5
  Willpower: 10
  Essence: 11 (max 15)
  Initiative: 10
  Defense: 5
  Speed: 18
  Size: 8
  Corpus: 13
  Numina: Countermagic (dice pool 10). The guardian can 
  use this Numen as reﬂ exive countermagic against any form 
  of magic, including covert spells. One Essence is spent, and 
  
  81
  CHAPTER Two: beneath the sediment -  ruins
  Numina: Countermagic (dice pool 14). The guardian can 
  use this Numen as reﬂ exive countermagic against any form of 
  magic, including covert spells. One Essence is spent, and Power 
  + Finesse is rolled. If successes rolled for the Librarian equal 
  or exceed those for the spell, the spell is countered.
  Fate, Mind, Matter, Prime and Spirit Arcana. As a ghost 
  mage, the Librarian can spend one Essence and roll Power + 
  Finesse to “cast spells” from these Arcana.
  Lifebond (dice pool 15). Each time he is wounded, the Li-
  brarian shudders in agony, and the Library shakes with him. 
  Arches collapse, gaps of nothingness open in the ﬂ oor and 
  many of the library’s treasures disappear forever into the Abyss. 
  The effect of this Numen is similar to that of the Forces 5 spell 
  “Earthquake,” but the area affected is the entire Library. These 
  effects may extend into the Material Realm also.
  Destroying the Librarian causes the total destruction of the 
  Library. Everything collapses into rubble and then dissolves 
  into nothingness. In this case, roll Power + Resolve minus the 
  Defense of each affected person to determine bashing damage 
  dealt. This Numen costs no Essence.
  Ban: The Librarian cannot leave his charges. So long as he 
  believes he is alive, he must maintain the Library that has been 
  his life’s (and afterlife’s) work. Should he be convinced of his 
  true state, he passes on. Those who humbly agree to study at 
  the Library are welcomed and gain his protection.
   Artifacts
  Several Artifacts remain among the Library’s wreckage and 
  might survive its destruction.
  Atroxi Crystals (Imbued Item ••••)
  Durability 4, Size 1, Structure 5
  Created to aid research or answer the questions 
  associated with their tasks, Atroxi Crystals are 
  among the more frequently occurring items 
  in Atlantean laboratories, shrines and colleges. Each Crystal 
  carries whatever information its creator thought was impor-
  tant, such as the knowledge of rotes or Arcane lore. Similarly, 
  explorers have discovered Crystals imbued with memories and 
  thoughts, waiting to be experienced. The Crystal’s imprinted 
  knowledge functions like the Mind 3 spell “Telepathy” (see 
  Mage: The Awakening, p. 212), but a Crystal may carry a 
  whole encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge. Anyone with Mind 
  1 can access the Crystal.
  Superior Crystals carry complete skills. A mage could 
  learn the skill through hallucinatory experiences passed by 
  the Crystal. These Crystals are rated one dot higher. (Their 
  magic is analogous to the Mind 4 “Hallucination” spell.) A few 
  dangerous Crystals are rated at six dots because they carry the 
  Mind 5 “Psychic Reprogramming.” Some Crystals may be traps; 
  others perhaps were meant for benign purposes, but modern 
  mages no longer know how to use them properly, and so may 
  ﬁ nd their minds altered in dangerous ways.
  The Librarian’s Rod (Artifact ••••• ••)
  Durability 5, Size 2, Structure 7
  Mana Capacity: 11
  The Librarian’s rod of jet and orichalcum projects a Spirit 3 
  “Harm Spirit” effects (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 249) in its 
  Spirit 4 version, which inﬂ icts aggravated damage on spirits. The 
  Rod’s attack pool is the wielder’s Gnosis +7 (or the Librarian’s 
  Power +7); successes can be allocated to damage, area or other 
  factors. Each use of this contingent effect costs one Gnosis.
  Unfortunately, the Rod is not a material Artifact brought into 
  Twilight; the Rod is an ephemeral object that never existed in 
  the Material Realm — and never can exist there. The Rod 
  won’t pass through Spirit Roads or the like (though the Rod 
  can be moved into the Shadow Realm). From the material 
  plane, the Rod requires Spirit 2 “Gossamer Touch” (see 
  Mage: The Awakening, p. 247) to operate.
  
  82
  
  83
  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  Chapter Three: 
  Gatekeepers 
  and Treasures
  The beam from Warwick’s ﬂ ashlight swept across a huge sapphire sitting on a 
  pillar of black stone. Immediately, Warwick turned the light back on the ﬁ st-sized 
  lump of glittering blue. Limanora turned her beam on it as well. She grinned at 
  Warwick and said, “Ooh, shiny.”
  Then the ﬂ ashlight beams slid off the jewel, swelled and became somehow denser, 
  until human silhouettes of light stood before the two mages. The ﬂ ashlights them-
  selves went dark, but the ﬁ gures shed a glow over the jewel and pillar, showing the 
  serpentine carvings that covered it.
  “Hold on,” Warwick said unnecessarily. “Let’s see what they want, ﬁ rst.” He 
  bowed slightly to the two light-ﬁ gures. In the High Speech he said, In the Voice of 
  the Dragon, I speak peace to you. I bid you speak peace in return. What would you 
  have of us?
  One light-ﬁ gure raised a hand and pointed to the wall over the jewel. A beam of 
  light shone from the ﬁ gure onto blocks of varied glyphs and symbols. “Can you read 
  any of them?” Limanora whispered.
  Warwick shook his head but said, “The central writing’s Atlantean glyphs at 
  least… Oh! It’s enchanted. I can almost hear… It says, Leave this nameless place 
  and touch nothing if you value your lives and your families. Do not unleash the hor-
  ror on the world. No, really, you don’t want trouble like this.” He shrugged. “It’s 
  a free translation, of course.”
  Limanora puffed out her breath. “Okay… How about just once, the bold explorers 
  heed the ancient warning? I don’t like those carvings.”
  A new ﬁ gure shimmered into visibility. Both mages recognized the older man, 
  their rival. “Vandermast, no!” Limanora shouted as the other mage grabbed the 
  jewel and took off running. The glowing ﬁ gures winked out. Warwick and Limanora 
  heard scratching, scuttling, skittering noises as several large somethings bestirred 
  themselves in the darkness.
  
  84
  The Atlanteans took many steps to safeguard their temples 
  and their treasures. They hid their places of power from 
  ignorant rivals, set traps to test the wisdom of the Atlantean 
  heirs and erected barriers to ward off curious Sleepers. But 
  the Atlanteans also made use of mystic guardians — beings 
  that can adapt to new threats against their homes, and ensure 
  that only worthy Seekers acquire the secrets of Atlantis. Seek-
  ers often refer to these creatures as gatekeepers because they 
  often block the entrance to an Atlantean site, or to a special 
  chamber within a ruin. Nevertheless, guardians may occur 
  anywhere within a ruin.
  If Seekers can pass every test, break every ward, evade every 
  trap and defeat every guardian, the victors — to be honest, the 
  survivors — may win some of the greatest treasures known to the 
  Awakened. The survivors return from their expedition bearing 
  Artifacts of Atlantean wizardry that no modern willworker can 
  reproduce. They also win great fame for their cabal, Consilium 
  and themselves — but many Seekers would say that the magical 
  power of Atlantean Artifacts is reward enough.
  Gatekeepers
  Atlantean gatekeepers are as diverse and mysterious as any 
  remnants of the lost island. Seekers encounter the archetypal 
  stone statues that spring to life and slay intruders. Strange spirits 
  guide mages through tests of mystic skill and philosophical 
  understanding. Angry ghosts wail in ruined sanctums, jealously 
  protecting the fragments of the ghosts’ forgotten civilization. 
  Some gatekeepers even the Atlanteans didn’t predict: beasts 
  and monsters that interbred or arose spontaneously from 
  magic, and scavengers who found their way into ruins and 
  claimed them as their own.
  The Atlanteans rarely chose a guardian without deﬁ ning a 
  way to bypass it, but they seldom recorded their methods. The 
  simplest gatekeepers are programmed to submit to mages who 
  present a certain sigil, speak a certain word or are of the correct 
  Path, order or Legacy. If a gatekeeper is meant to test intruders, 
  it may clearly present a series of rules and goals — or it may 
  say nothing, or even lie about the test’s nature to challenge an 
  intruder’s wits. Some gatekeepers never willingly allow access 
  to their treasures, but were created with vulnerabilities that a 
  clever or knowledgeable mage can exploit.
  The keys to a guardian’s defeat can be easy or nearly impossible 
  to discover. Riddles, hieroglyphs and cryptic warnings mark 
  the borders of many gatekeepers’ domains, allowing any mage 
  with a clear mind to proceed forward — or at least to know 
  what he must do to prepare. To guard the Atlanteans’ most 
  precious treasures, the Atlanteans spread puzzle pieces among 
  multiple ruins, requiring diligence and inquisitiveness from 
  would-be Seekers. In dire situations, the Atlanteans destroyed 
  all clues and records about their guardians, in hopes that only 
  the mages who crafted a site’s defenses could pass its wards.
  Despite the best efforts of the ancients, however, mages 
  have discovered many secret keys over the centuries. Every old 
  mystagogue has a story about ﬁ nding a clue in an otherwise 
  worthless tome that proved vital to a gatekeeper’s defeat. 
  A prudent Seeker learns how other willworkers passed the 
  gatekeepers they faced; maybe the Seeker will encounter the 
  same entity posing the same test. The corpses of explorers at 
  the entrance of a ruin might tell a Necromancer what those 
  explorers tried that didn’t work, and maybe even what they 
  should have done. A few shifty mages (or other entities) claim 
  to sell the keys and passwords to ancient ruins. Because these 
  vendors seldom tell the truth about how they obtained these 
  secrets, Seekers can hardly judge a key’s reliability in advance. 
  Let the buyer beware: dead Seekers seldom ask for refunds.
  Guardians maintain their supply of magical energy in several 
  different ways. Most guardians draw Essence merely by fulﬁ ll-
  ing their duty: a spirit bound to guard survives by guarding. 
  Other gatekeepers are compelled to serve, but are not inher-
  ently creatures of service. For instance, a spirit of elemental 
  ﬂ ame that struck a bargain with the Atlanteans might protect 
  a ruin inside a volcano, and draw strength from the presence 
  of magma. A few, rare beings (usually trapped cryptids) are 
  thaumavores that eat tass generated by a site’s Hallow.
  Although gatekeepers are among the only living (or quasi-
  living) links to the Atlantean era, mages who hope to troll the 
  thoughts of millennia-old guardians are usually disappointed. 
  Most guardians lack the intelligence to possess useful memories, 
  or are so single-minded that they know nothing beyond duty. 
  Smarter gatekeepers rarely retain their sanity over so many 
  years, making their recollections potentially deceptive. This 
  doesn’t mean that nothing can be learned from gatekeepers, 
  of course; their mere existence provides insight into the magic 
  of the ancient world and the motivations of their masters.
  Not all guardians are devoted to protecting secrets. After 
  thousands of years of entrapment, agendas change. Gatekeepers 
  develop their own desires, escape their magical bonds or give 
  in to despair when they realize their masters aren’t coming 
  back. The gatekeepers use the resources of their temples for 
  new purposes, or lure mages to their lairs to gather power.
  Occasionally, gatekeepers even leave their homes and 
  threaten the modern world. This was the Atlanteans’ intent, 
  in some cases. Grave robbers who escape Atlantean ruins may 
  be horribly cursed, terrorized by spirits or afﬂ icted with plague 
  wherever they run. In other cases, guardians ﬁ nd loopholes in 
  their vows or shatter aging magical fetters, departing of their 
  own volition. They may search for others of their kind, or 
  simply indulge cravings denied them in isolation.
  The Created
  The Atlanteans created many of their guardians and 
  gatekeepers using magic that modern willworkers can barely 
  imagine. Although statues and golems are the gatekeepers most 
  stereotypically “Atlantean,” the ancients used many Arcana to 
  spawn new beings. Monsters of pure shadow, bodiless psychic 
  impulses of self-destructive paranoia, enormous fanged beasts 
  out of a madman’s menagerie and newborn spirits sculpted 
  from ephemera were all given form and used as guardians.
  A created gatekeeper can be made to ﬁ t its environment, 
  customized so that the gatekeeper does not interfere with a 
  
  85
  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  ruin’s traps and defenses. A created gatekeeper can be part of 
  the architecture of the ruin itself, or used to hide treasures: 
  Space magic can conceal storage rooms in a monster’s stomach, 
  Life magic can encode rotes in a beast’s markings and Mind 
  magic can hide records deep inside an animal’s brain.
  Created gatekeepers tend to have a measure of loyalty in-
  stilled in them at creation, making them the guardians most 
  likely to stay at their posts. Nothing inherent in the creation 
  process ensures their obedience, but few mages risk giving 
  their servants more capacity for independent thought than 
  necessary. To further avoid the risk of disloyalty, gatekeepers 
  can be endowed with a spiritual or physiological need for 
  (or addiction to) something found in their surroundings — a 
  speciﬁ c form of tass, a special quality of resonance or a rare 
  non-magical element.
  All this assumes that a gatekeeper was created intentionally. 
  Abandoning a sanctum saturated with mystic energy can have 
  unforeseen consequences. Spells can bleed together or be 
  colored by new resonances, and inanimate matter can soak up 
  Mana generated by a Hallow. Over time, life can emerge from 
  this morass of energies. The grimoires within a library may 
  infuse that library with sentience. Frog eggs laid in a magical 
  pool may absorb that pool’s energy, giving bizarre powers to 
  the tadpoles. These “spontaneous” guardians are often as 
  dedicated as their appointed counterparts: their temples aren’t 
  just assignments, but homes.
  Gatekeepers created with Life spells or arising from animals 
  warped by ambient magic also occasionally breed true, resulting 
  in whole gatekeeper colonies. These guardians may lack the 
  power of their forebears, but the number and unpredictability 
  of these bred gatekeepers can make them just as dangerous. 
  Urban legends tell of cults and micro-civilizations within some 
  Atlantean ruins, comprised of intelligent, ritualist beetles or 
  warped humanoids. Some mages deride these stories as the 
  stuff of pulp ﬁ ction, but who really knows what magic can 
  spawn over millennia?
  The Compelled and Contracted
  Mages didn’t need to create monsters during the age of 
  Atlantis. Magical creatures roamed the ancient world, and 
  sorcerers enslaved spirits of great power. Necromancers 
  delved into the borders of the Underworld, holding séances 
  with ghosts and shadows. Terrible beings were within reach 
  of any brave mage — and some Atlanteans saw those beings’ 
  potential as guardians.
  Spirits and ghosts could be forcibly anchored with Spirit and 
  Death magic. Cryptids could be bound with spells, fettered 
  by thaumium chains or sealed in oubliettes and released in 
  response to sorcerous alarms. Some Atlantean ruins double as 
  prisons, trapping the worst remnants (and the worst mistakes) 
  of a forgotten era. Guardians pressed into service are rarely 
  subtle: often they unleash their rage against all intruders, save 
  those the guardians are geased to obey. Clever gatekeepers, 
  however, may search for ways to avoid their duties, and see 
  intruders as potential avenues of escape.
  The Atlanteans couldn’t always bind their servants through 
  sheer magical might, and many mages preferred guardians less 
  likely to betray them. Not a small number of gatekeepers took 
  up their duties willingly. Spirits of secrets, duty and greed were 
  all suited to become guardians. Ghosts of Atlantean sorcerers 
  often ﬁ ercely protected their belongings (whether the living 
  were happy about it or not). Many spirits saw Masters of the 
  Spirit Arcanum as princes of the Shadow Realm, to obey and 
  honor as a matter of course. A few beings serve the memory 
  of Atlantis to repay debts, honoring mages who rescued the 
  entities from peril or who (in the case of ghosts) acted as their 
  hands in the world of the living.
  Lastly, many entities became guardians in exchange for pay-
  ment. Atlanteans often formed contracts with magical creatures. 
  Such contracts could be exceedingly simple or excruciatingly 
  complex, depending on the temperaments of the parties involved. 
  Guardians, in return for their service, demanded compensation 
  ranging from the fantastic to the mundane. Very probably, 
  neither side expected the contract to last for millennia, but a 
  deal’s a deal. The Silver Ladder greatly values salvaged records 
  of ancient pacts (and the rotes to enforce them).
  Before a hired gatekeeper lets a Seeker pass, it may demand 
  the same payments it received from its Atlantean master long 
  ago. Essence, tass or Twilight objects are easy and ethical for 
  modern mages to offer; souls or slaves are more difﬁ cult and 
  dubious. Living creatures were often provided for ephemeral 
  beings to possess. Some creatures demanded worship: cults of 
  Sleepers still serve gatekeepers in remote regions, following an-
  cient traditions and making pilgrimages to hidden temples.
  Whatever the compelled gatekeepers’ reasons for serving, 
  many compelled gatekeepers are allowed relief under special 
  circumstances. A spirit might be allowed to leave its temple 
  from dusk until dawn every 1,001 years, or to escape bondage 
  if the spirit can trick a mage into becoming its replacement. 
  As a reward, a ghost might be granted mortal form every au-
  tumn equinox. A cryptid prisoner might be released after an 
  eons-long sentence. Without the Atlanteans to oversee these 
  conditions, of course, mistakes do occur — making guardians 
  denied their anticipated relief very unhappy.
  Usurpers
  Not every guardian was placed by the Atlanteans. The 
  sanctums of the ancients draw many entities to their doors, 
  and some of those entities will not — or cannot — leave. When 
  mages later explore these sites, they often mistake the newcom-
  ers for gatekeepers. This can be a grievous error, if Seekers 
  assume there must be some key or password that makes a 
  guardian step aside.
  Some strangers have simple motivations. They came to an 
  Atlantean site to dine on Essence, tass or lingering spell energies. 
  These scavengers (particularly cryptids) often don’t understand 
  the value of their home’s contents but ferociously protect their 
  new territory. A ruin’s traps may prevent the scavengers from 
  departing, but the power within an Atlantean sanctum is often 
  enough to keep prisoners alive indeﬁ nitely.
  
  86
  “False” gatekeepers can also be the creation of post–Atlan-
  tean mages. Any sorcerer who discovers a powerful Hallow or 
  Demesne will undoubtedly want to protect it, even if she can’t 
  penetrate its inner chambers and claim its greatest secrets. A 
  guardian appointed by such a mage may pretend to be Atlan-
  tean to confuse later Seekers, but possess an entirely different 
  set of weaknesses from the ruin’s original protector. Some of 
  these gatekeepers have endured for centuries, long after the 
  demise of their makers.
  Every now and then, an entity ﬁ nds another reason to 
  pretend to be a gatekeeper. Clever spirits and ghosts ﬁ nd the 
  deception useful for collecting gifts or Atlantean lore. A mage 
  must be wary of sharing ancient secrets to complete the tests 
  of a guardian: that guardian may not be what it seems.
  A mysterious thing happens to many strangers that set up 
  shop in an Atlantean temple: over time, they visit the outside 
  world less and less often, and they gradually become more 
  protective of their lairs. Their bodies and souls change, and 
  they gain access to magic locked within their surroundings. 
  This is one of many curses brewed by the Atlanteans: a being 
  that destroys a temple’s protector may be doomed to take that 
  protector’s place.
  All Manner of Beast
  Storytellers can use these creatures to challenge the play-
  ers’ characters. Some of these gatekeepers have backgrounds 
  tailored for ruins with particular origins. A clever Storyteller, 
  however, can easily tweak a gatekeeper’s background to ﬁ t 
  whatever ancient ruin the Storyteller wants.
  These gatekeepers are all written up as spirits, although not 
  all of them came from the Shadow Realm. As a convenience 
  for Storytellers, most descriptions include examples of how a 
  guardian can use each level of the guardian’s Inﬂ uence.
  Aesthephobe
  Quote: Does your body betray you? Do your eyes deceive you? No. 
  Let me tell you a secret: reality is what you perceive.
  Background: Long ago, an Atlantean mage studied the 
  way of the ﬁ ve physical senses and forged them into a living 
  weapon. Her creation had no body, existing only as a taste, 
  a sight, a voice — whatever sense-form the creation chose to 
  adopt — and as a mind. The weapon was playful and sadistic, 
  tormenting creatures with endless deception and agonizing 
  pain. The creation drove mages to the brink of madness with 
  sensations that seemed to have no source, and led hapless 
  Sleepers to their doom like a will o’ the wisp. The creation’s 
  master saw it as a perfect gatekeeper.
  The Aesthephobe isn’t an especially powerful guardian, but 
  few of its victims realize it exists before they meet their doom. 
  The Aesthephobe cannot be fought in any conventional man-
  ner, since the spirit has no body even in Twilight. Only Mind 
  spells affect the Aesthephobe with any reliability, though a few 
  obscure tomes refer to special perfumes and hypnotic mirrors 
  that the gatekeeper’s master used to subdue it.
  If asked, the Aesthephobe disputes the notion that it is a cre-
  ated being. The Aesthephobe says it comes from primal origins, 
  and that it was born a twin to sensation itself. But then, the 
  Aesthephobe probably isn’t a reliable source of information.
  Description: The sound of a ringing bell. The smell of 
  honey and asparagus. The touch of a million tiny legs. The 
  taste of starch and unripe peaches. The sight of silver ﬂ ecks 
  in the corners of one’s eyes. The sensation that something, 
  somewhere near, is watching.
  The Aesthephobe can only take on one sense-form at a time. 
  When the gatekeeper can be heard, it cannot be seen, and 
  when it can be felt, it cannot be heard. It enjoys confusing and 
  torturing its victims and discovering new sensations. While 
  it is intelligent, it isn’t a deep thinker. The Aesthephobe only 
  cares about its pleasure here and now.
  Storytelling Hints: At ﬁ rst, characters will probably attribute 
  the sensations created by the Aesthephobe to the strangeness 
  of the ruin the spirit guards. If it can, the Aesthephobe uses 
  that impression to lead intruders astray — the sound of run-
  ning water might lead characters into a trap, or the illusory 
  sight of a solid ﬂ oor could send foes tumbling into a pit. The 
  Aesthephobe might try to hurt or disable mages, “burning” 
  or blinding them at seemingly random times. If the characters 
  voice any expectations about what they’ll encounter next, or 
  what they hope to ﬁ nd, the Aesthephobe shapes its deceptions 
  to play on those expectations.
  Rank: 2
  Attributes: Power 3, Finesse 7, Resistance 4
  Willpower: 7
  Essence: 15 (max 15)
  Initiative: 11
  Defense: 7
  Speed: 20
  Size: 5
  Corpus: 9
  Inﬂ uences: Sensation 5. The Aesthephobe can create any 
  sensation in nearby creatures based on the Aesthephobe’s 
  current sense-form.
  • Strengthen: At its ﬁ rst level of Inﬂ uence, the Aesthephobe 
  can only distract individuals by strengthening some sensations 
  to drown out others. For instance, it could interfere with a 
  character’s hearing by strengthening the sound of his own 
  pulse. The target’s penalty on Mental, Physical or Social rolls 
  equals the number of successes on the Aesthephobe’s Power 
  + Finesse roll. The Aesthephobe can also increase the pain 
  from injuries to impose a general penalty on all the actions 
  of a wounded character.
  • Manipulate: The Aesthephobe can edit the target’s sensa-
  tions so she won’t see a pit, hear a partner’s warning or feel 
  the deadly spider landing on her shoulder. The Aesthephobe 
  can also change existing colors and alter perspectives, change 
  a person’s tone of voice to make an innocent statement sound 
  threatening, or work other sensory distortions.
  • Control: The Aestephobe’s third level of Inﬂ uence can 
  induce a blinding, deafening, nauseating or otherwise dis-
  
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  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  abling sensation. This requires winning a contested roll of the 
  Aesthephobe’s Power + Finesse against the target’s Resolve + 
  Gnosis. If a nauseated victim moves more than half his Speed 
  in a turn, a reﬂ exive Stamina + Composure roll is required to 
  avoid vomiting for that turn. While vomiting, the victim cannot 
  take any other action, though he still gains his Defense.
  Just as importantly, at this level the Aesthephobe can control 
  a victim’s nerves to induce completely false sensations. This 
  only requires rolling a simple success.
  • Create: At the fourth level of Inﬂ uence, the Aesthephobe 
  can cause physical harm through intense sensation. Successes 
  on the Aesthephobe’s Power + Finesse roll indicate the amount 
  of bashing damage inﬂ icted.
  • Mass Create: At the ﬁ fth level of Inﬂ uence, the Aesth-
  ephobe may control or manipulate the senses of multiple 
  targets: this only requires a simple success. The Aesthephobe 
  has no limit on the number of subjects the gatekeeper can af-
  fect, but its roll takes a penalty for multiple targets, the same 
  as a mortal spellcaster.
  Numina: Countermagic (dice pool 10). The Aesthephobe 
  can use this Numen as reﬂ exive countermagic against magic 
  (including covert spells) from any Arcanum except Mind targeted 
  on the gatekeeper or used to interfere with its mission. One 
  Essence is spent, and Power + Finesse is rolled. If successes 
  equal or exceed the successes rolled for the spell, the spell is 
  countered.
  Ban: If drawn into Astral Space, the Aesthephobe’s “body” 
  in the material world ceases to exist. In Astral Space, the Aes-
  thephobe can no longer use its Numina or Inﬂ uence (though 
  it can still choose its sense-form); the senses of the soul are too 
  reﬁ ned to be affected by the Aesthephobe’s crude powers.
  Ansalkan
  Quote: (in Atlantean) Enlightened eyes may see too much, 
  trespasser, and damn your soul. It is out of mercy that I snatch away 
  the light — think me merciful for not putting out thy eyes.
  Background: The ansalkan — the cloaks of light — most 
  often haunt ruins that knew the sway of the ancient Visus 
  Draconis, but may be found in other Atlantean sites as well. 
  These tiny spirits remain in Twilight without the ability to 
  affect the physical world around them, until they encounter 
  an area of light.
  Ansalkan can literally “possess” a patch of light and wear it 
  like a cloak. An area of brightness can separate from its original 
  source and obey the movements and commands of the spirit 
  that has donned it. Torches and lanterns continue to burn their 
  fuel, and nothing has inhibited the ﬂ ow of electricity within a 
  ﬂ ashlight; the thing simply doesn’t shed light any longer, for 
  ansalkan has stolen the light to make a body for itself. The 
  light-cloaks simultaneously deprive intruders of sight (at least 
  until they can cast dark-piercing spells) and give themselves a 
  body to use in the defense of the ruin.
  Description: When one of the ansalkan takes up a patch of 
  light to use as its own, the light seems to ﬂ icker for a moment. 
  Then, as the source of light slowly dims, the illuminated area 
  warps and shifts, as though it were a bag that something had 
  just climbed into and was shifting about for comfort. Then the 
  ansalkan acts quickly, either ﬂ eeing the location and leaving 
  intruders stranded in darkness, or immediately attacking.
  Storytelling Hints: Ansalkan are usually found in temples 
  and ruins that contained information or other things the build-
  ers did not wish seen by outsiders. To this end, the Atlanteans 
  created creatures with the ability to snatch away light, and to 
  shatter those spells that grant the ability to see in the dark.
  Ansalkan usually ﬂ ee those from whom they steal light. 
  The spirits gather outside the range of the intruders until 
  enough ansalkan manifest to make a mass attack. Then, the 
  light-cloaks come blazing out of the darkness, bent on blinding 
  and burning their foes into ﬂ ight. Ansalkan are usually content 
  to follow intruders closely if they ﬂ ee, lighting the way out for 
  them — though on occasion, ansalkan lead Seekers into other 
  traps or guardians instead.
  Rank: 2
  Attributes: Power 4, Finesse 7, Resistance 3
  Willpower: 6
  Essence: 15 (max 15)
  Initiative: 10
  Defense: 7
  Speed: 16
  Size: 3
  Corpus: 6
  Inﬂ uences: Light 3.
  • Strengthen: Ansalkan use the ﬁ rst level of this Inﬂ uence 
  to produce blinding ﬂ ashes of light. Each ﬂ ash costs these 
  spirits one Essence. The light-cloak’s roll of Power + Finesse is 
  opposed by the target’s Stamina + Composure; if the ansalkan 
  rolls more successes than the target, the target is blinded for 
  one turn per net success.
  • Manipulate: These spirits can bend light to distort shad-
  ows, as a way to hide things or deceive intruders. For instance, 
  a Seeker might shine a light parallel to a wall, looking for 
  the crack of a hidden doorway; the light-cloak eliminates the 
  revealing shadow. To frighten intruders, an ordinary shadow 
  might be warped into something monstrous. Ansalkan also 
  use this level of Inﬂ uence to shape their light-patch bodies 
  into new forms, if this seems useful.
  • Control: This level of Inﬂ uence enables ansalkan to quell 
  the source of the illumination they inhabit. They can also 
  redirect existing light to create simple illusions. For instance, 
  a Seeker might see a torch’s ﬂ ames stretch out to form a leer-
  ing, demonic face.
  Numina: Blast (dice pool 11 +2/point of Essence spent; 
  inﬂ icts lethal damage in the form of small pulses of burning 
  light), Innocuous, Materialize (dice pool 11; ansalkan can only 
  materialize within the radius of a light source, and they take 
  over that source of light in the process)
  Ban: Ansalkan have a sympathetic connection to the thing 
  that made the light they took for their bodies. If the darkened 
  torch, ﬂ ashlight or other source of light (which cannot be relit 
  
  88
  as long as the ansalkan has its body) is used in sympathetic 
  magic, the source is considered an Intimate connection.
  The Bull of Immortal Might
  Quote: <thunderous snorts and stamping hooves>
  Background: The bull has long been a symbol of strength 
  and vitality. The Atlantean sorcerers who created this enchanted 
  bull disliked the thought of a guardian that would wither and 
  disappear as its domain crumbled into dust; instead, they 
  wanted a beast whose vigor would bolster their temple and 
  allow it to endure through the ages.
  The creature they created is an exemplar of its race: beautiful, 
  mighty and possessed of a terrible rage. The Immortal Bull was 
  born of an ordinary cow, but Atlantean magic turned the guardian 
  into something greater than ﬂ esh and blood. The spells upon the 
  Immortal Bull ensure that its home will stand as long as it lives.
  The Bull remains, ready to test any challengers. The Atlan-
  teans hoped it would drive out all but the strongest men and 
  the gentlest women, and that it would destroy its treasure 
  before accepting defeat. The bones of gored victims attest to 
  the success of their plan.
  Description: The Bull of Immortal Might is an aurochs, the 
  dark brown wild cattle from which modern cattle descend, as 
  seen in the cave-paintings of Lascaux. The Bull is the size of 
  a rhinoceros, and the ground trembles as the Bull moves. Its 
  horns, curved like the crescent moon, could skewer tree trunks. 
  The Immortal Bull’s steaming breath seems hot enough to boil 
  rivers. If the Bull views a creature as a rival or an intruder, 
  the guardian glowers and tenses for battle; all other beings are 
  beneath the Bull’s attention.
  Storytelling Hints: Unlike most gatekeepers, the Bull was 
  not appointed by the Atlanteans to test Seekers’ magical might. 
  Instead, defeating the Bull requires the strength of a hero or 
  the kindness of a maiden with an innocent heart.
  Rank: 3
  Attributes: Power 9, Finesse 4, Resistance 7
  Willpower: 16
  Essence: 20 (max 20)
  Initiative: 11
  Defense: 9
  Speed: 28
  Size: 15
  Corpus: 22
  Inﬂ uences: Masculine Aggression 1
  • Strengthen: The Bull often uses its Inﬂ uence to goad 
  male intruders into an unwise ﬁ ght. Make a contested roll, 
  the Bull’s Power + Finesse against the target’s Willpower. The 
  Bull can use this power against females, too, but the guardian’s 
  Inﬂ uence suffers a –5 penalty.
  Numina: Countermagic (dice pool 13). The guardian can 
  use this Numen as reﬂ exive countermagic against any form 
  of magic, including covert spells. This costs one Essence and 
  requires a Power + Finesse roll. If successes rolled for the Bull 
  equal or exceed those for the spell, the spell is countered.
  Lifebond (dice pool 16). Each time the Bull suffers damage, 
  the ruin the guardian protects shudders. Masonry comes top-
  pling down, crevasses form in the ﬂ oor and precious treasures 
  are buried or shattered. Roll Power + Resistance. The effect of 
  this Numen resembles that of the Forces 5 spell “Earthquake,” 
  but the area affected is the entire site the Bull guards.
  A killing blow to the Bull causes the total destruction of the 
  site, reducing it to a pile of rubble. In this case, roll Power + 
  Resolve minus the Defense of each affected person to determine 
  bashing damage dealt. This Numen costs no Essence.
  Ban: The Bull adopts a submissive manner under two cir-
  cumstances. A character who keeps the Bull immobilized in 
  a grapple for three full turns subdues the beast, and compels 
  it to leave the grappler and his companions alone. If the Bull 
  is harmed after its release, however, the guardian enters a rage 
  that cannot be quelled by grappling.
  Alternatively, the Bull can be subdued by a woman who 
  touches its face without malice. Roll Presence + Animal Ken 
  versus the Bull’s Resistance. Success calms the Bull and renders 
  it (relatively) obedient to the woman. It leaves its ruin only 
  with great reluctance, but otherwise follows and protects its 
  tamer. If the roll is failed, the woman loses her Defense if 
  the Bull responds with an attack, but she can still try again 
  without penalty next turn.
  The Drowned God
  Quote: Do you know what it’s like, waiting centuries to see the 
  reason for your existence destroyed? Standing by helplessly while the 
  object of your devotion erodes? Of course not. That’s why you cannot 
  understand me.
  Background: The cultures beyond Atlantis had many gods: 
  war gods and fertility gods numbered in the thousands. Gods of 
  the sun and moon were barely less common. But gods of wisdom 
  and learning were rare and neglected in illiterate societies strug-
  gling with basic survival. So when the refugees of ruined Atlantis 
  sought shelter among the barbarians, a god or lore and memory 
  felt a bond with the newcomers that he had never felt before.
  The Atlanteans beseeched the lore-god to protect the secrets 
  they brought with them. In so doing, the god abandoned his 
  people — but although the god grieved, he agreed the cause 
  was worthy and the need was great. The Atlanteans raised a 
  temple, carved their words into its columns and its walls and 
  used runic magic to bind the god within.
  His tribe is now forgotten.
  Centuries passed. The Atlanteans died. And the temple 
  began to ﬁ ll with water.
  Every year for thousands of years, a few drops seeped and 
  dripped down the temple walls. Every year, the stones carved 
  with Atlantean lore became a little smoother. The god could 
  do nothing but weep as the water rose to his knees, his chest 
  and his eyes; water was not his dominion.
  The carvings washed away, and the ﬂ ooded temple was 
  wiped clean of knowledge. The god drowned, and his nature 
  changed. At last, the runes that bound the god were destroyed, 
  and the anguished deity left his home forever.
  
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  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  For 50 years, now, the Drowned God has lived in the city. 
  He spends his days in museums and by the waterfront, listlessly 
  letting time go by and wondering what became of his people. 
  Only one thing brings him out of his ennui and stirs him to 
  action: the discovery or use of Atlantean lore.
  After what his loyalty to the Atlanteans cost him, the Drowned 
  God loathes the memory of Atlantis. He hunts archaeologists 
  on the verge of discovery, and alters their minds to deny them 
  success. He destroys newly discovered Atlantean ruins, unweav-
  ing spells of preservation. First, though, he may assist a site’s 
  guardians in killing the intruders who would learn the secrets 
  of Atlantis — especially mages.
  Description: The Drowned God now chooses to look like 
  a middle-aged man with white hair and a white suit. A few 
  blue threads stick to his clothing, like veins in white marble. 
  His skin is cool and clammy, he smells like a damp cave and 
  he bleeds pure water when cut.
  He is soft-spoken and articulate, concealing his rage and 
  grief beneath a sociopathically calm exterior. On a good day, 
  the Drowned God can pass as an eccentric modern gentle-
  men, but he rarely hides his true nature from anyone who 
  would understand.
  Storytelling Hints: The Drowned God stalks his victims 
  patiently and effectively, rarely letting emotion get in his 
  way. He claims to eliminate the remnants of Atlantis out of 
  revenge for what the Atlanteans did to him — but, in actuality, 
  he loathes himself for abandoning his people so long ago. He 
  believes that redemption is beyond him, so hatred is all he has 
  left to carry him through existence.
  Rank: 4
  Attributes: Power 10, Finesse 10, Resistance 5
  Willpower: 15
  Essence: 25 (max 25)
  Initiative: 15
  Defense: 10
  Speed: 25
  Size: 5
  Corpus: 10
  Inﬂ uences: Water 4
  The Drowned God can do just about anything with water, 
  from strengthening the water in a shower to drown a person 
  to creating geysers in the ﬂ oor of an Atlantean ruin.
  Numina: Discorporation (dice pool 15), Innocuous
  Breach the Vault of Memory (dice pool 20). As the Mind 4 
  spell of the same name. Roll Power + Finesse versus the target’s 
  Resolve + Gnosis. Each use of this Numen costs two Essence.
  Ban: The Atlantean techniques used to grant the god physi-
  cal form and lock him in the temple could once have been 
  used to prevent him from re-forming after “death.” Since the 
  god of lore became the Drowned God, however, his nature 
  changed sufﬁ ciently to render the old runes useless. If the 
  Drowned God’s original name — that spoken by his ﬁ rst fol-
  lowers — could be discovered, it might be enough to make the 
  Atlantean arts work again.
  Gate Worms
  Background: The distortion of the Tapestry caused by Space 
  magic attracts the spirits dubbed gate worms. Apparently, these 
  
  90
  creatures can only manifest in the ripped apertures between 
  two actual places. Mystagogues claim to have found references 
  to these creatures in a set of Southeast Asian ruins they believe 
  date back to the post–Sundering Atlantean diaspora. These 
  inscriptions speak of terrible, ravenous worms that rose up 
  from the depths of nothingness beneath the Fallen World.
  According to this account, these worms are driven to 
  consume the stuff of the Fallen World, devouring gross and 
  subtle matter alike. The text hints that someone called these 
  creatures of the void into the Fallen World, but Awakened 
  scholars dispute the translation of this passage. The inscription 
  clearly states, however, that the Vox Draconis bound the fate 
  of these ravenous things and forbade them from entering the 
  Fallen World — material or spiritual — in any fashion.
  These creatures now knew their terrible hunger, and could 
  not return to a world where there was nothing to consume, 
  so they ﬂ ed to the only places not forbidden to them by this 
  great ban: the myriad small tunnels, rips and pocket dimen-
  sions created by the Space Arcanum.
  To this day, passages between locations in the Fallen World 
  are sometimes opened to reveal a terrible and ravenous worm. 
  The gate worms never appear in newly crafted passages; these 
  creatures are only a danger when passages already created, and 
  usually very old, are used.
  No one knows how gate worms ﬁ nd their way into such pas-
  sages. Mages who study gate worms surmise that they simply 
  remain in a portal until the passage becomes so old that it can 
  no longer be accessed, and collapses in on itself.
  The worms themselves are mindless and ravenous, attempt-
  ing to cram anything in their vicinity into their maw. When 
  either end of an aperture inhabited by a gate worm opens, the 
  creature erupts out of the passageway and begins to pull things 
  toward itself. In fact, a gate worm can emerge from both ends 
  of a portal at once. Where one Space portal is infested, any 
  others nearby probably are as well, so prudent mages avoid 
  opening further apertures near places where gate worms are 
  sighted. A worm might jump to the new portal.
  Description: Gate worms look like strange, chitinous worms 
  that completely ﬁ ll the dimensional tunnels they inhabit. Their 
  glossy black chitin reﬂ ects the light with a dull blue gleam. The 
  end of the worm has no eyes of any kind. The end is simply a 
  ringed hole in the chitin, holding a strange, writhing darkness 
  within. Tendrils of black nothingness curl out from the mouth 
  to clutch at nearby architecture and creatures, trying to pull 
  them all toward the worm’s maw and annihilation.
  Storytelling Hints: The gate worm is not a gatekeeper in 
  the traditional sense. No sane mage would want gate worms 
  near him, and even the mad mages lack a means of compelling 
  gate worms to do the mages’ will. Gate worms simply happen 
  upon the holdings of mages, lured on by the ample spatial 
  manipulation often found in such a place. Gate worms have 
  no motive but to consume.
  Rank: 3
  Attributes: Power 6, Finesse 7, Resistance 5
  Willpower: 10
  Essence: 20 (max 20)
  Initiative: 12
  Defense: 7
  Speed: 0
  Size: 10
  Corpus: 15
  Inﬂ uences: Spatial Rifts 1.
  • Strengthen: Gate worms use their Inﬂ uence to preserve 
  the spatial rifts in which they manifest. They can also use this 
  ability to ﬁ ght effects designed to collapse or close such rifts. 
  The mage who tries to affect a gate-worm’s portal wins an op-
  posed roll against the creature’s Power + Finesse. Each attempt 
  at resistance costs the gate-worm one Essence.
  Numina: Discorporation (dice pool 11; gate worms im-
  mediately reappear into another spatial rift somewhere in the 
  world), Materialize (gate worms automatically materialize when 
  they arrive in spatial rifts, with no roll necessary), Tentacles 
  of Nothing
  Tentacles of Nothing: Gate worms attack, lashing out with 
  dark tentacles of their strange non-substance. These attacks 
  are made by rolling Power + Finesse – the target’s Defense, 
  and ignore armor that does not come from Death or Space 
  magics. Each success on this roll inﬂ icts one point of Ability 
  damage as the target fades into nonexistence. The ﬁ rst success 
  removes one point of Strength, the second removes a point of 
  Stamina and so on, alternating between the two Attributes. If 
  either Ability drops to 0, the target is drawn into the worm’s 
  maw and annihilated. Lost Abilities recover at a rate of one 
  point per day, or by infusing the victim with Mana to restore 
  her patter (one Mana per Ability point restored).
  Ban: Gate worms cannot leave the spatial rift in which they 
  appear. If the gate worms are compelled to do so, the spatial 
  rift is rent apart as it enters the Fallen World (either material 
  or Shadow), thanks to the curse laid on the rift in ages past. 
  If a spatial rift where one exists is somehow collapsed, the 
  creature within it is destroyed.
  Ghost Out of Time
  Quote: Where am I? What am I? What are you? Why have you 
  called me?
  Background: Necromancers have long compelled ghosts 
  to guard valuable locations and artifacts. After all, ghosts are 
  patient. They don’t need to be fed or sheltered, and they don’t 
  grow feeble with age.
  But ghosts are only as strong as their anchors, and anchors 
  can be stolen or destroyed. So, with spells lost to modern 
  sorcerers, ancient Necromancers combined Death, Fate and 
  Time magics to anchor a ghost to a treasure and thrust that 
  treasure into the future. With the ghost’s anchor gone, the 
  ghost disappeared as well, ﬂ ung somewhere between eternity 
  and the Underworld.
  Only a mage who performs the proper ritual or who casts 
  the right spells can make the treasure reappear in normal time. 
  The ritual might entail a ceremony in an Atlantean temple 
  
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  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  during a planetary conjunction, or the utterance of a certain 
  phrase by the descendant of an Atlantean king; the Storyteller 
  can set whatever details seem appropriate. Yet in recovering 
  the treasure, the mage springs a trap — unwittingly drawing 
  the bound spectre back to the land of the living.
  Being thus hurled through time has driven the Ghost mad 
  (not that ghosts are terribly sane in any case). The Ghost’s 
  pain and confusion quickly become rage. Memories of the 
  Ghost’s previous life are lost or fragmented, and the only magic 
  the being wields is that granted by its unfortunate state. The 
  Ghost attacks with berserk fury, trapped by an anchor in an 
  age not the Ghost’s own.
  Description: The Ghost resembles a black-and-white pho-
  tograph of its former self that has been crumpled, torn and 
  reassembled. A series of afterimages trails behind the Ghost 
  whenever it moves, and the stench of ozone surrounds.
  Storytelling Hints: A mage persistent enough to retrieve a 
  time-lost item from an Atlantean ruin probably isn’t willing 
  to give that item up, even if that item is a mad ghost’s anchor 
  to the world. But while the wraith probably can’t be reasoned 
  with, it might be calmed enough to admit its desire to return 
  to the grave. If not, powerful Death spells may be the only 
  way to be rid of the Ghost.
  Rank: 3
  Attributes: Power 6, Finesse 7, Resistance 6
  Willpower: 12
  Essence: 20 (max 20)
  Initiative: 13
  Defense: 7
  Speed: 23
  Size: 5
  Corpus: 11
  Numina: Ghost Speech (dice pool 13), Telekinesis (dice 
  pool 13), Terrify (dice pool 13)
  Chronos’ Curse (dice pool 13). As the Time 4 spell of the 
  same name. Roll the ghost’s Power + Finesse minus the target’s 
  Composure. Each use of this Numen costs three Essence.
  Destroy Mana (dice pool 13). As the Death 5 spell of the 
  same name. Roll the ghost’s Power + Finesse minus the target’s 
  Resolve. Each use of this Numen costs four Essence.
  Shifting Sands (dice pool 13). As the Time 3 spell of the same 
  name. Roll the ghost’s Finesse + Resistance versus the target’s Com-
  posure + Gnosis. Each use of this Numen costs two Essence.
  Ban: The Ghost cannot directly affect its own anchor, and 
  disappears during any period when the anchor is removed 
  from normal time. In addition, any Time spells used by mages 
  to affect the anchor affect the Ghost as well.
  Hunt-Spawn
  Quote: <the sound of a guttural, snarling hiss from directly 
  above>
  Background: Not all the temples found by Awakened Seek-
  ers are wondrous storehouses of enlightened Artifacts and 
  knowledge. Some of the temples were clearly sealed during 
  the days of Atlantis, for the entities worshipped therein were 
  too horrible and blasphemous for humans to risk knowing 
  the truth about them.
  In particular, there seems to have existed a nation that stood 
  either in the last days of Atlantis, or after its Fall. The nation 
  has no name, for the Atlanteans struck it from reality. The 
  acamoth-haunted sorcerer-kings of the Nameless Empire con-
  sidered the Atlantean search for enlightenment and Supernal 
  wisdom to be a terrible blasphemy against the natural, sinful 
  nature of humanity.
  This nation must have been quite large, or maintained 
  colonies, for Seekers have found ruins of Nameless origin 
  in northern Africa and in the mountains of eastern North 
  America. Some Awakened observe that during the age when 
  the continents formed the theoretical Pangaea, these places 
  would have been right next to each other.
  The ancient magi who sealed these temple-tombs populated 
  them with hunt-spawn. These horrible, ravenous creatures 
  exist only to eat other creatures and then return to deathless 
  hibernation, until the scent of the living awakens the hunt-
  spawn once more. However hunt-spawn came to be — spirits 
  bound into ﬂ esh, living automata given the breath of life, 
  animals or insects warped and transformed by magic — these 
  creatures do their work well.
  Hunt-spawn cannot exist outside the ruins they inhabit. To 
  ensure that these horrors do not accidentally escape the sealed 
  fanes of Nameless blasphemy, the magi somehow imbued 
  the hunt-spawn with the inability to live outside the temple 
  they guard. Even if taken to another temple haunted by these 
  creatures, the hunt-spawn dies quickly.
  Within the boundaries of their temple, however, hunt-spawn 
  have tremendous recuperative power. If the new moon ﬁ nds 
  the corpse of a hunt-spawn still within the ruins it was set 
  to guard, the thing’s remains become the cocoon of a new 
  hunt-spawn.
  Description: Hunt-spawn possess six clawed and chitinous 
  limbs. The forward pair are wicked scything instruments simi-
  lar to the grasping legs of a praying mantis. The middle two 
  possess delicate taloned digits capable of ﬁ ne manipulation, 
  while the rear legs are strongly muscled and designed so the 
  hunt-spawn can leap great distances.
  The segmented, barbed chitin that covers hunt-spawn makes 
  them dangerous to attack unarmed. A hunt-spawn’s heavily-
  armored, wedge-shaped head seems to have a strong lower jaw. 
  When the hunt-spawn feeds, however, the pointed “jaw” splits 
  and unfolds into a pair of serrated mandibles.
  A hunt-spawn’s body has three sections, like an ant or wasp 
  — but they are seven feet long, with an abdomen four feet wide. 
  In instances in which the hunt-spawn’s bulky abdomens prevent 
  them from following their prey through a small opening, hunt-
  spawn have been known to attack one another and rip away 
  their bulky last segment to allow them to give pursuit.
  Storytelling Hints: As gatekeepers, hunt-spawn are meant 
  for one thing: to exterminate anyone who enters their haunt. 
  Ruins guarded by hunt-spawn were never meant to be explored. 
  
  92
  The ancients clearly believed that it is better to kill interlopers 
  than to risk the blasphemous secrets of the Nameless Empire 
  escaping into the world again.
  Attributes: Intelligence 1, Wits 3, Resolve 3, Strength 
  4, Dexterity 5, Stamina 6, Presence 3, Manipulation 0, 
  Composure 1
  Skills: Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Intimidation 4, Stealth 2, 
  Survival 4
  Willpower: 4
  Initiative: 6
  Defense: 3
  Speed: 15
  Size: 6
  Weapons/Attacks:
  Type 
  Damage 
  Dice Pool
  Scythe-arms 
  3L* 
  9
  * A hunt-spawn’s serrated, razor-sharp scythe-arms 
  grant these attacks the Armor Piercing 2 trait.
  Health: 12. Hunt-spawn do not suffer from wound 
  penalties.
  Special: Hunt-spawn heal one lethal or bashing Health level 
  per minute and completely regenerate lost limbs in a matter 
  of hours. Hunt-spawn also have the ability to see perfectly in 
  complete darkness.
  Additionally, by spending a point of Willpower and not moving 
  during that turn, the hunt-spawn may attack with both scythe-arms 
  on the next turn, with a –1 penalty to both attacks. On turns 
  when the hunt-spawn do this, they gain no Defense rating.
  Jibril al-Ifriti
  Quote: (in Arabic) Enter, and be at peace. But do not go beyond the 
  rose door — that is where the treasure lies, and it is forbidden to you.
  Background: Jibril al-Ifriti remembers a time before he 
  heard the word of the Prophet. He remembers a simple life 
  devoid of mortal concerns; he had no name, no purpose and 
  no knowledge of the world. He remembers being called by a 
  human and striking a bargain, and becoming guardian to a 
  palace that turned cold and decrepit as the centuries passed.
  But Jibril’s childhood ended when another human visited 
  him — the ﬁ rst Jibril had encountered for untold ages. This 
  human wielded the same strange powers as the last, but treated 
  Jibril with kind fascination instead of disdain. The man said 
  that Jibril was a djinni, a being of “smokeless ﬁ re.” The man 
  taught Jibril to read and brought many books to the ruined 
  palace, and helped Jibril understand his place in God’s world. 
  The man helped Jibril choose a name.
  By the time the man departed, Jibril’s outlook on existence 
  changed. He would fulﬁ ll his vows to the sorcerers of the old 
  world and remain a guardian — but he would also become a 
  pious scholar and spend his days in prayer and contempla-
  tion. He read the books left behind by the ancients, but he 
  preferred the works written during the millennia since. Now, 
  he awaits the next visitors to the palace, hoping that they’ll 
  prove themselves as worthy as the ancients’ heirs.
  Description: Jibril is a true spirit, ordinarily anchored in 
  Twilight in the ruins of his palace. To those who can see him 
  (or when he materializes), he appears as a tall, beautiful man 
  dressed in simple white robes. His eyes are pits of white ﬁ re, 
  and his feet never touch the ground.
  Jibril speaks quietly and thoughtfully in archaic Arabic. He is 
  unfailingly polite to strangers, but distrusts anyone who doesn’t 
  share his faith. While he enjoys a good debate, he remains 
  dedicated to fulﬁ lling his vows and can’t easily be convinced 
  to permit access to the palace’s treasures.
  Storytelling Hints: As part of the bargain he struck with 
  Atlantean sorcerers, Jibril cannot give strangers access to the 
  palace’s treasures unless they meet certain conditions. However, 
  the same bargain prevents Jibril from revealing those condi-
  tions or the terms of his agreement. Jibril secretly hopes to be 
  freed from his task once he meets the treasures’ worthy heirs, 
  but he is also patient — he will not twist the meaning of his 
  contract to escape more quickly.
  Rank: 2
  Attributes: Power 5, Finesse 6, Resistance 3
  Willpower: 8
  Essence: 15 (max 15)
  Initiative: 9
  Defense: 6
  Speed: 19
  Size: 5
  Corpus: 8
  Inﬂ uences: Phantasms 4
  Jibril controls the holy ﬂ ame that composes Prime-based 
  phantasms. He can create any inanimate object out of Es-
  sence the way mages create phantasms out of Mana, and then 
  strengthen, manipulate or control it however he wants.
  Numina: Materialize (dice pool 11), Material Vision (dice 
  pool 11)
  Burning Curse (dice pool 8). Jibril can bestow a curse upon 
  trespassers and thieves that denies them the use of tass. Roll 
  Power + Resistance versus the target’s Resolve + Gnosis and 
  spend three Essence. Whenever a cursed mage handles tass, 
  the tass is immediately consumed and destroyed by white ﬁ re. 
  Imbued items and Artifacts that have their own Mana pools are 
  also affected, but to a lesser extent — such items lose one Mana 
  point each turn they are within the mage’s possession.
  Jibril can remove the curse at any time. Otherwise, the 
  Prime 4 spell “Supernal Dispellation” can undo the effect. 
  Treat the successes gained on the initial Numen roll as the 
  curse’s Potency.
  Celestial Fire (dice pool 11). As the Prime 3 spell of the 
  same name (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 224). Roll Power 
  + Finesse minus the target’s Stamina. Each use of this Numen 
  costs one Essence.
  Siphon Mana (dice pool 8). As the Prime 5 spell of the same 
  name (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 231).
  Mana Conversion (no dice pool). Jibril can channel Mana 
  from the Hallow within the temple he guards, and convert the 
  
  93
  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  Mana into Essence. He does the same with Mana siphoned 
  from intruders.
  Ban: Included within the lost contract that binds Jibril to 
  his palace are mudras that play on the spirit’s weaknesses. If 
  these mudras are utilized in combination with a mage’s magic, 
  the mage gains an extra two dice when targeting Jibril with 
  Spirit spells.
  The Living Palace
  Quote: We remember an age when we were spirit. An age when 
  your kind had power. That age is over.
  Background: The ruin of one Atlantean stronghold hides more 
  than tass, lost rotes and the soul stones that make the structure 
  a Demesne. The palace’s marble pillars and archways stand like 
  bones ﬁ lled with black, tarry marrow. Mana ﬂ ows down crystal 
  conduits along lengthy hallways, pumped like blood through the 
  ruin’s “heart.” At the stronghold’s center, celestial ﬁ re dances 
  among bizarre sculptures like synapses ﬁ ring in a human brain.
  The ruin is neither alive nor dead. But it is aware. Bound 
  into the foundations of the stronghold is a Marquess spirit of 
  godlike power and unfathomable nature. Over the millennia, 
  the spirit has attempted to escape by forcing its body through 
  the cycle of souls, ascending from matter into ﬂ esh and from 
  ﬂ esh into spirit. The spirit has fully merged with the Demesne, 
  but the spirit’s transformation is only beginning — rock now 
  turns to meat and bone, chambers become alien organs and 
  air and water become blood — and like any creature undergo-
  ing metamorphosis, it grows hungry.
  The orders have known about the Living Palace for a long 
  time. Each order explains the ruin in the order’s own way. The 
  Adamantine Arrow claims its forebears bound the spirit into 
  the Demesne to defeat the spirit, sacriﬁ cing the sanctum in the 
  process. Secret scrolls belonging to the Guardians of the Veil say 
  the Atlanteans struck a deal with the spirit, knowing it would 
  protect the treasures in the ruin the spirit devoured. Scelesti 
  say their ancestors crafted the Living Palace as slow-growing 
  supernatural cancer in the world. Whatever the explanation, 
  all records agree that the spirit cares little for humanity — and 
  few mages who enter will ever leave again.
  Description: In most places, the Living Palace resembles a 
  typical Atlantean ruin. The spirit’s nature is revealed in the 
  subtleties: veins in marble writhe or seem to ooze with ﬂ uid, 
  corridors twist unnaturally and a rhythmic pulsing can be 
  heard by pressing one’s ear to the ﬂ oor.
  Where the spirit exerts its power, walls warp into skin and 
  water churns and turns dark. Doorways suck themselves closed, 
  and the air becomes foul. The ruin’s transformed interior is 
  almost too bizarre to be gruesome, despite its clearly organic, 
  unnatural state.
  Storytelling Hints: The spirit isn’t interested in the affairs 
  of mages or Sleepers, but it possesses a hunger for more soul 
  stones and magical power, as well as a sense of self-preservation. 
  The Living Palace attempts to delay and disorient intruding 
  mages by reshaping itself, hoping eventually to use its Claim 
  Numen and absorb the willworkers’ magic.
  
  94
  Mages who attack living segments of the spirit with Death 
  magic discover that, instead of “dying,” those segments of the 
  ruin return to stone. In effect, the ascension from matter to 
  ﬂ esh is reversed.
  Rank: 5
  Attributes: Power 15, Finesse 10, Resistance 15
  Willpower: 30
  Essence: 50 (max 50)
  Initiative: 25
  Defense: 15
  Speed: None
  Size: 40 (ruin)
  Corpus: 55
  Inﬂ uences: Demesne 5
  The Living Palace can extend hallways, raise chambers, seal 
  doorways and otherwise change its interior however the spirit 
  desires. For example:
  • Strengthen: For one Essence, the Palace can increase an 
  area’s Durability or repair a wall, door or furnishing damaged 
  by intruders.
  • Manipulate: For two Essence, the Palace can change the ap-
  pearance of a room or hall. Seekers who backtrack their steps can 
  ﬁ nd themselves in a place that looks completely different.
  • Control: Three Essence allows the Palace to animate a 
  room or hall to attack intruders. Floors heave, walls extrude 
  tentacles tipped with venom-dripping claws and doorways 
  squeeze shut like sphincters — and vanish.
  • Create: Four Essence enables the Palace to create whole 
  new halls or chambers, or absorb ones that already exist, chang-
  ing its own layout. The Demesne can also ﬂ ood a passage with 
  digestive enzymes (an environmental hazard dealing no more 
  than one Wound level per turn).
  • Mass Create: For ﬁ ve Essence, the Palace can produce 
  guardian creatures to attack intruders. Columns transform 
  into leathery, yellow-eyed serpents, and buttresses become 
  bat-winged monsters. For every two successes on a Power + 
  Finesse roll, the Palace creates one quasi-biological horror 
  from the Palace’s own substance. Base these creatures on the 
  Marmoreal Myrmidon (Mage: The Awakening, p. 329, except 
  the creatures lack any Inﬂ uence).
  Numina: Claim (dice pool 25), Harrow (dice pool 25), Soul 
  Snatch (dice pool 25)
  Ban: By ﬁ nding and destroying the soul stones at the foun-
  dation of the Living Palace (and thus making it no longer a 
  Demesne), a mage traps the spirit in the stronghold, denies the 
  spirit the use of all powers and ends its metamorphosis.
  Any formal Ban the spirit possessed before it was bound 
  remains undiscovered.
  Mana-Reaver
  Quote: <a high-pitched whine followed by an electrical 
  crackle>
  Background: For all the destruction wrought by the forma-
  tion of the Abyss, Paradoxes did provide a fascinating subject 
  of study for eccentric Atlanteans. Upon witnessing the chaos 
  of Havoc Paradoxes, one cabal sought to replicate that chaos as 
  a means of self-defense. The cabal members were not entirely 
  successful, but they managed to bind an Abyssal spark within a 
  ruby and placed the gem inside one of their sanctums. There, the 
  spark fed on Atlantean magics and awaited further meals.
  The Mana-Reaver is not truly sentient. It is more a force 
  than a spirit, drawn to devour spells and excreting light and 
  energy. The Mana-Reaver is puriﬁ ed mystic chaos imprisoned 
  in a fetter, and is as dangerous to the environment the force 
  “guards” as to intruders.
  Atlanteans opposed to the Mana-Reaver’s creation feared 
  that the force would draw Abyssal entities to the Atlantean 
  sanctum, ultimately resulting in the destruction or corruption 
  of Atlantean lore. Perhaps the Atlanteans were right. At the 
  very least, any other magical defenses used in the domain of 
  the Mana-Reaver must have been terribly warped through 
  the years.
  Description: A jagged, starry gap in space just over a foot 
  across — a churning dark void speckled with light and centered 
  on a seething red jewel. Air ripples and hisses around it as if 
  boiling away. Purple lightning leaps from the gap every now 
  and then, scorching whatever it touches.
  Storytelling Hints: In its role as guardian, the Mana-Reaver 
  is a vicious reminder that magic is not always the most effective 
  solution to a problem. Casting spells only gives the Mana-
  Reaver more chances to regain Essence and more chances to 
  create Havoc Paradoxes.
  Nonetheless, some mages could ﬁ nd the Mana-Reaver a 
  tempting object of study. A few mages believe that Paradoxes 
  can be controlled, and this curious creation of the Atlanteans 
  might provide insight into the nature of Havocs and the ripples 
  the Abyss ﬁ rst sent through the Fallen World.
  Rank: 1
  Attributes: Power 4, Finesse 3, Resistance 1
  Willpower: 5
  Essence: 10 (max 10)
  Initiative: 4
  Defense: 4
  Speed: 12
  Size: 3
  Corpus: 4
  Numina: Blast (dice pool 7)
  Wreak Havoc (dice pool 7). The Mana-Reaver can use this 
  Numen reﬂ exively to alter magic (including covert spells) tar-
  geted on it or used to interfere with its mission. Spend one 
  Essence and roll Power + Finesse minus the caster’s Resolve. If 
  the Mana-Reaver is successful, the caster’s spell becomes a Havoc 
  Paradox (even if the spell is not vulgar or improbable).
  Ban: If no spells are currently active nearby and no new 
  spells are cast during the next turn, the Mana-Reaver reverts to 
  the form of an “ordinary” ruby. Unless the ruby is destroyed, 
  however, the Mana-Reaver can manifest again as soon as it 
  feels the presence of a spell.
  
  95
  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  Musul Akade
  Quote: (sound made by the buzzing of locust wings) Get— out 
  —
  Background: Swarms of scarab beetles in Egypt. Carpets 
  of venomous centipedes in mainland China. Swarms of killer 
  bees in the African veldt. Masses of ﬁ re ants in the American 
  South. Sheets of spiders in the Black Forest of Germany. In 
  some ancient, magical ruins, the ambient magic causes insects 
  and related creatures to act with unnatural unity and hostile 
  intelligence. Does the ambient magic of a place somehow 
  over-excite the simple nervous systems of these creatures? Do 
  they react to deliberate geomantic manipulations when the 
  sites were built, or to spells laid afterward?
  Writings that some Awakened archaeologists ascribe to 
  Lemuria tell of the Musul Akade, the insect demons set by 
  barbarian sorcerer-kings to guard their taboo places. The Musul 
  Akade do not have physical bodies for themselves. Instead, they 
  act through swarms of insects or arachnids, wearing masses 
  of insects in the same fashion that ghosts can wear shrouds 
  of ectoplasm.
  The Musul Akade gather up large numbers of insects or 
  other arthropods — any insects of a single kind — and then 
  possess the resultant swarm. These swarms are inexorable and 
  feel no pain. However, the Musul Akade themselves are not 
  entirely in control of these masses of insects: just as the bodies 
  of the insects accede to the desires of the insect-demon, the 
  spirits themselves partake somewhat of the essential nature 
  of the creatures the spirits possess. Spider-possessing Musul 
  Akade are driven to create elaborate traps and wait in hiding 
  for intruders, while ﬁ re-ant-spirits approach the defense of 
  their tombs ravenously and without pause.
  Swarms driven by a Musul Akade can be killed, but this does not 
  harm the demon itself. The demon is simply rendered impotent 
  to affect the physical world until the Musul Akade can gather 
  another swarm to serve it. Only the Spirit Arcanum and other 
  spirit-affecting magic can truly harm the Musul Akade.
  Awakened Seekers may enter a tightly-sealed ruin that houses 
  a Musul Akade without an insect body. In such instances, the 
  Musul Akade often goes unnoticed as it lurks in Twilight in 
  some well-hidden nook. If the ruin is left unsealed, however, 
  the insect-demons always escape and return to punish inter-
  lopers. More than one expedition has reported few problems 
  getting into a temple or tomb, only to discover huge swarms 
  of ravenous insects trying to deny the mages exit.
  Description: When possessing a swarm, Musul Akade 
  are hard to miss: the swarm is active, inquisitive and utterly 
  aggressive.
  In the Shadow Realm or Twilight, Musul Akade look like 
  oval lumps of hard, honeycombed, waxen material, a deep 
  brown in hue. When they control a swarm, the pupal lump 
  takes the shape of the arthropod controlled, while spiritual 
  versions of those insects or arachnids crawl in and out of their 
  honeycombed bodies. Musul Akade have possessed insects, 
  arachnids (including scorpions) and myriapods (centipedes 
  and millipedes). A single report of a Musul Akade guarding 
  an undersea ruin in the Bering Sea using a mass of Alaska 
  king crabs has not been conﬁ rmed.
  Storytelling Hints: These extremely territorial spirits even-
  tually come to regard the ruin in which they were trapped as 
  their home. They defend it as instinctively and ferociously as 
  killer bees protecting their hive. Musul Akade that possess a 
  swarm are difﬁ cult to speak with, for the demons tend to view 
  
  96
  everything through the lens of insect impulses, but Musul Akade 
  can shape insect-noises into a semblance of speech.
  Rank: 2
  Attributes: Power 3, Finesse 6, Resistance 4
  Willpower: 8
  Essence: 15 (max 15)
  Initiative: 10
  Defense: 6
  Speed: 6
  Size: 4
  Corpus: 8
  Inﬂ uences: Insects/Arthropods 2.
  • Strengthen: Musul Akade can increase the effective size 
  of a swarm for purposes of inﬂ icting and receiving damage, 
  though the number of living insects doesn’t increase. The real 
  bugs spread out more, and ectoplasmic doubles ﬁ ll the gaps. 
  Each success on the insect-demon’s Power + Finesse (9 dice) 
  roll adds 1 to the effective size of the swarm, to a maximum 
  of twice the swarm’s initial size. This lasts for one minute per 
  success (unless the spirit spends more Essence), and is often 
  activated right before the swarm descends on a foe.
  • Manipulate: Musul Akade use their second level of Inﬂ u-
  ence to gather swarms for the spirit to possess using its Claim 
  Numen. Roll the spirit’s Power + Finesse while the spirit spends 
  its Essence; the number of successes indicates the initial size 
  of the swarm, per the chart for the Life 2 spell “Control Base 
  Life” (see p. 182 of Mage: The Awakening).
  Numina: Claim (dice pool 9; Musul Akade can use this on 
  large groups of insects and arachnids, but only of a single type 
  at any given time), Gauntlet Breach (dice pool 9)
  Ban: Musul Akade are driven out of their swarm by anything 
  that is poisonous or otherwise harmful to their hosts, such as 
  insecticides. This does not include phenomena that are harmful 
  in general, such as ﬁ re, but does include the spirits of natural 
  predators to the creatures that make up the swarm, such as 
  bat-spirits or sparrow-spirits for ﬂ ying insects, anteaters for 
  ant-spirits and praying mantis-spirits for nearly any insect.
  Nemesis
  Quote: To stand here is to die. To ﬁ ght me is to meet your doom. 
  Leave this place; do not rush toward destiny so eagerly.
  Background: The ancient masters of Fate believed wisdom 
  was the ability to straddle the line between destiny and desire 
  — the ability to remain true to one’s oaths without being con-
  trolled by them. Such masters expected no less from anyone 
  seeking their temples and treasures. As a test, the mages cre-
  ated the Nemesis Sisters — beings with the power to reshape 
  themselves and challenge a person’s ﬁ delity.
  A Nemesis is a deadly combatant that strikes at any intruder. 
  She is swift and strong, but her real power is her ability to test 
  a foe’s oaths. She knows all the vows and curses that bind her 
  opponents, and can change her form and her weapons to take 
  advantage of that knowledge.
  Description: In her natural form, a Nemesis is a seven-foot-
  tall stone statue. Her features are simple and not particularly 
  lifelike, although she is clearly the work of a skilled craftsman. 
  She is dressed in plain robes and carries a sword, bow or other 
  weapon. Her voice is clear, cold and resonant.
  When a Nemesis changes form, the change is complete — her 
  voice, body language and even her style of combat alters along 
  with her shape. She knows how to use any weapon or object 
  she creates, and readily shows her pleasure when an opponent 
  meets his doom.
  Storytelling Hints: A Nemesis takes dark satisfaction in forc-
  ing her foes into circumstances in which they must break their 
  oaths. She sees fate as the ultimate doom of all creatures, and 
  views anyone who defeats her with mixed hatred and respect. 
  Her bitterness grows from her inability to escape her own 
  destiny — she is bound to remain a guardian by oath-spells of 
  unbreakable power, and tires of millennia of solitude.
  A mage who releases a Nemesis from her bonds might gain 
  her gratitude — if she doesn’t have a different fate in mind. 
  And who can guess how the other Sisters would react if one 
  of their own were freed?
  Rank: 3
  Attributes: Power 9, Finesse 4, Resistance 9
  Willpower: 18
  Essence: 20 (max 20)
  Initiative: 13
  Defense: 9
  Speed: 19
  Size: 6
  Corpus: 15
  Inﬂ uences: Doom 4
  A Nemesis can adapt her shape and possessions to meet the 
  conditions of a foe’s destiny (Fate-determined or not). The 
  Nemesis can adapt to multiple foes’ fates simultaneously (so long 
  as the adaptations aren’t mutually exclusive), but each adapta-
  tion counts as a separate use of Inﬂ uence. A Nemesis instantly 
  knows a character’s oaths, Bans and Fate-triggered spells at a 
  glance — no dice rolls or Essence expenditure needed.
  • Strengthen: A Nemesis can strengthen the power of an 
  oath so that she fulﬁ lls its terms merely by a change in ap-
  pearance. For instance, a real oath to obey a mentor wouldn’t 
  apply to a person who merely looked like that person; but by 
  spending one Essence and succeeding at a Power + ﬁ nesse roll, 
  the Nemesis extends the oath to include herself.
  • Manipulate: A Nemesis can alter her own form so that 
  she fulﬁ lls the conditions of any oath or Ban placed on a 
  character. For example, a Nemesis could become an owl 
  when facing a person with the Destiny Merit whose bane is 
  nocturnal birds.
  • Control: Fate triggers upon spells count as an aspect of 
  oaths and Bans. At cost of three Essence, a Nemesis can take 
  control of such triggers, to activate or block such spells. For 
  example, a Nemesis could sing a song that functions as the 
  conditional trigger of a prepared spell cast upon a mage.
  
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  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  A Nemesis can also offer to change any oaths or Bans upon 
  a character. She can do this, if the number of successes on 
  her Power + Finesse roll exceeds the Potency of the oath-spell. 
  However, the Nemesis also adds a ban to the changed oath: 
  the character may not ﬁ ght the Nemesis or continue his quest 
  to take whatever she guards.
  • Create: By spending four Essence, a Nemesis can material-
  ize any props she needs to ﬁ t within the terms of an oath, or 
  to challenge a character’s oath. For instance, a Nemesis could 
  create a weapon that matches the parameters of an opponent’s 
  doomful item.
  Numina: Countermagic (dice pool 13). A Nemesis can 
  use this Numen as reﬂ exive countermagic against Fate magic 
  (including covert spells) targeted on her or used to interfere 
  with her mission. One Essence is spent, and Power + Finesse 
  is rolled. If successes equal or exceed those of the spell, the 
  spell is countered.
  Oathbound (dice pool 18). A Nemesis has sworn an oath to 
  guard her temple. The oath allows a reﬂ exive Power + Resis-
  tance roll for the Nemesis to act in circumstances that would 
  normally forbid action.
  Ban: A Nemesis cannot actually kill a person who has 
  sworn a binding oath to ﬁ nd the speciﬁ c location or treasure 
  the Nemesis guards. It may terrify the person, and bring her 
  within an inch of death, but if the person truly accepts death 
  before dishonor, the Nemesis cannot destroy her.
  Pythagorean Sphinx
  Quote: (in Greek) One step before the other leads thee astray. 
  Corners go to places that do not lie beyond them. Walk upon walls, 
  fall toward ceilings. Flee this place now, before I cease my games and 
  become annoyed.
  Background: The sphinx has long been a symbol of conun-
  drums and confusion. When spirits of unsolved questions and 
  riddles manifest in the material world, they often appear in 
  the form of a sphinx, the Fallen World’s manifestation of the 
  Platonic concept of enigmas meant to be solved.
  The ﬁ rst recorded instance of a Pythagorean Sphinx came 
  in the classical era, from a cabal dedicated to unlocking the 
  Supernal truths within the teachings of Pythagoras. One day, 
  the cabal members encountered a Sphinx that posed them a 
  riddle. However, this puzzle was not one of words and logic, 
  but of space and geometry, as they entered their sanctum to 
  ﬁ nd its lines all ajumble while remaining straight, surfaces 
  conjunct with others in angles that should not be and spatial 
  connections broken and disjointed. Since then, Seekers have 
  encountered Pythagorean Sphinxes in a few Atlantean or 
  post–Atlantean sites.
  Like all sphinxes, Pythagorean Sphinxes demand that mor-
  tals whom the Sphinxes test solve the riddles — a difﬁ cult task 
  for mages who are not well-versed in advanced mathematics. 
  Solving the riddle can mean anything from discovering the 
  way out of a four-dimensional labyrinth to shooting a game 
  of pool on a table with the relativist distortion of space near 
  a spinning black hole.
  And, similar to all sphinxes, the Pythagorean Sphinx will 
  consume anyone who fails to solve its riddle.
  Description: A Pythagorean Sphinx looks like a hunting 
  cat of a size that dwarfs the largest lion or tiger, with a set of 
  great wings and a human head. In the case of the Pythagorean 
  Sphinx, its cat body is covered in white fur that shimmers with 
  a slight bluish tinge, while the large wings are raven-black. The 
  head is that of an elderly Greek man with a long white beard 
  and delicately ringed snow-white hair. The Sphinx gazes at 
  its foes with eyes of hematite, and as it sits on its haunches, 
  its great obsidian claws idly sketch out patterns of geometric 
  shapes and angles — which may be the only clue it offers to 
  its riddle. Pythagorean Sphinxes speak only Latin, Greek and 
  Atlantean, and woe betides those who cannot understand the 
  Sphinxes’ clues, for the mages’ tasks become difﬁ cult.
  Storytelling Hints: Unlike some gatekeepers, Pythagorean 
  Sphinxes welcome Seekers, for the Sphinxes are usually forbid-
  den to use their powers on the area around them except as a 
  means to foil intruders.
  A Pythagorean Sphinx usually appears to Seekers by landing 
  with a great roar in their midst. The Sphinx uses its powers to 
  scatter the intruders while shifting the ideas of “down” and 
  “across” so the characters end up “lying” on different surfaces 
  of the room. The Sphinx then sits back on its haunches, smiles 
  smugly and gives a small clue, whether verbally or in the form 
  of a geometrical theorem.
  Rank: 4
  Attributes: Power 9, Finesse 12, Resistance 9
  Willpower: 18
  Essence: 25 (max 25). Pythagorean Sphinxes can regain 
  their Essence in places or situations where spatial geometry 
  or similar mathematic principles are in use: mathematics 
  classes, engineering and architectural ﬁ rms, construction 
  sites and the like. As characters attempt to reason their way 
  through the Sphinx’s puzzle, they recharge its Essence.
  Initiative: 21
  Defense: 12
  Speed: 10 (15 in ﬂ ight)
  Size: 8
  Corpus: 17
  Inﬂ uences: Spatial Geometry 4
  • Strengthen: The Pythagorean Sphinx may use its ﬁ rst 
  level of Inﬂ uence to strengthen spatial geometric principles, 
  countering magical effects that alter them. In practical terms, 
  the Pythagorean Sphinx can unravel Space magic by spending 
  one Essence and rolling Power + Finesse. If the Sphinx’s suc-
  cesses exceed the spell’s Potency, the spell is destroyed.
  • Manipulate: The Sphinx can use its second level of 
  Inﬂ uence to redirect a mage’s Space magic. For instance, a 
  portal could lead where the Sphinx wants, not where the mage 
  intends. Again, the Sphinx can do this if its successes exceed 
  the spell’s Potency.
  • Control: The third level of Inﬂ uence enables the Pythago-
  rean Sphinx to manipulate the spatial geometry around it. 
  
  98
  This is how the spirit turns up to down, warps hallways back 
  on themselves and makes corners to lead to places they don’t 
  normally go.
  • Create: The Pythagorean Sphinx would rather warp pres-
  ent spatial features rather than create new ones, but its fourth 
  level of Inﬂ uence allows the Sphinx to create entirely new 
  spatial structures. It can manifest zones of Escher-like spacial 
  distortion and recursion at will. If intruders fail the Sphinx’s 
  puzzle, the Sphinx may try to catch its victim in a bubble of 
  warped space. Inside, the bubble is large enough to hold a 
  mage; outside, the bubble is small enough for the Sphinx to 
  swallow like a grape.
  Numina: Discorporation (dice pool 18), Harrow (dice pool 
  21, creating a sense of terrible confusion as the mind of the target 
  is ﬂ ooded with theorems and abstract calculations), Materialize 
  (dice pool 21), Reaching (dice pool 21 – Gauntlet)
  Ban: If mortals solve the spatial riddle of a Pythagorean 
  Sphinx, it is driven back into Twilight for 24 hours. The Sphinx 
  will not trouble those characters again, unless compelled by a 
  stronger spirit or powerful magic.
  The Rmoahals
  Quote: (in High Speech) Who goes there?
  Background: The piecemeal Atlantean texts recovered by 
  the Mysterium often speak of the Rmoahals. Some scholars 
  theorize the Rmoahals were the tribal people of Atlantis: older 
  than the humans, physically formidable and protective of an 
  identity as a cultural group, yet willing to accept the rule of 
  the wizard-kings and orders. The texts imply Rmoahals were 
  valued slaves and servants. Rmoahals apparently fought in 
  their own divisions in the Atlantean army as it ventured forth 
  to defend the Awakened City from savage hordes and vile, oc-
  cult horrors — or conquering missions of imperial arrogance, 
  depending on which scholar’s interpretation you believe. As 
  usual with matters Atlantean, the evidence is inconsistent and 
  the scholarship mostly guesswork. The story of the aboriginal 
  Rmoahals goes some ways, however, toward explaining the 
  ones who guard a certain ancient temple, left behind to watch 
  a Verge and never relieved when Atlantis sank.
  Even now that the temple has fallen into ruin, this small 
  group of Rmoahal watchmen wait. They hunt deer and rab-
  bits for food and tell stories of home around the ﬁ re. They 
  wish they could go back to a land that vanished thousands 
  of years ago, but remain bound by faith and duty to stay by 
  their posts.
  Description: Rmoahals are sad-eyed, black-haired giants, 
  male and female, with smooth skin of shining indigo. They 
  wear nothing but sandals, loincloths and harnesses of leather 
  straps from animals that became extinct millennia ago, but 
  adorn their long hair and bare chests with jewelry made from 
  painted seashells, beads and animal teeth. For weapons, they 
  carry long, ﬂ int-tipped spears and the occasional treasured 
  Atlantean sword. They rarely smile, and they speak a slightly 
  mannered dialect of High Speech.
  Storytelling Hints: They may be eight feet tall, blue-skinned 
  and dressed in nothing but sword-belts and seashells, but the 
  Rmoahals are still men and women. They’re still people, not 
  inhuman creatures from the Shadow World. The Rmoahals 
  have lost track of time and have no idea how long they’ve kept 
  their guard. It might have been a couple of years as far as they 
  know. They treat each other as comrades and friends, and maybe 
  lovers too. If they see their friends harmed or killed, they will 
  grieve, feel anger and seek revenge, just like anyone else.
  Having said that, the Rmoahals are still the remnant of an 
  alien culture. These Rmoahals were never conquered or pressed 
  into ﬁ ghting for the Atlanteans: the Rmoahals volunteered as 
  sentries. Their entire being and worth centers around their 
  duty. A Rmoahal’s word is more binding than any enchant-
  ment. Duty has sustained them past the Sundering and the 
  passing of ages. Just because a Rmoahal’s Ban comes from his 
  own will doesn’t make it any less powerful.
  
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  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  The Rmoahal guards are reasonable, intelligent and willing to 
  tell everything they know about Atlantis. Unfortunately, they’re 
  still just common soldiers from a tribal culture. Their lives 
  consisted mainly of hunting, raising families, running farms 
  and ﬁ ghting in wars against enemies whose names they never 
  bothered to learn — the Rmoahals know hardly any mystical 
  lore, just a few deeds of their sorcerous lords they witnessed 
  without understanding. Perhaps, however, the fact that these 
  lonely and deathless warriors were, in the end, just men and 
  women is a signiﬁ cant occult revelation in its own right.
  If a mage were to ﬁ nd the correct form of the relief order 
  that will allow the Rmoahals to leave their posts, the most 
  likely outcome is that they’ll cheerfully pack up and head 
  across the Verge for other Realms, no doubt looking for their 
  homes. They’ll listen to anyone who tells them that their home 
  isn’t there any more, but they’ll want to see for themselves 
  nonetheless.
  Rank: 2
  Attributes: Power 5, Finesse 4, Resistance 5
  Willpower: 10
  Essence: 10 (max 20)
  Initiative: 9
  Defense: 5
  Speed: 15 (species factor 6)
  Size: 7
  Corpus: 12
  Inﬂ uences: Feats of Arms 1
  • Strengthen: In combat, a Rmoahal can spend one Essence 
  and roll Power + Finesse (9 dice) as an instant and reﬂ exive 
  action. Each success gives the Rmoahal a bonus to combat 
  dice pools for the next minute. Any hand-to-hand weapon 
  thus becomes unnaturally lethal in a Rmoahal warrior’s 
  hands, and Rmoahals may apply their bonus dice to counter 
  any penalties in combat. Improbable feats such as throwing 
  a dagger to knock a weapon from a foe’s hand, or pole-vault-
  ing over a foe with a spear to strike from behind, are easy for 
  Rmoahals — or at least such feats are less difﬁ cult than for 
  merely mortal warriors.
  Numina: Wilds Sense (dice pool 10). This sixth sense covers 
  the Verge the Rmoahals are bound to guard: this was part of 
  the original enchantment keeping the Rmoahals in this place. 
  Surprising a Rmoahal guardian is impossible.
  Ban: The Rmoahals vowed to stay at their post until relieved, 
  and never to let anyone past without the password. Although 
  they will are glad to talk with anyone who approaches in a 
  friendly manner, they must keep to their duty, and must ﬁ ght 
  anyone who tries to pass without the password. Likewise, 
  they can only leave their post 
  if someone gives the correct 
  relief order. Finding the 
  words to allow a group of 
  Rmoahals to leave their 
  posts could form the basis 
  of a story in itself, or even 
  a story arc or short chronicle.
  These antediluvial warriors also carry a more sinister Ban 
  that only becomes clear if they are freed from their duty and 
  go looking for Atlantis in the material world. Though ﬂ esh 
  and blood, they are still survivors from a reality that changed 
  millennia ago. Indigo-skinned giants are strange but just barely 
  believable for Sleepers — but the Rmoahals are still subject 
  to a slow unraveling before Sleeper eyes. If a Sleeper sees a 
  Rmoahal out in the workaday world, roll the Sleeper’s Resolve 
  + Composure and compare the successes to the Rmoahal’s 
  Resistance (instead of the Potency used for unraveling a spell). 
  Check every 10 minutes. When the accumulated successes 
  exceed the Rmoahal’s Resistance of 5, the Atlantean warrior 
  sickens and will die within hours.
  The Se’ir
  Quote: <dead silence, broken by a quiet, high pitched 
  chuckle>
  The painting on the temple wall is faint and chipped, but 
  the intruding mage can just barely make out the image. It 
  shows a chamber where a number of corpses lie, each a man 
  with his neck snapped and his face contorted with fear. An-
  other man, clearly a robed magus, stands erect and brandishes 
  something like a seal or a symbol — it’s difﬁ cult to tell exactly 
  what he holds, since the paint has ﬂ aked badly from that part 
  of the image. Something crouches across from him. Despite 
  the cracked and faded paint, skillful brush strokes still hint 
  at a terrible malice.
  But apart from the wall painting, the temple seems unin-
  habited. The mage shrugs and takes the scrolls away without 
  any opposition. As he leaves the temple, he doesn’t notice 
  that the painting has changed. There is now one fewer ﬁ gure 
  in the painted chamber.
  In his lodgings that night, the mage gets a visit.
  The following morning, the mage’s friends ﬁ nd him lying 
  on the ﬂ oor of his room, his neck broken and twisted, his 
  dead eyes bulging from their sockets. The scrolls he brought 
  back are gone.
  Description: A Se’ir is  the size of a man and has two arms 
  and two legs, but its limbs are too long and slender for a hu-
  man frame. Long, coarse, black hair covers its slender body. 
  Slanting yellow eyes stare out with undisguised malice 
  above a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, the only vis-
  ible features in a face obscured by the same straight, 
  
  100
  black hair. The Se’ir moves more like a spider than a human. Its 
  hands and feet appear to have more ﬁ ngers than they should; 
  each long, thin digit ends in a hooked, black claw. The thing 
  doesn’t smell of anything, and makes no sound — not even a 
  footfall — apart from a quiet, high-pitched laugh.
  Storytelling Hints: Some magical texts say that King Solo-
  mon tamed the Se’irim, the demons of the night. Whether 
  it’s true or not, the Se’irim make terrible vehicles of vengeance 
  against seekers of lore and tomb robbers. These demons can 
  be bound within pictures or statues of themselves. If anyone 
  takes anything out of the temple, the Se’ir leaves its home, takes 
  vengeance on the thief and retrieves the stolen item.
  You cannot reason with a Se’ir. If you ﬁ ght it off, it vanishes 
  back to its pictorial form — until the following night. Then 
  the Se’ir tries again. It keeps trying every night until the Se’ir 
  has either been destroyed or has killed those who robbed its 
  home and returned the stolen goods to the temple.
  The Se’irim count ideas as things that can be stolen. An 
  individual who makes copies of writings and inscriptions, or 
  takes photographs of the Se’ir’s guarded precincts, incurs the 
  demon’s wrath as surely as a tomb robber who hacks carvings 
  from the walls and strips jewels from idols.
  Rank: 3
  Attributes: Power 7, Finesse 5, Resistance 4
  Willpower: 7
  Essence: 7 (max 17 — three points are bound in the 
  demon’s picture)
  Initiative: 9
  Defense: 7
  Speed: 17 (species factor 5)
  Size: 5
  Corpus: 12
  Inﬂ uences: Retrieval 2
  • Strengthen: The ﬁ rst level of a Se’ir’s Inﬂ uence grants a 
  Se’ir an Intimate connection to everything within the place 
  the Se’ir guards. The demon can ﬁ nd the location of anything 
  removed from its lair, as with the Space 2 version of the spell 
  “Finder” (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 233).
  • Manipulate: Using the second level of a Se’ir’s Inﬂ uence, 
  a Se’ir can move instantly to the location of something stolen 
  from the Se’ir’s lair and located using the ﬁ rst level of Inﬂ uence. 
  This acts like the Space 4 “Teleportation” spell (see Mage: The 
  Awakening, p. 241), with the limits that the Se’ir can only 
  travel by night, and only between its representations and goods 
  or ideas stolen from its home temple. On the Se’ir’s Power + 
  Essence roll, the Se’ir’s successes must exceed the Potency of 
  any spell to conceal the item or block teleportation — but the 
  demon can reroll every night and accumulate the successes.
  Numina: Graven Image: As long as a visual representation 
  of the demon exists, the demon has a place to hide and can-
  not be destroyed. The Se’ir knows whether any other images 
  have been made, and can use any representation of itself as a 
  home by permanently investing three points of Essence in the 
  object, which is removed from the Se’ir’s maximum Essence 
  pool. (So a Se’ir with two homes can only have 14 points of 
  Essence, and so on.) The Graven Image removes the need for 
  any other Numina of manifestation, and anchors the demon 
  in the Material Realm without the need for further expendi-
  ture of Essence.
  Ban: The Se’irim can only act by night. Also, none of the 
  Se’irim can directly approach a holy symbol or seal, presented 
  with force. However, a mage holding off a Se’ir with a cruciﬁ x 
  would do well to remember that the mage has only blocked 
  off one approach; a Se’ir is easily bright enough to think of 
  attacking from another direction.
  Sirians
  Quote: Do not be afraid.
  Background: Some Atlantean kings had allies from the star 
  Sirius — at least, that’s the claim from Sumerian texts of dubi-
  ous provenance, and an interpretation given to various legends 
  from Africa. Modern mages, displaying a skepticism that’s a 
  bit rich given a world full of ghosts, werewolves, vampires and 
  spirits, are reluctant to believe that these “Sirians” were actually 
  visitors from another planet. Maybe they were spirits whose 
  powers were governed by Sirius, the mages say. Perhaps these 
  Sirians came from a spirit-realm with a name that resembled 
  the Atlantean name for the Dog Star. Other mages suggest 
  that maybe the Sirians didn’t exist at all in any factual sense; 
  they were just a metaphor for something else.
  The Sirians vanished long ago, but every so often rumors of 
  spirits guarding temples and Lorehouses already abandoned 
  before Atlantis fell bear a strong resemblance to the stories of 
  wise, benevolent — but tricky — Sirian visitors.
  Description: Accounts of the Sirians vary. They’re usu-
  ally more or less humanoid; but sometimes they’re ﬁ shlike, 
  sometimes leonine and sometimes they look like humans with 
  ﬁ ne features, almond-shaped, golden eyes and easily visible, 
  crystalline haloes of light surrounding their fragile bodies. 
  Some accounts suggest there may even be three separate Sirian 
  races. Although the putative Sirians occur in threes and fours, 
  they never appear in mixed groups of different forms. They 
  usually seem kindly — at ﬁ rst.
  Storytelling Hints: These beings adopt the role of teacher 
  and guide. They say they agreed to guard an Atlantean site for 
  some great purpose in the future, but they mean no harm. 
  First, they try to talk Seekers out of intruding further into the 
  place the Sirians guard. Along the way, they claim they brought 
  civilization and wisdom to humanity, and are indeed the ﬁ rst 
  teachers of magic and guides to the Supernal World. Really, 
  why do the Seekers need the site at all? They can just ask the 
  Sirians, and receive whatever lore they want — and that’s suit-
  able for their degree of enlightenment, of course.
  Sirians are unfailingly polite, in an arrogant and conde-
  scending way, and are prone to delivering sermons about 
  wisdom, compassion and other Supernal virtues. It all seems 
  profound when they say it, though a Sirian never gives advice 
  you couldn’t ﬁ nd in All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kinder-
  garten or Chicken Soup for the Soul. Their mystic lore is also a 
  
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  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  lot less useful than it sounds. Some mages insist the Sirians 
  gave them the clue they needed to devise a new rote or imbue 
  an item, but nobody’s ever found independent corroboration 
  for anything a Sirian said about Atlantis, the Supernal World 
  or much of anything else.
  When sweet reason and the promise of Supernal lore don’t 
  work, Sirians resort to their mind-bending powers to eject 
  Seekers from the temple. Sometimes Sirians can even make 
  Seekers forget, at least for a while, that an Atlantean site was 
  ever there.
  Rank: 2
  Attributes: Power 4, Finesse 6, Resistance 4
  Willpower: 8
  Essence: 15 (max 15)
  Initiative: 10
  Defense: 6
  Speed: 15 (species factor 5)
  Size: 5
  Corpus: 9
  Inﬂ uences: Mind 3
  Storytellers may presume that Sirians can use their Inﬂ uence 
  to duplicate any Mind spell up to Mind 3, though they special-
  ize in seeming impressive and persuasive. Their Inﬂ uence also 
  enables them to achieve a few more powerful effects. Favored 
  Sirian tricks include the following:
  • Strengthen: For one Essence, a Sirian can strengthen its 
  thoughts to give itself a Mental Shield, resembling the Mind 
  2 spell (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 208). Each success on 
  the Sirian’s Power + Finesse roll adds 1 to the Sirian’s Resis-
  tance against Mind effects. Spending more Essence extends 
  the Duration.
  A Sirian can also strengthen feelings of religious awe inspired 
  by its appearance, words and manner. This makes the Sirian 
  seem wise, holy nd worthy of reverence and obedience. This 
  resembles the Mind 2 spell, “Emotional Urging” (see Mage: 
  The Awakening, p. 207). This calls for a contested roll between 
  the Sirian’s Power + Finesse and the mage’s Wits + Composure. 
  If the Sirian scores more successes, its every word seems like 
  a pearl of Supernal wisdom.
  • Manipulate: Sirians are skilled mind readers. They can 
  coax out memories and deeply hidden thoughts that let them 
  better assess an intruder’s motives, and say what he wants to 
  hear. This resembles the Mind 4 spell “Read the Depths” (see 
  Mage: The Awakening, p. 215). The Sirian must win a contested 
  roll of its Power + Finesse against the target’s Composure + 
  Gnosis, while it spends two Essence. If the Sirian succeeds, 
  the target won’t realize his mind was read.
  • Control: A Sirian can use its third level of Inﬂ uence to 
  eradicate an intruder’s memories — particularly the memories 
  of the Atlantean site’s location, the ways to bypass defenses and 
  the presence of the Sirians. This works like the Mind 4 spell, 
  “Breach the Vaults of Memory” (see Mage: The Awakening, 
  p. 214). The Sirian makes an opposed roll of Power + Finesse 
  against its opponent’s Composure + Gnosis to activate this 
  power. Sirians may spend extra Essence to extend the Duration 
  of the selective amnesia.
  Numina: Banishment (dice pool 10): A Sirian can teleport 
  someone out of their territory. The guardian spends four Es-
  sence and rolls Power + Finesse (the victim counters with a 
  reﬂ exive roll of Stamina + Gnosis); if successful, the victim is 
  teleported instantly to a location not more than 50 yards from 
  the bounds of the temple’s entrance. Sirians often use this right 
  after erasing a Seeker’s memory of the site they guard.
  Ban: Sirians cannot inﬂ ict a physical injury. They can inspire 
  others to do the Sirians’ dirty work for them, and they can 
  even inspire their opponents to injure themselves, but Sirians 
  never personally inﬂ ict an injury on a living human being (so 
  vampires don’t count).
  Uritu Yupanqui
  Quote: My sanctum is forbidden to imbibers of the yin-yang elixir. 
  Make — my — day!
  Background: Somewhere within a vast stretch of wilderness, 
  a series of crystals focuses sunlight from the sky above into the 
  depths of an Atlantean temple. Far below ground, this light is 
  channeled into the head of an ancient mummy. The mummy 
  is sealed from the neck down in a pyramid of black stone, but 
  the beam of light reveals every movement of its hollow eyes 
  and desiccated lips. The dead air echoes with the mummy’s 
  words: the slogans and taglines of 1,000 products in a dozen 
  different languages.
  Local legends call the ruin’s guardian “Uritu Yupanqui.” 
  Who he was originally, none can say; inscriptions on his tomb 
  suggest he was a sage, priest or other keeper of lore. When he 
  was buried, his tomb was enchanted so that he could bathe in 
  sunlight forever — although he might never leave his resting 
  place, he would not be denied the joys of the day.
  Perhaps this was the way things were for thousands of years. 
  But 20th-century science brought radio and television into the 
  electromagnetic spectrum, and they, too, were channeled into 
  the head of Uritu Yupanqui. The sage’s magic allowed him 
  to translate static into language, and new media pummeled 
  his brain day and night. In the 21st century, media program-
  ming is nearly all that remains of Uritu Yupanqui’s mind; the 
  secrets of Atlantis have been driven out and replaced by news, 
  entertainment and advertising.
  Uritu doesn’t consider this a tragedy. He doesn’t consider 
  much at all. He still knows his duty, though — to protect his 
  temple from orders and cults who would use its power for 
  ill — and interprets his duty to the best of his ability. To this 
  end, he inﬂ icts his curse upon adventuring mages who bear 
  the symbols of his foes. Name-brand clothing, bottled water, 
  national ﬂ ags and similar markings all identify his enemies. 
  Only a mage who comes owing loyalty to no one and questing 
  for personal enlightenment can win Uritu’s approval.
  Description: Uritu’s head is the capstone of the seven-foot-
  high black pyramid where the rest of his body is sealed. His face 
  is loosely wrapped in painted leather bands whose colors have 
  nearly faded. His skin (where it can be seen) is shriveled and 
  
  102
  ance of corporate logos. One point of lethal damage is accrued 
  every hour the character remains in Uritu’s ruin, or every day 
  while outside.
  Force Barrier (dice pool 18). Uritu can use this Numen to 
  erect a telekinetic barrier around himself (as he usually does 
  to protect himself while sealed in his pyramid). Spend four 
  Essence and roll Power + Resolve. Divide the successes as de-
  sired between the barrier’s Durability and Structure. Treat the 
  barrier as cover for the purpose of ranged attacks. To make a 
  melee attack through the barrier, a combatant must ﬁ rst force 
  her way beyond the barrier with a Strength + Athletics roll 
  with difﬁ culty equal to the barrier’s Durability. This deals no 
  damage to the barrier, and a combatant who wishes to leave 
  the barricaded area must roll again to force her way out.
  Ban: Uritu does not waylay mages who do not carry branded 
  objects. In addition, Uritu may align himself with certain 
  brands that echo his Atlantean afﬁ liations. He might associate 
  a particular cola with his ancient Legacy, or view a popular rock 
  band as one with his Path. A mage who discovers these links 
  could convince Uritu that she shares his allegiances.
  The Yellow Virus and the Helian Spore
  Quote: <a sound like a dying ﬁ sh, thrashing on the ﬂ oor>
  Background: Sometimes, the guardians of Atlantean ruins 
  are not so much obstacles as tools of vengeance. Although some 
  of the less benevolent archmasters of the ancient world knew 
  they would not need their treasures after death, they still did 
  not want anyone else to have them. Their tombs hide eldritch 
  creatures that visit a slow death on presumptuous Seekers who 
  dare to steal from the creatures’ long-dead masters.
  These ancient horrors include the Yellow Virus (named for 
  its effect on its victim, rather than for any characteristic of its 
  own) and the Helian Spore (so-called because one text ascribed 
  it to the tomb of Helio Arcanaphus, an early Atlantean king). 
  The Yellow Virus and the Helian Spore differ in shape and how 
  they kill, but are more or less identical in their purpose. They 
  infect and kill those who would steal from their homes. Both 
  have two forms, a native form and the form of an infection in 
  the body and mind of their victim. A tomb guarded by these 
  creatures holds several of them, at least enough to attack and 
  infect every villain who would dare to rob their home.
  In a fraction of a second, the Yellow Virus wraps itself around 
  its victim’s neck and forces itself down the victim’s throat. The 
  creature dissolves into the victim’s system. As time goes on, 
  the tomb-robber’s breathing becomes labored, and he feels 
  constant pain. He develops the symptoms of severe jaundice. 
  Gradually, he wastes away, becoming skinnier and skinnier, 
  no matter how much he eats. He also ﬁ nds himself unable to 
  talk about his malady.
  Eventually, the Virus re-forms itself, and bursts out of its 
  victim’s body, killing him.
  The Spore works differently, in that it destroys its victim from 
  the outside in. The Helian Spore ejects a small cloud of spores 
  across its victim’s skin and then collapses and appears to die. The 
  spores cause an itchy rash. By the following morning, greenish 
  brown. A brilliant beam of yellow light descends from a crystal 
  in the ceiling above him, illuminating the entire pyramid but 
  focused on a pearl embedded in leather atop his skull.
  Although Uritu’s mind is saturated with the ﬂ otsam of 
  modernity, his manner is that of an ancient king. He uses 
  slang and pop culture references without truly understanding 
  his words or the world they come from. To Uritu, religions 
  are absolute and incompatible, loyalty to tribe (or country, or 
  corporation) is paramount and education is the province of 
  the aristocracy. He doesn’t necessarily see the “old ways” as 
  superior, but he also doesn’t realize they no longer hold true. 
  Given the current state of his mind, maybe he can’t realize 
  that things have changed.
  Storytelling Hints: Uritu Yupanqui often comes across as 
  senile; his keen mind is too inundated with radio transmissions 
  to leave room for anything else. He has virtually no long-term 
  memory, and struggles at times to hold a basic conversation. He 
  still regards himself as an authority on magic and his Atlantean 
  ruin, yet resorts to clichés when questioned.
  Blocking the beam to Uritu’s head might boost his capac-
  ity for complex thought, but won’t help him regain his lost 
  memories. Forcing him to understand what’s happened could 
  even be considered cruel.
  Rank: 4
  Attributes: Power 12, Finesse 9, Resistance 6
  Willpower: 18
  Essence: 25 (max 25)
  Initiative: 15
  Defense: 12
  Speed: 22
  Size: 5
  Corpus: 11
  Inﬂ uences: Electromagnetic Radiation 2
  • Manipulate: Uritu Yupanqui can no longer use his 
  Inﬂ uence systematically. Once he becomes aware of Seekers, 
  however, he blocks any of their attempts to communicate by 
  radio. Attempts to use satellite phones or walkie-talkies pick 
  up Uritu’s mad babbling instead.
  Numina: Telekinesis (dice pool 21)
  Branding Curse (dice pool 21). This Numen allows Uritu to 
  place a powerful curse upon an intruder carrying brand-name 
  items. Spend three Essence and roll Power + Finesse versus the 
  victim’s Resolve + Gnosis. A bonus or penalty to the Numen 
  roll from one to three dice may be appropriate, depending on 
  how prominently the victim displays brands; if a mage only 
  wears a backpack bearing an American ﬂ ag pin, the penalty 
  might be –2, whereas a +3 bonus would be appropriate for a 
  mage wearing numerous articles of branded clothing and a 
  famous cologne.
  A cursed person is afﬂ icted with a magical disease. The 
  disease can only be cured with Life magic (or at the whim 
  of Uritu); the number of successes required is equal to the 
  successes achieved on the cursing roll. The cursed character 
  develops red scars and welts that eventually take the appear-
  
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  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  mold appears on the victim’s skin. A day later, the 
  mold covers one side of the victim’s body, 
  and deep, round, green bloodless 
  rents have opened in his ﬂ esh. 
  At ﬁ rst, there is no pain. A few 
  nights later, however, the victim 
  wakes up to hear a voice saying 
  he shall die for his crime. The 
  rents have become toothless, 
  sucking mouths. Then the pain 
  begins. The mouths open wider, 
  spread, join together and cover his 
  body. His ﬂ esh eats itself away, and in 
  another week there is nothing left of 
  him but blackened bone that crumbles 
  when touched. In his ribcage, a new 
  spore grows.
  Description: The Helian Spore looks 
  like a slightly ﬂ attened, beach ball-sized seed 
  pod. Along its seven ridges are small holes, 
  which eject spores when someone touches the 
  pod in any way. Although the seed pod appears 
  immobile, it moves without being seen — one 
  minute it’s over here and a second later, it’s over 
  there — meaning that a tomb-robber cannot avoid 
  brushing past it and releasing its spores.
  The Yellow Virus, on the other hand, appears as a 
  narrow, leathery, tapeworm-like creature. It’s 
  pale brown and about two feet long. The 
  Yellow Virus slithers and thrashes 
  at a terrifying speed, and can wrap 
  itself around its victim’s neck and 
  force itself down her throat before 
  she can do anything.
  Although both creatures in-
  fect their victims, neither can 
  be said to ride or Claim anyone 
  as such: rather, they infect. 
  Both the Virus and the Spore 
  tell the victim exactly why he’s 
  infected, but nothing more.
  Storytelling Hints: The Yel-
  low Virus and the Helian 
  Spore are both entirely alien. 
  They’re more like semi-sen-
  tient diseases than separate 
  creatures in their own right. 
  Their victims don’t know why 
  they’re hiding their symptoms; 
  they only know why they suffering 
  (that is, they’re thieves — the infections 
  don’t say what they’ve stolen or from where, 
  only that their hands are sullied by stolen goods, and that 
  they will die for this).
  The Spore and the Virus pursue the inheritors of a stolen 
  object after the original thief has died. Finding out where exactly 
  an apparently cursed object came from, or 
  even which object is the cause of the 
  supernatural disease, may be the cause 
  of a story in its own right.
  An infected mage who desperately 
  seeks the source of an Atlantean 
  object may also have a hard time 
  convincing his friends to help him, 
  since unless he’s very strong-willed, 
  he probably cannot say what’s wrong 
  with him, why he searches for a tomb 
  and why he’s so ambivalent toward 
  the ancient relic that he carries at all 
  times — an object he openly loathes, 
  but that at the same time he guards 
  with his life.
  Rank: 3
  Attributes: Power 8, Finesse 8, 
  Resistance 6
  Willpower: 12
  Essence: 20 (max 20)
  Initiative: 14
  Defense: 8
  Speed: 22 (species factor 6) — this 
  goes for the Helian Spore as well 
  as the Yellow Virus, although the 
  Spore can only move when no one 
  is looking, having no visible means 
  of propulsion.
  Size: 2
  Corpus: 8
  Inﬂ uences: Agony 4
  Unlike many spirits, the Spore and 
  Virus use their Inﬂ uence for only one, 
  narrow purpose: to inﬂ ict pain. They 
  have no Strengthen, Manipulate or 
  Control effects.
  • Create: The infection itself is pain-
  less, but the Virus and the Spore can 
  inﬂ ict pain on the victim whenever 
  they want, and usually at times when 
  they communicate. The creatures 
  spends four Essence and attempts 
  a contested roll of Power + Finesse 
  (16 dice) against the victim’s Stamina + 
  Gnosis. If the entity wins, the victim suffers 
  –2 to all dice pools until the pain wears off, 
  usually after a scene.
  Numina: Infect (dice pool 16): The Virus or the 
  Spore can enter its victim as if infecting him with a revolt-
  ing degenerative disease. In order to initiate the infection, the 
  creature has to spend one Essence and make one successful 
  attack (Power + Finesse – target’s Defense). The attack inﬂ icts 
  no damage, and the creature appears to die (in the case of 
  the Spore) or dissolve inside the victim’s body (in the case 
  
  104
  of the Virus). After three days, the Spore and the Virus can 
  cause damage to their victim in the manner of a disease, by 
  spending three Essence and making a contested roll of Power 
  + Finesse against the victim’s Stamina + Resolve + Gnosis. 
  Each success inﬂ icts one Resistant, lethal wound to the victim. 
  This damage upgrades as usual and heals at the normal rate 
  (one point of lethal damage every two days). The infection 
  can make the roll once every seven days, so the disease can 
  appear to be in remission for a few days, before a new attack 
  happens. The supernatural nature of this infection means that 
  ordinary medicine is useless against it. The infection becomes 
  impossible to hide when the victim has less than three Health 
  levels that are not ﬁ lled with aggravated damage. Removing 
  the Spore or Virus would require both Life and Spirit magic 
  — and some idea what you were dealing with.
  Psychic Concealment (dice pool 16): Although the infection 
  doesn’t hinder the victim’s free will in other ways, the Virus or 
  Spore does stop the victim from talking about his infection. 
  The creature spends two Essence and attempts a contested 
  roll of Power + Finesse against the victim’s Resolve + Gnosis. 
  Success means the victim cannot tell anyone about what 
  happened to her or what she’s going through, even when the 
  disease cannot be hidden. The victim can try at any time to tell 
  someone about the disease, but can do so only if she succeeds 
  in a contested roll of Resolve + Gnosis against the creature’s 
  Power + Finesse, and must make this roll every time she tries 
  to tell someone, even if she previously succeeded.
  Ban: The Yellow Virus and the Helian Spore may only infect 
  individuals who have taken hold of one of the treasures the spirits 
  guard, with the intention of taking the treasure away. Likewise, 
  both must abandon the infection and leave their victim behind 
  if the item they guard is returned to its rightful place.
  Atlantean Artifacts
  The Atlanteans crafted many wonders of magic. Modern 
  mages duplicate them only with great difﬁ culty, if at all. These 
  sample treasures are all written up as Artifacts. A few of them 
  could be duplicated as Imbued Items, but even this might 
  challenge a cabal’s skills and resources.
  Altar of Hallows (Artifact ••••• ••••)
  Durability 5, Size 8, Structure 13
  Mana Capacity: 14
  Seekers have found these massive Altars in Atlantean temples 
  the mages believe were constructed before the Sundering. The 
  Altars weigh tons, making them difﬁ cult to move. They are 
  crafted of pure white marble shot through with tracings of 
  orichalcum in perfect arcane geometry. The Altar’s top is set 
  with a small orichalcum bowl, while the front is inlaid with 
  a pentagram sigil marked with unknown signs. Each arm of 
  the pentagram holds a socket for a soul stone. The Mysterium 
  has not seen the ﬁ ve symbols in any other context. Some ar-
  chaeomancers believe the symbols represent the Paths — but 
  not every Seeker believes the Paths existed as such before the 
  Sundering and the appearance of the Watchtowers.
  As the name suggests, an Altar of the Hallows functions 
  only when linked to one of these upwellings of mystic power. 
  The Altar is always secluded within the inmost adytum of 
  an Atlantean temple, locked away from the uninitiated and 
  protected by wards, traps and gatekeepers.
  Plato noted that Atlantean religion did not involve blood 
  sacriﬁ ce — the enlightened nation only offered fruits and ﬂ ow-
  ers. Mysterium scholars speculate that this Altar could account 
  for Plato’s myth, for the Altar of Hallows dissolves all items of 
  Size 2 or smaller into pure Mana. This effect duplicates the 
  Prime 4 “Siphon Integrity” spell. The Mana is stored within 
  the Altar itself.
  Moreover, the Altar may be used to tap the Hallow upon 
  which the Altar sits, in an effect similar to the Prime 3 “Chan-
  nel Mana” spell. All such Mana harvested is not gained by 
  the mage, however — it likewise is stored within the Altar. To 
  use the stored Mana, one must ﬁ ll the bowl with pure water, 
  then dip out the water and pour it over a person’s head. This 
  acts similar to the Prime 3 “Imbue Mana” spell, save that the 
  Mana comes from the Altar’s store instead of the mage who 
  performs the baptismal rite. Each baptism from the Altar of 
  Hallows transfers one point of Mana.
  The Altar of Hallows incidentally disguises the Hallow on 
  which the Altar sits, as the Prime 3 “Disguise Resonance” 
  spell. The disguise has a Potency of 5.
  BijDava (Artifact ••••• ••)
  Durability 3, Size 4, Structure 7
  Mana Capacity: 11
  This peculiar device looks like an elongated and ornately deco-
  rated metal seed pod on a swirling golden tripod. The ungainly but 
  strangely beautiful BijDava (“medicine seed”) was once used as a 
  medicinal aid. When a mage activates the device and points the 
  opening of the “pod” at an injury, the BijDava sends out a warbling, 
  multi-tonal hum that heals the wound. This effect duplicates the 
  Life 3 spell “Healing Heart,” as if cast by someone with Life 5, 
  thus healing bashing, lethal and aggravated wounds.
  The device has to be about three feet away from the patient, 
  and has to be directed by the mage who has activated the device 
  for as long as the patient’s wound take to heal.
  One point of Mana from the BijDava’s reserve heals three 
  bashing or one lethal wound. Healing one aggravated wound 
  costs two Mana. If the patient suffered different kinds of Wound 
  levels — for example, he’s suffered two aggravated wounds, one 
  lethal wound and four bashing wounds — the device heals the 
  Health levels on the right ﬁ rst, and expends Mana separately 
  for each wound. In this example, the BijDava would expend 
  seven points of Mana (one for the ﬁ rst three bashing wounds, 
  one for the remaining bashing wound, one for the lethal wound 
  and two each for the two aggravated wounds). Each Wound 
  level takes one turn to heal, no matter how serious the wound 
  is. The BijDava doesn’t heal Resistant Damage. During the 
  High Atlantean Age, mages apparently never suffered from this 
  kind of damage; the makers of the BijDava had no conception 
  that such a thing could exist.
  
  105
  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  Crystalline Skull (Artifact •••••)
  Durability 4, Size 2, Structure 6
  Mana Capacity: 11
  Not every Atlantean Artifact has an immediately apparent 
  function. For instance, take this accurate and life-size facsimile 
  of a human skull, beautifully sculpted in solid rock crystal. It 
  weighs 12 pounds. Over the last century, Seekers have found 
  several Artifacts showing similar workmanship, and equally 
  enigmatic purpose. In addition to skulls, these crystal Artifacts 
  have been shaped like demons, predatory animals or other 
  intimidating shapes. Sleepers have also found crystal skulls 
  in Maya territory, but Time magic easily reveals the merely 
  mortal provenance of these objects.
  When activated, the Skull glows with a gentle, pale light, as 
  if lit from inside. (an effect that could be duplicated using the 
  Forces 3 spell “Light Mastery”). The light is almost, but not 
  quite, equal to the light shed by a small desk lamp – enough 
  to read by if you’re sitting next to it, and enough to be visible, 
  but not enough to illuminate a large area. The light shines 
  brightest from the eye sockets. The Skull keeps on shedding 
  light until the Skull is deactivated; it spends one point of Mana 
  for each full day of light the Skull generates.
  The Skull is certainly a beautifully made sculpture, and its 
  light does have an eerie quality, but what was it for? Some 
  archaeomancers speculate the Crystalline Skull was a ritual 
  object. Others think the Skull was part of something else — a 
  larger Artifact, long since lost or destroyed, or a key to some 
  unknown Atlantean site. Now, however, the Skull has little 
  practical use. The light it sheds is barely enough to make it 
  useful as anything other than a paperweight-cum-desk lamp.
  As a result, the Crystalline Skull is at once priceless and 
  worthless (except to a collector of peculiar objets-d’art). Even 
  when an Atlantean relic proves itself less than a revelation, own-
  ing one still carries great prestige — and what if some cleverer 
  (or luckier) mage discovers the Crystal Skull’s true purpose? 
  A cabal that owns the Crystalline Skull may ﬁ nd the cabal’s 
  mages beset by other mages eager to possess the Skull. A few 
  waggish mages observe that Artifacts such as the Crystalline 
  Skull are most useful as bargaining chips to buy favors from 
  other mages — who don’t know that their new Artifact, while 
  undoubtedly Atlantean, doesn’t actually do anything.
  Dionysian Key (Artifact ••••)
  Durability 3, Size 2, Structure 5
  Most information about the mystical wine called Syrah At-
  lantide comes from the Oinomanteia of Carolus Strobelius (or 
  Karl Strobl), a 16th-century Austrian mystagogue. Oinomanteia 
  also recounts many other legends and mystical uses of wine. 
  One of the more unusual tales describes the vintage Strobelius 
  dubbed the Dionysian Key.
  In brief, the Key is an amphora of Atlantean wine. The 
  stonework jug holds four gallons of potent, spiced wine. 
  Anyone who drinks the wine quickly becomes stupeﬁ ed and 
  
  106
  dreams of walking through an Atlantean temple. This is no 
  mere vision, though: the person really has sleepwalked into 
  a shrine built within a bubble of extra-dimensional space. 
  In Strobelius’ account, a group of unwitting Sleepers found 
  the amphora and got drunk. They vanished; one returned, 
  because he sleepwalked out of the extra-dimensional temple 
  again. When he regained consciousness, though, the amphora 
  was gone. Strobelius says he collected the story directly from 
  this lone survivor.
  Strobelius’ sorcerous inquiries led him to believe the Atlantean 
  vintage was the key to a portal. The Dionysian Keys acts similar 
  to the Space 2 spell “Follow Through” (see Mage: The Awaken-
  ing, p. 234); the Earthly terminus of the portal is linked to the 
  amphora. Even a Sleeper can use the Dionysian Key without risk 
  of a Paradox or unraveling from Disbelief, because the Sleeper 
  will be too drunk to count as a conscious witness. Strobelius 
  suspects the Atlanteans may have created other Dionysian Keys 
  to extra-dimensional sites, so he advises Seekers to look for 
  wine-jars when they search Atlantean ruins.
  Oinomanteia omits a few details about the Dionysian Key. 
  The relatively small amphora holds up to four gallons of wine, 
  or 16 uses of the Key, since a person must drink at least a 
  quart of the wine to sleepwalk into the temple. Six quarts are 
  already used. Any liquid tass placed in the amphora becomes 
  more wine, so the amphora can be used indeﬁ nitely. On the 
  other hand, the wine loses its power within minutes of leaving 
  the amphora, though, so the Key’s owner cannot multiply the 
  mystic vintage indeﬁ nitely. The amphora also loses its enchant-
  ment if it’s ever empty of the sorcerous wine, and becomes 
  an ordinary (10,000-year-old) wine-jar. Even though the wine 
  is made from tass, the Key does not possess a reserve of free 
  Mana for its owner to call upon.
  Strobelius incidentally claims (without giving his reasons) 
  that Dionysian Key vintages can spontaneously appear if wine 
  is made from tass grapes grown on the Hallow that powers 
  an Atlantean site. The connection from the Hallow to the 
  site passes into the grapes, and from thence to the wine. An 
  imbiber may sleepwalk into an extra-dimensional portion of 
  the site, just as with the Atlantean vintage, or the magical wine 
  may provide some other way to bypass wards or guardians. For 
  instance, the wine might impress the words needed to bypass a 
  guardian onto the imbiber’s befuddled brain. In this case, the 
  vineyard itself is the Artifact, though casks or bottles of the 
  wine seldom become Dionysian Keys, and the vintage cannot 
  be regenerated as with the Atlantean amphora.
  Mask of Aztlán (Artifact ••••• ••)
  Durability 3, Size 1, Structure 4
  Mana Capacity: 12
  In the early 1930s, a Mysterium archaeomancer discovered 
  this Mask in one of the pyramids of Chichén Itzá. She dis-
  covered the Mask in an extra-dimensional chamber that hid a 
  variety of Atlantean relics, as well as a grimoire of Awakened 
  magic written on gold plates in Atlantean and Nahuatl. The 
  heavy, thickly-carved golden mask depicts a face surrounded 
  by a fringe of feathers. The archaeomancer named the Mask 
  for the legendary ancestral homeland of the Aztecs that some 
  Awakened believe is a memory of Atlantis.
  The Mask grants its bearer the ability to interact with the 
  spirit world and spirits in Twilight, as though she were under 
  the effects of the Spirit 3 “Reaching” and the Spirit 2 “Peer 
  Across the Gauntlet” spells (see Mage: The Awakening, pp. 
  250 and 247). Both of these effects are contingent effects, 
  activated by donning the mask.
  Mestorian Bracers (Artifact ••••• •••)
  Durability 5, Size 1, Structure 6
  Mana Capacity: 12
  Mestorian Bracers, named for one of the legendary Ten Kings 
  of Atlantis, are actually six rods of orichalcum and copper. 
  These rods are pointed quite sharply at the end, and with good 
  reason — to don the Bracers, the six rods must be inserted just 
  beneath the skin of the forearm and worked down its length 
  until the point emerges at the other end of the arm, near the 
  wrists. The bloody, painful process deals one level of lethal 
  damage, but the wearer can heal this normally with time or 
  magic. Amber plugs connected to one another by lengths of 
  ﬁ ne copper chains then cap both ends of the rods.
  Once donned, the Bracers become potent weapons for 
  controlling and drawing upon the powers of lightning and 
  electricity. The wearer can generate a blast of lightning, 
  similar to the Forces 4 “Thunderbolt” spell (see Mage: The 
  Awakening, p. 173). This contingent effect is activated by 
  touching the Bracer on one arm to the other, then pointing. 
  Each blast consumes one Mana, with an attack dice pool of 
  12. Each success inﬂ icts one Health wound of lethal damage 
  (not aggravated, despite the Mana expended).
  More subtly, however, the wearer of the Bracers can use the 
  Forces 3 “Control Electricity” spell (see Mage: The Awaken-
  ing, p. 168), allowing him to redirect electricity already extant 
  in the area by hand gestures as a contingent effect. This does 
  not cost Mana. Again, the dice pool is 12.
  Vimana Engine (Artifact ••••• ••••)
  Durability 5, Size 3, Structure 6
  Mana Capacity: 14
  If some mystics and visionaries are correct, the ﬂ ying chari-
  ots of the Mahabharata, the so-called Vimanas, are a mythic 
  memory of the conveyance of choice for the mage-kings of 
  Atlantis. The Agra Revelations include a brief reference to 
  “the kings’ bright Vimanas.” Someone, at least, built powerful, 
  magical ﬂ ying machines long ago. The long-dormant wreckage 
  of what, for want of a better word, might be a Vimana lies in 
  the tomb of one Atlantean general. The machine looks like 
  a chariot with wings instead of wheels, elongated and heavily 
  decorated with sigils and scrollwork in metal alloys that don’t 
  exist any more. Unfortunately, a cave-in buried and crushed 
  one side of the machine. It’ll never ﬂ y again.
  But its engine remains intact. A conical pillar of silver metal 
  supports a spherical cage in which a small, rune-engraved ball 
  of orichalcum ﬂ oats, suspended in air. The pillar holds spiral 
  
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  CHAPTER THREE: gatekeepers and treasures
  tubes ﬁ lled with hermium, or alchemically-perfected mercury. 
  The whole assemblage weighs 50 pounds. All a mage has to 
  do is remove the engine and attach it by magic to some other 
  conveyance: a boat, maybe, or an automobile. (A version of 
  the Matter 3 spell “Repair Object” would be quite adequate). 
  Attaching the Vimana Engine to a vehicle turns it into a new 
  Vimana. An enterprising mage might, for example, insert the 
  Engine in the place of an automobile’s steering column — the 
  Engine is about the same size and shape, after all. (Other 
  mages may crack jokes about “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” 
  though.) Or the mage could placed the Engine in the stern 
  of a speedboat, where a normal engine and propellor would 
  go. The Engine will not work if placed on any vehicle more 
  than 30 feet long (a small yacht), or weighing more than 20 
  tons (a light tank).
  A mage must touch the engine to activate a Vimana. He 
  becomes its pilot. A nimbus of light engulfs him, and then 
  the vehicle. His perceptions extend to the vehicle. He becomes 
  one with the newly made Vimana. The sensation of being part 
  of the machine is euphoric, blissful, but has its cost; the pilot 
  gains the power of the Vimana, but he also becomes another 
  component of the Engine, and a potential source of fuel.
  The Vimana can ﬂ y (per the Forces 5 spell “Flight”) and can 
  travel at quite terrifying speeds (as per the Forces 5 spell “Veloc-
  ity Mastery,” with up to ﬁ ve automatic successes, multiplying 
  the ﬂ ight speed up to 32 times.) Shooting projectiles from a 
  Vimana is impossible, since the same “Velocity Mastery” effect 
  magic that protects the passengers of the sky chariot from ac-
  celeration g-forces also stops things escaping from within the 
  Engine’s magical ﬁ eld. Bullets (or shells, in the unlikely event 
  that anyone would be deranged enough to turn a tank into 
  a Vimana) simply hang at the edges of the Engine’s magical 
  ﬁ eld, then drop to earth when the device lands and the ﬁ eld 
  lapses, all kinetic energy spent. This effect does not inhibit 
  magical attacks.
  The Vimana uses a lot of energy. The Mana cost doesn’t 
  depend on the mass of the vehicle; instead, the Engine 
  consumes Mana based on the number of higher life forces 
  present in its ﬁ eld: one Mana per turn per person or animal 
  riding in the machine. For instance, a Vimana containing 
  three mages and a dog spends four Mana every turn. On the 
  other hand, a Vimana containing three mages, a dog and a 
  vampire still only spends four Mana per turn, since a vampire 
  isn’t a living thing.
  In the Atlantean age, the Vimanas were handled by vastly 
  powerful mages, with huge resources of Mana. A modern mage 
  just isn’t that powerful. A drain of energy that an Atlantean 
  archmaster would ﬁ nd a minor inconvenience can leave one 
  of the modern Awakened a charred, lifeless husk in a matter 
  of minutes. When the Vimana exhausts its own energy reserve, 
  the Engine draws Mana directly from the pilot. If it takes more 
  Mana per turn than the mage has the Gnosis to spend, the Vi-
  mana draws energy directly from the mage’s life force, inﬂ icting 
  one point of lethal damage for every point of Mana the Engine 
  must rip from the mage’s Pattern. If the mage didn’t have any 
  Mana to begin with, the Vimana draws all the energy as points 
  of lethal damage. The pilot doesn’t feel any pain from this while 
  he’s controlling the Vimana, and must succeed at a roll of Wits 
  + Stamina to notice and break his deadly connection with the 
  Engine. If all the pilot’s Health levels are ﬁ lled with lethal 
  damage, he still has to roll Stamina to remain conscious every 
  turn (per the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 173.) If he falls 
  unconscious, he breaks the connection and the ﬁ eld fails.
  Other people near the pilot can see his skin blackening and 
  shriveling, and can try to tell the pilot what’s going on; the 
  pilot still has to roll Wits + Stamina to disengage. It takes two 
  turns to bring a fast-moving Vimana to a safe, slow landing. 
  It might take more if the Vimana ﬂ ies above terrain where it’s 
  unwise to land (for example, a glowing 1968 Chevy Malibu 
  ﬂ ying above open sea is going to sink if the pilot turns off 
  the mystical engine). A Vimana with a dead, unconscious or 
  disengaged pilot simply drops out of the sky. If there’s another 
  mage in the machine, though, she can try to reactivate the 
  Engine and bring the machine down.
  Disbelief can unravel the magic of a Vimana. A Sleeper 
  who sees the glowing, ﬂ ying Vimana in action rolls Resolve + 
  Composure (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 274). If the cumula-
  tive successes from the Sleeper’s rolls exceeds nine (using the 
  Artifact’s dot rating as the Potency of its magic), the Vimana 
  stops working. Even before then, however, the Vimana has 
  to spend an extra Mana each round after a Sleeper rolled 
  successes, on top of the Mana already spent to operate the 
  device, to counteract the effect of Disbelief and keep ﬂ ying. 
  A mage can probably ﬂ ee a single Sleeper witness; a crowd 
  will deactivate the magical vehicle in short order. For what 
  it’s worth, UFO enthusiasts may count as Sleepwalkers in this 
  case, at the Storyteller’s option.
  Atlantean Mechanisms
  The Vimana is an example of Atlantean magi-
  cal technology. Atlantis — or at least, one version 
  of Atlantis — built devices that superﬁ cially re-
  semble machines. Certainly, the Atlanteans knew 
  the principles of clockwork and basic hydraulics. 
  Beyond that, however, nothing works by real, 
  scientiﬁ c principles. The devices are ideas of 
  machines, operating by magic. Mechanisms are 
  engraved with glyphs and arcane diagrams. 
  Crystals draw power from ley lines instead of 
  batteries or generators; they are usually built of 
  perfected metals. And, of course, they do magi-
  cal things such as making vehicles ﬂ y.
  
  108
  
  109
  CHAPTER four: the living temple - astral memories
  Serena had lost the ability to distinguish her voice from the echo of her voice. Nor 
  could she feel the joints in her ﬁ ngers as she worked her hands into mystic signs; her 
  limbs seemed like spectral afterimages, dragged in the wake of physical reality.
  She wondered if that meant she was performing the ritual correctly, then cursed 
  herself for thinking. Dragged out of meditation by her own curiosity, she opened her 
  eyes and looked about.
  She sat within an outdoor temple ﬂ oating in the depths of a green sky. The temple 
  reminded her of the Parthenon (and of her third-grade teacher, Elsa Higgins, who 
  taught history from a textbook with the Parthenon on the cover) except that noth-
  ing supported the roof. This made sense to Serena — the stars above were probably 
  suspending the roof with chains.
  Wait, she thought. That doesn’t seem completely right.
  Before she could consider the matter further, Serena heard a hiss behind her. She 
  pushed herself up, stumbling for an instant before turning around. The drawstring 
  of her running pants whipped her thigh.
  A few yards away, a serpent as tall as she spiraled through the air. It kept turning 
  its head to keep one yellow eye focused on her. “Welcome to reality,” the serpent said.
  “Dream,” Serena corrected, and wished she had worn something more ceremonial.
  “Oh?” the serpent said. “Your world runs on muddied ideas and random chance. 
  My world is pure and eternal. Which seems more likely to be a dream?”
  “Yours,” Serena said. Even in dreams — especially in dreams — she knew better 
  than to trust a snake.
  Chapter Four:
  The Living 
  Temple - 
  Astral 
  Mysteries
  
  110
  But when something slips out of our consciousness it does not cease to exist, any more than a 
  car that has disappeared round a corner has vanished into thin air. It is simply out of sight.
  — Carl Gustav Jung, Man and His Symbols
  Mythic Atlantis was founded on dreams. Dreams drew men 
  and women to the island; dreams offered Astral paths to the 
  Supernal Realm and dreams rekindled the ﬂ ame of magic 
  after the Abyss sundered the cosmos.
  But just as dreams shaped the Atlantean world, the Atlantean 
  world shaped dreams. The Temenos — the unconscious Realm of 
  the human soul — was marked in a thousand ways by the deeds 
  of mages, spirits and stranger beings. Masters used now-lost spells 
  to build temples and citadels within the Temenos itself, storing 
  wisdom or nightmares as libraries store books. Monsters and 
  gods that once terrorized Sleepers were literally banished to the 
  recesses of human memory. Conceptual archetypes and universal 
  truths found in Astral Space are said by some modern mages to 
  be echoes of real people and sciences from the Atlantean Age.
  Most scholars of Atlantis hunt for concrete evidence — ar-
  tifacts and sanctums and spells. Such things are not found in 
  the Temenos. There are no facts in the world of dreams, where 
  everything is ﬂ uid and subjective. Nevertheless, Astral Space 
  holds treasures of its own, secrets that have timeless value and 
  defy changing theories of history. And just as in the physical 
  world, these secrets have their guardians.
  Atlantean Realms
  In many ways, the Atlantean Realms within Astral Space 
  resemble earthly ruins. The Realms are hidden in remote places, 
  mysterious in nature and saturated with magical power. Despite 
  these broad similarities, however, experience in Earthly ruins 
  is no preparation for a journey into the Temenos.
  The most obvious difference between material and Astral 
  ruins is the absence of decay in the dream world. Most Astral 
  sites appear as vibrant and pristine as the day they were built; 
  some are even populated by semblances of their original 
  inhabitants. But these are not pocket enclaves of the true 
  Atlantean world. The dream world changes with the hearts of 
  its dreamers, and what looks like a piece of history is merely 
  what humanity wants or fears to remember.
  This results in a more profound difference between Earthly 
  and Astral sites: Astral “ruins” are subjective. Historical 
  knowledge gleaned from the Temenos is only as accurate as 
  the memories (conscious and unconscious) of humanity. Even 
  correct information may be mixed with symbolism or colored 
  by emotion. Astral denizens are still less reliable sources: as 
  irrational and biased as real people can be, people made of 
  dream-stuff are far worse at speaking objectively.
  So why take an Astral journey? The truths found in Astral 
  sites come in the form of ideas and archetypes. An Atlantean 
  shrine built within the Temenos won’t say much about Atlan-
  tean architecture or history, but might offer insight into how 
  the Atlanteans perceived themselves in relation to their objects 
  of veneration. A student of Atlantean High Speech might ex-
  perience an epiphany in an Astral library where words, magic 
  and thought intermingle. Sometimes, mages catch glimpses 
  of forgotten beliefs or times, grasping the last dreams of a 
  culture utterly annihilated in the waking world. Deciphering 
  the symbols in an Astral site can be a frustrating process (and 
  mystagogues have written volumes on different theories of 
  interpretation), but it can be rewarding nonetheless.
  Excavating Dreams
  Astral Space cannot be mapped any more than a soul can be 
  dissected. A mage who explores the Temenos at random every 
  night is unlikely to ever stumble upon Atlantean secrets. Given 
  the difﬁ culty of ﬁ nding anything in the world of dreams, it’s 
  no wonder that few mages try.
  Mages do discover new Astral places, however. When it 
  comes to an Atlantean-inﬂ uenced site, the trail usually comes 
  in one of three forms.
  Called in Dreams
  The simplest (and least predictable) way for a mage to learn 
  of an Astral site is through sudden inspiration. Figments from 
  an Astral site may appear in a mage’s own dreams or night-
  mares, pressing out from the Temenos and into the mage’s 
  personal Oneiros. Alternatively, a mage may experience brief 
  hallucinations similar to a mystery play, themed around the 
  Astral site in question.
  How and why this happens is a subject of substantial debate; 
  determining who will be led into Astral Space is like determining 
  who will Awaken. Some mages believe that Astral inspiration 
  is evidence of reincarnated souls recalling the dreams and 
  memories of their previous lives, whereas other mages suspect 
  that a willworker’s interests and obsessions — the resonance 
  of his mind and soul — create “gravity” in the Temenos that 
  pulls toward sympathetic Realms. Individuals with strong ties 
  to the Astral world (e.g., characters with the Dream Merit) are 
  the most likely to experience sudden inspiration, but have no 
  more control over the phenomenon than anyone else. Even 
  Sleepers may experience such dream-calls, so some archaeo-
  mancers pay serious attention to Sleeper occultists and fringe 
  archaeologists who claim they receive knowledge of Atlantis 
  through “psychic intuition” or similarly dubious means.
  Guides, Native and Otherwise
  Mages who actively seek Astral Realms often turn to 
  guides for help. The best-known guides through Astral Space 
  — daimons, inner demons and other Goetic creations — can 
  be ill-informed about sites of ancient origin, since they are 
  typically drawn from the modern human mind. Therefore, 
  Seekers ﬁ nd assistance elsewhere.
  Chimerical beasts (see p. 119) often take shelter in ancient 
  Astral sites and eagerly help dreamers. The beasts’ price (when 
  
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  CHAPTER four: the living temple - astral memories
  they don’t betray a mage altogether) commonly involves assis-
  tance in reaching or inﬂ uencing the physical world.
  Acamoth use a mage’s Oneiros as a pathway to the Abyss, and 
  often know about dreadful Astral Realms that were spawned by 
  the destruction of the Celestial Ladder and humanity’s suffering 
  after the Fall. A mage who hasn’t established a pact with an 
  acamoth might be able to force the spirit’s aid, but acamoth are 
  reluctant to take anyone to their places of refuge and power.
  Lastly, certain ghosts — whether those of ancient Goetic 
  sorcerers or of Astral denizens who never truly lived — can 
  describe speciﬁ c Astral sites.
  Hit the Books
  Records of Astral Realms also exist in the physical world. 
  Some Atlantean writings mention sites of importance in the 
  Temenos, and many ruins contain chambers used for the 
  practice of hesychia, the Atlantean system of meditation for 
  Astral voyaging. Seekers who discover clues pointing to Astral 
  Realms sometimes pass over the clues in favor of leads that are 
  more tangible, or misinterpret them as referring to locations 
  in the waking world. The Silver Ladder tells a fable about a 
  mage who sought an Atlantean artifact for decades, only to 
  discover that he seized it nightly in his dreams.
  Breaching Barriers
  Knowing that an Astral site exists is different from knowing 
  how to get there. Although some guides can take a mage directly 
  to her destination after she enters the Temenos, reaching a 
  site can also be an endeavor in itself.
  Those mages who lack any clear path must resign them-
  selves to taking the long road. After reaching Astral Space, 
  they proceed from Realm to Realm, seeking directions from 
  the inhabitants of the dream world and signs from the dream 
  world itself. Such an odyssey is never guaranteed to end in 
  success; even if all goes well and the travelers overcome the 
  dangers they face, they must still ensure that their physical 
  bodies remain healthy. Reaching an Astral Realm without 
  guidance can take days or weeks — a long time to leave one’s 
  sleeping body unguarded.
  Some Astral sites can be reached via speciﬁ c sympathetic 
  rituals. Such a ritual must resonate with the nature of an 
  Astral site and be performed in a location important to the 
  site’s dreamers. For Atlantean sites, this often means ﬁ nd-
  ing an Atlantean ruin and attempting an appropriate feat: 
  climbing the thousand steps to the top of a temple without 
  pausing, ingesting a mixture of local tass and herbs, leaping 
  from a great height to knock one’s self unconscious and so 
  on. The usual meditation to cross into Astral Space must still 
  be undertaken after the ritual, but the mage (if successful) 
  arrives in the Astral Realm desired. Sympathetic rituals are 
  always discovered, never invented; they’re a byproduct of the 
  connection between the waking world and dreaming, not a 
  doorway crafted by Atlanteans.
  Instead, Atlanteans practiced special meditative techniques 
  to enter and navigate Astral Space. Modern mages usually refer 
  to the form as hesychia (from the Greek word for stillness), 
  though mages from non–Western cultures use terms derived 
  from their own esoteric traditions. Atlantean hesychia strips 
  away awareness, conscious thought, language and passion so 
  that the practitioner’s perceptions shift to the pure Realm of 
  the soul. Speciﬁ c Atlantean Demesnes and Hallows allowed 
  access to speciﬁ c Astral Realms when hesychia was practiced 
  therein. Additional rituals were codiﬁ ed to send meditating 
  sorcerers to other known Astral locales. As with all Atlantean 
  lore, only pieces of hesychian practice survive — but these suf-
  ﬁ ce to usher determined mages into Astral Space.
  New Merit: Atlantean Hesychia (•)
  Prerequisite: Awakened, High Speech
  Effect: Your character has acquired an in-
  depth understanding of Atlantean hesychia. 
  While any mage can learn and perform basic 
  meditative rituals, master hesychians can travel 
  to Astral Space with greater ease.
  Each Composure + Wits roll made as part of 
  the extended meditation action to enter Astral 
  Space takes only 15 minutes for your character, 
  instead of the usual 30 minutes. In addition, 
  your character can try to enter Astral Space from 
  Hallows rated less than 5; for each dot below 5 
  the Hallow is rated, add four successes to the 
  meditation roll’s target number.
  A character with this Merit still cannot enter 
  Astral Space outside a Demesne or Hallow.
  Hesychia has its drawbacks, as well. Finding an Atlantean 
  sanctum is no easy task; neither is locating, translating and 
  interpreting instructions for entering a particular Astral Realm. 
  There is also the risk that such instructions may be outdated: 
  Astral Realms can change dramatically over millennia as human 
  memory and perception shift, and modern hesychians can ﬁ nd 
  their Astral bodies arriving in unexpected places.
  Still, hesychia may be the most reliable way for an astrally 
  journeying mage to reach her destination. Any mage attempt-
  ing Atlantean hesychia must have the High Speech Merit, but 
  the Atlantean Hesychia Merit is only necessary for advanced 
  practices. During the day preceding the mage’s Astral voyage, 
  the mage must control her passions — she must not regain Will-
  power by indulging her Vice or Virtue. Conservative hesychians 
  moderate their intake of food and drink during this time, and 
  avoid speaking unnecessarily. Once fully prepared, the mage 
  visits a Hallow or Demesne. If the location is of Atlantean origin, 
  the site may lead directly to a known Astral Realm; otherwise, 
  the mage must have learned the proper meditative ritual from 
  an ancient source to travel to her intended destination. Either 
  way, the normal extended meditation roll to enter Astral Space 
  must be performed, but the target number is reduced by half 
  (eight successes to reach the Temenos).
  
  112
  Dream Projectors
  The Atlanteans possessed a complete science 
  of dreaming, from hesychian meditation to rotes 
  that reshaped Astral Space. But some modern 
  mages say there was another aspect to Atlantean 
  dreaming science. Archaeomancers claim to have 
  unearthed clues about ancient, magical machines: 
  devices that pulled dreams into the material 
  world and converted matter into dream-stuff.
  These “dream projectors” ﬁ lled whole rooms 
  with crystal lenses and beams of Forces-born 
  light. Supposedly, the Atlanteans used these 
  projectors to enter Astral Space without leaving 
  their bodies behind or to superimpose Astral 
  Realms onto physical reality. These feats might 
  not be possible for modern magic, but the Atlan-
  teans performed many “impossible” feats. Are 
  dream projectors so hard to accept?
  There is another possibility: the machines 
  might be real, while also performing a far differ-
  ent function than modern mages expect. Will-
  workers have misunderstood Atlantean artifacts 
  in the past — and devious souls have forged 
  Atlantean documents for sinister purposes.
  Astral Locations
  Most Atlantean mages lacked the power to create new Astral 
  Realms. Permanently altering the Temenos and marking the 
  collective human soul was left to the mightiest of sorcerers. 
  Instead, Atlanteans reshaped the existing Astral landscape to 
  suit their needs. The Adamantine Arrow erected fortresses to 
  guard against nightmares, the Mysterium founded colleges of 
  the profound and abstract, the Guardians of the Veil recorded 
  the dreams of their adversaries and the Silver Ladder built 
  shrines to ideals of law and governance.
  But just as often, the trail the Atlanteans left in the Teme-
  nos was unintentional. Their dreams rippled through the 
  ocean of the unconscious mind in the same manner that 
  humanity’s dreams do today. For the most part, the dreams 
  of the Atlantean Age were little different from those of any 
  other era — but the Atlanteans dreamed bigger, and some say 
  they dreamed ﬁ rst. Did the peoples of the Atlantean era have 
  myths of a Golden Age, as so many cultures do now? Or was 
  Atlantis the ﬁ rst Golden Age, embedded in human conscious-
  ness and permanently established in dreams?
  As Atlantis faded from human memory, many of the Awak-
  ened City’s Astral outposts faded as well. Those that endure do 
  so because humanity cannot forget them entirely, or because 
  Atlantean magic refuses to let them die. Many Realms whose 
  natures aren’t tied to one era have transformed to reﬂ ect the 
  modern age, forsaking crenelated towers for skyscrapers and 
  libraries of scrolls for computer networks. Other Realms are 
  intimately linked to a past humanity cannot remember; in 
  these, an idealized version of history ﬁ lls the gaps.
  The following categories of Atlantean sites do not cover 
  the full range of possibilities (which is as broad in scope as 
  the human soul), but represent the most common examples 
  mages encounter.
  Lighthouses
  The least of the Atlanteans’ Astral creations were lighthouses, 
  landmarks erected within Dream Realms and at crossroads between 
  Realms, designed to guide hesychians out of the physical world and 
  to their destinations. These landmarks take the form of signposts, 
  groves and literal lighthouses, blending into their surroundings.
  A lighthouse often carries clues about the nature of the local 
  Astral landscape and warnings about known dangers. Depend-
  ing on the lighthouse’s creator and environment, a lighthouse 
  could be carved with obscure pictograms, spotted with colors 
  designating Astral hazards or constructed to resemble a map 
  when viewed from above. A few lighthouses — diving bells, 
  elevators and carriages — even double as modes of transporta-
  tion, ushering a user to any of a set of predeﬁ ned Realms.
  The same traits that make a lighthouse useful — its longevity 
  and its call to travelers — make some lighthouses hazardous. An 
  Astral Realm that has changed over the centuries may contain 
  a lighthouse with out-of-date information — data potentially 
  useful to historians, but misleading to anyone else. In some 
  Astral Realms, particularly clever and vicious beings lie in wait 
  near lighthouses, watching for new arrivals to prey upon.
  The creation of lighthouses was among the most basic mag-
  ics Atlanteans worked in Astral Space, but lighthouses are a 
  mystery to modern sorcerers. By all rights, the psychic tides 
  of the Temenos should have destroyed the landmarks ages 
  ago. Some mystagogues suggest that lighthouses use an Astral 
  equivalent of soul stones to maintain the landmarks’ integrity, 
  but no one can explain how a soul might be distilled in an 
  entire plane composed of soul-stuff. Certainly, no one has 
  found a recognizable soul stone in an Astral lighthouse.
  The Chanting Fountain
  A whispered mantra doesn’t sound so different from the 
  murmur of bubbling water. A mage who learns the right man-
  tra and who meditates upon it can ﬁ nd proof in the form of 
  the chanting fountain, an Atlantean lighthouse that guides 
  willworkers who echo its words.
  The fountain sprays from a bottomless stone basin the width 
  of a large car. The fountain stands at an Astral crossroads 
  represented by a city park surrounded by wide streets and tall 
  buildings. Each street and building, in turn, represents an 
  adjacent Astral Realm in the Temenos. The fountain smells 
  faintly of mildew, but the mist tastes clean and pure.
  The basin is ﬁ lled with water nearly to the lip, but a person 
  who looks at the inner walls ﬁ nds them covered in grafﬁ ti. The 
  grafﬁ ti is mostly written in modern languages, with a few fading 
  Atlantean runes. The notes contain short, cryptic bits of advice left 
  by other travelers: “Watch out for the tortoise,” “Left, blue, center, 
  red,” “The eyes of the skull are empty” and other riddles.
  
  113
  CHAPTER four: the living temple - astral memories
  Shrines
  Astral shrines were the Atlanteans’ means of honoring the 
  spiritual side of the Temenos. The shrines appear as cairns, stat-
  ues, gardens and graves, and although most shrines also double 
  as landmarks, no one is sure of their primary use. They vary 
  dramatically in size and intricacy, much like houses of worship in 
  the physical world. Some shrines are simple and austere; others 
  are extravagantly decorated with symbols of their Realms.
  Each shrine is built over a Realm’s focal point — in some 
  respects, the Astral equivalent of a Hallow or locus. A shrine 
  might be a pile of bones in a Realm centered on violence and 
  strife, or a circle of pillars around a luscious fruit tree in a 
  Realm epitomizing the slaking of lusts. Shrines are often the 
  goal of Astral pilgrims, and sometimes lure natives of Astral 
  Space, as well: ﬁ gments and beasts have been known to ﬂ ock 
  to shrines like desert animals to an oasis.
  Some shrines bestow gifts and prophecies upon Seekers who 
  empower the shrines with a word, sigil or sacriﬁ ce. A battle 
  shrine might speak of a pilgrim’s greatest vulnerability when 
  splashed with the blood of the pilgrim’s inner demons, and 
  a shrine to repressed memories might require one memory 
  be forgotten in return for revealing another. Other shrines 
  contain seemingly worthless relics or lack any evident power 
  at all. The Astral denizens around shrines rarely say anything 
  useful about the shrines themselves, not recognizing them 
  for what they are.
  One subject of debate among Astral explorers is whether 
  the Atlanteans mapped Astral focus points and built shrines 
  on these locations, or whether the Atlanteans built shrines to 
  create focus points. If the former hypothesis is correct, one can 
  assume the Atlanteans were trying to tap the power of Astral 
  Realms. If the latter hypothesis is correct, new questions arise 
  about the Atlanteans’ goals and methods. What does it mean, 
  exactly, to build the symbol of a dream?
  Thought Control
  A popular notion among the Free Council’s 
  Astral explorers is that Atlantean shrines were 
  built to control human consciousness. Suppos-
  edly, each shrine exerted (and may still exert) 
  inﬂ uence over its Realm, enhancing desirable 
  dreams and archetypes and diminishing trouble-
  some ones. Some shrines seeded Realms with 
  previously unassociated concepts — planting fear 
  into dreams of foreign lands, or adding structure 
  and law to dreams of civilization.
  No one has ever proven that alterations to the 
  Temenos have any effect on humanity, but this 
  doesn’t dispel believers’ concerns. Many cabals 
  — Free Council and otherwise — have fought over 
  control of shrines. The idea that any one mage 
  might gain control over an aspect of human 
  nature is too worrisome to ignore.
  
  114
  The Letterkeeper of Alphabeta
  A hedge maze extends endlessly toward a golden horizon 
  while letters drift from the sky like autumn leaves. Glittering 
  bees carry the fallen letters to different sections of the maze, 
  sorting them by alphabet and hanging them from branches. 
  A few gardeners tend to the land, arranging the letters into 
  words such as “healthy,” “growth,” “maze” and “puzzle.” A 
  white gazebo barely peeks above the maze’s walls, hidden off 
  an overgrown path.
  This is Alphabeta, one of several Astral Realms centered 
  on language and communication. The gazebo is an Atlantean 
  shrine preserved by a gardener — the Letterkeeper of Alphabeta. 
  He is a burly, bearded, dark-skinned man dressed in overalls 
  and plaid ﬂ annel, carrying a rake and easily mistaken for a 
  real human.
  No one speaks in Alphabeta. The gardeners are mute, and 
  visitors ﬁ nd that letters spill from their lips instead of sound. 
  Written communication is effective enough, although the 
  gardeners won’t write anything themselves. The Letterkeeper 
  is the only exception: if shown the word “Atlantis” in High 
  Speech runes, he gains a dull, raspy voice and will talk to his 
  visitors. They, in turn, can talk to him in the normal way.
  The Letterkeeper spends his days maintaining the gazebo 
  (touching up paint, replacing rotten boards and so on) and 
  raking fallen letters. His rake catches only the most unusual 
  letters — characters from forgotten or imaginary scripts and 
  symbols that were never matched with any script at all. He 
  won’t say whether the Atlanteans gave him this duty or it’s a 
  habit he developed during his millennia as a gardener. To the 
  Letterkeeper, he has always been who he is, and the gazebo has 
  always been part of Alphabeta. He doesn’t even acknowledge 
  that the word “Atlantis” affects him, despite the fact that the 
  term obviously does.
  Mages occasionally visit the gazebo to contemplate Alphabeta 
  or to trade with the Letterkeeper. Sorcerers preparing to cast 
  or confront spells utilizing runes often hope to ﬁ nd powerful 
  letters or “counter-letters” to aid their thaumaturgy, while 
  scholars search for a Rosetta stone hidden somewhere in the 
  gazebo’s structure. Once convinced to speak, the Letterkeeper 
  reluctantly trades his rare letters in exchange for certain goods: 
  honey from Alphabetan bees (they have a nasty sting), word 
  games from the material world (he’s somehow accumulated a 
  complete collection of New York Times crossword puzzles, and 
  is very picky about what games he’ll accept) and, of course, 
  samples of other rare scripts.
  Astral Caretakers
  Colleges and shrines are rarely warded by the 
  kinds of ﬁ erce gatekeepers that prowl material 
  ruins. Instead, Astral Realms naturally tend to 
  hide their treasures from visitors who cannot 
  understand them; so additional protections only 
  hamper the worthy. A few archeomancers speak 
  of soul-twisting spells that lock mages inside As-
  tral Space or banish them to nightmare Realms, 
  or of monsters bred from fear and aggression, 
  but such defenses surely guard only the most 
  valuable locales.
  Much more common than wards are caretak-
  ers: Astral entities created or controlled by Atlan-
  tean magic, bound to maintain sites of interest. 
  These creatures are generally indistinguishable 
  from the “normal” inhabitants of their Realms 
  — at least to the untrained eye. On close inspec-
  tion, a Seeker ﬁ nds that caretakers tend to stay 
  within the bounds of their territories and apart 
  from other creatures. When caretakers do stray, 
  they do so only to gather materials to maintain 
  their domains. Their original instructions are 
  often colored by their surroundings until they 
  themselves don’t realize why they serve as they 
  do. After all, dreams don’t have to make sense.
  Colleges
  The drive to explore, learn and understand is powerful 
  among mages. The Atlanteans were no different in this regard 
  — but while modern sorcerers must hide their magic and limit 
  their ambitions, the ancients readily traveled to the frontiers 
  of the soul and sought the knowledge bound up in pure con-
  sciousness. They built whole colleges and laboratories in the 
  Temenos, both to uncover the mysteries of Astral Space and 
  to teach from raw conceptual sources.
  Surviving colleges commonly resemble institutes of learn-
  ing appropriate to their setting — everything from mosques 
  to hospitals to modern universities. Long since abandoned by 
  their creators, most colleges are dark and overgrown; only a 
  few have caretakers or squatters living on their grounds. Their 
  libraries, exhibits and laboratories have also suffered, and 
  ﬁ nding a book whose pages haven’t faded or a painting whose 
  surface hasn’t become a greasy blur can be difﬁ cult.
  The colleges were at the forefront of experimental Astral 
  magic. Students transformed the resonance of dream-essence, 
  captured and observed Astral creatures and studied the 
  relationship between the material world and the Temenos. 
  Portals linking colleges to one another and to distant Astral 
  Realms were built for use by the wisest mages, guarded by 
  tests and wards.
  The Guardians of the Veil say their forebears, forever eager 
  to gain insight into the ways of the soul and the psychology of 
  humankind, encouraged many areas of research. In particular, 
  their forebears developed means of learning about a person’s 
  nature by studying objects removed from that person’s Oneiros. 
  Such objects were useful as evidence, weapons and blackmail 
  material, as well as for educational purposes. Rumors in the 
  order tell of Astral colleges hiding secret galleries full of dream-
  objects stolen from the ancient Guardians’ foes — and that the 
  order’s masters still use some of these dream-vaults.
  Colleges also encouraged non-magical courses of study. 
  Students hoping to learn the meaning of particular emotions, 
  
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  CHAPTER four: the living temple - astral memories
  myths, cultures or concepts explored their seats in human 
  consciousness from the safety of college walls. A soldier could 
  prepare for the emotional cost of war by studying in a Realm 
  of grief and pain, following the extensive tutorials prepared by 
  generations of scholars. Nearly every college had at least one 
  mage dedicated to teaching psychic health — a necessary precau-
  tion, given the dangers of spending time in the Temenos.
  Modern mages sometimes use Atlantean colleges as meeting 
  places. This is especially true for mages in disparate parts of 
  the world: Astral colleges serve as useful neutral ground and 
  are secure from most perils. Some Consilii have discussed 
  reopening colleges, despite failed attempts during previous 
  centuries. Inevitably, the difﬁ culty of simultaneously maintain-
  ing a material sanctum and an Astral domain puts an end to 
  such ambitions.
  The Citadel of Remorse
  Built in the heart of a terrible inferno in a Realm of caverns 
  and ﬁ re, the Citadel of Remorse stands charred but strong. 
  Seemingly carved from a single granite slab, the college is a 
  spiraling structure that leans to one side. Ornate, stained glass 
  windows speckle the walls, but all of them have cracked or 
  melted in the ﬂ ames and been rendered incomprehensible. 
  Inside, the Citadel is a honeycomb of spare stone chambers 
  and wilting gardens.
  The Citadel of Remorse (a modern name; the Atlanteans’ 
  name for the college is a mystery) had a tighter focus than 
  most Atlantean colleges. So far as psycho-archaeologists can 
  tell, the Citadel was a place where mages could explore the 
  positive purpose of self-deprecating emotions such as guilt, 
  doubt and loathing. Most literature on the subject has faded 
  to nothingness, but some of the Atlanteans’ experimental 
  apparatus survive.
  Bizarre devices resembling torture equipment sit in some 
  rooms, purportedly used for psychic alchemical processes in 
  which souls were puriﬁ ed through exposure to distilled misery. 
  Other rooms contain guilt-suits, donned by mages seeking to 
  experience negativity from the emotion’s point of view. Most 
  of the apparatus no longer functions properly, or cannot be 
  used without lost Arcane knowledge; however, no one has 
  performed a full inventory of the college.
  Over the centuries since the college’s discovery, more than 
  one mage has hypothesized that the Oracle who erected Pan-
  demonium’s Watchtower was either a student or a founder of 
  the Citadel of Remorse. Although little hard evidence supports 
  this claim, the college has nonetheless become signiﬁ cant in 
  Mastigos mythology. Warlocks who doubt themselves or who 
  wonder why they were chosen for their path are sometimes 
  advised to travel to the college and seek its wisdom. Even if 
  there’s no insight into the Realms Supernal to be found, a mage 
  might get a glimpse of what drives her soul from within.
  Fortresses
  Not all Atlantean outposts in the Temenos existed to serve 
  the quest for knowledge. In particular, the ancient Adamantine 
  Arrow and the Guardians of the Veil recognized the strategic 
  implications of Astral Space. Unlike the Shadow Realm, Astral 
  Space did not parallel the physical world. Astral Space was an 
  inﬁ nite expanse of new hiding places, new frontiers and new 
  potential dangers. Atlantis had to control that Realm, lest the 
  enemies of Atlantis seize it ﬁ rst.
  From a modern perspective, the Atlanteans’ attempts to 
  control the Temenos appear to have failed. Any successes they 
  achieved fell with the fabled city, disappeared in the ages since 
  or were carefully hidden from view. Nonetheless, evidence of 
  their efforts remains.
  The Adamantine Arrow’s traditions say Arrows tried to 
  counter the threat of Astral invaders (enemy mages or dream-
  beasts) by erecting sentry posts and garrisons in important 
  Astral Realms. These outposts were typically enchanted to 
  alert their defenders to intrusion. Some outposts stood at the 
  center of invisible psychic webs whose threads, when touched, 
  triggered alarms. Other outposts acted as Astral whirlpools, 
  pulling anyone entering a given Realm to the site of the nearest 
  outpost. Still other outposts acted as mystic radio antennae, 
  “broadcasting” mantras to disrupt intruding willworkers’ 
  meditation and force them back to the waking world. Outposts 
  generally resemble military encampments — rusting metal 
  towers, crumbling concrete forts or shacks surrounded with 
  barbed wire fences. Unlike most Astral sites, outposts blend 
  in poorly with their surroundings. Perhaps this is why so few 
  outposts endure, and why they look derelict.
  The Dragon’s Talons also tried to fortify Astral Space with 
  walls between the Realms. However grand these may once have 
  been, the tides of the soul have worn them down and left them 
  rare ﬁ nds. The walls were both quasi-physical and magical, 
  combining intricate spells with “material” structures — rune-
  carved bricks, chanting silk curtains and ﬂ esh-rending winds 
  were a few of the forms tried. But dreamers slipped through 
  cracks, often without realizing that their destinations were 
  supposedly protected. Natives of Astral Space threw themselves 
  angrily at the barriers, breaking them down within days. The 
  walls were better at trapping creatures inside Realms than 
  keeping intruders out, and a few nightmares were made into 
  prisons and sealed off. Some mages say that certain dreams 
  were hidden — that the greatest Atlantean walls still stand, and 
  they conceal entire Realms in the Temenos.
  Where the Adamantine Arrow saw threats, the Guardians 
  of the Veil saw opportunities. They built Astral spy posts in 
  Realms of interest, disguising the outposts with physical and 
  psychic camouﬂ age. Inside, a mage (or Astral construct) could 
  wait and watch other Astral travelers, gazing through one-way 
  mirrors, scrying pools or, in Realms where modern times have 
  overtaken the dreams, television screens. The Guardians also 
  built safehouses where their souls could hide or where Guard-
  ians could store dreamed treasures. Spy posts and safehouses 
  are usually small, solid places: a locked mausoleum in an Astral 
  graveyard, a heavy bomber in an aerial battleﬁ eld or a safe 
  (bigger inside than outside) in an ofﬁ ce complex.
  Larger safehouses sometimes doubled as luxurious prisons for 
  Goetic demons. These demons were lured or kidnapped from 
  the minds of their creators, then pressed into service through 
  bribery or torture. Goetic demons informed Guardians of the 
  
  116
  demons’ makers’ secret weaknesses, and the Guardians kept 
  the demons in reserve as weapons of psychological torment. A 
  Goetic demon’s prison was normally built in an Astral Realms 
  suited to the temperament of the demon, then augmented with 
  binding spells to keep the demon from straying. The demons 
  took to their new homes with relative ease, suffering neither 
  hunger nor age — but if any of these inner demons survive to 
  this day, who can guess what they’re like now? Trapped in the 
  Temenos for millennia, their creators long dead, they might 
  be almost unrecognizable.
  The Dreamforge
  In an Astral Realm of endless gears, catwalks, chemical pits, 
  conveyer belts and elevators, workers in gloves and hard hats 
  fold origami paper into a billion consumer goods. This is a 
  place of endless labor and minimal compensation, where the 
  psyche sleeps while the body toils.
  Above a waterfall of molten metal stands a cylindrical iron 
  fortress, its solid walls covered in rust and razor wire. The 
  fortress doesn’t quite match the rest of the Realm, and workers 
  occasionally try to tear the fortress apart with industrial drills 
  and acetylene torches. No one ever puts more than a dent in the 
  fortress, though, and no one has found the trigger to its secret 
  entrance — a lever tucked behind a bucket in a utility closet 
  that, when pulled, opens a tunnel beneath the factory.
  The fortress was once a garrison for mages of the Adamantine 
  Arrow: barracks, armory and forge in one, a place for Atlantean 
  soldiers to gather when preparing for dreaming wars. No soldiers 
  man the fortress today, and the cloth maps of the Temenos 
  that hung on the walls are faded and torn. Beneath ﬂ oors of 
  bunks and conference rooms, however, is an acrid workshop 
  where sparks still ﬂ y from a green-ﬂ amed furnace.
  Here, Atlantean mages melted down dreams and reshaped 
  them into weapons and armor. The teeth of inner demons 
  were embedded in the blades of swords. Reeds buffeted but 
  unbroken by the eternal winds of airy Realms were woven 
  into shields. Murderous fantasies were distilled into poisons 
  that coated the tips of arrows. The tools the Arrows used are 
  rusted and brittle, and their machines appear broken, but the 
  furnace is still hot. A modern mage who put the workshop to 
  use would have little trouble melting down dreams. Shaping 
  them into new forms would be a difﬁ cult challenge.
  Difﬁ cult — but rewarding. The essence of a dream is more 
  important than form in the world of the soul, and how bet-
  ter to manipulate that world than with dream-forged tools? 
  How better to kill ideas than with other ideas? Secret manuals 
  surely survive that elaborate on the techniques of the ancient 
  dreamsmiths: the knowledge of the Dreamforge was too pre-
  cious to be left to human memory. And perhaps some mage 
  already possesses those secrets, and seeks the fortress where 
  the forge awaits.
  History’s Ghosts
  True history is always forgotten. The world is shaped by 
  billions of individuals, and the wars, cultures and heroes we 
  remember are necessary abstractions of a more complicated 
  and ﬂ uid truth. Humans — Sleepers and mages alike — must 
  view history as a series of key events, each symbolic of its time. 
  But what happens when the key events are forgotten? When 
  the symbol of an age is lost? Littered throughout the Temenos 
  are history’s ghosts: Astral Realms created from the psychic 
  echoes of forgotten places and times.
  Just as other memories represented in the Temenos, ghost 
  memories are never accurate. At best, they are incomplete 
  reconstructions of the real world, with holes left gaping. The 
  citizens of a ghostly city may refer to a building that isn’t there, 
  or lines of forgotten poetry may transmute into gibberish. More 
  often, holes are ﬁ lled with supposition and stereotypes. The 
  core truth of a memory is compromised by its surface elements, 
  forcing mages to excavate layers of symbolic thought to acquire 
  that which they seek.
  Ghost Realms often arise from memories purged from cre-
  ation — cultures subjected to genocide, annihilated religions 
  and libraries burned for their heretical contents. Excesses such 
  as these took place in the Atlantean Age as they do now, as 
  mages fought to ensure that their ideologies reigned supreme. 
  The advocates of dangerous philosophies (domestic or foreign) 
  were vanquished: the Adamantine Arrow toppled the towers 
  of barbarian mages, and the Guardians of the Veil quashed 
  cabals and cults that taught spells forbidden by Atlantean law. 
  Apologists for Atlantis say that such actions were just and 
  necessary, and that the only mages who search Astral Space 
  for purged lore are Seers, Scelesti and fools. Broader-minded 
  (or credulous) mages claim that Atlantis fell due to its nar-
  row vision, and that Atlantean “heresies” could usher in new 
  schools of magical thought.
  Other ghost Realms are the product of memories denied, 
  not purged. Especially during the pre–Atlantean era, there 
  were times and places so terrifying or horriﬁ c that humanity 
  could not stand to remember them. Sleeper Disbelief, too, 
  relegates certain memories to the Realm of Dreams. Fear of a 
  primordial time when humans were prey to enormous beasts 
  inﬂ uences Realms in the Temenos, and many Thyrsus believe 
  these places are the shadow of a literal prehistory. Other Realms 
  portray primitive humans as slaves to unseen monstrosities, 
  the incomprehensible lords of blood-stained cities of stone. A 
  few messianic mages believe in Astral Realms depicting a lost 
  paradise that humanity cannot bear to recall having lost, but 
  suppressed collective memories are rarely so positive.
  Lastly — often tragically — memories can be lost because 
  there’s no one to remember them. In the pre-industrial world, 
  more than a few cultures rose and fell in isolation without 
  leaving any mark on broader civilization. All that remains 
  of their traditions and beliefs rests within the Temenos, and 
  mages are the only people who might lay those psychic ghosts 
  (and occasionally, real ghosts) to rest — or return their cultural 
  treasures to humanity.
  Secrets, too, can be lost in this manner. Atlantis had its share 
  of conspiracies and hidden societies, but conspirators can die 
  by accident or happenstance without ever being discovered. 
  As means of reshaping the soul, Legacies easily leave an im-
  pression on the Temenos — yet the ﬁ rst Legacies had only a 
  
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  CHAPTER four: the living temple - astral memories
  handful of practitioners, and many were lost when Atlantis 
  fell. Ancient, inhuman tutors lurk within the Temenos, hop-
  ing to one day revive their Legacies and be remembered in 
  the material world.
  The Colony of Stonebrook
  Before the construction of the Celestial Ladder, before 
  Atlantis’ civil war, there were mages who looked about and 
  predicted the coming tragedies. Of these mages, a few reached 
  a simple conclusion: magic bred power and hubris. Wisdom 
  could only be achieved by forsaking magic. Thus, Atlantis 
  was fatally ﬂ awed.
  Joined by a company of Sleepers, these mages — mockingly 
  called “Timori” — ﬂ ed the great city. They sought distant 
  shores where they might found a home upon a simpler, purer 
  foundation. Before they departed, their most powerful wizards 
  stripped Atlantis of their spells and their libraries, so as not 
  to allow their secrets to be abused by the power-hungry. No 
  Atlantean ever knew what became of the exiles.
  That is the story told by the people of Stonebrook. Their 
  Astral Realm reaches out to the dreams of the physically and 
  spiritually lost — mages who doubt their magic and who wander 
  the Earth without direction. Those not called must take the 
  long route there, journeying through the Temenos until they 
  reach the Realm’s borders.
  Stonebrook is a simple village built on a rocky beach at the 
  edge of a forest. Physically, the buildings and people resemble 
  those of early European settlements along the North American 
  coastline. The lives of the colonists revolve around hunting, 
  ﬁ shing, meditation and the study (but never the conjuring) 
  of the Supernal Realms.
  The colonists are willing to discuss Atlantis when asked, but 
  their stories are muddled and contradictory. Even their reasons 
  for leaving are confused: some colonists say they left by choice, 
  while others claim their leaders were exiled for crimes invented 
  by the Silver Ladder. The colonists are friendly to strangers who 
  agree not to practice magic in the village; mages who refuse to 
  abide by the rules are shunned, but not harmed.
  The three leaders of the village are Joseph, Isaiah and Judith. 
  They are powerful sorcerers, and each possesses a vast store of 
  books they collected before their conversion and exile. They 
  refuse to show the books to anyone but mages they deem 
  sufﬁ ciently wise. Unfortunately, the books contain nothing 
  but modern proverbs and aphorisms (“All that glitters is not 
  gold,” “Early to bed, early to rise” and so on). Joseph is the 
  only leader who admits that the dream-books aren’t what 
  they once were.
  Every night a dreamer spends in Stonebrook, one colonist 
  disappears. The other villagers notice, but don’t like to talk 
  about it. They admit to fearing an endless black void beyond 
  the forest, and attribute their losses to some force within it. 
  Inquiring mages may ﬁ nd that the people of Stonebrook do 
  not know why their real colony disappeared, or why its disap-
  pearance is repeated again and again in the Temenos.
  The colonists’ unavoidable fate is not what bothers the 
  colonists the most, though. When pressed, they reveal that 
  they understand they’re not truly real (although they don’t 
  know what they are), and they fear that their philosophy and 
  their discoveries will be lost forever. Worst of all, they don’t 
  remember the core of their scriptures. They want to pass on 
  their beliefs, but those are lost even to them.
  Banishers often dream of Stonebrook, and typically ﬁ nd that 
  it reinforces their determination. At least in its dreaming form, 
  Stonebrook is clear evidence of magic’s corruption and the 
  happiness that comes from its elimination. Other mages who 
  ﬁ nd the colony often come away frustrated: there appear to be 
  so many secrets trapped within, all just beyond reach.
  A Thousand Utopias
  The Temenos is a place of archetypes and singular truths. 
  But some myths, however universal, become fractured. When 
  the true Atlantis (if it ever existed) faded from memory, the 
  myth of Atlantis spawned a thousand utopias and a thousand 
  tyrannies in the Realm of Dreams.
  When young mages uncover an Atlantis in the Temenos, 
  they often believe they’ve found the real thing. After all, the 
  Atlantis matches their expectations perfectly — its architecture, 
  its social structure, its inhabitants and its philosophies. Even if 
  logic asserts that the civilization is unsustainable, dream-logic 
  smoothes over practical considerations. The island is a miracu-
  lous discovery. Or it would be, if it weren’t one of many.
  More experienced mages know that for every belief in an 
  earlier, uniﬁ ed age, there is an Atlantis in the Temenos to match. 
  They use many names (Iram, Shambhala, Dilmun and Eden, 
  to list a few) and are clothed in different cultural trappings. 
  There are perfected Realms of golden domes and marble pillars, 
  where benevolent sorcerers teach and defend grateful Sleepers 
  and where no one ever thinks a discontented thought. There 
  are monocultural theocracies where everyone understands 
  God’s singular truth, and there are multicultural anarchies 
  where magic ensures that peace and equality prevail.
  Bleaker versions of Atlantis exist in equal number — versions 
  of what mages fear Atlantis may have been, or what Sleepers 
  fear about magic. Members of the Free Council sometimes 
  see Atlantis as a dead Realm of stiﬂ ing tradition, and that 
  repressive, fossilized Atlantis awaits them in Astral Space. The 
  Temenos holds worse dreams of Atlantis, too, the nightmare 
  hopes of twisted minds, such as Atlantis-Realms where Sleepers 
  are no more than toys for cruel willworkers. Even the Scelesti 
  have their dream of Atlantis, where they ruled in the name 
  of their dark masters and herded the Sleepers like cattle into 
  sacriﬁ cial abattoirs.
  The fall of Atlantis is reﬂ ected in as many ways as there are 
  dreams, but no Realm lacks a black seed promising the age’s 
  destruction. In many versions of the city, the coming Fall is 
  predicted subtly. Corruption afﬂ icts the aristocracy, barbarians 
  grow jealous of the city’s glory or pity leads masters to confuse 
  themselves with slaves. In other versions, the Fall plays out 
  with the construction of the Celestial Ladder or an unequaled 
  natural disaster. The Fall may seem tragic, inevitable or ac-
  cidental depending on the Realm’s nature.
  
  118
  Some Goetic sorcerers question whether the 1,000 incarna-
  tions of Atlantis are separate Realms in Astral Space, or if the 
  incarnations are facets of a single Realm. For most purposes, 
  the distinction is academic. Either way, it’s possible to move 
  from one Atlantis to the next. Each city has a trail, a doorway, 
  an arch or a cavern that leads to another interpretation. The 
  denizens of Atlantean Realms avoid these gateways without 
  consciously acknowledging them.
  More than one mage has hoped to piece together an image 
  of the real Atlantis by visiting each of its interpretations. Given 
  the dangers present in some of the Realms, this is a risky gam-
  bit; however, if Atlantis were real, it makes sense that each of 
  its dreaming incarnations would contain some aspect of the 
  genuine article. But sifting truth from ﬁ ction in the world of 
  the soul is a challenge few mages are equal to.
  Umpauli, Island of Many Temples
  Above the sea are the swamps. Above the swamps are 
  the forests. Above the forests are the cliffs. And above 
  the cliffs is the Realm of gods. This is Umpauli, the 
  Island of Many Temples.
  Umpauli is a civilization literally stratiﬁ ed. At sea 
  level live monsters and spirits. Barbarian outsiders are 
  permitted to dock and trade in the swamps. Umpaulan 
  Sleepers dwell in wood and mud villages in the forest. 
  Mages build their homes into the cliffsides, striving to 
  reach ever higher. One’s worth is based entirely on where 
  one lives, and most residents are resigned to a wretched 
  existence.
  The mages of Umpauli are obsessed with the reﬁ ne-
  ment of the soul. Mages who have not adopted a Legacy 
  are relegated to the houses and temples at the bottom 
  of the cliffs, while each Attainment in a Legacy earns 
  one a higher place. The mages at each level of the 
  cliffs communicate less and less with one another as 
  their Legacies diverge. Only one mage attends to each 
  of the highest temples, and these mages do not com-
  municate with anyone. The Umpaulans do not rank 
  any Legacy as superior to another — all that matters 
  is one’s development, not one’s beliefs.
  The paths up the cliffsides become steeper and 
  steeper as one proceeds skyward, until they disap-
  pear into the cliffs’ ﬂ at white stone. Supposedly, 
  a mage who perfects his soul can proceed above the 
  cliff and join the gods. However, since the mages of 
  different Legacies are concerned exclusively with their 
  own paths, they do not think to pool knowledge to 
  achieve their goals.
  Although Umpauli’s Sleepers, spirits and monsters 
  claim to accept their lot, they secretly resent their treat-
  ment by the mages. The Sleepers, spirits and monsters 
  provide the mages with food, clothing, sacriﬁ ces, slaves, 
  fodder for experiments and Sleepwalker children, and 
  receive nothing in return except assurance that they 
  have done their duty. They show no interest in rebel-
  ling, but a visiting dreamer might change that.
  
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  CHAPTER four: the living temple - astral memories
  Atlantis and the Dreamtime
  What do plants and animals remember of the 
  Atlantean age? What sigils did history’s great-
  est mages inscribe upon the soul of the world? 
  How did the ancients interact with the Anima 
  Mundi, and how did those interactions affect 
  their island’s fate?
  Humanity does not easily affect the Dream-
  time. A righteous society, a cruel society and an 
  arrogant society all look the same to trees, ants 
  and mountains. Most civilizations never leave 
  their mark at all. Despite this, some modern 
  mages fervently believe that Atlantis must have 
  marked the Dreamtime, and spend their lives 
  searching for evidence.
  Certain Thyrsus mages tell of Dream Realms 
  depicting an era when the Earth was shackled 
  by human magic, worked and battered until 
  the Earth unleashed its fury and beat back its 
  oppressors with volcanoes and earthquakes, 
  storm-winds and tsunamis. Other mages say 
  that the Dreamtime contains the memory of an 
  era when humans and animals called down the 
  Supernal Realms with equal ability. It may be 
  that both ages existed, and that neither relates 
  to Atlantis. It may be that these ideas come from 
  mages unable to interpret the dreams of the 
  world, who project their own hopes and fears 
  onto the Anima Mundi.
  If there is any genuine Atlantean lore to be 
  found in the Dreamtime, the lore does not reveal 
  itself easily. If the Atlanteans built outposts, 
  shrines and libraries inside the soul of the world, 
  those places vanished like cities in the heart of a 
  jungle. But for mages who see the Temenos as 
  only a piece of history’s puzzle, the Dreamtime 
  is an irresistible lure.
  Chimerical Beasts
  The denizens of the Temenos arise from the depths of the 
  human mind. Like the Realms in which they dwell, the beings 
  embody myths, icons, hopes and fears. But unlike Astral Realms, 
  Astral beings can think. They have desires. And not all of them 
  are content to be creatures of other beings’ dreams.
  Mages call beings that cross from the Temenos to the material 
  world “chimerical beasts,” no matter what their form. Such 
  creatures are rare, to say the least, but they do exist; how and 
  why is a subject furiously dissected by Awakened cryptozoolo-
  gists. Some mages conﬂ ate chimerical beasts with cryptids, 
  but while these groups may overlap, accurate categorization 
  is no clear-cut task. The line between a spirit and a chimerical 
  beast is not always easy to draw. The essence of hatred lives in 
  the Shadow Realm, while the idea of hatred exists in Astral 
  Space, but humans can ﬁ nd the distinction tough to grasp 
  when they both manifest in the material world.
  Once physically incarnated, chimerical beasts react in a va-
  riety of ways. Unintelligent creatures respond like any animals 
  removed from their natural habitat. Often they seek dark places 
  to hide or lash out violently. Intelligent beasts sometimes scheme 
  to achieve incarnation for years, and have planned extensively 
  for material existence. No encounter with a chimerical beast 
  should be taken lightly — a being able to endure in the Temenos 
  is a being with the power of an eternal icon.
  Breeds of Beast
  Chimerical beasts come in many different forms. Often, 
  mages familiar with one type of beast are entirely unaware of 
  others. The spawn of dreams tend not to view themselves as 
  a uniﬁ ed group at all: originating in the Temenos doesn’t link 
  them together any more than originating in the physical world 
  makes humans and hyenas treat each other as brothers.
  Myths
  Why do so many creatures of myth exist within the Temenos? 
  Did dragons, basilisks, djinn and Nagas once live in the real 
  world, only to fade into memory? Or do stories of monsters 
  create monsters in the human mind, built from the stuff of 
  fear and awe, eventually to manifest in the material world?
  Either way, monsters do exist in dreams, and monsters do 
  incarnate in reality. Mythological chimerical beasts resemble 
  cryptids in most respects, though the chimerical beasts are 
  more likely than cryptids to reveal themselves to Sleepers. 
  Unlike traditional cryptids, chimerical beasts haven’t found 
  ways to hide in the modern world. Unless they know better, 
  they’re likely to treat humans the same way they did in legends. 
  Fortunately, chimerical beasts rarely incarnate in densely 
  populated areas, but nothing prevents a mage from guiding a 
  beast to human prey.
  Mythological beasts often demonstrate “affection” for the 
  culture that ﬁ rst told stories about them. They may hesitate to 
  attack modern representatives of their culture, or they may feel 
  betrayed and angry if men and women from their culture don’t 
  behave according to tradition. (Imagine a dragon that can’t 
  ﬁ nd a better princess to kidnap than the local prom queen, 
  and then becomes furious because no knight will come forth 
  to do battle and rescue her.) They may be drawn to culturally 
  signiﬁ cant locations or population centers, desperately seeking 
  the familiar in anything from religious institutions to museum 
  exhibitions to ethnic restaurants. Even the trappings of a culture 
  can be enough to appease some beasts: a Nigerian mage who 
  does his research may be better prepared to face a hydra than 
  a Greek American mage who ignores her roots.
  Not all beasts care about their origins, of course. The more 
  cross-cultural myths a monster appears in, the less likely it 
  is to feel tied to a particular group. Some monsters are even 
  
  120
  eager to embrace the modern world and adapt their behavior 
  accordingly: a phoenix might build its nest in the ﬁ res of a 
  steel mill, and a troll might kidnap homeless children and 
  carry them to its home in the storm drains.
  Eikons
  Gods and saints play an important role in affairs of the 
  soul, yet relatively few appear in the Temenos. Religious mages 
  advocate a theological explanation for this mystery, and say that 
  a true god — a god whose presence extends across the Fallen 
  and Supernal Realms, and who isn’t “merely” an artifact of 
  human thought — cannot be imitated in Astral Space. Most 
  sorcerers, though, say the varying interpretations of different 
  worshippers prevent gods from coalescing in Astral Space.
  There are deities, however, whose worshippers see them so 
  clearly, whose images and doctrines are so well-deﬁ ned, that 
  their avatars incarnate in the Realm of Dreams. An eikon is 
  the manifestation of a god built from human thought. Eikons 
  are considered blasphemous by some mages, who call them 
  idolatrous simulacra built from the ﬂ awed mortal soul. Other 
  mages say that an eikon is the reﬂ ection of a god cast in the 
  sea of the human mind, and thus a true avatar of the divine. 
  Whatever the case, once an eikon incarnates, it needs only take 
  one step further to achieve physical, chimerical incarnation.
  Eikons typically manifest from deities with extremely small, 
  extremely devout groups of followers — groups usually consid-
  ered cults. Sometimes, a single faithful advocate is enough to 
  revivify a fading eikon within the Temenos. An eikon-deity 
  usually has an ancient heritage, but has never been widely 
  recognized; even in an eikon’s prime, its worshipers were 
  carefully selected and practiced their rites in secret. Such gods 
  are commonly lesser deities from polytheistic religions, or ob-
  scure angels, demons, devas or similar entities. Some eikons, 
  however, begin as idiosyncratic versions of well-known deities, 
  espoused by small and fanatical cults whom most believers 
  would consider heretical, or at least deeply peculiar.
  Eikons often shepherd their faithful in dreams, guiding their 
  followers in worldly and magical affairs. Eikons rarely seek mages 
  as acolytes because they fear a mage’s ability to confront them 
  in Astral Space. Of the various chimerical entities, however, 
  eikons are the most likely to succeed at physical incarnation: 
  they are usually very smart, have access to earthly servants and 
  possess the desire to meddle in worldly affairs.
  The Forgotten
  Powerful monsters and wrathful gods can leave deep scars 
  in the human psyche — and still be forgotten when their time 
  passes. Often (though not always) residents of ghostly Astral 
  Realms, these beings hunger to be remembered and begin 
  their climb out of the Realms Invisible. They are the deities of 
  long-dead cults, the horrors that could only exist in a primitive, 
  inchoate world and the worst mistakes of mighty mages. These 
  monsters are fears humanity has gratefully left behind.
  Often, a mage or a curious Sleeper reawakens a forgotten 
  creature. By poring through records of the Atlantean Age, by 
  using magic to coax color into long-faded cave paintings or by 
  studying the monuments of a lost civilization, the scholar learns 
  enough to reinforce a Primal memory. From the depths of the 
  Temenos, the creature is drawn to the scholar, urging her in 
  dreams to learn more, to give spiritual ﬂ esh to the creature’s 
  faded image. Research and imagination give the monster 
  strength and vigor. Recovering a name may be the ﬁ nal step 
  necessary to solidify a creature’s Astral incarnation.
  Once forgotten creatures get a taste of the physical world, 
  they aren’t easily satiated. But a scholar’s obsessive need to 
  reconstruct a myth may not extend to making that myth a real-
  ity. She may have no interest in helping her discovery achieve 
  physical incarnation. If a forgotten being can’t coerce the scholar 
  into providing a pathway out of dreams, the monster uses its 
  newfound power to search out other ways. Other dreamers 
  may serve the creature, or ancient secrets may guide it.
  Still, it’s rare that a forgotten entity doesn’t retain a link to 
  its rediscoverer — a person can’t truly reconstruct a myth or 
  memory without providing a bit of herself in the process, for-
  ever sharing something intimate with a bygone monster. The 
  link may take the form of shared dreams or waking emotions, 
  or just the knowledge that something else is out there. For a 
  mage, the link provides an intimate sympathetic connection 
  — one that functions both ways.
  Incarnation
  The incarnation of a chimerical beast is a mysterious and 
  unpredictable process. Depending on the beast and its resources 
  in the dream world, the beast may take material form through 
  the whims of fate or as part of a painstakingly implemented 
  plot. Nonetheless, incarnation can broadly be described as a 
  three-step process.
  First, many people must have a clear image of a chimerical 
  entity. A vague abstraction or an indistinct memory cannot 
  survive entry into the physical world. If only a few people 
  imagine an entity, they are more likely to maintain a consistent 
  image — but they might not be enough to draw the entity into 
  the material world. If many people know a myth, they may 
  hold different images of a creature — but enough people may 
  agree on an entity’s appearance, abilities and character for a 
  “critical mass” to build and a dream to achieve an indepen-
  dent existence.
  No one knows how many dreamers it takes to bring a 
  speciﬁ c being to life in the Temenos, or what factors cause 
  people’s dreams to align. The arts can help, by popularizing 
  a particular mythic image — but chimerical creatures can slip 
  into the Oneiroi of artists to encourage the beasts’ depiction 
  in the material world. Some mages try to tip the balance by 
  using literature, pop culture or advertising. For instance, some 
  Libertines suggest that a music star with the right look and the 
  right voice might generate dreams of sirens. Some mages even 
  suggest that chimerical beasts will eventually take the forms of 
  cartoons, corporate mascots and video game characters. At-
  tempts to “artiﬁ cially” create an entity in the Temenos through 
  powerful Mind magic or Life spells cast within Astral Space 
  have thus far failed, however.
  
  121
  CHAPTER four: the living temple - astral memories
  Once a beast’s dream-image is crystallized, the beast must 
  ﬁ nd a way to escape the Temenos — a bridge between Astral 
  Space and the material world. This requires one or more hu-
  man souls. Experts in Astral matters are quite sure the plant, 
  animal or mineral souls that shape the Dreamtime cannot 
  provide escape from the Temenos: the world doesn’t dream 
  that way.
  Humans chosen by a dream entity as a pathway into reality 
  need not be willing (or even aware), but the entity cannot 
  travel the path until the beast establishes a sympathetic con-
  nection between dream and ﬂ esh. Ideally, the body and soul of 
  a person the entity chooses as its bridge resemble the entity’s 
  own form and nature. Some cults assign one member the 
  task of imagining themselves as their god’s bridge, holding 
  its image in mind through repetitive mantras and incredible 
  concentration. Other cults kidnap Sleepers who physically 
  resemble their eikons, dressing and adorning them to perfect 
  the connection. Some beasts search in dreams for a person 
  whose hunger, hatred or greed mirrors their own. Mages 
  occasionally build bodies for dreaming entities with Life or 
  Matter spells, using their own souls as the bridge to transport 
  the beasts to their new homes.
  In other cases, though, the sympathetic connection between 
  dream and ﬂ esh is less direct. A location with resonance 
  matching that of the dream creature can provide the required 
  connection (so long as the dreamers acting as the bridge occupy 
  that location). Actions can create a bridge, too: a person who 
  re-enacts the deeds of a mythic entity can create a sympathetic 
  bond. For example, a person who knowingly eats human ﬂ esh 
  might channel a dreaming Wendigo, even if the dreamer 
  doesn’t know that legend.
  With a clear Astral manifestation established, along with a 
  sympathetic connection to the material world through a hu-
  man soul, an entity can undergo the ﬁ nal phase of physical 
  incarnation. At this stage, mystic energy must be gathered to 
  power the conversion from imagination into reality. A creature 
  can spend its own Essence for this purpose. Alternatively, any 
  willing mages whose souls are being used as a bridge can spend 
  Mana. The total cost in Essence or Mana is equal to at least 
  twice the beast’s Rank; exceptional circumstances can increase 
  this cost. (Note that chimerical beasts are not spirits, and their 
  Rank represents only a rough measure of power — not their 
  status in any hierarchy.)
  An incarnating beast or eikon can possess an existing body, 
  transform an inanimate object or appears from nothingness. 
  A greedy CEO could channel an Astral dragon, eventually 
  metamorphosing into a monster while merging his personality 
  with the dragon’s intellect and instincts. An archaeomancer 
  who discovers the statue of a forgotten god could power that 
  statue’s transformation into a ﬂ esh-and-blood vessel for the 
  god’s Astral memory. A woodland monster born of an urban 
  legend could use the dreams of camping children as a gateway, 
  appearing out of thin air one night and slinking off with no 
  one the wiser.
  Once incarnated, all but the weakest chimerical beasts must 
  gather Essence or feed on tass to survive. Chimerical entities 
  acquire Essence in accordance with the beast’s nature: a lorelei 
  gains Essence by drowning men, a dragon by hoarding treasure, 
  a bloodthirsty eikon by receiving sacriﬁ ces and so on. One 
  point per day is usually enough to maintain a beast’s existence, 
  though overtly magical beasts have a greater appetite. If a chi-
  merical entity is denied its magical diet, the beast withers and 
  fades until it returns to Astral Space; any body the chimerical 
  beast possessed returns to its original form, perhaps one day 
  to be possessed again.
  Killing a chimerical beast’s material form — difﬁ cult though it 
  may be — puts a permanent end to the creature. Sort of, anyway. 
  While that particular manifestation of the beast is gone, along 
  with its memories and personality (though a possessed mortal 
  might become a ghost-version of the creature), nothing prevents 
  a similar being from re-forming in the Temenos. Indeed, given 
  the eternal nature of the Temenos, it’s likely that any mythic 
  archetype that crystallized once will eventually crystallize again. 
  Perhaps the only way to truly destroy a chimerical beast is to 
  alter human consciousness itself.
  The Lost Baku
  Quote: (in Japanese) This world is not home. This world is not 
  the world of baku. But this world — its taste is so sweet.
  Background: According to Japanese myth, a baku is a crea-
  ture that eats nightmares and grants dreamers good luck. For 
  an aging mage steeped in guilt and regret, this myth offered a 
  chance at redemption. The mage spent his life serving acamoth 
  and bringing inner demons into the Material Realm, and he 
  sought a way to undo what he had done.
  He studied baku myths and folklore and located a baku deep 
  within the Temenos. One night, he wrote Atlantean runes 
  on a centuries-old painting of the creature, and a real baku 
  sprang out of the canvas. The mage died providing the Mana 
  to fulﬁ ll the incarnation, but the chimerical beast understood 
  why it had been called. It sought the mistakes of the mage in 
  the Fallen World and devoured them one by one.
  But the baku was not meant for material existence. The taste 
  of incarnated vice and corruption was exquisite, as was the 
  taste of material food and drink. When the baku’s task was 
  complete, the creature couldn’t bear to fade away and return 
  to Astral Space. Instead, the baku has spent decades hiding 
  in cellars, alleys and abandoned buildings, gorging itself on 
  alcohol, chocolate and the dreams of men and women. Other 
  dream-born creatures sate the baku most of all, but they are 
  a rare treat.
  Description: The baku possesses the trunk of an elephant, 
  the mane and paws of a lion and the body of a large boar. 
  At ﬁ rst glance, the baku appears calm and tranquil — but a 
  closer look reveals a suppressed, overstimulated tension. The 
  baku’s speech is slow and resonant, its voice mournful and 
  confused.
  Storytelling Hints: The lost baku can serve as ally or antago-
  nist. On the one hand, the baku serves a useful purpose when 
  devouring stray Goetic creations and fellow chimerical beasts. 
  On the other hand, the baku’s habit of eating the dreams of 
  
  122
  innocents causes a quiet, suffering madness in many Sleepers. 
  A clever acamoth might even partner with the baku, feeding 
  its addiction to nightmares in exchange for a loyal servant.
  The baku knows it isn’t following its duty, but doesn’t 
  have the strength to break its habits. If confronted by mages, 
  the baku is far more likely to ﬂ ee or attack than to listen to 
  reason. Not that the baku couldn’t ﬁ nd redemption if it had 
  the right guide.
  Rank: 2
  Attributes: Power 6, Finesse 4, Resistance 4
  Willpower: 10
  Essence: 15 (max 15)
  Initiative: 8
  Defense: 6
  Speed: 15
  Size: 4
  Corpus: 8
  Inﬂ uences: Dreams 3
  • Strengthen: For one Essence, the baku can draw forth 
  any dream a mortal has dreamed before. Feeble, long-forgot-
  ten dreams impose a penalty on the baku’s Power + Finesse 
  roll; the unforgettable horror-dreams of an acamoth pacter 
  could give a bonus.
  • Manipulate: The baku can shape a sleeping person’s 
  dreams however it wants. Forcing a dream down paths a 
  sleeper doesn’t want may call for a contested roll against the 
  dreamer’s Willpower.
  • Control: This level of Inﬂ uence enables the baku to 
  consume other dream-entities, such as Goetic demons. If the 
  baku wins a contested roll, its Power + Finesse against the 
  target’s Willpower, the baku consumes one point each of the 
  target’s Willpower, Essence and Corpus. The baku can strike 
  from surprise to gain a bonus to this attack. The baku can also 
  use this level of Inﬂ uence to erase a dream from a person’s 
  memory — one of the few ways an acamoth pacter can escape 
  the memory of Abyssal nightmares, and breaking any connec-
  tion between the dreamer and the acamoth.
  Numina: Dream Traveler (dice pool 10). This works as the 
  Mind 4 spell of the same name (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 
  214). Roll the baku’s Power + Finesse versus the target’s Com-
  posure + Gnosis. Each use of this Numen costs two Essence.
  Lucky Blessing (dice pool 8). As the Fate 3 spell “Superlative 
  Luck,” except the luck affects a person chosen by the baku and 
  lasts an entire day. Roll the baku’s Finesse + Resistance and 
  spend three Essence.
  Ban: If a person recites a line from an ancient Japanese 
  poem that refers to the baku, the baku is compelled to seek and 
  devour one dream-spawned creature the speaker desires (such 
  as a Goetic demon or another chimerical beast). The poem is 
  recorded in the notes of the baku’s original summoner.
  
  123
  Appendix:  high speech and atlantean ruins
  Appendix: 
  High Speech 
  and 
  Atlantean 
  Runes
  Not all the relics of Atlantis are physical. Perhaps the most 
  important bequests Atlantis left to mages are High Speech 
  and the system of runes and glyphs willworkers can use to aug-
  ment their magic. These are also two of the most mysterious 
  legacies of Atlantis — more mysterious, perhaps, than some 
  mages realize.
  High Speech
  The orders routinely include High Speech in their members’ 
  training. Student mages learn that by chanting selected phrases 
  in this ancient language, the mages increase the chance of 
  their spells’ success, and more easily add to the spells’ power. 
  One theory among mages is that High Speech is the native 
  language of the Oracles and Exarchs. Either these Ascended 
  beings deliberately shaped the Fallen World so phrases in their 
  tongue would have power, or speaking their language creates a 
  sympathetic link between a mage and the Supernal Realm.
  Students quickly learn that High Speech is a distinctly in-
  complete language. High Speech seems to consist entirely of 
  formulas for casting spells. A mage can learn enough of these 
  formulas to mix and match phrases, and so devise new incanta-
  tions to go with improvised spells. A mage could not hold an 
  actual conversation in High Speech, however. A mage could 
  command the veils of Time to part and show her the future, 
  but she could not say, “Meet me tomorrow for lunch.”
  Mages also know that Sleepers cannot learn to understand 
  High Speech. Over the millennia, willworkers have tried to 
  teach Sleepers the tongue of magic, in hopes they would 
  Awaken. It hasn’t worked.
  Until the last few centuries, most mages accepted the powers 
  and limits of High Speech without question. As the science 
  of philology — the study of languages — developed, however, 
  mages have studied High Speech in hopes of penetrating its 
  mysteries and gaining greater power. All the orders now accept 
  a theory largely developed within the Free Council, about the 
  origins and nature of High Speech. As usual with mages, not 
  every individual willworker believes the theory, but no one 
  has suggested a better explanation — yet.
  The Structure of Language
  As everyone knows, language is a way for intelligent creatures 
  to send information back and forth. Most human languages 
  are spoken; history began when people started representing 
  spoken words through written marks, but writing is very recent 
  compared to speech. Recently, a few gestural languages have 
  been invented for (and sometimes by) the deaf, and the idea 
  of writing has been extended to recording information in ma-
  chine-readable formats such as phonograph records and digital 
  ﬁ les. In the beginning, though, was the spoken word.
  The nature of human vocal anatomy limits the number of 
  distinctly different sounds (called phonemes) that humans can 
  produce. No language makes use of all the possible phonemes, 
  and the world’s languages vary widely as to which sounds are 
  signiﬁ cant and which are not. For example, some Asian lan-
  guages do not treat “r” and “l” as distinct and separate sounds. 
  A person raised speaking Mandarin Chinese, therefore, has 
  trouble with English words in which the difference between 
  “r” and “l” is distinct and important. On the other hand, 
  
  124
  many dialects from India distinguish between a sound made 
  with the tip of the tongue curled back toward the roof of the 
  mouth and one in which the tongue is not. English doesn’t 
  make that distinction, so a person learning these dialects can 
  have trouble hearing the difference. Nevertheless, Englishmen, 
  Chinese and Indians all have the same vocal anatomy, and can 
  learn to speak each other’s languages if they try.
  Mages have the same tongues, lips and vocal chords as 
  Sleepers. (Well, unless the mages have experimented with Life 
  magic.) In terms of phonemes, High Speech is not unusual at 
  all. A Sleeper who hears High Speech does not hear anything 
  intrinsically strange — just a language he does not understand. 
  If he listens closely, he might get a nagging feeling she has 
  heard its like before.
  Languages also differ in how they put sounds together to 
  form units of meaning (called morphemes), and combine these 
  units of meaning to form words. Some words are morphemes, 
  but so are preﬁ xes, sufﬁ xes and other “sub-word” units of 
  meaning. Once again, languages vary enormously in their 
  rules for combining morphemes. Some of those rules are 
  more complicated than in English, some are easier and some 
  are just different. Similar to dealing with phonemes, however, 
  any person can learn any human language’s morphology — the 
  language’s rules for combining units of meaning. High Speech’s 
  rules are fairly simple compared to, say, the intricate preﬁ xes, 
  sufﬁ xes and inﬁ xes of Basque.
  The last major structural level of language is syntax, which 
  governs how sentences are constructed. An English speaker can 
  “understand” Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky, for instance, 
  because it follows proper English syntax, even though many 
  words are nonsense.
  Similar to language differences in morphology and pho-
  nology, languages can have very different syntaxes. Adults 
  learning a second language may well make mistakes similar 
  to those made by children. For example, an English-speaking 
  child might say, “I hurted my foots” to mean, “I hurt my feet.” 
  The sentence structure is there, but the child is still learning 
  the irregular words and forms; no one taught the child the 
  incorrect forms, the child generalizes the rule based on his or 
  her native language input. With practice, though, the syntax 
  of any language becomes habitual.
  Regardless of where one is born, a child will acquire func-
  tional ﬂ uency in her native language by about four years of age 
  — even when the language is Basque, sometimes considered 
  the most difﬁ cult language in the world. The acquisition of 
  this system is so fast and so complete that it is, itself, a kind 
  of magic. In fact, human brains are genetically programmed 
  for language: if you throw together people who don’t share 
  a common language, they invent one. Philologists have seen 
  this in colonies of the deaf: within a single generation, they 
  create unique gestural languages with a fully-developed syntax. 
  Most amazingly of all, language systems are open-ended and 
  creative. With a little bit of thought, anyone can construct a 
  sentence that has never been uttered before in the history of 
  language. (This book contains many examples.)
  Given that mages and Sleepers have the same vocal appa-
  ratus and the same inborn capacity for language, why can’t 
  Sleepers learn High Speech? Mages have found some possible 
  answers.
  Jargon
  Apart from structure, languages differ in the conceptual 
  frameworks they impose on the world. When people create 
  a language, they make decisions about what aspects of reality 
  matter to them, and code them into their vocabulary and 
  grammar. The most familiar example is the Inuit having lots of 
  words for different forms of snow — fresh snow, packed snow, 
  crusted snow and so on. In the Inuit environment, recognizing 
  different qualities of snow matters a great deal.
  More subtly, languages encode notions about reality in 
  their syntax. For instance, many languages assign a gender to 
  every noun: everything in the world, not just living creatures, 
  is male or female. English does not. Is it a coincidence that 
  English people, with a language that strips gender (and the 
  implication of being alive) from the world, also became some 
  of the ﬁ rst and most determined industrialists of Europe? At 
  least a few linguists think there’s a connection.
  People who engage in specialized occupations tend to develop 
  specialized vocabularies — jargon. From doctors to plumbers, 
  professional people need to describe phenomena in their special 
  areas of concern with greater precision than ordinary language 
  provides. To a doctor, a “myocardial infarction” means a lot 
  more than “chest pain.” She needs that precision to talk to 
  other doctors about curing you.
  Some mages compare High Speech to technical jargon. If 
  you don’t have the background, “myocardial infarctions,” 
  “quark-gluon interaction” or, for that matter, “Hail Mary pass” 
  are all meaningless gobbledygook. Words in High Speech refer 
  to Supernal powers and procedures for changing reality by 
  direct act of will. High Speech enables a willworker to deﬁ ne 
  more precisely how he wants to invoke and shape Supernal 
  power — and that makes his spell more likely to succeed, just 
  as a doctor has a better chance of curing you if she can deﬁ ne 
  precisely what’s wrong.
  By deﬁ nition, however, no Sleeper has the background to 
  understand these concepts. However, you can show a person 
  anatomy diagrams and football plays. With patience, you can 
  guide a person through physics until she knows what a quark-
  gluon interaction is. Teaching High Speech to Sleepers is more 
  like teaching people blind from birth about color. How do you 
  show a Sleeper the Supernal underpinnings of reality that his 
  soul won’t let him see?
  Many mages suspect the problem in teaching High Speech 
  goes even deeper, though. High Speech is connected to the 
  Supernal World. High Speech is part of magic — and Sleepers 
  have difﬁ culty perceiving magic and acknowledging it for what 
  it is. Perhaps the same soul-deep censorship that makes Sleepers 
  ﬂ inch back from willworking also closes their minds to High 
  Speech. What their ears hear, their souls will not accept.
  Members of the Free Council have tested this guess by 
  
  125
  Appendix:  high speech and atlantean ruins
  recruiting Sleepers to try memorizing phrases in High Speech 
  without any hint of what they mean. These mages claim the 
  Sleepers have signiﬁ cantly greater difﬁ culty remembering 
  High Speech phrases than phrases of truly meaningless gib-
  berish. These studies impress mages who think the scientiﬁ c 
  method has anything to offer them, and are ignored by those 
  who don’t.
  Speculations and Applications
  Theories about High Speech still leave many questions 
  without answers. Mages of the Atlantean orders increasingly 
  join the Libertines in studying High Speech for its own sake, 
  in hopes of ﬁ nding new uses and unearthing clues about 
  Atlantis. Orders and Consilii now ask Seekers to record every 
  High Speech inscription they ﬁ nd in an Atlantean ruin — not 
  just ancient spells and rotes.
  The Speech of Atlantis?
  One mystery is how High Speech relates to the common 
  speech of Atlantis. All the surviving fragments of High Speech 
  seem to be technical jargon for working magic — but did that 
  jargon grow out of an ordinary language, or was the jargon 
  artiﬁ cial and magical from the beginning? If High Speech 
  grew out of everyday speech, modern mages might be able to 
  extend High Speech just by deﬁ ning new words for Supernal 
  operations, the way any profession coins new words. If that 
  doesn’t work, it suggests the degree to which the Exarchs have 
  shaped the Fallen World to their will. On the other hand, if 
  High Speech has no connection to ordinary language, that 
  suggests that High Speech is a pre-existing part of Supernal 
  reality woven into the Fallen World. High Speech is something 
  beyond the power of the Exarchs — a ﬂ aw in their mastery of 
  reality that mages might exploit to chip away at the Lie.
  Philologists know that many times through history, people 
  with different languages wanted to talk to each other, but no 
  single group could establish linguistic dominance. Examples 
  include laborers gathered by colonial masters or trade languages 
  between nearby tribes. The ﬁ rst step is a pidgin, a crude lan-
  guage of words borrowed from different languages, with very 
  simple grammar. In a few generations, though, the people 
  reﬁ ne the pidgin into a real language called a creole, which 
  may draw upon the syntax of one language and the vocabulary 
  of another, or several. Haitian Creole, for instance, mixes 
  French with African dialects. Swahili is a creole of Bantu lan-
  guages with Arabic. English itself is a creole of Germanic and 
  French dialects, with bits of Celtic and Latin as well. Modern 
  migrations from the Third World to Europe and America are 
  creating new creoles as philologists watch, such as Spanglish 
  among American Hispanic teens.
  Some mages think the same process happened on Atlantis. 
  The dragon-dreams attracted people from around the world 
  to one location. Even with magic, and the ability to mold real-
  ity, the initial settlers of Atlantis had to get on with the daily 
  tasks of life such as cleaning, cooking, hunting, ﬁ shing and 
  building homes. No doubt, Mind magic made communication 
  easier, but the settlers still had to talk to each other — and 
  not every dreamer Awakened. Very quickly, the settlers must 
  have devised a pidgin, which evolved into a creole. Over the 
  generations, the Atlanteans reﬁ ned their language so it could 
  express concepts that are more abstract. Different occupations 
  coined specialized words — including a jargon of magic that 
  became High Speech.
  Not all archaeomancers accept this hypothesis in every de-
  tail. For one thing, some mages do not take for granted that 
  the Atlantean settlers spoke different languages. Some mages 
  suggest the myth of the Tower of Babel refers to the Celestial 
  Ladder, and that before the Sundering everyone spoke the 
  same language. As evidence, these mages point to a few Sleeper 
  philologists who believe they can reconstruct a primal language 
  from which all tongues descend.
  Such skeptics agree, however, that if High Speech grew out of 
  Atlantean common speech, bits of that ancient tongue might be 
  reconstructed from the jargon that survives. The mages might 
  even be able to connect Atlantean to other reconstructed lan-
  guages of prehistory, such as Indo European or Austronesian. 
  To do this, however, archaeomancers need far more samples 
  of Atlantean speech than they have at present.
  Not all mages believe this is possible. Many willworkers 
  believe High Speech has no human origin. As Seekers bring 
  back more samples of Atlantean writing, however, this view 
  becomes harder to defend.
  Whispers Out of Time
  On a more immediate level, Seekers can use High Speech 
  to ﬁ nd lost relics of magery. Sometimes, a phrase in High 
  Speech does leak into Sleeper speech or writing, often as part 
  of Sleeper myth or occultism. Of course, such fragments are 
  usually quite distorted through centuries of repetition by people 
  who don’t know their meaning. Mangled High Speech may 
  turn up in the “barbarous words” of incantations written in 
  bogus grimoires. The name of a local god, demon or sacred 
  site occasionally resembles a phrase in High Speech, too.
  Some Seekers follow these slender linguistic clues. Now and 
  then, Seekers discover a cult or secret society that began as a 
  Guardians of the Veil front group the order lost track of long 
  ago. Just as often, the Sleeper group turns out to be an old pawn 
  of the Seers of the Throne, or some long-dead mage’s cult of 
  personality. These have their own value for mages (and their 
  own risks), and most Consilii appreciate their discovery.
  Occasionally, though, a distorted phrase of High Speech 
  leads to an Atlantean ruin. The cult or tribe may be hereditary 
  guardians, the unwitting servants of mages dead for millennia. 
  Or, they might worship an entity residing in the ruin, and have 
  acquired bits of High Speech from their “god.”
  Talking in Their Sleep
  Whatever the source of High Speech, it has power now. Even 
  though Sleepers cannot learn truly to speak High Speech, they 
  do sometimes acquire or repeat phrases without understand-
  ing them. Sleepwalkers, in particular, lack the mental blocks 
  
  126
  (or soul blacks) that inhibit most Sleepers from even paying 
  attention to High Speech — and not every Sleepwalker knows 
  he’s a Sleepwalker, or has contact with a mage.
  Occasionally, a Sleeper repeats a phrase in High Speech 
  near an Atlantean Artifact, a ruin or a spirit bound long 
  ago by Atlantean spells. Either the sound is the password 
  or key to activate ancient magic, or the words seem to carry 
  power of their own. Whatever the reason, the words trigger a 
  response. The result may be an Artifact wreaking havoc as its 
  magic operates without control, a Sleeper possessed by a spirit 
  guardian, or even stranger things. Accidental magic loosed 
  into the modern world almost never results in anything good. 
  The orders all teach their members to exercise caution when 
  they use High Speech, to prevent accidents they may have to 
  clean up later. For safety’s sake, all samples of High Speech 
  (including phrases transcribed in modern letters) should be 
  kept out of Sleeper hands.
  On the other hand, sometimes a mage wants a Sleeper to say 
  a phrase in High Speech, without the need for understanding. 
  For example, a mage who can’t confront a rampaging Atlan-
  tean spirit directly (perhaps because it wounded him in its 
  rampage) might send a Sleepwalker ally to give a High Speech 
  command that sends the spirit back across the Gauntlet (just 
  as the command of “Gort! Klaatu Barada Nikto!” in The Day 
  the Earth Stood Still). Any sensible or responsible mage would 
  prefer to have another willworker face the spirit and give the 
  command, but sometimes that just isn’t possible.
  Atlantean Runes and Glyphs
  Speech is universal among human societies; writing is not. 
  According to Sleeper archaeology, the idea of using marks to 
  represent sounds has provably appeared only twice as an origi-
  nal invention: in the Middle East about 5,000 years ago and 
  in Central America considerably later. A few other cases are 
  dubious. Chinese writing might be an independent invention, 
  and while Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics 
  appeared at about the same, time, one script might have been 
  inspired by the other. Mages, of course, believe writing began 
  in Atlantis and inspired all the scripts known to Sleepers. If 
  so, the inspiration was quite remote.
  The scripts known to Sleepers all began as picture-writing. To 
  represent an ox, an ancient scribe drew a picture of an ox-head; 
  to represent water, he drew ripples. Words that couldn’t be 
  represented directly were assembled like a rebus. For instance, 
  how would you write “golf handicap” if you’d never heard of 
  writing? You might draw a golf club for “golf,” then a hand, 
  an eye and a cap for “handicap.” Over time, the drawings were 
  simpliﬁ ed and distorted until they lost their connection to their 
  original images. The Roman letter “A,” for example, began in 
  ancient Phoenician script as a drawing of an ox’s head — turn 
  the letter upside down and you still see the tapering head with 
  the horns sticking up — because it was the ﬁ rst sound of aleph, 
  Phoenician (and later Hebrew) for “ox.”
  The alphabet known to Western people, however, is not 
  the only writing system. Some languages use syllabaries, where 
  each symbol stands for a distinct syllable. Japanese kana and 
  Korean Hangul symbols are modern syllabaries. Other writing 
  systems, such as Chinese, still use highly stylized logographs or 
  ideograms in which each symbol stands for an entire word. As 
  another complication, scripts may include marks that repre-
  sent inﬂ ections (such as the exclamation mark and question 
  mark) or structural elements (such as quotation marks) that 
  don’t correspond to any spoken element. Sometimes, written 
  symbols can cross back from letter to ideogram — X marks 
  the spot! Egyptian hieroglyphics use all three strategies: some 
  hieroglyphics stand for whole words, others for syllables and 
  some for single sounds — or a character might stand for any 
  of these, depending on context.
  When mages study Atlantean runes, they soon learn that 
  this writing system is like none other. Atlantean runes show 
  no hint of the evolution that later writing systems experienced. 
  These symbols were never representations of everyday things. 
  Willworkers who use Mage Sight to view the Tapestry in detail 
  ﬁ nd that as they block the surface sensations of sight, sound 
  and form from their consciousness, objects dissolve into shim-
  mering, interwoven strands of Mana and resonance — and the 
  bends and twists of these threads look like a lot like Atlantean 
  runes strung together in ever-changing patterns. Other scripts 
  represent sounds or words. Atlantean symbols represent reality 
  itself. Some mages say Atlantean symbols are reality itself.
  Therefore, Atlantean runes were never intended for jotting 
  down grocery lists or recording a king’s proclamations. The 
  symbols embody Supernal powers and processes, not sounds 
  or worldly objects. The Atlantean mages who discovered the 
  runes used them to explore how Supernal forces interacted to 
  create and transform reality and, then, to record their ﬁ ndings 
  in rotes and sigils of power.
  Nevertheless, once the Atlanteans had the idea of writing, 
  they apparently decided it would be useful to record invento-
  ries, contracts, proclamations and other worldly matters. They 
  used the symbols they had on hand. As a result, the runes 
  gained inferior meanings as well. The Atlanteans, and later 
  mages, devised several writing systems to record High Speech 
  and other languages. The runes have been used as alphabets, 
  syllabaries and ideograms, as well as magical glyphs. In fact, a 
  single inscription may incorporate all four functions at once. 
  A mage may need to study an inscription for some time to 
  determine which functions the writer intended.
  Ordinary Writing
  Ironically, inscriptions in which Atlantean runes are used 
  to write ordinary words are some of the hardest for mages to 
  understand. Just as modern mages don’t know enough of High 
  Speech to hold ordinary conversations, modern mages don’t 
  know enough to read inscriptions that aren’t about magic. 
  To make things more difﬁ cult, the Atlanteans and their heirs 
  apparently never standardized their script. In one ruin, a runic 
  inscription might use the runes as an alphabet. (And over the 
  millennia, mages have devised several alphabets using Atlantean 
  runes, with no connection to each other.) In another ruin, 
  the runes might be assembled in twos or threes to form a syl-
  
  127
  Appendix:  high speech and atlantean ruins
  labary of simple glyphs. In a third, runes might be combined 
  in glyphs of varying complexity to form ideograms similar to 
  those of Chinese. If a mage can’t recognize which system an 
  ancient writer used, translation is impossible.
  Translating a runic inscription that isn’t magical, therefore, 
  calls for an extended Research roll, accumulating however many 
  successes the Storyteller considers appropriate. This assumes a 
  translator already knows High Speech — and that an inscription 
  is in High Speech. Translation won’t be easy, because modern 
  mages know so little of this mystic tongue, but a Seeker can 
  win some renown just by revealing something new about the 
  language. Translating a passage in an unknown language, using 
  a script whose characters have unknown meaning, with no 
  parallel text in a known language, is quite simply impossible. 
  Seekers often encounter such frustration.
  High Speech Extended
  Saying that High Speech can express concepts 
  unrelated to spellcasting is a signiﬁ cant change 
  from how Mage: The Awakening describes this 
  mystic tongue. Ancient inscriptions that provide 
  clues and warnings, however, are a classic and 
  important part of stories about exploring long-
  lost ruins and seeking ancient lore. Atlantean ru-
  ins need inscriptions, and characters need some 
  way to read them. Instead of creating a separate 
  Atlantean language and writing system, it seems 
  easier for Storytellers to extend the possibilities 
  for High Speech and Atlantean runes.
  Given time, Seekers may discover enough High 
  Speech to treat it as a real language, instead 
  of a jargon for spellcasting. In this case, the 
  character must buy a separate Language Merit, 
  “Atlantean.”
  Of course, modern mages can assemble their own writing 
  systems using Atlantean runes. These writing systems tend to 
  be simple ciphers, used to write in everyday language — just 
  using an Atlantean rune to represent a letter in English, a 
  Japanese kana syllable or the like. These ciphers are easily 
  decrypted, given a large sample of text. Slightly more erudite 
  mages use Atlantean runes to write in Hebrew, Latin or other 
  traditional tongues of occult lore. The orders recognize that 
  such ciphers are magically worthless; however, they may ﬁ nd 
  use to hide mages’ communications from Sleepers. Mages of 
  ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and other literate cultures 
  sometimes used ciphers like this, to the occasional bafﬂ ement 
  of archaeologists.
  Magical Symbology
  The Atlantean runes consist of a few dozen characters com-
  posed of straight lines, curves, loops and dots. Some represent 
  Arcana or Practices. These simple characters are combined into 
  glyphs, such as the Practice-plus-Arcanum symbols. Complex 
  glyphs can describe the nature of a spirit, the interests of a 
  cabal or the spells within a grimoire.
  Just as rotes codify magic practice based upon research, so, 
  too, do Atlantean glyphs allow mages to record and reﬁ ne 
  magical knowledge. Tasks such as creating, developing and 
  codifying a new rote, or tracing the development of a spirit’s 
  Ban are best accomplished with a writing system that describes 
  Supernal phenomena, such as the best combination of Practices 
  and Arcana to achieve a desired effect. Mortal writing could 
  not hope to describe the necessary concepts. In addition, the 
  same runes can be combined in different ways to emphasize 
  particular Practices or Arcana, giving ﬂ exibility to a highly 
  rigid and formulaic system. Combining runes to form magi-
  cally potent glyphs and sigils — or analyzing such glyphs to 
  ﬁ nd their meaning — requires some artistic intuition as well 
  as technical knowledge of magic.
  Spellcasting
  Atlantean runes ﬁ nd their most important use in spellcast-
  ing. Through Atlantean runes, a mage may be able to work 
  greater wonders than normal due to the knowledge and power 
  recorded in the glyph. Droll willworkers have called glyphs 
  bookmarks in reality — shortcuts to the Supernal Realms that 
  allow a mage to focus her magic and leverage her power. This 
  stronger connection to the Supernal helps stabilize a spell so 
  it lasts longer.
  Much like High Speech, however, the power of Atlantean 
  script depends on a mage who can understand its meaning. 
  A Sleeper cannot invest glyphs with a sympathetic link to the 
  Supernal Realms — at least, not often. Freak events do occur. 
  Sleepers who meditate on the glyphs engraved on an Artifact, 
  or inscriptions copied from an ancient ruin, sometimes gain 
  ﬂ ashes of insight. Most of the time, Sleepers forget what they 
  learned just as quickly, or their mind twists the insight into 
  channels that don’t require throwing out everything they 
  know about reality.
  For instance, James Churchward claimed that hundreds 
  of ﬂ at, clay dolls unearthed in Mexico were actually tablets 
  inscribed with “Naacal” characters he interpreted through 
  “psychic intuition.” Archaeomancers are sure Churchward’s 
  revelations are nonsense, but they can’t rule out that the decora-
  tions of a few dolls might include a few Atlantean runes. Less 
  happily, Sleepers (or unwitting Sleepwalkers) have activated 
  Artifacts and unleashed dire things by thinking too hard on 
  Atlantean glyphs.
  Enchantment
  As a natural extension from using runes and glyphs to extend 
  a spell’s duration, mages also use Atlantean symbols to invest 
  permanent magical power into material objects. The Atlanteans 
  themselves inscribed glyphs on their Artifacts; many of the 
  more complex sigils now used in grimoires, Enhanced Items 
  and Imbued Items were originally copied from such Artifacts 
  or from inscriptions found in ruins. The visible form of a glyph 
  ties the threads of Mana into a knot of power, and binds that 
  mystic structure into a physical vessel.
  
  128
  Unusual Formats
  Runic inscriptions and glyphs are not always obvious. Over 
  the millennia, cunning mages have devised ways to hide Atlan-
  tean symbols so Sleepers don’t see obviously magical sigils in 
  a book, painting or architectural ornament. These methods 
  have analogues among Sleeper artistry.
  Muslim calligraphers and architects, for instance, some-
  times hide Arabic script among the interlacing borders of an 
  illuminated manuscript or a mosaic band around the wall of 
  a building. Mages can do the same. Runes strung together 
  in a cursive script can be disguised with lines and marks to 
  form an ornamental band. For instance, a grimoire could be 
  disguised as an ordinary book with arabesque borders around 
  its illustrations: the rotes are actually coded into borders.
  Chinese calligraphers work a similar trick. In addition to the 
  familiar forms, Chinese amulet-writers developed variant scripts 
  in which the ideograms became smooth, squiggly lines, blocky 
  fretwork or rounded blobs. Calligraphers hid the squiggly-line 
  script in illustrations such as the ripples drawn on a stream, or 
  the twists of a cherry-tree’s branches. The lumps and hollows 
  of a carved inkstand or meditation stone could encode the 
  blobby script. Ideograms in ordinary script could be stretched 
  and twisted into new forms; for example, a drawing of the God 
  of Literature made from the two characters of his name, with a 
  few extra brush-strokes to complete the image of a human face 
  and body. Asian mages often hide glyphs and sigils in similar 
  ways. A skilled and perceptive mage can reconstruct a glyph’s 
  original form, if this is needed.
  For other possibilities, glyphs could be hidden in the elabo-
  rate ﬁ ligree of a piece of jewelry. The short streaks and daubs 
  of pain in an Impressionist or abstract painting could disguise 
  glyphs as well. A patient mage could even take a cue from the 
  cherry-tree example and grow bonsai whose twisting branches 
  form runes, for a living talisman.
  Runes might even be “represented” in non-physical ways. For 
  instance, a mage casting a ritual spell might twist her body into 
  a yoga posture that echoes the form of a rune. The steps of a 
  dance could also trace the path of runes and glyphs, invisibly 
  writing sigils of power on the ground.
  Conclusions
   When the Exarchs and Oracles broke the cosmos in their 
  war, the surviving mages lost much of High Speech and the 
  Atlantean writing system. The Atlantean orders preserved 
  only specialized words and glyphs used in their rotes. As the 
  orders pulled away from each other in mutual suspicion, bit-
  terness and anger at the destruction of Atlantis, still more of 
  the Supernal lore was lost.
  What aspects of Atlantean language and writing could be 
  recovered if mages once again worked together? If the orders 
  cooperated in a systematic program of Seeking, and shared the 
  fruits of their explorations? What tomes, Artifacts and rotes 
  await discovery, adding not only magical power to individual 
  mages, but expanding all willworkers’ knowledge of the At-
  lantean High Speech and Atlantean glyphs?
  A few idealists suggest that a complete knowledge of Atlantean 
  language and writing could offer a greater treasure than any 
  rote or Artifact. They hope that by assembling non-magical 
  evidence for Atlantis, such as a language and writing system 
  that existed millennia before any others known, they can prove 
  the lost land’s existence to Sleepers. This would be a signiﬁ cant 
  blow against the Lie, and a step in liberating Sleepers from 
  the secret rule of the Exarchs. If the Sleepers would believe in 
  the Awakened City, and in the powers its residents possessed, 
  perhaps more people would Awaken — enough to build a new, 
  better Atlantis in the modern world. These mages say it’s not 
  enough to loot the last treasures of Atlantis from the Ruined 
  Temple. The great challenge for today’s willworkers, these 
  mages insist, is to build the Temple anew.
  
  ISBN 1-58846-422-9  WW40310  $24.99 US
  www.worldofdarkness.com
  This book includes:
  • The legends of Atlantis throughout 
  the ages, including many forgotten 
  versions of the myth of the 
  Awakened City
  •  Temple 
  guardians, 
  enchanted 
  items, and all manner of creatures 
  found near Atlantean ruins
  • The secret Atlantean “temples” of 
  Astral Space
  PRINTED IN CHINA
  Some things are best left forgotten.
  Some things are best left forgotten.
  But why should that hold us back? 
  But why should that hold us back? 
  The ancients hoarded their magic and sealed it in 
  The ancients hoarded their magic and sealed it in 
  secret redoubts, hidden from Sleepers and the debased 
  secret redoubts, hidden from Sleepers and the debased 
  spells of our age. The lords of these storehouses are 
  spells of our age. The lords of these storehouses are 
  long gone, but their enchantments remain, enigmas to 
  long gone, but their enchantments remain, enigmas to 
  confound us, their heirs in magic. In some of these 
  confound us, their heirs in magic. In some of these 
  places, the guardians charged with their protection 
  places, the guardians charged with their protection 
  still wait, ready to destroy interlopers.
  still wait, ready to destroy interlopers.
  But I have a map, and I know certain secrets. 
  But I have a map, and I know certain secrets. 
  Are you with me?
  Are you with me?
  — Athos, Mysterium explorer
  — Athos, Mysterium explorer
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/World of Darkness (WoD) [multi]/CofD/Mage - The Awakening/Mage the Awakening - Secrets of the Ruined Temple.pdf