tippy2k2 said:
It's been the only "Magic in the modern world" I can find but at least he's very popular and there's like...fourteen books.
I am of course referring to everyone's favorite hockey stick wielding wizard, Harry Dresdon. If you enjoy reading stuff, I would strongly recommend The Dresden Files.
Having magic in the modern world is a setting that I'm absolutely shocked doesn't get used all that often. It's a sweet concept that should be used far more often than it actually is...
TDF is my second favourite portrayal of mages. It's pretty close but it's a second. My first would go to Mage. The roleplaying game, that is. OK, it probably wins because it's two roleplaying games with a quite big supporting material and very awesome settings each, as well as very versatile and very cool magic system. Basically, in both mages can do a variety of stuff through magic given enough time or if something is needed rather quickly, they know spells that are less versatile but easier to pull off on the fly. So while any mage can, say, zap somebody with lightning (assuming they actually know how to manipulate lightning), the one who know the "zap with lightning" rote would be able to do it at a moments notice, another may need to set up.
As for the setting...well, here is a brief rundown - both of them are modern day with mages hiding among ordinary people.
In the first game - Ascension, the premise is the following - "normal" mages are banded together in the Traditions which house most of the well known magical orders, including more "classical" wizards you'd expect in DnD (robes, hats, staves and so on, though robes and hats are rather optional), martial artists with eastern magic, druids, shamans, but also magical hackers and mad doctors. They are opposed by the Technocracy which...is all conspiracy theories embodied - the Technocracy seeks to control and regulate all of reality through Science (not to be confused with Science! - the latter is used by mad geniuses and works by breaking reality, Enlightened Science is science pumped to the max...by magic) - they are not a government agency but rather governments are manipulated by them. The Technocracy contains the men in black, 1984-esque division of thought police, cyborg research as well as actual cyborgs, bio division, space corps and so on.
The Traditions and the Technocracy are locked in conflict, more or less, with the latter wanting a tight grip on reality, the former wanting reality to belong to the people. But there are other groups, too that are not as of a mian focus but present - the Marauders are mages that went mad. Well, more mad than normal - they warp reality by their very presence and if they grow insane enough, they are basically ejected from Earth as it cannot support the strain any more. The Marauders aren't much of a "group" but still quite unpredictable and wild to just let loose normally. There are various other more minor magical traditions that mostly don't mess with anybody. And there are the Nephandi...they are mages who serve unknown
things from beyond the world. Yeah, in a way, you can say they serve the spawn of Cthulhu and Satan only much more malevolent - their goal is making the entire cosmos a huge hellhole on behest of their masters. The Tradition and the Technocracy are known to call a cease fire and even join forces if they learn of Nephandi being in the region.
As for the second game, Awakening, the setting is a bit simpler but also very cool, IMO. Since people mentioned Dragon Age, that's a good comparison to make. The backstory is rather similar (draws on the same elements - hubris, after all) - mages back in the day were very powerful until they decided to take on the havens. That's how both DA and Awakening start off, as a side note, in Awakening, mages lived in Atlantis. So the mages constructed a way to ascend to the havens and take all the power to their own, again, rather similar, but then disaster struck. Here is where the difference comes: while in DA what happens is God just punished them for their hubris, in Mage it was a much more personal failing - the ones who climbed the Golden Ladder decided to keep all the power to themselves, however, the ones still left down on Atlantis didn't think so - they fought and...the Golden Ladder shattered. Blowing up Atlantis as well and distancing the real world from the realm of magic. The destruction was so great that the Abyss was born and sat between the two realms - the Abyss is a place that doesn't like magic and there are...
things that inhabit it. Malevolent things, again drawing from the Lovecraft. The mages who had climbed to the top, called the Exarchs, then also encased Earth into a cage of a false reality to try and stop opposition. They created the Matrix and forced everybody in it, only sans the pods. Mages still survive on Earth but now it's quite a lot harder to do magic and things tend to go wrong. The Exarchs are still intent on stamping out all opposition, though, they don't want their rule challenged, so modern day mages have them to worry about as well as dozens of other things from mundane to...not so mundane.
