The Disparate Alliance

Mage Information

Practiced Subtleties

The rumor of their deaths has been greatly exaggerated.

Oh, sure it’s been said that the Crafts – those Disparate sects that refused to join either the Traditions or Technocracy – have been more or less exterminated by the turn of the millennium. That’s the most convenient story for both groups to tell. The Traditions would like to think that anyone outside their safe little world is doomed, and the Technocrats have declared victory over their mystic rivals. Thus, it stands to reason that those Disparates have all but disappeared, their members either scattering into the various Traditions or else being hunted to extinction at Technocratic hands.

That’s the official story. And it’s not even remotely true.

In actuality, many of the best-known groups on the fringes of the Ascension War are not only alive and well but have been quietly banding together into their own configuration: a sarcastically named Disparate Alliance whose ironic moniker mocks the Council’s vision of itself as Magekind’s Great White Savior. Although several Crafts – the uncanny Hem-Ka Sobk and the demon-bound Wu- Keng among them – have apparently been obliterated, the larger groups have not only survived but have, in the shadows, prospered.

How? It’s not hard to understand. “The Subtle Ones” is literally the name assumed by the Ahl-i-Batin, and other groups like the Bata’a and Sisters of Hippolyta have spent centuries being more or less invisible. Coming, as so many Craft mages do, from dispossessed cultures and so-called “un-people,” the Disparate groups have lots of practice with disappearing. When witch-hunters came calling or slave-masters cracked down, these people knew how to hide their practices and make all the right excuses. Concealing their power has been second nature for quite some time. The time for such concealment, though, may be ending soon.

A Silent Alliance

In the 1990s, many Disparate representatives began laying groundwork for an alliance. Like other folks who’d been living on the fringes until then, they recognized the potential of global social media, virtual contact, and mutual protection. Before the Internet, such people had to find physical locations to meet; however, as the world got wired, the need for safe physical space faded. By the turn of the millennium, hundreds of Disparate mages had made contact with each other and begun to plan. Perhaps an Alliance freed from the baggage of the Nine Traditions could be a good idea after all...

Five groups provided the foundation for this Alliance:

• -- The Ahl-i-Batin, now seeking new partners for a fresh path toward Unity;

• -- The Ngoma, whose work across the so-called dark continent has left them fairly obscure since the Renaissance;

• -- The Bata’a, perhaps the largest of the sects, whose influence spans from North and South Americas to East and Central Africa;

• -- The Hollow Ones, disgusted with Tradition bullshit and looking to make something better;

•....and the Children of Knowledge, who consider themselves the true heirs of that much-(ab)used title, Solificati.

Conversations cropped up in the global club culture, where representatives from those five groups maintain a strong presence, especially throughout Europe, India, and the Middle East. They sparked in chat rooms and sectors of the Digital Web. As the Ascension Warrior prepared to invade Horizon, the various orphans in Heylel’s army started talking to one another. Sure, the Council was broken and the Technocracy was worse... but the concept of a Disparate Alliance began to make sense. When the Technocracy locked its sights on the various Crafts, the networks established by those meetings helped those groups survive the purge. Though a few smaller sects were hunted down, the budding Alliance took the others underground. And once concealed, those mages crafted a larger, more secure Alliance.

Secret Common Ground

Since that purge, the core groups have made overtures to other fairly reliable sects around the world. The Kopa Loei were pretty easy to convince... especially because so few of the Alliance mages were Caucasian ha’oles. The Taftâni have been more reticent, given their troubled history with the Ahl- i-Batin and the solitary nature of the Weavers in general. The Knights Templar and the Sisters of Hippolyta make very strange bedfellows, although their customary exclusions of the opposite sex serve to balance one another out within the greater group. Perhaps the hardest sell, though, has been the venerable Wu Lung, whose ancient pedigree and infamous pride have made them resistant to yet another group of round-eyed cohorts. Even so, the Alliance has a lot to offer... especially because several of its members know a secret:

They understand just how corrupt the Technocracy truly is. More importantly, they believe they know why.

The Solificati, Templars, and Wu Lung have long, ugly histories with the Technocratic Union. At one time or another, all three groups either belonged to the Order of Reason or allied themselves with it. And all three have been betrayed by those associations. They’ve seen the heart of corruption within that group... and in the case of the Templars, it almost destroyed them. And so, for them, there’s a personal stake in taking down the Union. It is, quite literally, the Great Beast devouring the world.

The Bata’a, Kopa Loei, Ngoma, and Sisters have bones to pick with the Union too. After all, it was Queen Isabella’s Triangle Trade that savaged both Africa and the Americas, and Explorator ships gutted Polynesia. The Bata’a were forged by 500 years of genocide, slavery, and hate, whereas the Sisters have dodged the shadow of patriarchy (Technocratic and otherwise) since their inception roughly three millennia ago. And then you’ve got the Taftâni, whose Arts have been fouled with Paradox and whose people have been burnt by technological fires. So yes – it is personal for them all. The Technocratic Pogrom just solidified the Alliance’s resolve.

Meanwhile, the Batini have an equally rough history with the Nephandi. As the shadow of the Subtle Ones, the Fallen share certain traits with the Batini. Both groups are subtle, persuasive, the masters of misdirection and deceit. The Batini pursue Unity, but Nephandi encourage disintegration. Both groups hold ancient grudges against one another... and so, once the Templars, Solificati, and Wu Lung claimed to have discovered Fallen puppet masters within the Technocracy, the course of action became clear.

In many ways, the Nephandi truly forged the core of this unlikely Alliance. Whether by their infiltration of the already-hated Technocracy; the bloody ties between these Devil-Kings and the Weavers and Batini who drove them from the Middle East; their horrific crimes again the Sisters, Kopa Loei, Hollow Ones, and Bata’a; or simply their Satanic nature – which puts them straight in the Templars’ sights – the Fallen have made many dedicated enemies. So then, it stands to reason that those enemies would find common cause, despite their many differences, in the despised Technocracy and the Nephandi they believe are behind it.

The Alliance can’t attack the Technocracy head on. That’s not just suicide – it’s bad tactics and terrible PR. As the Traditions have shown, direct assaults tend to kill the wrong people. Instead, the Alliance has started doing what oppressed people often do: wearing the master down from the inside out, launching subtle campaigns of sabotage, subversion, misdirection, and exposure.

So what about the Traditions? According to the official story, survivors from the Crafts joined various groups within the Council. To a degree, that’s true; some refugees did find new homes among the Council mages. Most of them simply hold a second allegiance to the Disparate Alliance too. After all, the Technocracy’s not the only master who deserves to be taken down a few pegs...

Organization

At least for now, the Disparate Alliance is a loose confederation of independent states, lacking the protocols, centralized leadership, common titles, Ascension ideals, and other complexities of the Council and Technocracy. Each Ally is a self-governing unit that cooperates voluntarily with the group as a whole. Given the abuses each group has suffered in the past and the logistical impossibilities of, say, having the either the Templars or the Sisters taking orders from (or giving orders to) each other, that’s probably how things will stay, at least for a while. This informality presents both a strength and a weakness for the Alliance as a whole.

Currently, the Alliance functions on a lot of promises and very little else. Out of necessity, this must change if the Disparates are to become less... disparate. In order to take on an enemy as powerful and established as the Technocratic Union (or, for that matter, the Council of Traditions), the Alliance needs more stability than it currently enjoys. It’s easy to maintain cohesion when you’re essentially invisible, but if your alliance plans to survive the first major clash with a rival, it’s going to need more than a common hatred for that enemy.

This Disparate Alliance combines some very different groups – sects whose practices and philosophies can be diametrically opposed. A stable group requires a certain power of authority, and although the individual sects have internal authorities, no one has yet figured out how to resolve things if the sects themselves come to blows. Considering that the Templars are patriarchal Christian millennialists, the Taftâni are Arab-Persian spirit-masters, the Sisters are Pagan feminists, and the Wu Lung are Confucian aristocrats, the Alliance faces some vast ideological challenges. Still, so long as an atmosphere of mutual respect prevails, the Alliance could be a literal game-changer in the world of Mage.

Each Disparate group is a collection of survivors from a proud, respectable lineage – a bunch of folks whose cultures and practices withstand constant attack from the outside world. As such, they’re insular and often paranoid, balancing trust and goodwill with treacherous history. When playing them, therefore, keep an eye on the shadows, puzzle your alliances out carefully, and recall that the path from past pain to future prosperity might be determined by the people you trust and the extent to which you trust them. This Alliance, then, is a delicate test of faith.

But then again, aren’t they all...?

Potential Recruits

Beyond the five core members of the Alliance and its current associates, the Disparate Alliance has ties to other sects who might play a part in the faction’s future plans:

• -- The Balamob, a group of Mayan jaguar-priests.

• -- The Thunder Society, a confederation of mystics from North American Native nations that want little or nothing to do with the Dreamspeaker Tradition.

• -- The Uzoma, Yoruban intercessors with the sacred spirits, whose Arts inspired the Bata’a.

• -- Navalon, a breakaway group of idealistic Technocrats who revere the example of King Arthur and despise the corruption of their previous Union.

• -- The Mirainohmen, or simply Nohmen, a sect of young Japanese technomystical tricksters who use psychic bonds with technological spirits in order to rearrange identities and undermine social preconceptions.

• -- The Red Thorn Dedicants, a sect of Lilithian mages whose practices make the Verbena and Cult of Ecstasy look tame.

• -- The Itz’at, a long-hidden sect of Mayan time-seers who mysteriously escaped notice for over 500 years.

• -- The Go Kamisori Gama, a clan of hypertech ninjas who have their own reasons for wanting to topple the Technocracy.

Although it’s unlikely that all of these groups would join the alliance (or that certain Allies would ever endure their presence – especially in the case of the Red Thorn and Navalon), these sects, and others like them, have entered the Disparate orbit. They might not become full-fledged Allies, but there could be a roster of affiliates to call upon once the Disparate Alliance finally tips its hand to the other factions.

Secrecy: The Heart of the Alliance

Drawn as they are from specific cultures and subcultures, Disparate mages represent people who’re typically ignored in the industrialized world. The foundation of the Allies and their people, then, comes from each group’s particular culture, beliefs, agenda, and mystic practices. A Ngoma banker, for example, won’t have much in common with a Hollower street kid beyond their new and potentially temporary Alliance. Each person will have individual needs, wants, and practices that depend more upon the person’s Craft than upon the Alliance as a whole. For obvious reasons, this encourages them to be secretive, subtle, and elusive with regards to their existence and identity.

Survival might be the most important goal of all... which leads, by extension, to secrecy. The Alliance, remember, is a SECRET, its survival and prosperity linked to keeping that secret safe. A Hollow One might hang around her club of choice and probably admits to being a Darkling to those who know what such terms mean. (Assuming, of course, that the Hollow Ones didn’t betray the Nine Traditions; if that did happen, then she’s not even going to cop to that affiliation.) Still, she won’t go bragging about her Allies among the Bata’a and so forth – that’d be a potential death sentence for those Allies and very probably for her as well. If the Technocracy has been gunning for Craft mages, the Alliance and its people will be keeping very low profiles, probably declaring themselves as members of other sects rather than their own.

And so, for the present at least, the Disparate Alliance remains a closely-guarded secret whose purpose might involve war against the Technocracy, Traditions, or both. The fractious nature of this Alliance, the essential secrecy of its existence, and the religious devotion inherent in several of its current Allies could make this a potentially explosive player in the hidden politics of the 21 st -century world.