Game: Mage: The Ascension (first edition – White Wolf, 1993)
My Experience: I’ve played in a few short campaigns and one-shots over the years, but I couldn’t get my head around MtA enough to run it. One of my first freelance contributions was a very minor bit of Tradition Book: Euthanatos.
Gordon Armstrong, Cryptid Preservationist
Gordon grew up in the high desert of rural southeast Oregon, a part of the state that Portland and the rest of the Cascades cities would just as soon forget exists. His parents were ranchers, and they imbued in him an ability to see beauty in desolation. As the youngest of four siblings, Gordon wasn’t likely to inherit the family business, so he struck out on his own. He spent a few years guiding backcountry hunts in the fall, ski patrol in the winter, and fighting wilderness fires for the BLM in the summer. The latter was what finally got him a scholarship to the University of Idaho to study ecology.
Gordon’s slow, gradual Awakening began in college, with fringe culture and zines. The latter were his first introduction to cryptozoology, and he held onto everything this offered – the sense of wonder, of possibility, of potential discovery – in the face of the inflexible science of his coursework. He was a diligent student, but at every opportunity, he’d escape campus to hike, paddle, or just stare at the stars in the surrounding wilderness.
His senior year spring break was the tipping point. He was three days deep in the Payette National Forest when he heard the shots. Creeping up the next ridgeline, he was not prepared to see a trio of men in black suits – really, suits, this deep into the backcountry? – in a standoff with a cute girl in overalls, and – was that a dragon?
Gordon felt something long-denied tear loose inside him. For an instant, he could perceive everything: the dragon’s desperation, the girl’s fear and determination, the soulless machinery and murderous algorithms inside the three things sheathed in human skin. And when he reached for the sky, lightning answered.
Today, as an initiate of the Sons of Ether, Gordon goes wherever Usenet and AM radio clues point, looking for his next mythical creature in need of the safe home that his mentor operates in a fold in the world. He’s in a race against time to save beings that are so endangered, consensual reality doesn’t even acknowledge their existence, let alone have names for them. But he has a mission, a good pair of boots, and a bit of magic. Some days, it’s enough.
Traits
Essence: Questing
Nature: Visionary
Demeanor: Avant-Garde
Tradition: Sons of Ether
Attributes
Physical: Strength ••, Dexterity •••, Stamina •••
Social: Charisma ••, Manipulation ••, Appearance ••
Mental: Perception •••, Intelligence •••, Wits ••••
Abilities
Talents: Alertness •, Athletics •, Dodge •, Intuition ••
Skills: Drive •, Firearms ••, Research ••, Survival •••, Technology
Knowledges: Cosmology •, Enigmas ••, Investigation ••, Law •, Linguistics ••, Medicine •••, Occult •, Science •••
Advantages
Backgrounds: Arcane •••, Avatar ••, Destiny ••, Library •, Mentor ••
Spheres: Life •••, Matter ••, Spirit •
Arete: 3
Willpower: 5
Equipment
rugged outdoor clothes, heavily used but somehow always in good repair
Nissan XTerra SUV with a serious array of aftermarket off-road parts, likewise
Rubbermaid tub full of camping gear
assorted wildlife capture equipment
tranquilizer rifle
pump shotgun loaded with magically-enhanced slugs
Notes and Afterthoughts
In retrospect, a lot of early World of Darkness material is… problematic by today’s standards. I never could get my head around the Etherites when I was actively playing Mage because they seemed a bit too slapstick for my then-sensibilities, but I think I’ve mellowed a bit with age.
I don’t quite know what I’d do with Gordon in play, but he’s another concept that made me smile a lot when I was writing him up. His starting spread of magical aptitude is focused on understanding and manipulating (and sustaining) life, and he can do some interesting parlor tricks with inanimate objects too. With three dots in Arcane, he can stay under the radar for quite a while if he doesn’t do anything too outlandish.
Left to his own devices, Gordon will be busily traveling around the country, following up on cryptid sightings, tracking down the real ones, and bringing them in for preservation in the Etherite Horizon Realm his mentor oversees. In play, he’d probably slot best into a campaign focused on mythic weirdness; he’s definitely not a political PC.