Going Alone:

The Guide to the Apostate

“I don’t need your runes and language, and I don’t need your little secret societies. You didn’t
make me Awaken; I earned it through research, practice and more. Magic isn’t your exclusive
property just because you claim your little circle goes all the way back to some mythical city.
Call it hubris if you want, call it silly. But do you know what hubris really is? Claiming that the
only ones who know the ‘right’ way to do something is you.”
– Joseph Bryant, Mastigos Apostate

The apostate, they say, is a loose cannon. Someone who by some virtue of ignorance or by the
choice of free will has decided that the support of the Pentacle Orders and the Seers of the
Throne are not for them. Instead they choose to seek out magic on it’s own with only their
intelligence and own merit to guide them through. They usually have no mentors, no special
insight and often no sanctum, library or hallow. They are the outcasts, weirdos and freaks of the
awakened world. In fact, many of them go mad within their first few years after their awakening.
Or so we are all told.

The truth of the matter is that there are no generalities in the Fallen World. Nothing can be said
to be common when mages are involved. While many apostates usually come to a bad end at
the hands of the Seers, paradox, forces beyond their control, ignorance and madness, not all
do. An apostate is just as unique and no different from those mages that chose to join a
Pentacle Order or to throw in with the Seers. Without the support of the orders and a “proper
mentor” the apostate has an uphill battle in store for them. Access to rotes becomes limited;
access to the lore necessary to learn the Arcanum becomes limited; and even the concepts of
magical tools seems lost on many apostates. So one must question, why be apostate in the first
place?

Theme: The Magician

Standing alone against a sea of troubles but with his will and his power, the Magician of the
tarot deck shows the hidden struggle of the apostate. Unlike his contemporaries in the orders he
is alone with the power of the Supernal at his fingertips. A lone mage against a world that, more
than likely, no longer makes sense in the light of an Awakening has to work twice as hard not to
fall down the dark road of the mad. And in truth, many never make it. Those who do are
hardened, intelligent and as capable as any mage in any order.

Mood: Strength of the Individual

In their solitude an apostate forges their soul. They become strong and hardened or they fall to
madness or at the hands of some terror they never knew existed. They tend to be meddlers
without realizing it, poaching from hallows, invading territory and even raiding sanctums. As
such the order mages tend to have a severe trust problem with them. They become truly alone
and some after a few years and a few refusals could never hope to be an order mage, they
have burned too many bridges. As such, the apostates must forge ahead as an individual on
their own merits instead of on the backs of their orders and mentors.

Why Go Alone

Pentacle Mages wonder why the apostate exists. What could make such a mage that would
have the hubris to go alone in the Fallen World. Well, several ways exist that form the ranks of
the apostate. In fact, there are more paths that lead to being apostate than many mages care to
admit.

Some people are just not cut out to follow orders or hierarchies. Even members within the
orders, admit that they occasionally feel tied down to the goals, customs and hierarchies. These
societies that have existed “forever” can seem very daunting to a newly Awakened mage who is
already undergoing considerable strain adapting to his new existence.

When they attempt to add themselves to these groups they never seem to fit it, always on the
outskirts of the organization until they finally snap away completely. Not fitting in is considered
to be a dangerous thing among the Awakened. Someone who can’t find a function in even the
smallest of hierarchies or group settings could be too used to always getting his way and thus
more likely to fall to Hubris. The Guardians of the Veil as well as others look at Mages who don’t
fit in then closely.

In addition to the misfit there are those mages who find themselves fed up with the order they
joined so long ago. Perhaps the order in their area is too political without any action to back up
their talk. Perhaps some personal or spiritual revelation has led them to question the choice
they’ve made. Whatever the reason sometimes a mage just finds that he can’t face the order he
joined and decides to leave it. Depending on the rank and status of the leaving mage it creates
quite an interesting fallout in the order, and even in Awakened society as a whole.

Many apostates that had a choice in the matter, claim that it is the loss of their freedom and
individuality that made them decide to go alone. They felt that “kowtowing” to the Pentacle
Orders was too high a price for the benefits that they offered. They were willing to pay the price
of solitude if it meant keeping their individual style.

No matter why they leave they find themselves a true Apostate, with knowledge of the inner
workings of at least one of the Pentacle Orders. This could cause a fair share of conflict
depending on

The Orphan

Sometimes a newly awakened mage awakens in an area so large, or so remote that they are
never found by the Seers or the Pentacle. Those who don’t turn against their own nature,
becoming a Banisher, become an apostate. In this scenario, this apostate by virtue of fate may
even prefer to be one of the Pentacle Orders if they even knew they existed. Instead they live in
ignorance of the truths of the Pentacle Orders.

These apostates, sometimes called Orphans, are most often the most unpredictable of the type.
They don’t know the rules, the laws, the locations or even have the knowledge necessary to
avoid falling to hubris. While one orphan may be the pinnacle of wisdom the next may be on the
verge of becoming a mad one. This unpredictability has led to many conflicts between a single
orphan or even an entire group of them and the orders. While some of these conflicts end with
no major problems, there are stories of conflicts that decimated the entire organization of the
Consilium thanks to the misunderstandings of these orphans.

Orders tend to try to absorb the Orphans into their own structure when they encounter them.
This can be rather dangerous, as the Orphan has already created his own preconceptions about
magic and the Supernal. This mythos may be vastly different from what the Order tries to teach
him instead. The result can be that the Orphan rejects the teachings of the Order as often as he
is safely assimilated into them, thus increasing the unpredictability of someone who teaches
himself the Supernal mysteries with no guide.

New Merit: Higher Soul Mentor * – ***

Requirements: Apostate Mage, No Mentor Merit (This merit is lost if the Orphan joins an order
or gains a magical mentor)

Some wonder how an apostate who has never been found by an order can possibly learn any
sort of magic or rote. The answer is the Inner Daimon of the apostate has stepped in to take the
role of mentor for the lost mage.

This merit acts exactly the same as the normal Mentor merit but can only be purchased up to
the third dot. A Higher Soul Mentor can only do so much for an apostate, and indeed cannot
help the apostate in any manner except for accessing Supernal magic and even some rotes.

To speak with his mentor the apostate must enter a trance like sleep for at least four hours.
During this time the apostate enters his own astral space when his Higher Soul can instruct and
interact with him as normal.

The Hermit

The polar opposite of the orphan is the apostate who encounters the Pentacle and the Seers
and rejects one or both. These apostates are usually cynical and tend to stay out of the magical
conflicts that the Fallen World is prone to. Called the Hermits, for their desire to just be left
alone, these mages tend to have a hard time fitting in with mages, and also keeping their
Wisdom high.

Hermits however have no protection from the foils of a solitary mage. His Wisdom tends to
become a low priority for many, especially the ones who break off all human contact as well.
Without a firm grasp of Wisdom, their sanity tends to fall with them as well. However this
probably leads to where the idea of the mad mage living away from society comes from.

But the hermit isn’t necessarily doomed from the start. Those who decide to become a hermit
find that the removal of supernatural and magical conflicts that are inherent in mage society
helps increase the lifespan of a mage considerably. When you aren’t dealing with vampires and
fighting angry spirits, you tend to live longer. As such a Hermit who balances his own hubris and
isolation with resolve and will can grow very powerful.

The image of an old mage sequestered away in his tower learning all that he can, is a powerful
image. And it can also be quite true. Many of the Pentacle Orders rightly fear a Hermit who has
lived a long life for he more than likely has learned more secrets of the Supernal than most.

The Rogue

The word apostate implies that you were a member of something before you weren’t a member
of something. In practice most view apostates as the orphan that never found an order to teach
them, however sometimes the apostate is one of the order’s own who has gone rogue and left
the order itself.

It’s not an uncommon story. A mage dishonors his order through action or inaction and is thus
cast out. He has the best and worst chance to make it as an Apostate. He has knowledge of the
ancient mysteries and even knows some rotes that will help him on the journey. But on the other
hand he also has no friends anymore.

Shunned by his own order because of his wrong doing, it is unlikely that he is trusted by any of
the other Orders. Even the Seers of the Throne have no use for a mage who cannot be trusted
to do his job. As such he doesn’t even have the possibility of friendship from anyone.

Outside those who are cast out are the ones who leave on their own. Sometimes they just
decide that they can’t take the stress of the order. Other times a specific philosophical difference
arises that creates a rift between order and mage.

Whatever the case, the result is the same, an apostate mage with too much information. These
apostates are truly rogue from their order and find that they have created many enemies. If they
desire to stay an apostate and not join a new order for protection, they end up as a hermit,
hiding from awakened society before their old order hunts them down.

The Craft of the Apostate

The orders claim that they are the only option, the only hope a mage has of finding a group to
teach them, protect them and show them the path to the Supernal. They find themselves at the
top of the heap, no secret society or lodge finds as much truth through the Lie that they do. And
while in many ways this statement proves itself true, the orders have forgotten the roots of one
of their own members.

Much like the Free Council was once known only as “The Nameless,” a disparate movement of
technological minded mages, there are other non-order groups out there who sometimes take in
an unfortunate apostate. These Crafts, for lack of a better term, are small groups of apostate
mages who are mostly, purely local and composed of no more than a few mages under a single
mentor and perhaps a few mortal “cultists.” Nowhere near as large or as noticeable as the
orders the apostate crafts carve a small niche for themselves.

In this niche, they find support among themselves much as order mages find support for
themselves among their cabals. The craft becomes a cabal or common magic and style that
replaces the role of the order in their lives. Some crafts become so insular they become a group
of common Legacies all of them forging their souls in the same ways. These crafts can be so
limited and so few that they are hardly noticed by the Consilium and the mage community as a
whole. While others may be a tad bit larger, or just more aggressive, meddling with the affairs of
the Consilium and generally being a pain.

Example Craft: The Hollow Men

No one is quite sure where the Hollow Ones first came from. Though they are thought of to be
the largest Apostate Craft in existence in the modern world. First discovered in San Francisco
after a Consilium began to investigate reports of Hallow poaching the responsible cabal leader,
when asked what Order he was a member of said, “We are the Hollow Men, we’ve always been
here.”

Since that statement cabals of Hollow Men have been found in San Francisco, New York City,
Paris, London and other major cities. They seem to latch on to the counter cultures of “despair,”
such as the more modern goth and punk movements, and even the flapper and romantics
cultures. Even more disturbing is that many of these Hollow Men show a talent for occult-based
rotes as well, seemingly developing their own independent mudras for rote casting.

Since their discovery many have feared that the Hollow Men must be a Seer plot or worse, a
warning to some great catastrophe. As a result many Hollow Men cabals around the world find
themselves shunned from polite society of the Awakened as something to fear, rather than
accept.

The Price of Freedom

Freedom isn’t free. An apostate trades much for his supposed freedom from the magical
clashes of the Orders and the Seers. Without the focus and the mentors that an Order can
provide the apostate finds himself more adrift in the sea of the Supernal than in any sort of
actual control over the forces he possesses. It is no wonder why many apostates seem to go
mad, go banisher or end up dead somewhere.
Those who truly have the resolve to go alone, to face the Supernal forces with only his own will
and soul, however do exist. They buck at the traditions in ways that even the Free Council can
not claim to do. Their very existence proves that humanity was meant to wield the supernal
power, and that even without tempering it with the knowledge of the Orders it can be used
effectively.

Is it no wonder then that many Order mages fear those apostates who can go it alone and still
survive?