Characters
Mages "awaken" to the ways of magic. The setting states that it is unclear whether this is mostly accidental or as a result of a person's nature or understanding. The process of awakening can be slow or fast, but there are two major ways in which the event may manifest: the Mystery Play and the Astral Journey. In both sorts of "awakenings", the mage-to-be goes on a journey that culminates with them arriving at or in their respective Tower and inscribing their name upon it.
The Mystery Play is a waking dream, where the magical symbolism of their awakening is overlaid on top of the "real" world. Other people, places and real world events mesh together until the Mage arrives at a skyscraper, a phone booth, a grove or some other place that represents their Tower and somehow write their name in both the physical and astral setting, such as a hotel ledger or a statue's plaque.
Astral Journeys, which occur when the potential mage dreams, are common to those who deny or resist the "awakening". Astral Journeys feature strange settings, objects and people, in a full sensory experience.
Read more about this topic: Mage: The Awakening
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—
which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.”
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
“My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And that’s basically a conservative view of life.”
—Jane Smiley (b. 1949)
“Children pay little attention to their parent’s teachings, but reproduce their characters faithfully.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)