Episode Details

Hi, Mage fans! And/or Changeling fans! On this week's episode, we're having a conversation with Terry Robinson, host of Mage: the Podcast, to talk about crossover between Mage and Changeling. If you aren't well versed in Mage: the Ascension, don't worry—we'll give you some of the key terms and concepts to get you going with incorporating mages into your Changeling game. Not only that, but we hash out every crossover issue you could possibly want to deal with! (Well, okay, that was an outright lie, because we could do an entire separate podcast just on those issues.) (Maybe someday...) In any case, have a listen, and as always, feel free to hop in our Discord (link at the bottom of this page) to discuss your thoughts and ask your questions.

wibbly-wobbly themey-wemeys

Probably the most important thing to talk about with any game crossover situation are the themes and moods of the games and how they align. We brought this up with Terry, and discussed three that do, and three that don't:

• Imagination and hope are incredibly powerful. From the Changeling perspective, this is pretty self-evident and central to the game; their power stat of Glamour that reflects (in part) this theme. With Mage, it's a little more subtle. The paradigms with which the willworkers construct their magic rely on imagination—which in theory can make mages powerful Dreamers, with the right outlook—and they build (some of) their hopes upon the strength of that paradigm and their ability to manifest its power. For mages whose way of magic is danger of going extinct, hope takes on an extra veneer of urgency.
• Culture is valuable. The ideas of groups of mortals have literally shaped changelings into what they are, in terms of kiths. Culture has also given structure to the magic used by mages, a structure which they must follow (at least, at first). Both groups are invested in preserving their originating cultures, although the need to combine those traditions with growth and modernity presents an interesting element of tension in each game.
• Everything is temporary. Terry frames this in relation to the desire to keep alive the connections to the past that give both changelings and mages strength. On top of that, mages are mortal, and although changelings reincarnate, Banality often means their time as self-aware fae is limited. But how the character reacts to these facts can also provide compelling story material. Both splats may strive for immortality and struggle against the way of things, creating all kinds of interesting drama (and possibly hurting a lot of people along the way).
• Mortals and isolationism. In theory, both Mage and Changeling are centered on their protagonists' interactions with mortals. In practice, tables often run both games without mortals making a single appearance. We'd wager that Changeling players are guilty of this more often: many groups do Dreaming-centric games with Glamour drawn from chimera or wherever rather than interacting with Dreamers. With Mage, "Hogwarts games" entirely set in a mages-only space are rarer, and to some extent have to be, because...
• The shifting of destiny. Mage and Changeling start at opposite ends of a spectrum in terms of how they affect the ultimate fates of mortals. A mage wants their way of handling reality to be the correct one for everyone (because they know it's correct for them). They start with the goal of changing civilization and work their way down. Changelings, on the other hand, cultivate individual artists; it's more the philosophy that pushing a pebble in the stream might eventually change the course of the mighty river. Neither one usually ends up altering all of human destiny that much, but it's important to real