Verbenae
Tradition Concept/ Theme notes
Initiation
Verbena newcomers undergo a ritual death and rebirth. An intense period of study, testing, and meditation climaxes in a distressing ordeal – sometimes illusionary, often real. If and when the coven members are satisfied with the initiate’s trustworthiness and dedication, they call the elements as witnesses. As they were during the Burning Times, most Verbenae remain loyal unto death.
Organization
Overall, covens – often numbering 13, nine, seven, or three – make up this group’s foundation. Solitary Verbenae exist, but most members of this Tradition prefer working in groups. Some sects are more likely to form covens than others.
Focus
Though you can choose any paradigm for your character, these are typical for Verbenae.
Associated Paradigms: Creation’s Divine and Alive., A World of Gods and Monsters, Might is Right, Bring Back the Golden Age, Everything is Chaos, We are Meant to be Wild, We're all God(s) in Disquise.
Associated Practices: Witchcraft, Voudoun, dominion, weird science, chaos magick, yoga, martial arts, High Ritual, cybernetics, the Art of Desire, craftwork, medicine-work, and even
organic hypertech.
Foci/Instruments: Any that are associated with the choosen Paradigm and Practices. Blood and herbs are most common.
Sects
Gardeners of the Tree
Philosopy: "The blood will tell." They hold onto the belief that power and prestige are passed down along family lines. For the Gardeners, the transition to Unity, and the fact that their centuries of magickal lineage doesn't exist, has left them stumbling to find...or rebuild...their roots.
Style: They follow a very rigourous traditional style of magick based on their cultural lineage. Their magick is often the most primal and visceral, as performed for centuries before them. They tend to rely on tried and true formulas, ie, that old dusty Book of Shadows passed down the family.
Affinity Spheres: Life or Matter.
Organization: Gardeners maintain the cohesiveness of the Verbena by organizing covens and circles, and the grand covens where groups of Verbena gather to discuss matters and work magic together. Gardeners recognize few ranks. Elders are respected, honored and deferred to in most cases, but all members are considered equals and treated as such. Their small covens often react to changes more quickly than the larger gatherings and chantries of other Traditions do.
Cultures: The Gardeners make up the most Eurocentric faction of the Verbena. They recognize that the other cultures have similiar roots, but they weren't there at the beginning of the Verbena, and are thus the "newcomers" no matter how long that culture has existed. The most conservative of Gardeners are of Celtic or Germanic roots, maintaining the traditions
of the druids and the rune-magicians of old. They have worked hard to overcome the taint Nazism while keeping their pride. Ironically, the Gardeners also attract many new cultures into the Verbena simply because they wish to protect and maintain their own distinct identity rather than being subsumed into a “generic” Verbena Tradition. Thus Gardeners from African, Hispanic and Native American cultures have helped add to the diversity of the Verbena as a whole.
Associations: The element of earth, the north direction, the season of winter, the colors green and brown and the pentacle.
Twisters of Fate
Philosophy: The Twisters of Fate are interested in the bare essentials of both life and magic. “Live simply, so others may simply live,” is a part of their credo, but more than that, they desire to recapture some of the power and wonder that the first Wise Ones, the legendary Wyck, wielded in their time. They delve into the past, seeking to learn how all the diverse cultures and paths of the Verbena (and all mages) came into being, a kind of grand-unified theory of magic and creation. The Twisters feel it is their duty to use their power and insight for the good of all. Of course, what is considered "good" is debatable. As their name implies, the Twisters of Fate are not above tugging on the strands of destiny to help things to come out differently. They are profoundly dedicated to the idea that people can and should make a difference, even if (especially if) it involves a measure of personal risk. Twisters feel that too many people, even mages, give away their power, surrendering to the demands of tradition, the expectations of society and those looking to take their power from them.
Style: “Primal” best describes the magical style of the Twisters of Fate. Their foci are either those things found easily in nature — fresh herbs, sticks, game animals, scattered stones — or their own bodies. Twisters of Fate use every part of themselves as their magical instruments. They dance and sing. They spit and bleed. They weave the threads of fate from their own hair, and they have sex beneath the open sky to raise power. Their primal nature even makes other Verbena uncomfortable, and other traditions consider them "savage" and "unschooled". The Twisters share mutal respect with the Dreamspeakers.
Affinity Sphere: Life or Entropy
Organization: No titles, ranks or leaders. They are united solely through their vision of what they once were and can be again. They honor their elders, and recognize that all avatars are equally old. The vision of a young mage is no less valuable or insightful than the memories of an elder.
Cultures:The sole determining factors seem to be the nature of the Avatar and the disposition
of its human incarnation, much to the dismay of the Gardeners. Although they come from diverse backgrounds and cultures, Twisters of Fate often seem to belong to a single culture: the first, primal culture of humanity. They are often called Modern Primitives (or Neo-Primitives) for their practices and attitudes, though to consider them unsophisticated or ignorant is to misunderstand
them entirely.
Associations: The element of water, the west direction, the season of autumn, the colors deep blue and orange and the chalice or cauldron.
Moon-Seekers
Philosophy: “Honor the Old Ways, but live in the present,” is the MoonSeekers’ credo. They firmly believe in the way of life the Verbena espouse, but they think that clinging to ancient traditions and outmoded ways of thinking will mean stagnation and eventual death for their Tradition.
The Moon-Seekers do not reject any idea out of hand, and most are willing to try anything once. Moon-Seekers often find themselves struggling for acceptance and acknowledgment from more conservative
factions such as the Gardeners and the Twisters of Fate. They consider their ways just as valid as the ancient bloodlines and the primal workings of the Wyck, but other Verbena do not always agree. Many Moon-Seekers don’t particularly care what others think. Some even actively rebel against the
traditionalists within the Verbena, claiming that their views are outdated and only hold the Tradition back from achieving its true potential.
Style: Always willing to try new things, Moon-Seeker magic is eclectic, to say the least. It typically blends more traditional elements with the latest New Age trends or discoveries in a patchwork that yields some surprising results. Much as the traditionalists among the Verbena look down their noses at the magic of the Moon-Seekers, they are forced to admit that it is effective.
The Moon-Seekers are the most likely to borrow foci and mystic elements from other Traditions, and most cross-Tradition mixing found within the Verbena comes from the Moon-Seekers (along with some Lifeweavers and Fate-Twisters looking for common elements in the roots of various Traditions).
Affinity Sphere: Life or Mind
Organization: MoonSeekers are given to organizing themselves into groups, based on their common interests. These groups are often short-lived and formed around when a particular trend or idea takes hold within the Verbena. Moon-Seekers and some few others will cluster around it, either forming a coven or a less formal group to explore it further till either interest in the idea plays itself out, or personality conflicts break the group up. Some more enduring groups have arisen from such mystical experiments, however, and they still pursue their own particular ends.
Affinity Sphere: Life or Mind
Associations: The element of air, the east direction, the season of spring, the blade the colors yellow, pale blue and pale green.
Cultures: If the Moon-Seekers partake of a particular culture, then it is modern culture, that is to say every culture that they come into contact with. They also do not limit themselves to the culture of their birth. There are European Moon-Seekers drawn to Native American practices, South American Moon-Seekers working with Aborigine ways, and Asian Moon-Seekers who practice Celtic druidry.
Sub-Cultures
Techno-pagans are those Verbena who embrace technology while holding true to the beliefs of the Tradition. They see no inherent conflict between the tools of science and the ways of magic, and they often form covens with like-minded Verbena or chantries with Virtual Adepts, Sons of Ether, Hermetics of House Verditius, Dreamspeaker techno-shamans and so forth.
New Age factions, such as the Society of the Inner Light and the Children of Aquarius, espouse the cause of peace, love and understanding. They are often pacifistic and uninterested in any talk of the Ascension War. Ascension is not a war, in their view, but will only come through
enlightenment and love. Cross-cultural Verbena like the Hearth-fire Circle, the World Tribe and members of the Neo-Tradition Reformation Front work to promote understanding among diverse cultures and belief systems, seeking common ground between them.
Fairy Folk of the faction include many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. They explore notions of identity and the balance of masculine and feminine within themselves. They have likened their experiences with straight society to the sort of acceptance the Moon-Seekers look for
within the Verbena as a whole, and with the struggle of the Traditions against the apathy of the Sleepers.
Lifeweavers
Philosophy: Body and mind are like clay to the Lifeweavers, the media they use to create something new and wondrous. They continually re-invent themselves and, in so doing, come to better understand who and what they are. They experiment with shape, form and capabilities, trying to improve upon what nature has given them, but they do not forget that they are a part of nature. While many Verbena talk about empathy for the natural world, the Lifeweavers find it by wearing the skin of a wolf or the feathers of an eagle. They even experience life as trees, insects and other creatures that can only be imagined. Ritual and tradition are unimportant to the Lifeweavers. Living is what is important to them. Other Verbena touch the sacred cycles of nature through seasonal celebrations or working with their hands in the Earth. Lifeweavers find the sacred in chasing down their prey and tasting its blood, in running or flying free beneath the open sky, in coupling in the night under a full moon. The greatest sacrament is living life to its fullest and experiencing all that it has to offer.
Style: Lifeweaver magic is as primal and dynamic as they are, visceral and disturbing to outsiders. The Sphere of Life is their primary focus, just like other Verbena, but Lifeweavers tend to focus their Life magic inward, on transforming themselves. They’re often skilled shapeshifters, capable of taking on a diverse range of forms, and as comfortable in a beast’s skin as they are in their own. They use Mind magic both to understand the speech of beasts and to test the limits
of their own minds and perceptions. Lifeweaver foci most often come from nature or from
their own bodies. They use blood (and other bodily fluids), and many carry animal hides that they wear as part of their transformations. Herbs and mushrooms fuel their Mind magic and many of their spells of healing, transformation and occasionally cursing. A Lifeweaver rite might consist of stripping naked, pissing in a circle on the ground and cutting bloody runes into his flesh to bring on a desired transformation.
Affinity Sphere: Life or Mind
Organization: The Lifeweavers have no organization, nor do they feel the need for any. Each is independent, and they all fiercely resist efforts to get them to conform to anyone else’s way of doing things. They participate in the seasonal rites and celebrations of their Tradition when it suits them, but no one can predict their comings and goings. They do join covens and cabals from time to time, but rarely for very long before they decide to move on to something else. Some Lifeweavers gather in groups likened to packs of wolves or flocks of wild birds, remaining together for a while, then either going their separate ways or breaking apart due to conflicts within the group. When form and appearance are so easily varied, beauty becomes moot and character assumes a key position above all other elements. Lifeweavers, therefore, choose their associates very carefully, judging their companions’ behavior over time more than any other factor. The stability provided by intimates also takes on great importance for these mages. When even one’s own shape can vary so wildly, the assurance and reliability of true friends is invaluable.
Cultures: Though often considered to be from primitive cultures, most Lifeweavers come from comfortable, civilized backgrounds. Some Lifeweavers are drifters or social chameleons, adopting different forms and attitudes as easily as other people change clothes. They move through the “wilderness” of modern civilization, often choosing to experience what it’s like to be a different race, sex or age — no experience is forbidden.
Associations: The element of fire, the south direction, the season of summer, the colors red and black and the wand or staff.
Affinity Spheres
Life (Lifeweavers), Entropy (Twisters of Fate), Forces*, Matter (Gardeners of The Tree), Mind (Moonseekers)
Note: M20 lists Forces as an Affinity Sphere for Verbenae. Forces is not listed for any sect of the Verbena in revised. If you can make a good case for it, we'll allow it.
Characters
None
