Places

Some regions never fell to Technocratic domination. In such places, mystic Arts still have the edge, and technomagick tends to be vulgar if it works at all. Primal mages insist that Earth has always been this way, and they might be correct. The shadow realm of legends and dreams certainly favors this primal atmosphere.

Mystic Regions: In certain pockets of the 21st-century world, faith holds more sway than science. Within such places, a person whose practices match the local beliefs is usually coincidental as far as Reality is concerned, whereas anyone whose practices clash with – or simply don’t feature into – those beliefs is considered vulgar.

Despite common preconceptions, those locations don’t have to be “in the deepest heart of Africa” or other ethnocentric nonsense. Certain segments of small-town Americana, hippie communes, counterculture festivals, even high-tech steampunk groups or transhumanist enclaves could all be considered mystic regions too. It’s mostly a matter of shared culture and belief – a belief so strong that it reshapes Reality in its own image even without Awakened influence.

Deep Wilderness: True wilderness is hard to find these days, but scraps of it still exist between the cracks of the 21st century. And as anyone who’s ever taken a deep-woods hike can attest, things just work differently out there. Advanced technology tends to fail in deep-wilderness areas, but the oldest forms of magick thrive. The further a person gets from civilization, the less predictable Reality becomes. Werewolves and other monsters favor such remote locations because the hand of humanity still holds very little power there.

Nodes and Wellsprings: Except for Nodes and Wellsprings that have been dedicated to science or technology, these raw fountains of Quintessential energy favor a primal sort of reality. Although Nodes often count as the High Resonance/ Synergy Zones described above, the really potent ones – especially werewolf caerns, ancient ruins, and unspoiled glades – reject technology and accept only the Old Ways as coincidental within their area.

The Old Roads: As detailed in Chapters Four and Nine, the Paths of the Wyck refuse to accept advanced technology. Technomagick simply doesn’t work, period. Nothing happens. The primal Arts, however, function as well there now as they did 5000 years ago.

The Otherworlds: Aside from a few Realms and regions, the Otherworlds render most forms of technomagick vulgar. The Void Engineers and Society of Ether have spent centuries crafting their exceptional technologies… and even then, the laws of Reality do not favor them. Etherspace – the region between Horizons – seems to enjoy a bit of mad science; every form of magick is coincidental there, regardless of its form or practice, although acts that violate the Earthly Foundations might still become vulgar if the mages get too bold. (Space travel? Sí! Time travel? No!)