[UA] Cosmic Level Campaign Musings

[Alexander H Lampros]

A couple of rough ideas for a Cosmic level campaign,  all based off one 
theory:

What if, when the Clergy filled up and the world reset, nothing very 
dramatic happened?  No new planet, no rewriting of old history books, no 
rapture.  Instead, the Psychology of humans changed in some small, but 
significant way - and with it, the nature of human society and the 
'laws' of magick.  

A good example of how this would be the gradual movement from the 
'modern' to 'postmodern' eras.  From roughly the Englightenment until 
sometime around World War I, most of the western world believed in the 
idea of progress, of logic, and of a universal morality.  At the middle 
of the cosmos was a perfect and singular God who made humanity.  Those 
notions were replaced with the ideas that different 'cultures' were 
fundamentally unique, that logic and universal morality were a tool of 
opression, that humanity had made god in its own image.  One could read 
the 1929 stock market crash, as symbolic of humanity's loss of faith in 
the idea of progress, and the groth of cynical, power hungry nationalism 
in the 1930s as symbolic of the new relativism.  Or maybe these events 
were evidence of humanity's new psychology wrecking havoc on its old 
institutions.  The emergence of postmodern Adepts, and the idea faith in 
humanity brings mystical power, would be the supernatural consequences 
of these shifts.  

There are a number of implications to this theory:

- Sure, getting to design the next cosmos is nice.  But basically, 
you're fighting tough odds for a goal that you'll never personally see - 
and oh yes, 99% of the planet thinks you're crazy.  But  things become a 
lot more immediate if you - or your children - are actually going to 
have to live in the next world.  You've gone from a situation where the 
only people wanting to play the game are obsessives and idealists with 
axes to grind, to one where every duke with a kid, a stockmarket 
portfolio, or a goal that current Magick doesn't accomodate wants to 
play.  Jane wants to revive her dead kid, Jack wants to learn to fly, 
Dirk wants a new body.  The current laws of magick are uncooperative - 
but the next ones might not be.  

-If all the Clergy have ascended since 1930, that raises the possiblity 
that you could physically track down archtypes whose existence you 
couldn't figure out by examining human psychology.  There are probably 
lots of archtypes (like the Mystic Hermaphrodite) which are obscure, 
difficult to describe, or exist mostly on a subconcious level.  If you 
track down such an archtype, you might become its first conscious 
avatar.  Not only does this mean less competition for godwalker status, 
but an archtype that only has one high level avatar is going to have a 
lot more interest in (and time to) protect him than an archtype that has 
a thousand.  This could be pretty damn powerful.

-Heck, you could even catalog the entire membership of  the current 
invisible clergy.  Not only would this be useful for people trying to 
control the state of the next cosmos, it might allow you to create some 
pretty incredible rituals.  

-If the Cosmos doesn't actually get physically reborn, that raises the 
possiblity that the Universe might actually end one day.  Who knows but 
that the current clergy won't decide to start a nuclear war as the 
denoument to their careers?  You've got to make sure that the current 
clergy is peaceful or optimistic enough that that doesn't happen. (or 
that they're warlike and cynical enough that it does.  Whatever floats 
your boat.)

- Alternatively, humanity could spend the next era becoming immortal, 
colonizing other planets, or having fantastic sex.  If you're curious 
about any of these thing and can't get your jollies out in this era, 
work with it for the next.  

-who knows if this idea is true or not?  Trying to prove or disprove 
this theory might be fun.

Anyway, that's it.  I imagine a lot of people have already thought of 
this, and one of them could probably write it out a lot better than I 
just did.  But I thouht I'd send it in anyway.

Yours,

Alex