Indigenous School
Creation is the Perfect Machine, Essence its Perpetual Motion.
Contents
Indigenous Sorcery
School of the Great Maker
The Indigenous School has a long, though divided, history dating from the earliest days of the First Age. In those times, it first emerged out of the circle of Exalts and spirits who had learned at the feet of the great Primordial-Artificer Autochthon. During the Primordial’s time in Creation, before the great being departed, the common connection between sorcery and artifice had yet to take form: indeed, the Great Maker considered sorcery strange and unreliable, the debates amongst its myriad schools chaotic when artifice demanded certainty. However, the Primordial and his Exalted associates investigated sorcery in order to understand it, and in so doing formed a sorcerous school of their own, the School of the Great Maker (whose legacy sometimes influences, but ought not be confused with, the Cult of the Great Maker).
The School of the Great Maker held that Creation was a mechanism, a God Machine, Essence at once what it produced and what fueled it. Sorcery a manipulation of the mechanism, adding fuel at specific points to alter output. This thinking had far-reaching consequences for how sorcery was understood, by both sorcerers themselves and those who did not pursue its study. To the School of the Great Maker, and the Indigenists who came after, sorcery was much as artifice and Thaumaturgy, the great difference in the scale of its manipulation of the Creation machine and the amount of fuel that could be funneled into those changes… but at a basic level the thaumaturge and artificer invoked the same protocols as the sorcerer. To understand one was to better understand the other, and to apply sorcery was to empower thaumaturgic or artificing approaches to greater heights, greater potential.
When the Great Maker departed Creation, the School of his followers divided as each pursued their own interests, but the link they had posited between the crafting of artifact, the ritual of thaumaturgy, and the spellcraft of sorcery continued to inform the sorcerous thinking that followed… notably the great Devon is said to have studied these early theories as he began to think on the Golden Rule which his own School thought lay at the base of all things. Great Maker School studies of the Celestial Bureaucracy and the Artificer-Primordial’s pronouncements on its nature also served as foundation for the research of the sorcerers who would form what became known as the Archaic School.
And, of course, directly claiming their legacy, came the Indigenous School.
The successes achieved by the Archaic School and their Esoteric Crafting discipline of Microtheurgy excited many during the First Age, but others were discomfited by the focus of its proponents upon emulating the structures of the fallen Primordials. Many instead looked to Creation itself as template for their work, reviving the studies of the School of the Great Maker.
Though some Archaics complained that the ascent of the Indigenists was based on politics, the truth was more complex. While the philosophical differences between the Schools were significant, the effectiveness of their nanogods and micropantheons was neck and neck. Perhaps more importantly, while there were equally deep divides between the Indigenists and the Magitech Crafting masters of the Darician School, the School’s roots in the followers of Autochthon and its views on the God Machine gave it room to build common ground with the sorcerer-artificers. Most of the great projects combining Magitech and Microtheurgy took place through cooperation of Devonian and Indigenist Sorcerers.
The Indigenous School was attractive both to the Solar Exalted, who were able to explore the fields of godcraft to its greatest heights, and the Sidereal Exalted, whose experiences with the craft and maintenance of Fate led readily to study of Indigenist theory and the God Machine. However, with the coming of the Usurpation and the Age of Sorrows, the school faded from prominence, with only a small few adherents still holding its principles across both Heaven and Earth.
Indigenous Spells
Indigenous Absorption
School Minimums: Bureaucracy (Ability) 3.
An Indigenous sorcerer must believe that Creation is a self-maintaining machine, driven by the systems of the Celestial Bureaucracy. Through understanding the interactions between god and Creation, the sorcerer can understand the functions of this God Machine and manipulate them to shape sorcery.
Divine Counterspell: An Indigenous sorcerer sees the powers of the gods, and the rituals of thaumaturges, as the workings of the God Machine, much as are their sorceries. An Indigenous sorcerer can use Emerald Countermagic against any Charm used by a God or Elemental or any Thaumaturgy backed by Essence no higher than his own (round up).
Celestial Cog Analysis: Well versed in the structures and functions of divinities, an Indigenous sorcerer can understand better than most the nature of divinities. On seeing a god, an Indigenous Sorcerer may make a Perception + Occult roll to determine both that god’s purview and position within the Celestial Bureaucracy, even if this would normally be impossible. The Storyteller may wish to increase the difficulty for gods who have recently switched purviews or positions, though by the same token rolls with high thresholds of successes ought impart information on the target’s former purviews and responsibilities.
Heartfelt Plea Awareness: The Indigenous sorcerer is sensitive to the systems which connect Creation and the divine to form the God Machine, and is in tune with his place in that framework. They may attempt to hear prayers as would a god, and may use prayers as Arcane Links to their sources (see RoGD pp168-169).
