Paradigm are the high order of wizardry within the continental United States. Their magical tools are symbols of power. The yuppie has his business card, cellphone, cufflinks, sports car, Harvard ring. The police officer has his badge and uniform. The politician has certain key buzzwords. These are their foci.

What about the internet?

The Iroquois are the low order, the hedge wizards, the shamans of American pop culture. They know the secret rites to travel the invisible highways like James Dean and incantations to the lesser and greater Elvis summonings. They seek the Green Glass Grail, the platonic ideal of Coca-Cola, hidden somewhere along Route 66.

Go on. I am intrigued.

>>9804512

A series of pneumatic tubes built by DARPA on the orders of Ronald Reagan. Television, radio, billboards, magazines - these are not safe for wizards; the Ideogrammation's servitors will come out of them and try to eat you, unless you subjugate them first. Thus the "internet" is the only safe way for a wizard to get great deals on car insurance.

>>9804564

There are lesser orders, mostly cross-contamination from Europe. The Free Comtes sometimes cross the pond to jam culture and cause mayhem, their affinity groups flash mobbing, performing live, spontaneous symbolic rituals in the middle of crowded places. Their ultimate goal is to use this psychological alchemy to gain immortality as avatars of the mass consciousness.

The harder-edged members of the Iroquois and Paradigm view this as dangerous consortation with the Ideogrammation by foreign practitioners who don't know any better and tend to come down on the Comtes hard each time they surface in the States.

Sure is American Gods in here.

>>9804724
>Implying neckbeards don't fucking love that book

>>9804747
I...what? Seek help.

>>9804427
>>The Ideogrammation and it's minions do not suffer the wizards of America lightly.

Talk, talk, talk. The American Gods are weak and their hold on the ley lines tenuous at best. The Clerics of Madison Avenue must pursue ever more arcane methods...focus groups, social media, the lost Roman science of demographics to hold onto their power.

Soon their day will pass and the American Grail will cascade in brown rivers down the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Comtes? Sure is Unknown Armies in here, not that I mind at all.

American Gods and X-Crawl.

Thank you, Emperor Reagan.

>>9804724
This thread is already better than that book.

>>9805049

The Big Rock Candy Mountain is where the Old Gods of America, the Free Men of the Woods, went into exile ahead of the power of the Ideogrammation. The Iroquois both hope and fear that the Green Glass Grail will bring about their return from that distant realm.

When the rail-roads were finished and the old gods fled, the hobos defended the world from The Behinder and the hideous Things What Ride the Rails at Midnight. The hobos went on to their reward while the Behinder's ilk, the American titanspawn, hid and slunk into the gutters and alleyways fleeing the malevolent luminescence of the Ideo.

To this day Paradigm men summon Behinder demons from the sewers to do their dirty work in exchange for power and protection, while the Iroquois seek the Last True Hobo who will lead them on their Grail Quest.

>>9805820
>Last True Hobo

itsbeautiful.jpeg

>>9805331

The coronation was held in secret, when the man was more than half-mad with age. It was a holy madness, as few know this but the man Joshua Norton took an Irish wife. The Ray-Gun was his descendant and rightful heir to the Empire of America and Protectorate of Mexico.

Deep in the halls of the Pentacle, the Pentagon Below, blind men click their tongues in invocation to the dead Ray-Gun; hoping their false god will save them.

>>9805908

The Iroquois know that in parts of the country at midnight you can see Reagan McCool and his twisted shadow-aspect, Ray Gun One Eye, do battle.

>>9805908
It's a common belief that all Hoboes are Iroquios and vice versa. Nothing could be further from the truth. While all hoboes are wise, few are skilled in the arts of magic, and not all cunning men follow the honorable path of the hobo.

Such confusion is to be expected in the flashing din of the Ideogrammatic Gods. Only a few scholars like John Hodgman keep alive the ancient hobo knowledge. http://e-hobo.com/

>>9806052
Have the Hobos had any contact with the Silent Varangians? I've heard their territories and sometimes, their roles, overlap, but I can't see them getting along very well. The Elder still refuses the Soup of Codes.

Beware ye Iroquois who steep yourselves too deeply in the Hobo Heresies, the eyes of Paradigm are watching. They will not let your grail stop their Ten Thousand Years of Progress. Certainly the walls aren't cracking, certainly the Ideo aren't coming for them.

Certainly they will gain back control of the things their corporations unleashed.

And when they do The America of the Future will be a reality.

>>9806379
Ha! You think the Old Wind Gods and the New Black Gods of the Air would allow any of the earthly factions to delve into their realm? Look at what their wrath has already done to some of the greatest Hobo fortresses, and now look at the growing ink spat from the Leviathan? Good luck crossing the blue without their blessings.

Death to the Ideogrammaton. Long live the new flesh...

>>9806379
Unlike the elaborate, even barogue magical circles of earlier schools, the Paradigm's glyphs and wards are stark and geometric. The most basic of these is the four-quadrant chart, which is checked before even a minor undertaking. Those practiced in the arts of demographics, ratings and marketing use more elaborate symbols, but even these have an austere, functional appearance.

>>9806498
god i love that movie. Who knew a tumor gun would be so effective and cause so much body horror!

>>9806498

To be sucinct about it, whether it's Iroquois getting too wrapped up in the Grail Quest and Hobo prophecies or megalomaniacal Paradigmists suffering from The Guilt (they say that Paradigm wizards have the stain of their forebearers giving the Ideo it's first life in the public consciousness upon their souls), the fight against the Ideo spirits can lead you down dark path.

Their are worst things than the mere evil of the Behinder's humbled devils or even the blindingly cold light of the Ideo. Things from the Beyond the Beyond, whose messages were unlocked by the early space probes.

Your typical Outsiders, things so inhuman they make demons shit themselves. Guys like mr.New Flesh there are Outsider-infected.

At least someone who has been consumed by the shining fire of the Ideo will have the same sort insane logic as an Old World fey lord. Genii loci always do. And even demons of dark emotions and the cess of the world like the Behinderspawn in America have understandable motives (greed, lust, shadenfreud). But Outsiders...

They have it so much easier in the Old World. There the demons are bound, they have the ancient rituals to keep the Outsider out, and their wizards consumed all the ambiant magic before mass media could unleash the Ideo in their lands.

All they have to worry about is the constant back-stabbing politicking and warfare between the hundreds of high, low, and high-and-low orders of magic they got over there.

That's the Old World charm. No spirit wars to worry about, just an academic rival summoning a vampire to eat your face while you sleep.