So, how should we choose the next Magus:
It’s been revealed over the course of the game that Magus Everard, the defender of Earth against magical threats from beyond, is a fake. The magic staff he’s wielding isn’t the true Agate Staff, and the process by which he was chosen was influenced by dark powers beyond our ken.
In a recent session, Night-eye the Doomed returned from the Dark-night Dimensions with the true Agate Staff, while Hollow the Transformed use his moment of truth to defeat Everard and drain him of his powers.
So now, they’ve got the Agate Staff, and the various magical PCs are wondering if they might be the ones to wield its power and become the next Magus.
It’s been established in the fiction that the Magus is chosen when prospective candidates enter the top of the Agate Tower (located on the Equator in Northern Brazil), and then whoever leaves from the bottom of the tower holding the Agate Staff is the next Magus.
It’s pretty clear that the PCs are heading to the Agate Tower to find Answers and/or infinite magical power, but I have no idea what tests they should face within.
Choices, choices, choices… impossible heart-wrenching choices.
Save the one close to you or save group of strangers?
Kill the loved on who has gone bad or let him go?
Keep focused on big bad or let him get away to save innocents?
Let the staff tell them all about who they are and who they should be and shift some labels around like mad!
Do you mean the country Equador or a cool location in the North of Brasil along the Equator line?
Check out mount Roraima, jalapão or chapada dos veadeiros
Show them that the true Magus is only now being born. But give them the option to usurp her power by one of them leaving the tower. See what they do.
Especially now that the dark forces know their catspaw has been removed and no Magus is there to stop them.
I would say first they might need to destroy their fears, incarnated in darker versions of themselves. Then, those who succeed get to talk between them, with a sort of presence that mediates by heading the discussion towards friendship, dreams and sacrifice, never speaking, they feel like they can only talk about each of those things in turn. They can only answer with truths, though they can also ask related questions among themselves.
From those that have big dreams, good friends and are willing to sacrifice even the dreams and their friends, the magic chooses the more appropriate one, by a single dice throw that should have equal chances of selecting any of them or not select anybody.
All exit from the bottom, the new magus leads with the bonded staff in hand.
This could be a great opportunity to refrain from deciding on the test, but instead framing questions that lead to discovering the tests as a group.
“What power(s) govern the selection of the Magus?”
“What flaw do the governing powers have, that they don’t recognize as a flaw?”
“What weakness makes an aspirant ineligible?”
“What price must be paid by a new Magus?”
The questions presume a governing power; presume the power is flawed in some way; presume that there is a disqualifying weakness; and presume that a new Magus pays a price.
Simply having a set of leading questions, with acceptable presumptions, in your mind while you play will help you respond to the other players, and together you can build a strong idea of the testing process.