Where the
Technocracy are the organization that best encompasses the stasis of the
Weaver and the
Nephandi are the individuals that best personify the decay of the
Wyrm in the
role-playing game Mage the Ascension, the
Marauders are called
chaos mages for their powers in the
Wyld.
For the most part, the
Marauders lurk in the depths of the
Umbra, as the efforts of the
Technocracy keep the
Sleepers safely clean of the
reality deviants. However, when breaches in the
Gauntlet occur, there are almost always
Marauders taking SOME advantage of the opportunity.
There are two facets to a
Marauder's power. One is their uncanny ability to shrug off the forces of
Paradox as if they never existed- the reality storms that they generate simply wash over the chaos mage
like water off a duck's back and strike at their surroundings, often taking
Sleepers and mages alike along with them for
one hell of a ride. The other danger is that the
Wyld has essentially taken their minds, leaving them quite thouroughly and irrepairably insane; as if to complicate things further, each individual
Marauder's insanity is unique unto its own, making them incredibly unpredictible. However, that same uniqueness also means that the
Marauders often work alone, due to massive differences between
paradigm.
Because the
Wyld is locked in deep competition with the
Weaver and the
Wyrm for the universe, the
Marauders reflect this anger with an extreme hatred towards their mage counterparts. The joke goes were a
Marauder to walk into a bar and find a
Technocrat, a
Nephandi, and
Tradition mage each sitting at the same table, he would kill the
Nephandi first, then he would kill the
Technomancer, and then depending on how he felt at the moment, would either kill the
Traditions mage or sit down next to him and inquire how his new friend thought the football game was going to turn out.
Ultimately, though, the
Marauders are a dangerous force in the world because they are beholden only to themselves. They have no motive beyond spreading their belief that
the best possibility is all possibilities, and they will not allow anything to obstruct their
paradigm.