The Fallen World — a prison for human souls, bound by the Abyss and manipulated by the Exarchs. Preyed upon by a multitude of creatures, spirits and intruders from elsewhere.
Mages are the only ones that can see the bars. They breath the Supernal air once - only once, during their Awakening, and are then trapped back in the Cage for the rest of their lives. Magic is both a great gift and a great curse, the curse of having seen the Real, Supernal world which you are now forever denied.
Close your eyes in a Demesne. Meditate on the Resonance of a powerful spell. Catch a glimpse of a Cryptid from across a fog-shrouded moor and smell, just for an instant, the breeze coming through the bars of the Cage.
The Soul Cage is a Mage: The Awakening fanfic. Whereas The Broken Diamond follows a group of experienced Mages, The Soul Cage stars newly-Awakened apprentices as they are forced to deal with the circumstances that have been forced upon them by machinations a century in the making.
Provides Examples Of:
- Hidden Agenda Villain:
- Kosciej is revealed to be the main villain about halfway through, but his actual plans remain uncertain until near the very end of the chronicle (with some of his actions noted as being irrelevant to his plan, and merely a means of securing aid for achieving it). His own showboating nature causes him to repeatedly make a big deal of how The Plan is being kept secret from them (the characters even lampshade how the undertones are so deliberately ominous that you can practically hear the capitalization). Subverted towards the end; the egalitarian nature of Kosciej's goals means that he publicly announces it shortly before the final phase goes into motion (although the characters had already been informed of the details shortly before, giving them time to prepare countermeasures).
- Solemn's agenda is also never made strictly clear, since he never directly interacts with the main characters, has his power base broken down off screen, and is killed off by Kosciej to further his own plan.
- Bede is pegged as having it out for the Auric Horizon early on, but why and what he hopes to accomplish don't come to light until shortly before the reveal of the main villain. He turns out to have misinterpreted a prophecy concerning their actions destroying a city, and was trying to prevent it.
- Shout-Out:
- House of Leaves during the Cxaxa Queraphas arc.
- The Guy Fawkes Precedent are practically riddled with V for Vendetta and 4chan references.
- Rodriguez's name, according to
Word of God, is one for The Dresden Files. - The Avatar of the General is a reference to Good Omens.
- The Soulless: Samael after he gets his soul torn up by an Echo Walker
- Spin-Off: Takes place in the same universe as The Broken Diamond and has cameos by some of the characters.
