Just because it's a game about the power of belief and trying to make the world a better place doesn't mean that Mage: the Ascension is free from the horrors of the World of Darkness.
- The Nephandi. Mages who worship evil. Literally. They outright worship beings and concepts they consider wrong and evil from their perspective being Card Carrying Villains played utterly straight. They aren't Nihilists because they firmly believe evil exists, they just side with it. Other than the fact that some Nephandi only enter the Caul due to crossing the Despair Event Horizon there's no other nuance to them. While they can occasionally delve into Narm due to how over the top they are, their are also plenty of cases where they end up genuinely disturbing. Also they've infiltrated every other Mage faction in the world. And they are actually winning the Ascension War. note
- The Nephandi's worldview is basically that God Is Evil (or possibly Evil is God) and they want to be on the winning side. The Nephandi are creepily religious as most of them are genuinely devoted to the being/s they worship, they just worship beings of utter evil (or at least utter destruction) in opposition to every other belief system in existence. Their God is almost an Evil Counterpart to the entire concept of religious belief (the thing that gives a good chunk of Mages their worldview).
- Special mention go to the Widderslainte, those born with corrupted avatars that previously belonged to Nephandi. They had no control over what their previous incarnation did, and they have no Past-Life Memories, yet because of someone else's choice they will spend their entire lives with a voice in their head that knows them and their weaknesses intimately, often appears in the guise of some particularly triggering Abusive Parent or the like, and is constantly pushing them towards following the same path of damnation as their predecessor. Their choices come down to a lifetime of resisting the overwhelming urge to become a monster, or surrendering to their impulses and suffering the same Fate Worse than Death their past incarnation brought upon themselves.
- The Technocracy. The fact they aren't evil anymore (something the rulebook explicitly confirms) doesn't mean they aren't utterly terrifying.
- While they don't do it nearly as much as Tradition propaganda implies, one of the Technocracy's tactics is to nab Tradition or Craft Mages, bring them back to a Technocrat facility and forcibly turn them into a Technocrat through brainwashing. The 'nicest' they'll do is lock the victim in a room and bombard them with endless pro-Technocrat propaganda but they will escalate to outright torture if needed. And if the victim doesn't break they have their brain extracted to be used as a computer system in a cyborg war machine. Every Technocrat facility has a dedicated brainwashing room.
- Note that this is their method because the New World Order made them stop what they used to do, which was the Pogrom, in which they just out and out killed every Mage and nonhuman they got their hands on.
- Technocracy Reloaded reveals how the Technocracy upholds the Masquerade in the age of digital media and cameras everywhere. They have a ton of bloggers and social media accounts that exist just to push disinformation about the supernatural and the Technocracy's actions. While the idea of a technomage bloggers writing excuses for supernatural events all day is a funny mental image, it also becomes pretty scary when one considers the sheer level of control of information and society involved. It also points out how, while it is very arguably for the best, the Technocracy are actively misleading Sleepers into thinking magic doesn't exist. Their entire organization is lying to humanity for the greater good.
- While they don't do it nearly as much as Tradition propaganda implies, one of the Technocracy's tactics is to nab Tradition or Craft Mages, bring them back to a Technocrat facility and forcibly turn them into a Technocrat through brainwashing. The 'nicest' they'll do is lock the victim in a room and bombard them with endless pro-Technocrat propaganda but they will escalate to outright torture if needed. And if the victim doesn't break they have their brain extracted to be used as a computer system in a cyborg war machine. Every Technocrat facility has a dedicated brainwashing room.
- Marauders are mages who, during their Avatar's awakening, saw the whole of reality as it truly is and broke like sugar glass. For most mages, Reality Warping Is Not a Toy... but not Marauders. They can do more or less as they please, so long as it fits the precise details of their Paradigm, without Paradox. Most are fairly harmless, so long as nothing sets them off (notably, one of the few predictable things about a Marauder is that if they see a Nephandus, they will immediately attack them), but all it takes is one whose worldview entails mass destruction for all Hell to break loose. One more thing: being one is almost as bad. You see, reality knows who's messing with it, and doesn't like it - so a Marauder who gets powerful enough ceases to exist.
