Shadow Name

Introduction

If the whole rest of the world around you, everything you once thought and believed is a Lie, what does that make you? Where do you start, and the Lie end? How can you claim a sense of identity when the Awakening comes for you and you realize everything around you is bullshit?
Taking on a new identity is a hollow fix, but it’s one many mages settle on. Holding on to what you can of your old identity may allow you to maintain feeling of stability in the face of mind-blowing chaos, but that hardly soothes the ache. There is a chasm between who you were and what you have to be to wield Supernal magic. And in that place you’ll need something else. A new person to be. A new hero or villain to replace the lies and uncomfortable truths about your time Asleep.
Your Shadow Name, therefore, isn’t just a nickname or an online handle. It isn’t a pet name or a preferred spelling. Your Shadow Name is your magical identity, and it’s your answer to the Lie that your whole life has been, up to this point.

Nothing to frivolous

Creating a Shadow Name and taking it on isn’t an easy thing to shrug on and off. Once you’ve tied yourself to a new mystical persona, you can’t just change your mind and refile at city hall. Your Shadow Name helps to anchor every Imago you create. It grounds and directs your spell work. It protects you in the Astral and it defines who you are in Awakened society. While there are thoughtless mages who do, on rare occasion, stumble into a Shadow Name for a lark, that action is not without consequences.
Calling yourself the Joker and tossing around a lot of silly puns might start off funny, but as the Supernal flows through you, who you are shifts, a bit at a time, toward whatever your idealized Joker is. Perhaps you become a clown in your social life, being taken for granted or abused for a laugh among your peers. Perhaps fate conspires to remold you to follow the footsteps of a famous and well-known Joker, burdening you with a ton of cultural baggage and expectations.
Most mages take their new magical identities very seriously, and those who don’t find the matter may become serious no matter what their original intentions.

Self-fulfilling Prophecies

Names are ideas and communication. We give our children names so that we can use a word to bring the concept of that child to mind. “He looks like a George.” Or “I’ve never met a Brittany that was any good.” Names tie us to cultural expectations and regional assumptions. Of course, Shadow Names aren’t just George, Sal, and Harold in most cases. They may be the words for places or things cobbled together to suggest deals the mage believes are personally significant. They may be drawn from history and mythology as well. Shadow Names, though, do not exist in the harmless world of baby books and etymology searches. Each word or concept a mage pulls into her Shadow Name carries with it all the resonance and attachments the Fallen World has fastened to it, as well as any Supernal influence that might remain.
Rose-thorns-growing may be a safe choice, depending on region or culture, allowing the mage some room to create her own meaning around the name. However, should a mage take on a name like Hercules, depending on his region, he is calling on an idea that has its own weight and meaning. Hercules means things to those familiar with the word. And by taking that name, and using it as a way to direct magic, the expectations and concepts that name carries affect the magical working — and therefore, the Mage’s magical identity. Eventually, this bleeds into the mage, and he will become something else.
It is possible to control a Shadow Name, over time and through great acts — to influence what it means and who it makes you — but the more famous the name, the more gravity attached to its meaning, the harder that feat is. As a wise old master tells his students, “Don’t pick Odin for your Shadow Name if you are overly fond of both your eyes.”

Ritual Grounding

Names that carry their own identities already have some advantages. They are a short cut to establishing and drawing an Imago. These symbolic names may help a mage who works with others, as the nuance of meaning in a more personal Shadow Name will mean less to other members of a cabal, at least for a while. What’s more, it’s a way of establishing who you are and how you expect to be treated in Awakened society. Iloria the Meek certainly suggests a very different personality than Iloira, Slayer of Men, when introducing yourself to a Consilium.
Neither is wrong, depending on the reaction the mage expects. To bring the Supernal down, through the Nimbus, and change the Fallen World, grounding is necessary. A grounded self, no lon- ger adrift in the mess of the Fallen World, is necessary to do magic.

Who you are, Why they think you are

Shadow Names are for magic, for the mage’s sense of self, and for secretive interaction with other mages. Cabalmates don’t shout each other’s Shadow Names down crowded hallways to get each other’s attention. Calling out a Shadow Name in mixed company is a considerable faux pas depending on where and when. It’s revealing a secret, frankly, like shouting a lover’s favorite sexual position in the middle of family dinner. It happens, but it’s a good way to lose your seat at family dinner. For the mage, putting on her Shadow Name changes who she is; and so when acting in secret with her cabal, she may take on different manners, dress differently, speak differently.