Fleshing out the Premise Statement

Central Setting Metaphor

Paradox that reality-bending will-workers accumulate when their magick goes against consensual reality is a metaphor for discrimination and exclusion - the 'tyranny of the majority' that scorns and derides any occurrence of 'the Other'.
Mages, by extension, stand in for all types of 'out-of-the-ordinary', non-mainstream, non-middle-class, non-heterosexual, that a Technocracy-affected society rejects.

Premise Statement

An assorted cabal of mages in a contemporary dystopia; an alternate-history Post-Communist Budapest, is trying to get by, combatting intrigue, political repression, and social exclusion, when they discover a dark secret that would change the status quo if revealed, and must decide what to do about it.

I'll follow the advice in the Dancing Light Press Setting Design book, and flesh out the Characters, Goals, Obstacles, and Primary and Secondary Setting Elements that the central setting metaphor above entails.

In a later post:)