Vodun, Vodou, and Voodoo are, "similar, but not entirely separable" syncratic religions practiced in Africa, Haiti, and Louisiana, as part of the heritage of the African diaspora and French and American colonialism.
As much fun as pin cushion dolls, hexes, and spirit possession are, bringing those things into Etheria raises some thorny questions: was/is there slavery in Etheria, where is it practiced,what is it like, who are the slaves, etc.
I know I'm being a funpire, sucking the joy out of a popular pop-culture thing, but Vodun is not the sort of material I would want to see casually appropriated, any more than I'd want to see Kabalah or Sufism used without care and consideration. Zombies have long since escaped their Voodoo-ish inspiration and become a mainstream popular entertainment staple, but the rest of the "voodoo doctor" trope isn't yet divorced from its historical and religious context. The fact that Anglo-America has done so repeatedly already should be a caution, not a license.
I'm not saying Vodou should be off-limits, or that I think any attempt would be doomed. But I do think that when we start basing Mage Wars mages off of the religions practiced by of millions of real people living today, we would have to be very careful to do it right (not all Dark, for example), and maybe Mage Wars isn't really the type of game that handles themes like this well. This game is a violent power fantasy (my favorite, by a long mile) and that's maybe not the direction we'd want to come from in exploring these themes.
--
Wow that ended up way longer and more academic than usual. Sleepy time for Kich, I think. G'night!
