No comments about Houses of Hermes (Ars Magica).

1 comments about Parma Fabula: The Ars Magica Storyguide Screen (Ars Magica Fantasy Roleplaying).

1. I really like Ars Magica, I've been playing this game for two years and I'm not tired of it yet. So, when I saw that there was a screen, I inmediately decided to buy it because I don't like to be half an hour reading the book, it's just the best source for the storyteller, and it's funny because you can hide behind it.

1 comments about The Medieval Bestiary, Revised Edition (Ars Magica Fantasy Roleplaying).

1. Medieval Bestiary: Revised Edition is an excellent book. It is a revision of an earlier work, but done so well that it stands better on its own. It might be called, essentially, a "Monster Manual," but it is so much richer and detailed than that, containing varied and inspiring examples of historical myth and legend. It details the many, many beasts of medieval Europe, and intelligent rules for designing your own. Furthermore, it neatly solves the difficult question presented by the earlier work, "Are all creatures of medieval Europe magical?" No, says Kasab's Medieval Bestiary, just some of them (Beasts of Virtue), and they tend to be special. And beyond the well-written content, the presentation and layout are well done; it is simple to comprehend and easy to read, and the index is useful and accurate. I cannot imagine playing an Ars Magica saga without this book.

No comments about Realms of Power: The Infernal (Ars Magica Fantasy Roleplaying).

4 comments about Ancient Magic (Ars Magica).

1. This one was alright in my opinion, but a little lacking in the rules dept. I feel they could have developed some of the specifics of the various forms of magic much more. I found the book to be more like a collection of adventure ideas. Not bad mind you, but not up to par with the rest of the excellent Ars Magica line.



2. I've always loved Ars Magica and this recent supplement is just great.
   
   It has lots of material that could be brought into many campaigns. Each type of Ancient magic has it's own section with history and rules on researching. In fact the books primary purpose appears to be to provide research opportunities and goals for your magi. A character could have his life goal to pursue norse rune magic and incorporating it into standard Hermetic theory.



3. This book covers nine non-Hermetic magic systems, all of which predate the Order of Hermes. They can be used in a campaign as models for powers of rivals to player-character magi, but since by the era of the standard game setting they have no living practitioners, their main point is as a set of magical practices that magi might try to learn to expand their own powers.
   
   The introduction offers a set of rules for learning new powers: discover a source of information on an ancient magical tradition (typically through adventuring), investigate it to discover an Insight, invent a spell or magical device that uses the Insight, and repeat until the Insights amount to an extension of Hermetic magic theory. (The Insight rules are a variation on the original magic research rules in the Bonisagus section of True Lineages.) If one makes a breakthrough, it may be taught to other magi or recorded in writing.
   
   Chapter 1 covers the Language of Adam, the language spoken before the Tower of Babel -- the language of true names, more or less. For a Hermetic magus, it grants a penetration bonus to spells equal to the magus's skill in the language. The chapter mostly covers adventures one might take to learn the long-dead language. No Insights are necessary to use the language.
   
   Chapter 2 covers Canaanite Necromancy. It includes a Major Supernatural Virtue, Canaanite Necromancy, a Minor Hermetic Virtue, Canaanite Magic, a list of example spells and items, and a few special powers. It also includes an infernally tainted variation on the power. There are also some adventures one could use to seek Insight into this magical tradition.
   
   Chapter 3 covers Defixio Magic, a tradition that allows its practitioners to perform magic beyond sight range without an arcane connection, and cast spells with built-in triggers similar to Watching Ward. Triggered spells require enough Insight for Event Duration, a Minor Breakthrough. Spells without arcane connections require enough Insight for Unlimited Range, a Hermetic Breakthrough. Much of the chapter consists of mini-adventure descriptions for defexiones that a magus might find and use as sources of Insight. There is also a Major Supernatural Virtue, Defixio Lore, which most most magi would be unable to learn because of conflicts with Hermetic learning.
   
   Chapter 4 covers Fertility Magic, which includes the Arcane Ability Fertility Lore, the Minor Hermetic Virtue Fertility Ritual Magic, the spell target Unborn Child, a few example spells and items, and several adventure seeds.
   
   Chapter 5 presents Grigori Magic, a type of magic originally known to children of angels. Spells developed with Grigori Insight allow magi to substitute different sorts of vis when casting vis-boosted spells, and possibly avoid use of vis entirely. Grigori Minor Supernatural Virtues allow using some types of vis interchangeably; Grigori Minor Hermetic Virtues allow that and bypass some requisites. Much of the chapter is adventure seeds.
   
   Chapter 6 presents Heron of Alexandria's Legacy, a type of magic that allows its practitioners to create Mechanica. With a Minor Hermetic Virtue or Major Breakthrough, magi can create magical devices with mutable powers. With a Major Virtue or Hermetic Breakthrough, magi can awaken a magical device, giving it intelligence and personality. The chapter includes numerous example devices and adventure seeds.
   
   Chapter 7 describes the Hesperides, a simple skill that allows a place's longitude and latitude to be used as an arcane connection to it. Since such arcane connections depend on the Law of Names, they may be copied freely. The skill can only be used if one visits Longitude Zero, in today's Canary Islands. Most of the chapter deals with adventures involved in visiting Longitude Zero.
   
   Chapter 8 presents Hyperborean Magic, a tradition based on hymns to Apollo. It includes the Minor Supernatural Virtues Hyperborean Hymnist and Hyperborean Descent; the latter is also a Major Hermetic Virtue. Also included are the Supernatural Ability Hyporean Hymn, the dead language Hyperborean, the new duration 19 Years, numerous hymn-powers, special Insight rules, and adventures to seek Hyperborean knowledge.
   
   Chapter 9 presents Rune Magic, which includes the Duration Rune, the target Inscription, the Major Hermetic Virtue Rune Magic, and the rune wizards' Rune Magic. Rune magic has the advantage that it can be performed without vis. There is also some information about runes and rune magic, and a few adventure ideas.
   
   If a magus is happy with Hermetic magic only, the player doesn't need this book. But this offers a lot of additional options that might broaden a magus's powers -- and add adventure motivations to a campaign.



4. Ancient Magic provides nine systems of thematically appropriate (mostly biblical and Roman) magic outside the Hermetic system in Ars Magica. These systems are, for the most part, alternately too powerful or marginal for the players to get their hands on without it being the basic focus of the game, but there are some gems and the others do provide interesting aspects for non-player antagonists.
   
   The best magics in the book are the fertility magic, which is based on Neolithic society, and "defixio" magic, which is based on Roman cursing practices. Both magics add abilities to the mage that are interesting, beyond the limits of regular magic in the book, and won't unbalance the game if allowed into regular play. Furthermore, the "archaeology" required for magi to relearn these lost forms of magic allow for more flexibility on the part of the storyguide, and don't lock the players into a pat adventure in the book. I especially liked how fertility magic encourages players to check out Neolithic cave paintings; this was a creative touch that I wouldn't have thought of on my own.
   
   Most other magics in the book are unbalancingly powerful (Hyperborean magic, for example, which breaks most of the important limits of Hermetic magic) or irritatingly niche (e.g., Canaanite necromancy, which allows one to talk to the dead - and that's it). They also require adventures which drag the players across the globe on monomaniacal quests for this magic - something everyone has to agree on beforehand. In Ars Magica, a game where eveyone spends time working on their own character advancement, it's unfair for the storyguide to drag the players on session after session looking for the biblical Cain (to learn the language of Adam), to the Near East (to learn Caananite Necromancy), or to longitude zero in the Canary Islands (Hesperides Magic).
   
   The bright spot in this adventuring is that the Ancient Magic book does contain extra information on the Mongol invasion, for people who want to work that part of history into their games. And, as mentioned above, a Hyperborean or Grigori mage, while probably inappropriate as a player character, would make a great antagonist.

No comments about Land of Fire and Ice (Ars Magica Fantasy Roleplaying).

1 comments about Tribunals of Hermes: Iberia (Ars Magica Fantasy Roleplaying).

1. The book covers a little of the history of the iberian peninsula, rewritten to fit in with the 'mythic' flavour of Ars Magica. There is also a section giving examples covenants, one of which are some urban magi residing in medieval Barcelona.
   Themes treated in the book include conflict between the pro-christian and pro-islamic mages, with collusions within islamic lands between the hermetic magi and sufi mystics.
   A problem with this guide, i felt, was too much of a heavy influence on demons. It also could of benefitted from at least a token attempt at rules for islamic magicians.
   Iberia is so fantastic a setting for an Ars Magica campaign, if you're running one it's still worth it, though i would recommend doing your own research. The Kabbalah book in the series would also be useful. Not as good as it could be.

No comments about Realms of Power: The Divine (Ars Magica Fantasy Roleplaying).

No comments about More Mythic Places (Ars Magica).

1 comments about Covenants (Ars Magica Fantasy Roleplaying).

1. Ars Magica is an interesting line for a rpg. On the one hand the game is set in 13th century Europe; therefore there is a historical basis to the game. On the other hand the major characters are wizards, and that of a not particularly medieval stripe. This being said, Ars Magica is, after 30+ years of gaming with various sets of rules, my single favourite system. I looked forward to Covenants because it was going to be the first serious attempt to nail down the "metacharacter" of the game, the covenant itself, since the 2nd edition. Sadly, it did not live up to my expectations.
   
   The current notion of how to create a covenant is different from in earlier editions. Previously the creation of a covenant was an absolute endeavour -- you created all of the parameters of the covenant, top to bottom, with the notion that there might be rules within the covenant itself that might restrict access to certain sections. Under the 5th edition rules, however, covenants are designed stritcly around the players. Thus a covenant may actually have more goods and materials available to them than the created ratings suggest, at least in terms of magical volumes. This creates an odd situation. If, as I have had happen in various sagas, the players go over to the second generation (apprentices who become magi and take over for the primary magi, who are themselves more or less retiring to their laboratories), the covenant statistics are no longer valid. In simple terms, the statistics created for the covenant only work for a given group of players, not to older or young NPCs or subsequent apprentices. This is a failing.
   
   In Ars Magica money has never been of central importance. Characters have very broad, generalized "wealth levels". This has worked well in that no one has had to really think about where the money comes from. For covenants in the past this was a good idea -- how is a covenant able to support itself? A handwave would suffice. With this supplement, however, the covenant must know precisely from what source its monies derive. This creates a major problem. As most wealth in the 13th century derives from land, and land is not a saleable commodity, the covenant must come up with some sort of plausible reason for why it owns the land. In addition the supplements list a "typical" holding of lands for a covenant to be equivalent to "a large tract of wheat fields ... with a half-dozen villages." This is more than a standard knight of the 13th century would hold, closer to a small barony. Such a covenant, therefore, is not simply a landholder, but a considerable one. Certainly such a group, assuming it could even persuade others that they have actual rights to the lands, would be drawn into the mundane conflicts of the day. Prices for various commodities are provided, yet not how quickly such items would be used up, so the costs versus needs are impossible to calculate.
   
   Now while such sections seem to balance more towards the mundane, concrete, and historical side of the equation, the supplement also has material that, quite improbably, leans heavily towards the fantastical, bordering on the Moorcockian. There are options for mutable and flickering auras, pattern Warping, predetermined natural disasters, fantastical cavalry, death prophecies, and other bizarre environmental factors. Of course this is all intermixed with hard-and-fast rules on realistic fortifications and maintainence, so it is hard to tell precisely which direction the authors meant this books to jump.
   
   There are also rules in here that make it much harder to run your covenant. The rules on prevailing loyalty are horridly broken was written; there are fixes to this over in the errata section at Atlas Games, but they do not go far enough. Instead of merely adding flavour to the game, it is now nearly impossible to have loyal covenfolk. The Extended Rules section on the writing of books, while appear to add extra options, instead takes the core book writing rules and declares that the only way to achieve the levels of Quality found in the core rulebook is with a greater expenditure of money and time than the core rules call for.
   
   There are also a great number of spells of questionable use in this book. The Scribal Magic found in Chapter Seven, while quite charming, has no use or application. While each of these spells seem to be useful to the game there is again the problem of we do not know just how much is needed materially to create books, thus the spells, while at first glance useful, cannot actually be sued in the game. They create specific amounts of material needed for writing and copying books; since we do not know how much of this material is needed, the spells provide no benefit.
   
   The book is not without redeeming features. Chapter Six, which deals with Vis Sources, is both imaginative and charming, the sort of thing that provides great colour to any saga.
   
   Overall this book could have provided great material for Ars Magica sagas. Instead it provides minutiae that confuses many players, dwells on mundania that ultimately confuses the issue of the place of covenants in the Mythic European landscape, creates extra rules that limit (rather than adding to) options, yet also provides fantastical elements to add into a realistic setting. I cannot recommend this volume for any serious saga.