My maps from the playtests that I hope may prove of use to some of you who have not seen them before
CJ x
Brilliant maps - thanks
Cornelius, have you considered joining us at www.grandtribunal.org in Cheltenham, UK next weekend? I may be persuaded to find some more maps for those there 
cj x
I found the most interesting Catalonian Mythical creature, one elemental spirit: The Pericó. It's one metalic genie thatn to evade fire from the forge, make themselve material and grow until gigantic size and it can be warded making the metal sounds, beating it.
Catalonian description here.
As promised, here’s a summary of some of the best known myths and legends from Catalonia. I’ve tried to present them as succintly as possible, but this will be a long post nonetheless. If anyone here wants more information about one or several of these legends, I’ll be pleased to provide it. I have used several tractatus and summae as bibliography, 90% of them written in Catalan and the rest in Spanish. I can provide a list if anyone is interested. I tried to focus on the legends with the greatest potential to Ars Magica storytellers and troupes. Also, any translation of Catalan names and terms into English is mine. That said, here we go.
Hercules and Pyrene
Several versions of the legend that tells how Hercules created the Pyrenees exist, but in every one he does so as a funeral mound for the beatiful princess Pyrene. One of the most popular in Catalonia says that in the days of Tubal, king of Iberia, the three-headed giant Geryon invaded the peninsula and took Tubal’s throne, ruling as a monstrous tyrant. Geryon decided to kill Pyrene, daughter of Tubal, so his lineage would end forever, but she ran away and took refuge in the northern forests. When he realized where the princess had fled, Geryon set ablaze the whole area: entire forests burned and uncountable lives were lost to the flames. Hercules, who had been fighting giants in the Provence, saw the immense red glare in the horizon, and knew that some dastardly deed was afoot. He arrived just in time to find Pyrene still alive, but even though he rescued her from the fire, the princess was too weak and died in his arms. With her last words, she asked him to free Iberia from the monstrous Geryon. Hercules, saddened and furious, began piling boulders and rocks, intent on creating the most majestic mausoleum the world had ever seen, a huge wall of stone from sea to sea, and the last huge rocks he threw into the Mediterranean Sea, forming the Cap de Creus.
Even today, fire remains a central element in Pyrenean folklore, especially around the festivities of St. John’s Day (aka Midsummer’s Night), when falles (torches made of pine or evergreen branches) are lit on top of the Canigó, one of the most magical and symbolic peaks of the Catalan Pyrenees, and relayed across Catalonia in a spectacular nocturnal display. The torches are used to lit the bonfires that burn in every town and village of the country with the same fire, the Flame of Canigó. This tradition is so old that no one is really sure when it began, but it is probably pagan in origin.
Canigó, Realm of the Fae
The Pyrenees can boast of some mighty and majestic peaks, covered in eternal snow, but none of them has a reputation as an enchanted mountain as Canigó (Canigou in French). One local legend says that the first rock that emerged from the water after the Deluge was its peak, and that it is there where Noah tied up the Ark. The shepherds of the area still say that the Ark still lies there, buried under perpetual snows, waiting for the day when another Deluge will come and humankind will need it once again. Also, in ancient days it was said that Canigó was the palace of the Fourteen Winds, of which “seven of them are good and seven are evil”. In fact, one of its peaks it’s still called Tretzevents (“Thirteen Winds”).
But despite these unrelated pieces of folklore, the reputation of this mountain is first and foremost related to the faerie realm. Canigó was the dominion of faeries and Encantades (Enchanted Ladies, or perhaps, Enchantresses). Her queen was Flordeneu (Snowflower), so fair and beautiful that her powers of enchantment were irresistible. Legends tell of how she enraptured and stole the heart and mind of the good knight Gentil, son of Tallaferro (Ironcutter), the noble and heroic count of Besalú. While monitoring the advance of the Saracenic army from atop a watchtower at the foot of Canigó, the knight sees the blinding white gleam of the mountain’s snowy slopes, and he feels attracted to it. Alas, it was not the gleam of snow, but the light of the faeries’ white mantles while they dance around the pools and mountainside lakes. Enthralled, Gentil abandons his post and climbs the mountain to find them. When he meets Flordeneu, he falls desperately in love, prisoner of the faerie queen’s glamour, and likewise she falls in love with him. He remains the rest of his short live there, in Flordeneu’s ice palace, with his sacred duty as a knight and his loyalty to his motherland all but forgotten.
The legend describes with quite some detail the number of faeries and water maidens that dwell in Canigó and its surrounding peaks, lakes and streams, and Flordeneu regales her mortal lover with stories and events from the history of the Pyrenees, even going back to the passage of Hannibal with his elephants and even before. The story of Flordeneu and Gentil ends tragically when the nobles of the land discover the bewitched knight’s desertion and one of them, Count Guifré, finds him playing his harp in the slopes of Canigó and, furious, slays him. Flordeneu’s revenge is brutal and sorcerous, unleashing supernatural storms full of jagged lightning and earth-splitting thunder. Eventually, this chain of events culminate with the nobles of the land -led by Tallaferro- planting a huge cross on the top of Canigó, banishing the faeries from the mountain and putting an end to the days of Flordeneu and her court. It is said that they diminished in stature and power, and that their beauty and glamour melt away like their frozen abode, but that they still roam the slopes of Canigó as witches, celebrating dark vengeful rites in sabbath nights, summoning with their staves a dense mist that rises from the waters of the pool of Calandrà to protect themselves from prying eyes. Many more faerie tales and folklore revolve around Canigó, and like this one, most of them are readily adaptable for an Ars Magica saga. Places like the Black Pool, whose waters turn local shepherds into wolves in Midsummer’s Night, or the holm oaks that gave shelter to the fairie exiles from Canigó and whose leaves, in exchange, were turned into gold, crystal or honey, practically beg to be used. Vis source, anyone?
Montserrat, Mountain of Mystery
The many jagged, serrated peaks of the ridge of Montserrat, have been of symbolic and religious significance since Pre-Christian times, and its outlandish form and bizarre silhouette has always suggested mythic origins. Many legends speak of how the mountain rose from the waters of a huge sea that in elder days covered the Catalan heartlands, and in fact, geologists and paleontologists have discovered fossiles of marine creatures in its rocky mounds. The romans already built a temple to Venus in the mystic mountain, and centuries later, Christian priests built an abbey on its heights, probably around 880, when a mysterious black-skinned Madonna was found in a cave by some child shepherds after they saw a light shining on the mountain and a rain of meteors illuminating the night sky. La Moreneta (or “little dark-skinned one”) became the patron Virgin of Catalonia. Legend has it that the benedictine monks could not move the effigy, so they had to construct their abbey around the Virgin, on the mountaintop. La Moreneta belongs to a tradition of Black Madonnas scattered around Europe, and her skin, facial features and mysterious origins have been the source of speculation and legends for a long, long time.
One prophecy related to the Book of Revelations predicts that time will end as it began: with Montserrat, the cosmic mountain of the Catalan people that emerged fully formed from the sea, sinking again in the waters while the Black Virgin ascends to the heavens, taking with her the souls of good Christians. This mythic status is just one example of a widespread belief in mountains of cosmic importance in different mythologies and religions of the world. It would not be difficult to use Montserrat as a powerful seat of the Dominion, or even a Divine Regio. There is yet another legendary aspect of Montserrat, also related to the Divine realm, that can be useful as a plot hook: many legends say that it is here where the Holy Grail of Arthurian myth remains hidden even today. This forms part of a legendary corpus that connects the Cathar heresy and the Albigensian Crusade with the Grail, and therefore is very interesting for any storyteller running a saga in the Provençal and Iberian Tribunals. Many have identified the fantastic mountain of Montsalvat, found by Joseph of Arimathea and chosen by him as a final resting place of the Grail, with Montserrat. Among them were the Nazis. Obsessed with mysticism and the occult, Heinrich Himmler founded the parascientific society (or sect) Ahnenerbe, dedicated to find the mystical origins of the “Aryan race” and some relics of mystical power such as the Stone of Scone, the Spear of the Destiny, and of course, the Holy Grail. Though this seems extracted from the script of the Indiana Jones movies, the Ahnenerbe was a very real organization and their pursuits took them, among many other places, to Occitania and Catalonia. While Otto Rahn (another famous Nazi occultist) combed in vain the ruins of Montsegur, Himmler himself visited Montserrat. There he requested to visit the underground passages beneath the abbey, inside the mountain itself, but the Abbot, Father Ripoll, rejected his request. In the face of his refusal, an outraged Himmler exclaimed: “Come on, everybody in Germany knows that the Grail is in Montserrat!”
The Infernal and Magic realms can also be used in connection to Montserrat. Popular imagination has imbued with legendary meaning many of the unique rock formations that conform the ridge’s peculiar outline, attributing its formation to the works of giants or the Devil. It is said that Infernal activity is peculiarly strong around the holy mountain, seen by the Devil as a divine bulwark that has to be subdued. Many myths see the outlandish mountain as the site of a constant battle of good against evil, with the epic forces unleashed by angels and demons leaving huge scars in the mountaintops. Such an eternal struggle surely will drawi in the magi in any nearby Covenant...
Okay, that’s quite a lot of text. Despite my (admittedly half-hearted) attempts at brevity, this is becoming way too long. In order to stop myself from writing a summa here, I think it is a good idea to divide this overview of Catalan mythology in multiple posts. If you want me to shut up, just tell me, you still have a chance! 
. If you found this long post useful in some measure, please tell me too and I will proceed to write the next one.
Salvete Sodales!
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Via Google Translate for those of us non-Catalan speakers:
Sounds like a Magic aligned jinni to me... but one that can assume (ie via Don the Corporeal Veil) a metallic form and/or animate inanimate iron (or metal) objects. Vulnerability to Folk Tradition Minor Flaw should cover the last sentence implied warding, otherwise use the Traditional Ward Minor Flaw (it's from RoP:F but would suit the concept).
Lachie
That's great stuff. Thanks!
In particular, thanks for the Cap de Creus information. It's the leftovers.
Canigo sounds like a great place for a covenant, especially a faerie or dominion related one.
Monserrat also seems like a great place for an Iberian covenant, and maybe it will be. Apparently it's a creation mound, like the benben in Egypt.
Thank you very much Greywolf for all those legends. Much food for thoughts !
Yes, but what are you thinking about Faith & Flame?
That's what I'm wondering.
-Ben.
Well, that's right, sorry for the threadjack. That's why I refrained from posting more walls of text with other Catalan myths and legends. I get carried away way too easily! 
Perhaps it would be better to post them in its own thread? In all fairness, though, both the legend of Pyrene and of Canigó are as useful to sagas set in Provençal as they are to those set in Iberia (as the magi of Mistridge in the pbp saga I run will soon discover... 
)
And the Myth of Pyrene is covered in there, along with some interesting options for her children, and then hooks for other stories in that region, like Val Negra, or the Song of Roland and Durendal. Possibly even Ara Maxima Nova.
-Ben.
Cool! My copy of Faith & Flame has not arrived yet... Glad to hear that some of my favourite legends are included! I. Can't. Wait!
Came home from my holiday yesterday so I started reading my copy of the book and here are some off my thoughts (a few of them might have been adressed already, but i have not read the entire thread yet).
The Good:
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) I loved the history chapter and all the information of the Cathars (having made my master thesis about this group and the crusade, i can say that for a game supplement, you really nailed it there. You really gave enough information for gamemasters and players to have a lot to use and know, should they wish to play Cathars, but with the same time keeping the info short and not letting it take to much space).
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) The maps were wonderful, and I really like how you o the full page map also showed the Normandy Tribunal (or most of it).
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) You managed to keep most of what was important from the old WW supplements, but at the same time making your own tribual. Personally I will miss Mistridge, Doisstep, Windgraven and Larriander, but I understand what and why you did it, so you are all forgiven.
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) Te art and especially the Cover art is stunning.
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) Though it is sad to lose Val Negra, that chapter is so awesome!
The Bad
- ) I feel that there should have been more info of the fall of Mistridge (and windgraven) as it is such an iconic part for Ars Magica.
The Ugly
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) Tres! where is his band mentioned in chapter 5?
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) Chapter 8 is called chapter 7, so you have chapter 5, 6, 7, 7, 9
I hope you will post all the missing stuff on the erata or another page here on this site, would be sad iff one must buy a fanzine just to get things that was forgotten which is refered to in the book.
I think a Catalan (and other regional) legend thread is a fine idea.
I have probably 7-10k words of cut material (15ish pages, possibly a bit more), and some ideas that came up but just didn't have room-- but it will be going in Sub Rosa. As one of the two editors of the fanzine, we tend to produce a lot of material for Sub Rosa. It's not material we forgot to put in F&F, but the result of some very tough choices for what would go in and what needed to be cut.
I enjoy making the fanzine, and one of the things we do with it is publish the cut material from line authors who offer it. We don't profit from it, we just make more Sub Rosa.
-Ben.
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I do not mean everything that you did not put in, but things that might have been edited out by mistake, I mean like Tres' Band which you on page 25 state: "The Infamous magus Tres ex Miscellanea (See Chapter 1: History) and his followers have gobe to ground in the forests near Bazas in Gascony (see Chapter 5: Tres)" There is no sub-chapter in chapter 5 names Tres. This is what I mean.
That was just a reference which managed to sneak past after we cut the block. We actively decided to save the wordcount used with his statistics. You might get a peek if you go to Grand Tribunal UK.
-Ben.