Ancient Gods information

Listed in the core rulebook as an option to go to where the great ancient gods slumber to keep them from waking. Has anyone actually used the Mythos in their games? i am thinking about running a saga where the mages are approached by the church to work with an order of demon hunters to catch and imprison these beings but must also work with folklore witches and Verrik. Has anyone run anything close to this?

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I haven't tried to run anything similar, but there's some support in Ars Magica for a variant of this - the jotun / titans (extremely powerful magical rather than infernal beings) are noted as having been imprisoned, apparently by successor Faerie gods.

Rival Magic has a hedge tradition, the Muspelli, whose magic comes from Jotun patrons, and who are trying to free the Jotun. Dies Irae has a couple of potentially apocolyptic scenarios in which people come close to suceeding (or actually do, depending on how it goes...)

There's also a note alongside the Muspelli that they could be adapted to be "Makhai", a greek tradition trying to free the titans.

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thank you for the information. I am thinking that this could be a fun saga of being forced to work with other traditions and maybe coming into conflict with the hermetic society and to make matters worse this location is off the coast of italy and the inquisition is starting to ramp up making the witches very very nervous, but they are needed to reinforce the prison

That's a cool concept, but I haven't done anything like that. There was someone in the forums that did a saga based on the Prince of Nothing series, where the Consult plays a somewhat similar role in that they wish to kill everyone and are and wield monstrosities. Perhaps you can find some inspiration there.

The theme of waking up the Jotun/Titans is a favorite of mine. But somewhat different.

I have not, but I did stat the necronomicon's translator into latin:

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One of my concerns about the Titans plotline is that, according to the Theogony, not all the Titans are dead. Gaia, Rhea, and Hekate are all non Olympian gods (Titans) that predate Zeus.

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Practically none of the Titans are dead. Most of them are imprisoned though.
Some of them are still free - those that didn't oppose the Olympian gods, or even aided the Olympians.

We even have stats for the titaness Rhea - though she appears under another name.
See Mythic Locations, p30.

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Just had a plot idea for rivals- one for the Jotun one for the Titans trying to claim magic auras for their own traditions but isolating it from the rival group at the same time. Probably clashing in the Rhine as a middle ground.

That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die :slight_smile:

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I was thinking more along the lines of cthulhuian mythos with insanity and evil and combing it with infernal.

This has been discussed recently in the discord (the official translation of the necronomicon from greek to latin tales place in yhe game's time frame, most likely as a knock on effect of the 4th Crusade). The issue is that yhe Cthulhu mythos maps imperfectly to the 4 realms of ArM.

A story like the colour from out of space is a very neutral ine: a magical aura forms and gives people massive warping.

The Curse of Yig is more in the infernal direction, though faerie could be considered.

Cthulhu doesn't care as he lies draming, which is more magical, though his worshippers commit evil acts are infernal.

The Horror at Red Hook is racism, though it could be an infernal cult.

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We also have the Lunar Aura from Dies Irae, which is distortive and odd.

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I started taking notes for a similar concept about a decade ago, but never really got anywhere with it - I'll be curious to read about your results if you manage to do something interesting with it! :slight_smile:

There is that one story about a rebellious servant of God who, after a failed war, is imprisoned with his followers, from where he continues to trouble the world through spiritual projections into the mortal world.

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I actually got a lot of background here, as I am a novelist and i like to run games in the worlds I create as an author, this is the deep background for my firemountain chronicles books so i have the broad strokes, i just need to taylor it to ars magica and i saw in the corebook about the ancient ones slumbering which as we all know is a nod to Cthulhu mythos, so i think a bit of insanity and terror is a good way to do.

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I had completely forgotten that :sweat_smile: Thanks! :smiley:

Well, I understand Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen had played Call of Cthulhu quite a bit ao when "the Old Ones" first got a mention in The Order of Hermes for Ars Magica 2nd Edition that probably was a bit of a nod. However, in that book the Old Ones were pretty much identified with the gods of Egyptian and Greek mythology.
If I wanted to have anything like Lovecraftian horrors in Ars Magica stories I'd probably make them Infernal, and they couldn't be quite the same as the Mythos entities do seem to pretty much control the cosmos whereas with Ars Magica it's God running everything with the Devil lording it over all the Infernal Realm and its assorted nasties. This also means that characters in Ars Magica can have Divine powers that would make Mythos creatures a bit less fearsome.

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The Old Ones in Order of Hermes are pretty clearly a knockoff of the Tanu and Firvulag in The Many Coloured Land by Julian May.

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They're pretty much a knockoff of the Tuatha De Danann and the Fir Bolg though, aren't they?

Not so much a knockoff but presented as the true story behind the Tuatha + Fomorians (moreso than Fir Bolg, I think). Also, psychic/psionic aliens.

Quite a deep cut, though.

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