Sounds pretty groovy...
Discuss!
V
Hyperboreans whose spells lasted a generation
necromancers of Canaan who could summon any of the dead
rune magic that brushed aside Magic Resistance like cobwebs
...
This book contains descriptions of nine forms of ancient magic
[size=150]Eat your "limits", Bonisagus![/size]
I LOVE that this edition has taken the next step in resolving stuff like "what the Enigma is", how to intergrate non-Hermetic magic into the PCs spell book, etc. Bravo.
Of course SGs have been intergrating this stuff all along, but it's GREAT to see an "official" system (which we can take whole cloth, modify, or discard).
Sold!
Hurrah!!!!
Jubilations!!!
I've been waiting for this - ohh Christmas will this year be so bittersweet with Joyfull anticipation!!! 
Hook, Line, Sinker... Just show me who to give the money too...
And Please Please, where are the Old Ones? Where can magi find them? How do they track them down? What perils await!? Is the great god Pan really dead? What great stuff is still lying around?
So many questions, so long to wait...
9 forms, 7 authors.
Canaanite necromancers - interesting.
Westernmost edge of the world - Druids?
Rune magic - about time, but probably not trollsynir etc.
Hyperboreans.
That leaves 5 others...
Shamans?
Egyptians?
Natural Magic?
Sounds like TMRE Vol 2 a bit though rather than a hedge magic book.
Jarkman
Sweet.
I finally got Mysteries and Infernal. Now that I have these books I can understand the numerous discussions I've been out of. Ah, it's good to be back!
And we bid you welcome back in our midst!
And congrats on the arrived tomes!
It's not TMRE Vol 2. No Mysteries, for one thing. It's also not a hedge magic book. It's its own thing.
It is aimed at players of Hermetic magi, however.
Thanks for the clarification David - although I must admit I'm more confused than ever now!
Regards,
Jarkman
Hmm, from the blurb I get the impression that this book is going to be the big treasure trove of high-end non-hermetic magics of yesteryear. It's going to differ from Mysteries in that this is raw non-Hermetic magic for PC hermetic magi to quest over and rediscover, well before anybody integated it in Hermetic practices via Mysteries or research. If anybody in the setting will have to build a Mystery around these secrets, it will be the PC. OTOH, it's going to differ from hedge magic (which I guess will have its own book in late 2007 or 2008) in that this are powerful, earth-shaking magic secrets of "dead" mystical traditions, of power comparable to Hermetic magic. It's not the pitiful trade of the "living" minor non-Hermetic folk magic traditions which scuttle and cower on the fringes of the Order.
As I had it explained to me at Gen Con it is a book of ancient, non-Hermetic magic. Several different traditions, spells, virtues and abilities. Not exactly Hedge Wizards, more like a few examples of what traditions were practiced before the Order destroyed them all 
It's also going to include rules for PCs to find these magics and how they can, through great risk and effort, intergrate them into Hermetic Theory, making breakthroughs akin to Parma Magica and the Hermetic Portal.
I think it "could" be used to outfit a Hedge Wizard, they would just be practicing an ancient technique passed down in secret for years.
When I was being given a hard time for decisions that were supposedly mine in another thread, I recall saying that there has only ever been one bit of writing where I went from concept to finished piece doing pretty much exactly what I wanted. Not constrained by the very design of the book, or David's needs for the line, or the playtesters. I said you probably wouldn't see it for years.
It's in this book.
I can't talk about the content, but I would like to say that unlike a lot of the other books, which necessarily have a structure based on their topics, this book allowed each of the authors to just get a charming concept and work out how you'd tell stories about its rediscovery.
I'd also like to just point something else out: the next two books are just so different in terms of writing style. It's obvious from the cover texts, but I'll just point it out anyway. "City and Guild" has weeks and months of research into medieval trade boiled down into easy to use story form. Writing it was the most grindingly difficult thing I've done, and I'm sure many of the other authors will feel the same. The amount of work that's gone into just some of the tables of figures is phenomenal.
"Ancient Magic" has a certain amount of research in it, but because it is a bit more fantastical, a bit more epic, the writing was vastly easier and you can see it in the way that the authors have chosen really ambitious topics to work on. Mine's not one of the announced ones, but, I mean when you look at it, you know someone's sat down and said "Hey, I'd like to write about necromancers in ancient Caanan" "Cool! How about Hyperborea?"
I think the books will be great in part because there is such difference in the way they were written, and they will add greatly to the possibilities for styles of play. This is especiually true coming off Infernal, which has a completely different style again, with its possibilitiers for internal temptation and corruption.
Ah, the return of Chinese magi anyone?
Regards,
Jarkman
Oh, that's funny!
No, its something quite different. 8)
Diametrically opposite, in fact.
Zimbabwean spirit masters ?
Amerindian shamans ?
Aztec blood magicians ?
Australian Aborigen shamanic dream-travelers ?
Indian Yogi ?
Surely the title of this thread should be "Ancient Magic on Schedule?!?"
Atlantis?