I've been working on a project lately, fusing the Elementalist, Folk Witch, Gruagach, Learned Magician, and Night Walker traditions into a single cohesive structure and shift things around so that everything is compatible with everything else (and also changing some Difficult Arts and Abilities into normal Arts and Accelerated Abilities) in an effort to make something as powerful and versatile as the OoH. This is mostly just to learn more about the processes that might go into making such a tradition in the course of an actual saga or setting history, and just because I thought doing so would be fun. However, I noticed something while working on it earlier today. I'm pretty much using all of HMRE's traditions, and the only one I deigned not to use, the Viktir, is Gifted-only. So if I were to attempt to use my (yet-unfinished) creation in a saga, there would be no Hedge Magic traditions left (with the possible exception of Folk Witches still existing, since they're a cultural thing, hard to root out, and a nonthreatening minority anyway) as I had assimilated all of them. Of course, that leaves fewer potential plot hooks, and more importantly, it would leave nothing for any of my players to try to integrate to improve their Magic Theory, and all developments would be based on Original Research, which is fun but not quite as exciting as interacting with other exotic magicians and negotiating or fighting for magical secrets. Rival Magic exists for the negotiations and Ancient Magic could potentially provide the whole "looking through ruins for exotic and dangerous magics" feel, but I'd still like to have UnGifted traditions that are clearly weaker than the new Order-esque magical body which have things this body's researchers could attempt to research.
So... Anybody made any Hedge Traditions from scratch that might work to repopulate the culture of a world I might bring this in on?
Well, as a starting point: There's no reason all those traditions need to have been fully destroyed. Yes, there's a tradition that has gained most of their powers... but the OoH had already done that for many of them, and that didn't wipe them all out.
I do have a few variant ones I'll try and put together into readable format later.
On spanish, but i've made some Tradition/Societates (Mostly they are variations from Hedge Magic RE examples). Here one example and here with others, every example. i am working on one Cloud dealers7Weather wizards/Tempestary variation too, and more example of Learned Magicians.
That is a rather good point. So they wouldn't be fully destroyed, but rather reduced in relevance to the level that village dowsers and such have in the standard game (with the exception of Learned Magicians, perhaps, because they have a bit of political force and would probably be useful pawns for flushing out intelligent Gifted individuals). Interesting idea. I'm still quite interested in those variant traditions you mentioned, so do please share when you have the opportunity, but I may keep some of the old traditions around to some degree.
I don't have any Hedge Traditions to provide for you, but as a bit of advice, I actually recommend against retaining old traditions unless you want to change the feel of the game and remove a degree of variance. This is just my opinion, but having those traditions stay around leaves the possibility for non-magus characters to utilize those traditions; companions can be any one of those Hedge Traditions, and grogs can be Folk Witches or Nightwalkers. You could always say "no" to that kind of character, but it would be easier to just remove the traditions from the landscape. Otherwise, you've got companions (and maybe even grogs) who are literally utilizing some of the exact same magic as your magus character, and they'd get a good bit of benefit (and thus an increase in power and, as a rule, general importance, which is bad for grogs) out of learning the Magi-equivalents' Magic Theory. I mean, there's a big reason the rules don't currently support the creation of companions and grogs who can learn and use, say, Creo Ignem or Rego Terram or whatever in its entirety, getting individual spells or spell-like powers at most. If this fused tradition is to be as powerful and varied as Hermetic magic, with Theory that applies to all of those lesser sub-traditions... Well, it's for the better if all those traditions simply get subsumed and contained within the (presumably Gifted-only, considering the number of Supernatural Abilities/Arts) Order-equivalent magical body. Just my two cents.
In general traditions are never fuly integrated. In Hermwetic Theory there is plenty of stuff that is said to have been integrated only partially at best if not 90% non-integrated. Bonisagus was looking for common points in the different magic systems, and adding bits and odds from the rest of each tradition. For example hermetic magic items (even hermetic Verditius magic) is said to be sensibly less powerful than what Verditius himself could do, like creating aura-creating stones (Rhine tribunal), that he considered to be just trinkets.
So, quite a few of the stuff that these traditions can do should NOT be available in an integrated system. Tattoo magic should be out, for example, as should chartae or the stuff that allows for aura penalty reduction of the natural magicians. There should be enough abilities left out to allow for integration.
Also, there are a lot of other traditions that you are not using (rival magic, basically and a few in ancient magic) that could also boost this integrated system of yours. Plenty of options in the end
This. I'm not planning to have everything in the final product; I'm taking the parts that I view as working towards a whole that works well within itself, and generally that means removing a good bit of excess (particularly, since they're already giving so much related to crafting and binding magical energies, Folk Witchcraft probably won't be doing much to integrate its Supernatural Abilities). Of course, this also means that I'm generally using the main parts of any given tradition or have individual bits integrated in unique ways different from the precise usage of the starting tradition... For example, I am planning to have a mixture of Original Research and the concepts of the Chartae working towards a sort of spell-searching system, to make them more flexible.
Vincent does have a good point, though, about it not really making sense to have the individual "pieces" of traditions coming and benefiting from the Magi's advancements in their little area. I mean, sure, Verditius had plenty left for the Order to try to integrate, but we don't see Verditius' old tradition waltzing around to have their magic aura rock-making and other secrets integrated in 1220... Do we? Or did I just miss that supplement?
Well, I have tinkered with a few ideas for Hedge Traditions, but as they were strictly the interrogatives of individual antagonists, I never bothered with complete write-ups or extensive playtesting of their powers. Generally, however, one can get a lot of mileage by reskinning the published hedgies...
With just a few changes, and my interpretation of how the existing rules already are, Learned Magicians could give Hermetics a good run for their money.
If their version of parma were PM*5 + Magicam, that would be awesome.
They would also need a less severe version of what happens when 2 points of Warping.
Access to more Hermetic Virtues, the ability to master charms, Flexible Charm virtue, etc. Especially if these were classified as Supernatural Abilities. (Some traditions call the hedge variant virtues Supernatural, others Hermetic; I suspect this inconsistency is not deliberate.)
Um... Okay? I'm not sure what the point of this is. I'm not really aiming to create some Order-defeating force, I'm just wanting to fuse the traditions, and aiming for having both the power and versatility of the Order as a benchmark. And anyway, the point of the thread is replacing the Hedge Traditions, not helping with the fusion.
Though I just want to say, I think the thing you call an inconsistency is probably no such thing; some variants are Hermetic, i.e. only the Gifted can use those variant Virtues, while some are Supernatural and accessible by everyone. Still, making the Learned Magicians hypothetically comparable in power to the OoH doesn't really help me with anything I'm doing here.
I created a Virtue Alchemist by combining pretty much all the various Alchemy rules. Their "special ability" was the ability to extract any kind of vis they want from an aura. Not just any (form) of vis but also any technique or any of the special types of vis from ROP:Magic. So they could create custom spell like vis or custom Objects of Virtue. They could also create Items of Virtue and I even toyed with the potential of creating Beasts of Virtue.
Despite the name, "Hermetic" Virtues are accessible to only those with the Gifted (although a subset are further only accessible to Gifted magi). Whereas "Supernatural" Virtues are accessible to anyone.
So, there is a deliberate point to the inconsistency, and I have tried to remember this when writing traditions up. No guarantee that I (or other authors) have actually always done this correctly however.
