I too read the AM5 canon as indicating that Odin and the Aesir are Faeries who have long been in conflict with primal Magic-aligned Jotuns.
Looking quickly outside Rival Magic, I find the following on page 108 of RoP:Magic --
If I remember right, similar statements appear in the Greek and Irish tribunal books with regard to the Titans and the Fomoire. I don't doubt that some epicycles and equants were introduced in RM and other works to try to square inconsistencies, but the dominant idea seems clearly to be Gods = Faerie and Titans/Jotuns = Magic.
It's not really so important, IMO. Canon is for authors, not players, and there's no reason we should be bound to any particular theme in our own games. A saga that wants to emphasize Christianity in more developed Western European lands is well aligned with a system that downgrades the Old Gods to faeries. A saga that wants to take Norse culture at something closer to its own terms is not.
I think that AM5 found a very clever way of dealing with a problem that AM had from the beginning, which is that the canonical 4 realms are purely a game construct not at all representative of any medieval classification. After so much AM tradition, AM5 could not easily go to 3 realms or do something different. The AM5 distinction between Magic and Faerie works better (impnheo) than those of previous editions.
I also think that the problem of Odin and Rune magic is well-spotted! Odin should be able to teach Rune Magic and perform Rune Magic. But the game mechanics for stuff Odin does with runes need not be the same as the game mechanics for stuff humans do with runes. If Odin's Rune Magic is presented as Faerie Powers, that works just fine, especially if that lets Odin do more with runes than lesser practitioners. Similarly, nothing prevents Odin from having the knowledge and ability to act as a Mystagogue to do the equivalent of opening a Gifted person to rune magic, via initiation. There is also nothing that prevents Odin from knowing magical Arts or teaching those Arts.
Finally, the boundaries between realms are fuzzy. Merinita and others have magic that is also aligned to Faerie. There is Infernally-tainted Magic and Holy Magic. The game does not spend much time on divine and infernal faerie stuff, but we know that there are church faeries and corrupted faeries. The only interaction that doesn't happen is between Divine and Infernal, at least not anymore or at least in theory. So if Odin has the equivalent of Merinita Magic, and if his Arts are not Pretenses, I don't see a real problem.
Ok, that wasn't finally. Finally, even more than other realms, Faerie breaks rules. Faeries don't do well in Dominion Auras... except for the ones who do. Faeries cannot change or go to heaven... except for the ones who do, or seem to. Faeries cannot perform magic, except for Odin and a few others. Since Faeries are intended to be NPCs (which I strongly agree with), the game is not harmed by lack of proportion.
Indeed. The interesting question is now, whether canon is explicit about just when and how these became faeries, and what happened to a previously existing Magical Odin.
Here we need to look at the text immediately preceeding the one you quote.
(underscores mine)
Putting the two quotes together again, we have here indeed an offer to troupes and SGs, to take these theurgists seriously and accept their theory into the saga. So some Magical spirits long ago developed into faeries to gain power from worship by humans. But it is not RAW, and we can expect to also be able to safely ignore these theurgists' claims without causing problems in our sagas.
I don't think I agree with you on this one. AM5 is overall the best of the editions but that doesn't mean it's the best at everything.
I frequently find that I want to define beings and entities that fit poorly into the Realms of Power categorizations for either Magic (unchanging, unconcerned with mankind) or Faerie (ephemeral, playing story roles for their own mysterious purposes). I never saw this issue in the older, less tightly defined, editions.
Yeah, we could do all that. On the other hand, we could just define the Aesir as Magical rather than Faerie if their followers use Magic-Magic and we don't want the entities themselves to behave like something out of Spenser's Faerie Queene. I know the latter variant seems more straightforward and elegant to me.
I find AM5 much better than previous editions, where faerie is "anything vaguely natural" or "you know, like the wonder of a fairy tale" or "hey, there's a summer and winter and light and dark; take if from there, and by the way here are some creatures from folklore that people like to call fairies so we will too, but check out our cool spelling and be grateful that we didn't also put a 'k' at the end of "magic."
I think that AM5's versions can do with some tidying up. But the realm of Magic being related to things as they are versus Faerie being related to things as they are related to human beings can be pretty useful.
If we have to have four realms, it makes sense to describe what they are. With that foundation, exceptions can be created as needed. My problem with the realms has been different, and AM5 didn't change that: Suppose a supernatural being tries to seduce me. It is probably safe to say that it is not Divine. But there are deterministic ways to discover whether it is an 'innocent' faerie or magic creature, rather than a demon. (Demonic immunity to Intellego goes only so far.) I don't mind defining the four distinct supernatural natures but I do mind this being accessible to characters. Going into a regio (or other place with an Aura, I guess) and not having a spell to determine the domain makes things far more interesting, requiring players to navigate with a moral compass rather than "Be careful; this is an Infernal place."
I see nothing in the AM5 rules for faeries that make them Spenser-like. In this, AM5 is vastly superior to previous editions. AM5 faeries can be Spenser-like, but they can be so many other things too.
That said, you're right that the AM5 faerie rules fray, and Odin is a great example. But the AM5 rules have all sorts of other issues regarding consistency and bloat, with this being far from the worst example. If you dislike the idea of a faerie teaching magic, by all means, make Odin Magic. (Not an issue for me, since having Odin show up as a god runs against my AM aesthetic; for gaming purposes, I'm with Captain America on this one .)
To me the big problem is the level of specificity. A generic Titanomachia is well and good, and you can still decide that some Gods were magic instead. With the Jotun in Rival Magic though, it specifically indicates that certain Gods are (regardless of was) faerie and not magical. The Greeks had a mythology where the Titans had been defeated by the Gods, and the Titanomachia fit. There was no such legend in the Norse mythology, and the whole concept seemed wedged in with a crowbar to make a one size fits all concept go where it didn't belong.
The RoP:M p.108 box Genii, Gods and Worship captures this reasonably well in "... the Faerie gods staged a coup and ousted the uncaring and aloof spirits of Magic from the thrones of the world. ... Odin and his brothers formed the habitable world from the bodies of the slain Jotnar; ..."
While I agree with you on the "vaguely natural" part of that statement, I liked the "wonder of a fairy tale" definition. To me, faeries are the mysterious, often whimsical, and not entirely logical creatures of fairy tales, stories which were not necessarily intended to be taken seriously by adults.
Although I dislike the way RoP:F explicitly makes its faeries playactors, I do think the books conveys the right feel to faerie behavior. They should act like characters in faeries tales. I'd be happy to overlook the meta aspect of the rules if fearie was confined to such beings and not extended to deadly serious entities such as Valkyries (since we started out talking about Norse mythology).
But don't worry, we still spell it "fearie" and not fairy!
Stated that way, of course. I have concerns when the desire for tight definitions and internal consistency gets in the way. I'm unhappy when "Mythic Europe" overshadows "Medieval Europe". In earlier editions, the problem was deciding whether an entity was Magic or Faerie when it could logically one or the other. Now the problem is entities that don't seem to fit well in either.
Forcing the Aesir into Fearie is one example of this. Another one that irks me, from a very different setting, is the text in The Cradle and the Crescent splitting the Djinn into Magic and Faerie. Only Faerie Djinn are allowed to profess Islam or vague pre-Islamic monotheisms, and the Faerie ones are only playacting (because that's all Faeries can do, apparently). This simply doesn't match the folklore and was seemingly shoehorned in to fit the tight RoP:F and RoP:M definitions.
Me too, with regard to anything on Odin's level. When I wrote Aesir I meant the entire tribe and hangers on, like the aforementioned Valkyries.
I can see this. When reading RoP:F, I frowned unhappily for some number of pages, until I burst into a huge grin, because I mentally substituted "NPC" for every instance of "faerie."
At that point, the real 'meta aspect' for me was that the book is all about story-oriented rp. NPCs exist for the story. The GM runs stories to extract vitality from the players, in the form of time happily frittered away. NPC motivation isn't very important, because they are not quite real: The real goal is to tell a good story. Each NPC exists to serve its role, and if you kill these, there are always more; if a story works the first time around, file the serial numbers, toss it at the players again, and they will probably enjoy it the next time around too, because that's how stories work. If you have the right story to hook someone, you can keep him on the same forum for decades....
Funny, in a macbre way, at least to me, but how does that help with AM faeries? Well, if you want to inject a storytelling adventure into a more simulation-style saga--and AM5 tries hardest of all AM editions to be 'realistic'--just add faeries. Too much fan service? No worries: Faeries. A tale of wonder, of the kind you seem to ask for? Faeries. Pan's Labyrinth, with wonder and terror? Faeries. Timothy's anachronistic faux horny Vikings? Dead serious Valkyries? There's a Faerie for that. Inconsistent but cool? Faeries. Want to be theologically correct but also want to redeem a demon? Faeries (Greater immunity to things that act specifically on Faeries; Special vulnerability to anything that acts specifically on demons.)
The danger here is that everything becomes Faeries in certain kinds of saga, that depart from the standard AM5 slant toward accuracy, historicity, etc.
The distinction between magic and faerie becomes a matter of how they are used. Faeries are 'sticky' and involve themselves with people just because. Magical beings might involve themselves with people, but are more aloof. Sort of the way you are more likely to interact with Apollo than with the sun (except to the extent of "uh oh, I'm getting sunburned." Titanomachia? The distinction mostly works, with perhaps a few Titans being part-Magic and part-Faerie, transitional.
Your deadly serious Valkyries? They're all about interacting with (dying) people, they guard a boundary (which you don't care about, but which does suggest they relate to people), and there is an endless supply. Leaving the Divine and Infernal out of this for a bit, they seem more faerie to me than magic.
Of course, it might be even better to dispense with any distinction among realms, and just say "Hey, they're Valkyries" or "Look, it's a kelpie." But that would require completely different rules, departing from all editions of AM.
Especially the scary ones
I definitely have some problems with the current rule set.
The rules for Faerie are more cumbersome than they need to be, but that's a general AM5 thing. They also don't go all the way enough. Suggested rule tweak: Killing a faerie is meaningful only in context, since it will always come back if it makes for a good story; faeries therefore don't care about your taking its vis, which becomes a reward for killing it. (You still break the Code for molesting a faerie that 'want' to be molested.)
Magic creatures sometimes behave unnaturally, because these behaviors are really Faerie. For example, dragons of the magic realm have little reason to behave draconically.
Maybe. But why? What would the Aesir do differently if they are of the Magic Realm? Maybe Rune Magic should really be aligned with Faerie, along with all the other Faerie Correspondences. Rune Magic is then all about understanding the Faerie Correspondences of each rune, which are kind of arbitrary, after all, more of a faerie than magic sensibility.
Only the fully-cognizant faeries are play-acting. Most faeries are dead serious. Kind of like LARPers .
There is absolutely no folklore for AM5 faeries; these rules are all meta, describing what they do rather than what they are. (Or, if you prefer, they are the very best rules for a realm since they describe faeries as game constructs, which they really are; the rules for the other realms are less accurate.)
Heck, you can even make your Valkyries Infernal. The nice thing about the 4 realms is that they serve as a useful tool for flavoring your saga, or the stories you plan to run that include Valkyries:
Magic Valkyries: They have a job to do and do it, because that's what they are. They might have a life outside of what they do, but this is less important. Story seed: Your unbaptized grog dies valiantly, and a Valkyrie shows up. His family and local priest are surprised and concerned, and perhaps try to prevent the valkyrie from doing her thing, or enlist the magi for help. Or: You wake up one morning to find the covenant surrounded by a throng of valkyries, who are just waiting. Is something bad about to happen?
Faerie Valkyries: If there is any story or folklore that suggests a Valkyrie might appear, or if you think it is cool, that's fair game! Perhaps one of them shows up at the covenant, begging a Flambeau renowned for bravery to rescue her sister, Brunhilda, who has been imprisoned by her father in a ring of fire.
Infernal Valkyries: These demons inspire warriors to bloodlust and atrocity, and eventually show up on the battlefield to reap their reward. Story seed: A grog or companion has become much more effective in combat, to the point of saving a magus' life, yet his behavior off the battlefield is beginning to take its toll on those around him, people who are less important to the magi. What is happening? If the magi scare off the Valkyrie, they lose a very effective combatant. If they turn a blind eye and pretend there is no problem, people will suffer. (The infernal Odin is a demon of madness, berserk rage and unholy magic; the one-eyed king of the spiritually blind. He will happily teach you the fulsome magics of the Dark Script, if you sacrifice your eye and otherwise prove your 'worth.')
Divine Valkyries: This one is tougher, because, you know, pagan. These angels appear in a form that pagans can understand, to make sure that warriors who exemplify the virtues of honor and bravery and are otherwise deserving make it to the circle of virtuous pagans, rather than left to the mercy of demons. Story seed: A ruthless magus is surprised when a valkyrie is impervious to his power, and decides to investigate what happens. Where will his journey lead him?
They don't just allow it, they do it pretty well. Unfortunately, they also pull other game creations in under the rubric of "faerie", including Norse and Greek gods and certain sorts of Djinn. To be sure, there are similarities between any sort of stories relating to the supernatural, but treating Hesiod as a fairytale misses the point, just as treating Genesis the same way would.
I like the way you put that but I think you really mean Ars Magica here, including not just Faeries but everything else too. Forcing every story to follow the outline of a fairytale or conversely generalizing fairytales to such an extent that any myth can fit into the "faerie" system isn't the way to go.
The Aesir don't interact with people "just because". Valkyries take the souls of dead heroes because Odin needs warriors for the End Times. Sure, in a Christian-oriented (and therefore more authentically High Medieval) saga, this is bunk and faerie impersonators can make for great stories. In a saga involving Rune Magic and Jotuns and the like, putting real emphasis on the Norse, the myth shouldn't be dismissed so easily.
The "just because" aspect works better for things like trolls under bridges. They can be deadly and it's certainly serious when you run into one, but nobody worries about how they get enough protein to thrive or why they enjoy living in places like that.
If Greek Myth is fairytale, it's hard to see why Cronus and Rhea are less "faerie" than Zeus and Hera.
It's not a problem if one just says "Hey, they're Valkyries. They have (whatever) Might and react accordingly on the realm interaction charts." This requires us to pin down their nature to some extent, but not in an overpowering way. It only becomes a problem when the rules requires us to say "They're Faerie/Magic/Divine/Infernal and therefore their real nature - as opposed to their supposed nature - must be such and such." Sometimes less is more when it comes to this sort of thing.
No arguments with either of these points. I remember you writing about your dragon issue. It might be a problem with the specific writeup of the magic dragons rather than a larger Realm issue. Although we're mostly writing about Faerie in our exchange, Magic also shoehorns entities into problematic categories such as "unchanging".
Maybe. We see that approach a lot in recently published works, aligning such diverse traditions as Persian summoners or ancient Egyptian Priests with Faerie. I feel like the "Magica" of "Ars Magica" is being neglected and would not like to take things further, but that's just my opinion. If everything story-oriented and supernatural is Faerie, maybe we should just join the two Realms.
We need to accept here a fundamental decision that was made about ArM5. Namely, that the Mythic Europe of the common people is aligned to medieval history, and specifically to 1220 AD and around. While the higher powered people gain their mindsets and communities from a larger set of options: Muspelli from the Eddas (written down since well after 1200 AD, but reflecting myths from 1000 AD and before), Hermetic magi from myths of the 20th century (reflecting earlier fairy tales), and so on.
Deciding to run an ArM5 saga really involving Rune Magic and jotnar in a way affecting also the common people and their beliefs requires going back in time in Mythic Europe - as some on this forum do. See for this e. g. How can you lose your gift? . Or subrosa #16Voventes Centennales for some support with it.
AFAICS, and I looked closely, there are no rules in ArM5 which lead you to make the Aesir faeries in such cases: just a few rationalizations of the 'it's said' kind offered to troupes which use standard 1220 AD Mythic Europe.
They're still not faeries though and I don't think primal Jotuns fit into the story.
It probably also wouldn't meet the expectations of players, who are more likely to want a more 21st century view of the Norse, in the same way that players would be uncomfortable with the 12th century attitudes of the followers of the various monotheisms towards each other.
Often the differences between beliefs, words and deeds at a time are vast. This also shows up in literary conventions and figures. I addressed this before on this forum for republican Latin literature, using the example of Lucretius.
To assume, that a 13th century reader took such an account for the literal truth, is somewhat naïve. Even more naïve it is to assume, that such a reader would express his disbelief e. g. about the euhemerism in the Heimskringla (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ynglinga_saga ) to those nobles told there to descend from Odin e. g. via Harald Fairhair.
AFAICS, putting flesh onto this kind of convention does not suit an ArM5 campaign. But its use might hint at a hidden interest in tales from the old gods in the 13th century, which faeries indeed might catch up and exploit.
If we talk about Hesiod, and whatever agenda he had as an author based on how he chose to present his material, we enter a completely different kind of conversation, about what we infer about the man rather than the myths. Yet once we start talking about the myths themselves, perhaps adding other sources into the mix, there really does seem to be a change in nature and focus as we transition from Chaos through the Titans and finally to the Olympians.
Classifying them as "faerie" doesn't mean that stories about the Greek gods are the same as fairy tales. Yet Greek myths do cover a lot of the same territory. Lot vs Persephone vs Bluebeard's wife? Arachne vs various tales about Baba Yaga? They also make for great children's reading; I certainly enjoyed them as a kid.
It's hard to bring Genesis into the conversation, because "the Divine" gets special treatment in AM. Maybe also because Genesis (and Theogony) are not written up as folklore, whereas our "fairy tales" are.
I do think it is fair to say that "faerie" does not adequately cover stuff that was part of a religion or other forms of worship. But within the framework of AM, which has to fit supernatural beings into four realms, I reluctantly think Faerie fits best, even though Odin and brownies are strange bedfellows.
I said and mean "story-oriented rp," regardless of system. Stories are constructs. They have organization and structure, without which they are not really stories. They tend to cover certain material and themes, and people have come up with lists of what those themes and elements are.
It is possible and often satisfying to run a game that is not story-oriented, in which events occur that sometimes seem like stories and sometimes not. RoP:F very firmly does not cover those gaming styles.
I do include "not just Faeries but everything else too." But I am not saying that RoP:F forces all stories to follow the outline of a fairy tale. I am saying that every fairy tale follows the outline of a story, and that RoP:F pretty much boils down to suggesting that if you a) strictly follow a story structure and b) include faerie elements (fairies or Greek gods or Norse gods or whatever; don't mix and match), you will get a suitable faerie (note spelling) story. RoP:F then tries to talk about stories and some faerie elements. This really does work, for mythology and folklore, whether it's about Odin or about a kelpie.
I also go further: One can apply the ideas of RoP:F but not use any faerie elements to get an adventure that works very nicely as a story. The fairy princess can be a real princess or even the blacksmith's daughter; the guardian at the boundary can be an ordinary ferryman or gatekeeper; etc. In storytelling games, NPCs exist for the sake of the story.
But one need not always run that kind of game or session.
There's always a reason for what a faerie does. Odin need warriors. Zeus needs wenches. Brownies need milk.
They interact with people, because that's what they do.
I think the problem is that magi can identify what things are, and classify them. I think things become a lot more interesting if magi cannot tell whether that angel urging them to self-sacrifice is from the Divine, looking out for their souls, or Faerie, looking to trick them into working their own doom.
I've had this problem since, oh, AM2? I prefer pixies to be pixies, not faeries. That dragon is that dragon. Odin is Odin, though that other Odin might also be Odin or maybe there is no Odin, only pretenders.
But.... I also find it helpful to have an idea about how the Divine works, how the Infernal works, what else is out there, etc. People like to categorize, and scholastics like it even more. I think it is reasonable for magi to try to find broad categories to span all supernatural beings.
As for magi taking things seriously.... there are magi who can nuke archangels by RAW. Magi who jabber about how, in theory, Odin is all in your mind is far less of a problem. (The larger issue is that it is very hard to inspire awe in any game, let alone the awe of Divinity or godhood.)
There is no protein in Mythic Europe, so it's not a problem for anyone.
They don't interact with people.
...which makes it hard for a baby griffin to grow into an adult griffin. I see it as a larger Realm issue.
Thanks! Maybe it's time to write more about Auras and Realms. I think the 4 realms are useful, but as perspectives on the supernatural rather than categories.
I probably didn't explain myself very well. Fairytales share some common set of characteristics that make them fairytales. It's hard to put in words exactly what this set is, but I think readers will usually know it when they see it. Accepting this, we can then generalize what "Faeries" are like.
RoP:F makes this generalization in game terms with its discussion of playing roles, seeking vitality, using Pretenses instead of skills, etc. All well and good so far, although we might quibble about some of the details.
The problem is that RoP:F defines fairies and fairytales much more broadly than I would like, seemingly to include any sort of supernatural fiction, or at least any that does not directly involve God and the Devil. I would suggest that Greek Myth (perhaps excluding the children's versions that we both grew up on) does not fit the pattern of the fairytale sufficiently for Zeus to be meaningfully grouped with Rumpelstiltskin. To be sure there are plenty of common elements, but these are also common to non-supernatural fiction. Liminal states and quest journeys, for example, appear in an awful lot of modern mainstream works.
Perhaps at a general level, although I'm not sure the does/doesn't concentrate on humans rule is the best test. But only on a general level. Odin and his more accessible lesser kin shouldn't get the package of fairy characteristics appropriate to the denizens of classic fairy tales or of more modern weird fantasy. It's also worth pointing out that the word "Faerie" carries a lot of baggage in terms of reader preconceptions. Certainly "interested in humans" isn't the first thing that pops to my mind.
The same problem with detailed sets of characteristics applies to Magic. Unchanging nature fits some Magic beings perfectly, some not so well at all.
I agree with the problem. I also agree that magi must have knowledge about supernatural beings, but it doesn't necessarily have to be correct. I'd rather that questions such as "Do Faeries have Souls" be answered through play, if they ever become relevant, rather than codified somewhere.
This is probably the greatest problem with Faerie in AM5. Lawyers and bureaucrats aside, words are for communication. AM5 fairies are not fairies as people understand them to be... even though AM5 usage might have sounder academic correctness. If I were to ask 10 ordinary people what fairies are, I doubt I'd get anything resembling an AM5 definition. I agree that's just plain bad.
Nevertheless, I still like the AM5 distinction. I can even use the AM5 realm distinctions to bolster your complaint that Odin and Zeus do not belong with Rumpelstiltskin: Rumpelstiltskin is definitely a faerie, because he only gets screen time when interacting with human beings. If there are no people around, he might as well not exist. But Zeus and Odin get plotlines that do not involve any people at all, and they don't even care about people in those stories. Therefore, they are not like the other faeries and are similar to beings of the Magic Realm.
ArM5 faeries are a creation by the authors of RoP:F, TMK in particular by Timothy Ferguson. A highly original creation.
You would never get the ArM5 definition of Faerie by asking 10 people from the street - or from academy - and processing the answers. This is very good, and the sign of true creativity.
Finding out where then to apply ArM5 faeries, and where not, appears to have been a process. I would say, that they do not help to represent beings, for which medieval cultures provided consistent, generally accepted theories - also theologies or consistent sagas conveyed by word of mouth. They come into their own when representing beings vaguely remembered, dreamt of or imagined by individuals, without an encompassing culture explaining them and their fascination.
As the subjects of such theories changed over the centuries, so do the beings benefitting from representation as ArM5 faeries vary by the era an ArM5 campaign is put in. ArM5 faeries can take over as soon as a religion or culture explaining a being, while still remembered, loses its authority. Think of the Greek gods in Euripides' dramas, the Roman gods in the poems of Lucretius or Horatius, or the Norse gods in Snorri's Ynglinga Saga and his introduction to the Snorra Edda. At these points in time the stories and concepts of these gods were no longer protected by authority or constitutive for society, but would linger on for many centuries still. That's when the ArM5 faeries living off human emotions preserve and represent them for play.
An 'it's said' rationalization for 1220 AD Mythic Europe, like the Titanomachia from RoP:M p.108 box Genii, Gods and Worship, is easy to provide. The work on the various euhemerisms (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhemerus) over many centuries was certainly harder, and less fun.
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