atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG0285.php
The product page is up. I can't wait to see the cover art.
Woot! 8 Ex Misc traditions.
And there was much rejoicing until we were forced to eat Furion's minstrals!
Well I am certain that he would, even if he is in Twilight at the moment and even if I am not certain what it is he would be forcing you to eat (?). 
Gah, sorry I'm such a bad speller, I ment Minstrel:
A medieval entertainer who traveled from place to place, especially to sing and recite poetry.
Referencing Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
God, how pathetic. 50 words to explain a joke. I'm the worlds least funny person. 
Don't worry angafea, some of us got the joke the first time.
Anyone know which ex-misc traditions there are going to be? 4th edition HoH had spirit masters and a few others that i disliked so much at the time i can't remember them now.
Fourth edition had Beast Mage and Spirit Master. The fourth edition left out the "Witch" from the second edition House of Hermes. Apparently, the witches were just too silly for fourth edition. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that each of the Ex Misc traditions in Societates will be more detailed than the 50-word entries in ArM4.
There was no 4th edition HoH book. There was a Hedge Magic book that had Spirit Masters, Natural Magicians, Cunning-Folk, and Ascetics. Though hedgies and Ex Misc magi are often confused, they are not the same. 
Hopefully Furions minstrals have been restored to their proper zodiacal alignment...
Anyway...
I've been looking forward to this book since ArM5 came out (particularly the Ex Misc section, but increasingly the Jerbiton and Flambeau aspects as well). I'm very excited to hear that there will be 8 non-Hermetic descended traditions detailed, including their non-Hermetic powers.
I can see that we "had to have" the Divine, the Infernal, HoH: Mystery Cults and The Mysteries: Revised and perhaps even City & Guild with their developed mechanics before dealing with Ex Misc and Jerbiton although I suspect diehard Tytalus and Flambeau fans have been champing at the BoAF for this one as well.
I earnestly hope their is something more to Flambeau than the stereotyped Moor slaying pyromaniac hoplites that seem to be their inevitable role in ArM4 and previous editions. I wonder if Timothy's been assigned to cook up something a little bit different... that would really stir things up a bit.
Somehow I don't think this will have Natural Magicians.
Can't wait to see the Contents and Introduction preview in the coming months - I think this has been a really good change in the way Ars is projected and David should be applauded for this.
Regards,
Jarkman
Thanks, but I can't take all the credit. I pushed for the new-style tables of contents, but the decision to put that and the introduction online was John Nephew's (I think -- maybe it was Michelle. Or Jeff). Incidentally, the introduction to Societates is very, very short.
Incidentally, Timothy did Jerbiton, not Flambeau. And House Flambeau has, indeed, moved on a bit from pyromaniacs.
Kudos to all concerned then!
I'm happy enough with just the Table of Contents to be honest, but found the Introduction of C&G quite an interesting addition.
Aha!
Plenty happy with a Timothy vision of Jerbiton.
Honoured Line-Editor, do you care to reveal who did Ex Miscellanea or was it a team effort given the number of authors involved in the book?
Regards,
Jarkman
PS Mind you it would be interesting (or frightening) to see what Timothy would have done with Flambeau if he took a less conventional position on them like he did with Tremere and Criamon (both of which I enjoy immensely, but accept shook up many people on the Berklist / forums). Still, glad to see pyromaniacs are still pyromaniacs - a canonically level of pyromania being of course essential to any Ars saga regardless of edition...
It was a team effort. I thought that the diversity of approaches within the House would be best reflected by recruiting a diversity of authors. I don't think Timothy (Ferguson) or Andrew (Gronosky) did any Ex Misc traditions, but everyone else did. I'm very pleased with the way it worked out; the traditions are very different from one another, which I don't think we would have achieved with a single authors.
Sounds reasonable and interesting if the mechanics balance against each other for the particular traditions and all the existing hedge mechanics that have appeared in the recent supplements (Divine, Infernal etc.). Tricky.
Can't wait.
Which therefore implies that Andrew wrote either Flambeau or Tytalus. He's got a website with a Saga set in Venice amidst conflcit and strife with at least 3 Tytalus magi mentioned in the characters section. Hmmm.
Also, one of the authors wrote at least one Ex Misc tradition and one of either Tytalus or Flambeau. I suspect the other author might be Erik on the basis he's written a House in each of the other HoH books and provided some strong writing and mechanics for the 2 RoP books so far.
Then again, Mark did a pretty good job with Bjornaer and retconned the gruagach into the trollsynir and created the dragadrottin. Don't know enough about the other two authors (sorry guys, no offence) to make any educated guesses as to what they may have written but I suspect they scored an Ex-Misc tradition or two each.
OK, here's a punt since flattery seems to have got me so far, I'll appeal to sheer impudence and see if it gets me over the line:
HoH: Societas Authorship
Andrew: Tytalus
Erik: Flambeau, 1 or more Ex-Misc traditions
Timothy: Jerbiton
Other Worthies: Ex-Misc
(hopefully including the return of the gruagach via Mark?)
Impudently,
Jarkman
The speculation is fun but it's going to be some months before any of the authors, playtesters, or readers can confirm or deny Jarkman's guesses. 
I will, however, confirm that David is correct when he says I didn't write an Ex Misc tradition. 
-Andrew Gronosky
I considered pitching for them, using a version of the Cult of Vesta. They are the cult of the defence of the home, in Rome. The problem is that I'd misremembered: the Cult of Vesta appears in House Merinita. I didn't have time to shift gears and work up something.
The pitch for Flambeau that got up is really, very good, conceptually, as you can see from the cover blurb. It balances well with the way we have designed Jerbiton, Tremere and Tytalus, becasuse there was always the potential for a muddle there in the middle of the variuous House stereotypes. It's some really neat writing and my idea wasn't as good.
As David has noted, I revisited Jerbtion. The change is less severe that Tremere, who needed an exorcism, or Criamon, which had to take into account the new Mysteries rules. I don't think I've grabbed them and shaken them quite so hard. That being said, there are some suprises, and some necessary changes, and I'm really proud of parts of it. The big one is mentioned in the cover blurb, but I won't elaborate on it until the book is out.
Basically I wanted to say: my version of Flambeau was all sacredness of flame, Zoroaster, Vesta, Olympia stuff. I'm glad the other version got up, and I did my Jerbitons instead, because you can reconstruct what I would have done from bits and pieces of previous books.
No worries mate! I read your post and wrote my repply at a very unfortunate moment, having just returned from fighting a fire all through the night, including that during the turn out to the fire a speeding car crashed into one of our engines and several people were injured. I got back at 5.30 AM in the morning, my PC on as I left it. Thus I was in very bad contact with my humour-bone and I did not reckogise the Pythonian reference. Which leads me to this: do you prefer your ministrels served and eaten with Spam (a lot)?
And now to something completely different
I've earlier taken to calling 5th. ed. Ars for a revival, but their is no longer any denying that Atlas has moved past that by now. 5th edition is much more - it is to date the most fully realisation of the great potential of a great game; of the game many of us loves the most.
But moreso one of the most fantastic things is the generosity that we experience toward us the fans! That the developers make a point out of catering to us by giving us responses, dialogue and teasers on the forum. And last but not least, the joy that superb team of authors are not only doing a great work with their inspiring material, but that we get the access and opporunity to spar with many of them here! Cheers! 
Furion, I've never read a more impressive excuse for being in a bad mood. Cudos to your profession, and your energy to worry about the board after such events.
And I join all my board-mates in thanking Atlas and their talented writers in taking the time to keep us informed and entertained.
Cheers! And for the record I wasn't in a bad mood, I was just utterly spent. It was also more a lack of energy that caused a couple of replies than countered it - I sat down to shut the PC off, and to regain the energy to get back on my equally spent feet and drag myself through the shower.
Well, I don't plan on staying in the profession, but the amount of work we have these days and the long row of being called out at night is getting more and more of a distresful distraction to my attempts at studying. 
Interesting - thanks for the insight.
Yes, I've noted the "muddle-in-the-middle" before.
I'll be interested to see which elements have been retained and which have been introduced - I've come to the conclusion that many of my Saga ideas cannot be realised without a strong understanding of Jerbiton, so I'm looking forward to this section almost as much as the Ex-Misc section.
I'm a bit puzzled by the your last comment but I think I'll chew on it a while and go back over SoI and the original ArM3 HoH.
Regards,
Jarkman
Thank you.
Hmmm... this all looks very promising. Can't wait! 