I've been brainstorming up this idea for a big (potentially huge) regio where humans honor a set of magical gods who take a fairly active interest in their worshipers lives. Now it's kind of important that these gods are Magical not faeries or demons. It's also important that these gods actually care about or are at least are interested in humans.
This does go a bit against the current Ars Magica cosmology. Where magical "godlike" beings embody natural phenomena and "pure concepts" and also tend to be uninterested in humans. Faeries on the otherhand are all about people and will embody whatever concept get's the most people to tell their story. With the general idea that somehow fairy gods where magical beings who turned into fairy by being worshiped.
My Hack on this idea is there are a small group of gods that embody concepts that necessitate humanity. Things that only humans do or have. So the gods want humans around to promote and live up to the ideal the god embodies. The Gods do not however desire direct worship (in fact they're probably actively avoiding becoming fairies)
Concepts I've come up with. Law, Commerce/Trade, Medicine, Writing, Craft/Tools, War, Love/Romance, Philosophy?, Deceit(Trickery?) I wouldn't mind more ideas particularly bad guy aspects of humanity. Though I don't wan't to bad. Theft maybe Torture no. These beings aren't afraid of going cythonic but are avoiding going infernal as much as going fairy.
Now I'm trying to come up with gods that match these concepts. I want ones who are from a variety of pantheons from Mythic Europe's past (ie no Aztec or Chinese). And also not already prominent in the game (like Hermes, Hephaestus, Odin, Loki, Apollo).
So far I've got
Law=Tyr though I may use one of his other names like (Tiwaz) to avoid looking to Ed Greenwood.
Writing=Seshat
Medicine=Asclepius
Philosophy=an being that claims to (and might) have been Socrates
After that any ideas for matches to my current concepts or new suggestions.
I was under the impression that it wasn't magical spirits becoming faries, but rather faries binding the magical beings and stealing their power.
So the Titan (ie magical being) of the land was defeated by the farie god(s) of the Earth. The titan is still there, bound, doing its magical job of sustaining the universe, but the power itself is being filtered and manifested through the farie god somehow.
At least, that's how I understood the Titan section of RoP:M, (as well as the discussion of the titans in Rivals), and their description of the kosmomachina(?). Is there another discussion of the concept somewhere else?
Ataecina is one celtiberic deity, one Great Mother aspect. She works like one a good Daimon/Deity related to rejuvenation, healing, and fertility; the great power of the Spring. I am going to use her on my chronicle (One druidic seer Criamon with Spiritual Pact virtue).
The sidebar Geni, Gods, and Worship RoP:M pg 108 seams to propose the theory that the first faeries were magic spirits who learned to draw power and vitality from human worship. That's more or less what I'm going with.
It's "magic" - it doesn't have to follow one and only one explanation, and that explanation doesn't have to be simple, intuitive or "logical" to the mundane mind. The characters in Alice in Wonderland all followed "a logic" - just not one that made much sense to our minds/world.
There is the Greek goddess Ananke, or the Roman Necessitas. She is the goddess of Fate, and had no temples as Fate is immutable. She could be interested in promoting seers and diviners, however.
I have also once used Prometheus, bringing Technology to the world - he taught humans the use of fire, smithing, agriculture, crafts... You can use Wayland Smith for that, or adopt some other pantheon's smith-god instead of the too-obvious Haephestus.
There's also Asclepius, of healing and medicine, and/or Bacchus, of wine and drinking - almost any of the "lesser gods" could fit the bill. Music, any Art or Craft, War - anything that requires "humans" and human interaction (rather than something more "natural").
Even if they do not claim that one, specific (and so limited) Roman name and "sphere of influence", they could be the same entity, happy to adopt the name of any culture willing to worship them (and so give them the power they need to continue existing).
I actually found a fairly neat Canaanite smith/craft/technology god Kothar-wa-Khasis. So that's fun. I'm trying to stay away from big names in mythology going with more side gods or finding ways to file the serial numbers off of the well known ones.
For Darker Gods I'm thinking of including Dionysus but I'll use his Bromius name, Phobos and/or Deimos as fear gods but I might use there Roman names. The War deity might be another ascendant human.