In a recent post-a-day thread, people were discussing some ideas for potential new third party content and what gaps needed to be filled. It was suggested that it might help to have a thread for people to simply talk about what would specifically help them in their own sagas. Be as selfish as you like here, and as broad or specific as you want.
For instance, my current in-person saga is set in the Pyrenees at a lost temple of Artemis with a nearby faerie regio. The covenant is a mix of Greek and Latin users and the action has been a mix of faerie/mythological tie ins and action related to hidden pagan cults on the one hand, and entanglements with the Albigensian Crusade on the other. So there’s a bunch of stuff I’m winging it on. I’ve got this thread going with the two Diedne lineage magi following cave paintings to learn lost Diedne magics, some of which I’m taking from Sub Rosa 13, but I really need some more advanced stuff to offer them to make it a whole pathway. Is anybody doing anything cool with cave paintings in general, actually?
I’ve also got this vengeful Artemis cult based on the Wolf’s Court from Mythic Locations based out of the regio, but the faerie version that’s akin to the German Vehm vigilantes. In addition to some fairly badass huntress nymph faeries backing up the cult, I’ve hinted at a lot of werewolf shenanigans with very much an Altered Beast kind of vibe (that old game was kind of an inspiration here) but I really don’t have the mechanics together. Anybody working on stuff with werewolves and the like?
Finally, for some future saga, I am fascinated by the plotline in Transforming Mythic Europe about abandoning the no-interference clause, but it’s really the end state that interests me more than the process. What would it be like to play a game where you’re doing things like acting as court wizard, assisting in a siege, arguing a claim to some resource against Count Bob next door? I’ve got a Crusader Kings background and I think that’s playing into this, truth be told, but also, I think I just appreciate alternate histories as much or more than the secret world thing we’ve got going now. What would a full treatment of a Mythic Europe that had gone this route be like as a place to play in? I’d love to see that.
Honestly, more than anything I would love a decent bestiary of faerie and magical creatures of mid to low might scores. I don’t mind generating my own, but sometimes it’d be nice to just grab and go, you know?
This might sound silly, but honestly just some history - I can do research obviously, but I think there’s a broad swathe of things that I think I know about about the time period of Mythic Europe, and I’m actually way off on when those things came about.
Some kind of “Common misconceptions” article or something, just to correct for assumptions people have.
Can you define your version of “mid to low" for me? It's easy enough to do, but I need to know your scale so I can see how it differs from Ars Magica Monsters. I do see those are on the mightier side.
At most 20 Might. My current saga has been decently high-fantasy so far with the troupe setting up in the more isolated parts of the Rhine Gorge and spending most of their time dealing with fae and seeking out magical regiones, so I’m always on the hunt for low-powered little creatures to populate the world with.
It would be good to have more low Might beings. Despite the fact Might 1-10 is the norm among Mighted beings, the statblocks is focused on statting the big supernatural guys- which whilst understandable leaves it to the SG to stat up the “common” entities and gives the false impression to many that 1-10 is abnromally weak.
One thing I would like is potential breakthroughs in experimental philosophy, especially how philosophers might figure out how to make stuff much more quickly (because tbh although inventing formulae should cost seasons, manafacturing them once invented shouldn’t imo). As well, I’d like a “snapshot” of various potential technological routes Mythic Europe might go with the current physics, both with and without magical incorporation.
In particular, I’d appreciate little-known folkloric beings rather than common fantasy schlop. There are ethnographical works listing thousands of minor myths and rumors which, once translated, would fall into the 1-10 might range. Chests that won’t open, gnomes that tie together cattle-chains, ghostly hounds etc.
I’ve personally translated a number of texts from sagen.at and Heyls’ Tirolan ethnography, but it’s hard work. Of course, a number of these tales are much younger than mythic europe, but they feel authentic nonetheless. Sprinkling them about here and there adds much-needed depth.
An easy way to pull together a printable sheet with a description of a character's spells to go along with character templates (i.e. I tell it the character has Pilum of Fire, and it adds a box with the full Pilum of Fire text without me having to start manually copying and pasting from the Rules).
This possibly already exists in Metacreator or something, but I was thinking of something more standalone.
I could probably do something with my old Magus character sheets but they need a fair bit of internal restructuring and work to be useful. In the meanwhile they are at least printable. Link here: Ars Magica
The grog sheets are much more advanced right now but it’s been a while since I had time to work on them.
(Perhaps this already exists) A comparable project to the AM Chronology Project, but, a greatest hits history book of the 13th+14th century feels like a really useful thing to have. Eg, what changes year by year, are there any noteworthy inventions or artistic occurrences*, are there any new kingdoms or cultural movements. The sort of thing where you’re running a saga and you forget that the Mongols should have invaded your story’s general territory a few years ago.
I do think the ideal version of this tool is one that could be sorted chronologically AND regionally, so probably not a PDF as much as a database of events, tagged by region (and perhaps personalities).
*Acknowledging that we probably don’t have hard dates for a lot of things, this is probably more in the order of “First mention of the treadwheel crane existing in [region].”
A History of Hermetic Magic: when was a certain magical technology invented (e.g. longevity potions for mundanes)? Useful for sagas set far away from 1220, e.g. during the Schism War, or the War against the Spider.
OK…I’ve been saying that in May I’ll do a “30 monsters 30 days” thing to do the second half of the Ars Magica monsters backlog from my blog. I’ll start earlier and deliberately pick monsters in the low power range.
David is the king. John is the Pope. We others are but knights, or, in my case, perhaps a distant lighthouse keeper, who has stayed at his post long enough to see the ships starting to come back in now the night is over.
I’ve mentioned this thread in the editor’s letter of Mythic Europe Magazine issue 2 (not yet available in stores).
After it’s out I’ll really get started on AMM3, with the promised goal of making things with small Might scores. (which I’ve made harder on myself by putting 4 of them in MEM2)
The point that I forgot to mention is that the future of the magazine is likely to be 2 issues a year, one of miscellaneous material (like issues 1 and 2) and the countercycle being themed. Effectively that’s been monsters previously, but for September this year we’ll do something else. Suggestion here, or in Darkwing’s thread of 30 products. The plan is to do monster a day for May, get that out in June, and then start the serious work in July.
A bunch of fully fleshed out grog templates for different personalities in villages/ cities/ covenants/ monasteries/ etc. It takes a lot of time to stat people out and that slows some of us down. And unfortunately some of us have OCD issues and need the stat sheets
Not saying it wouldn’t be nice for someone to stat up a bunch of them, but have you looked at the rules in the Grogs source book? Just throwing together a bunch of packages shortens the time greatly.
As a group, we have looked at it, but it really still takes time to put it all coherently on paper. Only a few of us really enjoy the character-making process but have limited time for it these days. A couple of the players are happy to sit down with a grog character and play in the session if there is minimal prep for them and like the setting and role-playing but aren’t willing to put together the character themselves. I have found that using templates from other adventures/sites/etc., I can alter a few numbers, write up a brief character bio, change a few merits/flaws/personality traits, and have them something fresh to play per session if I have something to start with.
These days its more important to have those people at the table than argue about who is doing the maths.
