I would add Thrice Told Tales for the history of Spider's Coalition and Anglo-Saxon Runes that would still be around at the time.
I did not know that they were removed. That can also explain why there is no ritual to protect books against fire and water. I think that I will stick with the ArM4 variant and allow permanent rituals. I am used to them.
And do you know when it was extended? I did not find that in the chronology.
By the way, I found the following item, which is aligned with my hypothesis that Dominion reduces the amount of vis available:
C. 875: Juden of Verditius slays many clergy on the island of Sardinia, thinking to limit the influence of the Dominion and revive vis sources.
Just because a single magus believes something doesn't make it true.
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LoH, page 12, dates Conciatta's Vim Breakthrough Tractatus to 930.
Please don´t poke the whasps' nest.
The idea that magic is declining was promoted by White Wolf when they ran 3ed. It is not overwhelmingly popular with players. It may or may not be true in 4ed, but it is certainly less clearcut than it was in 3ed. It is best left to the troupe to decide what world they want.
If the Dominion quells old magic vis sources, it still does not imply that the total amount declines, because the Dominion may create new sources. The magi may still want to revive the old sources which they know how to harvest. Again YMMV.
As I always say, ArM is (to my perception) designed to be ambiguous. Magi and scholars hold different world views in character, and different views should be true in different sagas. (The only exception I know is the Criamon worldview, which is canonically false in 5ed. I think the author had a bad day. I'd prefer to have left that too ambiguous.)
I fully agree, there are many ways to understand how Mythic Europe is and many ways to play Ars Magica. And it is especially true in the 9th century because it is not when sagas usually are played.
My objective when starting this discussion is to get all the interesting suggestions and comments that you can give, and also to learn from all that has been created for Ars Magica during the last 20 years...
All this discussion about the various types of vis and the quantity of vis can help me to decide the house rules of this saga, such that they will be playable.
The last thing I have been contemplating on this topic, is whether some person with True Faith can be harvested for divine vis... I would say yes, that one Faith point is one pawn of vis. Same for relics.
I did not see a description of this book in the sourcebooks.
For my saga, I will consider that it is a summa of sixteen volumes of level 5 and quality 15: one volume for Magic Theory and one for each hermetic art. And that there are a sufficient number of copies for these books to be available in all covenants.
The rationale is that having 5 in each art is necessary to be able to open all the arts of an apprentice, therefore Bonisagus had the motivation to help the members of the order to reach this level rather quickly (one season per art). I suppose that Bonisagus was able to write more impressive summae on hermetic arts, but in this specific case my explanation is that he wrote all of them in three seasons.
I also have seen mentioned in the sourcebooks a few interesting non-hermetic summae written in greek:
- Euclide's Elements - summa Artes Liberales L4Q9 (AA p136)
- Ptolemy's Libri Almagesti - summa Artes Liberales L5Q8 (AA p136)
- Aristotle's Physics - summa Philosophiae L6Q12 (AA p136)
- The Herbal of Crateuas - summa Medicine L5Q14 (HoH:S p124)
And I am wondering if there can be a summa that helps learning a language. I only find examples of summae in Artes Liberales, and no summa to learn Latin or Greek, but I don't see why it could not be possible.
You should check out the very useful Index of Books By Ability
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I just noticed those two threads: So has anyone run a pre-schism war game? and Domus Parva 790 A.D. - alternate setting which are set a few decades before my saga. It seems that Heaven_s_Thunder_Ham is still active in the forum, but Argentarium is not.
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@Ptitboul thanks for the shout out. I've done much meditation on early history of the order games:
- Yes, all house covenants would be the large majority of the covenants. I would also strongly posit given my medieval research, that cross house covenants would likely be the result of the Magi knowing each other beforehand. These relationships would be from meeting at tribunals and writing each other regularly following. A lot of historical research is showing how much family/kin/friend networks were a lot more influential than previously thought on medieval activity and formation of big projects.
- The libraries will be really small. Likely some primers and lower level books on the arts, almost no tractatus yet, and very small amounts of lab notes. In the early 800s the literacy rate and amount of work for church scribes was substantially less than the early 1200s, so scribes will be elite grogs in very high demand and better paid for their services.
- Another consideration is that what we consider as "knights" didn't really exist at this point. I believe knights as a seperate warrior class between commoner and noble didn't happen until more iron mines were found throught Europe in the latter 900s. Most knights will be landed minor nobility (Knight+Landed virtues) as Iron was significantly more expensive at this time and the amount of cavalry was a much smaller part of the armies as the breeding projects and stables were still being formed. Remember that the idea of knights was Charlemagne being super impressed by Byzantine Cataphracts of the time (later 700s) and wanting to copy them, hence the nobles copied Charlemagne. So horses will in higher demand and lower numbers too, I would think.
- It sounds like you're in England, which was Saxon at the time and split into several smaller competing kingdoms. I recomend reading The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman | Goodreads for saga inspiration as well.
- This is also an excellent opportunity to introduce "non canonical" elements to the history of the Order that "didn't happen" in the official histories by the 1200s. Introduce some conspiracies that are rooted out. In my 1095 game, I came up with idea that the Schism War so apocalyptic that a 14th House Seswatha was destroyed and literally written out of the histories and covered up by a cross OoH and OoS conspiracy group called the "Unholy Consult" who serve the "No-God" - a being from the Stars Beyond the Lunar Sphere.
- There will be a lot more Hedge Wizards at this point still than by the 1200s for the PCs to encounter.
Some previous threads of mine for further thought:
The Pre-History of the Order is a lie - What is the truth? - Games Discussion / Ars Magica - Atlas Games RPG Forum
The History of the Order is a lie. What is the - Games Discussion / Ars Magica - Atlas Games RPG Forum
Also note that my preferences for the history of the order are rather divergant in the community here.
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Thank you for this feedback.
Indeed, mundane Europe was quite different in the ninth century compared to the thirteenth. I am still progressing in the definition of the basic elements of my saga, and am currently building the background of the covenant where the three PC will have learned hemetic magic. It will not be in England, it will be not far from the current LĂźbeck, which at the time was a fortified village named Liubice, with slavic population.
Rather than introducing non-canonical elements, at the moment I am defining how some of the canonical elements have appeared. I have already planned a former apprentice of Bonisagus who discovered the Mythic Blood virtue, and a Bjornaer who discovered the Inner Heartbeast. But this is still work in progress...
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A big consideration about Slavic lands is that they will all be pagans who worship Faerie Gods in many areas the Church is only beginning to stamp out Paganism in many of these lands. A consideration that I often feel is ignored by modern authors who see the religious imperialism of the Catholic Church as a universal Bad Thing is that... In my personal opinion, people do not easily leave their existing religion and belief system unless they will personally get new benefits and enhancements to their lifestyle.
It's also a potential plot point is that Charlemagne cut down a very large tree in 772 that was a major pagan pilgrimage point, and other sacred tree groves, that caused significant backlash. So pagans of the time considered themselves (rightly so IMO) under attack from Christians, hence the Viking raids that typically went east now all going west. This could be another point of consideration for some adventure fodder.
Charlemagne will clearly be an important figure in the mundane world. But I think that Charlemagne and even the Dominion are not that important for the new Order or Hermes, more concerned with hedge wizards and drawing power from both the magical and faerie worlds, while being wary of the infernal.
That covenant in my saga will be located in an area where strong magical and strong faerie auras are competing, one of the reasons for this choice is that the founding magus wanted to study both.
In terms of covenants around 800, based on what I read in the rulebooks, it seems that many hedge wizards were solitary figures, sometimes with a few followers, and that is how I visualize the covenants: DĂźrenmar was founded in 754 by Bonisagus to work on hermetic magic and train his apprentices. Crintera was founded in 773 by Birna to train her apprentices. Fenistal was founded the same year by Merinita to train her apprentices. I see all covenants having one leader, and Autocracy being the dominant form of governance.
This covenant I am designing for my saga is founded by a former apprendice of Bonisagus, who has convinced a former apprentice of Midusulf and a former apprentice of Quendalon to join him. The deal being that he would teach them more hermertic magic and that they will help him in his research on incorporing more nature magic and faerie magic in hermetic theory. Slavic lands with low human population are a good place for this type of research.
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Is there a more complete version of it?
For example, the books written by Celeres of Bonisagus at the beginning of the 13th century (cf. The Lion and The Lily page 108) are not there.
The e-mail address mentioned in this file (jarkman.devries@mac.com) does not work. But Jarkman was still active here two years ago.
If there is no newer version, would it be useful that I generate a Google Sheet based on this file?
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I think there is a google sheet, though maybe @Erik_Tyrrell or @Erik_Dahl might know. You can always PM @Jarkman directly.
Sorry, I don't know anything about the books document. I second the suggestions that you try to contact Jarkman directly or make your own sheet.
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There was a link shared in discord. Books in Ars Magica 5th E - Google Sheets
But this table does not include the dates of the books, and I need these dates for my saga.
I have made my own sheet ArM5 Library, with publication dates - Google Sheets
It is based on the pdf, correcting some elements (such as the dates for Hildegarde). I also have started to incorporate elements from that other sheet, but for example I don't have Through the Aegis, which seems to contain a lot of books.
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I also, to my knowledge, don't have a books document.
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