I conducted a search through almost all books for the word Charlemagne and could not find a single reference of Bonisagus writing to him. I did find references to Jerbiton, such as those:
From the base book 10: House Jerbiton extended the reach of the Order into the higher culture of the mundane world, even making overtures to Charlemagne himself.
From GotF 140:
789 The Founder Jerbiton meets with Charlemagne, after having adopted a number of apprentices of the emperor’s mage-smith, Carolinus. Charlemagne issues a decree outlawing sorcery and paganism, but permits “benevolent magic” such as that practiced by Jerbiton. (repeated in Normandy)
As I said, if I am mistaken it could easily be a part of the alternate history in question. Because all of this has absolutely zero relation to the question I actually asked, which is what kind of interest there would be in an alternate history supplement of this type. As such minutiae about what did happen further "downstream" in the original timeline that is being changed and finding a reference for whom Bonisagus corresponded with in the texts has at best minimal relevance- even if both of these points are in error the misreading still served as inspiration for an alternate timeline project that I am proposing.
I kind of recall there being mention of Charlemagne regarding the founding of Uranius, but I cannot locate it. And it's gotta be either 2nd or 4th edition anyway.
There was a covenant named Urania in the now ancient supplement The Sorcerer's Slave. Is that the one you were thinking of? I didn't find a reference there to Charlemagne, though.
One of the things that I did when I put B&S together was to consciously include everything that had been written on the tribunal so far, drawn from earlier supplements and fanzines. That's one reason why the list of unwitting and witting contributors is so long...
Yeah, I was talking about Urania. I'll have to go looking for that reference, because I have this notion floating in my head that the covenant was initially founded after magi talked with Charlemagne and headed east, but I'm not really sure where that came from. I'll need to read Sorcerer's Slave and Blood & Sand again, and maybe also The Cradle and the Crescent (though there's no mentin of Urania in that one IIRC).
Found it. It's in Blood & Sand page 8, the boxed text "The Hermetic Arrival in the Levant". To sum it up, it basically says that Charlemagne had many allies in the Order of Hermes, and when he exchanged embassies with Harun he got permission for the Order to found Urbs Rubra (Petra) in 802 and Urania (Caucasus) in 806.
I never mentioned it, but I really really liked that you did that. I had used indirect references to Urania from Sorcerer's Slave in my earliest saga, back in the 90s. And when we started our current one, based off Constantinople and with lots of ties to the Levant, I read Blood & Sand, which I had never gotten around reading. I was positively delighted to find Urania in there, and couldn't resist the urge of bringing it back into the story.
So we have made extensive use of it and its special circumstance of being claimed by both Thebes and Levant without them actually caring or maybe even knowing what Tribunal claimed them. Our troupe has even travelled there, introducing the amazing Georgian state.
So many, many thanks for the thorough work with B&S, that's the kind of stuff that makes Ars Magica feel really alive. It remains to this day one of my top 5 Tribunal books of all time.
Though that didn't stop rulers from claiming the right to make decisions for places they didn't actually rule in the past (or in the present, come to think about it). The caliphs did claim a right to rule over the world; they just hadn't got it all conquered yet...
So I recreated an account just to comment here - and to update my username to be more in line with my online identity
I would absolutely be interested in a rulebook/supplement subscription for Ars 5e. I am in the PF 2e subscription and am completely satisfied. Ars is my favorite system of any, by far, and I habitually buy new books when my game starts using one (like we just started in Thebes, so I bought the PDF of Sundered Eagle rather than borrowing it) because I want to support the system, Atlas as a whole, and see more Ars Magica happen!
So head honchos, count me in as a "definite" in your number crunching. I love your work and want to give you my money for more of it!
