Tear apart Mythic Europe for me

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

My monday night Ars magica game has ended.

I recently gave out invitations to a bunch of people to start a new game. I'm goingto run a short term game (about 9-12 sessions) wherein I hope to have a story reach its conclusion.

The characters are all going to be 20 years out of apprenticeship (I'm tired of playing hermetic adolecents), and I'd like to run a "big world shaking events" sort of plot line.

I'd like to start the game out by destroying the respective covenants of the characters ad then bringing them together.

What I'm looking for is a cool over-arching story that I can tell in nine sessions or so.

The Diedne return

The mongols invade all of the way to Iberia

The Order of Odin sicks an army of dragons on the Order of Hermes.

There's a counter crusade lead by islamic sorcerers

The axis mundi decends into madness and pulls all of the criamon down with it.

If you had nine game sessions to destroy mythic europe and put it back together how would you do it?

2

Turns out magic — all of it, everywhere — either is, or has been infiltrated by, the infernal, and a good deal of the magic that's been done by the Order has all come together in a gigantic, centuries-long ritual designed to, say, induce the Antichrist, or something similar. At the next Grand Tribunal, the opening ceremonies will complete the ritual. What to do?

3

I'd run Revelations...

(Actually I am doing at the moment)

I have used the Diedne backing the Mongols (ever wonder why they stopped after taking the Transylvania tribunal...). for fun, ReMe to guard the enemy wizards' minds (from InMe or ReMe) and PeVi to hide it...

V.

4

How about the Redcaps & House Mercere have been a lie for a very long time.
The Founder did lose her powers , but only temporarily , and is still alive.
They know where a majority of the Vis sources are and stage a coup by either taking them over or holding them to ransom.
All traffic and communication between Covenants ceases (at least by Redcaps).
Either way Covenants are suddenly down to whatever their current reserves are.
The possibility of having planted "tainted" Vis in nearly all Covenants exists.
The number of Magi in the House has been greatly underestimated as they have been quietly building up numbers for hundreds of years.
Maybe they have made deals with various Hedge Wizard groups who have all been taught Parma Magica in secret.

Have the Library at Durenmar stolen.
However it is done , the Resources end up gone or unaccessible.

Possibly a way of reversing Parma.
It now prevents the magus casting spells at anything other than personal range ,
unless they have a high enough penetration total.

The Grand Conjunction (or something) occurs returning all previous Magi from Twilight ,
in the prime of their powers and without obvious physical flaws.
Regio everywhere (all types) either vanish or
are suddenly visible and able to be seen by everyone
who can now cross over into them at will.

5

From real life, Genghis Khan sent out his most powerful shaman out into the world to gather the elements to make the Khan immortal. Perhaps Genghis Khan is on the verge of taking over, but his life hangs in the balance. Were he to die, his sons like in real life would fight amongst themselves rather than continue to take over everything.

The characters have to track and stop the Shaman from completeing his task and making Genghis Khan an immortal who will soon take over the know world.

This provides a clear goal and makes the actual war background material, while the players focus on the goal of stop the Shaman.

6

The Mercere have a ledger with the names of every magus and covenant and thier locations. This list gets into the hands of the church which uses to it to tactically strike at the OoH. The characters must gather and lead a 'ragtag' troupe of the last wizards to the promised land.

7

Tremere Vampires :wink:

8

Everyone else except the Tremere are Vampyres. :wink:

9

How about the return of Tytalus himself. IIRC he disappeared into Arcadia to challenge the Faerie queen and is never seen again. How about if he returns, having only spent (to him) a few days there. Shocked by the passivity of the order and the slow erosion of the magical wildlands, he decides to do something about it.

That would certainly shake things up.

How about the return of Dav'nalleous? Fun and games for the British Magi and anyone in house Ex miscellania.

Revenge of the Diedne? thats got to hurt if a group of 4 archdruids return from arcadia and slowly start subverting allies for a grand war against the tremere.

Now this i really like. Full on warfare between church and order. This really is an apocalyptic scenario.

10

If you wanted to destroy the Order, how about "Infernal corruption revealed within House Guernicus".

Guernicus was right - if Magi lose faith in the code, then the Order will fracture and destroy itself. After a series of investigations by the Archimagi it is revealed that large numbers of House Guernicus have secretly fallen.

Upon this news being heard, Magi begin to lose faith in the code. There are suddenly more and more attacks outside wizard's war, tribunals become paralysed, cases go uninvestigated and unheard, recent rulings on the code are contested. Magi, suddenly fearful of thier sodales, start rallying mundanes to their cause - wars break out across Mythic Europe as magi begin to take off their gloves and start seriously interfering in mundane affairs. Covenants contact their faerie allies to protect them, or perhaps to strike at enemies they perceive as plotting against them. Artefacts from the Schism war get dusted off, as Magus starts to fight against Magus.

Primus Bonisagus rapidly sees the deteriorating picture and decides to intervene; granting special powers to certain individuals at an Emergency Grand Tribunal. The PC magi are contacted by one of these individuals - perhaps an Archimagus of House Tremere - who tries to convince them to join a group of 'Watchmen' (effectively Grand Tribunal sanctioned vigilantes) [Noctovigilus?] to help quickly investigate the fallen Guernicans and supress internal conflict before the Order rips itself apart.

Plenty of opportunity for fighting (infernalist magi and even regular magi who have broken faith with the Order). Lots of room for investigation and suspense (will you go to Magvillus and find out what's happened there?). Many opportunities to try to debate and persuade others to their cause (recruiting watchmen from other covenants, convincing others to hold faith with the Order). etc etc

Primus Flambeau has spoken ... unless the traitors are found by the next meeting of the Grand Tribunal (9-12 sessions time) then he will consider the Code dead and instruct his followers likewise. Can a relatively few loyal Magi convince others to aid them, root out the traitors and quell the hotheads in time to save the Order from self-destruction? ...

11

  1. The Gift turns out to be a symbiotic disease that can be harmed by a similar symbiot that begins to spread through Europe.

  2. The Black Death appears early, and this leads many people toward the Infernal. House Tremere says that this is precisely the sort of thing a proper world government should stop, and disregards the non-interference provisions of the Code to save lives and souls, then begin their dream of a Pax Magica. Are you ready to man the barricades in defence of the right of people to die horrible deaths choking on their own blood?

  3. The faeries really were not kidding about that whole "One day, you're going to pay for this!" thing. Danu, the primal mother of many European faeries, bows down either to Heaven or Hell, switching the domain allegiance of her children. They can now either go into cities and stuff them up, or they act as harvesters for Hell.

  4. A magus discovers the soucrwe of magic. In one of my games the characters voyaged to the centre of the earth, where they found a ball of metal about a meter across. While you touched the ball you could use as much vis as you liked, and do pretty much anything magic could do. You -always- suffered Twilight after a use, and there was a 10% chance you'd blow up the ball with a botch, which would either destroy all magic and kill all magi, or just drive all magi into Twilight and make magic a lot different. So: some guys find this, and they want to know if they can use it...

I'll have a better few when Covenants and Mystery Cults are out, but I'm erring on the side of caution here.

1 Like
12

The group finds the Ars equivalent of The One Ring, or worse, a Silmaril, and all the nastiness that entails (When in doubt, beg, borrow, or steal - and warp accordingly).

Somone already mentioned the Mongols : "You may triumph on the field of battle for a day, but against the power that rises in the east, there can be no victory!"

Various portions of the Order, mainly in the north, break off from the Order of Hermes, forming the Ordo Borealis. Civil war, or diplomacy? The actions of the players, sent as Envoys, may decide..

Renegade magus is out to destroy magical sites. As he does so, the nature of magic begins to change - subtly at first, drastically towards the end. Do you stop him, or let him complete his task as evidence is uncovered that shows what he's doing may not be such a bad thing...?

Rumors of someone discovering THE Philosopher's Stone are making the rounds, and they're true!... The Stone allows one to do the seemingly impossible, and it alters the course of history when it shows up...Supposedly, the last times it was found, and used... It levelled an island, sank Atlantis, et alia. The race is on...

One of those wacky bonisagi has done the seemingly impossible - broken the limit of the lunar sphere... Literally. It's coming down, and it's time to find the guy before someone else kills him, determine what he did (with or without his help), and either mitigate the disaster, or let it happen, and pick up the pieces afterward... Either way, magic is never going to be the same again.

(I like the Fairies one, BTW...)

Steve

13

Start a Campaign to integrate the Icelandic Mages into the Order of Hermes......,the political Fallout will be really monumental.