I have to disagree with you on this one. The whole Blackthorn-thing is very central the 'story' of the Stonehenge tribunal, and Blackthorn just comes across as strange when you're familiar with the 5th edition Tremere. But I've mentioned this before. Repeatedly.
1 Like
I agree with you on that. What I found worked for me was making it not be a tremere covenant. Once you remove the fact that they're tremere, and you make them just power hungry magi from assorted houses, it worked perfectly fine with me. I even made a point to averse the trope by having tremere magi in the tribunal that were openly against Blackthorn.
So I didn't mean to ignore how Blackthorn is portrayed (as you said, it's central to the tribunal story), but rather to ignore the fact that they're a tremere covenant. Make them antagonists because of who they are as individuals, and not because they are tremeres.
It's also I've of my pet peeves that there's an "evil" house whose sole purpose is to be the bad guys. It's very cheesy.
3 Likes
5th ed has been trying to handle that. Something I most certainly approve of.
2 Likes
I would love to see new books come out for AM5, and would likely purchase any new Tribunal book that would come out just to give me additional material to play with. So my vote would be all of the unpublished Tribunals for 5th ed.
2 Likes
To clarify, I would love to see for sure all of the 3E books get a 5E redo, and even the 4E ones would be nice to see. If the 4E ones were redone, I would like to see a different flavor of tribunal presented, simply because I already own a few of those.
1 Like
True, Blackthorn as written in 4th Ed goes against 5th Ed imaging of House Tremere. However, in my campaign I have a couple of workarounds that I hope my troupe will accept a combination of the following:
- Enough of the the magi of Blackthorn had the correct Personality Flaws (including Judged Unfairly), either through natural upbringing or Twilight scars, that collectively they appear evil. While maintaining sufficient decorum in dealings with Coeris that they are left to thier own devices.
- There was an overriding supernatural reason to invade their current location (remember House Tremere once had a Dhampir problem, not too difficult to say it came to a head in Stonehenge)
- There is a vexation testing the resolve and integrity of the rest of the Order of Hermes, and it is taking place in the Wild West to primarily affect House ex Miscellanea, and avoid disturbing the rest of the "civilised" Order.
1 Like
Yes please!
Personally would love to see Novgorod and Loch Leglean books for more juicy Hedgy Content.
A frontier with relatively little Hermetic presence and the other is more or less dominated by Ex Miscellanea and Hedgies; comparable to Hibernia in it's oddities. Would love to see them both explored more in 5th edition.
Either way. Slavic glory and more Hedgies!
Of course though, if we can get them all, that'd be grand.
4 Likes
It may just be the fact that I'm currently running a Rhine covenant, but Novgorod tantalizes me: What's going on over that border? What does the expansion of the Hermetic Order into new territory really look like? (The expansion, in itself, feels like both unique storytelling opportunity and also an interesting alternative structure to explore.)
(What happens when the Mongols show up?)
Rome kind of intimidates me. 
Interesting inversion of the question everyone has been asking: Which of these tribunals need the LEAST changes? (I'm guessing it's one of the 4th Edition books.) And how could we still do a 5th Edition update that would add lots of value for people who already own the original book?
2 Likes
Stonehenge needs the least work. Some minor tweaks to Blackthorn to make it fit and possibly a few minor tweaks to the fluff.
For what you could add that would add lots of value, pretty much ANYTHING crunch. The book completely lacks any right now.
2 Likes
I ran a 16-session apprentice Saga in the Greater Alps and I used the hell out of that book. I mean, sure, I had to rewrite any magi who needed stats. But the covenants themselves, the plot hooks, the gazetteer, the calendar, the Redcaps, all that stuff is still quite useful. I also used the unpublished apocrypha from that book, which could be updated and returned to the text for new value. I’m sure much of it could be tightened up, making room for updated stat blocks for old and powerful magi, not to mention more local creatures and faeries. The Greater Alps is uniquely suited to apprentice games, because anyone who takes their Gauntlet there is expected to leave. If I were in charge of updating the book, I’d add support for the years 1205-1220. For example, the Children’s Crusade marches right through it in 1212.
3 Likes
Like a colonial frontier. Unclaimed vis sources, ripe for the taking. Magi wanting to escape their pasts finding somewhere to hide out. Hedge wizards everywhere, who might be potential members, or threats, both of which need to be managed to avoid overwhelming the Order. There's probably a vexilation of Tremere dedicated just to that: deciding who to send to the Pralicians, and who needs to be eliminated.
Also, if the Rhine's forests are a source of magical power, even when split and hemmed in by the Dominion, Novgorod's endless trees must be truly terrifying.
1 Like
Agreed. There are several ways to make Blackthorn fit into the ArM5 Order without rewriting the rest of the book.
1 Like
What about a booklet sized like Apprentices and called Recent News of the Order or such? It might wrap udseful or needed changes of the older Tribunals in Redcap reports: e. g. some Blackthorn magi were summoned to Coeris and returned softened up, or Thousand Caves is looking for young blood and worrying over news from the mongols.
6 Likes
The Greater Alps Tribunal. The set up, the covenants, the history, the geography - all work just as much in 5e as it did in previous. Obviously some of the stats and characters need to change/updated but in general the book as it is works as it is.
Stonehenge also works pretty well as written on a geography level. Some changes to the covenant structure would be necessary but the location itself is pretty good.
Novgorod works really well as is, as does Loch Leglean.
As for value hmm. Well, for me, having a 5e book means it will be organized in the structured way that the other 5e books are done. Thus geography, politics, hermetic life, the supernatural, and lots and lots and lots of adventure seeds. To this end even if it was 'mostly' the oriigonal book but updated to that structure, its worth it for me.
Rome needs to be written from scratch to be honest, so that would see that book becoming entirely new.
Greater Alps would probably not really need to be touched, unless you do a sort of adventure seed mini-book focused on that area.
But yeah, honestly, even in these 'economically' trying times - you release new Ars Magica books and I am going all out and buying it - physical copy and all. Heck, if you decided to say kickstart the book (like how Onyx Path does some of their kickstarters) I would pretty much join as soon as I saw it.
4 Likes
I have been playing in 5E for a long time, and I'm not entirely sure I agree with you on inconsistencies, but I would say let's go have that conversation (if you want to have it) in a different thread.
-Ben.
- Update the redcap schedule.
- They are very unlikely to use a warping teleport device on a monthly basis.
- Redcaps are also supposed to have two genuinely free seasons per year, and not travel every month.
- It could be expanded. 5ed books tend to have background and politics more fleshed out.
1 Like
Seasons for non-magi are largely an abstraction anyways. Your average craftsman works year 'round but effectively has 2 free seasons of advancement regardless. Magi only care about seasons because lab work generally starts and ends at solstices and equinoxes.
Sure, but redcaps, unlike craftsmen, have two genuinely free seasons [ArM5:48]. And the travel schedule set out in Heirs to Merline does not seem to give even two abstractly free seasons.
There are other inconsistencies with the Stonehenge redcaps too. Compared to 5ed canon tribunals, Stonehenge redcaps both are fewer and they visit covenants more often. Furthermore, they appear not to use longevity rituals, which makes sense under 4ed rules, but is explicitly non-canon by 5ed rules.
1 Like
I really like that idea. In addition to being an interesting way of advancing lore in areas where it might be needed, actually packaging the book around material that actually flows to a covenant through the Redcap network seems like extremely high-utility material for enhancing any campaign.
We're looking at the viability of doing a subscription plan for Ars Magica, like the one we just launched for Feng Shui. (Or, I suppose to be more accurate, we're looking at whether a subscription can MAKE books viable that otherwise wouldn't be.) One of the big questions is, barring a new edition, what kind of material would have enough "mainstream" appeal in the ArM community while expanding a product line that already has 40 books in it to make a subscription plan a success.
To be perfectly open, the other factor is what material can be confidently developed without your humble RPG Developer getting completely on top of every nuance of 5th Edition. (Which remains an ongoing and non-trivial project for me.)
Which brings us to the not-so-hidden agenda of this thread. 
12 Likes
Yeah that is difficult and I can see the whole intense thought discussion.
I will say that for me the most interesting things are magic (expansions of current options in both a 'canon' and an 'optional' way), spells and rituals, enchanted items, familiar options, characters, locations, and adventure seeds. On the last I totally think some short, say one session, some medium (say a few sessions), and occasionally an epic campaign wide saga seed could be interesting.
To me the dual fact that its an official work and that it is a consistent source of new material could make the possibility of signing up a possibility to consider.
Its a very interesting thing. I will say that I am super glad that Ars Magica is not 'dead' as the whole 'closing of the edition' made it seem. That was a sad day indeed and so hearing that there is potential for more, even if there is not a decision on what that 'more' is, is brilliant.
I own all the books and I will say that the location (both the Tribunal and the Realm ones) books always get pulled out the moment I am reading about an area. I also pull out the various adventure books when I need random ideas. Then comes the magic books (the ones that have new traditions and alternate ideas) which I often read for pure fun.
If you were wondering about what to do as an immediate jumpstart then I think updating Tribunal books to current edition (as this thread represents) would be a great start.
Anyway, this is awesome and I am soooooooooooooo glad that you guys are considering doing new stuff for the line.
PS. I totally think there is fun potential in material that could potentially change the 'world' in ways that are one off or unique. Specialized magic whose discovery changes things. Alternate realms that make things go "woah". Timeline changes like setting things a bit before or after or whatnot.
1 Like