The Orders impact on Europe and the world

depends on your style of reign. Humans can largely govern themselves once they acknowledge your authority, and there will always be criminals you can feed to dragons.
being 'fed' to the faerie queen would likely be perceived as a reward...

I like to answer this with the inverse: Without magi we would not have the history we have. Behind many of Original Timeline events there are Hermetic Magi, Hedge Magi, Faeries, Demons and Angels whose actions changed the course of history to what it is today.

Without their interference, history would have gone a different course altogether. i.e. "Without the interference of the Order of Solomon, The 5th Crusade would have led to the conquest of Egypt."

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Did someone break the Lunar Limit?

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Couple of thoughts on this.

  1. The Order started really small, justa dozen odd people. It expanded but even at its peak in 1220 its only about 800 people spread across all of Europe and as far afield as Russia and the Middle East.

  2. Most magi are scholarly and spend most of their time in the lab. They don't get out much because by and large, they don't need to.

  3. Most magi have no need for power amongst mortals after their immediate need for servants is met. Sure, you could always use a little more coin to spend on a fancy lab, but once you have the fancy lab and fancy ingredients, what use is more cash?

  4. Wars between magical groups are devastating for those involved but usually play out in magical regions which by definition are usually far from other people. Even if you call fire from the sky and burn a square mile of forest, if theres no one around, who notices?

  5. Unless something is witnessed by literate people who write it down, did it even happen? The Vikings remember loved to sack monasteries because there was often portable wealth there. And who can read and write? Monks. So the viking raids get written about. They get passed down to following generations. And that writing isn't all scholarly balanced critique. Its much more "The hairy devils came from the sea and murder all my brothers and stole all the gold" because the writer were eye witnesses. Later of course we get wholesale viking migrations, massive movements of people and conquest. This far outstrips anything the Order is supposed to have done.

  6. the Order is noted to be a somewhat open secret amongst certain nobles and churchmen with a cautious "leave them alone and they will leave you alone" approach. No one wants to push anything because everyone knows that "Wizards are subtle and quick to anger" and if they aren't causing problems, why risk it.

  7. Here we get into gamey stuff. We have been given a setting and parts of it (the code for instance) explain why the Order has remained hidden. But what we do with that setting is up to us. I think its a mistake if GMs try to enforce that lack of impact on society. Let your players break the setting if thats what they want to do. Don't make it easy of course, but don't come up with reasons why they can't. Hard struggles make for satisfying games. If the players want to carve out a magocracy in the Novgorod Tribunal, then by all means let them. Give them some noble enemies, some Order mages who are dead set against it. Maybe have them face opposition from the church and offers of support from demons, etc. That could be a great story. Maybe even play up the arrival of the Mongols to give them a motive to createa magocracy, so that they can stand against those steppe nomad monsters!

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Also keep in mind that this is not white wolf where everything is a prelude to the world of darkness. If there are some changes in your setting, make the changes. Try to keep them small for the sake of your own sanity, but if you decide that in your world the crusaders won the second crusade due to the participation of 3 flambeau brothers, that is fine, but keep the win small enough that you don't have to rewrite the 3rd through 6th crusades (or at least not the 3rd and 4th)

I just wanted bananas, tobacco, tea, bok choi and a discussion point. :slight_smile:

I'm sort of kidding, however, the lack of serious exploration by the Order surprises me. I would think some enterprising magi would want to explore, trying to find new vis and new knowledge.

If North and South America in our world is the same in mythic Europe, you'd think there'd be crazy vis there. It is also out of easy reach of the order. The ability to control weather, conjure food, etc. Magic makes new world travel trivial.

If I ever run a campaign, I'll have Diedne running off to North America to rebuild. Instead of Europe colonising the Americas, a vengeful Diedne, after consolidating America in to the Cree Nation, colonises Europe.

the thing is that America for Mythic Europe is assuredly not the America of our world. Different physics to begin with. By Art and Acadame where we have North America there is the possibility that it is occupied by Arcadia (not a version care for) and by any account there is a bad of perpetual storms separating the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
Of course the canon idea about what are in North America ignore the Viking exploration of "Vinland' as they called the new world, and to me the easiest way to get to the new world would be to find some arcane connection that was fixed during the Viking age, then leap of the homecoming- if the bands do not prevent this the way some regios do.

Voicing something as "an intriguing possibility" (A&A p.27 box) doesn't make it a canon idea.

The meridian devil, however, is canon...

... and there are lots of stories, how norsemen navigating the Atlantic met his minions. Bjarni's story may serve as an example. :nerd_face:

I think lots of magi 'explore' - Seekers being one kind of explorer, but how many write it all down and share? Magi have reasons to be secretive - even researchers fear to share until their research bears fruit.

Tourists, I tell you.

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