Two curious questions about the setting.

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi there guys I'm curious about the setting of ars magica and was wondering firstly how one could go about turning the setting to a more low magic (ie magic still exists but the mundane is a much higher commodity and most myths are just that, myths).
Also how believable and coherent is the setting in the contexts of its own laws? Does it work well?

Anyway that's just a couple curiosities I'd like to get your opinions on as I'm looking for a setting which blends the more fantastical elements into the more historical mundane ones and makes it work.

Bye xx

2

Limit books. Limit Vis. Books are their advancement potential and Vis is money, and used in ritual magic, enchanted items.
Don't allow mundane scribes to copy Hermetic books by knowing just Magic Theory.
Some have suggested making all Arts difficult, advance as abilities, but I think just doing it to the techniques is enough. Those are a few of the things that spring to mind...

3

While high-myth is one of the default assumptions of 5e, I think you could run a lower-magic game quite easily - by reducing the number and strength of auras, offering less vis and poorer quality books and confining the more over manifestations of the supernatural to regios.

Since the setting, minus the supernatural elements, is effectively RL Europe circa 1220 it should be fairly believable sans magic (maybe even more so).

4

One important consideration is what you mean by "low" magic: in particular, if "low" refers to how common magic is, or to how powerful magic is.

To make magic less common, just rule that the number of supernatural creatures, people with supernatural abilities etc. active in Mythic Europe is low. Ass yourself: in a country like France with something like 10 million people, how often will a dragon be sighted? How often will some supernatural wizard be reported doing some supernatural stuff? Note that dragon sightings were quite common in the middle ages! Also note that this only refers to active supernaturals: if you think the Order of Hermes interferes too frequently either a) lower the number of magi or b) have Quaesitors enforce the "non-interference" clause of the Oath more strictly.

To make magic less powerful, you really need a heavy "across the board" reduction, because if you only reduce, say, the capabilities of hermetic magi, you'll wreak havoc on a large number of other setting assumptions (e.g. the superiority of hermetic magi over hedge wizards). It's even worse if you only alter some aspects of hermetic magi: for example, Arts-as-Abilities considerably increases the relative power of Parma (which may be a good thing, but it does seriously shift balance in ways that aren't just "there's less flashy stuff going around"). I would add that, from my experience, Arts-as-abilities is a change that roughly speaking a) reduces penetration and b) encourages specialization, but in practice does not substantially impact the magnitude of effects magi typically produce except when confronting strong magical defenses.

5

If you want to have rare but powerful magic, just limit the number of auras, raw vis, creatures, and magi (Hermetic wizards) and members of other supernatural traditions.

If you want to have magic be weaker, it's more tricky. I'd suggest doing away with playing Hermetic magi. Play Companions instead, with Supernatural Abilities (not the full-blown magical traditions depicted in the Hedge Magic Revised Edition book, for example - these tend to be too powerful), perhaps organized in some Mystery Cults (which will allow greater opportunity for character development and furnish the setting with cults you can throw at players). Use spell-like vis and enhanced items of virtue (from Realms of Power: Magic); these allow you to make use of colorful "magical items". You may use the "natural philosophy" rules from Art & Academe if you want to give an authentic-feel to supernatural medicine, alchemy and divination, but this may make magic too common for you. You may want to read City & Guild too, to get more setting information, especially if you're interested in commerce and craft. Hermetic magi can still be around, but as rare background NPCs, as setting-elements instead of PCs.

The result is a setting that is very weak-magic, with characters relying on their magical lore and magical items, plus perhaps a supernatural ability per character, to deal with the Monster of the Month (a faerie trickster, Machiavellian demon, magical beast, or so on) - or with whatever you choose to throw at them.

I find the most problematic part of the setting is the power-level of Hermetic magic. If you lower it (as discussed above) or eliminate magi (as I suggest above), the setting becomes very coherent and the rules work well.

The only remaining major-incoherence in the setting is the unity of the Divine - only one Divine Realm/God, with a united host of angels, yet a multitude of conflicting and even warring religions. This is a problem for any setting that wishes to protray a supernatural-version of historical Europe, and Ars Magica deals with it as well as can be asked in my opinion, by choosing the "God works in mysterious ways" option; you will have to decide if this works for you, or you prefer some other approach.

I'm not sure which fantastical elements you want to incorporate. Be mindful that Ars Magica treats some of them in ways you may not expect. They work well, in my opinion, but you may want to take that into account in advance.

Notice that Faeries in Fifth Edition are weird creatures that live off the "Vitality" of humans; and "vitality" can mean almost anything, from freely-given hair to worship. This includes most pagan gods, that lived off the worship of humans. If you wish to include Titanomachia fantasy in your saga, this is treated as Faerie-gods binding the Magical-titans and thus harvesting their power.

The faerie idea of drawing vitality can be easily extended to all manner of creatures, such as vampires or Earthdawn-like "Horrors" that live off fear. It also includes some "standard" faerie creatures such as brownies that work for milk, but notice that it does not include other "standard" faerie creatures such as wood-spirits (which are Magical creatures, not Faerie).

Another major point is that demons in (standard) Ars Magica Fifth Edition are really different, psychologically, as they are creatures "without Virtue" (with no temperance, bravery, or so on). They make for very malign creatures that are utterly evil and powerful, but also deeply flawed. They are generally more interested in collecting souls for hell than in killing people, and in causing their own preferred kind of suffering/vice and playing their own evil games for their own amusement.

The rest is pretty normal. Dragons, good-natured angels spurring humanity forward, and so on.