Hey, long time since I've been at this forum now, glad to be back to Ars Magica.
Anyway, I was thinking about how Arcadia is portrayed in Ars Magica. Of course, we don't know this exactly, at least not until Realms of Power: Faerie. But what role could Arcadia play in Ars Magica? I'm a big fan of the more traditional fantasy, like JRR Tolkien. Could Arcadia be a way to get this kind of fantasy into an Ars Magica campaign?
I'm also thinking Narnia as a way to portray Arcadia. It's a free place to put stories with any length without affecting Mythic Europe too much.
Those are just some thoughts, and I'm not sure if I'm asking the question I want to ask clearly enough...
Well, you can certainly have both there. In arcadia you have all you can imagine, basically. It is the high fantasy bit of ME. With the only limit that demons and angels are uncommon there... but you can have faeries acting like demons and angels.
I liked the 4 directions of light/dark cold/hot that appeared in 3rd edition faeries. I would use a similar method of travel to that depicted in TMRE for dfream travel: concordances and connections are more important than physical travel in arcadia.
Narnia would fit quite nicely, since basically it is the Bible recalled in faerie terms to squish christian values into the children reading the book.
Yup and if you think the official take on it may change when ROP:faries comes out you could just use any generic regio to add this bit of fantasy.
I have a regio with a high aura that has been isolated for many years, because of this, all the creatures have warped into some strange version or mixture. It, containing obviously magical creatures, was the source of the 1st familiar in our game.
In my eyes high fantasy is similar like our world with elves and orcs. Nothing special.
If I would get the feeling I would take some fairy tales. And I attach to Fairyland more unexpected things like speaking trees, growing, flowering and withering roses in a minute. I think everybody understand each other somehow, there are no language differeces. Fairies should be nasty but there are some extremely generous and can give you even magic items. It will change to a branch of tree or to a snake after some time (see Merinita spell durations) but until that it is perfectly useful.
Wild magic is a good idea, too. Hermetic magic should be appear unusual ways. Ball of Abysmal Fire can do the same damage but may appear like a fire demon bitting the target or a beautiful firework.
I liked the fairy supplement very much because it explains the strange thinking of the fairies. E.g. If you ask for the comb of a fairy it is similar for her if you would ask for one of her fingers. Her comb is a PART of her.
Everyday problems like food, drink, sleeping, and similar should not be problems in Fairyland.
Use artistic descriptions, buildings, items should be characteristic.
Home of the Santa Anita Park horsetrack! Also the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanical Gardens, and home to the California Philharmonic Orchestra. So, not a whole lot, actually, just another 'burb in LA.
Arcadia in Ars is a conglomeration of many of the cultural traditions of the fae or elfs, the "others" who haunt folktales throughout the various inter-related Indo-European traditions. It is another world, with other rules, not unsimilar to a dreamland at times. It is largely what you, as SG, want it to be.
However, while a place of imagination, it is not, technically, a place of high-fantasy. There are the "light fae" and the "dark fae", but altho' JRRT was inspired in part by the same traditions, "orcs" are not typical of the latter. (Orcs, as presented by JRRT, are very much a part of this world. Trolls, goblins, and other dark elements of arcadia, while at times a very real menace to this world, are not "of" this world.)
However, it's your saga - you can tweak it from the norm as you wish. There has been more than one tale of the unselighe court boiling out in war on the world of man.
