But if Christians pray to God to help him in a battle and He does so... it is very much in league with Mythic Europe but it really doesn't make sense. I mean if Christianity and Islam are just different aspects of the Divine Realm the Divine Realm can't really start fighting itself.
While yeah, your right, and those are great inspirations, they aren't Hogwarts-like full on Schools of Magic - at this time. The sad thing there are sooooo many 'this can't happen' elements that reduce fun time play rather than add to the fun of the saga. (Perfect example, making it so apprentices are negatively effected by the Gift in the other apprentices, why I ask why.)
I think it would be awesome if Hermetic Apprentices are taught at a school of magic before becoming a major member of the Order.
On the topic of religion, please lets not make a game about magic and magic users and the Hermetic Order into a game where the Divine gets an automatic win button. That is not fun.
That said on the matter of certain other religions using the Divine, I think it makes sense, especially as Christanity, Islam, and Judaism all have the same God being worshiped. It makes sense them, and certain other ones, are connected.
Why can't the Divine fight itself? Or appear to anyway. Think about the scenario you describe - Christians and Muslims are doing battle, both pray to "God" and it appears that "God" helps the Christians. To the Christians it is vindication that Christianity is correct and God is with them. To the Muslims is it proof their faith is false? No, they maybe think that they have done something to displease God though. The different religions aren't different 'aspects' of an Abrahamic God, they are different interpretations of some unknowable force men call "God" and there is no reason that force might not appear to fight itself from time to time.
Ultimately I think the "God" of the Divine realm makes the most sense as an abstract, unknowable entity. Not as an Abrahamic God directly intervening in the world as part of some divine plan. The Divine should be unreachable, unknowable. The Divine realm should always be filtered through imperfect mortals with imperfect understandings and never interacted with directly (or if you do the experience should be nearly incomprehensible and subject to your own preconceptions).
When God is abstracted away and the Divine realm filtered through people it gets rid of the issues of 'who is right?' because nobody knows, just like in real life, and the Divine having an 'automatic win button' as @Heru Kane has said, because the divine doesn't intervene directly.
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The problem is that unlike life, the rules are n black and white for a game, which means that if there is one divine then the game designer or the GM has to pick a 'correct' version, or define how the different faiths interact. "ineffable" and unknowable don't work well with rules sets. It's hard enough telling players that no, I am not misreading the rules there are aspects to the situation you are not aware of, without having to add to it the idea that there are rules they are not aware of, because from he players perspective all rules should be obvious to people who live in that world if it in any way affects them. You know, the way quantum mechanics impacting how scents are detected in the human nose was immediately observable to medieval peasants...
I am taking the idea from White Wolf's Storyteller's Vault. Put that in the search engine at drive thru rpg, and you will see examples of scores and scores of fan made products. Some sell for around 10 or 15, a few sell for just a buck or two. It is mostlty oWoD material for games WW made before Onyx bought them out. They provide a buch of materials for fonts and trade dress. I now understand that it is meant for Adobe creative suite. And people have made some really good quality books self publishing like this. There are some guidelines on what material you can use and what you can create, but these are pretty loose.
Fan created content has helped revive interest in these old games. I honestly think a similar program could be a great boon for Atlas. Especially for Ars Magica. In practical terms, if I understand what you mean by that (not sure if I do), fans could generate material for any edition of Ars Magica (in practice, most will probably use the current edition, but someone is sure to write something for ArM2 at some point. The material is "unofficial" of course, but will carry more of an air of legitimacy than, say, a website or fanzine.
The benefits, as I see them, are threefold. It keeps interest alive and may entice new interest, it supports material from this and older editions, and it grants a healthy creative outlet for our community. Along those lines, keep in mind that ArM5 was mostly written by fans that David Chart recruited. A project such as this keeps the creative community active and can serve as sort of an audition for future projects.
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Note, that the 13th century Cento Novelle Antiche contains already the Ring Parable.
The idea of a common origin and the resulting special relation of Islam, Judaism and Christendom is present in the 13th century, should be also in Mythic Europe, and in particular among Hermetic magi.
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I don't think you need to decide one faith is right to have entirely internally consistent rules for the Divine realm. The rules define what people who are touched by the Divine can do, and what people in the setting believe. They don't have to set out a single correct interpretation (and in fact doing so raises large problems).
The realm of Magic is left largely undefined and unknowable to the inhabitants of Mythic Europe, but we all play characters linked to that realm without issue. The true nature of Faerie is left totally unclear, and nobody in Mythic Europe really understands it (or even can understand it, arguably) but Faeries and Faerie aligned characters function just fine. In both cases ideas are suggested for what might be true, and how inhabitants of the setting might perceive it, but no definitive correct version is given. Why can those things be left up to interpretation and unknowable but the Divine has to have a single 'correct' interpretation?
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The thing is, if you understand how something works that tells you a lot about it. If a fictional religion has a goddess figure and lots of healing abilities I don't need someone to spell out "goddess of healing". in the same way when the rules utilize the 7 noble virtues and 7 deadly sins as their core mechanism I don't need someone to say "Catholicism is more correct" to read that into the game rules. In fact saying "nobody knows" and then supplying those rules makes me wonder why they wouldn't know- just as much as the 3rd edition "rational" auras didn't explain how rational observation wouldn't conclude that magic was real, and why they didn't call them skeptical auras instead since it would have been closer to the mechanisms...
because ultimately these things are baked in to the rules system, and when you are talking real world religions that authors are familiar with the choices will be made, whether consciously or unconsciously.
I agree that in 5e Ars it isn't abstracted and the rules imply the Divine realm to have a certain character. I'm talking about if you are writing a new game or redoing the Divine entirely I would have it be less immanent and well defined.
Just like there are many magical systems with different theories of magic and systems of how to practice it, but which still all stem from the realm of magic, I would also have different systems for each religion, but which all are empowered by the divine realm. Mechanics like the deadly sins/noble virtues should be tied to a single religion, not common to all divine related things. The 'nobody knows' thing is about the nature of 'God' itself which is no more outlandish than the nature of magic or faerie in 5e and, I would argue, truer to life.
This also allows for a framework in which non-Christian and non-Abrahamic faiths can be represented as equal without inconsistencies. In 5e the further you got from Christianity the more difficulty there was reconciling monotheistic faiths with the divine realm, Islam and Judaism sort of make sense but then you have Zoroastrianism, and Gnosticism, and Sol Invictus worship, and Neoplatonic pantheism and it all starts to fall apart.
Taking it a step further, the divine doesn't even have to actually fit the idea of 'God' at all. Maybe the divine is actually a sort of 'oversoul' for the world, passive and only assumed to be 'God' by men. Maybe theurgists were right and the divine is just the source of creation, not an active participant in it. Maybe the divine is like a sleeping mind and creation is its dream. Or maybe it is a 'God' and mortals misinterpret it. You can present all sorts of possibilities to the reader without saying one is correct or implying it through rules.
At which point you are rewriting all the realms, because a divine cult of Isis should not interfere with magic, while the Christian faith clearly should- the titanomachy is no longer representable by a conflict between magic and faerie when both the pre-titanomachy deities and the post titanomachy deities are all part of the divine aura. Set now becomes part of both the divine and the infernal realms.
Add to this mass of confusion the fact that different parts of the rules in Ars magica tend to be written by different people who will have different perspectives on these issues to reconcile with the system. I'm not saying such a rewrite wouldn't be beneficial, I just don't think it would be possible, especially with the way AM has been put on the back burner by Atlas.
Now if you want to help me come up with a few million dollars to buy the rights from Atlas and you and I can get to work on this, as long as I'm not part of guaranteeing the loan I'm in.
I wouldn't have any pagan deities included in the divine realm. I think magic and faerie are pretty solid as they are. In cases like the Neoplatonists they viewed the higher 'gods' as more metaphors or embodiments of abstract principles than as flawed individual beings which would line up fairly well with a more abstract take on angelic beings. Traditional paganism would still be very much magic or faerie aligned.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one at the end of the day, and it is all largely an academic discussion as you say. Still, a man can dream...
I sort of disagree with that. RoP-Divine is full of "approved magic" for monotheistic faiths. The four realms system is broken though. Remember, Ars Magica was originally written 30 years ago by neo-pagans and atheists. That is why, I think, Faerie is a seperate realm from Magic. They wanted to give an exclusive space to the "old gods". Also recall that, to neo pagans of the 90s, "Old gods" meant Celtic and Norse, maybe a bit of Greco Roman. I would like to see a more inclusive model that incorporates Isis and other faiths that are not exclusive to North West Europe.
To clarify, I do not at all think that is what ArM5 is about. The four realms system is an archaic legacy, and fifth edition has broadened definitions and bent things into a shape that is somewhat more inclusive. But we are stuck with the word Faerie to define just about any pagan faith still practiced. The term, in my mind, mainly applies to Celtic/Norse and Greco/Roman faiths. It feels wrong to label pagan Semitic deities (which were and are still venerated) as "Faerie"
I propose a total overhaul. No division of realms. There is simply "Supernatural". An Aura might be aligned with a specific faith, and/or aligned against one. But that becomes accident, not essence (using philosophy terms). Then, in theory, someone with supernatural powers and mystery knowledge, could "attune" an aura to their liking.
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I think that the 5e delineation of Faerie and Magic makes a good amount of sense and don't personally see why it would be any more applicable to some polytheistic religions over others. For example the Egyptian priesthood as presented in 5e is based on Faerie and it works perfectly well.
As an Irishman I also would never think of the word "Faerie" as referring to the sĂ (which is what they'd be called, or maybe the Tuatha DĂ©) even when speaking English, or to Germanic myth or Hellenic for that matter either. It has very French connotations to me. It seems as good a term as any to use for the concept called "Faerie" in Ars. It's no stranger to call Ishtar or Horus a faerie than it is to call LĂș or Odin one. From my perspective, at least.
Getting rid of the realms entirely and just having one big mass of supernatural loses something of the feel of Mythic Europe for me, I quite like the four realms.
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I suspect the idea of the Tuatha De was a French thing from 1066 and thereabouts, as a way to denigrate the celtic deities. There were also some rather drastic changes in their portrayals at the time as well, including the Dagda being reduced in stories from a charismatic and intelligent leader to a well endowed knuckle dragging Neanderthal.
To me the idea of Ishtar or Isis as faerie in ars magica is alien for the simple reason that that was the earlier generation of deities who would have been the titans in the titanomachy. Of course they had their own yoke to throw off, which would be the dragons who also gave birth to the monstrosities (Tiamat and Abzu) but if you follow that chronology then El Ohiem is also of the titanic generation, and connects to the slaying of Tiamat to divide into the heavens and the earth... and what aura Tiamat would be associated with is well outside the bounds of the system.
I think defining auras as being simply "supernatural" could work, but there would still need to be a system of interactions based on the alignment or resonance of the auras... a Satanists sanctum might do fine with a priest of set which opposes servents of apophis who in turn also get along with the satanic priests... the web of relationships and associations of ancient religions, mythologies and folktales can get rather complex.
I am fine with both the Divine and the Infernal but I dislike giving either of them any sort of primacy or "I win!" buttons. This includes the whole lesser limit of the infernal where one can tell if a demon is lying. Screw that.
I am also fine with the idea that there is more nuances to the Divine then we mere mortals can understand, that even when there are contradictions it all works. I am even, in fact very, fine with the idea that there might be a religion of magicals that is sanctified by the Divine. And that said religion might in fact have beings that are basically gods.
I am also fine with the idea that the forces of the Divine and the Infernal (two sides of the same coin and stuff) cannot be destroyed, only trapped or banished. With the idea that if something is banished beyond a certain level of strength then for all points of mortal view the force is gone and gone for relative good. (yeah it may come back a thousand years from now, but that is not anytime soon, so its cool.)
I like the Magical. In fact I think its awesome as far as the game is concerned. I think that as the game is about magical beings it should be given storytelling primacy. But even more the fact that things that are Magical are real in a fundamental reality sense interests me. A Magical Entity is a Magical Entity where a mortal knows about it, is looking at it, or even if its not.
Faerie is whatever to me. The fact that they aren't real on their own, that they come about when humans look at them and that they don't have something permanent bothers me. Even more the fact that an entire sect of Magi focuses on Faerie annoys and bothers me to no end. (I wish the nature group won in that house rather than the faerie group)
So I would be fine with keeping Divine, Infernal, Magic, and Mundane and removing Faerie. Totally fine with it.
I would also be fine with making Divine forces something that goes beyond say Christian faith. That, for example, the Magical Deities worshiped by magical beings might in fact be entities of the Divine Realm.
I think an optimall idea would be to merge Magic and Faerie. I see no need to differentiate. I am not keen on Divine/Infernal being flip sides of a coin. The devil is not an equal power. That is a modern idea for the most part (some faiths do have flip sides, but that is not at all how people thought of Christianity in the middle ages).
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It's the other way round Tuatha DĂ© (the tribe of the gods, later changed to Tuatha DĂ© Danann, the tribe of Danu) is the original term, and stories about these figures morphed over time into the sĂ, the more fairy-like figures of modern Irish folklore. The process of 'christianising' the old myths and relegating the sĂ to being tricksters and remnants started well before 1066 and was largely a product of the Irish literary tradition (Ireland was for much of the early middle ages a centre of scholarship and literature in both Latin and Irish was common). The Lebor GĂĄbala Ărenn is what really kicks off the relegation of the Tuatha DĂ© and it was an entirely Irish work written in Middle Irish. French/Norman influence in Ireland really doesn't start until the 12th century, much after that change in the mythological framing had already happened. Faerie is as alien a term to Irish mythology as it is to Egyptian, Sumerian, or Slavic, or any number of others.
It's not like the mythology of Europe is really 'younger' than that of the fertile crescent either. It all stems from a root in the religion of the proto-indo-europeans which depending on the chronology you go with means as far back as 7500 BCE.
I have never considered the line in terms of faerie gods vs magic 'gods' to be based on which culture the mythology comes from. I would say that pre-titanomachy you have magic 'gods' who would not be recognisable to us as the gods we are familiar with, because they are principles of reality rather than being shaped by belief. After the titanomachy faerie versions of those entities exist, based on legends about them. These are not necessarily perfect matches being based on belief not reality. Over time these faerie gods change and split and diverge as mythology does the same. Some magic 'gods' are worked back in sometimes but usually fade out because they don't care much for worship.
So in my interpretation there would be a faerie Ishtar, and a faerie Isis, but that doesn't mean that those are the 'real' versions. There could be a magical entity that spawned those myths originally. However, it being ancient and magical, not faerie, it would probably be unrecognisable to the people of 1220 as being that 'god'.
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That is an excellent point
No joke - years ago my Dad had a cat and a dog at the same time and actually named the cat "Dog" and named the dog "Cat." I don't know what he'd have to say about hit points though....
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Would that include the Cumin in hungary who converted to Christianity en masse in 1227? Or the cathars of France and Lombardy? What was the position of th eBulgar faith system on this? Are we talking exclusively 13th century Europeans or do we get to include the early middle ages? The problem with this argument structure is twofold- first it is not based on what people of the period thought but what individual authors believed they thought, which gets back to what I was saying before about the system having a baked in "right" religion despite claims that it does not, and secondly the discussion winds up being about whose understanding of history is right rather than what works for the game.
As for faeries, I find the idea presented in the game playable, but a bit modern- it really seems to be a bit post-quantum theory for medieval style game. I can't tell you how often I've been tempted to make a faerie cat named Schrodinger. Probably undead.
The bigger issue with me with the faerie realm is it felt like it punted the concept to protect the idea of a magic realm. There could easily have been a draconic realm, a Djinn realm, a Genius realm, a Vedic Realm, etc. I'm sure part of the reason it didn't happen was to prevent complexity, especially in the early editions (as opposed to the modern methodology where such things means more books that can be sold). The problem with most of the realms is trying to cram too many different things into one tent...