What saga are you running at the moment?

Just thought it would be interesting to ask people about their saga, where it is set, what characters they have and how long it has been running? :slight_smile:

CJ x

I have two Ars Magica groups. Sadly in both groups we meet only ca. 6-8 times per year.
Saga 1:
Provencal Tribunal. Jerbiton, Ex Miscellanea, Criamon, Tytalus, Bonisagus, Flambeau. We´re playing for 23 years (started with AM3, converted to AM4 and AM5, it´s stil the same saga).
Saga 2:
Rhine Tribunal. Tremere, Guernicus, Jerbiton, Bjornaer We´re playing for 2 1/2 years.

That may be the longest saga running? :slight_smile:

I'm an inexperienced player. I've been running a saga for a few months now with a bunch of new players. Set in the Roman Tribunal, out of the way with little Hermetic politics since the players are exploring the system still. I know my early Ars Magica experience was ruined by having Tribunal Politics rammed into the plot while I was still trying to figure out how the game worked. We have a Verditius who's an optimistic noncombatant, a Tremere originally from the Levant, an exploratory Ex Misc who hates lab work, and a Jerbiton who is bad at being a Jerbiton.

Maybe. I don´t know. By the way: We started at the old official game starting year 1189, now we´re in 1235. We´re planning to play until 1250... maybe in a nursing home.

Been playing the same 4th ed. saga since that core book became available for free. The covenant is on the border between England and Wales, with a Bonisagus, Jerbiton, Bjornaer, Criamon, Merinita, and Tremere. We only play about 6-8 times a year, and really enjoy the stories for some of the minor characters. As a result, game-time and advancement are slow, but we get to have stories like two apprentices and two young grogs accidentally discover a new level of the local regio, or townsfolk weddings that are crashed by the local fae.

We have been playing since september 2013.
We aim to play at a minimum of 4 times yearly and progress the timeline 4 years every real life year minimum.
The campaign is set in the Rhine Tribunal with the covenant in Prague. We discussed wether they would like to be in the Rhine Gorge, Bohemia or somewhere else.
The Campaign is based initially on the one described in the Rhine book with the locations of previous covenants moved to places in Bohemia.
I ma the Alfa storyguide with a Flambeau Magus, the others are a Dream magic/illusionist Bonisagus who at times acts like a Jerbition. He masquerades as a wealthy German merchant and is the apparent leader to the outside world.
The others are a Tremere necromancer raised in Transylvania, a German Verditius who was apprenticed in Sicily and a pagan half-faerie Tytalus storm mage.

Read more here if you want:
http://forgotten-legacy.obsidianportal.com/

I'll try to be brief, even though I want to tell a lot about it.

Together with Tellus from the Forum here I run a Rhine saga, more or less the Rhine Gorge setup from GotF although IMS the Hermetic-free zone covers most of Westphalia.
It is a Spring saga with focus on Hermetic relations and politics, we spent a lot of time gaining support to form the new covenant.

We started play in january 2015 so 1 and 3/4 years, with sessions once per month most months. Saga started at Tribunal 1221, covenant officially recognized at Tribunal 1227, we're in 1232 now.

Physical location is sprawling town buildings in a village turned town due to a town charter pioneered by a Companion noblemoman. Village was isolated due to the inhabitants beings odd (many with Magical Air) but they welcomed the magi (many woth Unaffected by the Gift). Income is a mine with mostly iron but also other metals plus trade.

Magi:
*Dietmar of Verditius (played by Tellus), a ring smith and generalist (played by Tellus) of Oak Gild
*Meinhard of Tremere of Appel Gild, filius of Daria la Gris from Triamore, abyssal bearer vexillation, focused on stocking house Tremere for conflict
*Gotschalg ex Miscellanea, a shapeshifter of Linden Gild, paranoid of magi Bjornaer learning his powers
*Titus of Flambeau, elementalist and duellist, filius of Indulius from Fengheld. Originallu Oak GIld but is trying to form a ned Gild called Hornbeam to brdge the gap between Ash and Oak
*Baliana of Trianoma (played by me) - not to be confused with Baliana of Trianoma from COllem Leonis covenant (from Through the Aegis). The Baliana in this saga is indeed another version of the one from Collem Leonis, but I think it's ok that I made this rip-off :wink:
Anyway Baliana is also interested in learning about Nordic wizards and whether they are organized or even a thread. Originally Ash Gild but she supports Titus' project with Hornbeam Gild since it meshes quite well with her goals.

As the main theme we have the re-settlement of the Rhine Gorge (Westphalia really) and dealing with the conflicts with the growing mundane society as well as the possibly looming thread of the North. The Crintera Schism from the GotF book is also happening, but seeing as we have no magi Bjornaer as player characters and live far away from Crintena this is merely a backdrop.

1 online saga for a bit more than a year.

1 IRL saga which started at an unknown date to me since I was on a break from Ars magica from may 2014 to december 2014. We are a core group of 3 players (who play together since 2008 but the two others were already playing for a longer time together : I only joined when a fellow student read my law studies yearbook where I wrote something like "I hope to play RPG again, I miss it" [size=50](before my law studies I only played star wars and D&D 2d edition revised)[/size]). This saga started in the Rhine Tribunal (covenant of Triamore relocated in Belgium - our country). It then moved to the Provençal tribunal [the book let much more place for the setting interations between all tribunals in our opinion than GotF, in which the "older wins" and the guilds which the alphastoryguide never used]. The group contains currently a total of 8 players, but we play 2 or 3 times per 4 weeks, and with at least 4 players to allow player-interactions. Other characters are assumed to work in lab, using the ars magica system to provide credibility.

Currently the covenant contains: 5 magi gauntleted in 1220:

  • a Tremere (alphastoryguide) with Diedne magic trying to be loyal to both his lineages...
  • a Bonisagus seeker whose aim are unclear at the moment, but who is always trying to help
  • a Merinita, warrior and interested in old Heroes such as mainly Alexander the Great
  • an Ex Miscellanea maga from a summoner tradition
  • an Ex Miscellanea magus from the Pharmacopeans, who is starting to think that suffering is so insupportable that death is better.

1 older magus (mine, dating from our second saga which started in 2010 and which I used in our next saga of 2012 and the 4th one of 2013 too), a lab-rat Bonisagus with elemental magic
and 1 maga whose gauntlet is ca. in 1210 iirc, from house Ex miscellanea and whose interests lies in the Aquam art.

The newest player will introduce her maga if she sticks to what we are currently designing in the next session she will attend : a Merinita going for the arcadian mysteries.

In the past, there also was:

  • a second Tremere (player left)
  • a Flambeau (player left)
  • a Bjornaer, snow tiger from the north, dead (player of the current seeker Bonisagus)
  • a Verditius (mine, before admitting I didn't enjoyed playing it and waiting for the saga to move forward so that I could bring my old magus)

Currently the saga is in 1248 and we have hope that we will not restart another one (on the opposite of what we did in our 4 last sagas) when the magi feel more powerful. (That was mainly the reason why I took a break : I didn't enjoy restarting a freshly gauntleted magus again).

Among the core group, we are all 3 the storyguides, the alphastoryguide is on a saga whose theme is an ancient rivalry between a "magical creature" and the founders of Christianity; the other storyguide has played a saga whose focus was on a still avoidable "vampirisation" of the House Tremere by a powerful faerie who would lead them to be Renounced, and mine whose theme is the one of "With powers come great responsabilities", meaning that when the Order start to be so powerful that they can crush anyone, they are at the moment they should the least crush anyone, because that's how you make Empires fail: by taking too much.

We try, as much as possible without giving out the keys of our mysteries of course, to mix our NPCs and saga-threads, to lose the players and give credibility to the world.

Obviously I play in the saga mentioned above by Christian Andersen.

I also play in another saga, in which Christian used to participate (but had to leave due to RL interfering).
It started as a Merinita-focused covenant in the border area between Loch Leglean and Stonehenge tribunals.
It kind of still is, but with significant changes in line-up, we're sort of re-starting with the newly Gauntleted apprentices of the magi we used to play.

I'd love to write more about that saga, but right now, it's a bit murky.

For those interested, both of these sagas are accessable on the net (wikidot), though in a mix of languages.

my "Light of Andorra" saga has been running online here since 2008. Iberia/Provencal border. The saga began offline sometime in the 90s, right just as 3rd closed and 4th was starting up.
I retconned the history and start dtae when I went online with it. Started in 1220, the second reset in 1230. We are at 1242 now.
It has ever been a sandbox saga. An arena for players to runaround in.

I'm actually between sagas at the moment and experimenting with some other games...

So I run HBO Ars Magica: sites.google.com/site/hboarsmagica/

The game has been going since August 2013, so three years as I write this. It is designed as a TV series, so has Season 1 and Season 2.

Season 1 introduced several Gifted youngsters who became apprentices in the Greater Alps Tribunal. They were preyed upon by Infernalists, saved and then ruined the Children's Crusade, struggled to escape the shadow of their masters, and eventually discovered the Cave of Bonisagus and solved the mystery of Terragon Vale. We passed 1 year every session, with a couple of two-partners. 16 episodes, 1205-1220.

Season 2 saw the newly-Gauntleted magi founding a covenant in Hibernia. The Alpine Apprentices were joined by some Hibernian magi who eventually joined the covenant. They have tried to walk the line between pro-Irish and pro-English politics, explored across the sea, and fended off Wizard's War by a powerful Flambeau, but have lost some members to demonic corruption, Hermetic politics, and Faerie meddling. 26 episodes, including some two-partners, 1220-1227.

We're in the last three episodes before the end of Season 2, which I intend to leave on a major cliffhanger while I take a break and plot Season 3.

I am the only storyguide of a Saga set right after the founding of the Order in northern Germany: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/domus-parva-790-a-d-alternate-setting/10246/1
So far, the group has scouted the possible covenant sites and chosen one of them as their home. They also had the first confrontations with possible long-term allies and adversary. Now I'm gonna run a couple adventures and begin to subtly introduce a couple of overarching storylines.

I am the story guide for a saga set in Iceland

sites.google.com/site/aoidecovenant/

and am playing in a saga set in the Levant.

My first introduction to Ars was the Levant saga, and I was so enthused that I wanted to SG my own game. Since the SG for the Levant is a player in mine, I chose Iceland to be as far away as possible from his game. I got the old Land of Ice and Fire 4th Ed book, and realized that it has links to Egypt...

Bob

My last big ars magica game ended. If I'm going to play again I want to do it with new players for new ideas and a different flavor of game.

The game was a super high powered game that started in the 780s and ended by... the 810s or 820s I think. The PCs...:

1.) Significantly influenced the Peripheral Code - i.e.(Join or Die became "Join or Die, or become my Slave"), significantly stronger Quaesitors
2.) Picked personal fights with the founders. One ended up killing Verdituis, (context: The PC kills an obvious diabolist. Turns out it was Verdituis's daughter. The PC RPed being a social retard and escalated matters which turned into a Wizard's War. [When I realised what the PC was doing he said, "I have negative communication and no Etiquette or Charm".] They ended up fighting Tremere in a big last battle but not killing him.
3.) Were the prime instigators for the beginnings of the persecution of the Diedne
4.) The Tytalus happily started dabbling in Diabolism-Lite
5.) The Bonisagus switched to House Tytalus and then became a Powerful Vampire
6.) The PCs happily changed history - killing Constantine VII's mother Irene in 797 - preventing her from IRL becoming Empress.
7.) Setup well funded orphanages in big cities around the Mediterranean as a way of doing Good Works but also recruiting Gifted children.
8.) Had the Sahir join the OoH as a house in 807 through some fantastic RPing and good thinking.
9.) Created a Super Covenant with a dozen Chapter Houses and dominated the order - effectively forcing the rest of the OoH to pay them tribute to access their covenant's books and lab texts.
10.) Neutered Tremere's ambitions themselves.

I can't remember the details of how it ended other than people were happy. We started playing in 2013 and finished in 2015.

I'm currently preparing for my first proper saga ever (having played about 16 years ago, run a couple of sessions of a 4th ed game and having done a number of live roleplaying Ars Magica events). Being, at heart, a terrible tinkerer with rules and such, I tend to spend more time planning a game than actually running one. Consequently, I have displayed magnificent self-control and am going with the use of as much published material as possible because, frankly, it's all so very good and I own a lot of the 5th ed books.

I presented the option of Normandy, Thebes or the Rhine to my three players, and we're going with the Guardians of the Forest setting. The players have come up with magi from Houses Bjornaer, Bonisagus and Died... I mean, "Merinita" and we're due to finish off character gen tomorrow evening. My wife (the "Merinita") has grand plans for a Hermetic Breakthrough and has managed to come up with a MuVi specialist, which is a bit brain-bending but we've just about worked out how she can do her thing. The Bonisagus is an ex-novice from a Benedictine monastery who has a Guardian Angel nagging at him. The Bjornaer is "old-school": a defender-of-the-wilderness type descended from a Bohemian mythic figure.

Great news Morgan!

Hope it goes really well. I have run a couple of sessions recently for the first time in a while, with a view to launching another saga here in Cheltenham at some point soon.

CJ x