This probably sounds like a wery stupid question, but, try as I might, I can not seam to find out what Tribunal France is in, can anyone help me?
Do you mean modern France?
Northern France is in the Normandy Tribunal. This includes Paris.
Southern France is in Langedoc.
Fragments of modern France are also in the Rhine and the Alps, in my opinion.
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Which is Provencal Tribunal, right?
Yes modern France, Paris was what I was looking for actualy. You see I use the Ars Magica background for my Mage the Asencion game and keep mutch of how the Order of Hermes works as it is mutch better in Ars Magica in my opinion than in Mage. Thank you for the information. 
Oooops, yes. 8)
If you don't like Mage's version of the Order of Hermes, then I reckon that you already have looked on White Wolf's old Tradition book on the Order of Hermes?
If you need more usable info for you Mage game, then I'd reckommend the earlier Ars Magica supplement "Houses of Hermes" - you can buy it as downloadable PDF from RGP NOW. I was written for an earlier version of Ars from the period when White Wolf's Storyteller and Ars were closer related - in it you can find some of the Orders history and you can find inspiration on the specific parts of the Order.
Yeah, you need to really look at the game map and cross reference it with a current map. In reality it may not matter as the location is essentially as abstract as anything else in the game, but if it gives you peace of mind cross reference the two (real map and Ars map) to figure out where you are.
For my campagin, by modern maps our covenant is clearly in France. By maps of 1220, we are on disputed French/German borders and probably in Germany. The magi of our covenant have always called themselves French, but we live in the Rhine Tribunal. Go figure.
With the introduction of Guardians of the Forest we had a sit down to determine how much of the book's cannon material was going to be either retconed into our game or ignored. I don't have my book here, but one of the existing border covenants is nearly on top of us. To our surprise much of their political story is simular to ours and I think we agreed to sort of replace this covenant.
Remember it's your game so don't feel obligated to make it fit into Ars/Mage cannon. Rather than force fit the game world, use the best of both worlds to spring board to greater possiblities. Game on!
Thank you for the information. I have the old game suplement Houses of Hermes and both the Mage Order of Hermes books, my players ofen play Hermetics and I think it work better by adding the Ars Magica background, espeicaly since we have done Ars Magica games and then had the charecter come back later as ancient archmages in Mage or Sorcerers Crusade.
I do however have a problem whit maps, so I did not know the exact tribual nothern France was in. I to have found that it is petter to mix and match and take what is best for the game and then discard the rest. Thanks again for the information.
One of the results of this mix and match was a wonderous one on one game between me and my fiance, we spend our first dates playing on it. The charecter he had was Ir an old Tremere that had fouth the Diedne, and killed quite a few. Now in modern day he meets Philippa, the reincarnation of one of the Diedne he killed. They fall in love, though the realtionship is rather tubulant. Later, after the story Ir became an npc in other Mage games.
Thanks - and very nice by the way! I've played and enjoyed a lot of Mage. I think the meta of the game is simply outstanding, and a very different game from Ars, but we always had some kind of hardship with the game mechanics. Have you tried the latest version of Mage? I've only skimmed it - it seems as if they've turned the machanics upside down - but not neccesarily to the better, or what?
Great idea - that'd be a story twist of my favorites! Have you read the Fragile Paths for Mage? - somewhat made me think of it. I like those kind of stories where you have plenty of pathos but the protagonist can't just settled it by going killing critters or antagonist because the striving emotions are really internal. I also really like the Diedne and they are taking quite an important plotrole in our Ars saga...
Wonderful as well to hear everyday stories of role playing leading to romance! Congrats!
Thank you for the compliments.
Mage the Acsension have wonderful metaphysics and a good setting and it is the game I play the most, the new Mage is not a new version, it is a complelty new game. It is known as Mage the Awakening, it has a new setting, new magick system, all exept a few names are new and the setting have nothing to do whit the old setting. It is a good game but I prefer Mage the Acsension.
I have a fragile path and used quite a bit of it in my games. Actualy Ir an Philippa tried once to bring an reincarnation of Hylel to life, on their wedding night they lay whit one another at his grave. The result was that Pippa, Philippa`s nickname, got pragnid whit twins one of witch was a hemaprodite, however whatever or not he was Hylel, was never discoverd. I like games of romance and personal conflict better than big fightss.
For example in Ars Magica my favorite charecter was a Criamon Mirriam, her master was quite mad and desperate at getting one magical offspring before final twilight and he tortured her ruthlessy during her apprentiship. The result was Mirriam hating the Order, and magic and tried her best to live a normal life, somthing witch was hard whit symbols scared into yur entire face. She eventualy met a trubadour that fell in love whit her despite her horrid apperance and together they had two children. Mirriam eventualy joined a Covenant to protect her gifted daugter from angry pesants and mutch of the gamiving whit her was her learning that not all magi was like her former master, teatching her to trust the Order, that she had a bad brake of the code in her past did not make this more easy. She was extremly fun to play.
I to like Diedne and my fiance love the Tremere so I to bring Diedne into the stories I lead qite often.
Then it is as expected.. I'm a bit sorry because it might mean that the Ascension will strand - and that's a pitty to the many potential players who might not hear of it. In a sense we always felt that the meta of Ascension was so strong that the core book alone was perfect - some of the sourcebooks actually perhaps watering down the great meta a bit. My preference is clearly Ars Magica, but I've always had in my mind, that when me and my regular role playing friends might grow old(er) - we might find renewed interest and new maturer stories to tell within the frame of Mage.
Great!
Another pathos-laden plot to my liking!
lol - good for him. They do make splendid boogeymen to the Tremere. Our plot is more oriented toward a player magus having Diedne roots. He did just have it from the beginning, but instead he discovered more and more along the way - it often actually being in contrast to the person he was before his apprenticeship. Now he, and others, are investigating into things that might uncover a different take on the Schism War. A portion of the Orders history that I'll present as a fetid and by most preferably forgotten. There'll probably be more half-shady people and those who felt that they acted as they did out ouf decent necessity then actual outright villains. The major tragidy being the inaction of the majority rather then the evil deeds of a few, when the Order faced a crisis. But who will try to hinder the disclosure of what really happen? And more importantly: what are there motivations? And to what means will they go to keep this sad chapter of history hidden?
We also had a big lovetheme spanning several stories. One of our magi, Knecht, had left his childhood home, or rather the lack thereof (being a poor boy from a destitute family) at the age of 8 to take part in the Childrens Crusade. He and his best friend - Klaudia - of the same age as he, travelled along with a small group of children from Köln. Together with thousand of children they passed the freezing Alps and ended up in Genoa, where the group was split up. Knecht and Klaudia survived on scratch roaming the Genoan countryside, but one day Klaudia had a visitor while Knecht had gone to pickpockets or steal a bit of goat milk. The visitor clearly had bad intentions and Klaudia - who had always been touched by a strangeness - called upon powers beyond her control... and spiralled into Twillight. Knecht looked in wain for her everywhere but to no awail, and some weeks later he was picked up by a Bjornaer in transit who took him in - and off they went to England. Knecht always wanted to refind his lost best friend - and always talked of his coming great quest to find her. In the meantime Klaudia had survived her Twilight and ended up with a local Criamon (they had unbeknownst been living in the back yard of a local Roman covenant). Her returning visits in the Twillight (being Twillight prone and having life-linked spontaneous magic) had given her a small amount of control over her Twillight - here she weaved a place mirroring the little delipedated hut they'd lived in. And as she learned more (from the Twillight as well as her apprenticeship) then she started to reach out for Knecht (having Mythic Blood and a gift somewhat like Opening the Intangible Tunnel) using mentem to try to reach him. Unfortunately his newly learned Parma barred many of her attempts... Finally, having understood parts of her whisperings, and many pathos-ridden heartbreaking scenes later, Knecht realised that he had seak to reach her through the Twillight. I especially remember a scene in a small boat on the Irish Sea, where Knecht was because he had promised to help a wealthy merchant with a pirate nuissance, and it was his magic that kept the boat afloat. Then he botched a magic roll and was fighting to give in to the Twillight - knowing that if he did he and the few others in the boar would surely die at sea - and yet as if a door was slightly ajar he could hear Klaudia whispering to him to step through to her.. Why wouldn't he come... resounded her words as he had close the figurative door to Twillight - he fought the Twillight and won, but was left with bittersweet memories...
Therefore he persuaded a sodalis to wash Warping over him - using the Enigma's Gift - until he finally plunged into Twilligth. We had the most exiting episode in Twilligth - all the other players had been involved (but Knechts player kept in the dark) - where he went on an allegoric journey - realising that she was his true love and that to find her he had to look for what would be and not constantly seeking what had been (the idealised childhood memories). The player had uptill then portrayed the character through almost 20 years of playtime including all his apprenticeship, but had kept Knecht, contrary to the other apprentice characters, innocent to the extreme - relentlesly not wanting to let go of his childhood.
Much more was to come for him (a 9 session Odysseus-inspired voyage across Europe to find his true love) and her. But oooh their reunion.... he older and scarred and she worn, exhausted and shrivelled to the bone - it was incredibly simple and beautiful!!!
And plenty worth the ingame and realtime months of tedious work to get there.
Sounds like a wonderful game. So Twilight in Ars Magica have become more similar to Quiet in Mage in the new edition? there to when you end up in Quiet you end up in a sort of mindscape where you usualy need to acomplish somthing to get out.
One of the strogenst senses I have ever done in Ars Magica was when Mirriam befrinded a Tytalus, Tobias, Tobias did see the gift in Mirriam`s young daugther Lisel, though Mirriam would not let Lisel become an apprentice of the Order. There was a realy intense sene as Tobias sat Mirriam down and placed a smal chiken in a cage and had it grow whit magic unthil the cage killed it, and said the chiken was like Lisel and unless Mirrian let her grow free, let her mecome the maga she want meant to become she would end up like the bird in the cage. At the end of that sene Mirriam did consent to Tobias taking Lisel as an apprentice, it was a brual, but wery nice sene.
In another game I played a young Ex Miskelania that had Diende roots and killed two Flambau magi as revenge for what happend to Diedne. She then fell in love whit the senior Quesitor`s Enforcers, a Tremere named Ariel. When it was discoverd that my charecter had killed two other magi she was taken before a tribunal and condamed to death, and they desided to use an execution, a rather painful one instead of a wizards martch. She was to resive many, many smal cuts all over her body and bleed to death. Ariel however could not see his beloved die and betrayed the Order and helped her escape, the two of them fleeing a Wizards Martch and reaching a group of escaped Diedne. They to ended up in a Mage game as old Verbena magi, and Diedne was realy in mage, a group that came from the Verbena.
No, not entirely - and I really hadn't consciously thought of Quiet - but I guess that it is more less what you make of it. I think it's an obvious frame for strange allegorical stories - if you've prepared them (it is rather different from ones usual session) or is very good at thinking creativvely in the spur of a moment. And also making it connected to whatever Scars and effects of the Twillight.
But I do not know how common it is for people to actually play their Twillights...?
I have not realy played twilight before, but it sounds like a good idea, however I do play Quiets in Mage and they are nearly exacly what you described.
Hey Hagazussa.
It's "Sigata Lee". Kryslin is your former GM. Just saying hey!
Oh hi, how nice to meet you again, how are you. I soenyoyed to play whit you, oh dear it have been years, I was still living whit my mother when i played Mirriam. I have gotten to use her later though, revriting her story a bit, I had her show up in my Mage games a few times. Sigata Lee, what a wonderful charecter, how did he end up?
For a variety of reasons the game came to an end. We all knew this and many of the players wrote up conclusions for their characters. How they went on to finish their ambitions.
That's not my style. The game ends, the character ends. I chose not to write up a 'This is how things end for my character.' Perhaps it's the existentialist in me. What we know about Sigata is what we played. The rest is a mystery.
If it matters, during the game we explained that he was found by his Pater in Transylvania. The last table top adventure my brother played before moving cross country, his charater (Sigata's Pater) left for Transylvania. So I suppose the circle is complete in a reverse time sort of way.
I somtimes write up a what happend further, but not that often, wery often I end up reusing a charecter. Mirriam for example, I needed a mystery for my Mage players and said they found her inside an enchantmen, that she had volentersd to be the ginna pig of a Verditius to get away from the Quesitors, that was before she was found not guilty. The players found her, and the ruins of foxcourt. I tried to find Steve and ask if it was okey, but since it was just one play session whit my Mage group, and I did not find him I asumed it was. The players then had alot of problem as Mirriam speaks latin and a bit of oldfashiond french, they did not, they also traced down her family, after they got hold of somne that spoke latin, in witch I got to make conclusions for those charecters and found none was live, though Lisel had become a Hermetic that had gotten an apprentice in turn and that apprentice was still living. It was rather nice.
Nice that Sigate found his mentor by the way. But it was a fun game was it not, foxcourt. I had fun, though being even poorer whit english than I am now I somtimes had problems whit that.
Foxcourt was fun. Kryslin has moved as have I. Were still best bud's though. The Nurakrah campaign, on which FoxCourt is based is on hiatus because we lack players. To many of us have moved to the strangest corners of America. The plan is to keep playing when we can gather. Traditionally that's 4 times a year.
Currently Kryslin and I are planing a solo PbP for his apprentice from Nurockrah (Pre-FoxCourt Material). That has stalled because he and I have been working alot. But the foundation is there and as soon as we can have just a little more time I'll be running the mother of all Gauntlets.