Why would a magus want to live in the Roman tribunal?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I admit I have not taken a look at the 3e Roman tribunal book mostly because I heard It was littered with demons and not that accurate. That being said from what I’ve seen of 5e material that mentions the Roman Tribunal the area seems to be extremely poor. The divine auras have grown to a point they stamped out most of the magic and faerie auras leaving the land lacking in typical hermetic resources like vis and magical creatures. So I have to ask why would a magus want to live in a land that hampers his magic and limits his resources? How does this area have 3 domus and why hasn’t everyone left for greener pastures?

Also second but totally unrelated question. Seeing as how in 5e the hermetic landscape seems to mimic the mundane I’m wondering if a sort of hermetic senate would be a viable way to govern that wouldn’t violate the code? Say a representative from each covenant was chosen every seven years and given the voting sigils of the each magus that belongs to the covenant. It’s this representative that votes on matters in the tribunals rather than everyone getting a say sort of like the tremere but voluntary and a much bigger scale.

2 Likes
2

The Roman Tribunal is kind of the heart-land of the Order. Many of the founders came from there, you have several Domus Magna there. Tradition.
And of course easy access to mundane craftsmen and scholars.

Many magi like having easy access to mundane luxuries and resources. Other prefer having access to raw vis and untamed magical sites - they move to Novgorod or other wild areas.

As for your second question - such a senate could be done, but why would magi want to hand over their voting sigils that way? What would they gain from it? Nothing as far as I can tell.

3

So tradition and just the comforts of an mundane society? I guess that makes sense but it’s pretty antithetical to the usual image mages give themselves of living on fringes and only coming out of their whole for magical experiments. I just can’t see mundane comforts being worth the trade off lots of places have skilled craftsmen, books, and scholars after all.

Regarding that second one I was just trying to brainstorm up what a quirk of Rome could be since hermetic pope probably wouldn’t make sense. Like how Rhine has the voting from beyond the grave or how Thebes is fully democratic. Perhaps something more similar to a modern republic would be better. A tribunal where block voting is more common with certain mages “campaigning” for seven years and securing votes for certain issues causing political factions to pop up with central figureheads. Could even have something similar to lobbying and bribery where certain individual try to buy mages votes.

4

In my version of the Roman Tribunal, what distinguishes it from other tribunals is that it’s essentially a service economy.

There’s not a lot of wild vis. But the Houses based there—Guernicus, Mercere, Verditius—bring in a lot of vis by performing services for other magi or for the Order as a whole. The domus magni, in turn, spend that vis on whatever they want, and other magi in the Roman Tribunal perform those services and get paid.

Magi raised in this tribunal are used to the idea of performing services and getting paid in vis, and there’s an infrastructure to support it, so when someone needs something—like a magic item made or a lab text copied—that job goes out onto the market and is quickly snatched up by a magum willing to do it.

The Divine has encroached on much of the land, but the covenants here are often old and their auras are not in danger. No one’s going to build a church in Magvillius.

Also, Venice and Sicily are important draws. Venice is a social hub for the Order, with covenants from throughout the tribunal keeping second homes in Venice, which is a hotbed of Faerie and Magic auras. I use Timothy Ferguson’s version of Mythic Venice, which you can learn more about at Games from Folktales.

Sicily is barely mentioned in the 3e book, but it is the current home of Emperor Frederick, who is a patron to magicians and who welcomes Muslims and Jews to his court. There’s a hundred reasons why magi might go to Sicily and visit the court; in my saga, the players ended up buying Malta from Frederick and incorporating it into the tribunal.

On the note of governance, the official book depicts the tribunal as locked in a bad state by old covenants who refuse to admit any new covenants, and the peripheral code is in dire need of revision. This becomes a useful plot if your players are interested in Hermetic Politics. Houses like Tremere and Tytalus naturally have Opinions on how reform should happen, while the established houses in the tribunal probably want to keep things the way they are (but maybe not).

That’s how I did it. Your Saga May Vary.

9 Likes
5

I’d toss out the idea that the Dominion is so overwhelming that there’s little else. Where there’s Dominion, there are Infernal machinations. There are ancient Magic sites, and equally ancient Faerie sites, some inside the bounds of the Dominion. The interior of the Italian peninsula and the islands are relatively wild.

3 Likes
6

Agree with all the others. Early magi, Summae is easily the best path to advancement. I’d expect most Roman covenants to have easy access to a Quality 21 level 6 summae in all 15 arts, and while not as easy, good access to the top tier Summae, the Quality 12 level 20, etc. Also, decent summae such as Quality 15 level 3 for penetration, concentration, finesse, mastery of pilum, mastery of 7 league stride, etc. It should also be awash with Quality 8+ tractatus, because no-one is using vis for study.

Renting out these books for vis, selling off old magic items made by a magi a century dead, there will be some vis incoming.

I also agree with the other poster about Dominion encroachment being over stated. The big “Italian” cities, Rome, Venice, Milan, Genoa are all under 100K. There are still large stretches of untamed wilderness. One farming cottage does not start a dominion aura.

1 Like
7

One major advantage to the Roman tribunal- trade networks. A smaller Lacunae for your work may well be worth it when you have access to universities, libraries, and imports that likely include vis sources from abroad. Also lots of ports and sailing, if you want to go on globe, well Mediterranean hopping missions of exploration, and the dominion certainly isn’t extending out over the sea. Plus there are lots of ancient sites away from the cities that have ancient temples and likely very strong magical auras, again confined by the impinging divine.

8

A lot of mundane clients that can buy magic items. A lot of good sources of lab equipment - without additional magic this Venetian glass retorts need maybe year to be proper transported, but if Venece was near you it look little different.

I also think that Roman Tribunal was “vis poor” compare to less dense populated tribunals. There still enough auras and vis around - lacunas exist and of example for vis (from Covenants) was forming in church. They maybe sit in places that unsual for more traditional mages - in cities - but local mages already used to such things.
And another reason why Roman is “vis poor” it’s because there too many mages around, so each of them have smaller share.

Maybe some mages prefer more vis and less people, but I guess Roman Tribunal attract more mercantile and academic mages, who enjoy trade and reading books.

About second question - because hermetic landscape mimic mundane (in some way), I think Roman Tribuanl is not very united in this case. Not open Hibernia conflicts, but more like undercover intrigues, trade wars, sneak attacks, petty feuds (not only vendettas). Covenants insted of city-states.

1 Like
9

It’s also critical to consider the place that Rome has in the medieval consciousness, as this vast and powerful empire that stretched across most of Europe and had (for the time) vast civic infrastructures and artistic, philosophical, and technological achievements. The difference in culture and technological capacity in contrast to that of their colonies further afield had a sort of mythic hype to it (in the mundane cultural sense, not necessarily a magical one, though also…) - it wasn’t just a city, it was the city, and anything connected to it was on a scale from Rustic to Rome. I imagine for some mages, just being “From Rome” carries a decent amount of clout, even in the 1200s. It’s like being a New Yorker.

1 Like
10

In 1200 this is much more true of Constantinople than of Rome. Rome is largely abandoned in 1220. There’s 10,000 people who live among a vast city of crumbling and overgrown ruins visited by tons of pilgrims.

There’s actually an in-period travel guide to Rome, public domain. Such an eye opener.

3 Likes
11

Amusingly, there IS a Church in Magvillus and its aura swells on a certain holy day to eclipse Magvillus’ aura. :smiley:

1 Like
12

The thing about Rome at this point in time is that it is at once both the center of power of Europe, in the form of the Church, and a highly fragmented area, not even really a state. A fair amount of it, both in terms of southern Italy and Malta are controlled by Germany as is a fair amount of Tuscany. Had Charlemagne not come to the defense of the Pope in the 8th century the Church would have suffered military defeat to the Lombards, and the only thing that prevented Fredrick from over running Rome was his respect for the church, whether hat respect was for the symbolism and the political backlash that would follow attacking Rome itself or actual religious deference of some degree.

13

That is a really inaccurate interpretation of Fredrick's reign.

He massively decentralised the HRE, so that he would not be bothered by vassals chaffing under a heavy imperial yoke, and thereby He left in peace to rule the much more centralised kingdom of Sicily.

The HRE was “led” by Palermo and Naples, not Italy by Frankfurt and Gelnhausen.

3 Likes
14

As our supplement is set in Venice 1507, I have just finished writing the history of the Order of Hermes from 1220 to 1507 and the Rome Tribunal was of course at the center of my attention.

So, in our 300-years-later version, the tribunal has been (mostly) cleaned from infernal influence and constant political fights between the covenants and is the starting point of the Magical Renaissance. I don’t say, that it is the holy land, but it is definitely one of the places-to-be!

Plus… oi! Everybody wants to be in Italy because it is Italy, no matter how poor, demon-infested or politically absurd it is. Which is why ALL my long-running campaigns (Ars Magica and Vampire alike) were always set in Italy and both of my books too. And which is why I travel there 1-2 times per year.

Ok, I am just a person, but magi are too. And nobody can escape its charms! :wink:

(Ok, ode to Italy over.)

4 Likes
15

Fredrick may have decentralized the HRE, but in 1220 he lived in Sicily and was in the process of trying to bring the nobles who had gained independence under the rule of his predecessor to heel. So it was definitely part of his domain, which I expect he split up officially as much to appease the Pope (who was a bit leery of the HRE occupying most of Italy) as it was for convenience about not having to deal with as many vassals.

1 Like
16

I’d also point out that the Muslims are just getting expelled from Sicily in the 13th century, so there’s a lot there for magi who are interested in the magic and lore of the Arabic and Islamic worlds.

1 Like
17

Frederick II started to subject Sicily already 1220, by declaring the Assizes of Capua. He made this a priority, but still took over two years to enforce them. After this he broke the power of the Muslims in Sicily until 1225 and started to resettle them to Apuly.

18

I can only recommend the podcast History of the Germans which did a whole season on our dear Frederick II and the later Hohenstaufen.

One thing which is really highlighted was his cultural clash as a Norman raised in Palermo with the social values of the more traditional Germans, which included his son, the unfortunate Henry.

1 Like
19

I think a simple reason of they were born there and have family, or their apprenticeship was there and they want to stay are simple enough. Humans like connection.

5 Likes
20

If you are only looking at vis production and magic auras as wealth, Italy is poor. By every other metric, it is one of the richest regions of Europe. More commerce, more books, more skilled craftsmen (both magical and mundane), more shipping, more banking, easy access to communication with other regions than any other tribunal.

There is a reason Italy kept getting invaded. It collected and concentrated the wealth of the entire Mediterranean basin. If you are playing in the Roman tribunal, it is an interesting thing to focus on. Commerce rather than resource collection is the way forward. Getting good at a magical craft specialty is the way forward.

Games in the Roman Tribunal would just have a different focus. Less exploration, more interaction with various power players.

2 Likes