This thread is dedicated to discuss the open-license project "Wisdom of the Desert" project I'm working on with @Lothindil.
Please read the project vision prior to commenting this thread, as it explains much of what we would like to achieve.
The project vision outlines where we were on Dec 31st, when we made the patreon page. Several documents were finalised first prior to the announcement as we wanted to have something to deliver before asking for funds, to see how much work committing to supporting this patreon would be, and because early project adjustments are inevitable. The current project status as well as the intended subscription model will be detailed in a later post. We're realistic that fulfilling the project vision will take quite some time - 1.5 to 3 years wouldn't surprise me. And that we may need to rescope along the way, based on what the community support looks like (although I'm hopeful the support will be there!)
If we complete the product we want, we're looking at a product that might compare to Ars Magicka definitive in size. That would be full of crunch (stats!) and art, that tries to respect canon while being creative, and focusing mainly on mythic elements that can be included in a game rather than historical elements rephrased from wikipedia. Including a lot of art is possible because Lothindil does it along with the content, therefore, there is no external art budget which I know other fan-based products are struggling with. If you're curious, you can see some of her art here: https://www.artstation.com/lothindil and the art on the patreon - it's made to be visually beautiful, and we intend the final product to be as well. The gamble we're trying to make is that, as Ars Magicka Definitive has shown, there is a market for high quality, high content material, and it's what we're trying to offer. We'll see if time proves us right or whether a rescoping is needed.
Please give us your full thoughts in this thread, and feel free to ask any questions you have.
This post details the anticipated perks. Depending on the number of subscriptions, and other fan feedback, the actual perks list may be adjusted along the way. I will edit this post as we revise the perks of various subscription levels (and post an update).
Apprentice-level supporters get:
At least an article a month. An article might mean: A covenant, a full character, creatures and beings of different realms, a few spells, some regional vis source ideas, an adventure site, etc.
The scope of the accessible project intended for the apprentice-level is envisioned to include, at a minimum:
A dozen hermetic sites, including Blood and Sand covenants reviewed for 5th edition and expanded to include more information on those sites - a level of details similar to what you would expect for a covenant in 5th edition (Name, Covenant symbol, History, Description, Magis detailed with personality traits and a paragraph or two, a paragraph for covenfolk & companions).
At least 3 solomonic houses of wisdom that might interact with hermetic covenants, with a similar level of details;
2-3 fleshed out NPCs;
2-3 fleshed out adventure sites, at least one of which could be viable to turn into a covenant site, and additional story hooks a GM can use for a Levant campaign.
Magi-level supporters get:
As above, plus:
All hermetic covenants and solomonic houses of wisdom will come fleshed out with covenant illustrations, floor maps and regional maps and 1 complete NPC.
At least one covenant is fully fleshed out TTA-style with complete NPCs, a library, boons and hooks, vis sources, etc.
Independent magis added;
At least 6 solomonic house of wisdoms;
Additional articles, or expanded articles.
Master-level supporters get:
As above, plus:
At least 6 hermetic covenants and 3 solomonic houses of wisdom are fully fleshed out, TTA-style, to be usable out of the box.
The inclusion of other minor traditions, possibly including: some of the Elementalist societies, mythic alchemists, Mazdeans and practitioners of other realms
Access to additional illustrations at this level, include some high definition one, this includes greyscale full-sized maps for covenants;
Some Non-Levant material will be made available starting at this level. The first non-Levant material that will be made available is access to an app made by Lothindil to generate custom heraldic shields, with over a hundred symbols, customizable in color and split that can be used, for example, to customize your home game maps by importing the design for your noble estates which can be created in little time. This is non-open license and can be used in other RPGs. This will likely involve access to ars magicka tools and resources created for our home games at a later stage. How much non-Levant material will remain to be seen - the focus is the WotD project, but the idea is not to charge you in two different places.
Archmagi-level supporters get:
As above, plus:
Most if not all the covenants fleshed out TTA-style;
More solomonic houses of wisdom equally fleshed out, and the addition of additional solomonic content that can be used in a solomonic centered campaign, such as the addition of major characters fully fleshed out, or sahirs that can be introduced in an area of your choice (since unlike the OoH, it's not reasonable to fully develop a thousand sahir);
Many magi and sahirs will be created Magi of Hermes style, with past progressions covering specific dates that can be used as alternate starting point for the Campaign. The idea is also that, if you have 50 magi provided at various age, the likelihood you can adapt a fair number of them to your home Campaign outside the Levant with minor tweaks would be fairly high. Future magi progression might be provided at a later stage, but the priority will be the 1220 setting.
Custom mysteries, hedge or ancient magic traditions, such as an exploration the magic of Sumer.
Access to additional illustrations at this level, for example, large colorscale covenant maps and magi portraits.
Alternative version of special characters, in particular where these alternative versions have strong story implications. As an example, think of the infernally corrupted magi included in some tribunal sourcebook.
The patreon is geared so that the bulk of the content is oriented towards higher level, enabling us to create the product we want to see born, while allowing folks who are not willing to commit this much money to still chip in and get something that looks like a normal tribunal sourcebook. As a comparison, the first covenant's file is 3 page long for apprentice, 6 page long for magi, the current master's version under development is anticipated to be over 30 pages once completed.
If the Community support is sufficient, I would like to support Errata later down the road towards completion.
The second step towards the Master's version of Hajar Almaealij has been received, and is under review - there are 2 more documents that need to be submited to me;
The first full magi (archmagi level) has been received with the associated character portrait, and stats as a pre-Apprentice, at gauntlet, and then versions for 1170, 1180, 1190, 1200, 1210, 1220;
We have two creatures and two mythic locations that are pending review;
Lothindil is working on the rest of the Master-level details for Hajar Almaealij, and additional MoH-level magis with portraits. Steps will be published as they are done before the full TTA-style version comes out;
An alternative version of an Hajar magi will be developpped;
After Hajar Almaealij, we're moving on to two other covenants of the Syrian region of the tribunal - Aedes Veritatis and Tar Malka.
I wholeheartedly support your plan, but it's hard to make a decision about subscribing to this without any sample of the product. Do you have any free product to sample?
Don
If you want a sample of the art - look at the banner at the top. On the left, you have a sample of what regional maps look like. On the right, a sample of the floor plans for covenants - Hajar has three floor plans. For the rest, we're trying to make it look and feel like an ars magicka book on steroids. You should see with the sample we're trying to stick with what you'd find on a normal covenant book in both format and content in typical tribunal books. The logic applies to the higher tiers, when I talk about TTA-style covenants, magi templates, etc.
I do not think that apprentices get a house name until they are sworn in, rather should be listed as Fadh, apprentice to Al Dakhwar ex Bonisagus or something along these lines. ONly house bjornaer would consider an apprentice, but who has passed their trial of 12 years, to be a mage worthy of the house name.
Thank you for flagging that. I know you're correct on house membership. I'll have to review whether that's the right stylistics. There's no abundance of published apprentices - they're often an oversight, or a line in a magi's background description. I'll put it on my list of things to review prior to the full version of Hajar.
I think you could have downloaded the picture through right-click, but that's probably not as intuitive as a separate file - they are uploaded as an attachment now. Still getting used to the patreon interface
I tried right-clicking, but the image would only save as a .webp, which is nowhere near as useful as a .png or JPEG. I tried copying and that worked. But thanks for the links. I think that approach is better going forward.
I have a few questions @temprobe, apologies if they're already clarified and I missed them.
Will this project eventually end up as a product in the RPG market? AKA as Mythic Venice and similar works.
Are you open to colaborations from other folks? I've seen quite a few people over here and on the Discord that have been working on a Levant revamp.
Are you open to corrections/potential feedback down the line? I understand you'd want to stick to your authorial vision, but still a pair of eyes that can help you get typos and such go a long way.
Right now, we have a subscription model with the possibility to buy individual files. Whether we'll move it outside of patreon for sale at drivethru later isn't decided yet, but patreon allows for sales too. If we were spending 30h on the product, I'd go through drivethru and hope the sales comes in. The project will dwarf that time commitment by an order of magnitudes. It's possible that we're looking at a thousand hours or more. That time is why I'm going with the backer model. Community support is the only reasonable way to make this project a success. Backers will get the product first and won't pay twice.
Are you talking about the scriptorium? Because there was some eager fans debating back in... February 2024. Lothindil and I were part of that conversation. And then it stopped. I think there have been a handful of posts in July, a handful of posts in the Fall... Unless it's moved behind closed doors, I see that project as mostly inactive. Hence why we're acting - we know where we're going with it. I know @Red-Shadow-Claws is working on an hedge tradition in the Levant on which I provided an early review on and that's about what I know on what's really moving.
I'm open to collaborating if it makes sense and is feasible. It would be better for the community to have a single product, largely supported, or products that complement each other rather than contradict each other. That being said... there are also zones of the project where we pretty much know where we're going and where bringing in added help may slow us down trying to ensure things stay coherent. One constraint is the budget. The feasibility of involving authors for compensation depends on the number of backers. A project backed by hundreds of fans can pay for things a project backed by ten cannot. But there may be ways to collaborate regardless. Making sure products set in the zone are compatible or offering membership for significant contributions. The other constraint is my time. Time spent onboarding is not spent editing and I've made commitments that I will want to deliver on. Those come first. If someone wants to collaborate - a private message on the board or on Discord is best.
I'll PM you on Discord later. I plan to setup a section on the ars magicka discord server to engage with fans who don't come to the board frequently. I'd appreciate an introduction if you'd be willing to provide one. I need to reach the fans where they are.
So the documents are undergoing edition already - it's part of what I do. Correct typos, grammar, rephrasing for clarity, verifying the game mechanics, that kind of thing. I go back to my author if I think something should be improved, for example to keep in line with 5th ed canon or overall product direction. But yes, I'll inevitably miss something and plan to be taking in feedback and errata from backers.
Joined as Apprentice, dunno how much will I be able to keep supporting since I'm buying a house soon-ish, but best of luck! I'll have a blast reading what you write!
Fadh as an apprentice has been fixed. Personality flaws have been labeled as minor and major. Some typos were corrected. The previously published apprentice and magi versions of Hajar were updated accordingly in the published files. The stats files isn't corrected as that was a progress report which will be incorporated in a larger file. The changes have been made in the file for compilation, however.
What the team is working on:
One of the two creatures submited to me was reviewed and approved. It isn't published yet as we decided to publish that as part of a larger file with story implications later on.
I've received 2 more magi portraits and I expect the completed full magi write up next for those.
Maps for Aedes Veritatis are mostly complete - the covenant write up has started. We hope to release the apprentice and magi version in the coming week.
I'm hugely looking forward to this because I kind of feel that a Sicily book may be in my future, and that needs skills with Arabic characters I don't have.
For those not up to speed on Sicilian history, in 1220 most of the population in Sicily are Muslim. The Christians took charge in 1071 but have always just been a Norman ruling class, a bit like the Normans in England. Yes, that's where the Holy Roman Emperor is: his court in a court full of Islamic servants. Some of the economic roles are reserved for Muslims because they are seen as the world's best mathematicians by the Sicilians.
@Timothy_Ferguson I had no idea it was so Islamic at the time. A book on Sicily (or for that matter an updated Roman Tribunal) sounds incredibly interesting, especially since it's the seat of the Emperor and I have more than one reason to lure my players down there. I've actually been hinting it a few years through news and Michael Scotus news. I will definitely read that!
@temprobe Looks like an interesting project, especially if it covers Mesopotamia and ancient Ur. Long-term in my game I'm foreseeing an expedition (already planted seeds) down there for my players in order to investigate remnants/secrets of the tower of babel. For me it will fit into a variant I'm working on of Dies Irae type plot and the efforts to penetrate the heavenly spheres.
Is that something covered perhaps?
It's going to get ugly soon, though, as I'm sure many people here are aware. In the early 1200s some Muslims of Sicily supported the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV of Brunswick in his attempt to wrest Sicily from the then King Frederick of Sicily (future Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II). In revenge, Frederick invaded Sicily in 1221, put down the resistance by 1223, and started deporting Muslims to Apulia. By 1246 the Muslim population of Sicily had been largely removed in what by modern standards would be seen as a horrendous act of ethnic cleansing (though we have all too many examples of this from the middle ages).
Some interesting story potential here for Ars Magica sagas, especially for a covenant based on Sicily. What if the magi are asked to intervene to prevent the mass deportations from taking place, or to provide shelter, by Muslim scholars who offer their knowledge and services to the magi?
