Woeful plight of Theban Trib

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I just wanted to start a thread without over flowing it with my own thoughts, to see where others stand on the Theban tribunal.

First have you played any games set here or visiting?

Currently my TT game is set here and our group far and away loves it. I personally prefer it by leaps and bounds over any other Tribunal and I find that creating stories for it are enriching and thrilling.

Have you found the lack of general resources of the Ars material inhibiting?

It cuts both ways. On one side you have nearly every single book of 5th edition written for what seems only the English, Frank, Germanic perspective. To be fair there are lovely and rewarding treasures to be found in many books, but all in all Theban Tribunal lacks the Ars attention. Of course the Greek tribunal's desire to be difficult and non-conforming to the rest of the Order does not help them in character or out.

On the other side, not being overly oppressed by the crushing weight of the majority of Ars vanilla, means you really get to research and develop the culture and society of Theban magi.

Oh and slaves. And vis. And many gods. Islands. Mountains. The funland is endless.

Has anyone come to appreciate the civility and reasoning of how Theban tribunal operates?

The Seven years of gathering and the the auctioning of apprentices seems at first tedious, but then it provides endless story quirks as well as a realistic reasoned out and efficient method of finding and training magi. I thoroughly like the communal aspect of finding magi. I also like how the society of Theban rewards the most dedicated, community serving, and responsible magi with training the future of the Order. The entire process of Tokens and Shards is elegant, useful, and appeals to a metagaming aspect of presenting the ENTIRE Tribunal on a personal scale.

For me, I think the Theban tribunal is fantastic in every way. From it's abundance of history, fantasy, and vis, to it's democratic civility and yet stratified class structure. It is the epicenter of east versus west and the very pathway of all cross continent learning. And while it isn't the wall that breaks the Mongol invasion, I like to think it is the foundation of those walls in Transylvania and the Levant.

Okay, I thank you all who look at this.

Feel free to respond with even the shortest reply or whatever you like... I am interesting in comparing notes and really sucking the marrow of the land of mythology .... oh and the Byzantines... come on how awesome are they?

2

When I began an Ars saga about two years ago, I made a player survey to see which Tribunal they wanted to start in. Working completely independently, my seven players rated every Tribunal. Thebes was the only one to gain unanimous highest-possible scores. It was the Nadia Comaneci of Tribunals.

I set the first session during the attack on Constantinople. We had a eunuch magus, a Venetian maga, an Egyptian Tytalus, it was just a great group. Each had info on a potential covenant site and after escaping the city they were debating where to go. The game was off to a very promising and exciting start.

Then I got a job on the other side of the country. We never met again.

But I agree with you. I love the setting and the stories. The players liked the cooperative spirit of Thebes, and it appealed to my desire to make conflict about external forces rather than internal ones. And who doesn't love Greek mythology?

I hope to return there one day.

3

We're about four sessions into a saga there, starting in 1197. So far, it's looking great. I really like the tribunal's tenor.

-Ben.

4

We are playing a Bjornaer saga based there, and have had a lot of fun. It's the second saga I have run there - while working on The Sundered Eagle I ran a game based around a covenant on Thera, which is also where the current game is set - Santorini.

cj x

5

Our last game was in the Theban Tribunal.

We didn't use the shards and tokens system because a) the main SG didn't like it; and b) two of the main characters were mythic companions not magi, so would have been left out of anything using them.

We enjoyed dealing with mythological terrors (Titans being awoken!) and ancient cultures springing to life again (or unlife by a necromancer) as Carthaginian cultists fought ghostly Roman legions across the Mediterranean Sea. Plus, there were legitimate reasons for having Vikings still around!

6

Ours is set on Samothrace.

-Ben.

7

There are good sides of this book and really bad sides.

I currently have a camapign with a covenanat on Samos, which is a really awesome island filled with history:
[x] Birthplace of Hera
[x] Birthplace of Epicurus
[x] Birthplace of Pythagoras
[x] First queen was a Naiad called Samia, daughter of the Rivergod Meander, acording to the myths
[x] Samia, the Naiad was also wife to one of the Argonauts
[x] Located near the crash site of Ikaros
[x] Close to the mainland of modern Turkey
[x] Place has its own Sibyl
[x] Big enough for numerous of villages and at least two minor towns
[x] Aristuchrus (spelling?) The first person to mention that Earth rotates around the sun (Heliocentrism).
[x] Location of Pythagoras first cult.
[x] Nice location between Constantinople and Nicea
[x] Herodotus, the great historiian, lived here a while
[x] Aesop, "father of fables..." was born here

My players play apprentices who were thrown out from Loch Leglean after their apprenticeship as they stopped a Flambeau apprentice from Horsingas from killing lots of Norman lords as part of his gauntlet. I found this in a reference in the periphial code in Wizard''s Grimoire. Because of this, the Covenant of Horsingas saw that one of their members were killed for breaking the code.

So they moved to Theban Tribunal where they set up a coveant on Samos and now has Sappho as a potential patron and we are coming up on the Tribunal gathering of 1221 just 2 years in the future. (They gauntleted in 1214) and we started to play the campaign when all the players were just 7-9 years old and played through their apprenticeship.

What i dont like about the book is

[-] that it is hard to have rival covenants like in other tribunals, the democracy system and "hugs and kisses attitude" is a little too much for me and if I had known about this I would probably have bought another tribunal book.
[-] Also I do not like the system of apprentices that they have here. Not when it mentions that for example Mercere likes to have blood relatives and such.
[-] too few storyseeds.

I like
[+] the geographical descriptions of all the major and minor islands
[+] the background of the area
[+] the mythical history of the background
[+] The hermetic history of the tribunal and the descriptions of the covenants and the mages
[+] the awesome research that the writers did