Some familiar names from Ars Magica, and a sprinkle of new authors, have come together to write a roleplaying game about Renaissance wizardry. Andrew Gronosky, who is our fearless leader in this, has been pondering these sorts of things since he was working on hedge traditions a decade ago, so you can be sure he’s percolated the goodness out of the Elizabethan setting. It runs on FATE, but has the FATE rules written into it so you don’t need any other book.
Magonomia is lower fantasy than Ars Magica, and has a stronger folkloric base. It lets us play with historical ideas that are after our usual period. There are a lot more written records for Elizabethan England than, say, medieval Romania, so we can harvest an enormous number of plot hooks out of them. I’m particularly proud of my secret society of deep-cover combat ballerinas, who work for the Black Queen of France, Catherine de Medici. The fun part is that the two key ideas, that Catherine was so witchy she invented the charm bracelet and that she had a squadron of balletic spies, were both true in real life.
In terms of the podcast, it does mean my reading has been skewed Elizabethan of late. I keep writing articles and then pulling them because they fit easily in parts I’ve written for either the Magonomia core book, or one of the supplements which are being discussed as potential future expansions. I’m likely to make a virtue of a problem in the near future, by going through the 50 core settings for FATE and writing up a Magonomia guide to the useful parts, which will become at least one, and maybe more, posts.
It’s lovely to be writing commercially again. If you like what I do here, you’ll love Magonomia. Having an editor and a group of collaborators lets me make a more polished product.
If you’d like to know more, buy an electronic copy of Magonomia, or pre-order a print-on-demand paper copy, please visit the product page on Drivethru RPG.
Games From Folktales 