All articles filed in Ars Magica

This poem, which the author claimed as autobiographical, contains angels or demons of the hours, which are progressively more terrible as the night continues. They sap the man’s ability to sleep, such that he becomes like a ghost. Death in life is one of Thomson’s core artistic preoccupations. One note on the contents: “Malebolges” mentioned…

Satyrs are a problem. We wanted them for Magonomia., because they turn up in the folklore. They are, however, really rapey. That’s also considered a bit humorous in some period work. So, we wanted satyrs, but without any of the baggage. I took it three ways to get there. Satyrs change form over time. The…

This week we return to Faeries Second Edition in a to look at Saint Guinefort. Guniefort tis a folk saint – a sainted greyhound – and it doesn’t turn up much in the later Ars Magica books because we tried not to have things that people who currently follow one of the religions described in…

Roger Bacon was a writer in the late 13th Century, slightly after the Ars Magica period, and well known in the Magonomia period. It’s important not to confuse him with Sir Francis Bacon, who was an early scientist in Elizabeth I’s reign. Each had useful ideas about alchemy. Roger Bacon explains, in his great book…

For this episode we return to the City of Dreadful Night. Rather than popping in so regularly after each section, I’ll give brief comments here. Much of the section is centred on a cathedral where a group of parishioners enter after they give a password, in which they discard their mortal circumstances. The preacher is…

I’d prepped most of this for my “Stories I’ve tried to write week” and then a plot idea emerged. I was discussing things with Andrew, over on a Shewstone planning list, and while we were discussing something else entirely he gave me the key to moving this post to a workable series of scenarios for…