All articles filed in Ars Magica

We’ve previously visited the poetry of Walter de La Mare on Games From Folktales, with his most famous work, The Listeners, in episode 115. For the next few months, we will be going through his early works, grabbing anything which might be an Ars Magica faerie or magical location. Let’s start with this. I met…

In the early days of the republic, women followed the Byzantine custom, which was to be veiled outside the house and remain in a male free-space much of the time. This is not still followed in 1220, but there are remnant practices which we can use for plot hooks. The altanes, for example, which we…

Time for a final visit to Kunz’s “Curious Lore of Precious Stones”. Initially I’d cut this into two episodes, because I thought sapphires would have so much material attached to them that they could stand alone. I’d expected them to be everywhere, because they are common in fantasy stories. Also, I come from central Queensland,…

In this next little section, Edgecumb Stanley talks about the arrival of the relics of Saint Mark in Venice. The shrine of Saint Mark is important to player characters, because it’s the strongest Dominion Aura in the City of Venice and also, unfortunately, its where a lot of government ritual is solemnised by blessings of…

A brief episode this week, returning to Kunz’s “The Curious Lore of Precious Stones”. Rock crystal The popular belief in his time as to the origin of rock-crystal is voiced by St. Jerome, when, using the words of Pliny, although not citing his authority, he says that it was formed by the congelation of water…

In this extract for the biography of the dogaressas of Venice, Edgecumb Stanley describes how the city was made. It suggests terrible powers for Herbam wizards, and it gives us a reason why the Cult of Diana we have seen in glimpses so far through the book has taken on a strange, urban form. In…

Time to return to Kunz’s Curious Lore of Precious Stones. Lapis-Lazuli Lapis Lazuli is a vibrantly blue semiprecious stone, but to Mythic Europeans, it’s a terribly rare thing. First,. let me note that when I was a lad, we were told all of that blue material in Egyptian art was lapis lazuli. This is simply…