All articles filed in Ars Magica

Another little poem or song that the characters could hear while on the road, serving as a later hook. THE waves in thunderous menace breakUpon the rocks below my tower,And none will dare the Sea-king’s powerAnd venture shipwreck for my sake. Yet once,–my lamp a path of lightAcross the darkling sea had cast–I saw a…

For the Cornish material I was looking at sea stories and songs, which might serve as plot hooks. Here’s one that the players could overhear, sung in a resting place while they are on the way to another adventure, that would later serve as a hook. The recording was released into the public domain through…

I like this poem as a description of a spirit that a Verditius, from the a sacred architecture Mystery Cult, wants as his familiar. I suggest this spirit is fascinated by the structures humans make, and as it passes it elaborates, or even copies, them. The humanoid form it can create might appear as a…

Back in Sanctuary of Ice I reused one of my favourite Jerbiton types, who are characters who can turn your clothes against you. Edward Lear, a little more directly, describes what happens if a person’s clothes become food, and then you summon a horde of hungry animals. The recording that follows was released into the…

Before we start cataloguing the mysteries of Venice, we need to look at the powers which surround the city, and the history that embodies. Venice was built by refugees, who took to the islands of their lagoon to avoid the waves of barbarians who entered Italy as the Empire in the West declined. They were…

Eventually this will become a creature. Originally I was going to have it as a Spirit which could talk psychically but now that I look at it again I think this is actually a demon of pride: a tiny false prophet that you carry around with you, which makes it a familiar. This poem was…

I’ve been trying to find a way of modelling mask magic for many years. There’s an arena in Istria, in the Transyvanian book, which has an ancient Roman theatre, for example, where if you pick up the actors’ masks you are possessed by faerie spirits and gain their powers. It was a way of bringing…

A brief one this time – another little poem. My plan for this one is to imagine a scribe or Bonisagus magus that has haunted or possessed an ink bottle so that when the player characters (or anyone) uses it they have the Inventive Genius Virtue. It’s earned using a virtue initiation (travel, story) The…

This week a ballad from “Westward Ho!” by Charles Kingsley. One of the very first things I wrote for Ars Magica was a fairy queen with a courtship based on a series of impossible tasks. I’d stolen it from a folk song called Scarborough Fair. I’ve been looking for a way to bring that back…