Hank Green discusses moral luck. In a podcast in February, which I’m scripting now, I’ll be covering how the existence of actual demons in Ars Magica adds a wrinkle to moral luck. We’ll cover Paul, who didn’t believe in it (for him the desire was a deed) and Oregin, (who took Paul’s injunction to strike…
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Why there is no Art of Tempus
Time travel stories are scarce in Mythic Europe. They are a mainstay of our genre fiction now, but they were revolutionary when, in the Nineteenth Century, they became popular. Folklore does allow a limited form a time travel, in that the faerie-led can be held far from home for centuries, effectively moving forward in time…
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Ruminations on ghosts
Do you know where you are right now? A better question is: do you know how you know where you are right now? What’s happening is that your body is providing haptic feedback to your brain. That is, you have a sensation of touch from your skin, and your joints are also sending signals to your…
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Dowry bargaining from Shakespeare
Let’s talk dowries, and bargaining, and let’s use the Bard. The following passages are modernisation of Shakespeare, from “The Taming of the Shrew”. To set the scene: Baptista is a medieval merchant, who has no sons and two daughters, Kate and Bianca. Bianca has four suitors. Kate has none, because she’s a shrew. Bianca cannot…
Read MoreFollow this link for the November 2016 pdf.
The free software I use to create these (Canva) only allows a maximum of 30 pages in each document, so I’m sorry I can’t create a 2016 omnibus. I may be able to create an online album of jpgs of the pages, however. Research continues. .
A covenant for Shallot
This transcript was composed in a complicated, inculcated, magazine format. It’s easier just to upload the final pages as images. This is the longest episode ever of GFF. If you’d prefer fewer, longer, episodes, please comment.
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Robinsonades
A Robinsonade is a type of story that takes its name from Robinson Crusoe. In the structure of the story a person from a technologically superior area is stranded in an area where they have limited societal support. Robinsonades are interesting as ways of starting Ars Magica sagas, because they force characters to use the…
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Curdling magic
Very early in the history of Ars Magica, it was established that many of the cursed items which characters might find were produced by a single magician called Himnis the Mad. Later he is used as the founder of cofraternity of Verditus magi, who for some reason use the limited time of their life to…
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Ptolemaic Survivals
In the dying days of her reign, Cleopatra VII Philopator made preparations to survive the Roman invasion. In our world, these came to nothing: Cleopatra entombed herself alive, and took poison in wine, by smuggling an asp in a basket of figs, or by biting her arm and smearing a fatal unguent over the wound. This…
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Environmental determinism and the Order of Hermes
Environmental determinism is an idea with classical roots, but was most popular during the colonial period. It suggests that the social development of a country is determined in whole, or in large part, by the resources that are available to that society. Listeners familiar with 4X computer games are aware of this style of thinking.…
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Games From Folktales 