Here are my initial thoughts
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A Difficult Decision
So, I’ve been doing the research work on a 1050AD Ars Magica setting, involving the invasion of Italy by the Normans. It’s the extension of all the Sicilian stuff you’ve seen on this site if you’ve rummaged around. I’ve put, perhaps, twenty hours into it recently, so not a lot but,cumulatively, dozens of hours over…
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Thomas Piketty and Getting Around Ursury Laws: a note for Transforming Mythic Europe.
Piketty notes in Capital in the 21st Century that one of the main ways to get around usury laws was to loan money to a noble, not against interest, but against the future production one of a nobleman’s holdings. The creditor then gets into the tax farming business, which we have discussed in Lords of…
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So, thinking about a podcast…
I have this idea that game communities are more stable when you have the chance to have good, brief experiences in that game’s world. Many computer games are striving for this now: you can play for half and hour and get something concrete done, then save and come back to it for another meaningful session.…
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Thomas Pikkety meets the Order of Hermes: The Missing 4%
In Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty notes that the reason that all of the nations of the Earth can be in debt at the same time is that about 4% of the world’s production disappears from the calculations. This money is basically filtering into a shadow economy. Some of it eventually resurfaces as…
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Thomas Piketty Meets the Order of Hermes: The 1%
In Piketty’s book he notes that from the medieval period onward, the wealth in society has never been more evenly distributed than after the Second World War, where the vast destruction of capital flattened out many fortunes based on investments. At that point, if I’m reading him right, the top 1% of people owned 50%…
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The Mirarion
Collated Mirarion fiction project
Read MoreMirarion – a missing chapter
(From toward the middle of what is becoming a novella) Callida and I stood in the fog on the bridge, as the frogs rained down upon us. “I hate this job.” she said. “What are you complaining about?” I asked, smiling. “Your armour is protecting you isn’t it?” “The smell.” she answered. “By Vulcan’s…” “They don’t…
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Thomas Piketty Meets the Order of Hermes: Inheritance
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty is an interesting book, amazingly easy for non-economists to read. There are several ideas Piketty discusses which are of interest to our work as Ars Magica players and authors. In the next series of posts, I’ll examine these insights. Piketty notes that in populations where family size…
Read MoreMirarion : Exuvia 3
The first tribunal meeting I attended after the war is sometimes called the Unveiling by my students. I know the shock of it is still being felt in the Order, but you must recall, for us, it was decades ago. I remember leaving the regio with my children. I remember the pained looks on the faces…
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Games From Folktales 