Ars Magica Bundles of Holding

Bundles of Holding are a great way to catch up on a whole RPG line at once. If you've been looking for a good time to go deep on Ars Magica, now's the time, because right now there are two active bundles available, through July 30.

Ars Magica 5 Reprise Bundle

Originally offered in 2014, this bundle includes the core rulebook and nine additional supplements that represent key offerings in the line.

• Ars Magica Fifth Edition (core rulebook)
• Covenants
• Houses of Hermes: True Lineages
• Apprentices
• The Living Covenant (collected free downloads)
• Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults
• Houses of Hermes: Societates
• The Lion and the Lily
• The Broken Covenant of Calebais
• Tales of Mythic Europe

Ars Magica Mythic Europe Bundle

This bundle, offered for the first time, highlights the Ars Magica's world of Mythic Europe. It includes these sourcebooks.

• Lords of Men
• The Church
• City & Guild
• Art & Academe
• Magi of Hermes
• Legends of Hermes
• Antagonists
• Grogs

Both bundles expire on June 30, but if you've been waiting for a great deal on digital editions of one of the most influential fantasy magic systems in roleplaying history, we have to ask…why wait?

Out-of-print Ars Magica classics enter the digital library

We’ve opened the Ars Magica vaults to resurrect some classic books as PDFs. Order of Hermes, Tales of the Dark Ages, and Faeries are throwbacks to Ars Magica Second Edition, but their great characters, scenarios, and setting information can be easily adapted to your group’s later-edition sagas.

First published by Lion Rampant in 1990, Order of Hermes Second Edition defined and expanded the world of Ars Magica. It includes materials that were spread out into several books when adapted for Fifth Edition. You’ll find detailed descriptions of all 13 Houses, 13 Tribunals, and the complete Code of Hermes. It also contains loads of details about the lives and habits of magi, and story seeds for development.

Tales of the Dark Ages supplies your group with four classic adventures, ranging from political intrigue and gory horror. It even features an adventure written by Atlas Games founder John Nephew, because it was the first book Atlas Games ever published!

Faeries First Edition describes the reflected world that lies beneath Mythic Europe. It’s filled with the Tuatha de Danaan, pixies, centaurs, and other creatures that inhabit the lands of Arcadia. Faeries also gives Storyguides some excellent ideas for how to incorporate the fae folk into a saga.

Summon these digital treasures to fill your magical library today at e23.com!

Four Days Left for Maximum Mythic Magic!

The good folks at Bundle of Holding have two excellent Ars Magica deals going until Monday, March 14, at 2pm EDT.

Though the Order of Hermes frowns upon it, we've resurrected the Starter Bundle from August 2014. You get five essential Ars Magica Fifth Edition books for $14.95 — less than the cost of the core book PDF. The add-on collection to the Starter Bundle gives you another five books, including two books of scenarios to keep your magi busy for years.

The More Magic collection is a brand-new bundle. It contains three books that develop the magic system for Ars Magica Fifth Edition for only $12.95, and you can grab five books from our newer releases in the expanded bundle. These include the Mythic Middle East Tribunal book, The Cradle & The Crescent, and Hermetic Projects, a book of quests and aspirations for magi at every level of their careers.

Both bundles benefit two great charities. Doctors Without Borders does consistently heroic work in the world's most difficult crises, and Sister Cities International fosters cultural exchange between communities around the globe to promote peace and understanding.

The clock is ticking, and within four days, these bundles will vanish into the mists of time!

A Chiropteran Relic of the Hermetic Past

For years the most devoted seekers of the Order of Hermes have pursued either of the two fabled iterations of the Jump-Start Kit known as The Bats of Mercille. If your pursuit of this Hermetic Grail has thus far been in vain, you want to know that I have just stitched together a digital version of this Ars Magica scenario by Mark Rein-Hagen, blending the 1989 edition with additional text from the 1988 version that was left out but really shouldn't have been (e.g., the stats and special powers of the ultimate antagonist).

You can purchase your own digital copy of The Bats of Mercille right this moment from e23, or whet your curiosity with the free preview.

A Blast from the Past: Calebais 1E

Today we have something special for the discerning Ars Magica fan: A digitized edition of the original Broken Covenant of Calebais published by Lion Rampant back in 1988 for the first edition of Ars Magica.  You can buy and download it now from e23!  Also on sale now is the original Faeries sourcebook, published for Ars Magica 2nd Edition.

Lands of the Nile Hook: The Seeker’s Guild

Egypt attracts many tomb-robbers and foolhardy explorers keen to make their fortune by extracting gold and riches from the crypts and catacombs deep within the land’s numerous monuments. So much so that centuries ago Egypt’s rulers, suffering from a lack of wealth in their own right, set about institutionalizing the practice. Now, for a small fee and a cut of the profits, the Seeker’s Guild in Cairo offers guides, books, and even occasional magical assistance — not to mention a veneer of legitimacy — to such adventurous folk.

For players of other fantasy roleplaying games, this may seem like standard business practice, but it’s something of a rarity in Ars Magica Fifth Edition. As a hook to get new players into the game, and to bridge the gap between heroic dungeon delvers and magi of the Order of Hermes, Lands of the Nile’s chapter on tombs and tomb-robbers is ideal. Magi and their companions face many deadly traps and magical opposition, to say nothing of plagues and curses, but having the Seeker’s Guild on hand to light their way makes it all the more palatable. At least until that statue of Anubis comes alive and stalks the protagonists in the dark tunnels deep beneath the pyramids…

Lands of the Nile Arrives in Stores

The long-awaited Lands of the Nile sourcebook for Ars Magica Fifth Edition covers all of the lands of the Nile river in Mythic Africa, including Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia. Once the realm of the pharaohs and animal-headed gods of antiquity, now Islam and Christianity dominate the region, interwoven with magical traditions and strange creatures known only to a handful of magi in Mythic Europe.

Both players and storyguides of Ars Magica Fifth Edition have much to look forward to here: in-depth background for playing Egyptian characters; a bestiary of creatures both mythic and mundane; trap-filled tombs of long-dead kings; and additional rules for amulets, spirits, and the treasures of the ancient world. Maps and extensive notes for running stories in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nubia make up the bulk of this hardcover supplement.

Lands of the Nile features content by Timothy Ferguson, Ben McFarland, and Mark Shirley. Cover illustration by Christian St. Pierre; interior illustration by Brett Barkley, Jenna Fowler, Jethro Lentle, Jeff Menges, and Christian St. Pierre, with cartography by Matt Ryan.

Thrice-Told Tales Hook: Sequels and Threequels

In the mood for a sequel?

Thrice-Told Tales is a collection of linked adventures, featuring the long-term consequences of events that pull the troupe back into the lives of those they previously met. In any Ars Magica saga, returning to older stories is a terrific way to encourage a world that feels real and reminds the players that their choices matter.

Thrice-Told Tales’ model of three-act stories that play out in individual episodes scattered over years is one you can use for your own sagas. After the first few stories in a saga, you might consider looking back at the characters, covenants, companions, and conspirators who made those stories exciting, and write out a list of the choices that the player characters made. Would the baron, freed from a Faerie enchantment, seek to bring war against Faeries later? Or would he send his trusted agents to find protective talismans against Faeries, thus coming into potential conflict with the troupe years later?

A villain who did not die in a previous story might return. A location of great significance may chang in intervening years, now holding greater secrets. An item or treasured tractatus might go missing, just when the covenant is called up on to return it to those from whom they first acquired it. The possibilities for using what came before as the engine of future adventures are endless, and make even the simplest stories richer and more memorable.

If you’re looking for a place to start, check out or return to Tales of Mythic Europe and Hooks, both of which contain short scenarios just asking to be expanded and re-visited!

Thrice-Told Tales is Arriving in Stores

Many adventure collections present stories that entertain the players for one or two sessions but rarely do they get to see the long-term effects of their heroic actions. In Thrice-Told Tales, the actions of the troupe have long-term consequences for their characters and covenants. 

For the first time, this Ars Magica Fifth Edition book contains five adventures, each presenting issues and situations that cannot be fully resolved in a single story, but which return to draw the characters back in years later. The choices made in earlier scenarios create a tapestry of later outcomes, a saga stitched in threads of the Divine, the Infernal, the Faerie, and the Magical. Each is a sequence in three acts, drawing on characters and locations that come alive only over the many-year campaigns Ars Magica is famous for.

Thrice-Told Tales features stories by Christian Roesenkjaer Andersen, David MacGregor, Christian Jensen Romer, Matt Ryan, and Mark Shirley. Cover illustration by Christian St. Pierre; interior illustration by Brett Barkley, Jason Cole, Jenna Fowler, Jethro Lentle, and Christian St. Pierre, with cartography by Matt Ryan.

Brevi Annuntiatione Ars Magicae

That translates to "A brief announcement of Ars Magica" in clumsy Latin. The grogs have been in the scriptorium again, messing around with my inks, but I am pleased to reveal that at last the digital version of AG0307 Hooks is finally available through our worthy partners Warehouse 23 and Paizo.

You may also be excited to know that AG0312 Thrice-Told Tales has hit our warehouses and our turb captain Travis is preparing it for widespread release. More news on this book soon.

Pax vobis, beati finis hebdomadis, fellow magi & companions! Peace be upon you and have a blessed end of the week.

A Fiasco in Mythic Europe!

A VENATVS VALIDVS CUPIDITAS
QUOD MUGIO PVLSVS IMPERIVM

Fiasco is an award-winning roleplaying game from Bully Pulpit Games where players tell stories of greed, ambition, and other vices that steer the protagonists into darkly comic yet seriously disastrous situations. It's a great deal of fun and we're all big fans of it. At the heart of Fiasco is the playset, each of which contains the tables and set-up instructions players use to create a game's tragic circumstances.

We tasked Atlas Games alum Will Hindmarch with creating two Fiasco playsets set in Mythic Europe. One was to feature grogs, the other a covenant of ambitious magi. We were not disappointed! Both playsets are now available for free as part of our celebration of Ars Magica and our farewell to Line Editor David Chart. Bring all of your Ars Magica lore to the table and see what dire outcomes you and your friends can create.

• A Grog's Life: Love, Loss, and Secrets in the Covenant's Shadow
• A Covenant On Fire: Diabolism, Jealousy, and Revenge in Mythic Europe

Futura Artis Magicae: The Future of Ars Magica

With the announcement of Line Editor David Chart's retirement, it's a good time to talk about the future of Ars Magica and Mythic Europe, to give fans of the game some solid information about what they can look forward to.

Ars Magica Fifth Edition Ends

Thrice-Told Tales, the next book in the line, is at the printer now. After it hits the shelves of your local game store, there are only two more books we intend to release for Ars Magica Fifth Edition.

• Lands of the Nile covers Egypt for Ars Magica Fifth Edition, as well as Ethiopia and Nubia. This book includes rules for Egyptian tombs and their treasures, the forbidden corpse magic of the Nubian pyramids, and the wonders of Nubian alchemy. Expected release: October 2015
• Dies Irae ("Day of Wrath") describes four great threats to Mythic Europe, with stories centered around both attempting to stop these disasters, and surviving their aftermaths should the characters fail. These threats go far beyond what might destroy a single covenant, or even a single Tribunal. Rather, each one could lay waste to the whole of the world. When the fate of Mythic Europe is truly in their hands, will your characters rise to the challenge, or let everything fall to ash? Expected release: January/February 2016

Tales of the Quaesitors

Tales of the Quaesitors is the working title of a standalone roleplaying game set in Mythic Europe that uses Robin D. Laws' GUMSHOE system to present stories about the work of House Guernicus and those who would aid them in investigating Hermetic crimes.

• Aims to present a completely new angle from which RPG fans can approach Mythic Europe. 
• Tells stories of Hermetic crimes concealed in the shadows of mystery, waiting for your troupe of Quaesitors, Hoplites, and their investigative companions. 
• Developed by Cam Banks and Jeff Tidball. 
• Release date to be announced (though almost certainly not before the second half of 2016). 

Fiasco Playsets

Veteran Atlas Games designer and writer Will Hindmarch has prepared two disastrous Mythic European playsets for Fiasco, the game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control. Both playsets will be released for free on the Atlas Games website next week!

• A Grog's Life: Love, Loss, and Secrets in the Covenant's Shadow centers on the hapless lives of grogs, those oft-maligned yet indispensable servants of Ars Magica's magi. 
• A Covenant on Fire: Diabolism, Jealousy, and Revenge in Mythic Europe reveals the tragic end of a covenant of magi, as remembered by an aged monk on his death bed. 
• These playsets represent yet another new way we wanted to explore the idea of roleplaying in Mythic Europe. 

A Sixth Edition?

We have had many inquiries from both fans and potential designers about a new edition of Ars Magica. While we are likely to do a sixth edition at some point in the future, we want to be clear that nothing we've announced here is that. We certainly have many ideas for what a new edition might look like, but such an undertaking won't be carried out lightly.

In the meantime, what we believe absolutely is that Ars Magica Fifth Edition is and continues to be a compelling, fun, mature product line with a deep backlist, excellent support, and a magnificent fan community. We think that it remains as viable for play now as it has been for the past twelve years. If you're a fan, we hope you'll continue to enjoy Ars Magica. If you've never given it a try, we hope you'll give it a go!