Lion Rampant Publications

Each of the following publications includes a rating on a scale of one to four stars, based on a given number of readers' feedback, and some comments. Please note that many of these were given before Atlas Games' acquisition of the line in 1996. If you'd like to add to the reviews, check out the new form, or email the FAQ's maintainer.

LR1020 Order of Hermes, by Jonathan Tweet, cover art by Richard Thomas
FAQ Rating: **** (21 reviews; 0 *, 0 **, 5 ***, 16 ****)

• As essential as its "House of Hermes" reincarnation. One *needs* one of those two books for any saga.
• The original guide to the Order, now replaced by Houses of Hermes and the WGRE.
• Ought to be accurately updated. A core element and theme for the game, concentrates on the Order instead of the individual, without losing the individual in the process.
• Details and background of the Order. A must have.
• Great stuff about the Order.
• The single best product for Ars Magica, and the most comprehensive overview of the social and professional lives of magi. Essential to almost every Saga. A 'must have', even if you have Houses of Hermes.
• Superior to the revised edition.
• Excellent.

LR1010 Covenants, by Mark Rein•Hagen and Lisa Stevens, cover art by Doug Shuler
FAQ Rating: *** (18 reviews; 0 *, 6 **, 8 ***, 4 ****)

• A detailed look (for its time) at four covenants in the Order as well as systems for designing your own. It could have been longer, but it nonetheless is filled with story ideas.
• Though most of this is in the 3rd Edition book, it's still worth perusing for the amusing descriptions of places like Bellaquin, Val-Negra, Doissetep, and so forth.
• Good resource for building covenants
• 4 Covenants + rules + Covenant events, the best in 3rd edition.
• A great introduction to the old covenant rules, and all the sample covenants are interesting.
• Excellent book, no longer compatible with the core rules.
• I used to feel it was essential for covenant construction. After their (poor) treatment in 4th edition, I just make it up as I go.
• Guide to building a covenant; much more complete than the systems presented in ArM4 or ArM3.
• Mostly useful now as a source of campaign background ideas.

LR0810 Broken Covenant of Calebais (Second Edition), by Mark Rein•Hagen and Jonanthan Tweet, cover art by Jeff Menges
FAQ Rating: *** (10 reviews; 0 *, 2 **, 5 ***, 3 ****)

• Very good, but a bit overdone as far as magical power goes.
• Heavy stuff, but fun.
• A good story of exploration , but you have to boost the "monsters/foes" in regard of the reward offered at the end.
• Better make harder and play it in 2 or 3 parts.
• Took the first edition and added a bit of material to make it even more useful. Includes a convent description.
• A good dungeon, but still a dungeon
• First play with it, neat to convert some D&D players to Ars Magica
• My favourite module.
• A workable dungeon that is still workable. I liked it very much.

LR0501 The Tempest, by Stewart Wieck, cover art by Jeff Menges
FAQ Rating: *** (12 reviews; 1 *, 5 **, 6 ***, 0 ****)

• Very nice structure. My only problem with it is that one side in the central conflict was pretty clearly "bad," the other "good." I would have prefered a grayer moral choice.
• An okay+ adventure concerning events from the Order's past. Suffers from some contrivance. Contains the stats for Druidic and Mercurian Magic as branches of Hermetic Theory.
• ArM's first shot at a background story for Mythic Europe, nicely executed.
• Good ideas, easy adaptable
• Very good story. A little too drastic for my taste though. It's hard to imagine that the Church would not react to the pools...
• Too little development of setting, rather chopped up in editing (it's clearly missing some stuff in one section). Not useless, but not as good as it should have been.
• I didn't like the premise of the adventure, although some parts of it were good...
• The druids and Mercurial magi return, and they have nothing more interesting to do that hit each other with spells that are better designed through the "Mysteries" system.

LR0901 Saga Pack, by Mark Rein•Hagen and Lisa Stevens
FAQ Rating: ** (6 reviews; 1 *, 3 **, 2 ***, 0 ****)

• Not, bad, not wonderful. Got it at half price and didn't regret it.
• The screen is useful, the Grogs funny and the other texts wonderful
• A more beautiful storyguide's screen than this of the 3rd edition.
• Some reprints of articles in old White Wolf mags, some random essays and several examples of interesting grogs. Mostly superceded or repeated elsewhere.

LR0801 Jump-Start Kit: The Stormrider (First Edition), by Mark Rein•Hagen, with Jonanthan Tweet
FAQ Rating: *** (3 reviews; 0 *, 1 **, 1 ***, 1 ****)

• OK, just somewhat hard to play with the 2nd Edition rules :-)
• It's a good introduction to the AM medieval world, the magus, etc. However players tend to feel it's too linear, and that they have no free choice in the action (especially experimented players)
• A wonderful introducion in the setting, usable for conventions and troupes alike
• Hotz's illustrations of the PCs were gorgeous pieces of art. Those pictures helped set the tone for the whole game.

LR0800(?) The Bats of Mercille (Second Printing)

LR0201 Ars Magica Revised Edition ("Second Edition"), by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein•Hagen, cover art by Doug Shuler
FAQ Rating: **** (11 reviews; 0 *, 1 **, 3 ***, 7 ****)

• The "One True Edition"
• Not without flaws, but still the best!
• Enough for knowing the rules and playing. A bit short for building a long-living saga.
• Sketchy in places, but compact and easy to use. Is becoming increasingly obsolete, though.
• Concise and clearly written, but not sufficient by itself.
• Excellent (maybe that's sentimental... probably)
• A great book, but Fourth Edition is superior.
• Simple and elegant and the start of this whole mess. Unnecessary in 4th edition, but still fun to read late at night.

LR0810(?) Broken Covenant of Calebais (First Edition), by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein•Hagen
FAQ Rating: *** (3 reviews; 0 *, 1 **, 2 ***, 0 ****)

• One of the best dungeon adventures ever written.
• It's still a dungeon crawl, but it's an interesting and well-reasoned dungeon crawl. The blurbs on ghosts are important, and, unfortunately, missing from the core rules.

LR0800(?) The Bats of Mercille (First Printing)

LR0202 Ars Magica First Edition (Second Printing)
LR0201 Ars Magica First Edition (First Printing), cover art by Bret Wesner
FAQ Rating: *** (6 reviews; 0 *, 1 **, 5 ***, 0 ****)