Hermetic Projects Chapter Two: The Burning City

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The Burning City

The Burning City project is about constructing a covenant in the heart of a volcano. The effects in this project involve constructing buildings on either lakes of lava or the crater rim, effects to ensure that the magi and covenfolk can survive in this inhospitable environment, and effects to deal with the possible supernatural denizens of a volcano. Effects to find a volcano and to regulate its behavior are also detailed.

Although the Burning City is predicated on an entire covenant constructed within a volcano, there is no need for interested magi in your saga to take this approach. Perhaps your magi are only interested in building a small chapterhouse, or a laboratory, on the lava fields. Alternatively, your magi might not be interested in colonizing the volcanic heart at all — maybe they only want to survive inside a volcano for a particular adventure. In any case, your magi only need to develop the elements of the Burning City project they find useful.

Finally, if the particular effects of this project are not useful in your saga, some of the ideas discussed in this chapter may give the troupe inspiration for the construction of covenants, chapterhouses, or laboratories in the other inhospitable places of Mythic Europe.

Why Build a Volcano?

Why might magi want to build a covenant inside a volcano? For some magi, merely the challenge and the fact that it can be done is enough of a reason. However, some other reasons for colonizing a volcano include:

• Living inside a volcano could be a part of a Mystery Cult initiation.
• The heart of the volcano could have a very high magic Aura, which makes the effort of building a laboratory in the volcano worthwhile.
• Laboratories built inside a volcano can be designed to take advantage of the volcano’s natural features for a bonus to appropriate laboratory work (some examples are given later in this chapter).
• A magus whose magic suffers from a particularly harsh Necessary Condition or Restriction Flaw (see ArM5, pages 56 and 58) may only be able to use his magic within volcanic regions.
• A magus with a Study Bonus Virtue or a Study Requirement Flaw (see ArM5, pages 49 and 59) who already has an Ignem Art Score in excess of 35 can only take advantage of his Virtue when he improves his Art (or improve his Art at all, if he has the Flaw) if he studies in an extreme location, such as a volcano’s heart.
• The volcanic heart could contain vis sources that the covenant wants to ensure do not fall into the hands of other magi, or other forces beyond the Order of Hermes.
• The volcano’s heart could contain an entrance to the Magic Realm, the Infernal Realm, or the Faerie Realm, which the magi want to monitor, control, destroy, or explore.
• A covenant built inside a volcano is likely secure and hidden from mundane interference. Even many Hermetic or other supernatural foes would be reluctant to casually assault a covenant embedded in a volcano.
• A volcanic covenant may be allied to indigenous inhabitants of the volcano. The covenfolk could include fire elementals and other magical creatures, faeries, or humans with lava flowing in their veins (perhaps due to ancestors who were volcanic creatures).

Volcanoes in Mythic Europe

In Mythic Europe most volcanoes are found in Greece, Italy, and Iceland. However, there is nothing to prevent a volcano occurring elsewhere in Mythic Europe, in your saga — especially if the volcano arises due to magic.

The Greek Volcanic Islands

The Greek island groups of Methana, Milos, Nisyros, and Santorini are all volcanic. Each group consists of dozens of islands that have been formed by volcanic activity, and there are further volcanoes beneath the surface of the sea — the activity of these marine volcanoes sometimes causes the sea to boil. Many of the surface volcanic craters have broken their walls and also been flooded by the sea, and there are also a number of hot springs and pools heated by volcanic activity on the islands. There are frequent earthquakes on the islands, and the breaking of the islands by the shifting earth has revealed striking, brightly colored layers of rock deposited by successive eruptions. These layers of volcanic rock are good sources of the exotic minerals that are needed for some Hermetic laboratories.

Fishing villages dot the islands, and the larger islands have substantial towns. Many of the inhabitants use water heated by the volcanoes for bathing, and the island-dwellers could be recruited to act as covenfolk.

Story Seeds for Mythic Europe's Volcanoes Creeping Earth At Campi Flegrei parts of the earth frequently creep, causing the earth to rise by 10 to 12 feet over a period of several years. This is fast enough for people to observe, and the inexorably rising earth can cause buildings to collapse and split. This is clearly a supernatural phenomena, and the recent collapse of a small town not long after a new church was constructed has convinced some magi that the creeping earth is the work of a magical spirit at the heart of Campi Flegrei, fighting against the encroachment of the divine on natural places. Pompeii and Herculaneum The Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. If your saga follows history, then these towns are buried and their location is not precisely known in 1220. However, the eruption and subsequent destruction was documented by Roman writers, so magi may decide to search for the towns. It is possible that the violent eruption caused the towns to fall into a regio, and perhaps the inhabitants, or their descendants, still live within. Maybe there is even still a functioning Temple of Mercury within the towns. The entrance to the regio might be found within the crater of Mount Vesuvius (or even other volcanoes). The townsfolk (who are surely supernaturally changed by their experience) could be recruited as covenfolk by the Burning City. Alternatively, perhaps the towns really are merely buried beneath tons of ash and mud. In either case, the two towns are now inextricably entwined with volcanism. This means that any artifacts recovered from Pompeii or Herculaneum may be used as a Sympathetic Connection of +1 to aid the Penetration of effects that target creatures that live in volcanoes. Artifacts from Pompeii or Herculaneum also have a +3 Shape and Material bonus for volcanism effects. This Shape and Material bonus is in addition to any other bonuses for the artifact.

Hazards of Volcanoes

Attribution

Based on the material for Ars Magica, ©1993-2024, licensed by Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games®, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license 4.0 ("CC-BY-SA 4.0"). Ars Magica Open License Logo ©2024 Trident, Inc. The Ars Magica Open License Logo, Ars Magica, and Mythic Europe are trademarks of Trident, Inc., and are used with permission. Order of Hermes, Tremere, Doissetep, and Grimgroth are trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB and are used with permission.