Mythic Europe

Ars Magica takes place in Mythic Europe.

Mythic Europe is much like medieval Europe – the same kings rule over the same kingdoms, the same popes control the church, and so on.

However, Mythic Europe is filled with the supernatural. Angels, demons, faeries, giants and monsters – and, of course, wizards. Like you. You will play a wizard, against the backdrop of Mythic Europe.

The Covenant

The other players play wizards too. Together, you play a coven of wizards, a 'covenant'.

While the wizards lead the covenant, it includes many others too. Wizards tend to be great with magic – but weak at everything else. Social interactions are especially a problem, as the Gift of magic tends to make others distrust, fear, and envy you. Wizards therefore often have companions, that serve to facilitate social interactions - or to physically protect the wizard in combat, if need be.

The covenant includes also various servants, soldiers, laborers, and so on. Such minor characters are usually referred to as grogs.

In a typical Ars Magica adventure, only one or two players play their main, wizard, character. The other players play their secondary, Companion, character, or grogs.

The Order

All of you wizards are members of the Order of Hermes, an order that encompasses all wizards of power in Mythic Europe.

All members of the Order took an oath to uphold the Code of Hermes. Some of its clauses include:

You may not deprive another member of his magical powers, except in duly declared Wizard War.
You may not bring ruin to other wizards as a result of your actions, such as by angering a faerie or mundane (i.e human, non-wizard) lord that then lashes out against other wizards.
You may not swear fealty to or serve any mundane lord.
You may not make deals with demons.

Violations of these rules may result in being charged before a tribunal of your peers.

Aside from being protected from other wizards by the Code and partaking of Hermetic society, members gain two more straight-forward benefits:

You know to invoke the Parma Magica, that grants you some measure of magic resistance and, perhaps more importantly, shields you from the negative social effects of the Gift of magic. Without the Parma, the Order would have long ago fallen due to distrust and envy.
You can use Hermetic magic, which is flexible and powerful magic system, that we will soon explain.

But before we explain Hermetic magic, we want to first talk about characters in general.

Characters

There are no character classes in Ars Magica. Instead, characters are primarily defined by their Abilities (skills), and Virtues and Flaws (akin to Feats). Wizards also have known spells, and the Arts of magic (magical skills).

Characters advance with age - older characters are more powerful. In each season, a character may learn and advance a skill or a magical Art, learn spells, create magic items, or so on. Access to resources (such as good books or teachers, special materials to fashion a magic item, or so on) is paramount.

A large part of an Ars Magica game is the 'downtime', in which characters advance. Adventures can often be an unwanted distraction, rather than something sought by the characters.

In addition, characters may, rarely, change their Virtues and Flaws. Characters begin with a certain list of virtues and flaws, and these remain fairly constant. However, wizards can join 'Mystery Cults' that initiates them into mystic secrets, granting them more virtues (and, often, flaws). These virtues usually allow the wizard to do feats of magic that Hermetic magic finds difficult or impossible, such as invoking powerful spirits to bolster their spells or enchanting entire buildings as magic items.

Virtues and Flaws can also be gained by rare in-game events such as unique mystic experiences, travel to the Magic Realm which lies beyond the mortal world, communing with and signing a pact with the spirit of the forest, or so on.

Hermetic Magic

Hermetic magic is based on the fifteen Arts of magic. These are divided into five Techniques, that act as verbs, and ten Forms, that act as nouns. To cast a spell, you combine a verb and noun, a Technique and a Form. For example, to create a ball of fire you would add your ability to create (the Art of Creo) and your mastery over fire (the Art of Igenm).

The five Techniques are: Creo (create), Intellego (understand), Muto (change), Perdo (destroy), and Rego (control). The ten Forms are Animal (animals), Aquam (water, and liquids in general), Auram (air, and weather), Ignem (fire, and light and heat), Terram (earth), Herbam (plants), Corpus (the human body), Imaginem (sensation), Mentem (mind), and Vim (the supernatural).

To cast a spell, produce a Casting Total (aka spellcasting roll, which is

Casting Total

die + Technique + Form + Stamina + Aura Modifier

Your scores in the Techniques and Forms are written on your character sheet, as is your Stamina (which is akin to the Constitution modifier in D&D). The storyguide (DM) tells you what the aura modifier is, depending on the place you are casting in. A highly-magical place would boost your casting by +5 or more, while casting in a church might impose a penalty of -12 or more.

Ars Magica uses a 10-sided die for its rolls, including the spellcasting roll. The die can be rolled in a simple way, as 1 to 10, but more often in spellcasting and combat the roll is a stress roll. This means that on a natural 1 on the roll, you pick up the dice and roll again, doubling the result (with another 1 doubling again and so on). This can lead to extraordinarily high rolls. On the other hand, on a natural 0 (on the original roll, not re-rolls) you might botch. You must roll a number of "botch dice" (these are just 10-sided dice) set by the storyguide (DM); if any of them comes up 0, you botched, which means you failed catastrophically.

This total may also be affected by your virtues and flaws. In particular, many wizards have a magical focus, a type of magic in which they are particularly strong, such as "necromancy" or "lightning".

Your character sheet should include the bonus to the spellcasting roll (the casting total sans aura and die) for each spell you know, to make casting it in-session easier. Every spell has a certain level. If your casting total meets or exceeds the spell level, the spell is successfully cast and will affect the target – if it penetrates its magic resistance. If your casting total falls short by as much as 10, the spell is still cast, but costs you one fatigue level. If your roll is even lower than that, the spellcasting fails (you still lose the fatigue level).

It is important to know that you can cast spells you don't know. You are not limited to your list of known spells. However, you can spontaneously cast only relatively-weak spells.

Casting a spell, especially in an area with a non-magical supernatural aura, can be risky. There is always a small chance that you will botch the casting, which may result in wild magic or throw you temporarily into the magic realm, a harrowing mystical experience.

Finally, you are also capable of doing many other things in your laboratory. You can create enchanted devices (magic items), bind a familiar, create a longevity potion, and more. Such feats typically take a season or more, and require raw vis, a valuable resource.

All in all, Hermetic magic is an incredibly flexible system, that allows you to basically do anything you can imagine. This is one of the major strengths and appeal of Ars Magica – you can do anything. Whether you want to create a spell that will improve the harvest or build a flying castle, the flexible magic system provides you with rules on how to do it. You are limited only by your imagination.

Well, there are some limits of magic, but even these can be bent with mystery cults, ancient magic, and so on.

Fatigue and Wound Levels

We mentioned Fatigue levels. So let us clarify how fatigue and wounds work:

Each character has six Fatigue levels, from "Fresh" to "Unconsciouss". Engaging in tiring activities, such as casting spells, can reduce your fatigue level. If you are fatigued, you suffer penalties to all rolls.

Similarly, each character has six Wound levels, from "Unhurt" to "Dead". Being wounded results in a wound of some severity, i.e. one of these levels. For example, you may suffer a Light Wound, or be Incapacitated. Wounds impose penalties on your actions.

Healing wounds in Ars Magica takes seasons, and without proper medical care wounds can worsen and fester. Hermetic magic is capable of healing wounds, however, although this requires raw vis.

Ability Rolls

Most things you want to do, except spells, use Ability (skill) rolls. Your character has many abilities, raised by experience (age and resources), such as Concentration or Charm. To make an ability check, you roll die + Characteristic + Ability against a target number, known as the Ease Factor. If you meet or exceed the Ease Factor, you succeeded.

The "Characteristic" is analogous to an Ability Modifier in D&D, such as Strength or Dexterity modifiers. Your characteristics are listed in your character sheet. Any Characteristic can be used with any skill in principle, according to what is appropriate, but in practice certain combinations are common. For example, you would use Perception + Awareness to notice something, and Intelligence + Area Lore to know something about the area you're in.

Combat

As we touched on wounds, let us touch on combat.

Combat in Ars Magica is somewhat abstract. We don't use a grid, and often use 'groups' of combatants (rather than tracking each individually). Characters can also take certain abstract actions, such as "defending" another character.

The combat is managed in rounds, each taking a few seconds. Initiative is rolled in each round, and characters act in order from highest to lowest initiative. On his turn, each character (or group) can move and take one action, such as casting a spell, activating a magic item, or making a melee or ranged attack.

An important combat option is Defend: shield grogs (bodyguards) usually Defend a wizard; attacks against a defended character target the defender instead.

To make a melee or ranged attack, the attacker makes an attack roll, such as die + Dexterity + Single Weapon + Weapon's Attack Bonus. The defender makes a defense roll, such as die + Dexterity + Single Weapon + Weapon's Defense Bonus. If the attack roll is higher than the defense roll, the attack hit.

To Hit

Attack Roll – Defense Roll

Take the excess above the defense, and add to it the attacker's Strength + Weapon's Damage Bonus; then subtract from it the defender's Soak, which is his Protection (from armor) + Stamina.

Damage

(Attack Roll – Defense Roll) + Attacker's Damage – Defender's Soak

You get a number, the number of points of damage dealt to the opponent.

The damage points determine how severe are the wounds your caused your opponent; for most opponents, you cause a wound of a severity of 1 per 5 points (or fraction thereof) of damage, so e.g. if you deal 5 points of damage you cause a Light Wound, but if you caused 7 points you would cause a Medium Wound.

Wound Severity

1 per 5 points or fraction-thereof (usually)

Your character sheet lists your combat stats with each weapon (it's initiative modifier, and its attack, defense, and damage modifiers), as well as your Soak, your fatigue levels, and your wound levels.

Spells that cause damage points, list a damage bonus, such as +25. You deal damage equal to a stress die plus that, minus the opponent's stress + Soak.

Spell Damage

stress + damage bonus – (stress + Soak)

These points cause wounds as usual.

Note that most spells do not cause damage points. Instead, the spell simply takes effect. This could mean that the target suffers a certain Wound, such as Heavy Wound, or that it is turned into a toad, or whatever.

That's It

Ars Magica is a complex game, with many rules. The above should suffice, however, to let you join a game and run your character from your character sheet. There are several nuances and options we haven't discussed, but your fellow players can fill you in.

And there are many rules for downtime, such as laboratory work, we haven't covered at all. Part of the fun of Ars Magica is using those rules to advance your wizard, concocting plans and the magic that's needed to bring them to fruition.

Have fun!

Primer for New Players

See Also