TEXT: Issue #13
  Hermes’ Portal
  
  Hermes’ Portal
  Issue n° 13
  November 2004
  � � �
  Who’s who . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
  News from the Line Editor: November 2004  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
  Publisher’s corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
  Prince of Magi  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
  by Alexander White
  Omnibus Grimoire: Mentem  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
  by Andrew Gronosky
  Vis-à-vis Vis  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
  by Michaël de Verteuil
  Covenants As Characters, Continued  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
  by Erik Dahl
  Germanic Shapechangers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
  by Jarkman
  Hermes’ portal
  Publisher: Hermes’ Portal
  Contributors: David Chart, Erik Dahl, Andrew Gronosky, Jarkman, Michaël de Verteuil, Alexander White
  Editorial and proofreading help: Sheila Thomas
  Illustrations: Scott Beattie (p. 24, 26, 28, 32, 34, 35), Radja Sauperamaniane (back), Angela Taylor (cover, border & p. 4, 6, 8, 10, 16),
  Alexander White (p. 20, 21, 36, 37, 38, 39)
  Layout: Eric Kouris
  Thanks: All the people who submitted ideas, texts, illustrations or helped in the production of this issue.
  Hermes’ Portal is an independent publication dedicated to Ars Magica players. Hermes’ Portal is available through email only.
  Hermes’ Portal is not affiliated with Atlas Games or White Wolf Gaming Studio. References to trademarks of those companies are not
  intended to infringe upon the rights of those parties. Ars Magica was created by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rhein Hagen.
  Hermes’ Portal # 13, Copyright ©2004, Hermes’ Portal. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this work is allowed for personal use only.
  Contacting Hermes’ Portal
  Email: Hermes.Portal@wanadoo.fr
  Web site: www.hermesportal.fr.st
  
  Who’s who
  Scott Beattie
  Scott calls himself an illustrator because he is in
  denial about his day-job. As Scobie, he self-publishes
  his Wuxia minicomic “The Seven Swords” and has
  provided illustrations for the On the Edge card game
  and for Werewolf. He has recently finished writing
  and illustrating “Casefile: ZODIAC”, a 1970s weird
  espionage roleplaying game, soon to be available
  online. Real soon, promise.
  http://www.livejournal.com/~scobie
  Jarkman
  Jarkman (not really a forger, just a bit derivative at
  times) and his wife recently moved to Melbourne,
  Australia. He started playing RPGs over fifteen years
  ago and never thought that medieval history would
  be interesting or that Latin would ever come in
  handy. He has spent a year telling people they have
  leukaemia and then trying to almost kill them with
  chemotherapy in order to make them better. Only
  some of them got better. Now he spends half his
  time looking after his one year old son and getting
  back to dreaming up articles for RPGs; the other half
  is spent working out ways to almost kill people with
  brain lymphoma in order to make them better — he
  much prefers the former.
  News from the Line
  Editor: November 2004
  The biggest news for the line right now is, of
  course, that Fifth Edition is now out. I very much
  doubt that there are any Hermes Portal subscribers
  who didn’t already know that, though, and there
  probably aren’t many of you who don’t already have
  copies. (If you don’t have a copy yet, remember that
  the promotional price is only available until the end
  of December.)
  Personally, I’m very pleased with the way that the
  book has turned out, both visually, and in terms of
  actual content. Naturally, the BerkList has already
  started arguing about what they want to change, but
  that’s only natural. I think I’d be happy playing ArM5
  exactly as written, but given the nature of role-play-
  ers it’s a bit too much to expect that such people will
  be widespread.
  So, what can you expect in the future? The first
  supplement, Calebais Revised, came out simultaneous-
  ly with the new edition, so you doubtless have that
  already.
  Guardians of the Forests: The Rhine Tribunal should
  be out in January, as announced. This book will serve
  as the model Tribunal for ArM5, and includes a
  worked-out setting for a beginning saga. On the oth-
  er hand, we don’t plan to produce a lot of Tribunal
  books for the new edition, and certainly not for a
  while.
  Houses of Hermes: True Lineages, covering Bonisa-
  gus, Guernicus, Mercere, and Tremere is currently on
  schedule for its April release date. You’ll get more
  background details on the Houses, new rules and
  abilities to play with, and lots of ideas for playing the
  magi of those Houses. We plan to produce one of
  these books every year for the first three years,
  replacing the old Houses of Hermes book.
  After that, things are a little more vague. Realms of
  Power: The Divine is well along, and should provide the
  solid treatment of religion and divine powers that the
  game has needed since, well, ArM1. I currently have
  three more books at earlier stages of preparation,
  and I’ll say more about them as more happens with
  them. At any rate, the pipeline of new supplements
  is moving along nicely.
  On the subject of supplements, we are currently
  running an Open Call for vis sources for the new
  Covenants book. (One of the three in earlier stages
  of preparation.) Details should be available from the
  Atlas web site by the time you read this. The deadline
  is February 15th, and if you’ve always wanted to
  write for Ars Magica, this is your chance to show me
  that you can.
  Publisher’s corner
  “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”
  Well, this time I’m really late! At least by a
  month… I could say I’ve been busy, my job is taking
  up too much of my time (or should I say, wasting too
  much of my time?), I didn’t put enough pressure on
  the authors to follow the deadline — I could find
  numerous lame excuses… But I won’t because I have
  the ultimate lame excuse: I was waiting for the Fifth
  Edition release! You have before your eyes the last
  Fourth Edition publication and the only one to have
  been published after the Fifth Edition release!
  While I was not working on this issue, I didn’t
  lose all my time to wondering how to teach division
  to 11 year old children who don’t understand how to
  multiply by ten (no kidding) or how to add fractions
  to 13 year old kids who can’t calculate 1 – 3 (still no
  kidding… one day, I should look for a real job,
  instead of pretending to be a math teacher); I took
  the time to read a proposal for an Ars Magica book.
  I found it very interesting so I decided to publish it.
  It will be released in the same way I publish HP, but
  it will be a bit thicker than an HP issue (the current
  version reaches 80 pages without illustrations). I still
  have to decide the cover price with the author. I’ll
  give you all the information when the book is ready.
  “… but, when the Rabbit actually took a watch out
  of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hur-
  ried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across
  her mind that she had never seen before a rabbit with
  either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it,
  and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field
  after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large
  rabbit-hole under the edge.” (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s
  Adventures in Wonderland)
  3
  
  Prince of Magi
  by Alexander White
  W
  hile magic undoubtedly had its origin
  with the sage Zoroaster, it was his
  pupil, Osthanes (known in Persian as
  Vishtana) who wrote the first book on
  magic, and the tribe of Magians that lent the world
  the word ‘mage’.
  Western history has little to say about Osthanes
  other than that he was responsible for bringing mag-
  ic into Greece and aiding the Persian army to invade
  Greece. A few sources tell of prolific authorship of
  magical texts. Some mystic texts remember Osthan-
  es’ placation and control of gods, spirits and ghosts.
  Pliny the Elder’s Natural History condemns Osthanes
  as being the hated source of superstition and magical
  books. Tertullian, the Christian writer, in De Anima
  attributes the categorisation of the restless dead to
  Osthanes. Apuleius in his Apologia, describes him as a
  philosopher who mapped out the workings of uni-
  versal providence. In Persia, Osthanes is best known
  for his pivotal role in the triumph of Magianism, the
  orthodox branch of Zoroastrianism, which stressed
  religious wisdom as the highest principle of meta-
  physical theosophy. Osthanes is mentioned in con-
  nection with the reign of Alexander the Great. Dur-
  ing this time he further spread his magical arts into
  the West.
  The Magians were the guardians of Zoroastrian
  orthodoxy, a sacerdotal Median tribe who had guid-
  ed innumerable empires in their religious faith. With
  the rise of the Persian Empire, the Magians em-
  braced Zoroastrianism and came to characterise its
  priesthood entirely. Under the Sasanid Empire,
  Magian priests introduced complex dogmatic edicts,
  purging most of the original syncretic aspects of
  Zoroastrianism — paganism, Zurvanism and Maz-
  dakitism. During this time, they repressed and ulti-
  mately scattered the Manichaean heretics. Their
  spread into the West brought an explosion of mysti-
  cal practice, and these practices became so analogous
  with the Magians that their name came to be syn-
  onymous with magic.
  This article is aimed at giving a ‘Mythic’ biogra-
  phy of Osthanes and the Magians, both of whom are
  important, if opaque, magical figures. It includes the
  biography of Osthanes, and details the Magians, their
  role within the Middle East, their relations with the
  Cult of Mercury and the Order of Solomon. Some
  familiarity with the principles of Zoroastrianism is
  recommended due to the number of unfamiliar
  terms, titles and names (see HP#9).
  Since so little is known for sure about Osthanes
  (such as whether he existed at all), I have taken a
  great deal of liberty with the sources. If anyone has
  any (concrete) sources, please let me know, either on
  the BerkList or directly at aw@vurt.net.
  Thanks to Niall Christie for early insightful com-
  ments and proofreading. Thanks also to Michaël de
  Verteuil for his sometimes severe, but always
  invaluable, advice. Again, thanks to my troupe, past
  and present, for participating in my saga and being
  the mother of my inspiration. Acknowledgements to
  David Chart’s Numismancy article in Mythic Perspectives
  #10 for the idea of Magian Numismancy, and the
  BerkList debate on coin minting.
  4
  
  With Ars Magica Fifth Edition imminent, I can
  only hope that mysteries are not only integrated into
  the cloth of Ars, but that mystae groups designed
  under ArM4 are easily translatable to the new edition.
  Terminology Note: ‘Magi’ and ‘Magian’ is used
  throughout this article to refer to the tribe of Medi-
  ans known as ‘the Magi’. When non-Magian mages
  are referred too, attempts have been made to label
  them specifically (as ‘Hermetic mages’, for example),
  or to use other terms, such as ‘wizard’, ‘sorcerer’, etc.
  ‘Magoi’ refers expressly to the Zoroastrian mystery
  group detailed in HP#9.
  Prince of Magi
  Unrecorded Centuries
  Osthanes was a prince of the sacerdotal tribe of
  Magi (or Magians), one of the six Median tribes.
  Before his conversion by Zoroaster, he was the high
  priest of Vishtaspa, greatest of the Iranian kings.
  Originally sceptical of Zoroaster, he was overcome
  by awe after witnessing many miracles and wonders
  and not only converted to the new monotheistic
  faith, but also convinced his liege-lord to do likewise.
  As Vishtaspa waged war on his diabolically deluded
  neighbours, Osthanes accompanied Zoroaster on his
  many journeys, recording his words, sayings and
  hymns, and formulating the first Mazdean scriptures.
  The early Mazdeans had little organisation and few
  holy sites, apart from the scattered agiari (‘fire tem-
  ples’) founded by Zoroaster. Osthanes worked to
  fight the followers of the Druj (‘Lie’) and to establish
  the new faith. Despite his many attempts however, his
  own people, the Medians, denied Ahura Mazda. In
  614BCE, the Medes overthrew the Assyrian Empire
  with the help of Babylon. A great number of
  Mazdeans came under their sway. Missionaries
  amongst the Mazdeans helped undermine the Median
  Empire, reinforced by hostage royal believers living at
  the Median court.
  The Achaemenian Golden Age
  One such Zoroastrian prince was Cyrus the
  Great, son-in-law of the reigning Median king. In
  549BCE, Cyrus rebelled and overthrew the Medes,
  establishing his own Achaemenian dynasty that ruled
  Asia Minor, Babylonia and finally all of Eastern Iran.
  His celebrated victory over the Lydian king Croesus,
  demonstrated his wisdom and bravery. Upon captur-
  ing Babylon, Cyrus showed that he possessed mercy
  as well as might, and repatriated many of the subject
  peoples, including the Jews. As he was close to Vish-
  taspa, so too was Osthanes close to Cyrus, offering
  him religious advice and presiding over rituals and
  ceremonies.
  With the reign of Cyrus, the Median tribe of the
  Magians finally accepted Mazdeanism. As they had
  done with so many other kings and empires, they
  stepped up as the sacerdotal caste of the new Achae-
  menian Empire, quickly receiving the Mazdean doc-
  trines and observances. The sacred script of the
  Magians — Avestan — was adopted as the official
  religious alphabet to be used for royal inscriptions,
  and to record the hitherto orally transmitted Avesta
  (Sacred Scriptures). Cyrus was so pleased with
  Osthanes that he granted the sage the perpetual title
  of ‘Prince of the Magi’, symbolising eternal lordship
  over his once recalcitrant people.
  At various times over the course of the Achae-
  menian period, Osthanes would be given the tribal
  homeland of the Magians and the Medes as his per-
  sonal fiefdom; eventually the Magians would consid-
  er those lands to belong to the Mazdean priesthood
  itself.
  The Achaemenians thrived under the guidance of
  the Magians. Mazdeanism was spread to every corner
  5
  Prophecy of Cyrus
  Cyrus’ coming was greatly prophesied. The most
  famous of the prophetic visions was that of his
  grandfather, Astyages, heir to the Median Empire.
  He had two dreams. In the first his daughter Man-
  dane urinated so much that she not only flooded
  Babylon, but the whole of Persia. Astyages, after
  consulting with the Magians, promptly married her
  to a socially inferior Persian noble called Cambyses.
  A few months later, he had another dream in which
  a vine grew from Mandane’s genitals and overshad-
  owed all of Asia. Magian dream-interpreters advised
  him to send Mandane away from Persia. He had her
  watched, and planned to kill her child when it was
  born, since the Magians interpreted the dream to
  mean that her child would rule in his place.
  When Cyrus was born, Astyages called his trust-
  ed friend Harpargus to take the baby into the wilder-
  ness and slay it. Harpargus gave the child to the
  herdsman Mitradates with orders to expose the child
  in the hills. It happened that Mitradates’ wife was in
  labour while the herdsman was receiving his orders.
  When she saw the child, she begged her husband not
  to expose the child, since their own had been still-
  born. Instead, they swapped the babies, and adopted
  Cyrus.
  Upon his tenth birthday, Cyrus’ identity was
  revealed. His natural kingliness and bearing singled
  him out, and before very long, he came to the aged
  Astyages’ attention. The Median Emperor consulted
  his Magian advisors, the chief of whom was
  Osthanes. Osthanes, seeing a grand future for
  Mazdeanism under Cyrus, convinced the Emperor
  to keep the boy alive. As revenge for being dis-
  obeyed however, Astyages killed Harpargus’ son
  and, in a banquet, fed the corpse to him in a stew.
  Under the guidance of Osthanes and the venge-
  ful Harpargus, Cyrus eventually incited the Persian
  army of the Emperor to rebel. After killing the few
  remaining Mazdean Magians still in his court (the
  others had fled to the banner of Cyrus), Astyages
  led a force out to fight Cyrus. He was defeated and
  captured. Cyrus became the King of kings and start-
  ed the Golden Age of Zoroastrianism.
  
  of the Empire. Under first Cyrus, then Cambyses,
  Darius and Xerxes, demons and diabolists were
  purged from Asia. Mazdean missionaries battled
  demons and vile spirits in the Iranian wilderness,
  destroying the taint of Angra Mainyu from vast parts
  of the Persian Empire. It was a Golden Age for the
  followers of the Wise Lord.
  Invasion of the West
  Still however, Osthanes remained in the mortal
  world. Looking west he saw a vast, untamed and bar-
  barous wilderness under the dominion of the daevas.
  King of kings, Xerxes, inspired by Osthanes’ com-
  pelling call-to-arms, summoned his satrapies and
  generals to proclaim the invasion of Greece. An
  army of over five million troops was gathered as an
  expeditionary force from every corner of the Em-
  pire. As the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and
  the even greater number of camp followers and
  hangers-on, moved towards the port of Casthanaea
  in Magnesia, they drank rivers dry and consumed
  entire herds and fields of grain.
  In Greece, civic leaders quickly learned of the
  oncoming exterminatory Persian force. The Atheni-
  ans quickly sent off a messenger to the Delphic Ora-
  cle, which advised them to appeal for help from their
  son-in-law. The quick-witted priests remembered a
  legend that Boreas, the North Wind, was married to
  Oreithyia, daughter of Erechtheus, seventh king of
  Athens. They reasoned therefore that this was a mar-
  riage connection and concluded that Boreas was their
  son-in-law. Prayers and sacrifices were made. Soon a
  great storm gathered over Casthanaea.
  The storm raged for three days, but eventually
  Osthanes, who accompanied Xerxes, set about
  soothing it, with the aid of other magi. They per-
  formed intricate rituals and made sacrifices, until on
  the fourth day the winds subsided. Over four hun-
  dred ships were lost, along with uncountable people,
  vast amounts of supplies, and unimaginable wealth.
  Nevertheless, the remains of the fleet were gathered
  and the Persians crossed into Greece.
  Entering Greece, the Magians quickly placated
  the native spirit and god population, Osthanes
  presiding over vast rites offering sacrifice to river
  gods and regional heroes. Many favourable omens
  were received. The invasion of Greece saw the Per-
  sian halt at Thermopylae, the battle of Artemisium
  and the devastating sack of Athens. Xerxes was final-
  ly defeated at the naval battle of Salamis in 480 BCE,
  which saw his return to Persia. A year later, the Per-
  sian army withdrew from Greece after the battles of
  Plataea and Mycale.
  Meanwhile, Osthanes remained in the West. He
  took under his wing Democritus of Abdera, a
  philosopher eager to learn the secret truths of the
  world. After learning the basics of the Art from
  Osthanes, Democritus journeyed to Persia and stud-
  ied Chaldean astrology in Babylon, returning to the
  West to write many treatises on the Magian arts.
  Democritus disseminated many of Osthanes’ secrets,
  his works influencing notable alchemists such as
  Bolus of Mendes and the peripatetic Theophrastus.
  A Wonder of Osthanes the Magician
  There is a legend that tells of Osthanes hap-
  pening across a winegrower in Greece called Midas.
  A deadly viper had just bitten Midas, who was
  about to die, so Osthanes quickly hung around the
  unfortunate man’s foot a fragment from the stele of
  a dead young girl. He then uttered seven sacramen-
  tal words, which he drew from an old book. Midas
  was immediately cured, and watched in amazement
  as Osthanes purified his entire farm with sulphur
  and fire. He summoned all the snakes in the farm
  and breathed upon them, which instantly con-
  sumed them all.
  Appealing to Boreas, the North Wind
  When the Athenians appealed to Boreas for
  help, they did so on the grounds that they were the
  fathers-in-law of the North Wind. Since there were
  ties of ‘blood’ that linked Athens to Boreas, the
  spirit was more inclined to aid them. This is not the
  only time in Greek history that cities or heroes had
  appealed to the gods or to spirits for aid and relied
  on blood relationship or marriage to ensure help.
  In the thirteenth century, such bonds are few
  and far between. A few mortals, however, still retain
  a strong enough heritage that they can call on their
  spiritual relations for assistance. Likewise, certain
  peoples can rely on spirit-aid due to long-time
  bonds, now rarely applied due to the prevalence of
  Christianity. (See below for new Virtues: Elemental
  Blood, and Tribal Blood-bond.)
  6
  
  Key to this tradition of mystical alchemy is creation
  of arcane alloys through the fusion of metals (with-
  in this tradition of alchemy also stand the Gnostic
  Isis, Iamblichus, Moses and Eugenius).
  No original text by Osthanes is known to have
  survived, although there is a standing bounty from
  Doissetep for an original copy of ‘On the Transmu-
  tation of Nature’, found by Democritus and Ostanes
  in a shrine to Ahura Mazda.
  While his students went on to make important
  contributions in the magical arena, Osthanes slowly
  sank into the mists of history. The Magians in Persia
  were now completely Mazdean, their doctrine estab-
  lished with the weight of generations of tradition.
  The Accursed and the Decline
  Osthanes was to make his last appearance during
  the reign of Alexander the Great, known as ‘Alexan-
  der the accursed’ (guzastag), the epithet of Ahriman
  himself. Seeking to sack the tomb of Cyrus, Alexan-
  der found that its Magian guardians had already
  moved the great treasures of the first Persian Emper-
  or. The conqueror had them tortured to find out
  where the relics were being held, but to no avail. The
  height of Alexander’s destructive ways came with the
  7
  The Prince, His Pupil and His Son
  In Democritus’ Physica et Mystica, there is a pas-
  sage that describes the ghost of Osthanes being
  summoned by his son Ostanes to unlock the secrets
  of hidden tomes of wisdom. Democritus, long
  unable to effect true alchemical transformations,
  approached Ostanes to summon the Prince of Magi
  from Hades. The two magicians did so, pleading
  with Osthanes to give up his secrets. The dead
  Magian replied that his words were bound by a pow-
  erful demon, and he could only say that ‘The books
  are in the shrine.’ Son and alchemist searched the
  shrine, for Osthanes had not mentioned them to
  Democritus in life. Unable to find the texts, the two
  worked fruitlessly to unlock the essence of alchemy
  by themselves. Some time after giving up their pur-
  suit, they were feasting in the shrine when a pillar
  split in two. Although no one else could see them,
  Ostanes reached into the crack and pulled out the
  books. Inside, the necessary phrase required for their
  alchemy to work was found.
  Story seed: Osthanes is renowned for having
  written innumerable books. In their search of an old
  library, ruins or temple, the characters discover a
  magical text offering the potential of amazing pow-
  ers or enlightenment. In order to unlock the book’s
  secrets however, they must call upon the spirit of the
  one who wrote it. This could be as simple as casting
  a spell, or tracking down fragments of those who
  have done so before (such as Democritus and
  Ostanes accounts of the event), finding Osthanes’
  resting place, or even his remaining living descen-
  dants. Of course, in so speaking to Osthanes (or his
  fravashi), the characters also rouse the demon that
  prevented him from revealing the book’s location to
  his son and pupil.
  Sacred Kingship under Cyrus the Great
  One of the great secrets of the unity of the Per-
  sian Empire was the face of Cyrus the Great, who
  ruled over thousands of peoples, tribes and king-
  doms. In later ages, the Romans and Greeks would
  use this numismatic secret to stabilise their own
  empires, and in the thirteenth century, the heirs of
  the Byzantine Empire carry on the much-diluted tra-
  dition.
  As Zoroaster taught, an image can mystically
  represent the thing it depicts. The early Magian fol-
  lowers of Cyrus used the Law of Sympathy upon
  coins minted by Cyrus to engender loyalty in who-
  ever used or owned the coins. Kingship in Persia was
  Sacred, as the king represented the Desirable
  Dominion of Ahura Mazda. As the divine represen-
  tative of God on Earth, the Magians used his image
  to radiate that same Dominion to his subjects. His
  heirs did the same, representing themselves as divine
  personages to ensure the stability of the Empire.
  Chaos and Alexander the Great
  The continuity required for Magian Numisman-
  cy was disrupted when Alexander the Great invaded
  Persia and killed the King of kings, Darius. Alexan-
  der, in the midst of extinguishing holy fires and tor-
  turing Mazdean priests, learned the secret of Numis-
  mancy. He minted his own coins, depicting himself
  as God and Conqueror. The most famous coins
  depicted Alexander with horns, associated by Zoro-
  astrians with Ahriman. There was no doubt in the
  minds of the Mazdeans that Alexander was an agent
  of evil.
  Although Alexander died, his coins continued to
  remain in circulation. Under the reign of his succes-
  sors, the Seleucids, the Mazdean faith was degraded
  and diminished. Countless cults and rivals sprang up
  as Hellenistic thought spread throughout the East.
  Note: Alexander the Great is seen by both Chris-
  tianity and Islam as a potent force of good. Islam for
  example has a prophet named Dhu’l-Qarnayn (‘the
  one with two horns’) that is often identified as
  Alexander the Great. Depictions of Alexander in
  Christian iconography show him triumphing over
  eastern demons as a pious and chivalrous knight.
  Whether the Zoroastrian view of Alexander the
  Great as a force of evil is accurate is left up to indi-
  vidual troupes and story guides.
  The Righteous Fire of the Sasanids
  Although the Greek rulers of Persia were over-
  thrown by the Parthians in 150BCE, Desirable
  Dominion was not restored entirely to the Middle
  East until the reign of the first Sasanian king,
  Ardashir. His Magian sponsor learnt the lost Numis-
  mantic Art to re-cement the faith of Zoroaster in
  the Persian people using the symbol of Asha (‘Right-
  eousness’, ‘Truth’).
  
  burning of Persopolis, where the great master copies
  of the Avesta were destroyed. A few Persian priests
  did fall under Alexander’s sway, when at a grand ban-
  quet in Babylon, they broke bread and drank wine
  with the Macedonian. In the seven years of his reign,
  Alexander did much damage to the Mazdean faith,
  destroying temples and scriptures, slaying hundreds
  of Magians and extinguishing countless sacred fires.
  Osthanes received a vision of Alexander’s punish-
  ment; in his dream vision, he saw the Great Spirit of
  Ahriman dying in Babylon. Three months later,
  Alexander fell ill and never recovered.
  The damage was done. The Achaemenian Em-
  pire was over. The Greek cities of Antioch and Alex-
  andria succeeded Babylon as the cultural capitals of
  the East. Following Alexander were the Seleucids,
  who introduced vast panoplies of gods and cults.
  Mazdeanism was left to languish amidst the countless
  temples and churches that sprang up. Not until the
  herbad (‘High Mage’) Tansar and Arch Mage Kartér,
  last pupils of Osthanes, would Zoroastrianism gain
  supremacy, this time under the Sasanids.
  The End of the Prince
  Osthanes passed from the historical record after
  the death of Alexander the Great. No one knows
  what became of him. It is assumed that he passed on
  to his final reward. Perhaps however, he lives on in
  the world still, retreating to an isolated place like his
  great mentor Zoroaster, to contemplate the world.
  Perhaps he travelled further east to proselytise India
  or China. Perhaps he fell in battle against some great
  threat sent by Ahriman. Perhaps his spirit remains
  somewhere in the world, offering help to the
  Mazdeans and struggling against the Druj. Whatever
  the truth, Osthanes, Prince of the Magi, finally left
  the pages of history.
  The Magians
  Osthanes belonged to one of the six Median
  tribes, known as the Magi (the others were Bousai,
  Pareteknoi, Strouchates, Arizantoi and Boudioi). A
  close-knit tribe, they were the most obstinate and
  implacable foes of the religion of Zoroaster, as they
  provided priests not only to Median tribes, but also
  to other peoples, such as the Persians, Assyrians and
  The three wise men who visited the infant
  Christ in Bethlehem were Gaspar, Melchior and
  Balthasar. Certain accounts however place the num-
  ber of wise men visiting Christ as high as twelve (in
  the Gospels only the gifts are enumerated, not the
  number of givers). From around the sixth century,
  certain tales of the nativity recount that Osthanes
  was amongst the wise men who came into the
  house or cave that Jesus lay in, and fell to his knees
  and worshipped him. If this tale is true, perhaps
  after witnessing the Incarnation of God in Flesh,
  the Prince of Magi finally found his rest.
  8
  The First Book on Magic
  Written by Osthanes early in his life as a devotee
  of Ahura Mazda, the First Book of Magic is a pow-
  erful Zoroastrian artefact. Believed lost for a thou-
  sand years, it occasionally crops up in tales and
  rumours amongst the wizards of the Theban or
  Levantine Tribunals. Its powers can only be guessed
  at, since the few records remaining are vague, but it
  is commonly accepted that it contains the most pro-
  found record of Zoroaster’s teachings on the true
  nature of reality.
  While accepted wisdom assumes that the text is
  largely magical, the private journals and diaries of
  pious mages who lived in the East hint that the First
  Book is much more than that. They say it is an alle-
  gory for the reconciliation of magic and the Divine,
  and hint that through the power of the First Book,
  truly devout wizards can gain a personal relationship
  with God.
  Story guides should decide the nature of the
  book themselves. Two obvious options appear,
  however. The first has the book as a magically
  enchanted book that reveals the great secrets of the
  cosmos. In this form it could be a ridiculously high
  quality or level Summa, granting experience in
  Occult Lore, Enigmatic Wisdom, Magic Theory or
  Theology (Zoroastrianism). It could also have
  supernatural abilities, such as indestructibility,
  imperviousness to magical investigation (such as
  Intellego), and even the power to send a reader into
  Twilight. The second option is for the First Book to
  be a holy relic, a story device that could allows PCs
  to gain True Faith, Pious Magic, or a Zoroastrian
  Virtue. In this form, it could either be an allegory
  for the search to know God/Ahura Mazda, or an
  actual book imbued with Faith Points. In either
  form, the First Book can serve as a story tool to
  involve characters in Zoroastrian adventures,
  whether as a prize for their searching or as a more
  intangible reward for a character’s personal search
  for understanding.
  
  Babylonians, and the cities of Urartu and Elam. Dur-
  ing Zoroaster’s lifetime, the Medes continued to
  reject Mazdeanism, much to the dismay of Osthan-
  es. It was not until the reign of Cyrus, a Mazdean
  King of kings, that the Magians and the Medes
  accepted the faith of Zoroaster and came under the
  sway of Osthanes.
  Under Osthanes, Mazdeanism was turned into an
  imperial faith, with the Magians presiding over every
  ritual aspect of governance. Grand temple complex-
  es, shrines and broad estates served an ever-increas-
  ing number of priests. However, the disparate nature
  of the Persian Empire meant that although the cen-
  tral body of the Mazdean church was formed prima-
  rily of ethnic Magi, local athaurvani (‘priests’) contin-
  ued to operate with relative autonomy.
  As the learned caste, the Magians were responsi-
  ble for many aspects of the running of the empire,
  including administration of law and bureaucratic
  running of the state. Their strict adherence to the
  doctrine of duality — the cosmos divided between
  Ohrmazd, Wise Lord of Good, and Ahriman, evil
  spirit of Lies — saw their customs more rigidly fol-
  lowed and heeded than most other groups. Because
  they were the priests of Ohrmazd, they took it as
  their sacred duty to destroy the followers and crea-
  tures of Ahriman, killing with their own hands any
  vile creature that crawled on the ground or flew in
  the air. From the Magians came the veneration of the
  natural elements, personified by the Amesha Spentas,
  and the detailed rules on purity.
  Spreading the Art
  The Magians spread far and wide, expanding not
  only throughout Asia, but also into Europe, Greece
  and Italy. In Persia they remained the sacred priestly
  caste, but in the West, they personified the practice of
  magic, lending their name to the very act of control-
  ling the supernatural forces of the world.
  Several great efforts were made by the Magians in
  the West to spread the magical arts of Zoroaster. In
  particular, their skill at astrology made them highly
  desired as advisors by powerful aristocrats. Those
  Magians who were not regular visitors to the imperi-
  al court offered their services to normal folk, selling
  powerful protection charms and casting spells
  against criminals or evil-doers. They willingly passed
  on their secrets to other practitioners of the magical
  arts, spreading the influence of their magic. Many
  worked with the Mithraic priests who began to seek
  converts within the Roman territories.
  Magians versus Mercurians
  The Cult of Mercury (and the Cult of Hermes
  before it) was resolutely opposed to the Magians. The
  Persians represented a rival Imperial State, whose
  expansionist tendencies came into conflict with
  Rome’s own. Just as Roman and Persian emperors
  were adversaries, so too were their powerful magical
  priesthoods. Magian and Mercurian were drawn into
  a conflict between two world powers, both represent-
  ing their divine favour and supremacy. Furthermore,
  the magical practices of the two were in discord, par-
  ticularly as their places of worship emanated different
  aurae.
  The Cult of Mercury despised the Magians for
  bringing with them the Dominion of Ohrmazd, an
  aura that superseded the Magical Aura of the Mercu-
  rians, and also was detrimental to their rituals. The
  practices of the Magians were such that individuals
  could perform great wonders, rather than the large
  numbers of Mercurian priests required by the
  Roman cult. Worst of all, the Magians converted and
  taught their arts to anyone who would accept their
  Dominion, with the result that uncultured plebeians
  and slaves could potentially learn potent mystical
  rites that rivalled the Imperial mystic apparatus of
  the Roman State.
  Every generation, the Cult of Mercury would
  attempt to outlaw the practice of magic, seeing as
  subversive the Dominion of the Magians and their
  wide-spread following amongst the slaves, plebeians
  and foreigners in Roman cities. These attempts
  failed, doing little more than drive the practice under-
  ground. Although individual followers and support-
  ers of the Magians were executed for the crimes of
  sorcery and witchcraft, the Mercurians could not
  eradicate them as a whole.
  Conflict between Magians and Mercurians was
  bitter. As the Roman Empire spread into the Middle
  East, the Mercurians regularly came into conflict
  with Magian priests. Quickly realising that their hat-
  ed Dominion Aura emanated from sacred fires, the
  Mercurians instituted a policy of extinguishing them
  wherever they were found. Legionaries were instruct-
  ed to destroy Mazdean temples and to erase sacred
  inscriptions. Try though they might, the Cult of Mer-
  cury could never make their way deep into Persian
  territory. Every attempt to do so resulted in cata-
  strophic failure, such as the disastrous expedition by
  Sulla against the Parthians where legionary standards
  were humiliatingly lost, until the Emperor Augustus
  recovered them.
  The multiculturalism of the Roman state allowed
  the proliferation into the West of many eastern sects
  and faiths. Despite their size and power, the Mercu-
  rians were unable to halt this spread. By the first cen-
  tury CE the Magians had the ear of no less than the
  Emperor Nero, inducting him into many Mazdean
  secrets. The chief Magian adviser to Nero was Tiri-
  dates, the Armenian King who taught the Emperor
  the power to divine the future through the art of
  hydromancy. During this time, the Cult of Mercury
  lost significant amounts of influence, as Nero broke
  ancient traditions and taboos that had been main-
  tained since time immemorial. The madness of Nero
  ultimately led to the Magians abandoning him to his
  fate.
  Another brief Magian coup came in the early
  third century, when Antoninus Elagabalus was
  crowned Emperor. Elagabalus was a zealous follow-
  er of the Magian faith, wearing the sacerdotal robes
  of the ancient Medians and openly worshipping the
  9
  
  Mazdean yazatas and Ahuras. In particular, Elaga-
  balus’ grandmother Julia Maesa was a Mazdean and
  encouraged the Syrian legions to support her grand-
  son. During his short four-year rule, science and the
  arts received increased imperial patronage and the
  Mazdean gods were granted statues at Palatine
  Mount in Rome. So full of the purifying Fire of
  Zoroaster, he married a Vestal Virgin, Aquilia Severa,
  the most chaste and holy woman in Rome. Elaga-
  balus was overthrown, but the Magians were en-
  trenched, in both the West and particularly in Egypt.
  With the decline of Rome however, the commu-
  nities needed for Magian practitioners’ survival dried
  up in most European areas. The dramatic rise of
  Christianity in the remaining Eastern Roman strong-
  holds, such as Constantinople, Alexandria and Anti-
  och meant that holy men and sorcerer-Bishops
  usurped the niche formerly filled by the Magians. As
  communication between communities became hard-
  er, Magians in different areas fell into decline and
  decay, their arts practiced by countless hedge-wizards
  and commoners as superstition and mummery, their
  tomes copied and translated by semi-literate ascetics
  and sceptical philosophers. In some regions of Syria
  and the Middle East, a few Magian potentates gave
  up their Median robes for the episcopal vestments of
  the new Christian Imperium. The Magians left an
  indelible print upon Western magical practice, and
  many of their basic laws and traditions, particularly
  warding and luck charms, survived amongst the
  common folk, while the cultural influence of the
  Mercurians predominated with the truly Gifted.
  Magianism and Islam
  Like Zoroastrians in general, the Magians suf-
  fered after Islam became the dominant religion of
  the East. As well as discrimination from being
  Mazdean, Magians were also an ethnic minority who
  no longer had the protection of being the Imperial
  sacerdotal caste. The Arab conquest of the Sasanid
  Empire was fought under the Qur’anic Surah 9:29
  ‘Fight those who believe not in God and the Last
  Day and do not forbid what Allah and his Messenger
  have forbidden — such men as practice not the reli-
  gion of truth, being people of the book — until they
  pay tribute out of hand and have been humbled.’ The
  last Sasanid king Yazdegird III was defeated at
  Qadisiya in 636CE, and over the next few years
  fought a losing battle as he lost first his capital Cte-
  siphon, and then individual provinces and cities. He
  died in 652 in Merv, but isolated resistance would
  continue for another two centuries.
  Although Muhammad originally meant only Jews
  and Christians to be ‘people of the book’ (dhimmis),
  there were simply too many Zoroastrians for them
  not be also considered as such. Despite this, a large
  body of laws was instituted to enforce the social and
  legal inferiority of the dhimmi in the community.
  Zoroastrians particularly were (unofficially) discrimi-
  nated against, called gabbars (polytheists) and accused
  of fire and devil worship. Over the years, as it
  10
  
  became clear where the new seat of power lay, many
  Zoroastrians converted to Islam. For converts there
  were a number of incentives, especially for women,
  who had long suffered under the strict Mazdean
  purity laws. Islam in its early years was not bound by
  millennia of dogmatism. A few Magians did likewise,
  joining the Order of Solomon with other ex-Magoi
  to aid the Caliphs. In some regions, forced conver-
  sions took place, and agiari were desecrated — their
  fires extinguished.
  Social and economic segregation did not prevent
  the two faiths from interacting, and early Islam
  absorbed much Zoroastrian theology, such as belief
  in Heaven and Hell, the nature of the End of the
  World and the Day of Judgement, five daily prayers,
  rejection of images and so on. Much of this early
  introduction of Mazdean concepts were due to early
  Magian converts attempting to take a place as a the-
  ological caste. Unfortunately, they largely failed.
  Those who remained true to the Zoroastrian
  faith were slowly pushed east, out of Syria and Iraq,
  and into the far reaches of Iran and even India. The
  loss of many temples and communities saw a frac-
  turing of the Zoroastrian scriptures. By the tenth
  century the remaining Magians were so scattered that
  many had lost complete copies of the Avesta, and
  few could afford to fuel a permanent sacred fire.
  When the Seljuk Turks invaded, Zoroastrian
  communities were subjected again to a conquering
  force. Many were killed, records were destroyed and
  temples razed to the ground. Under the new Seljuk
  rulers, the few Zoroastrians who had remained in
  Syria and Egypt were forcefully converted.
  Although Magians in the thirteenth century
  believe that times cannot get any darker, little do they
  realise that when the Mongols arrive, the devastation
  will be complete: every copy of the Avesta will be
  destroyed; every major temple and fire will be demol-
  ished. The last bastions of Zoroastrians will be the
  province of Fars on the Persian Gulf, and the cities
  of Yazd and Shiraz, where they will congregate
  under the protection of poverty and obscurity.
  Magians and the Order of Solomon
  The Order of Solomon was an organisation that
  predated the rise of Islam. It was a federation of
  unaligned magicians and hedge-mages throughout
  Syria and Egypt, many of whom inherited some of
  the lost arts of Solomon. Prior to the collapse of the
  Persian Empire, the Mazdean priesthood largely
  ignored the Order of Solomon as irrelevant and
  powerless. Most inhabitants of the Persian Empire
  professed Zoroastrianism, and its Dominion was
  largely detrimental to the members of the Order of
  Solomon. Most members of the Order of Solomon
  lived in Roman territories anyway, with only a few
  inhabiting the Persian territories. Many were Jewish
  mages, who had already been taught their place in the
  distant past during the Babylonian Captivity. So long
  as the Order did not engage in anti-Imperial activi-
  ties, and did not break any Mazdean dictates, such as
  supporting evil, then they were left alone.
  This all changed with the fall of the Sasanid
  Empire. Suddenly the Magians lost the Imperial sup-
  port required to maintain their magical hegemony
  over Persia. The Zoroastrian Dominion was replaced
  by the Islamic one, and hedge-mages and sorcerers
  from every conceivable background rallied to the
  banner of Muhammad. The Order of Solomon grew
  into a force to be reckoned with, as even some
  Magians converted to Islam and aided the conquer-
  ing religion.
  Key to the Order of Solomon’s rapid rise was the
  immediate adoption of Islam as its patron-faith.
  Many Arabian spirit masters joined the Order, bol-
  stering the Syrian and Egyptian conjurers, meaning
  that the Order gained the financial and political sup-
  port of the leader of the Faithful, as well as the mar-
  tial aid of the Islamic holy warriors. The Zoroastrian
  priests were so unready for an assault that the invad-
  ing Muslims and their allied sorcerers were able to
  target many of the great fire temples that hampered
  Solomonic magic. As the Order went deeper into
  Iraq, they recovered many of the Zoroastrian’s mag-
  ical secrets that bolstered their own powers, in par-
  ticular lore on spirit summoning and astrology.
  Magians and the Order of Hermes
  By the time the Order of Hermes was convened
  in Durenmar, the Magians had largely been relegated
  Where was the Prince of Magi?
  Several months before Muhammad fled Mecca
  to Medina, Kartér the Prince of Magi vanished. He
  gave no warning, left no messages, and despite his
  responsibilities as head of the Zoroastrian faith, he
  refused to answer prayers and invocations. This left
  the Zoroastrian priesthood in deep confusion and
  instilled in them deep anomie. The Magian dream-
  readers knew some momentous event was about to
  occur, but without guidance from the Prince of
  Magi, this information was not widely propagated,
  even to the Emperor.
  In the aftermath of the conquest by Islam of
  Persia, seven of the surviving Magians set about
  trying to learn what had happened to Kartér.
  Although they searched for many years, they found
  no trace of him. All attempts to communicate with
  him or with any former Prince of Magi were unsuc-
  cessful. It was clear that the Zoroastrian faith had
  lost its most powerful and enlightened leader at the
  time it needed it most. Many Magians saw this as
  the sign that Islam was the true successor of
  Zoroastrianism, and converted, joining the Order
  of Solomon and taking many arcane secrets with
  them. Most others followed their communities as
  they were pushed out of Iraq and into Eastern Iran.
  Note: Many Muslims would consider the above
  view of the syncretism of early Islam heretical. Tra-
  dition holds that Muhammad was illiterate and that
  the teachings of Islam came directly from God.
  Troupes should decide what the exact truth of this
  matter is.
  11
  
  to a minor position in Iraq and Iran, with most of
  the Syrian and Arabian wizards professing Islam or
  joining the Order of Solomon. Hence, little direct
  contact between the Order and the Magians has
  occurred. Certain Zoroastrian wizards have travelled
  west, or come into contact with Levantine and Iber-
  ian Hermetic mages, but continuity with the Euro-
  pean Magian communities was lost.
  The arcane writings of the Magians, however, are
  well known and respected, as is their reputation as
  the pioneers and founders of the magical arts. Just as
  Hermetic historians and Seekers trace the roots of
  Hermeticism back to the Mercurians, Chaldeans,
  Egyptians and Babylonian astrologers, so too are the
  most primal arts of the Zoroastrians and Magians
  seen as the forerunners of the Order of Hermes.
  Hermetic magic, while deriving some of its origin
  from Magian practice, is of course the more advanc-
  ed and more evolved descendant of all of its prede-
  cessors. Hermetics nevertheless desire the rare
  Magian tomes as seminal masterpieces of early mag-
  ical theory. Zoroaster’s classifications of spirits and
  demons are still largely accepted, and Hermetic
  alchemists still use the principles laid down by
  Osthanes.
  Despite the respect held for Magian writings and
  wisdom, there is still a deep undercurrent of hostile
  opinion within many members of the Order of Her-
  mes. Centuries of warfare between Persia and Rome,
  and now a rivalry between the Orders of Hermes
  and Solomon means there is distrust held regarding
  practitioners of the Eastern Arts. Hermetics accept
  that their magic is descended from Greek, Egyptian
  and Eastern traditions, but they also believe that Her-
  metic magic is not only superior, but that Eastern
  practitioners and wizards are their enemies or detest-
  ed rivals.
  That the Order of Solomon now makes use of
  some Magian secrets also makes true Magian practi-
  tioners more likely to be distrusted and considered
  part of the enemy Solomonic Order. The Imperial
  Roman edicts, declaiming the magical arts as malefic
  and criminal are still considered by many traditional-
  ists to be binding upon the Order. The Hermetic
  Arts are obviously legitimate and humble Mercurian
  practices, while the Eastern magical arts, in particular
  those of the Persian Magians, are despised and loath-
  some, and deeply corrupted forms of the admirable
  works taught by Zoroaster to Pythagoras, Plato and
  Empedocles.
  The Magoi and the Magians
  There may be some confusion regarding the dif-
  ferences between the Magoi (the mystae group intro-
  duced in HP#9) and the Magians. ‘Magoi’ is the
  name for any priest of the Zoroastrian faith. Thus,
  the Magoi come from a variety of ethnic back-
  grounds, from Syrian to Indian. All that is required to
  become a Zoroastrian priest is faith and devotion
  towards Ahura Mazda and training in the precepts of
  Zoroaster.
  The Magians by contrast are a specific Median
  ethnic group that has, since the earliest days, spe-
  cialised in sacerdotal roles. After their conversion to
  Mazdeanism, they stepped into the role of Imperial
  priests to Ohrmazd. One must be born a Magian; it
  is not possible to join their ranks. Because of gener-
  ations of hieratic service, Magians are born with
  innate traits that lend them particularly towards their
  occupation as priests and wizards. All Magians who
  follow the traditional priestly path become ‘Magoi’,
  and are initiated into those secrets, as well as the
  Magian-specific mysteries. Because in the past most
  powerful or influential Magoi have been Magians,
  this ethnic group defined orthodoxy and tradition for
  the Zoroastrian priesthood, with most Magian rites
  and customs being absorbed by the Zoroastrian
  priesthood in general.
  The Magians:An Esoteric Lineage
  The Magians are an ethnic group dedicated to
  service as the priestly caste to Ohrmazd. Even before
  their conversion to Zoroastrianism, they served as
  the priests to the other Ahuras (divine Lords) who
  came under the umbrella of Ohrmazd. While not
  every Magian becomes a priest, the majority of
  priests in the Persian Empire were ethnically Magian,
  particularly in the Sasanid Empire. Since the ascen-
  dancy of Islam, Magians form an ethnic minority; in
  Muslim communities they enjoy few of the honours
  their predecessors were awarded. In Zoroastrian
  societies, Magians are most often found as priests,
  but the peripheral nature of the Mazdean faith
  means that they enjoy few of their former sacerdotal
  dignities.
  Organisation
  The priests of Ohrmazd congregate in fire tem-
  ples but rarely perform their magical arts in conjunc-
  tion with each other. In the past, a complex and hier-
  archical church existed, organised in a similar manner
  to the Medieval Church, with regions presided over
  by local Dasturi (equivalent of bishops), and with a
  central authority, the Prince of Magi, living with the
  Emperor.
  Sacerdotal activities, such as lighting or conse-
  crating fires or performing the thanksgiving is a com-
  munal effort, but most holy practices such as the
  marriage rite, the sedra pushan or performance of
  prayers can be done by a single priest. Magians like-
  wise are organised around their fire temples, but
  since the rise of Islam, only the largest Zoroastrian
  communities can maintain such a large priesthood.
  Most Magians operate as individuals or duos, while a
  few live alone in the wilderness or journey continu-
  ously through the Invisible World (for more infor-
  mation on the Invisible World, see a future article A
  Hyperborean Ghost Story). As such, few Magian prac-
  tices require that large numbers of other Magians be
  on hand to participate.
  As a former Imperial faith, Zoroastrianism did
  have rites and practices that allowed them to perform
  grand rituals involving scores of mages. When
  12
  
  Osthanes journeyed into Greece with Xerxes, he and
  his followers performed many rituals in concert. The
  mystery of Magian Numismancy is one such tradi-
  tion that has survived. Like the Hermetic spell Wiz-
  ard’s Communion surviving as a remnant of Mercu-
  rian practices, the Universal Mystery of Ceremonial
  Magic (The Mysteries, p.24) is the only survival of the
  once vast Imperial rituals performed in the Magian
  Golden Age.
  Philosophy and Theosophy
  Most Magians in the thirteenth century spend
  their time in contemplation of the cosmos; inquiring
  into the hidden mysteries of nature and setting
  themselves apart so as to fully enjoy life away from
  sin. More so than most, the Magians understand the
  nature of the Invisible World, and their lives consist
  of uninterrupted communion with the airy spirits
  and angels.
  Key in the minds of many Magians is the Great
  Work of Zoroaster, a realisation of the truth he
  taught. It is made of three analogous degrees: reli-
  gious realisation, philosophical realisation and physi-
  cal realisation. The first is the solid basis for empire
  and priesthood; the second is the establishment of
  an absolute doctrine and hierarchical instruction; the
  last is the discovery and application of the Micro-
  cosm of Humanity, the creative law in which people
  move in concord with the greater universe. The prin-
  ciple of the law is divine impulsion through the uni-
  versal light of Asha, which bathes and nourishes
  everything in existence, whether the stars and plan-
  ets, the plants and metals, or the vital energies of ani-
  mals and humans.
  This three-fold division of the Great Work is
  symbolic of the knowable manifestation of Ahura
  Mazda’s Godhead itself. Transcending the Amesha
  Spentas (they are mere knowable emanations) is the
  triad of Ohrmazd the unknowable. Primary in the
  triad is the creative Wisdom, whose colour is white;
  proceeding from the first is Peace, coloured red,
  combatant of evil discord; finally comes the azure of
  abundance, fecundity and fertility. These three truths
  are the macrocosm of the philosophy of Zoroaster’s
  Great Work. Nevertheless, the Magians emphatically
  state that they believe in a unified God, and that the
  three divine principles of Ohrmazd in no way con-
  tradict his Oneness.
  Magians are iconoclasts. Under the Sasanids, they
  rejected the veneration of cult statues and symbols,
  replacing them with sacred fires instead. While they
  forbade cult statues, they still allowed the depiction
  of Ohrmazd. Their hard-line against icons was to
  ensure that no false-yazatas were venerated, as had
  been the case under the Seleucids and the chaos
  caused by Alexander the Great. Lighting agiari across
  the Empire also ensured that a stabilising Zoroastri-
  an Dominion was established, even in areas where
  there were few Mazdeans.
  Magian Characters
  Whether or not individual Magians become
  priests, there is no question that they are suited to the
  job. Service since time immemorial has gifted the
  Magians with certain traits. Magians may be any type
  of character — including Hermetic mages, hedge
  mages, unGifted Companions and so on (they are
  rare and mystical enough that they should not be
  made as Grogs however). Being a Magian means that
  you automatically have traits common to the tribe as
  a whole.
  Required Abilities: All Magians must start with:
  Asha 1, Second Sight 1, Theology (Zoroastrian) 2,
  and Organisation Lore (Magians) 1
  Starting Experience: As per character tem-
  plate, -4
  Bonus Virtues and Flaws: +1 Second Sight, +2
  Tribal Blood-bond (Mazdean yazatas), -1 Cabal Lega-
  cy (The Mysteries, p.20), -1 Outsider (Ethnic Minority-
  non-Zoroastrian communities)
  Required Virtues and Flaws: +1 Asha (see
  HP#9, p.16), +1 The Vaj (p.@@), -2 Vow (Mazdean
  Faith)
  Virtues taught: +1 Guardian Angel, +1 Higher
  Purpose (Magian Faith), +1 Magic Sensitivity, +1
  Sense Holiness and Unholiness, +2 Magian Astrolo-
  gy (p.@@), +3 Affinity with the Divine, +3 Augury,
  +4 Magian Numismancy, +5 Necromancy (Kabbalah,
  p.116)
  Like the Gifts of Gayomart (HP#9), the Magian
  secrets are only taught to those who have gained the
  requisite understanding of the Zoroastrian faith.
  Your Theology (Zoroastrian) score must be double
  Osthanes’ Seven Sacramental Words
  There are seven powerful voces mysticae that
  empower the spoken word. Over time, magical
  accretion has warped them beyond recognition, as
  they entered Egypt, then Greece and Rome. The
  original seven sacramental words embodied the
  Holy Immortals, known as Amahraspénd (Amesha
  Spentas). They have come down the ages to be:
  Vohuman (Pure Intellect), Ardwahîsht (Highest
  Truth), Shahréwar (Beneficial Sovereignty), Span-
  darmád (Holy Piety), Hordád (Rightness), and
  Amurdád (Perpetuation).
  As the Magians spread through the Roman
  Empire, they used derivations of these names to
  empower their magic. While the Cult of Mercury
  never made use of the voces mysticae, many minor
  hedge traditions did, and by the decline of the
  Western Empire, they were a staple of magical
  practice in the failing Empire. When the Order of
  Hermes was founded, many of the arcane princi-
  ples behind the voces mysticae were examined and
  simplified by Bonisagus. He stripped them of many
  unnecessary elements and incorporated some of
  them into his Unified Theory to empower standard
  magical Latin phrases. Few would recognise any
  similarity between the sacramental words of
  Osthanes and the magic stanzas of Bonisagus.
  13
  
  the desired Virtue value. Thus, if you wanted to
  become initiated into Augury (+3), your Theology
  (Zoroastrian) score would have to be six or greater.
  Only those who deeply intuit the words and works of
  the Wise Lord can gain His Gifts.
  New Virtues and Magian Mys-
  teries
  New Virtue: Elemental Blood (+2/+4)
  This Virtue is the magical equivalent of Faerie
  Blooded. At some point in your ancestry, your fore-
  bears had a close relationship with a powerful spirit.
  As well as gifting you with some aspects of that mag-
  ical heritage, you can also rely on that ancestor for
  occasional aid and protection. The precise details of
  this Virtue depend on the spirit’s nature. The
  strength of the elemental blood in your veins is also
  important. The following example is for Wind-
  blooded. Other elements can easily be inferred, with
  (for example) Earth-Blooded characters gaining
  bonuses to their Stamina and/or Soak, and magical
  affinities with the earth.
  Blood of the Wind (+2/+4): Your blood is filled
  with the breath of a powerful wind spirit, possibly
  even one of the Four Great Winds themselves. You
  gain +1 to your Quickness (even if that takes you over
  +3) and +3 to natural resistance rolls for spells you
  choose to resist. If you have the Gift or can cast mag-
  ic, you also gain a Magical Affinity with Wind at 1.
  If you choose the +4 version of this Virtue, your
  elemental blood is more potent; this version of the
  Virtue is meant for Gifted characters only. You gain
  the above benefits and may also cast Auram spells
  spontaneously without any division by spending a
  Fatigue Level; if you do not spend a Fatigue Level,
  your spontaneous Auram spells are only divided by
  two instead of five. Finally, the Magic Might of Wind
  spirits allied to your ancestor is considered halved
  when you summon or compel them (this may require
  Hermetic Theurgy). Your story guide is the final
  arbiter of whether a spirit is allied with your ances-
  tor.
  New Virtue: Tribal Blood-bond (+2)
  While you may not have a magical heritage, your
  city, tribe or family has an ancient bond with a spiri-
  tual entity. This Virtue works similarly to Close Fam-
  ily Ties (ArM4, p.41), as you can rely on the assis-
  tance of your ancient ally. Because the spirit’s obliga-
  tion is with your people, rather than with you per-
  sonally, most calls for aid need to be couched in
  terms of how the spirit will be helping the entire
  group. You should work with your story guide or
  troupe to determine which spirit you have, and why
  it is allied with your family or city. For example, all
  Magians are bonded to the Prince of Magi, the power-
  ful spirit of Osthanes and his protégés (see below),
  and many have connections to other yazatas.
  Use the Ars Notoria Theurgic virtue (The Myster-
  ies, p.133) for the mechanics of the spirit’s aid, sub-
  stituting Legend Lore. Remember that this Virtue
  attaches your family or tribe to a single spirit, so
  appeals are made to that spirit, rather than the airy
  spirits in general. Continued or frivolous requests
  may see the spirit ignore you, or even punish your
  hubris. It is also possible (although incredibly unlike-
  ly) that your patron may be destroyed, seriously
  wounded or reduced by a malicious Theurgist (or
  other spirit). Rejuvenating the spirit or finding a new
  patron could be a story seed.
  The Vaj (+1)
  Magian understanding of wisdom differs from
  the standard Zoroastrian concept (Vohu Manah,
  HP#9, p.9). While Magians influenced the common
  perception of Vohu Manah, they hold a deeper and
  more personal relationship with the Spirit of Wis-
  dom, for they hold that the spirit came down and
  spoke directly to Osthanes and bestowed under-
  standing and enlightenment upon him and all his fol-
  lowers. The Magian viewpoint holds that Wisdom is
  the highest essence of Ahura Mazda, his most innate
  quality, from which all creation was wrought, all
  actions guided and all efforts preserved. Every creat-
  ed thing is nourished and sustained by the strength of
  the Innate Wisdom. If Wisdom were to fail or be dis-
  persed, not only would Angra Mainyu claim immedi-
  ate dominion over the universe, but all of creation
  would cease to exist, for it is by Wisdom alone that it
  remains.
  The Spirit of Wisdom gifted the Magians with
  the mystery of the Vaj (‘Utterance’), the arcane prac-
  tice of holy mantras, whose purpose was to surround
  the Magian with a secure shield of holy words when
  performing unclean tasks. This purifying shield gifts
  the Magian with immunity to the putrefaction within
  the world. The Vaj is a short prayer that takes but a
  few seconds to say in most cases, but the words and
  length vary according to the situation, time and place.
  Each week, if the Magian character performs the
  Vaj before taking any significant action (such as
  going to sleep, eating, drinking, ablutions, touching
  something unclean), he may roll a quality die + Sta-
  mina + Theology (Zoroastrian); this may be modi-
  fied by Virtues like Strong Willed, etc. This total
  divided by three may then be added to any soak or
  resistance roll against a creation of the Druj (such as
  Infernal attacks, disease, physical or mental afflic-
  tions, supernatural effects that engender negative
  emotions, etc). This protection lasts for a week and
  does not stack with protection gained from the Par-
  ma Magica, but does add to protection from Arts and
  Might scores, or from protective charms and the like.
  The Vaj only provides protection against Infernally
  aligned supernatural powers, or the dark forces of
  the Unseelie Fae; it grants no protection against mag-
  ic of the Divine or Magic Realms.
  A lesser form of the Vaj is practiced by the
  Zoroastrian laity, from the most exalted nobility to
  the lowest commoner. It is an act of such piety and
  faith that unless a Mazdean had ‘taken the vaj’, he
  would not be willing to drink a single drop of water,
  even if thirst tormented him. A Mazdean that has
  14
  
  taken the vaj faithfully and continuously each week
  may add his Theology (Zoroastrian) Ability score
  divided by three, to any soak or resistance rolls as
  above.
  Magian Astrology (+2)
  According to the Dadistan i Menok i Khrat (‘Judge-
  ments of the Spirit of Wisdom’), the art of Astrolo-
  gy was passed from the Spirit of Wisdom unto
  Zoroaster, along with many of the secrets of the cre-
  ated world. Magianism has a rather divergent view on
  some astrological matters, compared to normal
  understanding. Magians hold that all welfare and
  adversity that comes to humanity and the world is
  through the seven planets and the twelve zodiacal
  signs.
  Standing on the bright side of Ohrmazd are the
  Twelve Commanders of Righteousness, who guide
  and direct the world towards goodness; on the dark,
  vile side of Ahriman are the Seven Commanders,
  who oppress creation and deliver it to evil and death.
  The twelve great Spirits of the Zodiac are amongst
  Ohrmazd’s most capable and holy defenders, con-
  stantly striving to bring goodness and wellbeing into
  the world. The planets on the other hand are ruled by
  monstrous demons, which, by dint of being closer to
  the world, constantly thwart their zodiacal rivals and
  more often than not succeed in bringing ruin and
  misery to humanity (hence explaining why the earth
  is not a paradise).
  Because of their innate understanding of astro-
  logical truths, Magians may make use of hidden sym-
  pathies and connections, in particular those that sym-
  pathise with Wisdom. This Virtue works precisely
  the same as the Hermetic Astrology Virtue (The Mys-
  teries, p.68), granting you the Magical Affinity Magian
  Astrology at level 1. In addition, you may make use
  of several hidden Magian correspondences.
  Greater correspondences occur during the ascen-
  dancy of the zodiacal sign and grant a +1 bonus to
  any total where you would normally add your Magian
  Astrology affinity, lasting for the length of the zodi-
  acal ascendancy). You gain the +1 lesser correspon-
  dence bonus to rolls using the Astrology affinity
  when you burn a branch of the appropriate sacred
  wood in an agiari (‘holy fire’) while performing the
  activity (spell casting, laboratory activity, etc).
  Greater correspondences with the astrological
  Spirit of Wisdom are Libra, Cancer, Aries and Capri-
  corn; lesser correspondences are rowan wood, hazel,
  willow and cypress.
  Inner Mystery: Magian Numismancy (+4)
  While hedge-mages in Mythic Europe use coins
  to manufacture apotropaic charms, Magians use
  coins in circulation to work magical effects. The orig-
  inal aims of the Magians were to engender feelings of
  loyalty to the King of kings. Under the rule of
  Alexander the Great, this art was put to the use of
  breaking the spirit of the Mazdean people, to allow
  more complete integration of Hellenistic ideas, and
  acceptance of foreign rule.
  Magian Numismancy requires a great deal of
  time, care and resources. There are three phases: the
  design of the coin-face, the minting of the coins, and
  distribution.
  Design: The Magian must chose the image the
  coin will bear. This image is of vital importance as it
  determines the effect that the coins will have on
  those who use or carry them. A sample list is in the
  nearby table. When designing the coins, the magi
  must make a Communication + Theology (Zoroas-
  trian) roll equal to or greater than 9+ the highest
  magnitude of the effect they wish the coins to have.
  Designing the coin face takes two seasons to com-
  plete (no matter the number of effects the coins are
  to have) and a number of pawns of vis equal to the
  ease factor. Other Magians can aid in designing the
  coins, adding their own Theology (Zoroastrian)
  scores to the primary designer’s total. The primary
  designer may only have a number of helpers equal to
  his Communication + Leadership total (as usual). If
  the roll is successful, the Magian moves onto the
  Minting phase, otherwise the season is wasted.
  Effect: Any type of magical effect can be
  enchanted into the coins. However, several
  aspects of the effect are set and cannot be
  changed. The effect must always have Dura-
  tion: Fire (HP#9, p.18); furthermore, the
  Effect Frequency must always be Constant,
  and it may not have any Effect modifications.
  Most effects will be T: Individual. Generally
  the trigger for the coins is merely handling
  them, although it could also include their being
  defaced or damaged. The total magnitude of
  effects able to be imbued into the coins is
  equal to the number of pawns of vis spent in
  the Design phase.
  Minting: Minting the coins is much like the
  process of Hermetic magical enchantment. After
  obtaining the desired amount of silver (or other pre-
  cious metal), the Magian begins work. An Intelli-
  gence + Craft (Minting) + Theology (Zoroastrian) +
  Aura total is generated over a season, and compared
  to the highest level of the effect(s). A number of
  pawns of vis equal to the amount spent during the
  Design phase, plus the number of coins being mint-
  ed is spent during this time. Other Magians (or arti-
  sans with the appropriate ability) may help, adding
  their Craft (Minting) ability to the total, as per the
  Design phase above. Vis may be spent to increase the
  total, with each pawn of vis adding +5 to the total. If
  the total is above the total level of the effect(s), then
  the minting work is completed in a single season,
  otherwise additional seasons may be spent until the
  combined total adds up to the effect level. Each addi-
  tional season requires half the amount of vis (drop
  fractions) being invested as the first.
  Distribution: The Distribution phase involves
  ensuring the coins are disseminated amongst a com-
  munity and that they are not diluted with foreign cur-
  rency or debased by counterfeits. In the past,
  Magians would rely on the state to distribute and
  15
  
  police the newly minted currency. There is no real
  system for this. Assume that the coins are dissemi-
  nated among the target community over the course
  of a year, less if the community is small or more if
  the coins are few in number.
  Note: When minting coins, characters are limited
  by the maximum number of pawns of vis they are
  allowed to use in a single season. Because the mint-
  ing process is often carried out by a group of
  Magians, the leader of the group may increase the
  number of pawns he may use in a season by the sum
  of the Theology (Zoroastrian) of his helpers.
  Example: Coins of Ardashir
  Ardashir was the first king of the Sasanids. Under
  his rule, High Mage Tansar propagated the worship
  of Ohrmazd and the yazatas, and supervised the
  minting of the new dynastic currency, depicting the
  Holy Fire of Asha, and on the other side the face of
  Ardashir himself, embodiment of Khshatra.
  Design: Subjects of Ardashir are imbued with
  emotions of truthfulness and loyalty to the Emperor.
  This amounts to two Creo Mentem 15 effects. The
  Duration is Fire (+15), Target is Individual (+0), and
  Range is Eye (+0). Those who look at the symbol of
  Asha on the coin’s face activate the coin’s effect. The
  total level of the effects is therefore 30, so the Magi
  designing the coins needs to roll 15+ on a Com +
  Theology (Zoroastrian) roll, as well as spend 15
  pawns of vis.
  Minting: Ardashir wants enough coins to be used
  in the heart of his new empire. Being an Emperor, he
  can afford to finance enough silver to produce coins
  to cover his new domain easily. His Magi generate
  their Int + Craft (Minting) + Theology (Zoroastrian)
  + Aura total and aim to get over 30. During this time
  they spend 15 pawns of vis, and another 55 pawns of
  vis due to the volume of silver being enchanted
  (assume Great Lord +10, since he is not covering the
  entire empire), for a grand total of 70 pawns! If their
  total does not exceed 30, they would continue to
  enchant the coins each season, spending 35 pawns of
  vis each season until they accumulated the total 30
  points.
  Distribution: Since Ardashir needs to distribute the
  coins over only the heart of his empire, the Province
  of Persia, they are quickly dispersed in little over
  three seasons. If he had wanted to cover his entire
  empire, it would have taken a year; only producing
  enough coin for a city would take a season at most,
  and so on.
  Inner Mystery: +6 Prince of Magi
  This mystery is the highest Magian secret and has
  been achieved by only three people in their long
  Example Coin Effects
  The samples here are based off the Amesha
  Spentas and use Hermetic spell guidelines. Howev-
  er I encourage troupes to experiment and use
  wacky non-Hermetic things. Other suggestions are
  to base the effects on the powers of spirits, or
  Form and Effect tables. The Technique/Form lev-
  els here are at their ‘base’. You will need to calculate
  their total level with D: Fire and with a Constant
  effect. Most effects will be R: Touch, but most
  ranges are possible.
  - Asha (image of
  fire or Mithras/sun):
  CrMe15 — creates the emotion of truthful-
  ness.
  - Armaiti (image of cattle): ReMe25 — control
  the mind, ensuring loyalty and obedience to
  the will of the King.
  - Haurvatat (symbol of water or Ahurani):
  CrCo15 — stops the progress of diseases, or
  gain +3 to Wound recovery rolls.
  - Ameratat (image of
  crops): CrHe5 —
  ensures the crop shown on the coins does
  not become sick.
  - Khshatra (image of King): CrMe15 — cre-
  ates the emotion of loyalty towards the per-
  son shown on the coin face.
  - Spenta Mainyu (symbol of Ohrmazd or a
  fravashi): ReVi10 — grants a magic resistance
  of 10 + a quality die against creatures with
  Infernal Might.
  - Vohu Manah (image of Ohrmazd): CrVi30
  — grants the +1 Virtue Self-Confident, or
  the +1 Virtue Strong Personality (This is a
  guestimate, since it is non-Hermetic. I rec-
  ommend troupes or story guides meddle
  with this one, as each troupe may have its
  own method for magic granting the effects of
  Virtues or Flaws.)
  16
  
  history. The title Prince of Magi is not only honorary,
  but carries great mystical weight. The Prince of Magi
  is the ruler and leader of the Magians: the highest
  priestly position in Zoroastrianism, akin to being the
  Patriarch, Pope or Caliph.
  This mystery is not taught by the Magian priest-
  hood, but is rather granted through divine insight to
  the person most befitting the position. The first
  Prince of Magi was Osthanes and he filled that role
  until his heir Tansar succeeded him. Tansar quickly
  moved on to his final reward, and so the title was
  granted to Kartér. Since the rise of Islam, there has
  been no Prince of Magi.
  To become the Prince of Magi, one must have
  embodied all of the Amesha Spentas. This process is
  almost impossible, as most venerable Zoroastrians
  choose either one path or another when they gain the
  Gifts of Gayomart. Furthermore, by the time that a
  particularly holy Zoroastrian Magoi has gained all of
  the Gifts, they are world-weary or have another des-
  tiny. Although being the Prince of Magi is the high-
  est rank in Zoroastrianism, it carries many burden-
  some responsibilities.
  There are no ordeals for this mystery. Since divine
  forces (either Ahura Mazda or the Amesha Spentas
  themselves) grant it, this Virtue merely augments the
  chosen Prince of Magi with no adverse effects. Sto-
  ry guides or troupes may decide that ordeals are nec-
  essary however, and should choose ones such as
  Quests, Good Works or other non-crippling ordeals.
  It is recommended that Ordeals be used as a major
  part of a story based around a character becoming
  the Prince of Magi, rather than just a system by
  which this Virtue is bought. Good works, quests and
  Twilight episodes are great opportunities to explore
  the Zoroastrian world-view.
  The Prince of Magi adds the following traits to
  his own; this means that the bonuses here stack with
  ones from other traits. (Note: although all past
  Princes of Magi have been men, there is nothing
  stopping someone becoming a ‘Princess’ of Magi.)
  Characteristics: Int +2, Per +0, Pre +3, Com +3,
  Str +1, Stm +3, Dex +0, Qik +0
  Divine Might: +40*
  Size: +0
  Personality Traits: +3 to all of the Amesha Spen-
  tas Personality traits (i.e., Good, Holy, Righteous,
  Love of God, etc).
  Soak: +5
  *Note that this stacks with any Divine Might
  gained through the Outer Mystery of Asha or some
  other source.
  Powers
  Elemental Immunity, 0 points (Re[Form]): The
  Prince of Magi is completely immune to the
  non-magical effects of any Zoroastrian ele-
  ment because of the love they hold for the
  chosen of Ohrmazd. This means that metal or
  17
  Minting Coins in Mythic Europe
  The amount of resources required to finance the
  minting of coins is generally restricted to the greater
  nobility and royalty. In the thirteenth century, the
  right to mint coins is almost entirely possessed by
  kings alone, although a few powerful barons and
  bishops may also usurp or possess the right. Due to
  the complex state of minting in Mythic Europe (and
  in general), this process has been abstracted. A lord
  can be expected to accumulate enough silver (or
  other precious metal) to provide coins for his or her
  lands. In doing so, the lord expends enough of their
  resources that they cannot make any further finan-
  cial outlays that year without borrowing money
  (assuming they have no other Virtues affecting their
  resources). Most nobles live in debt and few would
  want to mint their own coins; in reality, only kings
  and ‘bishop-princes’ did so. The Virtues referred to
  are: the Great Lord variable Virtue in A Medieval
  Tapestry (p.26), and the Well-Off, Prosperous and
  Wealthy Virtues from Ordo Nobilis (p.35-6).
  A Landed Knight (Great Lord +6) could thus
  mint enough coins for his modest domains
  (although it is completely unlikely that he would),
  and a Duke (Great Lord +10) would have enough
  resources to mint coins for his lands across Europe.
  Kings, Emperors or Caliphs (assume Great Lord
  +12 or more) may obviously mint and distribute
  coins across their kingdom and are the only people
  likely to do so. A lord could decide to under spend,
  in which case, he mints enough coins for the next
  Virtue down. An under-spending count mints
  enough coins to distribute amongst the equivalent
  domain of a Landed Knight; an under spending king
  only mints enough for a duchy, and so on. Should
  the lord over-spend, they beggar themselves for two
  years, but mint enough coins for the next level up.
  Virtues such as Wealthy or Prosperous reduce the
  length of time by one season per pyramid point of
  the Virtue’s value (a prosperous count is financially
  strapped for only one season after minting coins for
  his counties for example).
  Wealthy Covenants who want to mint their own
  coins use their Income Characteristic. Each season
  their Income generates a number of pyramid points
  equal to its score +1. When the pyramid points equal
  the number required for the Great Lord Virtue, the
  Covenant has gathered enough silver to mint coins
  for that sized community. Thus, a Covenant with an
  Income of 0 would take 21 seasons to accumulate
  enough silver to make coins for the equivalent of a
  Landed Knight. Covenants can pool their resources,
  adding their Income +1 Scores to more quickly
  gather silver. Using magic can also aid this, with the
  magnitude of appropriate CrTe spells (D: Inst)
  adding to the pyramid points accumulated.
  When determining the number of pawns of vis
  required during the minting process, use the pyramid
  cost of the Great Lord Virtue. Therefore, a Duke
  enchanting the coins in his mint would need 55
  pawns of vis in addition to the number spent during
  the design phase.
  
  wooden weapons cannot harm him, fire does
  not burn him, water will not drown him, light-
  ing will not strike him, and so on. Because
  humans are one of the Zoroastrian elements,
  the Prince of Magi is also immune to harm
  from physical attacks made by a person, such
  as barehanded strikes.
  Magical Immunity, 0 points (ReVi): When he
  becomes the Prince of Magi, he becomes
  immune to spells of second magnitude or low-
  er (i.e., level 10 or less), regardless of Penetra-
  tion or casting totals.
  Sense the Lie, 0 points (InMe): The Prince of
  Magi is aware of any infernal or diabolical enti-
  ty touching the same ground as him (defined
  by the Ground range in HP#9, p.18). Infernal
  creatures with an Infernal Might greater than
  the Prince of Magi’s Divine Might may choose
  to hide themselves from this power by spend-
  ing a point of Might.
  Divine Magic, 1 point (Cr[Form]): A number of
  spells with a magnitude equal to the Prince of
  Magi’s Divine Might become supernatural
  Powers, able to be performed at will without
  needing a roll, and using a Penetration equal to
  total Might + level of the spell + aura. For
  example, if the Prince of Magi knew Ball of
  Abysmal Flame, he could chose for that to
  become a Power, and could cast it whenever he
  wanted by spending one point of Divine
  Might, with a penetration total of 35+ the
  Prince of Magi’s Divine Might + aura. If the
  Prince of Magi had a Divine Might of 50, and
  were to choose BoAF, this would result in 7
  magnitudes being designated as Powers, with
  43 magnitudes remaining.
  Free-casting, 0 points (MuVi): Because of the
  intimacy the Prince of Magi has with the Ame-
  sha Spentas, he may cast spontaneous spells
  using the Zoroastrian ranges, durations and
  targets, even if they would normally only be
  able to be cast by ritual or formulaic magic.
  Tribal Prince, 0 points (CrMe): Through prayer
  and concentration, the Prince of Magi may
  become aware of any or every ethnic Magian
  alive. This allows Magians to communicate
  with their Prince, gain insight and awareness,
  warnings and advice. The Prince of Magi may
  only communicate with a Magian who has ini-
  tiated the contact; he may not talk to an unwill-
  ing Magian, but he can choose to be aware of
  them. Any Magian may initiate contact with
  the Prince of Magi, who is obligated to assist
  to the best of his ability. A Prince of Magi who
  ignores a genuine request for help or advice
  loses all of this template’s abilities, the Gifts of
  Gayomart, and even the power to perform
  magic. For this reason, and because he will
  always be a paragon of the Amesha Spentas,
  no Prince of Magi has ever refused a request.
  Apotheosis, special: This power may be used
  only once. It allows the Prince of Magi to
  become a yazata, a divine angel of Ahura
  Mazda. In so doing, the Prince of Magi jour-
  neys to heaven where his body and mind are
  transformed into divine substances. He retains
  all of his previous abilities, and may gain more
  besides. In this form, the Prince of Magi
  becomes a Tribal Spirit of the Magians, and
  may become someone’s Guardian Angel. The
  mantle of Prince is passed to another.
  A Select Bibliography
  A great number of books and websites were
  referred to for this article, quite apart from the vari-
  ous Ars Magica books referred to. For more useful
  general sites and books, check the bibliography in my
  Mythic Zoroastrianism article (HP#9, p.23). Gener-
  ally useful websites are linked from those. Sites and
  books referenced in the earlier bibliography were
  also used for this article, and were of great use.
  Primary Sources
  H. D. Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation:
  Including the Demotic Spells, Volume One: Texts, Second
  edition, The University of Chicago Press, 1996.
  Using the Prince of Magi in Stories
  The above template is designed for use by char-
  acters (yes, really). Just as characters may initiate
  themselves into the highest mysteries of Alchemy
  or Theurgy, so too are they able to do so with the
  Zoroastrian Mysteries. A saga that has a non-Her-
  metic focus would allow the PCs to explore the
  myths and history of Osthanes and attempt to imi-
  tate him. A story or even a saga could be based
  around either trying to find someone worthy of
  becoming the new Prince of Magi, or even a quest
  to allow a player-character to become the new
  Prince of Magi. Given the soon-to-be arriving
  Mongols, there is a pressing need amongst Zoro-
  astrians to find a leader and protector.
  Alternatively, the characters could encounter the
  Prince of Magi, in the form of a yazata. While
  determining the precise traits of the Prince of Magi
  would be an exercise in futility, the above gives an
  indication of the kind of abilities the Prince may
  have. Furthermore, if there were a Magian in the
  troupe, this option would allow the character to
  interact with his blood-bound tribal guardian, or
  guardian angel.
  If the troupe is uncomfortable with allowing
  Zoroastrian mysteries to grant Divine Might, the
  Prince of Magi is merely aligned with the Magical
  Realm, and becomes a powerful spirit, able to be
  summoned or bound with magic. As a powerful
  spirit, the troupe could attempt to locate the Prince
  of Magi for advice or help against a powerful dia-
  bolical enemy. Given Osthanes’ interest in the West,
  there may be relics or artefacts left by him in
  Greece (or even Italy) that could allow them to con-
  tact him.
  18
  
  Herodotus, The Histories, Oxford University Press,
  1998; Books 1:107-130, 3:68-79, and 7 (in particular
  7:37, 43, and 188-193).
  Pliny the Elder, Natural History: A Selection, Pen-
  guin, 1991; Books XXVII and XXX.
  Secondary Sources
  Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and
  Practices, Routledge, 1979, 2001; Chapters 4-7.
  E. M. Butler, The Myth of the Magus, Canto, Cam-
  bridge University Press, 1948, 1993; Part 1, Chapter 1.
  Karl H. Dannenfeldt, ‘The Pseudo-Zoroastrian
  Oracles in the Renaissance’, in Studies in the Renais-
  sance, Vol. 4, Renaissance Society of America, 1957,
  pp.7-30.
  E. R. Dodds, ‘Theurgy and its Relationships to
  Neoplatonism’, in TJRS Vol.37, Parts 1 &2, Society
  for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1947, pp.55-
  69.
  Peter Kingsley, From Pythagoras to the Turba
  philosophorum: Egypt and Pythagorean Tradition’,
  in Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol.57,
  The Warburg Institute, 1994, pp.113.
  Daniel Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the
  Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, Oxford Uni-
  versity Press, 2002; Chapters 3 and 8.
  F. Sherwood Taylor, ‘A Survey of Greek Alche-
  my’, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol.50, Part 1,
  The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies,
  pp.109-139.
  Robert Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire,
  Blackwell Publishers, 1996, 2000; Chapter 6.
  19
  Omnibus Grimoire
  Scroll VIII: Mentem
  by Andrew Gronosky
  Honored colleagues,
  I
  t is my privilege to offer to you this eighth scroll
  in my Omnibus Grimoire of lesser-known spells
  collected from the tomes and libraries of the
  Order. This season’s collection concerns the
  Form of Mentem, surely a subtle Form and one
  most useful to magi who walk among mundanes.
  There are a fair number of Mentem spells that are
  widely known and quite useful. Most of these well-
  known spells deal with thoughts and emotions. Yet
  there are equally useful spells that concern lesser-
  known aspects of the mind: personality and dreams.
  These are the main themes of this scroll’s collection.
  Truly subtle and useful Mentem spells tend to be of
  high Magnitude, for the mind of a man is difficult for
  even a magus to truly master. Most of the spells on
  this scroll, therefore, are of fourth magnitude and
  above, in a break from my usual habit of offering
  low-magnitude spells. Still, I have made a point of
  including a couple of spells that can be learned by
  the Mentem beginner. May they serve you well.
  Your colleague and servant,
  Jarius of House Mercere
  Creo Mentem
  Reverie of the Unbroken Daydream (CrMe 15)
  R: Near/Sight, D: Diam., T: Ind.
  Spell Focus: A bit of wool (+1)
  Conjure vivid, distracting daydreams into the sub-
  ject’s mind. This generally causes the subject to stop
  paying attention to his surroundings and whatever he
  was doing. The subject takes a -3 penalty to most
  Concentration or Perception-based rolls, and has a
  tendency to just sit and daydream while the spell
  lasts. Important events like being attacked or being
  yelled at by one’s superior break the spell immediate-
  ly.
  Design: Put a thought into another’s mind, Level
  10. Increase Range to Near (+2 magnitudes) and
  reduce Duration to Diameter (-1 magnitude).
  Whisper Through the Gates of Dream (CrMe 15)
  R: Arc., D: Conc., T: Ind./Group
  Spell Focus: A pinch of sand (+1)
  This spell only affects a subject who is asleep and
  to whom you have an Arcane Connection. You may
  speak to the target and your words will be heard in
  his dreams. You may speak for as long as you main-
  tain concentration, but long and complex messages
  are difficult for the subject to remember upon wak-
  ing.
  The voice that speaks is identifiable as yours. If
  you are speaking to someone who trusts, fears, or
  obeys you, then there is a good chance your message
  will be remembered after the subject wakes up. Oth-
  erwise, the target may pay no more heed to your mes-
  sage than he would to an ordinary dream.
  To remember details of what you said, the target
  should roll an Int + Concentration stress die. A 3+ is
  required to remember a brief message, up to 9+ for
  detailed or complex messages. A botch means the
  message is remembered incorrectly. Like all dreams,
  your message begins to fade from memory after the
  target wakes up. If the subject does not try to
  remember your words immediately after he wakes up,
  the Ease Factor to later remember your exact words
  increases by +3 per hour.
  In Mythic Europe, people often believe that
  recurring dreams are some kind of omen, or are
  
  caused by demons or faeries. You may be able to
  affect the behavior of a stranger merely by speaking
  in his dreams. The storyguide may wish for you to
  make Communication rolls, opposed by the target’s
  Personality rolls, if you try to influence your subject
  in this way.
  Design: Form words in another’s mind, Level 5.
  Increase Range to Arcane Connection (+3 magni-
  tudes). Reduce Duration to Concentration (-1 magni-
  tude).
  Bond of False Loyalty (CrMe 25)
  R: Eye/Arc., D: Moon, T: Ind.
  Spell Focus: A silver coin (+1)
  Instill in the subject a strong, but artificial, sense
  of loyalty to you. The subject will not willingly betray
  you or act against your wishes, though he may resent
  you none the less. In mechanical terms, the target
  gains a Personality Trait, Loyal to Caster +3. The tar-
  get may resist this spell when you first cast it, by mak-
  ing a Stamina roll of 9+. While the spell remains in
  effect, the subject may be tempted to acts of disloy-
  alty; these can be resolved at the storyguide’s discre-
  tion or by making opposed Personality rolls against
  the subject’s new Loyal to Caster trait. If the subject
  does give in to temptation, the spell is broken.
  When the spell expires, the sense of loyalty goes
  away, but the subject remembers what he did and
  how he felt. Most mundanes will conclude they were
  “bewitched” and react accordingly.
  If using the spell focus, give the coin to the sub-
  ject. Whether the subject keeps the coin does not
  affect the spell, but he must accept it for the Spell
  Focus to provide a bonus.
  Design: Create an emotion in another’s mind,
  Level 15. Increase Duration to Moon, +1 magnitude.
  Add +1 magnitude because the created emotion is
  very focused and specific.
  Intellego Mentem
  Judge the Mettle of Man (InMe 15)
  Contributed by Andrew Mitchell
  R: Near/Sight, D: Mom., T: Ind./Group
  Spell Focus: A clear crystal (+1)
  Learn all the Personality Traits of the subject.
  This spell was recently invented by Tiburon of
  House Jerbiton, and is being shared widely through
  that House because it is so useful in smoothing rela-
  tions with mundanes. It is also popular as an aid to
  finding brave, diligent grogs — or at least weeding
  out the slothful, cowardly ones.
  If the clear crystal is used, it changes color and
  patterns to indicate the Personality Traits of the sub-
  ject.
  Design: Equivalent to ‘sense all of the emotions
  in a being’, Level 15.
  Name of the Stranger (InMe 25)
  R: Near/Arc., D: Mom., T: Ind.
  Spell Focus: Parchment and ink (+2)
  Learn the name of the target. If the target has
  more than one name, you learn the name by which
  the target thinks of himself. This spell must pene-
  trate the target’s Magic Resistance in order to work,
  and is considered an act of scrying under the Periph-
  eral Code.
  If using the Spell Focus, sprinkle drops of ink
  from a cubit’s height above the parchment. The
  falling drops will spell the target’s name.
  Design: Pick a single answer from the mind of
  the target, Level 20. Deduct 1 magnitude because the
  spell is very specific in scope. Increase Range to Near
  (+2 magnitudes).
  Speech of the Two Minds (InMe(Cr) 50)
  R: Arc., D: Conc./Sun, T: Ind.
  Requisite: Creo
  Spell Focus: A silver cord (+3)
  Hear the surface thoughts of the subject and
  send your thoughts silently to him. This enables
  instant and silent communication over any distance
  up to ten leagues. You hear everything the target
  thinks, not just the thoughts he chooses to send to
  you, but the target receives only the words you
  specifically choose to send.
  If the target is unwilling, a Stamina roll of 6+
  resists the spell.
  A silver cord mystically connects the minds of
  two beings, such as a magus and his familiar. If using
  the silver cord, tie it to the Arcane Connection you
  have to the subject. The silver cord strengthens the
  connection between you according to the Law of
  Sympathy.
  Design: Read a person’s surface thoughts, Level
  20. Increase Range to Arcane Connection (+5 mag-
  nitudes) and increase Duration to Concentration (+1
  20
  
  magnitude). Add Creo requisite to allow you to send
  thoughts in reply.
  Muto Mentem
  Open the Vault of Memory (MuMe(Im) 10)
  R: Eye, D: Sun, T: Individual
  Requisite: Imaginem
  Spell Focus: A mirror (+2)
  Restore clarity and detail to a person’s memory of
  a specific event. As you cast the spell, you must
  describe the event to the target specifically enough
  that he knows exactly what event you are talking
  about. For example, “Remember your most recent
  conversation with Duke Thibault” would work, but
  “Remember what happened at two o’clock yesterday
  afternoon” would not. This spell adds +3 to rolls to
  remember specific details of an event, but it cannot
  restore memories that have been magically removed
  or altered.
  Unfortunately, the caster’s Wizard’s Sigil has a
  tendency to appear in the subject’s memory, some-
  times interfering with the efficacy of the spell.
  This spell was once used by House Guernicus to
  interrogate mundane witnesses, but its use fell into
  disfavor when Quaesitors in the Rhine Tribunal start-
  ed to try using it on magi. Magi resented the implica-
  tion that their memories were less than perfect, and
  often refused to submit to the spell. Quaesitors
  stopped using it around the 11th Century and it was
  recently re-discovered by an archivist at Magvillus.
  If using the spell focus, the target (and only the
  target) can see his own memories reflected in the
  mirror.
  Design: Make a major change to a person’s mem-
  ory of an event, Level 10.
  Fan the Fires of Passion (MuMe 15)
  R: Eye/Near, D: Diameter, T: Individual
  Spell Focus: An emerald (+3)
  Make the subject more excitable, adding +3 to all
  Personality Trait rolls involving passions such as
  anger, love, and so on.
  This spell originated in House Merinita and is
  widely circulated there, but it is not a Faerie Magic
  spell per se.
  Design: Make a major change to a person’s emo-
  tion, Level 15. Reduce Duration to Diameter (-1
  magnitude). Add +1 magnitude because multiple
  emotions are affected.
  Perdo Mentem
  Day of Oblivion (PeMe 20)
  R: Eye, D: Sun/Moon, T: Individual
  Spell Focus: A black opal (+3)
  Prevent the subject from remembering what he
  experiences during the spell’s duration. This can
  cause the subject to behave strangely, since he forgets
  what he was doing a few moments ago and often
  starts doing it again. This is similar to having the
  Flaw, Short Attention Span (ArM 4, p. 48). The sub-
  ject can still remember events from before the spell
  was cast.
  This spell may be resisted with an Intelligence
  stress roll of 9+.
  After the spell wears off, the subject can remem-
  ber everything up until the time it was cast, but the
  next thing he remembers is the moment the spell
  wore off. Everything in between is blank. The subject
  might remember vague impressions of extremely
  important events such as being chased by a dragon or
  being reunited with a lost love, but ordinary events
  are completely forgotten. Since this spell prevents
  21
  
  memories from forming, future Mentem magic
  (including Open the Vault of Memory) is usually inef-
  fective in probing the subject’s memories of the day.
  In the early days of Doissetep covenant in the
  Provencal Tribunal, this spell was sometimes used on
  mundane visitors, who would be led into the coven-
  ant and then not remember how they arrived.
  Design: Diminish a single mental capacity in a
  person, Level 15. Add +1 magnitude because the
  ability to remember is diminished to such a great
  degree.
  Blessing of the Dove’s Peace (PeMe 30)
  R: Near, D: Sun, T: Group
  Spell Focus: An olive branch (+2)
  The targeted group loses their violent impulses
  and emotions for the duration of the spell. Subjects
  who are already fighting are not affected — the
  impulse of self-defense is stronger than this spell —
  but those who are on the brink of violence will stand
  down. If a person affected by this spell is attacked,
  he will first attempt to escape for one round, but if
  that fails the spell is broken and he can fight normal-
  ly to defend himself.
  Each subject may resist this spell with a Stamina
  stress roll of 9+.
  Design: Diminish a single mental capability in a
  person, Level 15. Increase Range to Near (+2 mag-
  nitudes) and increase Target to Group (+1 magni-
  tude).
  Tap the Mind, Sap the Will (PeMe 35)
  Contributed by Andrew Mitchell
  R: Eye, D: Moon/Perm., T: Ind.
  Spell Focus: A ball of lead (+1)
  Remove all Personality Traits from a person. The
  person can still act, but lacks initiative and volition.
  He becomes very detached, though not listless or
  morose. Friends and loved ones will certainly notice
  a profound change and may not even recognize the
  subject.
  Design: Remove all emotions from a person, Lev-
  el 30. Increase Duration to Moon, +1 magnitude.
  Rego Mentem
  Wakefulness of the Vigilant Sentry (ReMe 10)
  R: Eye, D: Sun, T: Individual
  Spell Focus: Rosemary (+1)
  The subject will not naturally fall asleep for the
  duration of the spell. If the subject is already Dazed
  due to lack of sleep, he will remain Dazed until this
  spell wears off. This spell cannot prevent a person
  falling Unconscious due to hard exertion, including
  exertion due to spell casting.
  This spell is commonly used on grogs who are
  standing watch while the magus is encamped. It is
  also commonly used on apprentices who doze off
  too frequently while their master is lecturing.
  Rosemary is an herb known to increase alertness
  and mental clarity.
  Design: Control a person’s mental state, Level 10.
  Courage of the Valiant Lion (ReMe 20)
  R: Eye, D: Sun, T: Individual
  Spell Focus: A lion’s heart (+5)
  Impart great courage to the target, increasing his
  Brave personality trait by +3 (to a maximum of +5).
  This can sometimes go so far as to eliminate all fear
  from the target, causing him to disregard his own
  safety or even to ignore danger. Thus, casting it on a
  sentry could make him more able to walk his rounds
  on a dark night, but it could also instill so much brava-
  do that he fails to raise the alarm when an intruder is
  seen. Any Brave rolls the subject makes become stress
  rolls, and if the subject botches, he does something
  foolhardy due to exaggerated bravery.
  Design: Control an unnatural emotion, Level 20.
  Invisibility of the Discreet Servant (ReMe 25)
  R: Touch, D: Conc., T: Room
  Spell Focus: A veil (+1)
  Cause everyone in the target Room to consider
  you so unimportant that they completely fail to
  notice you. They will not react to your presence or
  remember you were there unless they succeed at a
  Perception roll of 9+. You can move among the peo-
  ple, speak, or even pick up and move small objects,
  but any obtrusive action like shouting or dropping a
  book entitles everyone to a new Perception roll.
  Extremely noticeable actions like attacking someone
  or casting a flashy spell cancel this spell immediately.
  This spell was invented by Gaston of House Jer-
  biton, who claims that it provides a form of “social
  invisibility” that is more effective than simple physi-
  cal invisibility. An invisible person can be heard, for
  example, while someone under the effects of this
  spell is unlikely to be noticed at all.
  Design: There is no applicable guideline, but con-
  trolling a person’s awareness to this degree is not
  much different from controlling the person himself,
  Level 25. Reduce Duration to Concentration (-1
  magnitude), and increase Target to Room (+1 mag-
  nitude).
  Still the Liar’s Tongue (ReMe 30)
  Contributed by Vesna Gronosky
  R: Eye, D: Sun, T: Individual
  Spell Focus: A fine golden chain (+4)
  The subject can only make statements he believes
  to be true. He can choose to remain silent. There is
  no Natural Resistance roll against this spell.
  The spell is broken if you lose sight of the sub-
  ject, so even though its duration is Sun, it’s generally
  only useful for one interrogation session at a time. If
  using the spell focus, bind the target with the chain.
  Design: Control a person as long as you can see
  him, Level 25. Add 1 magnitude because there is no
  Natural Resistance roll.
  Omnibus Grimoire is accepting spell submissions. E-mail
  your spell to agronosky@comcast.net and if your spell is cho-
  sen for publication, you’ll receive a free issue of Hermes’ Por-
  tal. Next issue’s column will cover the Form of Terram and
  all submissions must be designed according to Fifth Edition
  rules.
  22
  
  Vis-à-vis Vis
  by Michaël de Verteuil
  S
  o this is it: the last Heretic’s Corner before the
  new and much-awaited edition of our fav-
  ourite game comes out. Come November,
  this heretic expects to have a whole slew of
  new overly-complicated rules and mechanics to chew
  on, but in the meanwhile we will have to make do
  with the current partially desiccated corpse before us.
  There’s still some gristle left on the bones (yum!) and
  most likely the heresies set out in this issue will have
  continuing relevance well into the new edition.
  One of my favourite spells (a ritual, actually) dis-
  appeared in the transition from ArM3 to ArM4.
  Change the Nature of Vis permitted the caster to alter
  the correspondence of a specified amount of vis
  from one Form or Technique to another. As the spell
  was a ritual, vis had to be expended such that one
  pawn was lost for each pawn changed. The ritual
  hadn’t been perfectly thought out in its design, how-
  ever, as it was described as “General” with each
  increase in magnitude corresponding to the transfor-
  mation of an additional pawn. This meant that no
  time or vis was saved in performing the ritual at high-
  er magnitudes. In fact, given the associated concen-
  tration of botch dice, it was simply more dangerous.
  As such there was no point ever learning or using the
  ritual at greater than first magnitude.
  It is generally not cost effective to design your
  starting mage with first or second magnitude formu-
  laic spells as these can generally be sponted without
  much difficulty. First and second magnitude rituals,
  on the other hand, cannot be sponted and as such
  play a useful role in filling in those tiny residual
  nooks left over after you have chosen your higher
  magnitude spells and only have five or ten spell lev-
  els to select. Somehow, Change the Nature of Vis
  always seemed to find a way into the grimoires of my
  player magi.
  “This is all fine and good,” you might say, “but
  what is the point of this trip down nostalgia lane?
  Where’s the heretical beef?”
  Well, when I queried the then line editor, Jeff
  Tidball, on the deletion, he noted there had been
  some concern that the ritual might be perceived as
  abusive when used in conjunction with the return of
  the vis extraction rules (brought back in modified
  form from ArM2). More significantly for this discus-
  sion, he also observed that some players had object-
  ed to the ritual as a violation of the Hermetic limit of
  Essential Nature. These arguments didn’t impress me
  at the time and I continue to allow Change the Nature
  of Vis in my sagas. Nevertheless, the question does
  present an excellent starting point for this issue’s
  heresy: what is the nature of vis, and is it properly
  reflected in the game background and mechanics?
  Nowhere in the canon is it specified that the Art
  of a given pawn of vis forms part of its “essential”
  nature. In fact, as we shall see shortly, the canon has
  historically sided more with the view that vis is simply
  vis. This suggests that its Art, like its colour, shape
  and physical form, is part of its “accidental” rather
  than essential features. Let’s review the history of vis
  over the ages.
  Vis in ArM2
  In the second edition “most actions can use vis of
  any art, but some actions (such as casting a ritual
  spell) require vis of a specific type.” A quick review
  of ArM2 reveals only one other use for which a spe-
  cific type of vis was required: studying Arts. For all
  other purposes (Certamen, boosting spontaneous or
  formulaic spells, magical enchantment, etc.) vis was
  just vis. The point is emphasized all the more by the
  description of Vim vis, in contrast to the other
  Forms, as “pure magic power stored in physical
  form”. This phrase implies that vis associated with
  other Forms, at least, was less “pure”. It doesn’t take
  a great leap of faith to infer then that what deter-
  mined the Art associated with a pawn of vis was the
  nature and extent of its impurities. Note to those
  who would cavil that the quoted description makes
  no reference to Techniques: insofar as I can deter-
  mine (not, sadly, possessing a copy of the ArM1) the
  first edition restricted vis to Forms and not Tech-
  niques, and this part of the text was probably carried
  forward from ArM1 to ArM2 unchanged. In any
  case, it appears safe to conclude that for ArM2 the
  Art associated with vis did not form part of its
  “essential” nature and was thus implicitly mutable.
  Vis in ArM3
  Given the inclusion of Change the Nature of Vis in
  the ArM3 spell list, it should perhaps go without say-
  ing that ArM3, at any rate, certainly considered vis
  mutable. We have to explore the issue further, how-
  ever, given the objection that this inclusion if the rit-
  ual might be an error or rather an inconsistency. The
  one big change concerning vis brought about in
  ArM3 was the tightening up of restrictions concern-
  ing its uses. Vis consumed in the preparation of an
  enchantment now had to be Vim, and vis used to
  instil an effect had to be of the appropriate Form or
  Technique, as had vis used to boost spells and Certa-
  men. Vis thus lost its flexibility, and this apparently
  suggested to some that pawns of vis associated with
  different Arts were now to be deemed “essentially”
  different from one another. Nevertheless, ArM3 con-
  tinued to describe Vim vis as “pure magic power”,
  suggesting that the difference between pawns still lay
  in their relative impurities. Rather than an inconsis-
  tency, what we seem to be left with is a mistaken
  inference concerning the rationale behind ArM3’s
  new restrictions on the versatility of vis. They prob-
  ably related to game balance concerns given the sug-
  gested distribution of 5 pawns of vis per mage per
  adventure. Reducing the versatility of vis also not
  only cut back on its usefulness, but it also increased
  its effective variety and could thus be portrayed as
  adding more colour to the feature.
  23
  
  Vis in ArM4
  We now come to perhaps the most pertinent
  review, that of the current though soon to be super-
  seded edition. Here we find further subtle mutations
  in the text. As noted already, Change the Nature of Vis
  was dropped (at least from the sample spell list,
  though Jeff did make the point of stating that it had
  not been banned per se). Vim vis is also no longer
  described as “pure magic power” in distinction to
  other types. This would suggest a further hardening
  in favour of
  the Art-as-essential-nature-of-vis
  school.
  There are, however, three changes in ArM4 that
  row in the contrary direction and implicitly support
  the continued viability of my beloved Change the
  Nature of Vis. Vis extraction (albeit at a reduced rate,
  but significantly still of Vim vis only) has made a
  comeback, again suggesting that Vim vis is generic or
  “standard” vis. “Raw” (i.e. Hermetic) vis is also now
  described as “fluid vis which has become trapped in
  suitable material.” We have here the beginnings a the-
  ory of vis as a coherent and consistent phenomenon.
  As there is no suggestion that “fluid” ambient vis is
  similarly differentiated into the 15 Arts, we are left to
  conclude that the differentiation is a by-product
  either of the process of “trapping” or of the “suit-
  able material” in which it occurs. Finally, we have the
  concept of “wild vis” introduced in Hedge Magic. This
  type of vis differs from its “raw” counterpart in that
  it is not associated with a specific
  Art. As such it cannot be used in Art-specific
  magical operations and cannot even be detected by
  means of conventional Hermetic magic. Conversely,
  however, all “Cunning” operations that can use wild
  vis can also use raw vis associated with any Art. It
  follows then that raw vis is merely a subset of fun-
  damentally undifferentiated material vis which hap-
  pens to be suitable for Hermetic purposes, and that
  wild vis merely represents another subset which is
  not.
  A New Proposed Heresy
  As regular readers of this column will attest,
  however, Heretic’s Corner is not about determining
  and defending the canonical take on any given sub-
  ject. Appealing as it may appear, the theory of vis
  inferred above, i.e. raw vis being a manifestation of
  undifferentiated ambient vis trapped into and “taint-
  ed” by varying physical receptacles, posed at least
  two difficulties.
  First, if the “nature” (i.e. Art) of vis is deter-
  mined by the process of “trapping” and/or the
  physical form in which it is trapped, why can this dif-
  ferentiation not be reproduced Hermetically
  through the process of extraction? Why must all
  extracted vis be Vim? Granted, it should be easier to
  refine a “substance” to its purest form than to some
  specifically “impure” variant. It is easier to distil pure
  alcohol than to produce Scotch whisky, for example.
  But, given the utility of such a process of differenti-
  ation to Hermetic magic, why would there be no lab
  equivalent of Change the Nature of Vis which refined
  ambient vis into raw vis of types other than Vim?
  Second, why does Technique vis exist? Or, posed
  more cogently, why do both Form and Technique vis
  exist? This may appear to be a silly question, but it
  goes straight to the specific nature of Bonisagus’
  insights and discoveries which lie at the heart of Her-
  metic magic. If one of these insights was that all
  magical operations could be undertaken through two
  24
  
  mutually supporting lines of approach (Forms and
  Techniques in a process later described as “Hermet-
  ic magic”), it should follow that vis usable for Her-
  metic magic (i.e. raw vis) must apply only to one
  approach or to both at the same time. The scope of
  Hermetic magic is meant to be universal. This scope
  is covered separately in overlapping fashion by the
  ten Forms and the five Techniques. So all vis should
  be Form vis, or all vis should be Technique vis, or all
  vis should be both. But it makes little sense to have
  some vis be Technique and some vis Form.
  In fact, this principle seems to have been reflect-
  ed in ArM1 in which, I am told, there was only Form
  vis. You can still find traces of this principle in ArM4
  through the fact that only your Form score counts
  towards your magic resistance. By providing for
  Technique vis, ArM2 and later editions have garbled
  the logic behind the interaction of “action” (Tech-
  nique) and “object” (Form). They have also greatly
  unbalanced the respective values of the two Art
  types. Because the five Techniques cover together the
  same scope as the ten Forms, they are twice as versa-
  tile. Logically they should cost up to twice as much,
  but they don’t, thus also violating the principle that
  all (Art) eps should be of equivalent value. Under the
  current dispensation, an ep in a Technique is worth
  more than an ep in a Form. In ArM1, Forms bene-
  fited from their exclusive association with vis (the
  amount you can use depending on a Form score) and
  this helped rebalance the respective values of Forms
  and Techniques.
  Ok, so to paraphrase Lenin, “what is to be
  done?” Returning to the ArM1 approach would just
  be conservatism. This column is into heresy, not con-
  servatism, so besides bringing back Change the Nature
  of Vis, let’s try the untried approaches. Let’s free up
  vis extraction so as to permit the extraction in the
  Lab of other types of raw vis. And instead of 15
  types of raw vis, let’s go for 50!
  Last issue’s Heretic’s Corner was criticized for
  being heavy on analysis and light on mechanics. So
  let’s spell out some new optional mechanics in an
  effort to keep all our readers happy. These proposed
  mechanics can be adopted in individual sagas either
  separately or as a group.
  Change the Nature of Vis
  Not everyone has access to the ArM3 rule book,
  and I am proposing minor modifications to the ritu-
  al, so I shall write it out in full here.
  Muto Vim Spells
  Change the Nature of Vis
  Level 5
  R.: Touch/Near, D: Inst, T: Small, Ritual
  The Magus may change one pawn of vis to
  another Art. The Technique associated with a pawn
  of vis (e.g., Creo) may only be transformed into
  another Technique, or the Form (e.g. Herbam) may
  only be transformed into another Form. Thus at the
  expense of one pawn you can change an Art associ-
  ated with another pawn.
  Vis Extraction in the Lab
  Not every mage will be willing to spend vis to
  change newly extracted Vim vis into something else
  through a quickie Change the Nature of Vis. So why
  not add Requisites to the vis extraction rule to pro-
  vide for non-Vim vis? If you want to extract Corpus
  vis, for example, just apply the lower of your Vim or
  Corpus scores to the extraction formula instead of
  just the Vim score.
  The Vis of Many Colours
  This is the biggie: 50 types of raw vis. Each pawn
  of vis has both a Form and a Technique and can be
  applied to magical operations using either Art. The
  number of pawns that can be used at one time in the
  field is limited to your score in the appropriate Art.
  Pawns with different Form/Technique combinations
  can be used in conjunction so long as they are all of
  the same appropriate Art. The number of pawns
  associated with any Form/Technique combination
  that can be used in a given Lab operation in one sea-
  son is limited by your Vim + MT score. Exception-
  ally, pawns of vis used in magical operations for
  which both Arts are appropriate do not contribute to
  botch dice so long as all the vis used is of the appro-
  priate combination and the total number of pawns
  used does not exceed your score in the relevant
  Form. The default combination for vis extracted in
  the Lab if using this optional rule is CrVi. If you
  want to change, using Change the Nature of Vis, both
  the Form and the Technique of a pawn of vis, you
  must perform the ritual twice: once to change the
  Form and once to change the Technique.
  Pros and Cons
  Beyond greater logical consistency, I see several
  advantages to this approach.
  1. It helps rebalance the respective values of
  Forms and Techniques.
  2. It simplifies the relative economics of Tech-
  nique vs Form vis.
  3. It returns vis to some of the flexibility it
  enjoyed in ArM2.
  4. The variety of vis types expands significantly
  (by a factor of 3 and a third to be exact).
  5. It increases the dramatic tension concerning
  the way in which a particular pawn is to be
  used.
  I think this last advantage is particularly notewor-
  thy. Dramatic tension concerning the alternative uses
  to which a given pawn might be put shrank dramati-
  cally in the transition from ArM2 to ArM3, and this
  decline carried forward into ArM4. This stemmed
  not only from reduced flexibility of use but also
  from a subtle change in the defined properties of vis
  itself. Here is the description of raw vis in the Story-
  telling chapter of ArM2:
  “Raw vis is universally valuable. Wizards use it for
  many purposes and it often has magical properties of
  25
  
  value to other characters as well. To design raw vis,
  decide in its physical form, the art to which it is
  linked, the number of vis points it has, and any mag-
  ical properties the material has.”
  Here are two examples of magical properties giv-
  en in the text:
  1. “Quartz Crystals, 1 to 4 Intellego vis per crys-
  tal, depending on size. Grants + 1 on rolls in-
  volving sight if worn as an amulet.”
  2. “Healing Berries, 4 Creo vis each. Heals the
  eater 1 body Level (must make Stm roll of 6+).
  Note that the Healing Berries would also be of
  use to a mage who had never learned the correspon-
  ding CrCo spell.
  ArM3 on the other hand describes the properties
  of vis in subtly different words as follows:
  “Raw vis is universally valuable: Magi apply it to a
  variety of uses, and it often has magical properties of
  value to other characters. To design raw vis, decide
  first upon its physical characteristics, the art to which
  it is attuned, and the amount of vis points in it.”
  Gone is the requirement to specify its magical
  properties, and gone are the evocative examples
  (though they have made a very minor comeback in
  highly attenuated form in Hedge Magic as stones and
  herbs of virtue). The game has been impoverished as
  a result of this careless deletion. No longer do we
  have grogs objecting to the use of their Healing
  Berries when the mage wants to use them to create a
  magical horse for himself. As the flexibility of vis has
  declined, we no longer have the tension between
  using the vis now or later in the adventure for a com-
  pletely different purpose. The range of use is now so
  narrow that you might as well use your vis at the first
  opportunity since no other opportunity is likely to
  occur before you return home and secure a new sup-
  ply.
  What of disadvantages? Some might argue that
  the loss of flexibility was a good thing, that vis use
  tended to dominate adventures in ArM2. If that was
  the case, then I humbly submit that the correction
  overshot the mark. My players find ArM4 vis so
  inflexible they almost never have the appropriate
  variety on hand unless they travel with a veritable
  pharmacopoeia (which they have never chosen to
  do). Instead, vis use in the field has pretty well disap-
  peared and it is now only used in the lab where, giv-
  en the ease of storage and the different time scale
  providing opportunities for trade or purchase, flexi-
  bility is less of an issue. If vis use was proving to be
  too common, the proper solution would have been
  to reduce the suggested reward of five pawns per
  mage per adventure. Indeed, this was the approach
  half-heartedly adopted in the transition from ArM3
  to ArM4 which suggests reduced rewards of 3-5
  pawns rather than the previous 5. Unfortunately,
  ArM4 didn’t restore the flexibility of vis use previ-
  ously found in ArM2 (which, to be fair, probably had
  been a tad too flexible). As this subject has only
  rarely come up for discussion over the last few years,
  I will be pleasantly amazed if ArM5 doesn’t here just
  blindly follow in ArM4’s footsteps.
  And this, dear reader and (hopefully) fellow
  heretic, brings us to the end of this volume of heresy.
  ArM5 should be available as you read this or shortly
  thereafter and a whole new field of heresy will then
  be open to us. Until then, fare well and remember to
  munch those berries when you are feeling poorly.
  26
  
  Covenants As
  Characters, Continued
  by Erik Dahl
  W
  hen I designed the rules for treating
  covenants like characters in issue #4, I
  wanted them to be as consistent as
  possible in order to make them work
  intuitively. That is, since characters work a certain
  way, and since most players grasp how characters
  work, I thought it was good to model them as close-
  ly as I could. I still subscribe to this opinion; and I’d
  like to begin by explaining how it affected some of
  my mechanical choices.
  The system began with Characteristics, because I
  thought Characteristics work best as constants for a
  character’s entire life. That is, they represent some-
  thing of a character’s essential nature, and therefore
  generally embody aspects of the character that do
  not grow or change over time. Flaws, Afflictions, and
  Decrepitude can effectively lower these traits, just as
  Virtues can raise them, but the scores themselves
  remain constant. Fourth Edition covenants didn’t
  work that way, so I set out to design something that
  would.
  That goal made designing a Library Characteristic
  a difficult consideration, since the very nature of a
  library is something that grows and changes over
  time. I tried to get around this by providing vague
  guidelines for what sorts of books would be avail-
  able, but it seems that an important aspect of the
  covenant is the range of information to which its
  members have access. Books seem almost as impor-
  tant as covenfolk; the flavor provided by describing
  them is too valuable to the game to leave to a chart.
  However, I have no stomach for designing indi-
  vidual books for my covenants. It simply takes too
  long! Even with a simpler system for determining
  starting points, I would still have to choose what kind
  of books are there, what subjects are covered, and
  the quality of every individual book, all of which
  must involve a lot of numbers that aren’t easy to
  remember and don’t make sense as a unit (e.g. a sin-
  gle book = X points). I refuse to do this. I believe
  there must be a simpler way.
  At their most basic level, books represent the
  breadth of knowledge available to those who study
  them, and I realized that this is much like how a char-
  acter’s Abilities represent everything he has learned.
  Assigning stats to individual books seems to me like
  describing each individual experience point a charac-
  ter has gained. I could, but it is much easier to gen-
  eralize them as different stages of common Abilities.
  The information contained in a book can be general-
  ized too, by extending the metaphor of the covenant
  as a character, using books to represent a character’s
  experience in Abilities.
  Many argue that books have too much flavor to
  generalize, though. However, when I look at books
  that have been designed in Ars Magica, I feel they are
  invariably missing something. They have Quality,
  which might describe their physical attributes and the
  author’s clarity of writing, and a Level, which
  describes the depth of their treatment of the subject.
  Each book applies only to a single Ability, however.
  From a design perspective, an attempt to design a
  book that covers a range of subjects comes out look-
  ing like multiple books. It would seem that a single
  book cannot teach both Theology and Church Lore,
  for example. Yet isn’t this exactly the role of a book
  like the Bible? Surely a book should be able to cover
  a whole range of topics?
  Since in this regard at least Ars Magica books
  don’t work exactly like real books anyway, I wonder
  what this simulation gains us. Perhaps books and
  libraries can be generalized a bit more — not so
  much that the concept of books is removed entirely,
  but enough that designing and maintaining a library
  is a little easier? With that goal in mind, I propose
  two courses of action.
  Firstly, I suggest thinking of a library not as a col-
  lection of books, but rather as a collection of sub-
  jects. A library with a single Bible would effectively
  have a Theology section, a Legend Lore section, and
  perhaps even an Area Lore: Judea section. They’re all
  part of the same book, but studying it yields differ-
  ent knowledge depending on your focus. In this way,
  the same book can be considered to cover all of
  these fields of study, and any of these topics can be
  studied as desired. This means a fundamental change
  in how libraries are designed, because the list of Abil-
  ities it teaches becomes more important than the list
  of books it contains.
  Secondly, to make this change work smoothly and
  consistently, I have devised several new rules for rep-
  resenting and improving Abilities. My inspiration
  comes from many sources, including: Michaël de
  Verteuil’s column in HP1, Less Is More, which intro-
  duced the idea of specialties separate from their
  related Abilities; and David Chart’s article in HP5,
  The Magic of the Founders, which proposed incremen-
  tal benefits for mastered spells. These are both excel-
  lent articles, filled with useful material on this subject,
  and I would like to see if I can build upon their sug-
  gestions.
  I have also developed rules for studying and
  teaching that take advantage of these ideas. While I
  would like get to those things immediately, I find that
  I must first explain the changes I propose to the way
  Abilities and spells work, in order to make the new
  framework for the Library characteristic make sense.
  Also: I’d like to thank Alex White and Bjarke
  Roth for their suggestions and encouragement with
  the early drafts of this article. I find it difficult to
  write without feedback, and I can’t emphasize
  enough how helpful I find their comments.
  Abilities
  Libraries exist to teach Abilities (or Arts), so in
  order to streamline a library, we should take a look at
  27
  
  simplifying or making more intuitive the Ability
  scores they affect. Here are several ideas that may
  improve how Abilities work in your game.
  Specialties
  To improve on Abilities, simplifying them while
  keeping their range of applications intact, I suggest
  that we treat specialties separately. That is, instead of
  giving every Ability a specialty that is recorded with
  the Ability, specialties would become sub-Abilities
  that are tracked with their own experience. For exam-
  ple, my character might have Artes Liberales 3 and
  (Astronomy) 1. When using Artes Liberales to deal
  with astronomy, I can add 1 to his total, just like any
  character with a specialty in astronomy. However, if
  he studies a lot of astronomy, he might increase that
  specialty beyond 1, yielding a greater bonus in that
  field.
  Continuing the example, suppose this character
  begins devotedly studying astronomy. Over time, he
  increases his (Astronomy) specialty to 4, even sur-
  passing his Artes Liberales score. Now when he per-
  forms an action that requires his knowledge of the
  heavens, he may add both his Artes Liberales Ability
  and his (Astronomy) specialty, giving him a total of 7.
  For other applications of Artes Liberales, he still has
  only a 3.
  In this sense, it’s like I’m proposing treating spe-
  cialties like Magical Affinities, only with Abilities.
  They are basically bonuses to particular applications
  of related Abilities that can increase over time. A
  character can accumulate experience in the Ability or
  the specialty, and both increase on the pyramid scale,
  so that at low levels, a score in both is almost as valu-
  able as having a single high general score. For bal-
  ance, just like Magical Affinities, they should not be
  stacked with other bonuses, though.
  A specialty doesn’t have to apply to only one
  Ability, either. For example, I might take a (Horses)
  specialty, which would typically apply to Animal
  Handling. However, since it means I am particularly
  good with horses, I might be allowed to apply it to
  Hunt when tracking horses, or even Brawling when
  trying to dodge a horse’s kick.
  Of course, I must have an Ability to which a spe-
  cialty would apply before I can take it, and I cannot
  use the specialty without using an appropriate Abili-
  ty. That is, a (Horses) specialty might apply to hunt-
  ing for a horse, but if I don’t have the Hunt Ability,
  I can’t use my specialty for that action, because I
  don’t know what I’m doing.
  This change would allow many Abilities to be
  condensed into even more general groups. For exam-
  ple, all the Performance Skills might be reduced to a
  single “Perform” Ability. A musician would probably
  specialize in Sing or Storytelling, but might also pick
  up related skills as she improved her general ability.
  Likewise, many social Abilities (Charm, Guile, Bar-
  gain, etc.) can be incorporated together, with the
  specifics becoming specialties of the general Folk
  Ken.
  28
  
  Another thing this allows is for characters to have
  an Ability that describes a profession or trade, with-
  out having to assign experience to every Ability that
  makes up that profession. For example, a mounted
  warrior might take experience in a Knight specialty
  instead of in Single Weapon, Longshaft Weapon, and
  Ride. His score in (Knight) could be applied to any
  total for which that training is applicable. Likewise, a
  fisherman could take a (Fishing) specialty that
  includes fishing aspects of Survival, Hunt, and Swim.
  This professional specialty works particularly well
  with grogs and specialists in a covenant, because such
  characters tend to be somewhat two-dimensional
  anyway, and in this way they can develop their experi-
  ence along a single career track. A shield grog can
  practice (Shield Grog). The steward can take points
  in (Steward). It becomes very easy to keep track of
  what different minor characters are doing, because all
  their seasonal experience goes in one place.
  A third benefit to this system is that players do
  not have to pick a single specialty for each of their
  characters’ Abilities. They can explore many different
  specialties as they have different adventures, or they
  can increase their general scores as usual when they
  become exposed to different aspects of the base
  Ability.
  Finally, I find this widens the divide between an
  apprentice and a master. A master craftsman doesn’t
  just have a score of 5 in his craft, he probably has a
  5 or more in one or more specialties, too. A journey-
  man might have achieved a score of 5, but has yet to
  develop any particular focus.
  Michaël de Verteuil suggested this change in his
  column in HP1, and I think it’s an excellent idea. I’ve
  adopted it into my saga, with the changes I suggest
  above, but I impose no limits on the specialty over-
  taking the Ability — if a character wants to raise her
  (Astronomy) to 5 and ignore the general Artes Lib-
  erales knowledge, I think that’s fine, because the nar-
  row application of the specialty offsets the numerical
  advantage.
  It’s been suggested that players might abuse this
  system by developing combinations of Ability 5,
  (Specialty) 5 or greater, allowing them an effective 10
  in Abilities that would otherwise be limited at around
  6. I don’t think this is that abusive, since the charac-
  ter has spent a lot of experience points for bonuses
  that should be situational, and I think that gives the
  character a lot of depth. Just be careful about allow-
  ing specialties that are not very situational.
  Languages
  In Fourth Edition (and in previous editions) lan-
  guages are treated as Abilities. However, when I was
  looking at the different Abilities with an eye for
  condensing them, I realized that most of what one
  does with languages can be done better with other
  Abilities. For example, Scribe is covered by Artes
  Liberales, and understanding what a person wants
  has more to do with Folk Ken than one’s Speak
  Language score.
  It seems to me that language is actually sort of an
  extra layer that affects communication-based Abili-
  ties. To represent that, I suggest we create an addi-
  tional type of Ability, called Language. A Language is
  treated like a normal Ability, and increased just like a
  Casual Knowledge, but when using an Ability or spe-
  cialty that depends upon language, you use the Lan-
  guage total as a requisite to the Ability + specialty
  total. That is, you take the lower value when calculat-
  ing the character’s total. When making a roll that is
  entirely based on language, such as translating an
  inscription or asking for directions, you can use the
  Ability on its own.
  Of course, this allows for Language specialties,
  too. You can have specialties like Slang or Scribe, or
  you can even relate similar languages together by tak-
  ing a sort of superspecialty like Romance Languages
  or Roman Alphabet. The essence of the rule is sim-
  ply that the character’s language ability acts as a “cap”
  on other abilities that use it.
  Spell Mastery
  David Chart has suggested several excellent ideas
  for spell Abilities, and I liked them so much I incor-
  porated them into my home system. Each spell is an
  Ability, but instead of keeping track of which
  “paths” each character has taken when mastering
  each spell, I decided that it would be simpler for me
  to make the benefits more general, based directly on
  the character’s level of mastery.
  In this way, I can track the spells like Abilities,
  with a single score that represents my level of expert-
  ise. However, I will still improve my mastery with the
  spell if I spend my story experience on it instead of
  Abilities.
  Suggested Benefits of Mastery
  - You may add the Ability score to your casting
  roll.
  - When rolling for a potential botch, subtract
  one botch die for each level of the Ability.
  - You may add five times the score to your
  magic resistance when affected by the spell
  or a similar spell.
  - You may multi-cast the spell, casting it up to
  a number of times equal to the level of the
  Ability.
  - When you spontaneously cast a similar spell,
  you may add the score to your casting roll.
  - You may reduce the penalties for casting the
  spell in unusual circumstances, such as Fast
  Casting or casting without words or gestures,
  by the level of your specialty.
  Language Summary
  When using an Ability that involves language,
  use the lesser of the Ability and Language totals.
  Specialties Summary
  When using an Ability, you can add your score
  in an appropriate specialty as a bonus, instead of
  simply adding one.
  29
  
  To retain some of the flavor of David’s original
  idea, the “paths” he developed could still be taken as
  specialties. They wouldn’t just apply to the particular
  spell, but rather to all mastered spells. For example,
  (Quiet Magic) 2 would reduce the penalty for casting
  all mastered spells without voice by an additional 2,
  while (Mastered Spell Penetration) might increase
  your Penetration score.
  Books
  In essence, books represent a method for trans-
  ferring knowledge from a library to something else,
  either a person or another library. To explain this in
  Ars Magica terms, I think of a book as a container
  for experience points. That is, a scribe copies a book
  from a library, and the book he brings back increases
  his library’s experience points accordingly.
  Therefore, to revise books, I propose a very sim-
  ple system. Libraries have Abilities, and books have
  experience points in those Abilities. When a book is
  integrated into a library, it loses its identity as a book
  and increases that covenant’s score in the related
  Ability accordingly, as long as the source Ability isn’t
  higher than that of the destination.
  For example, let’s say I’ve copied 11 experience
  points’ worth of knowledge of diseases from a
  library with Medicine 6. The resulting book would
  make a nice addition to my covenant’s library, raising
  it from 4 (its current score) to 6 (a score of 4 is 10
  experience points, and 10 + 11 = 21 experience
  points, for a score of 6). In a library with Medicine 5,
  it would still increase the library up to level 6, but no
  higher. In a library that already had Medicine 6 or
  more, the book would be useless and therefore
  would not be integrated.
  Books are not usually found outside of libraries,
  so it isn’t really necessary to keep track of the level of
  the source except in transit. However, if you want
  characters to find a book as a reward, you will need
  to determine the level of the source beforehand, so
  that you can say whether or not there is a place for it
  on their library’s shelves. If its source level is too low,
  they may want to keep the book anyway (perhaps to
  trade it).
  I suggest describing books in a way very similar
  to how they have been in the past, simply noting the
  subject, source level and the experience points, like
  so: Medicine 6/+11. This tells us that it came from a
  level 6 Medicine library and contains eleven experi-
  ence points. This isn’t that different from the way
  books are handled in Fourth Edition, though Quali-
  ty doesn’t exactly translate.
  Using this system, though, I don’t see a need for
  different kinds of books, as I explained earlier. It
  seems to me that there’s no real world difference
  between a summa and a tractatus, except that a trac-
  tatus might be more specialized. For flavor, the term
  “tractatus” could deal with specialties rather than
  general Abilities, but I think there is basically little
  distinction. If desired, it is possible to use this system
  to generalize most books, but occasionally introduce
  unusual books that follow more complicated rules
  that just don’t get integrated into the library.
  Library
  As I suggested in my Covenants As Characters arti-
  cle in issue 4, Library is an essential characteristic of
  a covenant. It represents the organization, physical
  attributes, and scope of a covenant’s book collection,
  and in that sense it can provide a generalized Quality
  when looking at all the books the magi have on hand.
  That is, studying in a covenant with a high Library
  score will yield more experience per season than
  studying in a covenant with a poor Library score.
  This is extremely useful when designing a covenant,
  because it means you don’t have to design every
  book.
  These new rules make it necessary to outline a
  covenant’s library in terms of its Abilities. This
  means we need to know how many experience points
  it has. One way to do this is to treat the covenant as
  a seasonal character, and use my rules in Seasonal
  Characters (issue 5) to figure out how many experience
  points the covenant would have based on its season
  and age. However, I fear that is still too complicated.
  My primary goal is to reduce the amount of work
  necessary to design and maintain a covenant, so I feel
  you should be able to use the Characteristic as a base-
  line, and assign specialties or unusual Ability scores
  with Virtues and Flaws.
  So, then, an additional purpose of the Library
  characteristic is to give an idea of how extensive its
  library is and assign a baseline value in the subjects it
  would cover, and thus provide a starting point for a
  storyguide to commence hand-waving. To this end, I
  have developed a chart, below, that addresses this
  need.
  The way this works is when a character wants to
  study a subject or add a book to your collection, and
  the covenant doesn’t already have an Ability for that
  subject, you use the table to determine the level of
  the study source, based on how you rate the subject.
  Treat the Hermetic Arts as an Essential resource in a
  covenant’s library, and use the second number, the
  number after the slash, for them.
  For example, let’s say my character wants to study
  Artes Liberales. I would consider that a Basic Ability
  in my covenant. We have a poor Library, rated at -3.
  Therefore, we have an Artes Liberales section, but
  there isn’t much in it, and it is only rated Level 3. If I
  wanted to study Arts, my character could study them
  up to a maximum Level of 7.
  For spells, assign them a category and compare
  their magnitude to the chart. This is the maximum
  level you can have of that spell in your library. For
  example, I would rate Chirurgeon’s Healing Touch a
  Common spell. My poor Library probably doesn’t
  Book Summary
  Books outside of a library have a subject,
  experience points, and occasionally a level. This is
  written like so: Title, Ability [Level]/+XP.
  30
  
  have a copy. I would need to have at least an average
  (+0) Library to have Common spells of fourth mag-
  nitude.
  A couple of the Virtues and Flaws from that arti-
  cle need to be revised slightly to take advantage of
  these changes, and I’ll do this below. I have also
  added a few new Library-oriented Virtues.
  Modified Covenant Virtues and Flaws
  Quality Library, +1: Special attention and care
  has been paid to the books in the library, many of
  which have been glossed or given physical improve-
  ments over the years. Treat your Library score as one
  greater when studying from it.
  Neglected Library, -1: Due to neglect, wear, or
  accidents, most of the books in the covenant’s library
  have been damaged somewhat over the years. Treat
  your Library score as one less when studying from it.
  New Covenant Virtues and Flaws
  Good Books, +1: The covenant has a special sec-
  tion of the library on a particular subject, covered in
  greater detail than normal. Take seven experience
  points and use them to increase the level of these
  Abilities in your library, or to take specialties. This
  Virtue may be taken multiple times and stacked, but
  no more than seven points may be spent on a single
  subject.
  Good Hermetic Books, +1: The covenant has
  developed a particular Art over the years, so that it is
  a higher level than the others. Take twelve experience
  points and use them to increase the level of Arts in
  your library. This Virtue may be taken multiple times
  and stacked, but no more than twelve points may be
  spent on a single Art.
  Extra Spells, +1: You start with 10 extra levels of
  spells, which you may use to purchase spells that
  wouldn’t normally be found within your covenant.
  This Virtue may be stacked, so that at +2 you get 30
  levels of spells, at +3 60 levels, and so on.
  Extensive Library, +2: Your library is particu-
  larly diverse, covering a very wide range of subjects.
  Treat all your library’s subjects as one lower category
  than they are. For example, Basic subjects are in your
  library’s Essential section, and if you would normal-
  ly have Uncommon subjects, you can study Rare sub-
  jects.
  Exceptional Books, +3: The covenant has some
  exceptional sections, and thus begins with 21 addi-
  tional experience points to spend on Abilities or spe-
  cialties. These raise the default scores as determined
  by the Library characteristic, but no more than 21
  points may be spent on a single subject.
  Exceptional Hermetic Books, +3: The coven-
  ant has raised its Arts to incredible levels, and begins
  with 35 additional experience points to spend on its
  Hermetic library scores. These raise the default val-
  ues as determined by the Library characteristic, but
  no more than 35 points may be spent on a single sub-
  ject.
  Inferior Books, -1: One or more sections of the
  library are of much poorer quality than would be
  expected. Subtract seven experience points from the
  Levels of Abilities in the library. These should be
  subjects that are very common or are likely to have
  some particular bearing on the saga. This may be tak-
  en multiple times and stacked, but no more than sev-
  en points may be subtracted from a particular sub-
  ject.
  Inferior Hermetic Books, -1: One or more Arts
  do not get as thorough a treatment in the library as
  they should. Subtract twelve experience points from
  the starting levels of Arts in the library, noting them
  at their adjusted value. This Flaw may be taken mul-
  tiple times and stacked, but no more than seven
  points may be subtracted from a particular subject.
  Narrow Library, -2: Your library, while covering
  a narrow field of subjects well, is not as diverse as
  would be expected, and consequently it is difficult to
  find books outside of that range. Treat all subjects
  (except Arts) as one category higher when determin-
  ing their rarity. That is, to study a Basic subject, you
  must look for it in your Common section. If you do
  not have a Common section, you cannot study that
  subject.
  Difficult Books, -3: The library has no introduc-
  tory texts, making it hard to study subjects in which
  one does not already have expert knowledge. Sub-
  tract the difference between the source book and the
  student’s level in the Ability from the amount of
  experience points in the library’s study pool.
  Study
  In order to use these mechanics, there must be a
  new way to study books, and a new way to write
  them, since the library has only a list of Abilities, not
  a Level and Quality for each book. The study system
  doesn’t have to be simple, since it’s the only activity
  the players have to worry about for an entire season,
  but I would like it if it were and I think it should be
  consistent. That is, I think it should follow the same
  basic formula when the character is studying from a
  book or from a teacher, or even writing a book for
  the library.
  Modified Library Characteristic
  Lib
  Level
  -5
  Essential 3/5
  -4
  Essential 4/6
  -3
  Essential 4/7, Basic 3
  -2
  Essential 5/8, Basic 4
  -1
  Essential 5/9, Basic 4, Common 3
  +0
  Essential 6/10, Basic 5, Common 4
  +1
  Essential 6/11, Basic 5, Common 5
  +2
  Essential 7/12, Basic 6, Common 5,
  Uncommon 3
  +3
  Essential 7/13, Basic 6, Common 5,
  Uncommon 4
  +4
  Essential 8/14, Basic 7, Common 6,
  Uncommon 4, Rare 3
  +5
  Essential 8/15, Basic 7, Common 6,
  Uncommon 5, Rare 4
  31
  
  As I see it, there are two characteristics that can
  apply to learning. The first represents a teacher’s abil-
  ity to communicate the subject to the student. The
  second is the student’s ability to understand the les-
  son. Between two people, these are represented by
  Communication and Intelligence. When one of the
  parties is the covenant, the covenant’s Library char-
  acteristic applies instead. The Ability being studied
  should also be accounted for in the formula, and also
  the participants’ proficiency with the language. Final-
  ly, when books are involved, a writing skill should
  apply.
  With these requirements, here’s what I developed.
  Assuming the teacher has a higher score in the abili-
  ty than the student, when he begins teaching he gen-
  erates a study pool of (Communication + Ability).
  Then the student generates a study total using his
  (Intelligence + Language). If the student is more
  proficient in the language than the teacher, he should
  use the teacher’s Language score instead. The student
  will gain this much experience in the Ability, but no
  more than the amount of experience in the pool.
  This may seem complicated, but I find it’s actual-
  ly pretty simple. The student usually gains his Intelli-
  gence + Language in experience points, though it
  could be less than that if the teacher can’t communi-
  cate very well. He can only learn up to the teacher’s
  level in the Ability. Finally, as usual in Fourth Edition,
  he can’t increase an Ability more than three levels in
  one season.
  So, as an example, let’s say Alphonse is teaching
  Jean how to fight with a single weapon. Alphonse has
  Com +2 and Single Weapon 5. To learn from
  Alphonse, Jean must have Single Weapon at 4 or low-
  er (less than 5). We’ll say Jean has Single Weapon 3,
  and so he can learn from Alphonse.
  They train together for a season. Jean is a good
  student, with Intelligence +1. They are speaking
  French, a language in which they are both fluent (5).
  The pool has 7 experience points in Single Weapon,
  and Jean can gain 6. If Alphonse did not speak
  French as well as Jean, this would limit his total fur-
  ther, as it would hinder their ability to communicate.
  Studying from a Library
  The covenant’s Library characteristic may be used
  like a character’s Communication. When a character
  studies from a book, he is essentially learning from
  the covenant, and the Library characteristic also
  Teaching Summary
  Teacher’s Ability must be greater than student’s
  Ability.
  Teacher’s Communication + Ability = study
  pool.
  Student’s Intelligence + Language = study total.
  Use the lesser of the student’s and the teacher’s
  Language Ability.
  The student gains experience points equal to his
  study total, but no more than the study pool. This
  total cannot raise an Ability higher than the
  teacher’s Ability or more than three levels.
  32
  
  represents the covenant’s influence when “teaching”
  that character. That is, a covenant with a low Library
  score has many distractions, poor quality books, and
  inconvenient study conditions. A high Library score
  indicates an organized, brightly illuminated covenant
  library, with few interruptions and books that are
  kept in excellent condition.
  Language isn’t really an issue in a library. That is,
  it may be assumed that all books are written profi-
  ciently unless there is some reason to penalize them,
  in which case the effective Level is simply lowered.
  When studying from a book, a student should use his
  Artes Liberales instead of the Ability being studied,
  but he is still limited by his knowledge of the lan-
  guage in which it is written (which is probably Latin
  unless otherwise specified).
  As another example, let’s apply the formula to
  library study. Mira wishes to study Philosophiae from
  her covenant’s library, which is rated at -3 and covers
  the subject up to level 5. She must have less than 5 to
  learn anything, and she has 0. She reads Latin mod-
  erately well (Artes Liberales 3, Latin 3) and is quite
  intelligent (Int +3), but the study source is so poor
  that she can only gain 2 experience points. She could
  have gained as much as 6 points from the same book
  in a better study environment.
  Specialized Study
  When studying a specialty, the student may add
  the covenant’s score in the base Ability to the experi-
  ence in the study pool. For example, if her library
  had Moral Philosophiae 2 in addition to Philosophi-
  ae 5, Mira could gain 4 experience points a season in
  the specialty, even in the poor study environment,
  though she could only raise her score in the special-
  ty to 2 at first because she cannot go higher than the
  covenant’s score.
  This makes it more efficient to study a specialty,
  because characters can advance faster in a specialty
  than in a general Ability. However, most libraries
  don’t start out with specialties, so this is a feature for
  covenants that have developed over time or whose
  founders spend their covenant Virtues to ensure
  exceptional training.
  The same rule applies when learning specialties
  from a teacher. Add the value of the base Ability to
  the totals when determining the experience in the
  study pool and study total.
  Writing for a Library
  Writing a book works the same way as studying
  from a book, but in reverse. Decide on a target level
  for the book, and determine the author’s (Communi-
  cation + Artes Liberales). This is the number of
  experience points that are placed in the book or
  added to the library.
  If Mira decided to write a book for her covenant
  on Theology, which she has at 5, the covenant must
  have no more than a 4 in the Ability, to avoid dupli-
  cating knowledge. The covenant has no Theology, so
  Mira begins writing. After a season, she adds her
  Communication (+3) to her Artes Liberales and
  compares her Latin, generating six Theology experi-
  ence points for the covenant. After the book is incor-
  porated into the library, the covenant would have
  Theology 3.
  Other Study Options
  This system is very flexible, and gives a lot of
  options for study, including teaching multiple stu-
  dents at once or writing about several subjects in one
  book.
  Mira could also study or write about several sub-
  jects at once, splitting up her experience into any
  number of Abilities as long as all of them were less
  than her Ability total. That is, if the library’s Medi-
  cine section was also lower than her Medicine score,
  she could write books on both Theology and Medi-
  cine in one season and divide the six experience
  points any way she chose among the two Abilities,
  perhaps resulting in Theology 2 and Medicine 2.
  In the same way, a teacher may teach multiple stu-
  dents at once. In this case, each student generates his
  own study total, and the teacher’s source total (study
  pool) is divided among all students involved. For
  example, if Mira taught Philosophiae to three identi-
  cal neophytes with Int +0 and Latin 3, each could
  gain a maximum of 3 experience points. Her source
  total would yield 6, so she could give 2 points to each
  student, or even distribute them unfairly if she
  wished: 3, 2 and 1, or even 3, 3 and 0.
  A student studying from a library may study mul-
  tiple subjects at once, as long as there is some reason
  those subjects would overlap. He determines the
  library’s source total and his own study total as nor-
  mal, using the lowest of (Library + Ability + special-
  ty). The resulting experience points can be assigned
  any way he chooses among the subjects studied.
  Writing Summary
  Author’s Ability must be equal to or greater than
  the target Ability.
  Author’s Communication + Artes Liberales =
  study total. Use the lesser of the author’s Artes Lib-
  erales and Language Abilities.
  The covenant gains experience points equal to
  the Study total. Note that this total cannot raise the
  Ability higher than the author’s Ability, or more
  than three levels in one season.
  Library Study Summary
  Covenant’s Ability must be greater than stu-
  dent’s Ability.
  Covenant’s Library + Ability = study pool.
  Student’s Intelligence + Artes Liberales = study
  total. Use the lesser of the student’s Artes Liberales
  and Language Abilities.
  The student gains experience points equal to his
  study total, up to the amount in the study pool.
  This cannot raise the Ability higher than the coven-
  ant’s Ability or more than three levels.
  33
  
  When writing about a specialty, the author may
  add her score in the base Ability to the specialty
  when generating a study pool. This can even be done
  when studying or writing about multiple subjects in
  one season, as long as they are all specialties of the
  same Ability. For example, an Artes Liberales tracta-
  tus could cover Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric.
  Spells can be dealt with as normal without using
  these rules, but using Level to determine which spells
  a starting covenant has on hand. Unique spells
  should be specially designed and listed separately.
  Use the laboratory rules to determine if a magus can
  learn or invent a spell, and the transcription rules to
  copy new spells for the library.
  To write about a mastered spell, or to study a spell
  for mastery, treat the character’s level of mastery as
  an Ability. A character must know the spell in order
  to study this Ability, but otherwise it may be devel-
  oped like any other Ability in the library.
  To serve the role of Hermetic tractatus in the
  game, I allow characters to use mastered spell Abili-
  ties as specialties when studying one of the related
  Arts, as long as they have some level of mastery in
  the spell. This is like saying the Arts are specialties
  for mastered spell Abilities that use them. That is,
  you determine the study pool by adding Library +
  spell Ability + Art. You can also add your score in
  the spell Ability when determining a maximum level
  you can write about for the related Arts.
  These changes make glossing a library useless,
  because all books have a standard Quality. Particular
  books can be poorly written, but those should be
  treated separately and can be glossed separately.
  However, characters can gain appropriate Virtues for
  their covenant by spending seasons glossing or illu-
  minating the books in their library, just like they can
  improve their defenses by building fortifications or
  improve their reputation by aiding their community.
  Covenfolk
  A final application of this system is the idea that
  standard grogs and covenfolk may be generalized
  with covenant Abilities. For example, if a covenant
  has a very good cook, that might be represented by
  giving the covenant Cooking 5. The character can be
  drawn up if it is likely to appear in a story, but oth-
  erwise the players just know that the covenant has a
  good cook, because it’s part of the design.
  It can also be assumed that a good cook can pass
  on his knowledge to others. By spending a season
  working in the kitchen, another grog could pick up
  some experience in the skill. In this sense, it’s like the
  covenant has a Cooking section of its library, even
  though that information isn’t stored in a book.
  Instead, it’s stored in a teacher.
  Perhaps the covenant has a training program for
  grogs. Rather than drawing up the sergeant as a char-
  acter, you can simply list his Single Weapon skill in
  the covenant’s Abilities. If grogs are training, you can
  treat him as a study source for Single Weapon and
  give them a season’s worth of experience.
  34
  
  When teaching directly from the covenant in this
  way, though, don’t use the Library characteristic. The
  Inhabitants score is much more appropriate for this
  sort of study, since it represents how well the coven-
  ant members get along with each other and partici-
  pate in this sort of teaching.
  And, rather than developing a stack of grog char-
  acters, to be searched out when the company goes
  out adventuring, you can simply assume that the
  characters bring a certain number of grogs along,
  and look to the Inhabitants Characteristic when you
  need to know what those grogs can do. For example,
  I would have to have a very high Inhabitants score to
  have a grog with an uncommon Ability like Perform
  or Legend Lore, but with Inhabitants -3 I would still
  have Basic Abilities like Brawl at 3.
  If you have a horrible Inhabitants score, like
  Inhabitants -5, it doesn’t mean that your grogs don’t
  have any Abilities, just that the Abilities they have
  aren’t applicable to their assigned duties. For exam-
  ple, the new shield grog might be a beggar who has
  never held arms before in his life. He has other skills,
  but they aren’t applicable to what he’s doing.
  If you’re using this idea, I suggest that every sea-
  son and after every adventure each magus and each
  companion gets one experience point to spend on
  covenant Abilities, to represent their grogs. You can
  also spend this experience on covenant specialties,
  like the professions I suggested earlier. For example,
  if you find your grogs using Awareness and Hunt a
  lot, you might put covenant experience in a Scout
  specialty. If your magi are often getting attacked, put
  it in Shield Grog.
  I have developed a few Virtues and Flaws to sup-
  port this concept.
  New Covenant Virtues and Flaws
  Fast Learners, +1: Your grogs pick up Abilities
  particularly well, making them a little better at what
  they do. Treat your Inhabitants score as two greater
  when determining starting grog Abilities.
  Sense of Community, +1: The people at the
  covenant get along better when teaching each other.
  Treat your Inhabitants score as one greater when
  studying Abilities.
  Specialized Grogs, +1: Your grogs are particu-
  larly accomplished in one area. Choose an Ability
  focus, such as Combat Abilities, or Casual Knowl-
  edges. Treat your Inhabitants score as one greater
  when determining starting grog Abilities in that area,
  or give them all a specialty with those sorts of skills.
  Teacher, +1: The covenant has a specialist, who
  is both accomplished at his craft and willing to share
  his skills with others. Take 15 points of experience to
  spend on Abilities or specialties that would not nor-
  mally be part of your covenant’s skill set. Any stu-
  dent who can spend the season helping and learning
  from the specialist can study this Ability.
  Specialists, +2: The covenant has access to spe-
  cialists who can teach Abilities to the people of the
  covenant. Take 45 points of Abilities or specialties
  that wouldn’t normally be part of your covenant’s
  library. These might all be taught by one specialist, or
  indicate three different specialists at the covenant.
  Lacking Grogs: -1: Your grogs don’t learn a par-
  ticular area of knowledge very well, or else you can’t
  seem to recruit grogs with many of those skills.
  Choose a focus, such as people Abilities or Strength
  Abilities. Treat your Inhabitants score as one lower
  when determining starting grog abilities in that area.
  Proud Covenfolk, -1: The members of the
  covenant are a very independent lot, and prefer to
  learn on their own. Treat your Inhabitants score as
  one less when studying Abilities.
  Slow Grogs, -1: Your grogs have become very
  lazy, or at least don’t learn very quickly. They haven’t
  improved their Abilities as much as they could have.
  Treat your Inhabitants score as two less when deter-
  mining starting grog Abilities.
  Conclusion
  With these additions, I hope I have demonstrated
  further how designing the covenant like a character
  can make it much easier to use, and greatly simplify
  the process of translating a collection of books into
  a ready resource for characters. As always, I’d love to
  read 
  your 
  comments,
  sent 
  either 
  to
  eriktdahl@yahoo.com or through the Ars Magica
  mailing list.
  Modified Inhabitants Characteristic
  Inh Level/Specialty
  -5
  Essential 0
  -4
  Essential 1
  -3
  Essential 2
  -2
  Essential 3, Basic 1
  -1
  Essential 3, Basic 2
  +0
  Essential 4, Basic 3, Common 1
  +1
  Essential 4, Basic 3, Common 2
  +2
  Essential 4, Basic 4, Common 3, Uncom-
  mon 1
  +3
  Essential 5, Basic 4, Common 3, Uncom-
  mon 2
  +4
  Essential 5, Basic 4, Common 4, Uncom-
  mon 3, Rare 1
  +5
  Essential 5, Basic 5, Common 4, Uncom-
  mon 3, Rare 2
  35
  
  Germanic
  Shapechangers
  The Primal Hedge Wizard Tradi-
  tion of Bjornaer the Founder
  by Jarkman
  S
  hapechangers exist in many magical traditions
  throughout Europe, but the most infamous
  with respect to the Order of Hermes is the
  loose gathering of Germanic shapechangers
  from which Bjornaer the Founder descended. Al-
  though more limited in power than the progressive
  descendants of Bjornaer and resistant to learning
  Hermetic magic, this small tradition has survived,
  hidden in their animal shapes throughout continental
  Europe. Mortal enemies of House Bjornaer, the
  shapechangers have tried to disrupt the Gathering of
  Twelve Years several times since House Bjornaer’s
  founding but have never mounted a significant threat
  to the Order. Despite this, they continue their guer-
  rilla war against the Hermetic branch of their tradi-
  tion and the Order in general, safely hidden from
  Hermetic magic in the form of their Heart-Shapes.
  The Germanic Shapechanger
  If run as player characters, Germanic shape-
  changers (referred to as shapechangers hereafter) are
  mystic companions. The troupe should decide whether
  the character occupies a player’s magus or compan-
  ion slot.
  All shapechangers begin with Animal Ken, Faerie
  Sight, Ways of the (Land) and the normally Bjornaer
  exclusive virtue Will over Form. They also start with
  the equivalent to the +2 Inner Bjornaer Mystery: The
  Many Forms (see Erik Dahl’s article “Bjornaer Mys-
  teries” Hermes Portal #2 p25-31) and a unique Inner
  Mystery: See Through the Hidden Shape (detailed
  below) that allows them to detect shapechanged
  Bjornaer and other members of their primal tradi-
  tion. Although Gifted, they suffer from only its social
  penalties with regard to mundane humans and not in
  regard to animals.
  Apart from shape shifting, the rest of their magi-
  cal talents are limited, and they have only a minor
  aptitude with a form of natural magic derived from
  their unique understanding of animal nature. They
  disdain learning other forms of magic, including both
  Hermetic magic (in which they can be trained, albeit
  with difficulty) and the common forms of continen-
  tal European hedge wizardry (see Hedge Magic, p5).
  All shapechangers start with the following ability
  scores: Animal Ken 2, (Area) Lore 2, Faerie Lore 2,
  Faerie Sight 2, Shapechanger Wisdom 2, Speak Own
  Language (Germanic) 5, Will over Form 4.
  All Germanic shapechangers receive age + 10 ex-
  perience points to spend on additional starting abili-
  ties. They have a starting minimum age of (21 - Intel-
  ligence).
  Shapechangers may choose up to 10 points each
  of balancing Virtues and Flaws, besides those gained
  automatically.
  Shapechanger Magic
  A shapechanger’s magic primarily involves the
  acquisition and mastery of different animal shapes
  and an understanding of shapechanging represented
  by their mastery of Will over Form. This form of
  magic was brought to the Order by Bjornaer but
  remains exclusive to her House, although the appli-
  cation of Hermetic theory has allowed her descen-
  dants to exceed some of its inherent limitations and
  develop it to a more sophisticated degree than the
  primal shapechangers can achieve.
  A shapechanger’s only others magic consist of a
  limited form of Animál based magic gained through
  their unique affinity with wild creatures. The ability
  to tune local faerie auras to a “Germanic” temper
  through pagan rituals has been suspected of this tra-
  dition, but its practice and mystery appears to have
  been lost over the centuries as the number of shape-
  changers has declined in the face of Hermetic
  expansion.
  Sometimes additional minor magical Exceptional
  Talents are found in a gifted individual (no more than
  two magical Exceptional Talents with a +1 Virtue
  cost such as Magic Sensitivity, Premonitions or Sec-
  ond Sight). Those shapechangers that pursue magic
  outside their gathering’s teachings and initiated
  Virtues (effectively any magical Exceptional Talent
  with a +2 or greater Virtue cost) are ostracised and
  earn the enmity of their peers, like Bjornaer before
  them. To this tradition, the pursuit of shapechanging
  is seen as the only sanctionable form of magic and
  36
  
  Bjornaer’s blasphemous learning of other magic
  compounded her betrayal of their shape shifting
  secrets.
  Hermetic Potential?
  As individuals with a warped, but otherwise full
  Gift, shapechangers can learn Hermetic Forms and
  Techniques, Magic Theory, Parma Magica and other
  aspects of Hermetic magic if properly trained. Just
  as the inexperienced Bjornaer was able to learn the
  basics of Bonisagus’ Hermetic magic from her tutor,
  Merinita; a young shape shifter may be able to absorb
  enough teaching to develop into a passable Hermet-
  ic magus. Such a path is tedious and difficult, invari-
  ably resulting in the shapechanger’s expulsion by his
  xenophobic brethren who will mark him as a traitor
  to be hunted down and slain. Like Bjornaer before
  him, a shapechanger is unlikely to master the full
  complexity of Hermetic magic, having been trained
  in an incompatible magic system prior to their
  apprenticeship. Unbalanced deficiencies with one or
  more Arts are likely, although an Affinity with Ani-
  mál with a score equal to the average of the shape-
  changer’s Animal Ken and Will over Form may off-
  set this. Other Hermetic flaws may be required how-
  ever as the shapechanger will likely be able to learn
  only a very stunted form of Hermetic magic (see
  Hermes Portal #8: ‘The Galdor Mysteries”, p45-49 by
  David Woods for further ideas on learning Hermetic
  magic after being initiated into a partially compatible
  magic tradition).
  A more plausible scenario (based on an idea first
  presented in Houses of Hermes, p47-48) is for an exiled
  shapechanger (perhaps one who has pursued more
  esoteric magical talents forbidden by their brethren),
  to petition to join the Order for protection. The flee-
  ing shapechanger could be sponsored into House
  Ex-Miscellanea provided they meet the minimum
  requirements (see Hedge Magic, p33), without needing
  to learn the full complexities of Hermetic magic
  (perhaps just the Parma Magica), becoming a newly
  accepted exotic lineage and entitled to the protection
  of the Code of Hermes.
  Regardless of
  how an exiled shapechanger
  attempts to join the Order, the potential political
  ramifications of an accepted exotic lineage outside of
  House Bjornaer privy to its Inner Mysteries are enor-
  mous. Any Bjornaer magi aware of the proposal will
  strongly oppose the shapechanger’s initial inclusion.
  Even if accepted at a Tribunal, the shapechanger will
  be considered to have all Bjornaer and his former
  brethren as Enemies (as the Flaw at -3 or -4 depend-
  ing on the Storyguide) and may be subject to assassi-
  nation attempts from both groups. In addition, all
  Roman heritage Hermetic magi will regard him as if
  he had both the Hedge-Wizard and Discredited Lin-
  eage flaws with no gain in balancing virtues.
  The repercussions of a large majority or the
  entire Germanic shapechanger tradition joining the
  Order en masse would have interesting major reper-
  cussions on any Saga featuring Bjornaer or Ex-Mis-
  cellanea heavily (see Houses of Hermes, p47-48).
  Bestial Affliction
  As a primal, unrefined form of magic linked to a
  shapechanger’s understanding of their Heart-Beast,
  the more often a shapechanger uses his magic, the
  more bestial he becomes. When a shapechanger
  botches using Will over Form or employing Animal
  Magic, the shapechanger gains a Bestial Affliction at
  level 0, or adds +1 to an existing Bestial Affliction,
  instead of checking to enter Twilight. Shapechangers
  may only gain five separate afflictions.
  Typical Bestial Afflictions might be: Horns,
  Fangs, Claws, Furred Hide, or Strong Musk depend-
  ing on the physical characteristics of the shape-
  changer’s Heart-Beast. Essentially the character slow-
  ly transforms into his Heart-Beast. When the shape-
  changer has five Bestial Afflictions at level 6 (the
  maximum level), he begins to lose his sanity. Further
  points are added to a Bestial personality trait. If the
  shapechanger’s Bestial personality trait reaches +6,
  he becomes a Beast of Virtue of the appropriate
  37
  
  type and flees into the wild as a non-player character.
  The cunning-folk of Germany believe that some of
  the Beasts of Virtue encountered in their lands were
  once elder Germanic shapechangers.
  Assume non-player character shapechangers gain
  one affliction point every five years.
  Will over Form
  As the ancestral tradition of Bjornaer, all shape-
  changers possess the exclusive magical talent Will
  over Form. This functions in all ways the same as the
  Bjornaer talent (see ArM4, The Medieval Bestiary and
  Hermes Portal #2: “Bjornaer Mysteries” for details)
  but the shapechanger may only choose an animal
  found in continental Mythic Europe as their Heart-
  Shape. They use the following formula to change
  shape:
  stress + Sta + Will over Form
  The ease factor target is 9 or above.
  It may also be used to resist transformation
  effects that target you specifically, allowing you a nat-
  ural resistance roll equal to that calculated above. A
  roll of 9 or above means that you resist the effect.
  The Many Forms
  You possess the power to discover multiple ani-
  mal shapes within yourself, each representing a dif-
  ferent facet of your personality, although your Heart-
  Beast remains the only true expression of your soul.
  You may learn a number of additional forms equal to
  your Will over Form as detailed in the Bjornaer Inner
  Mystery: The Many Forms (see Hermes Portal #2:
  “Bjornaer Mysteries” p29-30) and begin play with
  four additional forms learnt during your initial
  instruction by the traditions elders. At least one of
  these forms is an Avenging Form although the other
  shapes can be any animals found in continental
  Mythic Europe.
  See Through the Hidden Shape
  The primal ancestors of the Bjornaer have
  learned to recognize one another, even through the
  Hidden Shape. They can therefore recognize mem-
  bers of House Bjornaer in their Heart-Shape or oth-
  er inherent forms, a feat normally impossible
  through Hermetic magic. Shapechanged non-Bjor-
  naer Hermetics, and other hedge-wizard shape-
  changers, are even easier for them to spot. The
  shapechanger uses the following total:
  stress + Per + Will over Form
  The ease factor varies depending on the target
  according to the table below:
  Germanic shapechanger
  9 + Will over Form
  Bjornaer magus
  9 + Will over Form
  Other natural shapechangers
  6
  Hermetically transformed
  6
  Regency of Beasts
  This aspect of shapechanger magic is not com-
  mon knowledge outside of their gatherings and its
  existence is kept secret from outsiders. Bjornaer, as a
  young initiate of the tradition, had only rudimentary
  knowledge of this art but it was this specialised
  knowledge that formed the foundation of the Her-
  metic Art of Animal. Bjornaer’s inexperience with
  this magic is responsible for the traditional view
  amongst the Order that the Germanic shapechangers
  were incapable of other magic, a myth they encour-
  age for their own protection.
  To invoke a magical effect, a shapechanger must
  first determine the level of the desired effect. The
  effect is limited in the same way as a Hermetic spon-
  taneous spell. You can only create Animál-based
  effects, and only those that do not have a requisite.
  For example, a shapechanger cannot duplicate the
  effects of The Beast Remade (MuAn (Co) 25) because
  of its Corpus requisite. A shapechanger may only
  add their Will over Form score as a known Shape
  bonus if the animal to be affected is known to them
  as one of their mastered shapes. This roll is not mod-
  ified by the Words and Gestures table and requires
  neither words nor gestures to invoke. To invoke an
  effect requires an uninterrupted 5 minutes per mag-
  nitude of the desired effect.
  stress + Per + Animal Ken + known Shape
  bonus (if applicable) + aura
  If the roll is equal to or greater than the level of
  the equivalent Hermetic spell, then the effect occurs.
  The shapechanger loses a fatigue level regardless of
  the success or failure of the attempt. The shape-
  changer cannot use vis, either to increase the roll or
  boost the range and duration of the spell effect and
  cannot achieve a Ritual effect with this talent.
  Vis
  Although they hail from a similarly ancient Euro-
  pean tradition, unlike cunning-folk, shapechangers
  are not able to recognise and use Wild vis without
  requiring further virtues beyond their initial package
  — a practice discouraged by their shapechanger
  brethren. They cannot utilise the raw vis identified by
  Hermetic theory.
  Magic Resistance
  The Magic Resistance of a shapechanger is equal
  to their Will over Form and Faerie Sight scores only.
  Additional magical Exceptional Abilities whether
  38
  
  present at character creation or acquired later, do not
  contribute to this score. A shapechanger can gain the
  +4 virtue: Magic Resistance through initial purchase of
  the virtue or later initiation into their inner mysteries.
  Shapechanger Initiation
  A shapechanger may learn a new Exceptional Tal-
  ent by learning from elder shapechangers. The
  shapechanger generates a learning total based on:
  Stress die + Per + Shapechanger Wisdom
  Auras have no effect on this total.
  The character must have 3 points of Shape-
  changer Wisdom for every point of the Virtue Cost
  of the Talent. For example, learning Speech of
  Nature (a +3 Virtue) requires a Shapechanger Wis-
  dom score of 9.
  The ease factor to learn successfully the Excep-
  tional Talent is 10 times its Virtue cost. Thus Magical
  Music would have an ease factor of 20.
  The process requires at least one season. For each
  additional season spent in continuous study, the
  shapechanger adds a stress die to their learning total.
  Once the ease factor is reached, the shapechanger
  gains a score in that Talent of 1 if applicable. Experi-
  ence can then be applied in the usual fashion.
  All initiation rolls for shapechangers are stress. If
  a zero is rolled, the shapechanger’s learning has gone
  awry and he immediately gains one level in a Bestial
  Affliction. In addition, check for a botch. A botch
  reduces the study total to zero and the whole process
  must begin again. If no botch results, the shape-
  changer has learnt nothing that season but may con-
  tinue to study the Talent in subsequent seasons.
  Shapechangers can learn the following virtues:
  Incredible (or Great) Perception, Incredible (or
  Great) Stamina, Incredible (or Great) Strength,
  Speech of Nature (see Hermes Portal #2, p30), Magic
  Resistance, Ways of the (additional Land).
  Unlike their Bjornaer cousins, shapechangers
  cannot learn the +4 Virtue Inner Mystery: Mythic
  Forms (see Hermes Portal #2: “Bjornaer Mysteries”
  p30-31) as this was developed out of Bjornaer’s
  understanding of Hermetic techniques rather than as
  part of the heritage of her shapechanging tradition.
  Aura Interaction
  Shapechangers use the following additional col-
  umn of the Realm Interaction table to determine
  how they are affected by auras. A “Germanic” tuned
  faerie aura is one specifically linked to the Germanic
  Old Gods and pagan powers of Arcadia. Since the
  shapechangers have lost the strength and the myster-
  ies needed to tune faerie auras, such sites are rare in
  the current magical climate of Mythic Europe, hav-
  ing been displaced primarily by the encroachment of
  the Divine realm. Some regios and remnants survive
  dedicated to the old Germanic powers and these are
  the focal centres and refuges of the shapechanger
  brethren. “Other tuned” faerie auras refer to faerie
  auras tuned to either Slavic or other pagan religion
  tempers by Volkhvy Great Rituals or similar cere-
  monies (see The Dragon and the Bear, p70-74).
  Shapechanger Realm Interactions
  The following chart describes how the four dif-
  ferent realms affect aspects of a shapechanger’s mag-
  ic, which includes an aura modification:
  Aura
  Bonus/Penalty
  Magic
  +(1/2 aura rating)
  Divine
  - (2 x aura rating)
  Infernal
  - aura rating
  Faerie (“neutral”)
  + aura rating
  Faerie (“Germanic”)
  + (2 × aura rating)
  Faerie (“Other tuned”)
  - aura rating
  Bibliography & Inspiration
  Anonymous. “Bjornaer & Skinchangers” off the
  old Durenmar site.
  (Mechanics for See Through the Hidden Shape
  and some back story ideas)
  Dahl, Erik. “Bjornaer Mysteries” in Hermes Portal
  #2. Published by Eric Kouris.
  (Additional Bjornaer Virtues and rules on Will
  over Form).
  Shirley, Mark and Woods, David. Land of Fire &
  Ice. Atlas Games, 2003.
  (Mechanics for Affliction and Initiation; template
  of hedge-wizard tradition layout)
  Tweet, Jonathon M. Houses of Hermes. Renton,
  WA: Wizards of the Coast, 1994.
  (Back story and Story Hooks for Bjornaer ances-
  tors)
  Woods, David. “The Galdor Mysteries” in Hermes
  Portal #8. Published by Eric Kouris.
  (Framework for incorporating non-Hermetics
  into the Order)
  39
  
  Coming in Issue #14 of
  Hermes’ Portal
  Deconstructing Calebais
  by Erik Dahl
  Liturgical Cursing
  by Sheila Thomas
  Politics and Conflict:
  A Troubled Union
  by Alex White
  and your regular columns
  …
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Hermes' Portal/Hermes' Portal 13.pdf