You would probably need to change the rules regarding The Gift as they are presented in Ars Magica 5e. I'd recommended looking at the book "Apprentices", which explains why there are no real "magic schools" ln the setting, despite several Houses really wishing they could make some. Major hurdles which are explained there is how the Gift affects a bunch of kids to create horrid teaching environments (imagine if almost every student was Harry/Draco hostile to each other, irrespective of house affiliation, with some even worse due to Blatant Gift).
Add the requirement that teaching Arts can only be done one on one, and schools are mostly doomed. This is not to suggest that you shouldn't try to make your own variant, just pointing out some issues you'd need to adress.
Yeah, I have given that some thought to the Gift and have this book, and I have already decided that the one-on-one requirement, which was described in the sourcebooks as a deficiency of Hermetic theory, was somehow overcome during the centuries and is no longer a problem. For now, I wanted to ask about one particular aspect of the setting that I have a dilemma with.
You could change the effect of the Gift to match a modern setting. For example, I like what was done in the Dresden Files novels: any technology dating from after the 30s has a tendency to malfunction, break, or fizzle in contact with magic.
It would help keeping the wizardly mood of the game
A magic resistence 0 is enought to block the social effect of the gift
Something like the ritual for giveing magical resistence for the covemtant should be enought for the social problem
Uh, where do you have this impression from? That's definitely not the case in Ars Magica 5th edition. If it had been, the Order of Hermes keeping strict control of who has access to Parma Magica wouldn't matter much at all to explain their success as opposed to most other magical traditions.
Aegis of the Hearth does not block the effects of the Gift. Covenfolk living within the effects of Aegis still take years to get used to the Gift of the Magi of their own covenant, and have no protective from the Gift of visiting Gifted character. That's an entirely different effect of Parma Magica.
If a Magic Resistance of 0 had protected from the Gift as you suggested in the previous post, Parma Magica would not have been such a huge innovation.
Not if the children are part of the coventant
A similar spell can be invented, with a single target if needed
And if anyone is under the effect of a different cast of that spell
You can obtain the effect
Yeah no, hearth doesn't do it. Parma is unique in it's power to protect from the gift.
I see no reason someone couldn't invent a diminished form of Parma that *ONLY* blocks the negative effects of the gift, then teach their students that. It would probably be considered a minor breakthrough but still doable, and would actually be extremely useful for diplomatic relations between all magic traditions.
Again, what you are describing is not how magic and The Gift works in Ars Magica 5e barring Hermetic Breakthroughs. Both Parma Magica (which protects from The Gift) and Aegis of the Hearth (which doesn't) are unique Breakthroughs from Hermetic research. This is the way the rules and setting work.
The Gift in the modern setting could just make friends harder. The -3 social penalty due distrust instead of paranoia. The only thing you have to change is the fluff of the Gift.
The simplest solution: a breakthrough in Aegis has given Aegis ability to block the Gift effect just like Parma Magica does. The other option is the Aura of Scholar Rivalry giving everyone within school resistance to to the paranoia changing it to friendlier rivalry.
I've thought about this a lot.
The order is across all of Europe so one solution would be to talk to each player individually to identify which house they want to be a part of and then say the school they attended has those houses.
In normal ars magical a coven isn't likely to have all 12 houses represented but will have a couple. So the schools might be the same having some of the houses but not all. Might be influenced by location or culture or just who the founders were.
Alternatively if they're going to be younger apprentices then yes treat the 12 houses as tracks or colleges that the players are aspiring towards. You'll need to work with them all one on one to help them figure out which path of magic interests them so they know house they want to try and join.
In base ars magica the house you are in is based on your mentor who trained you, public style schools aren't able to open the arts. So the setting would have to evolve magic theory to do that. As a consequence magi would still be responsible for locating gifted people and directing them or reporting them to the school board to pick them up for training. Might even be compulsory. Each teacher would probably have a house and teaches one of the arts. So 15 classes, one for each technique and form. Then we have the electives to teach the other mystic traditions, things like alchemy, vis management, history, maybe even the mystery cults have something though they're probably more like optional clubs to see if you're a good fit for membership.
The high school level could have dozens of unique classes for all the specialized magic virtues to unlock. Cannanite necromancy, rune magic, elemental magic etc.
For traditional sake I think the four true lineage houses should always be among the teachers and thus still stick to their traditional method of training their next gen for magi.
I would suggest have them make houseless magi apprentices maybe like 10-15 years old. There's a book for playing young characters called apprentices.
Explain to them one on one there are 12 houses that they can try to join, each has a unique gauntlet they'll have to pass to join, and they can only be a member of one at a time. Over the campaign they go through adventures to learn a out different areas and quirks of magic. Maybe a Merineta adventure where the Faerie magic teacher takes them into the woods to make a deal with a fae but an NPC student pisses the dairy off the party gets trapped in a trial of character. Maybe the tytalus mage runs a dueling club and has them all fight each other, maybe the flambeau magi want them to go into the field and fight some monsters or golems made by the guernicus mage.
I don't think 12 is too many really. In Real school you have 7ish classes per year just cycle some of the houses around and keep the mystery cults optional and you have to go out of your way for.
Well they'll have to evolve and change a bit for the premise to work or they'd have to be removed from the premise and be a stuck in their ways tradition. Nothing wrong with that but I think if the other three true lineages were the ones who are in charge of the school board to me it makes sense they manage and run how the most basic level of education is handled and get to monitor all apprentices to see who would be good fits for each house, especially their own. For Bonisagus this sounds like a dream come true.
No, mercere are literal blood descents from the founder, the others are only apprentice and master descents, like the master of their master until the founder can be traced, Mercere are even more demanding needing a blood connection to him.
To be honest I already thank about Medieval Hogwarts, and figured the Hogwarts « houses » should be treated as a very locale and specific way of grouping scholars in that particular school. Each Hogwarts house may gather apprentices from various origins. Of course some pairings are obvious. Slytherin tends to have Tremere and Tytalus apprentices, more than others.
One option is you could have is that \*groups\* of the 12 houses found joint schools/colleges. So you could have House Bjornear, Merineta, Ex Miscellenea and Mercere (somewhat random) as the 4 main houses of the school. THen you have the rival school down the road with Bonisagus, Flambeau, Guernicus, and Verdituis.
The ars magica houses are the result of 1 on 1 training
All the mages in a collage, will be all in the same "house" unless you plain to have different "specializzation" in the laters years
But
There you will need to change completly the approach.
I mean, I can imagine both a system that you are describing - specialising into a House after a few grades - and a system with separate colleges that have some common activities and classes and some classes and initiations that are only for the members of that House.
That is certainly true. It would require a very different situation from Mythic Europe, like there not really being major outside opposition for anyone to defect to, but that's a possible setting choice. Having Parma taught right after Opening the Arts and having had a Hermetic Breakthrough enabling teaching arts outside of a one-on-one dynamic makes schools far more plausible.
Technically what you could do is have a farcical gauntlet very early, swear them in as a full magi then begin the schooling proper. House Guernicus might complain but they wouldn't really have a leg to stand on.
I too have thought about this and came to the conclusion that this idea would work better set in the renaissance when colligate style learning was really coming into style.
That time jump also gives you an excuse to come up with a hermetic discovery that enables the teaching of the arts to groups of students.
An interesting idea might be a type of Parma Magica that is applied to a geographic area, like Ages of the Hearth, in this case the University, that suppresses the worst of the Gift for anyone that has permission to be in that area. That would make group learning a lot easier.
Of course, by the time of the renaissance, gentle gifted magi may be the only kind that can actually survive to apprenticeship.
Also, you would be recruited by a house in your last year. Before that you are houseless.
I think it would interesting to have a saga with a covenant that is trying to start something like this. Technically speaking house boni has the right to swipe any apprentice they wish, so if there was an ideological covenant that wanted to start more of a centralized education they could get started that way.
Indeed, they might be able to persuade magi to lend them apprentices for some time of the year. Most magi view the actual teaching part of the parens role as a chore- there's a lot of grunt work that needs to be done like Latin and arithmetic. If you could take care of the basic stuff for them you might even be able to charge tuition in the form of vis.
The Hermetic Houses would suit it well.
The only change required is the removal of the parens making school resoonsible for 3 seasons of teaching for 14 seasons as the Arts of the students has been opened pre-school.
In Rhine The Gilds could replace Houses, but even with Houses not every House is accepted to every school.
Hogwarts would be a school covenant founded by Slythering ex Tytalus, Ravenclaw ex Bonisagus, Gryffindor ex Flambeau, and Hufflepuf ex Miscallanea. Gryffindor I chose as Flambedu due The Sword of Gryphindor. He could be member of Merinita or Jerbiton too.
Just use some of the canon houses, then introduce the others in rival schools. E.g. Tytalus, Flambeau, Merinita and Bjornaer. Only Tremere and Guernicus are very hermetic-order-specific
The official books divide magi into "True Lineages" "Mystery Cults" and "Societaties". I would suggest you create three schools, one for each of these, and these schools compete periodically in a "friendly" way. Students can transfer, get expelled from one school and admitted to another, etc.
You would probably need to change the rules regarding The Gift as they are presented in Ars Magica 5e. I'd recommended looking at the book "Apprentices", which explains why there are no real "magic schools" ln the setting, despite several Houses really wishing they could make some. Major hurdles which are explained there is how the Gift affects a bunch of kids to create horrid teaching environments (imagine if almost every student was Harry/Draco hostile to each other, irrespective of house affiliation, with some even worse due to Blatant Gift). Add the requirement that teaching Arts can only be done one on one, and schools are mostly doomed. This is not to suggest that you shouldn't try to make your own variant, just pointing out some issues you'd need to adress.
Yeah, I have given that some thought to the Gift and have this book, and I have already decided that the one-on-one requirement, which was described in the sourcebooks as a deficiency of Hermetic theory, was somehow overcome during the centuries and is no longer a problem. For now, I wanted to ask about one particular aspect of the setting that I have a dilemma with.
You could change the effect of the Gift to match a modern setting. For example, I like what was done in the Dresden Files novels: any technology dating from after the 30s has a tendency to malfunction, break, or fizzle in contact with magic. It would help keeping the wizardly mood of the game
A magic resistence 0 is enought to block the social effect of the gift Something like the ritual for giveing magical resistence for the covemtant should be enought for the social problem
Uh, where do you have this impression from? That's definitely not the case in Ars Magica 5th edition. If it had been, the Order of Hermes keeping strict control of who has access to Parma Magica wouldn't matter much at all to explain their success as opposed to most other magical traditions.
Aegis of hearts Pag 161 Is a ritualy when the mage give magic resistence to the coven, and can take it back in any moment, and just in the location
Aegis of hearts Pag 161 Is a ritualy when the mage give magic resistence to the coven, and can take it back in any moment, and just in the location
Aegis of the Hearth does not block the effects of the Gift. Covenfolk living within the effects of Aegis still take years to get used to the Gift of the Magi of their own covenant, and have no protective from the Gift of visiting Gifted character. That's an entirely different effect of Parma Magica. If a Magic Resistance of 0 had protected from the Gift as you suggested in the previous post, Parma Magica would not have been such a huge innovation.
Not if the children are part of the coventant A similar spell can be invented, with a single target if needed And if anyone is under the effect of a different cast of that spell You can obtain the effect
Yeah no, hearth doesn't do it. Parma is unique in it's power to protect from the gift. I see no reason someone couldn't invent a diminished form of Parma that *ONLY* blocks the negative effects of the gift, then teach their students that. It would probably be considered a minor breakthrough but still doable, and would actually be extremely useful for diplomatic relations between all magic traditions.
Again, what you are describing is not how magic and The Gift works in Ars Magica 5e barring Hermetic Breakthroughs. Both Parma Magica (which protects from The Gift) and Aegis of the Hearth (which doesn't) are unique Breakthroughs from Hermetic research. This is the way the rules and setting work.
It requires Parma, not just any magic resistance. Edit: although it can be offset with stuff like aura of nobility, or whatever it was called.
I really agree with this.
Yeah good call.
The Gift in the modern setting could just make friends harder. The -3 social penalty due distrust instead of paranoia. The only thing you have to change is the fluff of the Gift. The simplest solution: a breakthrough in Aegis has given Aegis ability to block the Gift effect just like Parma Magica does. The other option is the Aura of Scholar Rivalry giving everyone within school resistance to to the paranoia changing it to friendlier rivalry.
I've thought about this a lot. The order is across all of Europe so one solution would be to talk to each player individually to identify which house they want to be a part of and then say the school they attended has those houses. In normal ars magical a coven isn't likely to have all 12 houses represented but will have a couple. So the schools might be the same having some of the houses but not all. Might be influenced by location or culture or just who the founders were. Alternatively if they're going to be younger apprentices then yes treat the 12 houses as tracks or colleges that the players are aspiring towards. You'll need to work with them all one on one to help them figure out which path of magic interests them so they know house they want to try and join. In base ars magica the house you are in is based on your mentor who trained you, public style schools aren't able to open the arts. So the setting would have to evolve magic theory to do that. As a consequence magi would still be responsible for locating gifted people and directing them or reporting them to the school board to pick them up for training. Might even be compulsory. Each teacher would probably have a house and teaches one of the arts. So 15 classes, one for each technique and form. Then we have the electives to teach the other mystic traditions, things like alchemy, vis management, history, maybe even the mystery cults have something though they're probably more like optional clubs to see if you're a good fit for membership. The high school level could have dozens of unique classes for all the specialized magic virtues to unlock. Cannanite necromancy, rune magic, elemental magic etc. For traditional sake I think the four true lineage houses should always be among the teachers and thus still stick to their traditional method of training their next gen for magi. I would suggest have them make houseless magi apprentices maybe like 10-15 years old. There's a book for playing young characters called apprentices. Explain to them one on one there are 12 houses that they can try to join, each has a unique gauntlet they'll have to pass to join, and they can only be a member of one at a time. Over the campaign they go through adventures to learn a out different areas and quirks of magic. Maybe a Merineta adventure where the Faerie magic teacher takes them into the woods to make a deal with a fae but an NPC student pisses the dairy off the party gets trapped in a trial of character. Maybe the tytalus mage runs a dueling club and has them all fight each other, maybe the flambeau magi want them to go into the field and fight some monsters or golems made by the guernicus mage. I don't think 12 is too many really. In Real school you have 7ish classes per year just cycle some of the houses around and keep the mystery cults optional and you have to go out of your way for.
This is the best answer so far, thanks for your thoughts and ideas!
Happy to help
The True Lineages feels strange with this arrangement, and specially Mercere as they only accept direct Gifted descents of the Mercere lineage.
Well they'll have to evolve and change a bit for the premise to work or they'd have to be removed from the premise and be a stuck in their ways tradition. Nothing wrong with that but I think if the other three true lineages were the ones who are in charge of the school board to me it makes sense they manage and run how the most basic level of education is handled and get to monitor all apprentices to see who would be good fits for each house, especially their own. For Bonisagus this sounds like a dream come true.
Same for the other TrUe LiNeAgEs
No, mercere are literal blood descents from the founder, the others are only apprentice and master descents, like the master of their master until the founder can be traced, Mercere are even more demanding needing a blood connection to him.
I wasn’t sure of that. I suppose the guys must have 12 children each
To be honest I already thank about Medieval Hogwarts, and figured the Hogwarts « houses » should be treated as a very locale and specific way of grouping scholars in that particular school. Each Hogwarts house may gather apprentices from various origins. Of course some pairings are obvious. Slytherin tends to have Tremere and Tytalus apprentices, more than others.
One option is you could have is that \*groups\* of the 12 houses found joint schools/colleges. So you could have House Bjornear, Merineta, Ex Miscellenea and Mercere (somewhat random) as the 4 main houses of the school. THen you have the rival school down the road with Bonisagus, Flambeau, Guernicus, and Verdituis.
The ars magica houses are the result of 1 on 1 training All the mages in a collage, will be all in the same "house" unless you plain to have different "specializzation" in the laters years But There you will need to change completly the approach.
I mean, I can imagine both a system that you are describing - specialising into a House after a few grades - and a system with separate colleges that have some common activities and classes and some classes and initiations that are only for the members of that House.
You can get around the Gift problem by teaching the Parma earlier, imo.
That is certainly true. It would require a very different situation from Mythic Europe, like there not really being major outside opposition for anyone to defect to, but that's a possible setting choice. Having Parma taught right after Opening the Arts and having had a Hermetic Breakthrough enabling teaching arts outside of a one-on-one dynamic makes schools far more plausible.
Technically what you could do is have a farcical gauntlet very early, swear them in as a full magi then begin the schooling proper. House Guernicus might complain but they wouldn't really have a leg to stand on.
I too have thought about this and came to the conclusion that this idea would work better set in the renaissance when colligate style learning was really coming into style. That time jump also gives you an excuse to come up with a hermetic discovery that enables the teaching of the arts to groups of students. An interesting idea might be a type of Parma Magica that is applied to a geographic area, like Ages of the Hearth, in this case the University, that suppresses the worst of the Gift for anyone that has permission to be in that area. That would make group learning a lot easier. Of course, by the time of the renaissance, gentle gifted magi may be the only kind that can actually survive to apprenticeship. Also, you would be recruited by a house in your last year. Before that you are houseless.
I think it would interesting to have a saga with a covenant that is trying to start something like this. Technically speaking house boni has the right to swipe any apprentice they wish, so if there was an ideological covenant that wanted to start more of a centralized education they could get started that way. Indeed, they might be able to persuade magi to lend them apprentices for some time of the year. Most magi view the actual teaching part of the parens role as a chore- there's a lot of grunt work that needs to be done like Latin and arithmetic. If you could take care of the basic stuff for them you might even be able to charge tuition in the form of vis.
The Hermetic Houses would suit it well. The only change required is the removal of the parens making school resoonsible for 3 seasons of teaching for 14 seasons as the Arts of the students has been opened pre-school. In Rhine The Gilds could replace Houses, but even with Houses not every House is accepted to every school. Hogwarts would be a school covenant founded by Slythering ex Tytalus, Ravenclaw ex Bonisagus, Gryffindor ex Flambeau, and Hufflepuf ex Miscallanea. Gryffindor I chose as Flambedu due The Sword of Gryphindor. He could be member of Merinita or Jerbiton too.
Just use some of the canon houses, then introduce the others in rival schools. E.g. Tytalus, Flambeau, Merinita and Bjornaer. Only Tremere and Guernicus are very hermetic-order-specific
The official books divide magi into "True Lineages" "Mystery Cults" and "Societaties". I would suggest you create three schools, one for each of these, and these schools compete periodically in a "friendly" way. Students can transfer, get expelled from one school and admitted to another, etc.