Timothy Ferguson's Blog, page 3

Go buy the other Ars Magica Venice book now

One of the team from the other Ars Magica Venice book reached out to me and asked if I could support their Backerkit campaign with a podcast episode, and I’m happy to. I’d like to quickly note this isn’t a paid advertisement and I don’t have any access beyond my status as a subscriber to their campaign. I’d like to encourage you to back them, and particularly their Ars Magica add-on. The link is https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/vortex-verlag/serenissima-obscura-rpg-setting-guide-adventure

I’m sorry if this is something of a ramble, but you deserve content beyond me saying “Just buy it” and I thought as the only other person who has tried what they’re doing I might be able to shine some light on the process. I’m sorry if this seems like a ramble about myself, but it’s about my writing process and why having one book on Venice means you want a second one.

I want you to want a second book because I’ve always intended to give you more Venetian books myself. In the writing of Mythic Venice you can see bits where I’ve obviously said “…and here goes a future supplement”. Off the top of my head they are the covenant, the ghetto, the Merceria, the demonic cathedral of Torcello, and the arsenal. Serenissima Obscura can fill some of those gaps.

You may ask why I didn’t wait until all of that material was written and put it out in one book. There are several factors. I needed a break from Venice: I write because I have post-treatment mental health conditions and that means I can only do my work in waves. This is why you get personal humiliations like me ghosting the poor fellow who was laying out the Cornwall book. I can, to some degree, compensate by running several projects so that the waves overlap each other’s lull points. That’s why the podcast is built on three “streams”, or subjects, you see. I have six in the can on Mythic Chester, now I’m going to put some in the can on Venetian faeries, then monsters. I then hide that my releasing them in a pattern. I had 150 pages of text, or thereabouts, and it could be a book or it could be scattered podcast episodes until I had that energy again, so a book was the obvious choice.

My writing is, as I’ve said, for me. a therapeutic tool., but I still want it to be useful. The added bits above would be at least three times the length of the central bit I’ve given you. It’s like asking why not wait until you’ve written the Winds in Winter before putting out Song of Fire and Ice. You want to know if people like it before spending years on it, and cutting it into chunks lets me know if people are finding it useful. A lot of RPG authorship is just sending books into the void and hoping they find someone who likes them. Doing it in sections lets me stop if I discover, or people I trust tell me, that its not any good. Yes: I know I’ve written dozens of books: I honestly don’t know how good some of them are. Support matters, particularly for something like Serenissima Obscura. It’s got a team of 16 and their sunk costs have to be huge compared to my tiny art budget.

A second concern was I knew a medieval Venetian book was on the way. Not Serenissima Obscura, though, a separate one by a company that’s D&D only. Since we are both, I presume, using the same folklore I was concerned people might think my work was a port of theirs. I needn’t have worried because in hindsight their Constantinople book is nothing like our Constantinople book so their Venice book won’t be like mine. I think my concern was mainly because my algorithms have me pretty firmly pinned and I was getting their adverts constantly. Also, their art was gorgeous and I knew I’d be using public domain art. I only realized I was in an algorithmic bubble because I’m now getting Serenissima Obscura adverts many times a day. The algorithm knew I’d spent money on Venetian books so it was constantly telling me that another book was coming. Having felt that it, I can empathize with the people working on Serenissima Obscura suddenly finding that everyone who backed Ars 5DE was getting a free Venice book. Neither of us knew the other existed. I’d tried signaling what I was doing, [daily posts of progress as part of #dungeon23 / #City23 for a while) but I believe they are from the German speaking bit of the fandom and somehow our paths didn’t cross.

A problem for them, and they haven’t told me this I’m just extrapolating from my own feelings,. is not just that there’s a book already out on your subject: it’s also that Mythic Venice anchors the mind of Ars players at a very low price point. I’m glad someone is doing the big shiny book with all of the associated costs so the rest of us can see how it performs. People write to me asking “Why can’t I get your Ars Magica magazine in paper?” and my reply is that I’m not sure it’ll sell enough to cover its electronic costs, let alone shipping and printing a physical edition. I did a couple of tip jar pdfs, and now a paid magazine, and that’s giving all of us creators a feel for market size because we are sharing data on the Atlas boards. We are watching this Backerkit to see if it works.

If we, as a community, want big chunky Ars books, we need to buy the big chunky books. When I went looking for the Backerkit link for Serenissima Obscura I saw that I originally joined Kickstarter to put $235 behind Black Chicken Studio’s Ars Magica computer game. I admit mostly I wanted it because one of the backer rewards was a Diedne house book. Take the lesson: we could have had a Diedne book in 2012. When the Ars community signals it is too small to support a certain type of project, the creators don’t make that type of project.

Don’t be fooled by the Backerkit saying it is “fully funded”. All that means for most crowdfunding is that the team have enough seed capital to gamble on making their product. I don’t know in the case of Vortex Verlog, but I really, truly doubt that the situation is that if it all stopped now and they fulfilled all of their orders they’d be rolling in so much cash they’d be desperate to do the whole thing again. Most people advertise projects are “fully funded” to promise this project is not vapourware. Fully funded is not the same as “The people making this are now safe and renumerated.”

So, parts of Mythic Venice are going to be wonderfully completed by Serenissima Obscura instead of me doing it. For example their Backerkit shows maps for a character-owned Venetian palace. Mythic Venice had an art budget of $600 and most of that were the floor plans for the Doge’s Palace. I can now skip paying that and say “Hey, there’s a great bit of art over at Serenissima Obscura!” and concentrate on other bits. For example if you’re following the podcast you know I’m writing a Merceria vendor per month to work underutilised monsters and collect up a new book.

Even if they have a faerie market in the Merceria, and I don’t know if they do but clearly I would, it won’t be the same as my faerie market and Ars players can enjoy both. As I’ve noted to people on various bits of social media my gateway character to the Merceria is based on Edward Cole, an eccentric Australian bookseller from the end of the 19th Century. Also, my task is to revitalize monsters we’ve statted but not used, the gorgon maskmakers being an example. Serenissima Obscura’s Merceria can’t be similar because they have a different story focus and are bringing different cultural capital to the experience. I’m sure the two will mix and match at your table.

When I started the Venice project I’d finished some of my source documents and I rapidly consumed guidebooks to get the lie of the land. I read one, and then took more hooks from the next, and more from the next, until I think I stopped at my sixth, with two plot hooks I could use and a heap of ahistorical things I was deeply annoyed by when I tried to confirm them as historically plausible. I should find my notebook because I really should have used them and just flagged them as impossible in 1220, given the time shenanigans I was playing with in Venice. Sure, there’s a futility point when it comes to reading Venetian guidebooks, but it’s well above two.

Let’s get more specific, what do I actively like in this project beyond the art? It says it’ll have 60 Ars Magica monsters, and as far as I know there are only about 620 monsters in the core books, plus roughly 100 in my bestiary. So, that’s a huge addition. Also, I feel like their monsters may be a useful bridge for people used to playing Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve only seen the one example, their stone winged lion, but it does let me talk about another difference in approach.

Mythic Venice is for people who have been playing Ars Magica enough that the question “Where did Tytalus go after the Maddenhoffen Woods?” isn’t gibberish and it salvages the idea from 2nd edition’s Order of Hermes supplement that Venice is a crossroads of the Order, despite that making no sense at all in historical 1187 or 1220. Serenissima Obscura is more likely, and this is a guess, to appeal to people from the game where you kill monsters and take their treasure. This is not a criticism: I play D&D with my kids and they’re far more likely to go to Serenissima Obscura than Mythic Venice.. Now that D&D has adopted milestone experience it can be played a lot more like Ars, but in classic D&D most monsters are generic, whereas in Ars monsters are generally individuals. This guess is based on the number of tribes of things mentioned in Serenissima Obscura’s social media posts. Ars had hrools to take the place of goblins and kobolds, then we went “No, I wish to keep them as pets” and we’ve not really done tribes since, although the dog-headed men from the faerie book will be coming back soon. Less ice magic, more St Christopher medallions. Oh, and the bleymes, I suppose, but I needed Isis cultists: it’s not like they are combat monsters.

As an example, they’ve only published one set of Ars stats for a monster I’m aware of, and it was the stone winged lions. I’d never have done that because I’m more interested in the statue as a piece of repurposed Egyptian protective sorcery that has been blessed and claimed by Saint Mark. For them it’s a species of creature, for me it’s mystery cult clue (with a side order plot hook of who stole its diamond eyeballs and how). Now in saying I didn’t even think of it I’m not saying it’s bad: I remember writing to Ben McFarland, the author of the Dragon Abbot, saying that I would never have thought to write that and it was brilliant. My point is that our two approaches mean you’ll get different, likely compatible stuff between the two books.

I’m really pleased that their covenant is in Murano. It’s a brilliant setting. It has a heap of useful features for Ars Magica built in. The island is the home of the Venetian glass trade, has a nobility that is drawn from people who make mirrors, and has formal equality for women who run glassworks. It also has the sort of canals and palaces you find in Venice proper, so it gives you all of the picturesque advantages of the setting. It also (time to delve into one of my faeries coming up) gives you the bead stringers. All around Venice you see women stringing glass beads. It’s the sort of piecework any poor person can do even if they lack leg mobility. The thing is, the beads are in meaningful patterns: the bead industry of Venice is an enormous code engine inscribing variations of the same thing over and over, like a prayer. I have a use for that in my setting, obviously, but I’m interested to see what the other group do with it, if anything. One thing I’m not doing, but which might be a cool plot idea so I’ll mention it now, is to revisit the idea that the Diedne went to South America and merged with the sacrificial cults there. What exactly are all these people making quipus, Incan bead texts, for? Anyhow, I’ve sidetracked myself.

The Serenissima Obscura team are good at social media. They’ve been collaborating fiercely over on the Ars Magica Discord. I can’t get the hang of Discord. Part of it is that I’m in Australia so you’re all asleep while I’m there. The other part is I’m really bad at social media. Well, being social in general. I admire their energy level and their ability to bring people together.

Also, they may be having a go at Ars firearms. I tried once in the Mythic China thing, long ago. It was…alright I suppose but I’d be glad to see fresh take on it.

Before I round up, just a note. Some people know from little mentions here and there that I was working on D&D Ravenloft port of Mythic Venice I’d called “Serenissima”. I’m still letting it bubble away in the background but I’m going to call it something else. Also, in tone it will be very different from Serenissima Obscura (we need an abbreviation for this), unless it turns out they were going hard for camp horror. I was stuck thinking “Oh, this is just more urban D&D and between Principalities of Glantri, Serenissima Obscura and that other D&D Venice book the useful work has already been done” but unless they really like “Carry On Screaming” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” actually no…I’ve got a very arch take I’d like to try.

So: go buy their stuff. 60 Ars monsters. 150 characters. A covenant in Murano. Floor maps for a palace. What more could you want? Do I need to guilt you again by mentioning Black Chicken Game Studio? I’m on the far side of the world, so I’ve backed at the electronic levels. Shipping and tariffs are no barrier.

When this goes live, there are 19 days left.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/vortex-verlag/serenissima-obscura-rpg-setting-guide-adventure

Two merfolk

For our monster of the month, two merfolk variants. One is a vicious triton similar to the Daughter Summoned To the Comb in Mythic Europe Magazine #1, with an added power to enthrall via eye contact. The other is a faerie seducer. These recordings were made for Librivox by Dale Grothmann and Alan Mapstone. Thanks to them and their teams. Stats eventually.

***

Left by the Tide by Edward E Schiff

Were it not for that four-inch scar upon my forehead, I would have thought it a nightmare—some ghastly hallucination, even though it happened in broad daylight. But there is that scar, which mars my features for life, tangible and terrible evidence to prove that I did not dream it.

I had gone down to the beach with the rising sun, but I was the only one there. None of the other guests from the hotel had yet come down to take their early morning plunge. A charity affair that did not break up till 3 o’clock that morning kept them abed. So I was alone upon that sun-drenched stretch of sand.

The tide was low and I had to walk some hundred yards before I was waist-deep and breasting the invigorating waters of old ocean. I swam out at once to a pile of rocks, a good quarter of a mile from the shore, and climbed out upon them. Now, at low tide, they formed a nearly circular, barnacle- and weed- covered island, about fifty feet in diameter and rising only a few feet above the waters. After resting a few minutes I clambered over the jagged stones toward the center, where there was a depression about six or seven feet deep and about the same width, and where the retreating waters sometimes left strange denizens of the deep, which could be observed under ideal conditions. Just before I reached the little pool, I thrilled to the sound of a splash of a heavy body. The tide had left something there with a vengeance, I thought gleefully, and I hastened forward to see what it was.

I stared, sickened by what I saw a dead man, with shriveled, shrunken skin, hollow cheeks, and hideous in apparently the last stages of putrefaction. There he was floating on his back a bare few inches below the surface. His hands were under him, and at first I thought he was naked.
Then, as I overcame my first horror, I noted that he had a sort of apron about his loins—an apron made of what appeared to be the scales of a large fish. It was a curious garment and covered with green algae or sea moss. The man must have been dead a long time to have allowed for the formation of that slime. I puzzled over this, wondering how it was he remained whole and not half devoured by the scavengers of the sea. Then suddenly I remembered the splash I had heard. Who had made it? Not the dead man. Closely I searched the pool for some other sign of life, but except for a sea crab or two there was none. Turning my attention to the body again, I scrutinized it closely and felt my scalp twitch when I thought I detected a barely perceptible rising and falling of the chest. The more I stared the more certain I was that I was not mistaken. But drowned men do not breathe, I told myself ; I must be laboring under a hallucination. I turned my eyes away and gazed out over the sea and sky to rest them, and when I turned them back again I was shocked into an exclamation. The body had moved toward me.

I could still see the faint traces of the eddy it had made to reach me. But dead men can not move and there was no wave or tide or any breath of wind that could propel it within that enclosed space. Now I was certain it was breathing. The slight but definitely regular expansion and contraction of the chest were caused by respiration. I could not be mistaken.

Then suddenly the lids flashed open and I was staring into its eyes. And they were the eyes of a living creature, sea-green and evil, that probed through mine into the very recesses of my brain with satanic curiosity. Then, still holding me with its baleful gaze, the thing reached for the brink with huge hands that were webbed like those of some aquatic bird, and started to pull itself up.
Somehow I broke the spell by which the thing held me, and, half mad with loathing and horror, I kicked him with my bare foot back into the pool.

I think I stumbled half back to the open water before I recovered my courage and paused to look back. It had come out of the pool and was dragging its slimy length over the rocks toward me. I realized at once it could not walk upright and that I would have no difficulty in evading
it.

With unmitigated loathing I watched it crawl until it approached to within a few feet of me. Then I backed away from it, taking care to avoid being crowded into the sea where it could easily outmaneuver me with its finlike appendages. Again it tried to hold me with its hypnotic stare, but I avoided its eyes, and, stooping down, picked up a fragment of rock and tried to threaten it back. Suddenly it, too, reached out and picked up a stone, and we both threw at the same moment. I was completely beside myself with horror and missed him by inches, while he caught me fairly on the chest —a blow that knocked the breath out of me and dropped me to my knees.

The next moment he was upon me, his powerful hands closing about my throat, his cold, slimy body against my cringing, warm flesh, his fetid breath in my nostrils. I fought, fought in a stark, frenzied madness that promised to rid me of his clinging, hateful weight, When suddenly he released one of his hands from my throat, and I could feel him fu;mble around his waist. The next moment I would have been free of him, but his hand came up again wielding a stone or coral knife. I screamed and tried to evade the blow, but wvhile I spoiled his aim for my throat he managed to inflict that awful gash on my forehead.

When I came back to consciousness it was with a cry of terror, in the arms of two men who were lifting me into a skiff; and for some minutes I struggled with them, before I realized they were my rescuers. Their story is briefly told. They had observed me from the beach apparently trying to avoid some creature which they thought was a seal. They quickly got into a skiff and rowed to the rocks, shouting to frighten off the creature when they saw me struggling with it. Then for a minute or two I was out of their sight, hidden by a projecting rock, and when they again saw me I was alone and lying flat on my back, though a moment before they had heard the thing splash into the sea.

That is their story. Mine they would not believe. In fact, they tried to stop me in the telling of it, and attempted to soothe me as if I were a terror-stricken child, or crazy. They said I had injured my forehead by falling on a jagged stone. But that day two bathers were pulled down to their death by some creature of the sea.

Sharks, they all said. But I know better.

The Water-Nymph by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

In lakeside leafy groves, a friar
Escaped all worries; there he passed
His summer days in constant prayer,
Deep studies and eternal fast.
Already with a humble shovel
The elder dug himself a grave –
As, calling saints to bless his hovel,
Death – nothing other – did he crave.

So once, upon a falling night, he
Was bowing by his wilted shack
With meekest prayer to the Almighty.
The grove was turning slowly black;
Above the lake a mist was lifting;
Through milky clouds across the sky
The ruddy moon was softly drifting,
When water drew the friar’s eye…

He’s looking puzzled, full of trouble,
Of fear he cannot quite explain,
He sees the waves begin to bubble
And suddenly grow calm again.
Then – white as first snow in the highlands,
Light-footed as nocturnal shade,
There comes ashore, and sits in silence
Upon the bank, a naked maid.

She eyes the monk and brushes gently
Her hair, and water off her arms.
He shakes with fear and looks intently
At her, and at her lovely charms.
With eager hand she waves and beckons,
Nods quickly, smiles as from afar
And shoots, within two flashing seconds,
Into still water like a star.

The glum old man slept not an instant;
All day, not even once he prayed:
Before his eyes still hung and glistened
The wondrous, the relentless shade…
The grove puts on its gown of nightfall;
The moon walks on the cloudy floor;
And there’s the maiden – pale, delightful,
Reclining on the spellbound shore.

She looks at him, her hair she brushes,
Blows airy kisses, gestures wild,
Plays with the waves – caresses, splashes –
Now laughs, now whimpers like a child,
Moans tenderly, calls louder, louder…
‘Come, monk, come, monk! To me, to me!..’
Then – disappears in limpid water,
And all is silent instantly…

On the third day the zealous hermit
Was sitting by the shore, in love,
Awaiting the delightful mermaid,
As shade was covering the grove…
Dark ceded to the sun’s emergence;
Our monk had wholly disappeared –
Before a crowd of local urchins,
While fishing, found his hoary beard.

Hart-leap Well by William Wordsworth

In Ars Magica, places that are old develop Magical auras. This is particularly true of places that have been used for arcane practice, like temples, but more generally, if you find a ruin, and it goes back to the Roman era, it may well have a Magical aura. The question is, can that process of the rising Magic aura caused by the sheer grinding of time wipe away an Infernal aura, if that Infernal aura isn’t being reinforced by constant acts of sin? Perhaps a covenant is keeping an eye on an infernally tainted place to see if this is possible. I mention this, because that seems to be what’s happening in Hart’s-leap Well, our poem for this week.

Thanks to the Librivox recorder, Peter Tucker, and his production team.

Part the First

text variant footnote line number
The Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor
With the slow motion of a summer’s cloud
And now, as he approached a vassal’s door,
“Bring forth another horse!” he cried aloud.

“Another horse!”—That shout the vassal heard
And saddled his best Steed, a comely grey;
Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third
Which he had mounted on that glorious day.

Joy sparkled in the prancing courser’s eyes;
The horse and horseman are a happy pair;
But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies,
There is a doleful silence in the air.

A rout this morning left Sir Walter’s Hall,
That as they galloped made the echoes roar;
But horse and man are vanished, one and all;
Such race, I think, was never seen before.

Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind,
Calls to the few tired dogs that yet remain:
Blanch, Swift, and Music, noblest of their kind,
Follow, and up the weary mountain strain.

The Knight hallooed, he cheered and chid them on
With suppliant gestures and upbraidings stern;
But breath and eyesight fail; and, one by one,
The dogs are stretched among the mountain fern.

Where is the throng, the tumult of the race?
The bugles that so joyfully were blown?
—This chase it looks not like an earthly chase;
Sir Walter and the Hart are left alone.

The poor Hart toils along the mountain-side;
I will not stop to tell how far he fled,
Nor will I mention by what death he died;
But now the Knight beholds him lying dead.

Dismounting, then, he leaned against a thorn;
He had no follower, dog, nor man, nor boy:
He neither cracked his whip, nor blew his horn,
But gazed upon the spoil with silent joy.

Close to the thorn on which Sir Walter leaned,
Stood his dumb partner in this glorious feat;
Weak as a lamb the hour that it is yeaned;
And white with foam as if with cleaving sleet.

Upon his side the Hart was lying stretched:
His nostril touched a spring beneath a hill,
And with the last deep groan his breath had fetched
The waters of the spring were trembling still.

And now, too happy for repose or rest,
(Never had living man such joyful lot!)
Sir Walter walked all round, north, south, and west,
And gazed and gazed upon that darling spot.

And climbing up the hill—(it was at least
Four roods of sheer ascent) Sir Walter found
Three several hoof-marks which the hunted Beast
Had left imprinted on the grassy ground.

Sir Walter wiped his face, and cried, “Till now
Such sight was never seen by human eyes:
Three leaps have borne him from this lofty brow,
Down to the very fountain where he lies.

“I’ll build a pleasure-house upon this spot,
And a small arbour, made for rural joy;
‘Twill be the traveller’s shed, the pilgrim’s cot,
A place of love for damsels that are coy.

“A cunning artist will I have to frame
A basin for that fountain in the dell!
And they who do make mention of the same,
From this day forth, shall call it Hart-Leap Well.

“And, gallant Stag! to make thy praises known,
Another monument shall here be raised;
Three several pillars, each a rough-hewn stone,
And planted where thy hoofs the turf have grazed.

“And, in the summer-time when days are long,
I will come hither with my Paramour;
And with the dancers and the minstrel’s song
We will make merry in that pleasant bower.

“Till the foundations of the mountains fail
My mansion with its arbour shall endure;—
The joy of them who till the fields of Swale,
And them who dwell among the woods of Ure!”

Then home he went, and left the Hart, stone-dead,
With breathless nostrils stretched above the spring.
—Soon did the Knight perform what he had said;
And far and wide the fame thereof did ring.

Ere thrice the Moon into her port had steered,
A cup of stone received the living well;
Three pillars of rude stone Sir Walter reared,
And built a house of pleasure in the dell.

And near the fountain, flowers of stature tall
With trailing plants and trees were intertwined,—
Which soon composed a little sylvan hall,
A leafy shelter from the sun and wind.

And thither, when the summer days were long
Sir Walter led his wondering Paramour;
And with the dancers and the minstrel’s song
Made merriment within that pleasant bower.

The Knight, Sir Walter, died in course of time,
And his bones lie in his paternal vale.—
But there is matter for a second rhyme,
And I to this would add another tale.

Part the Second

text variant footnote line number
The moving accident is not my trade;
To freeze the blood I have no ready arts:
‘Tis my delight, alone in summer shade,
To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.

As I from Hawes to Richmond did repair,
It chanced that I saw standing in a dell
Three aspens at three corners of a square;
And one, not four yards distant, near a well.

What this imported I could ill divine:
And, pulling now the rein my horse to stop,
I saw three pillars standing in a line,—
The last stone-pillar on a dark hill-top.

The trees were grey, with neither arms nor head:
Half wasted the square mound of tawny green;
So that you just might say, as then I said,
“Here in old time the hand of man hath been.”

I looked upon the hill both far and near,
More doleful place did never eye survey;
It seemed as if the spring-time came not here,
And Nature here were willing to decay.

I stood in various thoughts and fancies lost,
When one, who was in shepherd’s garb attired,
Came up the hollow:—him did I accost,
And what this place might be I then inquired.

The Shepherd stopped, and that same story told
Which in my former rhyme I have rehearsed.
“A jolly place,” said he, “in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is curst.

“You see these lifeless stumps of aspen wood—
Some say that they are beeches, others elms—
These were the bower; and here a mansion stood,
The finest palace of a hundred realms!

“The arbour does its own condition tell;
You see the stones, the fountain, and the stream;
But as to the great Lodge! you might as well
Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.

“There’s neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep,
Will wet his lips within that cup of stone;
And oftentimes, when all are fast asleep,
This water doth send forth a dolorous groan.

“Some say that here a murder has been done,
And blood cries out for blood: but, for my part,
I’ve guessed, when I’ve been sitting in the sun,
That it was all for that unhappy Hart.

“What thoughts must through the creature’s brain have past!
Even from the topmost stone, upon the steep,
Are but three bounds—and look, Sir, at this last—
O Master! it has been a cruel leap.

“For thirteen hours he ran a desperate race;
And in my simple mind we cannot tell
What cause the Hart might have to love this place,
And come and make his death-bed near the well.

“Here on the grass perhaps asleep he sank,
Lulled by the fountain in the summer tide;
This water was perhaps the first he drank
When he had wandered from his mother’s side.

“In April here beneath the flowering thorn
He heard the birds their morning carols sing;
And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born
Not half a furlong from that self-same spring.

“Now, here is neither grass nor pleasant shade;
The sun on drearier hollow never shone;
So will it be, as I have often said,
Till trees, and stones, and fountain, all are gone.”

“Grey-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well;
Small difference lies between thy creed and mine:
This Beast not unobserved by Nature fell;
His death was mourned by sympathy divine.

“The Being, that is in the clouds and air,
That is in the green leaves among the groves,
Maintains a deep and reverential care
For the unoffending creatures whom he loves.

“The pleasure-house is dust:—behind, before,
This is no common waste, no common gloom;
But Nature, in due course of time, once more
Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom.

“She leaves these objects to a slow decay,
That what we are, and have been, may be known;
But at the coming of the milder day,
These monuments shall all be overgrown.

“One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,
Taught both by what she shows, and what conceals;
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.”

The Monster by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj

I heard this poem and was developing it as a monster. I was preparing a sort of Frankenstein’s monster figure, a revener that, when you killed it, turned out to just be a vessel for a demon that was sitting in its chest cavity. Then I realized I’d seen something directly similar: this is the Blindworm of Gibbet Hill from episode 509. I think its interesting that the author of the poem has a surname which is smallish Balkan dragon.

Before I hand you over to Newgate Novelist (thanks to her and her Librivox production team). I’ll also mention another callback. in episode 479 we considered “The Fairies” by William Allingham. Recently I heard a lovely retelling by a Russian band called Caprice, who refocus it on their victim. https://youtu.be/0N837i5PUVA?si=g-a7QNIfuqbn-ZLh

The Monster

” IN place of the heart, a serpent ; 

Rage for the mind’s command ; 

An eye aflame with wildness ; 

A weapon in the hand ; 

” A brow with midnight clouded ; 

On the lips a cynic smile 

That tells of a curse unmatchable 

Born of a sin most vile. 

” Of longing, or hope, or virtue, 

No vestige may there be ; 

You, even in vice inhuman 

What can you want of me ? 

” You in its maddest moment 

The Deepest Pit designed, 

Let loose to sow confusion 

In the order of mankind ; 

” Here Hatred found you crawling 

Like vermin, groveling, prone, 

Filled you with blood of others 

And poisoned all your own. 

” Your very thoughts are fiendish 

Smoke of the fires of Hell. 

Weird as you are, how is it 

I seem to know you well ? 

” Why with your wild delirium 

Do you infect my sleep ? 

Why with my daily footstep 

An equal measure keep ? ” 

The monster mutely beckons me 

Back with his ghostly hand, 

And dreading his fearful answer 

I heed the grim command. 

” Nay, softly,” he says ; ” I pray thee, 

Silence thy frightened moan, 

And wipe the sweat from thy forehead 

My kinsman thou, my own! 

” Look at me well, good cousin ; 

Such wert thou fashioned of ! 

Thou, too, wouldst me resemble 

Without that magic Love!” 

Mythic Cheshire: Lord Lovel’s Fate

This is more of a puzzle than a story. The magi want the confession under the hand of the skeleton of Lord Lovel. An influx of air will destroy the pages. How do they use their magic to read or transcribe them? Thanks to Shrimpfish and their Librivox production team for the recording.


***
Francis Lovel was looked upon by his tenants in Mottram as a being of almost equal importance to the King. His word was law, his favour was courted, his anger feared. There are many curious stories told concerning his connection with Mottram and its neighbourhood. It is said that he owned a hall in Mottram which was connected by a subterranean passage with the Parish Church. He is also the hero of many adventures, most of which may be set down as pure stories of imagination. Perhaps the following legend is of this class.

Now it should be stated that at the period of which we speak there were witches in Longdendale. The age was one of gross superstition, and it was universally believed that certain mortals, notably old women, were in league with the evil one, and that Satan had bestowed upon them powers of evil whereby they were enabled to work harm upon the persons of any to whom they took a dislike. What particular powers these wretched women possessed will probably never be known; it is quite possible that some of them were students of magic, for in those ages some of the most learned men professed to dabble in mystic arts; but the probability is that by far the greater part of their dreaded powers existed only in the superstitious imaginings of the day. But to the people of that time the witches and their witchcraft were real enough and terrible to boot; so much so that if a man fell ill, or if some piece of bad luck befell him, to all the suffering caused thereby was added the mental torture consequent upon the belief that all the trouble had been caused by the evil schemes of some demon-possessed witch-woman. This belief was widespread, even among the better educated classes, to such an extent, that if a person lay ill of consumption, it was supposed that his waxen image was at that moment slowly melting before some witch-woman’s fire, and that every fresh pang of pain was caused by the witch thrusting her sharp bodkin into the image. In Longdendale it was asserted that at night the witches sailed across the bleak moors seated on broomsticks. Often would the peasants rush in terror to the shelter of their cots as they heard a strange rustling overhead, and, on looking up, beheld the wizened forms of old hags riding on broomsticks through the air with a speed which no horse could equal.

There are certain stories told which ascribe to Lord Lovel the habit of consulting and using the services of these unholy mortals, but implicit faith cannot be placed upon these stories, because other tales describe him as absolutely fearless and devoid of superstition—a man, in fact, who placed no faith in their supposed powers.

On one occasion Lovel was in Longdendale. History does not tell us the cause of his visit, but he had left his hall at Mottram, and was walking in the woodland, when suddenly he found himself confronted by a woman of evil shape. She was an old hag, of bent form and wrinkled face, and she leaned heavily upon a crutch. For all that when she walked she was nimble enough, and could get about with speed. When she spoke it was in a cracked voice, like the croaking of a raven, so that her very tones caused the flesh to creep, and a shudder to pass through the frame of the listener. The nobleman would have passed on with a brief salutation, but the hag planted herself firmly in his path, and sawing the air with her fore-finger commenced to speak.

“Thou art a proud man, Lord Lovel, and like all thy class thou regardest the poor as dirt beneath thy feet. But I tell thee that the hour is at hand when thou shalt be lower than they. They that live by the sword shall e’en perish by the sword, and they who scheme to entrap others shall be caught in their own net. The curse of doom is already on thee, and this night I can prophesy the end. Thy downfall shall be speedy, and thy death paltry. Nothing heroic shall there be about either. And the end shall be total. Neither child nor kindred of thine shall rule after thee in Longdendale.”

Lovel heard, and, despite his courage, he could not help trembling at the terrible aspect of the witch.

“Out upon thee, thou whelp of Satan,” he said at length, “or I will have thee in the ducking stool.”

But with a shriek of horrible laughter the witch vanished.

Now this was the end of Lord Lovel, and the reader may decide for himself whether or not the witch’s prophesy was fulfilled. It is quite certain that from that date his fortunes began to wane. He fought in the Battle of Bosworth Field on the side of the defeated King Richard III., and after the battle he took refuge for a time in Longdendale and Lancashire, but finally was forced to fly to Flanders. He returned to England with the Earl of Lincoln as a supporter of the Pretender, Lambert Simnel, and was a prominent figure at the “court” held for a brief space by that would-be King at the Pile or Peel of Fouldrey—now a picturesque ruin on Fouldrey Island off the coast of Lancashire. On behalf of Simnel he fought in the Battle of Stoke, and the last seen of him was after the defeat of the rebel army, when he was observed to join in the flight, and to swim his horse across a river, and to scramble safely up the further bank. Some say he was slain in this battle, but the popular version of his death ascribes to him a far different ending. According to this version some days after the combat, the disguised figure of a man might have been seen wending his way stealthily to a house at Minster Lovel, near Oxford. The fugitive was none other than Lord Lovel himself.

With his enemies on his track, and afraid to trust even his friends, he made his way alone to his own house and entered it under cover of the darkness. Then, not daring to trust even his oldest servants, lest they might be tempted to betray him, he quietly stole to a secret underground chamber, and there immured himself, thinking to lie hidden within until he could find some means of escape from the country. What actually happened no man will ever know, but it is easy to surmise. It would appear that Lovel, from some cause or other, was unable to open the door by which he had entered his hiding-place, and having told no one of his intention to make use of the chamber—or else through treachery—he was perforce left to his fate, and died of starvation. In all probability when he found out his predicament he attempted to set some record of it down on paper, but, if so, his story was destined never to be read. He disappeared from the sight of his own generation, and the world had well-nigh forgotten him. But in the Eighteenth Century—several hundred years after his death—a party of workmen broke into the remains of an underground chamber at Minster Lovel, and to their great surprise came across a skeleton. It was thought that this skeleton was the frame of the once powerful noble—Lord Lovel.

It is said that when the workmen broke into the vault, the skeleton was found sitting at a table, the hand resting on a bundle of papers, but that with the admission of air it soon crumbled into dust.

Annual report 2025

Now that Mythic Europe Magazine Issue One is out, its time for me to buckle down and put some podcast episodes in the can. Much as the Cornish and Venice episodes eventually collated into a book, the larger series of episodes may eventually cohere into a larger work.

The three broad series in the upcoming episodes are as follows.

Monster of the Month: this is an ongoing series and hopefully will eventually lead to another volume of Ars Magica Monsters. It’s the first calendar week each month

Mythic Cheshire: I’ve had trouble finding where to start on this, but recently hit on a series of legends based on Longdendale, which is a remote valley in (traditional) Cheshire’s far north east. It has all of the standards of English folklore: Arthur, Robin Hood, druids and so on. It may be a covenant book, like Triamore, in time. It’s the third calendar week each month.

I’ve wanted to do something in Cheshire since I helped write Magonomia, the roleplaying game of Elizabethan sorcery. In the Magonomia bestiary I statted up a sea dragon. One of the plot hooks tied to a story in the Petamerone where eating the heart of a sea dragon causes magical pregnancy for a queen desperate for an heir. In the original story the maid who cooked the heart also becomes pregnant, just from the scent of it cooking. My idea was that this would let Elizabeth have an heir without marriage. She’d likely try to call him “Arthur” because the name isn’t confirmed unlucky as yet. In her reign, the heir to the throne is, generally, the Earl of Chester. The title Prince of Wales is also sometimes handed off, but it’s a little more irregular and she’d likely have kept it because she was incredibly short on money. The saga idea is that the player characters are all the children of maids-in-waiting who were bought in to witness the queens eating the heart, and smelled its juices by accident. The Earl of Chester has his own barons, separate from the English font of honour, so that’s the player character role in that sort of Magonomia saga.

Vendors in the Merceria: We have a heap of monsters that are statted up, but don’t seem to have made their mark on the available stories. I’d like to add them into the faerie market in the heart of Mythic Venice. I’ve only part-prepped two so far. The first is a fae-blooded human who acts as a sort of safe centre for characters navigating the Market. For Australians he’s based on Edward Cole. Cole was a Melbourne eccentric who owned the largest bookstore in the southern hemisphere, and did Barnum-styled stunts to get publicity. He’s the character, hinted at in Mythic Venice, who has decided that cranking magical books through a printing press in a high Faerie aura is a grand idea. Aside from Master Caul, I’ve also written up a pair of mask-makers, who are a magical and faerie gorgon trying to make a sort of found family out of each other. This is made harder because Euryale is a genuine gorgon-who-knew-Medusa Magical gorgon and Gabriella is the faerie that has sprung up around her story. The Venetian habit of finding secrecy alluring, and Euryale’s constant masking, means there’s this sexier, more social thing walking around calling her “mother”. That’d be confronting for anyone. It’s the final calendar week each month. Eventually I’ll get enough of those to give the book some bulk, add a chapter on urban fantasy, and ship it, or I’ll get stuck and use these as the kernel for a themed issue of the magazine. This was originally my “30 days 30 posts” plan for this year, but I’d like longer to cook on each one.

The second calendar week, and third in months five weeks long, is miscellaneous.

There may be some crossover – for example the Giant Slug Monster of Longdendale might slide its way into the Monster of the Month slot.

Mythic Europe Magazine Issue Two is still dependent on sales. Time for the math:
Be aware these are back of the napkin calculations.

My author costs for Mythic Europe Magazine Issue One were, swapped into USD at today’s rates USD692. Note for those of you scaling your own projects some authors refused to accept payment and I wrote two of the articles.

I’ve priced it at USD6. .With Drivethru’s revenue split, that’s $3.90 pre-tax income per sale. As a rough rule of thumb, income tax and transaction fees would be would be about 30%. in my case, so that brings it down to USD2.73.per sale. Technically higher on itch or Patreon, but Drivethru is where most of my previous two books did their work.

So, break even is 254 sales. That’s high given the size of our community and that its not a product with the sort of clear hook of “Venice? Monsters? Give me a buck even if you don’t play ArM”.

That’s to see if its the sort of product that can stand alone, in terms of a second issue. Here we see a bit of the thinking on my release timing though.

This year I know I will owe a lump sum of income tax on the money bought in by the Atlas payment, Magonomia royalties, Drivethru sales and the difference between my Games From Folktales subscriptions and my hosting costs. I’m not sure how large it is exactly, but its big enough that I can’t call renumerated hobby on it. It is assessed on June 30 and due October 31 because I’m Australian and that’s when we do these things.

It’s probably three hundred dollars American at a very loose guess.

If I structure my writing business correctly some of the the cost for the authors of MEM1 comes out of that lump, because the tax is on profits or drawings, not on turnover. It doesn’t make MEM2 more likely, it doesn’t pull the break even of this one product down. It does, however let me move some of the money I’d be paying as income tax on my writing to an expense. This gives me a cushion for for if MEM1 flops. Roughly speaking, I don’t lose actual money on it if I sell 143 copies because of that one-off presence of income from earlier writing.

There is a complicated question as to how I apportion the money coming in from the podcast Patreons, because I gave MEM1 to all paid subscribers. So, you could think of that as 37 prepaid subscriptions. If I get to 106 sales, I feel I can say I’ve come out even on this one product. I know that’s not actually how the math works (I’m essentially increasing the material to the subscribers without upping the price) but I feel that’s acceptable because I can’t be bothered running a proper subscription service.

220 sales (on top of the GFF subscribers) is where I can say “Well, that all worked out splendidly and it’s worth doing this again at that price point.” as opposed to “I should go and write another book” or “I should get a team together to write (Specific Thing With Good Hook).”

Currently, there are 48 sales since 30 April, plus the 38 subscribers.

Mythic Cheshire: Basics

Cheshire is a traditionally English county that’s just to the north of Wales. Its county town is Chester, which is in the far west of the county. Chester was a Roman fortress used to pacify the people in what’s in modern north Wales. In 1220 Cheshire is a different shape to what you’ll see on modern maps. Two parts of northern Wales are part of Cheshire. Eventually Edward the First chopped them off to create Flintshire. It also heads out east into what’s now Derbyshire. The long tail that spreads off the northeast of historical Cheshire is a mountain valley called Longdendale which is going to be our initial focus, because a useful source of folktales in audio has fallen to hand. Having said it is our initial focus I’m now going to ignore it for the rest of this post.

Cheshire as legal oddity

Cheshire is treated as if it’s not quite English in 1220. As an example, the Magna Carta doesn’t bind Chester, so the Earl issues his own charter instead. The Earldom of Chester is palatinate, that is, the holder acts with the authority of the king, unless directly countermanded. This is rare in England: there are a few others (the bishop of Durham, the Earl of Lancaster) and there’s a rough equivalent on the Welsh border (the Marcher lords) and in the Duchy of Cornwall. This is one of the reasons that the English king takes the opportunity to grab the title in 1254. You’ll notice that was the general policy: in 2025 the Prince of Wales is the king’s heir, a leftover of the move to make the marcher lords less important. The Duchy of Cornwall is vested in the Prince of Wales and the Duchy of Lancaster is held by the monarch but, very carefully, not as part of the Crown Estate. It’s the financial structure where the royal family keeps its private cash. In 1220 Cheshire’s effectively a weird little pocket kingdom that spreads out into what’s now North Wales, and that makes it useful for Ars Magica.

Chester was a major Roman settlement and the recent archaeological excavations of its coliseum will prove useful. Similarly there are prehistoric ruins which are folkloristicaly attributed to the druids that serve as plot hooks. It’s not the Caerleon that was often given as a site for Camelot, but the City of Legions is mentioned reputedly in his stories and those can be stolen. Some Cheshire historians claim Geoffrey of Monmouth moved Camelot to the other Caerleon because his patron owned it, but let’s leave that aside: it’s a fun plot hook and in a Magonomia mentioned in another episode I’d use it.

Nobility

In 1220 the Earl of Chester is Ranulf de Blondeville. He’s off on the Fifth Crusade along with most of his barons. Yes, his barons: barons can hold from him rather than the king, which is unusual in English law. By his death in 1232 he’s a dinosaur: the last of King John’s Anglo-Norman lords who has held on despite the changes time has poured over the culture. He’s also Earl of Lincoln, and one of the great magnates of the realm: technically able to call up 110 knights from his lands in England, plus another 80 from Cheshire. He has no son and his lands are divided between his four sisters, so that his territory effectively explodes into pieces. This title, and the chunk of land in Cheshire go to the son of his eldest sister, Matilda. He’s called John of Scotland for reasons which are complicated but might be important given the different Hermetic cultures of the two tribunals.

Matilda married David, Earl of of Huntingdon. Huntingdonsire is deep into England, near Cambridgeshire, but he’s the third son of Henry, prince of Scotland. Huntingdon was a dowry given to David’s grandmother when she married the King of Scotland. David’s father, Henry, was heir to the Scots throne but died before his grandfather. When his grandfather did pass away the initial division of lands was that his eldest brother became King of Scotland, his second-eldest became Earl of Northumbria, and he took Huntingdon. His son keeps this, so Cheshire is still this odd place that’s sort-of in England and ruled by the nephew of the King of Scotland (who also happens to be Earl of Northumbria, which is fantastically unhelpful when it comes to border wars with the Scots.].

The role of Constable of Cheshire isn’t in the Earl’s gift: it comes from the king becasue Chester’s a royal castle. It s held by John de Lacy, who inherited it from his mother but had to pay a huge fee for it, because it’s legally not heritable. He’s also off on the Fifth Crusade. The coat of arms of the de Lacy family is a purple lion on a gold field, and badly-drawn versions of this, on pub signs, are one of the origin stories given for the Cheshire Cat. Regarding Alice in Wonderland I’m in two minds: her stories are focused on a deck of cards and a modern – powerful Queen – chess set. Neither of these work in 1220. Also, there’s literally no plot there and I’ve sold the Jabberwock to the Magonomia roleplaying game. De lacy going to be less active in Chester after 1232, when he becomes the Earl of Lincoln by right of his wife.

There is a Sherriff of Cheshire: his name’s Richard Davenport and he has no power save the king’s word. That’s deliberate. Sheriffs, by royal preference, need the king to have power. Over time nobles capture the office of sheriff, but that hasn’t happened here yet. A sheriff in a palatine county is even more powerless than usual because the earl’s word is as the king’s word. This creates a hook on this NPC that the player characters might exploit.

Religious Foundations

In 1102 the Bishop of Chester moved his cathedral to Coventry, although the kept the title and property. That’s handy for magi as this drops the Dominion Aura in the city and keeps it down. He does have a co-cathedral, but it is outside the city. A second significant holy site is the Benedictine monastery of St Werburgh, which is the cathedral in Chester in 2025, although it is smaller in period. She’s the patron saint of Chester and is represented by extremely aggressive geese, which is going to be fun.

The stinking demon

There’s an idea in Ars Magica, stolen from period texts, that sometimes demons attach to a person and cause all joy to be sucked out of their life. This is called “oppression”. The following story is set far after the game period, but it shows how simple oppression can wear a person down by stealing their opportunities to recover Fatigue through rest. It’s by Edward Heron-Allen who hid under the pen name of Christopher Blayre when not writing scholarly papers about Persian poetry. The reader is Ben “omnipresence: Tucker. THanks to him and his Librivox production team.

Statistics eventually.

***

It was about three weeks or a month after this that Mark Shelton rang me up on the telephone.

The telephone was not then the universal blessing (or curse) that it is now, and installations were few and far between, a sort of scientific toy for the chosen few, and I could have counted on my fingers the friends who had them in their houses.. Shelton’s voice sounded grave and subdued, in answer to my cheery greeting.

‘‘T want you to dine with me tonight,’’ he said.

“Can’t possibly—I am dining out.’’

‘‘Oh! but you must,’’ he answered; ‘“T want you particularly. It’s most important.”’

‘* But I tell you I can’t. Who else is coming? ”’

‘“ No one—I want you, and you must come. Put your other party off. Tell them it’s a matter of life and death.”’

“But, I say— ”’

‘ Don’t say anything,’ he interrupted. ‘‘ I’m telling you the truth. I’ve got something to tell you, which must be told here; and it is a matter of life and death. If you don’t come, I shall not be alive in the morning.”’ By this time his voice was quivering, and I realized that something very serious was the matter. So I answered curtly :

‘Oh! all right. I’ll come, but don’t talk bosh; and buck up. What have you been doing with yourself? ”’

‘ Nothing. I haven’t left my rooms for three weeks.”’

‘* All right,’’ I replied; “ I’ll come and dig you out.”’

I got to the Albany at half-past seven, and was let in by his man, the imperturbable Bates. “How is Mr. Shelton? ’”’ I asked him casually, as I put down my hat and coat.

“I don’t know, sir,’’ replied Bates; ‘‘T can’t make him out. Seems to be brooding all the time. Never goes out, and doesn’t eat anything to speak of.’’

I went into Shelton’s sitting-room, which was stiflingly hot. Though it was a fine May day he had a large fire, and all the curtains were closely drawn. Mark was sitting before the fire in his day
clothes, doing nothing. ‘“ Good heavens! ’’ I said. ‘“‘ What an atmosphere! No wonder you are
nervy. Got any windows open? ”’

‘““ No—and don’t open them. I’ve a reason. Is the air very beastly? ”’

““Not beastly,’ I said; ‘‘ but intolerably hot.”’

““ Not foul and stuffy? ”’

“* No.”’

“* Don’t you notice a queer smell? ”’

“* No—what sort of smell? ”’

** ‘Well ’’—he hesitated a moment, and then said—‘“‘ like the Small Cat House at the Zoo.”’

“* Not in the least,’’ I replied. ‘‘ What ever is the matter with you? ”’

““T don’t know. I want you to tell me.”

I looked at him critically. Was he—the sane and athletic Shelton—going mad? The phrase ‘ olfactory delusions ’ came into my mind. ‘* Tell me all you can about it,’’ I said.

‘““Presently,’’ he replied, “‘ after dinner.’’ So with that, for the moment, I had to be content. We went in to dinner. As usual it was exquisite. Shelton could, and did, afford a perfect cook, and on this occasion she had surpassed herself. Shelton tasted everything and sent his plate away practically untouched. At every dish he said : ‘‘ Pah! beastly. Don’t you notice a filthy taste in this? ”’

‘* No—it’s excellent. What kind of taste? ”’

‘‘ Well ’—and again the hesitation—‘‘like the Small Cat House at the Zoo.”’

It seemed to be a mania. I told him he should consult X. the great nose and ear specialist. He only shook his head wearily. After dinner he consented to have a window open, and to let the fire die down. He told me he had ‘ got up a frowst ’ so that I should get it in all its force—but he accepted, doubtfully, my assurance that the air was perfectly clean. He brought me a volume of Japanese engravings he wanted me to see, and as he leaned over me, he said : ‘* Don’t you mind my leaning over you? ’’ and he looked searchingly into my eyes.

‘“ Not in the least. Why on earth should I? ”

‘““ Good God, man! don’t you notice that I stink ? ”’

“‘ Not at all. What do you imagine you stink of? The Small Cat House again? ”’

** Yes—that’s it. It’s ghastly. I can never get away from it.’’

‘“* Tell me,’’ I said quietly. “‘ When and how did this begin? ”’ And he told me a most amazing and horrible story.
***

‘‘You remember Austin Black—the Spiritualist Zoologist ? Yes, we took you, Carver and I, to one of his séances. You may have seen that he is dead. Carver and I were there when he died; there was no inquest, for his domestic G.P. certified the ever-ready heart disease of long standing. ‘
There was a séance, only four of us and Black and his Medium. Black was awfully strung up that night—he told us the conditions could not be more favourable. It wasn’t a ‘ show night,’ and there was no music and no tricks —but queer, uncomfortable things happened. A spreading light over the table—and a leg of my chair suddenly snapped off. We turned up the lights—it
seemed to have been bitten through. I wanted to stop, but Black, though he looked ghastly, wouldn’t hear of it.

He said : “‘ I want to see this thing through —I want to ‘down’ it’’—and we started the séance again. Almost immediately I heard that snarling I told you about, and Black, who was on my right, got up in the dark and left the table. We heard a sort of scuffling, and then a choking noise in the corner of the room. We switched on the light and saw Black lying on his back by the wall, his tongue out, and blue in the face, struggling violently with nothing. We rushed at him and tried to pick him up.

There was Something that we could not see, between us and him, pinning him down. We could feel it though—it was soft and pulpy, with a surface not furry, but like a mouse or a mole—and huge! And it stank like the Small Cat House at the Zoo. We could not free him of it, and we saw him die; choked before our eyes, whilst we clawed at that soft pulpy Nothing. We could not move it. When he was quite still, the Thing got up of its own accord. Carver and I were crouched close together, and the Thing forced its way between us, and so away. How it stank! It seemed to leave a greasy smear of smell all over us. We called his wife —a queer woman—she did not seem badly shocked, or to care much. Carver said afterwards that she seemed to him to be intensely relieved at something. All she said was: ‘‘I expected this—it has happened before ’’—she evidently did not realize that he was dead—‘‘ please go away at once. I will send for his doctor —he is close by.” We went. The other two—strangers—and the Medium had bolted directly we turned up the lights.

As Carver and I walked down the hill he said: ‘‘ It’s awful—it’s awful. How it stank! and I can’t get rid of the stink.’’ No more could I. Carver and I parted at Vauxhall. Inever saw him again. I enquired a day or two later and heard he was ill; a week later I heard he had had a stroke, and was in a private mad -house. I had baths—Turkish baths—I changed my clothes half a dozen times a day—I always smelt of that Thing—I do still—l can’t bear it. I shall go mad like Carver. Everything I touch smells of it, everything I try to eat tastes of it. 1’ve tried to get over it and I can’t. That’s why at last I sent for you, and closed up everything and lit a fire, to give you the fullest chance.

‘‘ Now I know that I can’t do anything. It’s in me and part of me—I shall never be free of it. That Thing is here with me! It’s prowling round all the time, but only I can smell it. God help me! ”

To say that I was horrified is to use a miserably inadequate term; but before I left Mark Shelton that night I had arranged with him to go in three days to Norway, fishing. We settled everything—when to start, where to go, and what to take. I left him, still rather dazed, but much easier in my mind.

That night at about 1 a.m. Mark Shelton blew out his brains.

Notes on writing Ars Magica material – a philosophical guide for new authors

Now that there has been an explosion in creativity due to the open license, and now that I’m editing a fanzine, it’s time to give quick tips to beginning, commercial authors. Some of the advice that follows is coloured by my preferences as a reader. There’s no need to point out that there isn’t one true way to write. In response I’d note that there are, regardless, many bad ways.

Pick the obvious title

Don’t pick evocative titles: use informative ones. You need to call your piece something, and the temptation is always there to make it obscure. I feel this pull too, because our game has so much Latin drifting about. Mythic Venice spent a year being called “Serenissima”. The roughwork to see if I could make Mythic Europe Magazine was called “Alvearium”. Potential readers should look at the title and know if they are interested in reading the contents. If you can’t manage that, your subtitle or blurb should do that work. Remember, building mystery is explicitly not your job when you are selling the book.

Write for use, not for narrative

There is a strong temptation is to write adventures chronologically so that they end with a surprise at the end of the document. This is a poor technique because you are not writing fiction to enjoy linearly, you are writing a technical manual for reference by a storyteller during a game session. You don’t follow a recipe and discover at the send of you have stir-fry or a chocolate cake. Twists are for the in-game action, not for game writing that supports the action.

Don’t tell me I can do what I want

I know I can do what I want: what I want is to save time and run a good game session. I’m here for your ideas on how to do that. If I open a cookbook and it says “So, throw in whatever you want” I think “That’s terrible advice and my chocolate cake will taste horrible, once I add this vegemite.” I’m reading your article to get your ideas, so give them to me, don’t tell me to make them up myself.

Make hard choices

Don’t hide behind mystery. If no-one knows where your monster-filled hole in the ground comes from either make that a plot hook or shut up about how mysterious it is. Your job as the author is to give the reader ideas they haven’t had. It is far better for you to take a big swing and have the reader dislike it than to just fizzle out with “…do what you want”.

By the way, I was wrong, dark chocolate tastes lovely with Vegemite.

Write in modern English

Do not write in “cod English”, the technical term for the faux-Shakespearean stuff that seems popular. It comes from a particular place and time, which is far after the usual game period in a language that doesn’t exist yet. It has rules of grammar around simple nouns like “thou” which authors often fail to follow. It makes your work difficult to understand for people who speak English as a second language. If you speak American English please be aware that you likely have idioms that stand out particularly harshly when you force them into cod English. It’s fine to sound American throughout your piece, but it sounds weird if you put on a mockney accent for parts of it. Don’t not attempt to give tone by writing olde-timey words unless you know what they mean, and there is no better modern word.

Go through and remove the word “will”

I know it’s in the article a few paragraphs ago, but do as I say. Don’t slip into the future tense when you are describing things the characters might do in the future. It doesn’t work in Ars Magica. I’ve seen complete loops where a character considers what they might do, and as they work through the logistics of the idea they inhabit three whole tenses.

Assume the player characters are going to, loosely, follow the story. Yes, yes, there’s an argument about railroading. As the author, that is not your problem: that’s the problem of each storyguide at their table. Your job is to give the storyguide material. How they use it is their sandbox is a different question.

Pick one strong word

Try not to describe one thing with two adjectival phrases that sort of get in the region of the thing, and give its vibe, you know? Just pick one strong word. Similarly, having picked a strong word, don’t water it down by padding it with “often”, “probably”, “likely”. Either the egg goes into the cake or it does not go into the cake. It does not float in quantum superposition over the cake. Make hard choices – take big swings.

Demoniacal Justinian by Procopius

Procopius was a senator in the reign of the Emperor Justinian, and his writings are the core primary source when studying him. He was the legal advisor to Belisarius, Constantinople’s most skilled general, and wrote about his military campaigns. In secret he also wrote a second history, parodying how tacky the emperor, the general, and their wives were. Procopius was from Caesarea. and thought Justinian’s family were rustic upstarts. One of his more interesting claims is that Justinian had been replaced by a demon. In Ars Magica terms its difficult to see how this might have occurred, because emperors, regardless of their morality, have magic resistance granted by their coronation. Nonetheless: here’s Procopius’s description, as read by Public Domain Scholar. Thanks to them and the Librivox production team. Statistics eventually.

CHAPTER XII
Those who were considered the wealthiest persons in Byzantium and the other cities of the Empire, next after members of the Senate, were robbed of their wealth by Justinian and Theodora in the manner which I have described above. I shall now describe how they managed to take away all the property of members of the Senate.

There was at Constantinople one Zeno, the grandson of that Anthemius who formerly had been Emperor of the West. They sent this man to Egypt as governor. He delayed his departure, while he loaded his ship with precious valuables; for he had silver beyond any man’s counting, and gold plate set with pearls and emeralds, and with other like precious stones. But Justinian and Theodora bribed some of those who passed for his most faithful servants, to take everything out of the ship as fast as they could, set it on fire in the hold, and then go and tell Zeno that his ship had taken fire of its own accord, and that all his property was lost. Some time after this Zeno died suddenly, and they took possession of his property as his heirs, producing a will which, it is currently reported, was never made by him.

In like manner they made themselves the heirs of Tatian, of Demosthenes, and of Hilara, persons who at that time held the first rank in the Roman Senate. They obtained other persons’ fortunes by the production, not of formal wills, but of counterfeit conveyances. This was how they became the heirs of Dionysius, who dwelt in Libanus, and of John the son of Basil, who was the leading man in Edessa, and had been delivered up to the Persians as a hostage against his will by Belisarius, as I have told already. Chosroes kept this John a prisoner, and refused to let him go, declaring that the Romans had not performed all the terms of the treaty for which John had been given in pledge by Belisarius, but he was prepared to let him be ransomed as a prisoner of war. His grandmother, who was still alive, got together the money for his ransom, not less than two thousand pounds of silver, and would have ransomed her grandson; but when this money arrived at Dara, the Emperor heard of the transaction and forbade it, that the wealth of Romans might not be conveyed to barbarians. Not long after this John fell ill and died; whereupon the governor of the city forged a letter which he said John had written to him as a friend not long before, to the effect that he desired the Emperor to succeed to his property.

I could not give the list of all the other people whose heirs Justinian and Theodora became by the free will of the testators. However, up to the time of the insurrection called Nika, they only plundered rich men of their property one by one; but when this broke out, as I have described in my former works, they then sequestrated nearly all the property of the Senate. They laid their hands upon all movables and the finest parts of the estates, but set apart such lands as were burdened with grievous imposts, and, under pretence of kindness, restored them to their former possessors. So these people, oppressed by the tax-gatherers, and tormented by the never-ceasing interest to be paid upon their debts, became weary of their lives.

For the reasons which I have stated, I, and many of my position, never believed that they were really two human beings, but evil demons, and what the poets call scourges of mankind, who laid their heads together to see how they could fastest and most easily destroy the race and the works of man, but who had assumed human forms, and become something between men and demons, and thus convulsed the whole world. One can find proofs of this theory more particularly in the superhuman power with which they acted.

There is a wide distinction between the human and the supernatural. Many men have been born in every age who, either by circumstances or their own character, have shown themselves terrible beings, who became the ruin of cities, countries, and whatever else fell into their hands; but to destroy all men and to ruin the whole earth has been granted to none save these two, who have been helped by Fortune in their schemes to destroy the whole human race. For, about this time, much ruin was caused by earthquakes, pestilences and inundations of rivers, as I shall immediately tell you. Thus it was not by mere human power, but by something greater, that they were enabled to work their evil will.

It is said that Justinian’s mother told some of her intimates that Justinian was not the son of Sabbatius, her husband, or of any human being; but that, at the time when she became pregnant, an unseen demon companied with her, whom she only felt as when a man has connection with a woman, and who then vanished away as in a dream.

Some who have been in Justinian’s company in the palace very late at night, men with a clear conscience, have thought that in his place they have beheld a strange and devilish form. One of them said that Justinian suddenly arose from his royal throne and walked about (although, indeed, he never could sit still for long), and that at that moment his head disappeared, while the rest of his body still seemed to move to and fro. The man who beheld this stood trembling and troubled in mind, not knowing how to believe his eyes. Afterwards the head joined the body again, and united itself to the parts from which it had so strangely been severed.

Another declared that he stood beside Justinian as he sat, and of a sudden his face turned into a shapeless mass of flesh, without either eyebrows or eyes in their proper places, or anything else which makes a man recognisable; but after a while he saw the form of his face come back again. What I write here I did not see myself, but I heard it told by men who were positive that they had seen it.

They say, too, that a certain monk, highly in favour with God, was sent to Byzantium by those who dwelt with him in the desert, to beg that favour might be shown to their neighbours, who had been wronged and outraged beyond endurance. When he arrived at Byzantium, he straightway obtained an audience of the Emperor; but just as he was about to enter his apartment, he started back, and, turning round, suddenly withdrew. The eunuch, who was escorting him, and also the bystanders, besought him earnestly to go forward, but he made no answer, but like one who has had a stroke of the palsy, made his way back to his lodging. When those who had come with him asked why he acted thus, they say that he distinctly stated that he saw the chief of the devils sitting on his throne in the midst of the palace, and he would not meet him or ask anything of him. How can one believe this man to have been anything but an evil demon, who never took his fill of drink, food, or sleep, but snatched at the meals which were set before him anyhow, and roamed about the palace at untimely hours of the night, and yet was so passionately addicted to venery.

Some of Theodora’s lovers, when she was still on the stage, declare that a demon had fallen upon them and driven them out of her bedchamber that it might pass the night with her. There was a dancer named Macedonia, who belonged to the Blue faction at Antioch, and had very great influence with Justinian. This woman used to write letters to him while Justin was still on the throne, and thus easily made away with any great man in the East whom she chose, and caused their property to be confiscated for the public use. They say that this Macedonia once greeted Theodora, when she saw her very much troubled and cast down at the ill-treatment which she had received at the hands of Hecebolius, and at the loss of her money on her journey, and encouraged and cheered her, bidding her remember the fickleness of fortune, which might again grant her great possessions. They say that Theodora used to tell how, that night, she had a dream which bade her take no thought about money, for that when she came to Byzantium, she would share the bed of the chief of the demons; that she must manage by all means to become his wedded wife, and that afterwards she would have all the wealth of the world at her disposal.

This was the common report in regard to these matters.