Ars Magica 4th Edition Revival!

[RobShanti]

After twenty years of keeping it packed away in a dusty box, I have dug out my 4th Edition Ars Magica books and begun to run a campaign for my Sunday gaming group.

Unfortunately, I disposed of the immense amount of Ars Magica material I had created twenty years ago and, even more unfortunately, I can find no current incarnation of "Project Redcap" or any other active online forum for Ars Magica 4th Edition. (The Atlas Games forums are dedicated to 5th edition material now.)

I was wondering if there were any grognards out there like me who might still have 4th edition resources they're willing to share with a fellow Ars Magica GM to help flesh out my world. I'm particularly interested in any 4th edition stat blocks for Magi, Companions, Grogs and NPCs that I can use.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Rob, are you in the Ars Magica Mailing List? Though slow (it's a mailing list, after all), there's often interesting stuff to read and discuss there. You can find more info on the BerkList here: www.redcap.org/page/Mailing_lists. It's supposed to be a relic of the past at this point, but some of us still cling to it!

As for Project Redcap, Andrew Gronosky (the guy who maintains it) is currently uptading the whole thing and transitioning into a more stable and modern system. The information remains the same, though. You can find here: www.beta.redcap.org. It has a whole section dedicated to 4e.

Hope it helps!

 

[RobShanti]

Thanks, Cristian, for that information. The links to the BerkList are dead -- at least the links to subscribe to it -- so, I've been unsuccessful in joining that community.

The information at beta.redcap.org tends not to have what I'm looking for. Whenever I see a link that has information I think may be potentially useful for me, the link is invariably a dead one. The live links contain stuff that I don't really need.

I'm particularly interested in stat blocks, I suppose...builds for Magi, Companions, Grogs and other NPCs (human, supernatural, beasts, etc.) that I can use in my games.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Here, found the link to join the BerkList: http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu/listinfo/ars-magica

As for the dead links, aye, that's a shame. Lots of good resource sites have gone into twilights of their own.

 

[RobShanti]

Thank you so much, Cristian. That's very helpful.

Did you play 4th edition Ars Magica?

 

[Zhaleskra]

I have a friend whose wife runs the U-Con Gaming Convention Game Days who is running an Ars Magica campaign in the modern world. Thought he called it "Ars Technica" and have also seen references to something similar around the Internet. Unfortunately, I do not know what edition he is using.

I'm trying to get another session of World Tree going with my friends, a game I lovingly refer to as "d20 Ars Magica with Furries".

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Thank you so much, Cristian. That's very helpful.

Did you play 4th edition Ars Magica?

My pleasure! Always glad to help a sodalis.

As for Ars Magica 4e, I played it only passingly. I had previously played 2e as well. 5e is the first one I DMed, however.

The story I'm currently running (in a rather extended hiatus right now, I'm afraid) is focused on Antioch and the robbery of a piece of the True Cross. The party was tasked by the Order to assist the Patriarch, as it is suspected a group of wizards stole it and they want to get on top of the problem before relationships become sour.

 

[RobShanti]

Ohh...that's a great idea for a campaign. I may have to steal that idea sometime down the road! I always like stories about the True Cross. We had an NPC in our flagship Ars 4th ed. game back in the late nineties who had a piece of the True Cross as an artifact.

 

[Cam Banks]

Hey Rob. Any reason you don't want to jump ship to the 5th edition, other than you've already got the 4th edition books? Most of our fans did, since 5th edition was deliberately intended as a fix for the problems fans had with 4th. We sell all of the PDFs and still stock a great many of the 5th edition books from early in the line here at Atlas, and are always happy to help out with Q&A. That said, I'm sure if you asked on our forums about 4th edition folks, some would show up and chat.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Jhaelen]

I played in a 4e Ars Magica campaign and had started working on a website to integrate our Winter covenant ('Lux Sapientiae' set in Scotland) into Project Redcap. I'll have to check if I still have the files somewhere.