All Myths are True in Ars Magica

Does other mythologies other than Abrahamic such as Norse, Greek, Roman, Gaelic, Slavic, Germanic, and including others like Babaloyanian, Egyptian, Arabic paganism (before Islam), Assyrian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc also exist? Such as the Norse gods and such?

I wonder that All Myths are True is possible in Ars Magica? Of course what about Mythic Asia (where every Asian mythology/cosmology are all true), Mythic Africa, Mythic Dreamtime (Australia) Mythic America/Turtle Island, Mythic MIddle East, etc where are there different pocket realms of reality that function very differently than Mythic Europe? Of course I think it's the best way to avoid Eurocentricism where each region is a "pocketrealm of reality" where it has different laws/metaphysics/etc.

Why not call Ars Magica the "Mythic Ages?" of course by the time when it get's to the Age of Enlightenment that's when reality started to solidify itself where previous it used to be more fluid (I think the Mythic Ages reality was more vast and endless but by the time of the Age of Enlightenment it solidified itself into a planet as we now know today because of the consensus).

Of course not only every mythology but also every cosmology as well.

The simple answer is a big NO. For the equally simple reason that there are far too many myths that collide, some very violently or just doesn´t work together.

The addition to that answer must always be however, that whatever myths you WANT to be real, are. It´s basically the job of whoever runs a game to decide to use myths and to fit them together.
It´s basically like doing a fanfic crossover, figure out what you want to bring into the story then make them work as you want them to.

Throwing characters from the Flintstones into a story based on the Lord of the Rings for example, that would almost be guaranteed to be just silly and fail seriously. But you could probably get away with letting loose Charlie from Firestarter or maybe Indiana Jones in it with decent chance of making a readable story of it. :wink:

We´ve used the whole real world for games, just by not being too literal with myths and beliefs. This is also part of the reason why we rejected the "mythic physics" from the start. Basically the norm here is to run "real world plus", everything real plus whatever magic and mythical is added to it.

I still remember fondly one of our old characters, a magi which started a game rather old and with the lovely combination of "Well travelled" and "No sense of direction" who had basically sightseed through most of Europe/Asia and Africa before game start. :mrgreen:

As far as I'm concerned, that's what Ars Magica IS. Mythic Europe is medieval Europe the way medieval folklore and story believed it to be. There are faeries under the hills, giants in the wilderness, dragons sleeping under the mountains, demons whispering temptations and angels dancing on the head of a pin.

My sagas, which I freely admit have a decidedly pagan slant, firmly take the view that the "old gods" are/were real beings... often beings of Magic or Faerie (in the pre-5th ed sense) though many of them have retreated deep into their Realms as they have been forgotten. Ancient myths aren't necessarily true word for word, but they are based on real beings and real events.

That, to me, is the point of Ars Magica.

I think that probably sums up a lot of what one should remember when handling myths. Bend and stretch until they fit the story. :wink:

Well, as for the gods and heroes, you can usually shoehorn them in as powerful Faerie (or sometimes Magical, Infernal or even Divine) beings. And myths about such-and-such hero defeating such-and-such monster are no problem. And in fact, in Mythic Europe, once a good story gets repeated enough, it's a virtual certainty that some Faerie or other will start playing the part even if the story is a pure invention to begin with; so in that respect yes, probably all mythologies exist; that is, there is (or at least was) a powerful supernatural entity somewhere (or sometimes more than one) who had the attributes and acted the part of any god/mythic hero/mythic monster you care to name. Some of them even accomplished the deeds they claim.

On the other hand, once you get past the legendary tales and into the creation myths, you simply can't fit them all together, they contradict each other too much. Likewise for the end-of-the-world myths, or for that matter for the afterlife. And in many ways they also contradict the rules (on ghosts, necromancy, or the powers of the Divine).

You would need a fair amount of rewriting (regarding the Divine, mostly), but I'm sure you could make it work. Oh, and some major suspension of disbelief on the part of the characters too (The sun is a large ball of fire pushed by a giant scarab God, and a chariot driven by... oh, I can think of three separate Gods without looking too hard, and the body of quite a few others, and it is put out at night or hides or... well, you get the point, And in Ars Magica, mages are powerful enough to verify each and every version, if not about the Sun, then about more earthly gods).


Having something be true means that whatever contradicts this fact is not true. In all other paths lie madness.

It is not like it would even get you much in Mythic Europe. If you want to play out the consequences of a false history, go to a Faerie regio, and it can be true there.

... or reality. :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

a subset of madness, surely?

Without doubt.

Well what I was implying that myths are all true based on region for example, the "medieval paradigm" only implies to the European region but if you travel out that paradigm bubble to say the Middle East, Asia, America, Africa, etc then reality works completely different since they also have their own paradigms. I think that's one way to all myths exist without colliding to each other (although sometimes they do).

Well for example I think there should have been supplement books about "Mythic Asia" "Mythic America" "Dreamtime (Australia before the Europeans)" , "Mythic Africa", etc and such.

Of course by the time of the Modern Era, we now have a unified paradigm bubble called the "consensus"...of course that's where Mage: The Ascension comes in.

The trouble with that idea, IMO, is that Mythic Europe's "medieval paradigm" includes ideas about what out there in Middle East, Asia and Africa. IIRC, if you travel far enough you will find the magical lands of Cathay or the Holy Kingdom of Prester John. IMO, you can't leave Mythic "Europe" just by walking. For me the idea of "multiple paradigms" would work if each was treated like a different Realm or Regio.


What about all (large) regions being large faerie regios? Then we can even have the REAL medieval Europe underneath! :slight_smile: Suddenly the magi notch a roll and find themselves in a realm where there is no magic (even if there are legends about it) and where they are basically normal people in fancy dresses. Where the covenant used to be there is a normal manor house and the king of france is no longer Robert the bastard but a uy called Louis or something like that.

Interesting. Must build a short session around this concept Xavi scribes the idea in his story seeds WORDPAD


Wait...I thought Ars Magica said that all myths were true? Also at the time I wrote this thread, I had a idea that the world was splintered into pocket realms with their own "Mythic" setting which for example "Mythic Asia" "Mythic America", etc which I believe there should have been source books explaining how different the reality was including the magic system, the pantheons, etc.

Or is Ars Magica really Eurocentric (or worse Christian centric)? If so then that is my main point of my idea I explained above to remove the possible racism (Since I want a rich diverse world where every folklore/mythology/legend/metaphysics/cosmology/etc are all equally true).

Hey I am utterly revolted by the idea that the Divine is absolute good and that that god is all powerful and that "he" is not simply just another faerie who has a lot of people telling stories about him so that he gets lots and lots of power.

That being said, Ars is a fictional world with rules designed to express those fictions. Unicorns, dragons, Aristotelian physics, and Jehovah/Allah/Jesus... all equally belong in the fictional world. For me if I can accept the existence of a dragon in a story I can accept the power of the Divine.

As far as I am concerned, it is not simply a matter of racism or Eurocentricity, it is that the game is designed to deal with a world created by the writers and then later by the gamers. This world is set in or near Europe, using that paradigm to describe reality. It is not a game set in the real world with a overlay of fantasy, it is literally a different world than the one in which we live. It may share a common history, but it contains magic and faerie and infernal and divine. Elements which are true and testable and provable in the Ars Magica setting, and yet in our world are completely fictional without a testable theory in which to show proof.

There for as a fiction world there is no requirement for writers or players to even consider the merit of existence of other lands. Australia simply does not need to exist, unless players want to make it up. The Americas while in our world were actually in the minds of the Norse, do not have to exist as a complete and true fiction in Ars Magica. It could be that America is simply a bit of land at the end of the frozen seas.

Asia complicates things a bit, and Africa drags anyone into a conflict when it comes to deciding if a paradigm can or should overwhelm the past perceptions that exist in our world. In our world, we know that Asia and Africa had entirely different perceptions of the world, but within the world of Ars, that simply is not true. The truth of Ars Magica is from the perspective of those that live within the Hermetic paradigm.

Nothing stops a storyteller or troupe from making house rules to limit any element or create new ones. But I think the producers of Ars have the responsibility to remain internally consistent with the fiction they have created for the 5th edition.

It is pretty much eurocentric yes and exactly because of that it is to a lesser degree also christan centric.
But that is only as true as you WANT it to be, it´s your game after all.

Basically, a big bunch of myths, beliefs and paradigms have been bunched together to create what is "normal" or the common truth of the game. So, "by the book" there are quite a lot of fairly sharp limits, that however has never prevented us from running games that span around the whole world, and since you´re aiming more towards making the world into a bunch of separate piecemeal sets of locations, you can pretty much ignore anything you don´t want and shift any beliefs or myths to other areas if you think they dont really belong in one place.

Just make sure you keep track of what you´re doing where, so you dont start messing up what places and myths belong to which region and i think you will get good results.
Just remember to use the RAW canon as a vague starting point instead of absolute gospel.

That's partially correct. The game is "medieval-centric" so you're looking at places that were nominally "within reach" of the medieval European. So in that regard, yes the European continent is front and centre.

I would say though that each of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are treated with equal respect. It is within the game's paradigm that God exists and so the game goes to great lengths to ensure that these three religions are all correct and none are subservient to any other. Any inequalities or prejudices arise through social consequence, some of which you'll find modelled with the game, not the perceived validity of any one religion.

For the record, I don't believe in gods, wizards, or faeries, but it's a game world so I'll buy into it. In the same way as if I were to read any of the (largely bog standard) fantasy fiction available today I'd be invited to buy into the prevailing power of any number of spurious gods, I'm happy to do the same here but with the added virtue of the religions in the game being very well grounded in social and philosophical history.

Not at all. The rulebooks mostly pick elements for character advantages and disadvantages, some mystical traditions, monsters and alike. Hermetic magi are not part of the medieval myths. There are no birds which changes to fish in winter and such. You need to research this part if you want to play this way.

This might be good, too, but ArM is very detailed in the European part and I find it rather an advantage.

Yes and almost yes. The game world is Christian centric of course but magi aren't. Any other option - like a pagan France - would be an alternate universe.

Mission Impossible

You can do this. It isn't the canon understanding of the game world, but if you really can't separate out your real-world feelings from a fictionalised game world then you can make it all equal. All you really need to do, from a game mechanics perspective, is adjust the realm interaction chart. You can make it really simple - if the realm matches the power, then it adds a bonus and if it doesn't, the realm imposes an equal penalty. Simple. All realms are even.

Everything else is just fluff really. I've been playing Ars Magica for twenty years and not once have we needed to delve into the cosmology and work out just how God/the gods actually work - that smacks too much of AD&D to me, frankly.

If you want Mythic Cathay to be a real place in the mortal world, rather than something that exists in the Faerie Realm, then go ahead. You don't need them to have a different cosmology that works differently with different implications - just a different understanding of the same underlying cosmology. Just look at all the magic systems in play - they're all "magic" and get a bonus from the Magic Realm, but they're all slightly different and largely incompatible.

I think I had in mind that both of those are true (I think Cathay has defined by the European paradigm exists in the Faerie Realm while the Mythic China exists with it's own functioning cosmology/mythology/folklore/etc is the real one).

I think what I'm trying to imply that back during the "Mythic Ages" the worlds existed as endless pocket realms but during the Age of Enlightenment, the world began slowly solidifying itself into a planet as we know of today due to consensual reality. Or maybe I could just play Mage: The Ascension instead....

That is quite a cool idea, actually.
Remember that the travels of Marco Polo (several centuries later) were seen as high fantasy by his contemporaries, so it is perfectly possible that in the mythic europe universe he was on a trip through the faerie realm.