Mythic Seas.pdf
(
15441 KB
)
Pobierz
204488542 UNPDF
The Mythic Seas
by Alan Smithee with Roderick Robertson
The Mythic Seas
C
REDITS
Design:
Alan Smithee
Additional Design
(Shipbuilding, Shiphandling, and Trade Mechanics): Roderick Robertson
Development, Editing, Layout, and Project Management:
Jeff Tidball
Editorial Assistance:
John Nephew
Cover Illustration:
Jeff Menges
Interior Illustrations:
Ralph Horsley, Eric Hotz, Eric Pommer, and Doug Shuler; also featuring woodcuts from
Medieval Life Illustrations
Special Thanks:
Bob Brynildson, Jerry Corrick, Nicole Lindroos, Link Martineau, and all of
Ars Magica’s
fans around the world
Commentary and Playtesting:
Adam Bank, David Chart, Jeremiah Genest, Spike Jones, and Marc Philipp Messner
About the Authors
Project: Redcap archives and links to many of the fan-creat-
ed
Ars Magica
pages on the World Wide Web. To get to
Project: Redcap, point your browser at
http://www.redcap.org/
Alan Smithee
eschews recitations of his educational
credentials in favor of inviting you to read his works and
judge for yourself. But the players in his troupe seem
happy.
Roderick Robertson
lives in a modest home in
Milpitas, a small town bravely defending itself from the
ravages of Silicon Valley. He works at Intel, a small
microchip manufacturer (sort of like Granny Goose:
“Crash all you want, we’ll make more”) as a roustabout
and clown. His real life begins outside the walls of The
Corporation, however, and he spends his time painting
figures, writing things, and playing with the wife and pets
— Scaramouche and Lochinvar the dogs, Berengaria the
rabbit, and Lucinda, Iolanthe, and Nepenthe the cats. His
goal is to win the California Lottery and retire in luxury.
Ars Magica
, The Mythic Seas, Mythic Europe, Covenants,
and Charting New Realms of Imagination are trademarks of
Trident, Inc. Atlas Games and the Atlas Games logo are
trademarks of John Nephew and Trident, Inc. Order of
Hermes and Tremere are trademarks of White Wolf, Inc.
and are used with permission.
©1998, 2004 Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games. All rights
reserved. Reproduction of this work by any means without
written permission from the publisher, except short excerpts
for the purpose of reviews, is expressly prohibited.
Author’s Note
The Mythic Seas
is offered not as a complete descrip-
tion of medieval ships, maritime trade, and naval warfare,
but rather as a general treatment of those subjects for pur-
poses of weaving interesting tales for
Ars Magica.
Players
who hunger for more detail and realism are strongly
encouraged to do their own research and develop systems
as simple or complex as they like for the concepts pre-
sented here. Just remember: the point is to tell a good
story.
Saint Paul, Minnesota
info@atlas-games.com
WWW
.
ATLAS
-
GAMES
.
COM
D
IGITAL
E
DITION
V
ERSION
1.0 • D
ECEMBER
2004
The Mythic Seas
C
REDITS
Table of Contents
I: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Seas of Mythic Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Journeys of Edward the White . . . . . . . 5
IV. Of the Hermetic Seas . . . . . . . . . 59
Covenants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Seafaring Archetypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Companions and Grogs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
II. Ships and Sailing . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Creating a Ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Sample Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Sailing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Hazards at Sea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Repairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Combat at Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
V. Magic of the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Spells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Artifacts of the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
VI. Maritime Bestiary . . . . . . . . . . 87
Mundane Sea-Beasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Magical Sea-Beasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
III. Life on the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Life Aboard Ship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Mundane Hazards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Mythic Hazards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Travel Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Notable Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Ports and Places . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
The Mechanics of Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Map: The Seas of Mythic Europe . . . . 96
Chapter 1
Introduction
The Seas of
Mythic Europe
man has hardly hesitated to explore and
exploit the sea, at first in small one-man
boats, later aboard large rafts and oar-pro-
pelled galleys and barges. Now, in the 13th
century, maritime engineering has given men
massive ships with which to sail to strange
new lands, sometimes to trade, sometimes to
make war. Still, though a man can build an
empire that bows to his every whim, he can
never quite conquer the sea.
Even the members of the Order of
Hermes, more capable of plumbing the
depths of the seas than
most medieval folk,
have done little so far
to bend the waves to
their will. Certainly
some magi have tried,
and a few have actually
achieved remarkable
results; their efforts are
a monument to the
ingenuity of man and
magus alike. But for all
their knowledge and
power, the Order of
Hermes rules the sea
no more than any king
or emperor. The bones
of many a mortal lie in
watery graves, with the
bones of magi right alongside them.
Hermetic magi are driven by the same
lusts for knowledge, treasure, and power as
ordinary men, though they differ in how they
seek it and how they make use of it. Where
The lands of Mythic Europe are filled
with all manner of strange places, peoples,
and creatures, almost too numerous to
describe. So too are the seas of Mythic
Europe. More than just a vast, watery mirror
of the medieval world,
the mythic seas are in
effect separate king-
doms where different
laws apply — the laws
of nature. In the thou-
sands of years since
people first ventured
out onto the waves,
many a mariner has
paid with his life for
attempting to violate
those laws — or for
simply not knowing
them.
In an age when the
ability to swim is not
commonly learned,
and even less common-
ly taught, any body of water holds a certain
amount of dread. The sea, with its unforgiv-
ing depths and unknown reaches, is a place
where mystery and terror go hand-in-hand.
Yet for all its wonders and horrors, medieval
Throughout
The Mythic Seas,
you’ll come
across excerpts from
The Journeys of
Edward the White.
These describe how
Edward the White, follower of Jerbiton,
set forth in search of the lost relics of
fabled Atlantis. In these excerpts Edward
recounts his travels, telling of all he learns
of sailing and ships, the natural and magi-
cal dangers he encounters, the ships and
sailors he meets, the ports where he rests,
the covenants he visits, and the amazing
sights he sees during his quest.
4
The Journeys of
Edward the White
I
NTRODUCTION
most seafaring men pull food from the water,
or travel upon it, seafaring magi dredge up all
manner of fantastic riches and relics. Some
even make their homes upon — and some-
times under — the waves. In some unusual
cases men and magi work side-by-side to find
and recover what each considers valuable, or
to journey to places mystic or mundane. It’s
easy to see what both gain. What mariner has
not wished for a way to quiet a raging storm,
or to find fresh water while lying becalmed
and adrift? And by the same token, what
magus who has traveled on the water has not
needed a strong, sure crew to pull the oars or
trim the sails, or to plot a safe course to a spot
on a map that only a magus could read?
Here then is what every storyguide needs
to know to tell tales of adventure on the
mythic seas. Of course, any storyguide may
choose to underplay sea-voyages in the inter-
ests of brevity, but doing so overlooks hun-
dreds of opportunities. The purpose of this
book is to suggest a few of those and spark the
storyguide’s imagination to create more, so
that fewer journeys by sea are described in
only a single sentence.
The Journeys of
Edward the
White
I am Edward, called “the White,” filius
James of Lincoln, follower of Jerbiton, and I
count myself an explorer of mythic places.
What follows is my journal, recording the
search I have undertaken in the forty-third
year of my life in the Order of Hermes.
Should my search fail and I not return, per-
haps what I have learned will serve to teach
5
Plik z chomika:
Dimzard
Inne pliki z tego folderu:
CORE Rulebook - 3rd ed.pdf
(121826 KB)
The Order of Hermes.pdf
(87382 KB)
Realms of Power - the Infernal.pdf
(72408 KB)
Medieval Bestiary - 3rd ed.pdf
(53830 KB)
Ultima Thule - Mythic Scandanavia.pdf
(134798 KB)
Inne foldery tego chomika:
7th SEA
Aberrant
Allansia pre
Alternity
Aphalon
Zgłoś jeśli
naruszono regulamin