4th edition Ars Magica NPCs

A magus, two consortes, and grogs designed around two separate campaigns.

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Andrei Kilianus

For the past three generations, the family Kilianus has produced magi for House Jerbiton. This constant reliance upon one family, and our involvement in their affairs, meant that our line has something of a bad reputation in Transylvania as meddlers, but no convictions have yet been made; just many, many accusations. It started with my great-great-uncle, Sergei, who was taken by Constantus scholae Jerbiton, and then turned around and deposed his own brother from the county seat, placing another nephew there. Sergei's filia was my aunt, Helena Kilianus, eldest sister of my father, Valdemar, and she labored hard to gain my father the hand of my mother. I am his eldest son, Andrei Kilianus, filius Helena Kilianus, filia Sergei Kilianus, filius Constantus scholae Jerbiton.

In my third year, my mother died bringing forth my younger sister, also a Helena. By the end of the fourth year, my father had married Dagny, a shrewish woman from the county Brasov. She soon had my brother, Radoslav Kilianus, and doted upon him, flesh of her flesh. For all that Helena and I were her husband's children, it seems that she hated us from Radoslav's birth, and raised her boy in her own image. I saw less of it; I was taken in my seventh year by my aunt to live in her apartments in Bucharest. It was not an arduous apprenticeship, as such things go. I was well cared for, certainly, and my aunt would spend her summers at our family home near Cluj Napoca. My father obviously favored me, especially, and it helped not that Dagny had become more shrewish as years went by, always speaking against myself and Helena; she regarded both of us as drains upon Radoslav's patrimony. Father would not hear of it, but I could tell that her harping was wearing on him, seeming frailer with each year that passed.

In the year before my Gauntlet, Valdemar Kilianus passed away. To me, he deeded the High Meadows, a half-hide of land on a plateau at the edge of the county, for my own and free of duties or taxes. Radoslav, now sixteen and a man of his own, immediately sent my "spinster" sister (only three years his senior!) to a convent. With mater Helena's help, I was able to secure her a comfortable position there, and maintain my patrimony, but it only confirmed the hatred Radoslav and Dagny carry for me.

5th Edition Ars Magica NPCs

Some characters I created for a few different on-line Ars Magica games.

Zorya of House Bjornaer
Background:
Zorya was raised high in the Novgorood Tribunal, somewhere near the spring of Dnjepr. She does not remember her early life at all; her life seems to begin in her apprenticeship to another Eula von Bjornaer, a reclusive hermit who had retreated to the deep forests for his solitude. Zorya was his daughter, in spirit if not in body, and the only person whose presence he tolerated for more than a fortnight.

Despite Eula's reclusiveness, Zorya received a thorough hermetic education, though one far more dependant upon vis and direct instruction than most. This meant that her apprenticeship was fairly long, though she is somewhat vague on precisely how long. Eula was visited often by the locals for his wisdom, and their tribute to him allowed him to gather materials for what could not be taught by rote memorization. Zorya recognized the value of wisdom, both practically and in terms of reputation, and studied hard, hoping to gain it for herself.

House Diedne [Ars Magica]

Again, written for Ars Magica, 4th edition, based on similar write-ups in 3e's Houses of Hermes. It uses some rules for Mystic Companions and Natural Magicians found in the 4e resource, Hedge Magic.

House Diedne
Motto: Beata Terra beata omnia eam servant (Blessed be Earth and all who serve her)
Symbol: An oak stump with a slender tree beginning to grow from it. This symbol was adopted after the Schism War. Before the war, the symbol was two staves (or, in rare cases, spears) parallel to each other, running vertically over a wreath of leaves.

Diedne: DEED-nay

"Then, we will join your `Order of Hermes', entering into the protection of you and yours. We will teach you all you are ready to know, and learn your style of magic, but we will always remain ourselves, separate, yet within the whole."
-Diedne's covenant with Bonisagus upon forming House Diedne.

"I welcome you to the Order of Hermes, amica, and pledge the protection of myself, my filii, and the Order to the House Diedne."
-Bonisagus, welcoming Diedne to the Order

Diedne magi serve two Orders: the Order of Hermes and the Order of the Wise, the order of Druids into which they are initiated after finishing their nineteen year apprenticeships and completing their apprentice's gauntlet. Never more than nominally Hermetic, that trait has become more pronounced in recent years, in the years following the Schism War.

Failed Apprentices [Ars Magica]

Something I wrote for Ars Magica (likely 4th edition, available from Atlas Games), that was featured in Mythic Perspectives, a fanzine.

Failed Apprentices in Mythic Europe

There are very few failed Hermetic apprentices in Mythic Europe, and much rarer is the one with any real magical power. The vast majority of apprentices eventually become magi or die in the process. Most apprentices who are orphaned are snatched up by other magi, and those who flee are often found. Those whose Gifts are damaged or destroyed find employment with a covenant, making use of what skills they learned to live part of the life of a magus. Given their rarity, what circumstances result in a failed apprentice, especially one not under the close watch of the Order of Hermes? How does the Order produce a talented hedge wizard? Understanding these factors is the key to using a failed apprentice in a Saga, either as a magus or companion player character, or as a Storyguide character.