Ars Magica ArM PDFs for Sale
From: John Nephew Posted on: 7/28/2002 10:30 am
To: ALL
Message: 63.1
As you may have heard, we're working on getting PDFs of out of print titles for sale online.

The newest is now available: The Dragon and the Bear, the Novgorod tribunal book, which sold out earlier this year. (I really like this book, and strongly recommend you snag a copy, if you happen to find one in a game store.) It's a huge PDF (nearly 19 MB; almost 200 pages, with lots of maps and graphics, including that 11"x17" map of Russia and eastern Europe) available on RPGNow; here's the link:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=234

The other title currently up is The Fallen Angel:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=197

I'll try and remember to post to this thread whenever we get another ArM book up.

From: W23Goddess Posted on: 7/28/2002 8:11 pm
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.2
in reply to: 63.1
For those who prefer hardcopy, Warehouse 23 does have a *very limited* number of copies of both of these titles still available.

The Dragon and the Bear
http://www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?AG0260

The Fallen Angel
http://www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?AG0253

Michelle Barrett
Warehouse 23 Manager
Steve Jackson Games
www.warehouse23.com
michelle@sjgames.com
From: John Nephew Posted on: 8/4/2002 10:00 pm
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.3
in reply to: 63.1
Another addition to the RPGNow library: Faeries (Revised) is now available at:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=242

Oh, and grab those books from Warehouse 23 while you still can! :)

From: John Nephew Posted on: 8/19/2002 11:37 am
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.4
in reply to: 63.3
Yet another Ars Magica out of print title is resurrected (thanks to Felix Necromius for his help; now if only we can get his help on some of the old pre-Atlas/pre-WotC titles..), Festival of the Damned (Anniversary Edition):

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=248

Enjoy!

From: W23Goddess Posted on: 8/19/2002 9:35 pm
To: ALL
Message: 63.5
in reply to: 63.4
There are also a very limited number of Festival of the Damned still available from Warehouse 23:

http://www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?AG0257

Michelle Barrett
Warehouse 23 Manager
Steve Jackson Games
www.warehouse23.com
michelle@sjgames.com
From: KevinSours Posted on: 8/19/2002 11:11 pm
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.6
in reply to: 63.4
The "Ghoul of St Laraze" (the prequel to Festival and also in the book) is probably the best "drop in" adventures I've seen for Ars Magica. It has a nice little backstory and requires no work (beyond changing names to work with your locale) to fit it into a game.

Or in my case the players could ignore the initial hook and it could spin out of control into a major subplot...
Kevin

From: Araquael Posted on: 8/25/2002 11:41 am
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.7
in reply to: 63.4
Folks -

I have access to (in Ireland)
Mythic Europe
Pax Dei
Infernalism
Shamans (3rd)
Mistridge (3rd)
The 3rd Ed Grimoire
Tribunals of Hermes: Iberia
Tribunals of Hermes: Italy

And one or two others I can't quite remember. I could potentially get them scanned for you... (OCR for text and BMP or GIF for the art) and send it to ya. It'd take a while, but it could be done.

Gavin

From: John Nephew Posted on: 8/25/2002 2:23 pm
To: Araquael
Message: 63.8
in reply to: 63.7
Hi! Thanks for the offer, but we should be able to do it here, if we decide it's worth doing. We do have copies of the physical books of all of those, thankfully.

Actually, the one ultra-rare item I am thinking would be worth scanning for a PDF is "The Bats of Mercille" (from the 1989 convention season). I'm guessing some of the old school fans would be curious to see that. (I actually have a copy at the office waiting for me to scan it someday for that purpose...) I'm not sure if we should go for the OCR readability (and smaller file size), or the image-presentation (to preserve the original look).

From: Araquael Posted on: 8/25/2002 2:30 pm
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.9
in reply to: 63.8
Well, sorry, I don't have that...heheh.

:p

Actually, as I was off doing something else important (playing the flight sim Falcon 4), a thought occured.

OCR the books. Scan the images. Use Adobe Publisher or whatever it is you use for your layouts for "normal" Atlas AM books. Then copy and paste the text in, and and push the images in, and voila, you have the original books - that look just like "current" AM books. It'd take longer, but I am sure you could find some minion for the task.

:-)

Gavin

From: Ed9C Posted on: 8/26/2002 12:52 pm
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.10
in reply to: 63.8
Definitely worth it.
Then again, I am one of those "old school fans" ;)
I still have fond memories of the first Ars game I was in (using 2nd edition rules)

Ed C.

From: Ed9C Posted on: 8/28/2002 10:32 am
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.11
in reply to: 63.8
A thought on the image size/quality issue:
Quality is king.
I vote for a bigger file to keep the quality of the images.
Ed
From: Araquael Posted on: 8/28/2002 1:18 pm
To: Ed9C
Message: 63.12
in reply to: 63.11
Agreed,

better quality means better printing at the far end.

Gavin

From: Araquael Posted on: 8/28/2002 1:28 pm
To: John Nephew
Message: 63.13
in reply to: 63.8
Another daft suggestion:

Make as a downloadable BMP or JPG or PDF the Ars Magica world map, in colour.

Or have a nice big version of the map as a fold out included in some future release.

Gavin

From: Ed9C Posted on: 8/28/2002 2:45 pm
To: Araquael
Message: 63.14
in reply to: 63.13
I like both those suggestions!
A nice big map for the wall...
I like it a lot.
Ed
From: Araquael Posted on: 8/28/2002 2:53 pm
To: Ed9C
Message: 63.15
in reply to: 63.14
Oh yeah, the old Middle Earth map from the MERP game was stuck to my wall for YEARS!

A highly detailed map of Mythic Europe, with all the major covenants outlined, as well as cities and towns and borders and kingdoms of 1220...yes, I could dig that!

Gavin

From: Al3xWhite Posted on: 9/3/2002 8:09 pm
To: Araquael
Message: 63.16
in reply to: 63.15
As long as the map is a lot more detailed and accurate, and included the canon covenants to date, I'd buy the map.

Does Hotz do stuff for Ars anymore?

~Alex

From: Jeremiah Genest Posted on: 9/4/2002 9:26 am
To: Al3xWhite
Message: 63.17
in reply to: 63.16
All I know is he didn't do the maps in Blood and Sands. Not sure why.

He is still doing rpg catrography last time I checked, so I'm sure he can be made available if the prce is right.

Jeremiah

From: FCTBox3 Posted on: 9/4/2002 9:57 am
To: Jeremiah Genest
Message: 63.18
in reply to: 63.17
-----
All I know is he didn't do the maps in Blood and Sands. Not sure why.
-----

Didn't Atlas answer this question? He wouldn't answer his email.

As to including "canon covenants," I'm currently attempting this, and it has issues. The Berklist is populated with sourcebook writers, and some of them want the ability to come up with new covenants as necessary to make a point, meaning a canonical list would be overly restrictive.

I think it should be possible to make points with less than a whole covenant, (Magus Exemplus of Hnchak and his friends, FrEx), but I've never written a sourcebook, so maybe I'm wrong.

Anyhoo, "Need a covenant? Make one!" seems to have been the policy for a while, and there are just too many covenants. *Three* "On the Border of the Ardennes, near Belgium", at least 8 in Novgorod...ignoring the fact that the DatB says there are only 6.

Mythic Seas is especially guilty of this, but there's some behind-the-scenes action there that's probably under a nondisclosure agreement, so maybe the high-ups don't consider it a problem.

The covenants are also decidedly non-uniform in distribution. The british isles are full, as is Provencal and Rome, but Iberia, Normandy, Rhine, and Transylvania are just wastelands. Novgorod is sparse, but it's supposed to be, and currently so are the Levant and the Greater Alps, but since there are books in the queue for those, I assume Atlas could fix that.

And...and...I just looked...and I've deleted my map in a routine hard disk sweep... Excuse me, I have to go cry.

From: Jeremiah Genest Posted on: 9/4/2002 10:17 am
To: FCTBox3
Message: 63.19
in reply to: 63.18
-----
All I know is he didn't do the maps in Blood and Sands. Not sure why.
-----
Didn't Atlas answer this question? He wouldn't answer his email.

*******************

Right. I knew that. I just couldn't remember if it was said online in a forum or via private email.

I've already been chastized once this week for stating things out of turn. And that one stuf that is 3 years past. Since Blood and Sands isn't even pout tried on the side o caution.

But caution wasn't necessary, which is good.

I'm not sure why Hotz didn't respond to email. I'm sure he was just under some deadlines or somethng. I'm fairly confident Atlas paid him on time. Atlas may have terrible payr aes, but I've never had cause to believe they don't pay on time (actually I've heard nothing but good things from other freelancers on Atlas's pay timeliness, they have one of the best reputations there).

Jere