Intrigued by Ars Magica Definitive? Get it for FREE!
Almost two years ago, we asked the fans of Ars Magica to fund a massive summa of Ars Magica Fifth Edition – not a new edition, but a Definitive Edition that pulled together elements that developed across twenty years into a reference work with top-notch production. We were beyond thrilled with the response, and are intensely proud of the finished tomes that have been delivered into the hands of our backers all over the world over the last few weeks, and will soon be in game stores all over, too. (Watch this space for the official release announcement next week!)
Among the stretch goals of the campaign was the Ars Magica Open License: releasing the entire text of the 5th Edition line, and then more, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike License 4.0. Our fellow Ars Magica fans went straight to work using the license, publishing a host of new material (there’s even an entire category for the game now on DriveThruRPG, approaching a hundred community creations!).
If you're new to Ars Magica, the massive and expensive Definitive Edition is probably not right for you (at least not as your first step). But thanks to the generous support of our backers, you don't need to put down any money at all to dip your toe in the waters of Mythic Europe, or even fully immerse yourself!
Check out the conversion tracker on Project Redcap that provides all the text digitally (it's a long-time fan website loaded with great links and game material, too), or go to the complete Markdown rendition from OriginalMadman and friends on GitHub. You can read everything in the line online for free if you like. You can also download the text, share it with your friends, cut and paste and organize it into a document with exactly what you or your players need to start your Saga, modifying it any way you please.
As a business, of course we'd love your money. But what we would love more is for you to be inspired by this game, to make it your own, and to be part of building and transmitting the lore of Mythic Europe. The open license text was a gift from the Ars Magica community to itself, when you funded it with your generosity, and a gift to future generations of gamers as well.
Flambeau the Founder is famously quoted as saying, "Join us, or die!" -- but we'd just like you to join us so you don't miss out on all the fun. So go read the free text of the game now!
-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games
P.S. If you'd like to sample Ars Magica in narrative form, I recently read and loved two novels that have been done under the open license.
Jason Tondro's Shadow and Flame is available for free right now. Also, Jason Crawford is in the midst of a Kickstarter for The Shining Dragon, the first in a planned series of novels chronicling the life of a magus in Mythic Europe.
Check them out! I hope we'll soon see more adaptations of Mythic Europe into other media, too. :)
Image: Joan of Flambeau, knight errant from Shadow and Flame by Jason Tondro, illustrated by Jon Gibbons