The Book of Beasts
by Timothy Ferguson
Copyright Timothy Ferguson 1996, 1997, 1998. This material derives from the
work of other authors, whose rights are held by Atlas Games. Derivative
material is used with permission. This work may be used freely for personal
non-profit use, provided that the author is properly credited.
Prologue (3k)
Chapter One: Designing Beasts (61k)
Chapter Two: New Rules for Familiars (2k)
Chapter Three: Familiars and Saga Development (42k)
Chapter Four: Popular Familiars (103k)
Chapter Five: Quadrapeda (84k)
Chapter Six: Birds (84k)
Chapter Seven: Serpents (62k)
Chapter Eight: Worms (9k)
Chapter Nine: Fish (13k)
Appendix One: Humans as Familiars (12k)
Appendix Two: Familiars of the Realms (70k)
Appendix Three: Forms, Effects and Sizes (11k)
Bibliography (6k)
Preface
The Book of Beasts is a large net-project designed to fill the
hole left in the Ars Magica line by the absence of the Medieval
Bestiary. It was originally submitted as a book about Familiars,
then resubmitted as a more general work, but failed to achieve
publication. Sections of the Familiars manuscript have been included
in this version as two appendicies, since they are so very different
from other source material available online.
Parts of this manuscript are incomplete. The second chapter has
been removed, since it is to be published, in some form, in
Mythic Perspectives magazine.
As a non-official work, you should check with your storyguide
before using the variant rules found within. Although it never
made it up to par for publication, I deeply enjoyed the process
of creating this work, and hope that you'll enjoy reading it.
If you have need of any clarifications, please contact me.
The author would like to thank all those who volunteered time
as playtesters for the two versions of this work, and those who
are hosting the manuscript on their web sites.
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Kenji Ulstein:
The ideas that became the bond qualities Twilight
Loss, Suppress Flaws, Added Size, Frog's Mouth, Ring Magic, Talking
Telepathy, Shared Forms, Shared Personal Effects, Shared Touch
Range, Cross-fire, Humanoid, Shared Sight Range, Single Life Force,
Translocation, Flight From Azrael, Warped Bodies, Teleport, Biological
Clock, Jealous Pack, Roving, Twilight Points, Size, Temperamental
Bond, Wild, Blatant Gift, Undependable Bond, Size, Schism of the
Mind, Transferred Linguistic Abilities, Superiority of Familiar,
Jealousy, The Magus Reforged and many of the tinctures. Kenji's
just a brilliant guy to have around when writer's block sets in.
(If you can't find these, it means you haven't yet bought the
issue of Mythic Perspectives containing the variant rules for
bonding familiars. Just by the headings you can see what handy
ideas they are, so head off to the
MP page
and check the price on back issues.)
Joshua Landrum:
For general hole-patching.
Pre-submission Editing: Sarah E. B. Wishnevsky
Special Thanks To: Damelon Kimbrough
Damelon runs a site on the internet for "Ars Magica"
and sent me one of his old copies of ArM3 when I couldn't get
my hands on a rulebook. I promised myself I'd write articles
for his webpage, by way of thanks, but the thousand words I wanted
to write about how to play a cat realistically started to snowball
uncontrollably and this book is how the process ended.
Damelon's webpage has now evolved into Mythic Perspectives
magazine and Chapter Two of this book is only available through
this wonderful magazine. Chapter Two is really useful stuff.
Playtesting
Soraya Ghiasi, Matthew Seidl, Nathan Gardner, David Czeck, Ken
Stern, Warner Losh, Adrienne Kantor, Rita Czeck
Kenji Ulstein and Gang: Kenji, my notes on who was in your team
were lost. Please provide them to me again. My apologies to
all concerned.
Spanish Team: Javier Montalvo Espinosa, Javier Abad, Francisco
Javier Rodriguez, Fernando Perez Lara, Jordi Gordon, Felix Fernandez,
David Fernandez, Javier Rodriguez, Javier Ezequiel
Other playtesters: Jerome Darmont, Joshu Landrum, Mike Gearman,
Reuel Miller, Serge Delonville, William Jensen
Index
- The Search
- Alternatives to the Search
- Magical creation of animals
- Summoning of the Beloved Companion: CrAn(InMe) 80 Ritual
- Magical adaptation of animals
- The Alchemical Alteration of Animals
- Creating halflings
- The First Season: The season of Aurae
- The Second Season: The Season of cords
- Important Formulae for this Season
- Alternative Metals
- List of alternate cords
- The Four Usual Metals
- Gold
- Silver
- Bronze
- Copper
- The Unusual Metals
- Iron
- Lead
- Tinctures
- Gold
- Silver
- Bronze
- Copper
- Iron
- Lead
- Mercury
- Non-metallic Tinctures
- Carbuncle (Red Tincture)
- Cobalt (Blue Tincture)
- Coral Tincture
- Marble (White tincture)
- Opal (Opalised tincture or milky tincture)
- Pearl (Translucent Tincture)
- Quartz (Transparent Tincture)
- Sulphur (Yellow Tincture)
- Umber (Brown Tincture)
- Whetstone (colour varies)
- The Third Season: The Resonances
- General Virtues
- Shared Virtues
- New Powers
- Twilight Loss
- Virtues
- Suppress Flaws
- +5
- Attunement
- Awareness
- Extended Bond
- Frog's Mouth
- Linked Targets
- Material Bond
- Mental Bond
- Primary Power
- Ring Magic
- Shared Ability
- Shared Languages
- Shared Protection
- Shared Emotions
- Talking Telepathy
- +10
- Mental Communication
- Secondary Power
- Shared Forms
- Shared Personal Effects
- Overlapping Resistance
- Shared "Touch" Range
- Shared Speech
- Sympathetic Emotions
- Transferred Fatigue
- Unlimited Bond
- +15
- Cross-fire
- Humanoid
- Shapechange
- Shared Magic
- Shared "Sight" Range
- Shared Wounds
- Single Life Force
- +20
- Shared Perceptions
- Traded Minds
- +25
- Translocation
- Flight from Azrael
- Warped Bodies
- +30
- General Flaws
- Biological Clock
- Exchange Flaws
- Jealous Pack
- Roving
- Twilight Points
- -5
- Independence
- Limited Bond
- Size
- Sympathetic Fatigue
- Sympathetic Pain
- Temperamental Bond
- -10
- At Odds
- Blatant Gift
- Undependable Bond
- Size
- Tight Bond
- Sympathetic Wounds
- Superiority of Familiar
- Wild
- -15
- Jealousy
- Halves of the Whole
- -20
- -25
- Transferred Linguistic Abilities
- -30
- Transferred Quirks
- Mild
- Average
- Severe
- Extreme
- The Fourth Season: The Closing of the Bond, the Ending of the Ritual
- Later Seasons
- Alternative Rituals
- Multiple Familiars
- Refamiliarisation
- Intergenerational Familiars