Faerie Stories
 | |
| Product Information | |
|---|---|
| Rules Edition: | Fourth |
| Abbreviation: | FS |
| Product Type: | Scenario |
| Author(s): | Phil Masters and Neil Taylor |
| Publisher: | Atlas Games |
| Product Number: | AG0271 |
| ISBN: | 1-58978-045-0 |
| Release date: | November 2003 |
| Format: |
Softcover and PDF, 112 pages |
| Availability: |
In print PDF available |
Faerie Stories is a Fourth Edition Ars Magica supplement containing several stories (i.e., adventures) involving faeries and the Faerie Realm.
Subject and Contents
Faerie Stories is a collection of stories and locations relating to faeries. Chapter I presents an overview of the book and a new Talent, Faerie Guile (evasive speech, rather than outright lying). Chapter II presents advice on setting up a saga or covenant to use the material, as well as rules for vis hunts. The book proper begins only in Chapter III, and Chapter IX is added as an appendix describing Brittany.
Chapter III describes an ordinary medieval town, which hosts an annual midsummer fair. Every seven years, a faerie fair is held in a regio overlapping the mundane fair and mirroring it. A few story seeds are provided.
Chapter VIII provides three "Brief Encounters" that can be used as en route encounters and regional locales. These are Dwellers in the Stones (Faerie dwarven ghosts, of sorts), The Wild Boys (tribal, wild, faerie boys), and Argentaria Devorans (the devouring Faerie silver mine).
The Short Way Home
Chapter IV is an adventure entitled "The Short Way Home", which consists of the grogs being transformed to animals and having to travel back to the covenant in those forms. Evading farmers, other faeries, hunters, and more, until they reach safety. Then the magi must find some means of restoring their grogs.
The Saga of Cierella
Chapter V depicts the Valley of the Mists, contested between the faerie courts of Bright Winter and Dark Summer. Chapter VI describes a grand contest, held by Cierella, the queen of bright winter. The PC's participation in this contest leads to tension with a neighboring covenant, and possible legal actions; as well as possible friendship with the queen and invitation to future contests.
In Chapter VII, "Tower in the Rock", the queen of Bright Winter has been captured by the king of Dark Summer. The PCs are to venture to his forboding realm and free the queen.
Compatibility with Fifth Edition
Note that the definition of the Faerie Realm has changed a bit between Fourth Edition and Fifth Edition. Some creatures which are classified as Faerie in this book might more properly belong to the Magic Realm. This will probably not affect the playability of the stories. Purists may wish to modify some of the creatures a bit to better fit the current definitions of the Realms.
There have also been significant rules changes between Fourth and Fifth Edition that will require some statistics, especially combat statistics, to be converted.
The book includes a partial description of Brittany, which is part of the Normandy Tribunal. The tribunal's Fifth Edition description is given in The Lion and the Lily. Faerie Stories provides a more partial description that is closer to history and more vis-rich, and does not include the tribunal traditions and laws introduced in LatL. If you decide to set the stories at Brittany, you may need to do some thinking on how they fit into the Fifth Edition landscape. The stories are mostly generic, however, and can be made to fit anywhere.
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