Season
Ars Magica uses the term Season to refer to two game concepts - the developmental stage of a covenant or character, and the period of time.
Developmental Stage
Ars Magica describes the long-term development of a Covenant through the metaphor of seasons. Some players use the season metaphor to describe the career of an individual magus. This usage is not canonical but it can be a useful model, and seems like a way characters might describe magi in the game world.
The Four Seasons
Spring
Spring covenants tend to be full of energy to the point of seeming frenetic or even manic. This is because they have to be. Spring covenant are fighting for their very survival, working hard to establish themselves as haven of the safety... and also gain the surplus resources, beyond mere survival, that are necessary for serious studies of the Hermetic Arts.
Magi need months of uninterrupted studies to improve themselves. To achieve this, the basics (such as food, a place to live and the right to live there) must be secured... as must suitable material for studies.
Spring stories tend to be externally-driven: the covenant is forced to respond to threats from outside, or forced to go beyond its own established sphere of influence, in order to lay the groundwork for growth.
Perhaps someone disputes the the covenant's rights to some source of income, or demands payment of taxes/tribute/rent for the location of the covenant buildings. Magi from other covenants test the magi with respect to how far they are willing to go to keep their meager resources, be they gold or Vis. Stories about Hermetic politics tend to center around some covenant or other taking advantage of the spring covenant (which must then be fought off politically) or about the spring covenant being offered bargains that they may well live to regret, be it resources they need in return for their votes on a particular subject, or offers to support them politically against the 'big bully' in return for future favors - or more vis/tractatii than they really feel they can afford.
Summer
The Summer of a covenant's life can be by comparison introspective, or outward-turning. The most direct and pressing needs are taken care of. Magi can assume that day-to-day needs aren't going to require they personal exalted attention. Attention turns away from mere survival; some turn to self-discovery and personal growth, some to outward expansion.
On the one hand, you may for the first time have the leisure to realize that your fellow covenant member is a repulsive manipulative toad of a person, despite his fair exterior, and that while you needed him during spring, perhaps you are less than happy to spend the rest of your life within reach of his coils. Perhaps the difference is simply one of vision - how is this covenant supposed to be lead.
This is also the time for magi & covenants concerned with power to expand - Arts are still low enough that progress is fast, surplus typically exists to aquire new books or expand Vis in the creation of devices. Summer is often the time for grand projects: The short term shortages of Spring are in the past and the magi are expanding; the sky's the only limit in sight!
Typically this is when magi start taking apprentices and binding familiars - suddenly the covenant is full of individuals of significant mystical power, yet weaker than the main magi.
Of course not all magi will pursue raw power, but the surplus that make such studies possible also allow magi with other interests to pursue their fascinations. Perhaps the Jerbiton magus studies finesse for a few years in order to become a sculptor of the highest order? Perhaps the Trianomite starts visiting every covenant in the tribunal (or in the entire Order!) to find allies and tie the Order together?
Autumn
Summer cannot last, alas. Autumn is a sobering time for most magi. Arts and abilities are high enough that improving them take significant effort. The sky may well be the limit but it still feels awfully close!
The covenant is powerful enough that it has few direct enemies save for political rivals. Indeed many magi throw themselves into politics at this stage of life if not sooner.
Autumn agan focuses outwards but from very different reasons and indeed with different aims, compared to Spring. Autumn knows survival is garanteed but only if those upstarts do not steal necessary resources! Thus Autumn is moved to control and politcal maneuvering. Let young energetic magi deal with the problems - or atleast we can see what kinds of problems they are from how the young ones are beaten back!
Indeed many Autumn stories spring from fear. Fear of Death and fear of loss of control - the same thing to the mind of many autumn magi!
Many of the Spring plots return but seen from the other side of the coin - now Autumn must offer bad bargains to Spring to stave them off and keep as much power as possible!
Autumn is also the point where Longevity Rituals can be expected to start failing - something that can potentially cost huge amounts of Vis and even tip a character (or even a whole covenant!) into Winter.
Winter
Even Autumn cannot last and even Autumn will be missed by those beyond it. Entering Winter means you've 'won'. Nothing the world has thrown at you have managed to kill you! Yet Winter is a sad season. Winter means that loss outpaces gain. In the winter every victory bears the tinge of loss.
Perhaps the Magi are too afraid of final Twilight to cast spells. Perhaps they are so obsessed with their projects to care about or even notice the loss of things around them. Perhaps they are simply so mad that they do more harm to the covenant than good - intentionally or not.
Stories about young magi arriving at a winter covenant and trying to turn things around are only truely winter stories if they fail - if they succed it is a form of spring story!
Time Period
Another use of the term is to depict a period of time in the game. Each Season, in this sense, usually proceeds from one solstice/equinox to the next, definign the traditional four astronomical seasons. Characters are advanced one season at a time, gaining experience and accomplishing deeds (and accruing decrepitude, aging, and so on).
However, this concept of Season is also taken to a more abstract level, to represent the amount of time someone devotes to a particular task. Thus, a peasant may have one free Season per year to do with as he pleases mechanically, but this doesn't mean that he genuianly takes the season off. Rather, it is meant to mechanically represent the peasant devoting time throughout the year to pursue his interests.
The Seasons are typically set according to the astrological, rather than climatic, periods in order to accomodate magi. Magi genuinly need to take the effect of the stars into consideration in their lab work, and so the astrological seasons are of greater significance than the agricultural ones in the game.
References
- "Seasonal Characters" in Hermes Portal Issue 5
The edit history of this page before August 6, 2010 is archived at Legacy:season.