The Queen of Gold and Glass

In this series of stories, a powerful faerie noblewoman provokes the player characters, to trick or convince them to participate in a sequence of eight encounters. This faerie, called the Queen of Gold and Glass, is a dispenser of labors — a type of faerie that draws vitality from setting a series of quests. The Queen's schemes threaten the prosperity of the player characters and appear to threaten their lives, but the Queen does not want the player characters to die. She may even aid them against threats from third parties.

The Queen's scheme has a second goal, beyond forcing the player characters to complete these stories. The Queen is able to craft faerie duplicates of skills that humans use while completing stories she has instigated. If she witnesses a wide variety of Hermetic spells, she becomes able to create a faerie magus to serve in her court. Each of the scenarios the Queen of Gold and Glass designs encourages player characters to cast spells from one of the Forms, so that her minions can witness them.

As the Roman Empire was first stretching its covetous hands out over Europe to seize the lands of the barbarian tribes, a skilled mortal artisan made a perfect mirror as a gift for his beloved. She proved false, and the craftsman cursed the mirror and buried it. It was found by a faerie, and given to a princess. When she first stared into the mirror, the Queen of Gold and Glass reached out from Faerie, and stole her shape, her life, and her place in the mundane world. In the centuries since, the Queen has played games with mortals and made faerie versions of her foes.

The Queen of Gold and Glass wants to mold the role of one or more of her subordinate faeries into that of a court magician. She is, however, a connoisseur of mundane detail. She wants her servants to act as real magicians do, and simulate the powers that real magicians have. To research wizards accurately, the Queen selects a group of young magi and carefully provokes them.

In each of the challenges she arranges, the Queen considers herself to have been victorious if the magi cast spells her servants have not witnessed before. As her servants observe, or suffer the effects of, each spell, her court wizards gain the ability to simulate it. The wider the variety of spells the player characters are tempted to use, the more amusing the Queen's wizards become. The Queen is immortal, so she feels no need to rush: the longer the player characters are given to mature, the more interesting the spells they have time to study.

The Queen lures the player characters into stories approximately once every four years. There are three reasons for the Queen's lengthy pauses between challenges. First, she is immortal, and so has the time to waste. Second, she knows the player characters are mortal, and so become more powerful as they age, so there is no reason to persecute them while they are unformed. Finally, more regular challenges might sidetrack the characters.

Spells that affect faeries are less interesting to her than others, because she can already mold her servants. The time the wizards spend developing countermeasures against her might leave them overspecialized, and vulnerable to the many other threats they face in Mythic Europe.

If the suggested frequency or number of encounters does not suit a saga, its players should, of course, alter the Queen's plan.

Preliminary Encounters and Necessary Symbols

Before the Queen of Gold and Glass can usefully provoke the magi, she must complete two tasks.

First, the Queen must mark the magi as her protagonists, by a story event. She does not appear in person. The magi are marked sufficiently, for her purposes, if they have had an encounter with one of her minions. The encounter must be so notable that,

Faeries in Ars Magica are not like the monsters in most roleplaying games. They are living story elements. This has effects that new players need to be aware of.

Faeries Cannot Think Like People

It's important to remember that the Queen needs to do certain things, even if they are ill advised, because she is not a human being. In the same way that a banshee must predict the death of her descendants rather than prevent it, or a brownie given a suit of clothes must pick them up and leave the house they were offered in, the Queen must perform her role. She has no more choice than a rock has about whether to fall.

The Queen, like all faeries, has a role instead of a soul. This means she must:

• Mark her work with repeated insignia.
• Run the characters through a series of stories.
• Confront the magi after their stories are complete.
• Not sidetrack the story. She cannot just pay the PCs their weight in gold to do what she wants, for example. She is feeding on the emotional energy of the player characters as they complete the stories; she wants them to follow the stories, rather than give her something specific.

The Queen, unlike most other faeries, is Highly Cognizant. This means she is aware of what she is, she knows about her dependence on story elements, and within certain limits, she can take all the advantages her role allows.

Players, and their characters, are meant to notice that the Queen does not act like a human. This makes her vulnerable to counterploys, allowing players with characters not strongly suited to combat to defeat the Queen's designs. Troupes can, in character, have fun with the tropes of the story being told. The dispenser of labors has been chosen as the Queen's role because it is very similar to the role of final boss in computer games. The Queen shares many of the traits of a computer game character, the most obvious being that she tailors the strength of her minions to suit the player characters, and she scatters collectable tokens which, when combined, allow the player characters to confront her.

Players are meant to enjoy this, and, during these stories, add elements of their own that suit her theme. Players suggesting that a key taken from a faerie should, in this story, fit any lock, or that their foes should die in a shower of coins, should be rewarded for their insight. Groups that prefer a more historically realistic style of Ars Magica can instead reward players who note and use other tropes from period stories with dispensers of labors.

Faerie Powers

When calculating the cost of Faerie Powers, Hermetic magic is used as a guide, but many levels differ, as noted in Realms of Power: Faerie. These differences come from three main sources.

Faeries are creatures of magical energy, which construct bodies out of stray matter. This means that many of their powers are actually a type of shapeshifting. For example, when the faerie knight below makes his sword shed slivers of glass spines, when he makes his armor dissolve into smoke, or when he makes his horse appear, he is actually just shifting the shape of his body. The bodies of faeries, and this includes the props they carry as part of their role, are not resisted by the Parma Magica.

Hermetic magic is weaker in all forms of travel magic than faeries are. Flight, for example, is difficult and dangerous for magi, but simple for faeries.

Many things that faeries do break Hermetic limits. The most obvious example of this here is the Queen's Attribute Duplication Virtue. It's a non-Hermetic virtue that allows the Queen to do what her role as a dispenser of labors and duplicator of mortals requires. It's not treated as a Power, because it has no Might cost, and is not cast at player characters, so it doesn't need a Penetration score.

Highly cognizant faeries — those who know that they are spirits that require human vitality and can use a variety of stories to force humans to give it to them — are able to redesign the lesser faeries who serve them. This is not represented with a Virtue, but is particularly important in this scenario.

Attribute Duplication

Several Major Virtues (Supernatural)

This miscellaneous package of Virtues allows the Queen to use the non-Hermetic powers required for her role in this series of stories. It allows her to use Arcane Connections in the unusual ways described in the text, and to craft her minions. The Queen may craft into her minions mortal attributes that they witness, provided she has a symbolic object for the witnessed human. This power has some limitations: for example, she cannot replicate Infernal or Divine attributes.

This Virtue package is not suited for player character faeries.

Supernaturally Fragile

Major Flaw (Supernatural)

This character's form is made of living glass. Her Soak score is reduced by 9.

once the stories have begun and the player characters know her symbols, they can look back upon the event as the moment when the cycle of stories started.

The Queen's second task is that she must gather, through her servants, a number of symbolic objects that represent each magus. Arcane Connections can serve as symbolic items, but any other item that makes the character strongly express emotion is also suitable. Like many faeries, the Queen can create Arcane Connections through exchanges of speech and gifts of food. She can fashion these social connections into symbolic objects. The power of these symbolic objects does not fade away, as Arcane Connections do. The Queen can, alternatively, use items that represent the covenant as whole as symbolic objects for all members of that covenant.

If she uses one of her minions to gain the objects, then that minion needs, eventually, to be revealed as hers. This can be as simple as the faerie having her symbol, a mirror, about itself somewhere. The mirror needs to be memorable, but its presence does not need to be stressed to the player characters. It might be a design sewn into a heraldic surcoat, a real mir-

The Queen of Gold and Glass is a mystically powerful, but physically fragile, faerie. She has the appearance of a barbarian princess from the Roman period. The princess whose appearance the Queen of Gold and Glass has stolen is captive in the Queen's Faerie realm. She may be rescued by the player characters, if they kill the Queen.

Faerie Might: 40 (Imaginem)

Characteristics: Int +3, Per 0, Pre +3, Com +1, Str –1, Sta 0*, Dex +1, Qik 0

* Supernaturally tireless

Size: 0

Virtues and Flaws: Attribute Duplication, Greater Faerie Power x 4, Highly Cognizant, Increased Faerie Might (Major x 2), Spirit Away*; Faerie Sight, Humanoid Form, Increased Faerie Might (Minor), Passes for Human, Personal Faerie Power, Supernaturally Fragile, Traditional Ward (Absolute darkness**)

* Spirit Away is a complicated power that is described fully in Realms of Power: Faerie. This power, without Might cost or dice rolls, allows the Queen to keep a prisoner in a mirror and borrow her form, and also powers the frame that the characters assemble as the scenario proceeds. If you are not using Realms of Power: Faerie, then for the purposes of this scenario, this power does nothing else.

** If not using the detailed rules in Realms of Power: Faerie, assume the Queen avoids darkness the way vampires avoid garlic.

Personality Traits: Vain +3, Cares nothing for mortal suffering +2.

Reputations: None.

Combat: (The Queen avoids combat, due to her glass-like fragility. She uses her minions to fight for her.)

Hands: Init 0, Attack +2, Defense +2, Damage –1

Soak: –9

Fatigue Levels: Tireless

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Broken (16–20), Shattered (21+)

Pretenses: Any appropriate. Her Order of Hermes Lore is 2 (Arts), which leads her to make mistakes when designing her challenges for magi.

Powers:

Allure, 1 points, Init –1, Mentem. R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind. Adds +3 to all rolls which impress or convince others. (Costs 10 spell levels (Base 3 +1 Touch +2 Sun)

Eidolon, 2 points, Init –2, Imaginem. R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind. Creates an illusory form that acts, sounds, and moves as directed. The Queen prefers to make her eidolon appear on reflective surfaces. (Costs 20 spell levels (Base 2: +2 move at direction, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +1 intricacy)

Extend Glamour, 0 points, constant, Mentem. R: Touch, D: Until (while she remains present), T: Boundary (although it does not need to be as formally delineated as in Hermetic magic). This power allows the Queen to take control of a small mundane area, making it an extension of her Faerie kingdom. For more detail see Realms of Power: Faerie, or just assume she can create any cosmetic change that suits her theme, she can summon any of her servants, sense anything that occurs in the area, and appear at any point in the area. Her use of this power creates a Faerie aura of 6 in the area. (Costs 25 spell levels: (Special))

Guide, 3 points, Init –3, Mentem. R: Voice, D: Conc, T: Group. Subtly influences the victim toward a cer-

ror carried in a pocket with other jumbled miscellanea, or a symbol painted on an inn sign. This is part of the process of marking her protagonists, mentioned previously.

This section suggests various initial encounters between the servants of the Queen and the magi. Several options are offered, so that the storyguide can select the one that best suits her saga.

• A faerie aids the covenant against a foe, in exchange for a symbolic object that is obviously worthless. For example, a faerie smith helps the covenant repair a damaged magic item, but in exchange he asks for the decanter from which

The Queen's name comes from the technology used to create mirrors until the end of the Roman Empire. These mirrors were glass, with gilded backs. Such mirrors are no longer made in Mythic Europe, except perhaps by magi who keep some of the crafts of the Empire alive. Medieval mirrors are made of steel, silver, polished marble, and, in some places, glass with a lead backing. When the Queen's powers refer to "reflective surfaces," things that can reflect an outline, rather than detail, are intended.

the magi drink during their council meetings; or a faerie knight aids the characters in combat against a demon, but demands in exchange a token that has previously been used for an Aegis ritual, but is not currently empowered.

• A sprite steals a trivial item, at great danger to itself, while the magi are traveling and are therefore outside the protection of the Aegis. If the characters have any equipment that is owned communally and marked with the sigil of the covenant, that suits the sprite.

• A faerie bard engages the player characters in a game of riddles, or offers another challenge or wager, with the penalty that if they lose, she will take from them, forever, the ability to pro-

tain course of action. The Queen uses this power to force humans to use the skills she wants to duplicate. (Costs 30 spell levels (Base 5, +2 Voice, +1 Conc, +2 Group))

Hound, 2 points, Init –2, Corpus. R: Arc, D: Conc, T: Ind. Allows the Queen to know the direction and distance of her prey. (Costs 20 spell levels (Base 3, +4 Arc, +1 Conc))

Limited Enthrallment, 4 point, Init –4, Mentem. R: Eye, D: Conc, T: Ind. This power allows the Queen to place a person in a meditative state, utterly dominating the victim. It is limited in that she can only give a single instruction: to stare endlessly and without thinking at one's own reflection. A human trapped like this eventually collapses from exhaustion, which breaks the effect. A character in this state can be rescued by being shaken, or by having a hand passed before his eyes. Costs 20 spell levels (Base 25, +1 Eye, +2 Conc)

Spirit Away: A complicated power with an extensive description in Realms of Power: Faerie. Although the Queen has this power, and has used it to trap the princess whose body she is duplicating, she will not use it further in this story.

Travel Through Mirrors, 0 points, Init 0, Corpus. This power allows a faerie to emerge from Faerie into the mortal world through a mirror. The converse power, fading into Faerie by unknitting its material body, is not a power at all; it's a natural ability of all faeries, although they rarely use it, because they lack the ability to return as swiftly as the Queen can. (Costs 25 spell levels: Greater Powers. (Special))

Equipment: The finery of a barbarian queen, from the period of the Roman expansion.

Vis: When the Queen dies, she shatters into pieces of gold-backed glass. The largest piece, which is shaped like a heart, is a mirror. Within it the characters can see the barbarian princess who gave the Queen her form. Characters can reach into the heart and pull the princess out, which shatters the glass. These shattered pieces of glass contain 8 pawns of Imaginem vis in total. This is not, however, the anchor (personal vis) of the Queen: it's a distraction to prevent the PCs finding her vis. The Queen's spirit is anchored to a gold and glass bead, which the princess wears. This also contains 8 pawns of vis. It is the princess' most prized possession, because wearing it has the same effect as the spell Aura of Rightful Authority. Over time the Queen can move to another object, or rebuild her body, if this vis is not harvested.

Appearance: The Queen has stolen her appearance from a Germanic princess whom she has taken prisoner, using her Spirit Away power. She appears to be in her early twenties, and has piercing blue eyes and red hair. She is tall and broad shouldered. The Queen's possessions are made of faerie glamor, as is her body, but appear to be made of mortal materials. She wears a cloak apparently made of alternating strips of leather and spotted animal hide. This is fastened with a thorn at her right shoulder. The dress underneath is form-fitting and appears to be linen, embodied with purple thread. It is sleeveless. She seems to wear sturdy boots with intricately tooled upper surfaces. The Queen, and her clothes, look slightly translucent, and the color of her body and accouterments is paler than it should be.

If it seems like a story likely to interest the troupe, then the pieces can be used as Arcane Connections to each other. This lets the player characters arrive at some of the Queen's stories before she has finished preparing them. This allows the player characters to destroy her plans, and the players to have fun in a bizarre setting where the elements of a standard Ars Magica story are just loosely scattered about. Faerie NPCs repeat likely pieces of dialogue over and over, characters wander on set routes through territory the player characters are likely to cross, and pieces of setting and scenery are missing but the NPCS don't seem to notice.

Alternatively, the storyguide can play this straighter, and just have the player characters encounter a normal setting, with the non-player characters not sure why they are there.

To avoid all this, the storyguide may assume that the missing pieces of the puzzle are in Faerie, and the Queen only releases a new one into the mortal world each time the player characters begin one of her stories.

nounce a single word of their choice. She has faerie treasure and valuable information to offer as her stake. Spending her valuables or following her clues merely draws the characters to other servants of the Queen.

• A faerie offers the characters hospitality, taking binding oaths she will not harm them while they remain in her home. She offers a safe bed, food, and wine. Afterward, she takes their bathwater to her mistress. She also takes the shaven stubble from the cheeks of the magi, if she can. The hostess is content that she, personally, does the characters no harm.
• A fisherman reports someone acting strangely downstream from the covenants, casting nets but freeing any fish captured. This is a simple country lad, sent by a faerie to cast his nets in the waters for a year, and bring back what is drawn up. So far, the net isn't catching anything, according to the human pawn. Magi examining the net carefully will, however, find that it is capturing human hair that is leaving the covenant as part of the refuse that is poured into the river.

Careful Selection of Minions

The Queen calibrates her challenges to suit the power of the magi. Sometimes her estimations are wrong, but generally her weaker minions face younger magi or mundanes, and her more powerful servants are reserved for senior magi. Characters who discover that many of the events in their lives have been orchestrated by a single antagonist may conclude that either their foe is becoming more powerful over time, or that the foe is deliberately not using overwhelming force during their encounters.

The Queen's faerie minions are described at the end of this chapter. In addition to her faeries, the Queen uses human hirelings, mortal dupes, and captured monsters to pressure the player characters into casting spells. She needs to do this because all of her faeries have similar powers, so repeatedly challenging them does not force the magi to use a variety of spells. The Queen's mortal pawns are not given statistics, since these can be easily extrapolated from grogs or companions given in other supplements.

The Queen presents eight stories, to tempt magi to cast spells. Each story is linked to an Art. The Queen's plots are deliberately linked to, but do not actually force, the use of spells of a particular Form. The Queen does not understand Hermetic magic clearly, so her plans are flawed. Player characters who recognize the pattern can subvert her design. This forces her to become more directly involved in the stories she creates, allowing the player characters to encounter the Queen outside her court.

The challenges here are presented in alphabetic order by Art, but storyguides should present them in whichever order suits their saga. Creatures and environmental puzzles need to be made more difficult to overcome as the characters age. In fleshing out these challenges, the storyguide should remember that the Queen lacks originality. When describing detail during the stories, be sure to recycle motifs, stories, and events from the lives of the player characters. This information is gathered for her by Shadowy Servants (described at the end of the chapter). This reflection of the experience of the player characters stresses the Queen's theme, mirrors.

The Queen of Gold and Glass does not challenge the magi to use Vim or Imaginem spells. As a spirit she is a mistress of Vim magic already, and does not want her minions to have powerful spells to cast against spirits such as herself. Faerie glamour and Imaginem are, in some sense, related. She is not familiar with the subtler uses of this Art, so she sees no reason to challenge the player characters in Imaginem. The examples given below are simply suggestions: the storyguide should tailor the challenges to fit her troupe's magi.

The Frame of Gold

After each challenge is overcome, the characters may discover what appears to be a piece of gilt picture frame. Intellego Vim spells can determine that it is made of faerie glamor, but does not include useable vis. When placed between two mirrors, the completed frame becomes a corridor that leads to the Land of Gold and Glass. In this form it is a complete faerie, and contains 8 pawns of Rego vis. If the players lose or destroy a piece, that doesn't matter; the Queen arranges for a replacement if she wants the characters to visit her realm. Storyguides wishing to stretch this story further may make quests for the pieces of the frame into separate stories. Instead of finding the frame pieces at the end of each of the Queen's stories, the player characters instead discover clues that assist them to find each piece.

The frame is not a mortal object. It is a Threshold Guardian, a faerie creature that wishes to be reassembled. This allows it to use its Spirit Away power to continue the story for which it was molded. The pieces of

the frame, as parts of a faerie, can sense their surroundings, communicate with each other, move when they are not being watched, and subtly manipulate their surroundings. Each piece can also alter the dreams of any person lacking Magic Resistance who verbally identifies herself as the piece's owner. The pieces also trick their owners into proximity, so that they can be bought together.

Animal: The Plague of Animals

A plague of small creatures, unnatural to the area about the covenant, is loosed by the Queen's Hazy Servants (described near the end of the chapter). The animals are destructive to the area's agriculture, so they must be dealt with. Some of these animals, marked by a different color, contain a small amount of vis. Other versions of the creatures are gigantic in size, and ferocious, even if their species is generally docile. These huge variants do not contain vis.

The Queen hopes the characters create predators, corral the creatures magically, and directly destroy them so that she can steal these effects. To mark her responsibility, she sends her Distinguished Huntsman to capture some of the creatures her lesser servants have loosed. He focuses on the enormous versions of the creatures, and until the characters determine that these contain no vis, he may seem like a rival, snatching away their valuable prey.

Most of the creatures are absolutely natural, if corralled and released by faer-

If the magi, for example, solve the Animal challenge by destroying all of the creatures with magical flame, that's fine. The Queen is a Highly Cognizant faerie, so she's adaptable. She just adds another story with an Animal theme and considers whether the Ignem story is still necessary. If the players are still enjoying the stories, it doesn't matter that the Queen, with her tiny score in Order of Hermes Lore, has misunderstood how magi use their powers. The Queen often cannot know whether the player characters have strained the limits of their Arts or not.

If the players are beginning to tire of this set of stories, then assume the Queen knows the characters are no longer emotionally invested in her gambits. She either leaves them alone, until their interest revives after they have had other experiences, or she changes her plan and moves onto the concluding confrontation.

ies. Natural animals can cross the Aegis of the Hearth and infest the covenant, provided they migrate. The vis-containing and gigantic versions of the creatures cannot cross the Aegis, because the first have Might and the second are influenced by a spell-like effect.

Deep in the guts of one of the larger versions of the creatures, the player characters might discover a chunk of what appears to be gilt picture frame.

Aquam: Unprecedented Flood

The Queen's servants cause a flood by placing mirrors in the bottom of a major river, and allowing its waters to flow through reflective surfaces in a small town near the covenant. Characters can stem the tide by smashing the reflective surfaces, although some are difficult to approach due to the force of the water surging from them. Even after the characters stem the flow of new water, the remaining floodwaters need to be dealt with, as the damage they cause to buildings and crops increases the longer the land remains saturated.

The Queen's powers can't easily penetrate the Aegis of the Hearth, so the rivulets leaking from shiny possessions cannot directly damage the covenant. Once they have been transported, however, the floodwaters are entirely natural, so they can seep through the Aegis from affected areas outside.

After the flood subsides, the characters may find a piece of gilt-edged frame in the body of a huge sturgeon, lying at the high point of the flood.

Auram: Sickening Vapors

The people of a village near the covenant begin to sicken. After an investiga-

Smoothfaces are faeries that appear entirely human, but have the ability to wipe away their faces, leaving featureless skin. Regardless of their lack of features, they can still see and smell. Smoothfaces are drawn to travelers and those who fear strangers. These victims the faeries terrify, for fun and vitality. If a smoothface terrifies a victim to death, it can duplicate that person's face. Smoothfaces do not, however, engage in combat save in selfdefense, and do little other harm.

In this story, the Smoothfaces wish to keep the Gifted child. They think the child will be able to draw faces to order.

Smoothfaces are best created by taking another character, which the smoothface is pretending to be, and altering it slightly. Add 10 Might, the Virtues and Flaws below (or add Infiltrator if appropriate), Personality traits, Powers, and Vis. So, as an example, the Basic Soldier from ArM5, page 22, becomes:

Basic Soldier Smoothface

Smoothfaces can be player characters. The example given here needs higher Characteristics and six Minor Flaws to balance. Its player might also consider the Damaging Effect power.

Faerie Might: 10 (Corpus)

Characteristics: Int –1, Per 0, Pre –3, Com 0, Str +1, Sta +1, Dex +2, Qik +2

Size: 0

Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Powers; Faerie Sight, Humanoid Form, Increased Faerie Might, Personal Faerie Powers, Narrowly Cognizant, Passes for Human, Personal Power (Shift Human Shape), Traditional Ward (crowds).

Personality Traits: Enjoys fear +3, Jovial +2

Combat:

Axe and Heater shield: Init +0, Attack +12, Defense +11, Damage +7.

Brawl: Init+2, Attack +8, Defense +8, Damage +1.

Soak: +8 (Full metal scale armor)

Wound Penalties: 0, –1 (1-5), –1 (6- 10), –3 (11-15), –5 (16-20), Incapacitated (21–25), Dead (26+)

Pretenses: Area Lore 3 (lonely places), Athletics 3 (chasing people), Awareness 3 (victims), Brawl 4 (punching), Carouse 3 (luring people outside), Charm 4 (luring people to lonely places), Etiquette 3 (blending in), Folk Ken 4 (fitting in), Guile 5 (victims), Single Weapon 5 (axe)

Powers:

Gripping Fear, 0 points, Init –2, Corpus . R: Sight, D: Sun, T: Ind, constant. If humans see the creature's smooth face, they are gripped by terror and forced to flee. This causes Fatigue loss. Several creatures may work together, ambushing victims as they stop to rest, or a single creature may use a mixture of the Invisibility and Shift Human Shapes Powers to torment a victim. (As Panic of the Trembling Heart, ArM5 page 148, +1 for constant, +2 intricacy points to reduce cost) (ReMe Base 5, +1 Eye, + 2 Sun, +2 intricacy points to reduce cost)

Invisibility, 2 points, Init –2, Imaginem. R: Per, D: Sun, T: Ind. A personal version of Veil of Invisibility as ArM5 page 146.

Loss of Sense of Direction, 0 points, Init –2, Corpus. R: Eye, D: Sun, T: Ind. This is a version of the Guide power. Using it, the smoothface ensures that its victim flees toward an abandoned place, where he or she can be attacked again.

Shift Human Shapes, 0 points, Init –1, Corpus. R: Per, D: Mom, T: Part. Allows the character to melt its face away by wiping it with a hand, or restore it as easily. It also allows the faerie to take various human forms. The faerie uses invisibility to overtake an exhausted human, to take a comforting shape, and then terrify him again. (Base 3, +2 Sun, +1 intricacy point for cost reduction)

Vis: 2 pawns, Corpus, an eggshell Equipment: As per disguise Appearance: A humanoid with a face as smooth and white as eggshell.

tion, the player characters determine that sickening air is being released by a well. The Queen's servants are sending bad air from a distant swamp through mirrors to the well. This can be prevented simply by placing a well cover on it: the well's surface isn't reflective in the dark.

The player characters can treat those who have become ill. Magi can create breezes that disperse the cloud of sickening air that has formed over the village, and sweep the fumes out of the village's recesses. The magi can remove the threat caused by the well permanently either by making covers for it so that its surface is never struck by light, by casting a spell that has a similar effect, by removing a piece of gilt frame that is buried in the sediment at the bottom of the well, or by lowering an intact mirror into the well.

Corpus: People are Corpus, Too

For this challenge, the Queen doesn't need magic: she just needs money. Her servants hire bands of pirates, rogues, and thieves to terrorize the roads and ports around the covenant. Afterward the Queen is likely to be disappointed. Corpus magic doesn't work the way she thinks it does: magi don't need to use it to fight people just because people are of the form of Corpus.

The Queen, at the storyguide's discretion, may supplement her strategy. She continues her bandit attacks, but also transports plague-ridden corpses to the area, hiding them in strategic places. These bodies wear foreign garb, because the Queen has brought them from far away. She underestimates the destructiveness of her strategy, because the corpses have come from different places and carry a variety of lethal diseases. These work synchronously to grind down the local population. The Queen may intervene with aid if the sicknesses spread too far, or kill too many.

After defeating a particularly skilled and well-supplied band of cutthroats, the characters may recover a piece of the gateway from the enemy leader. He is absolutely sure that the frame piece is a vast gold nugget, reflecting his avaricious desires. The Queen has played tricks on his mind, to make sure he didn't lose the piece before the characters had a chance to seize it from him.

Herbam: Stolen Child

The Queen sets this challenge in a forest in the hope it will force the player characters to do interesting things with the wood that surrounds them. One of her servants, the Distinguished Herald, kidnaps a Gifted child, and gives it to a troop of smoothface faeries as a gift. The servant then spends some time among mortals gossiping the news that a baby has been stolen by the faeries, and that the child could do a minor magical trick. This trick could be anything — poke his finger through stones, float in the air, change the color of his eyes when he burps — so long as it marks the baby as Gifted and sparks the interest of the magi, when their companions, hearing the tale, bring it to their attention.

Although the smoothface faeries are weaker than the Queen, and are enemies for the player characters in this story, they may prove a useful allies in the final confrontation. The Queen hates these faeries because they despise mirrors. They do not know of her, but may be convinced that the magi are powerful, and that the Queen has placed them in danger by the gift of the child.

If the characters return the baby home, they find a piece of gilded frame in the baby's crib.

Ignem: The Ice Wyrm

The Queen's servants capture an icy wyrm and transport it, using mirrors, to a secluded spot near the covenant. The creature causes the surrounding seven miles to gradually freeze, forcing the characters to seek it out. Fire magic is the most efficacious defense against the wyrm and the environmental difficulties its presence creates. A piece of gilded frame is hidden in its small hoard of shiny treasures.

Mentem: The Obvious Liar

The Queen sends a servant to hire an actor, who appears at the covenant pretending to be a merchant seeking his lost son. The man he is pretending to be is actually dead: he was killed by one of the Queen's Distinguished Servants. The actor's tale of woe recounts his son vanishing while at a

Ice wyrms are faeries of the far north. Some represent a geographical boundary, as between the arable lands to the south and the snow-clad northlands, or between the sterile mountaintops and the pastures below. Others represent the leaching of life from the world by winter. This one is a mastery faerie: that is, it needs to be destroyed by humans in an epic battle that goes down in local legend. In the interim, it seeks warm life to suck the heat from.

Faerie Might: 30 (Animal).

Characteristics: Cun 3, Per –2, Pre –6, Com –6, Str +9, Sta +2, Dex +2, Qik –4

Size: +4

Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Beast, 2 x Greater Faerie Powers, Huge; Faerie Sight, Increased Characteristics, 5 x Increased Might, Personal Faerie Power (Constant Damaging Effect); Incognizant

Personality Traits: Inquisitive +3, Hungry +2

Fangs: Init –4, Attack +14, Defense +1, Damage +10

Constriction: Init –4, Attack +11, Defense +1, Damage +10

Claws (if appropriate): Init –5, Attack +13, Defense +6, Damage +5

* +6 to Defense vs. grapple attacks

** An orm may grapple its own Size in Size 0 enemies.

Damage statistics above do not include the Constant Damaging Effect power, which adds +5 when appropriate. Soak: 10, +12 plates of ice.

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–9), –3 (10–18), –5 (19–27), Incapacitated (28–36), Dead (37+)

Powers:

Conjuration of the Indubitable Cold: 0 points, Init –4, Ignem: (3 intricacy points spent on cost). As the spell of the same name, ArM5 page 142.

Constrict*: When successfully struck with a constrict attack the character is encoiled and unable to use mêlée weapons. The wyrm automatically does damage in each subsequent round, without requiring an Attack roll. The victim may still Soak damage. At the end of each round, including the round in which the constriction attack succeeds, the character may attempt to break free by an opposed Strength roll. To do this, the character rolls Strength + a stress die, and compares it to the wyrm's Strength + a stress die. Success indicates he is free, and may attack normally in the following round. For each character assisting him to break free he may add +1 to the Strength roll, but an assistant is unable to attack the wyrm in that round. A character unable to break free for 30 seconds (6 combat rounds) needs to make deprivation rolls, as described on ArM5 page 179.

Constant Damaging Effect, 3 points, constant, Auram: The terrible cold radiated by this wyrm does +5 Damage each round, and is always active. 25 spell levels (Base 5, +1 Part, +2 Sun,

+1 Constant)

Spreading a Mantle of Ice: 0 points, Init –4, Auram: (3 intricacy points spent on cost). The cold that seeps from the wyrm freezes all water for one mile around and, if it would otherwise rain, causes snow to fall. The air also becomes bitingly cold, so magic or preparation is needed before the creature can be hunted. One advantage for the player characters is that if they have spells that detect how warm or cold the air is, they have a method of precisely locating the wyrm: it is always surrounded by the coldest air. Note that, because the cold is magical, it is not felt by characters with an Auram Magic Resistance of 30 or higher.

Venomous Bite*: When the wyrm attacks, compare its Attack Advantage to the victim's armor Protection (not his Soak). If the wyrm's advantage is higher, the victim suffers the effects of adder venom as listed in the Poison Table on page 180 of ArM5, regardless of whether the bite inflicts an actual wound. The storyguide may adjust the required Attack Advantage for special circumstances.

Pretenses: Area Lore 3 (watering points for prey), Awareness 3 (prey), Brawl 7 (crushing), Hunt 4 (rodents), Faerie Speech 5 (threats), Folk Ken 1 (human prey), Stealth 3 (stalking prey)

Equipment: A small pile of frozen treasure, including a piece of the gold frame.

Vis: 6 pawns, in a piece of lost string Appearance: Wyrms are vast snakes, normally smeared in toxic mucus. In this case the mucus has frozen into hard plates, which neutralize its poison but add Protection. It appears as an enormous serpent, with sickly blue skin and sapphire eyes.

pilgrim's stop on a nearby route. His "son" disappeared, although blood was found in his bedding, and a lump of wood was found nearby matted with gore and hair. The characters may use Mentem magic to see through the act, or instead use it to interrogate the pilgrims who stayed at the stop.

The pilgrims do not recall a missing boy. They do recall a merchant, using the same name as the one who sought out the player characters, who went missing. The actor and the merchant he is impersonating do not look much like each other. The player characters can find the corpse of the dead merchant buried by the roadside, and can speak to his ghost with Mentem magic.

The player characters eventually see through the actor's ruse. If they capture him in a nearby town he confesses that he is not really a merchant, and explains that he had no choice but to play his part. When he was a very young man, with his first major role, he attracted the aid of a patron who helped him financially. The patron then asked him to impersonate a grieving husband to recover a small locket full of hair from a corpse. Every four years since that day the patron has appeared an asked him to perform some increasingly difficult imposture. On one occasion he refused, but found that not even his friends could recognize him until he finished the task set by his patron. If the characters do not catch the actor swiftly, he is spirited away to another kingdom and given new tasks by the Queen's Steward, to help perfect her Distinguished Spy.

The piece of gilt frame for this story is being held by the nearest church as a deodand. A deodand is any object that has killed a person, which is sold and the money raised either given to the person's family or kept by the church, depending on the scrupulousness of the local clergy. The local priest believes the frame was used to bludgeon a missing pilgrim to death.

Terram: We Did This Already!

The Queen is not truly capable of original though, which is demonstrated here. She uses exactly the same challenge as for the Herbam story, but uses faeries who dwell in a mine as her dupes. This replication may tip off the player characters that the two stories have been directed by an external force.

The Queen does not mind if her tricks are detected, once she has the symbolic objects that she needs. She wants the player characters to know that someone is orchestrating these activities, and later she wants the characters to come to terms with her, and even to assail her kingdom. Player characters may distinguish the pattern of her activities in several ways.

The Queen gives the characters the pieces of frame so that her manipulations are clearly identified. After the second piece is found, it should be clear to the player characters that the two stories are connected in some way.

Noticing That Stories Match Their Skills

Other victims of the Queen's schemes may cross paths with the player characters. During one of the current schemes, "The Obvious Liar", the Queen's servants introduce the characters to one of her other victims. Meeting other victims, and hearing their stories of repeated challenges that test their developing skills, gives a hint as to the motive of their persecutor.

Skilled questioning of another of the Queen's victims (Communication + any appropriate Ability against an Ease factor of 15) reminds the character of the event in which his symbolic object was taken. This allows player characters to search their memories, and make appropriate rolls to recall their own first encounter.

Detecting the Queen's Agents

The Queen's servants are often marked with the symbol of the mirror. Mirrors are

Knockers are faeries that pretend to be the ghosts of Jewish miners killed in accidents. They aid mortal miners by making alarming noises before cave-ins, or by tapping to lead men to seams of valuable ore. These faeries do not have reflections, in keeping with one piece of lore about ghosts, and so have no use for mirrors.

If approached peacefully, the knockers are happy to negotiate. They are particularly amenable to characters who are either miners or Jews. The faeries are sincerely religious. They are unable to explain why, after death, they were transformed into ethereal dwarfs, but aren't able to remember this theological quandary for more than a few seconds. Knockers find whistling incredibly rude.

The knockers are willing to surrender the child to humans. In exchange, they demand binding oaths that the child will be raised properly. Characters who fail to live up to these agreements earn the hatred of the knockers. They may undermine the foundations of the covenant, move subterranean water courses, or come up with other tricks as revenge.

The knockers know a great deal about the Queen. Even if the player characters attack the knockers, they may still tip them off as to her weakness. The knockers attack the humans for a few rounds while armed with mining tools and mirrors, then shout at each other that the mirrors aren't working this time, before trying to escape along tunnels or through rock.

Faerie Might: 5 (Terram)

Characteristics: Int 0, Per +2, Pre –3, Com

–2, Str –1, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik +4

Size: –2

Virtues and Flaws: Immunity from Terram, 2 x Great Characteristic; Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, 2 x Improved Characteristics, Intangible Flesh, Observant; Little, Traditional Ward (offerings)

Personality Traits: Vengeful +3 Combat:*

Brawl (fist): Init +4, Attack +9, Defense +11, Damage +3

Pick/Tool (two handed): Init +7, Attack +8, Defense +11, Damage +11

* Includes +1 for Pretense specialization

Soak: +6, Immunity from Terram Wound Penalties:–1 (1–3), –3 (4–6), –5 (7–9), Incapacitated (10–12), Dead (13+)

Pretenses: Athletics 2 (digging), Awareness 2 (hazards underground), Bargain 5 (with mortals), Brawl 6 (fist), Craft (smith) 5 (weapons), Great Weapon 5 (pick, as pole arm)

Powers:

Guide, 3 points, Init –3, Mentem. R: Voice, D: Conc, T: Group. Subtly influences the person toward a certain course of action. The knockers use this power to reward good miners, by urging safety or drawing them to ore, and to punish evil miners, by getting them lost in tunnels or leading them into mortal danger. Costs 30 spell levels (Base 5, +2 Voice, +1 Conc, +2 Group)

Loosely Material, 1 point, Init +1, Mentem (2 intricacy points reduce Might cost). This power allows the faerie to create a temporary, solid body, complete with all equipment. (Costs 25 spell levels)

Equipment: Professional mining gear Vis: 1 pawn, discarded mining tool.

rare and valuable in Mythic Europe, and so highly noticeable. The style of mirror the Queen is thematically linked to, glass backed in gold, has not been manufactured since Roman times, save by Hermetic magi. That aside, gold attracts attention. These rare mirrors are so distinctive that all Awareness rolls concerning them are +3 easier than usual.

Searching for Previous Victims

Once the player characters have noticed that they are being manipulated, and that the symbol of their tormentor is a mirror, they may seek answers in the history of the Order. An Intelligence + Order of Hermes Lore roll against an Ease Factor of 15 recalls or finds an account by a Bonisagus who died centuries ago. She records a previous attempt by the "Queen of Gold and Glass" to make "a faerie like unto a magus, skilled in our Arts, who would be her courtier." If the storyguide wishes, this roll also gives a reference to a rare book describing the Queen's powers and weaknesses. Gaining access to this book, which through bad luck is far away at a reclusive covenant, allows a connected but thematically unrelated story.

An Intelligence + Faerie Lore roll about faeries associated with mirrors also grants information:

Result Information

• 12+ Gives the title of the Queen and notes that her servants can travel through mirrors.
• 15+ As above, and that her servants are reflections of real people, epitomes of human cultural roles.
• 18+ All above, and that some of her servants are shadows and reflections, which act as spies.
• 21+ All above, and that she has a kingdom in the faerie lands, which can be entered through mirrors.

The most likely resolutions are that the player characters fight the Queen, or they come to an agreement with her. In either case they enter her land, which is filled with twisted glass reflections of mortal objects.

The Queen has many subjects, and they rally to her defense.

The Distinguished

The Queen has played this game before, creating a class of servants who are faerie approximations of the epitome of a human social role. She has only one of each of these servants. Distinguished characters

have a score of 9 in Pretenses (faerie abilities) suited to their role. They have no ability to perform the lesser tasks in which a mortal, in that role, would become skilled. Each has a symbolic object embedded deep inside its head, which contains vis.

The Queen of Gold and Glass is loath to allow the loss of one of these creatures, but uses them if it forces the player characters to cast interesting spells. Many of her Distinguished Servants have External Vis sources, which means they are unlikely to be permanently destroyed if magi defeat them in battle. The Queen is also willing to ransom her Distinguished Servants, much as a mortal monarch would be. If the Queen of Gold and Glass has, at the storyguide's discretion, a ready replacement for one of her Distinguished Servants, she is entirely unsentimental about its destruction.

The Undistinguished

Although the Queen of Gold and Glass has only a single Distinguished Servant for each of the roles in her court, she has many other servants that can fill related roles. These faeries are also being molded into human functions, but they are incomplete. The Queen is far more willing to lose one of her Undistinguished Warriors than her Distinguished Knight.

Undistinguished characters have a Pretense of 6 in skills of primary importance for the role in which they are being developed. Their Might scores vary from 5 to 20, depending on how close they are to completion. The powers of the Undistinguished vary, but many have some of the powers of the Queen or the Distinguished Knight

Each Undistinguished Servant is still being created, and so is incomplete. Parts of its body are missing or transparent. Each does, however, have a perfectly rendered human face. Every Undistinguished Faerie has a symbolic object, which contains vis, wedged in its head. None can smash a mirror, or attack a person carrying one.

The Hazy Servants

The Hazy Servants are faeries that the Queen of Gold and Glass has never molded to suit a role. They flit about the edges of her court, taking on supplementary roles as required by her whims, and by the deeds of nearby humans. In their natural shape they look a little like humans seen in the distance, blurred by smoke or fog. Hazy faeries may snap into a shape if a more powerful creature pays them sufficient attention.

Hazy Servants change their characteristics regularly, because their roles are fluid. Use any suitable NPC from any Ars Magica supplement. Add 10 points of Faerie Might. Select powers from the list for the Distinguished Knight or Queen of Gold and Glass. Each Hazy Servant loses focus if others cease to pay it attention. Player characters may notice the slight delay between noticing these faeries and their snapping into focus. Hazy faeries,

This is the Queen's champion and, if the player characters attack her realm, her final bodyguard. He is not designed as a player character.

Faerie Might: 25 (Imaginem)

Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre +3, Com +1, Str +6, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik 0

Size: +2

Virtues and Flaws: Huge, 4 x Increased Faerie Might; Cognizant within Role, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, 2 x Great Characteristic, Humanoid Faerie, Observant*, 4 x Improved Characteristics, Improved Damage (sword), 3 x Personal Faerie Powers, Puissant Militant Pretense; Sovereign Ward (blinding light), Sovereign Ward (The Dominion)

* This character has more Pretense experience than his Virtues permit. Only player character faeries need to balance their Virtues to their Pretenses, and only at character creation.

Personality Traits: Loyal +3, Proud +3. Combat:

Brawl (gauntlets): Init 0, Attack +5, Defense +7, Damage +8

Great sword and mirrored heater shield:** Init +2, Attack +17, Defense +15, Damage +22

** Also includes +5 for Improved Damage Virtue and +5 for Damaging Effect Power. The mirrored shield may contain a Hazy Servant.

Soak: +12

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–7), –3 (8–14), –5 (15–21), Incapacitated (22–28), Dead (29+)

Pretenses: Area Lore 9 (the kingdom), Awareness 9 (enemies), Brawl 9 (mortals), Charm 9* (ladies), Etiquette 9 (faerie court), Faerie Speech 6 (taunts), Leadership 9 (tournaments), Ride 9 (horses), Single Weapon 9+2 (tourney field).

* Although the knight can charm ladies, he has no idea about sex at all. Powers:

Damaging Effect: 2 points: Init –6, Terram (supernaturally sharp), 2 intricacy points spent on cost. Tiny slivers of glass that break off and stay in wounds. Costs 15 spell levels (Base 5, +1 Part, +1 Diameter. This Base is lower than might appear usual in Hermetic magic.)

Flight: 2 points, constant, Corpus. R: Per, D: Sun, T: Ind. Costs 15 spell levels: (Base 4, +2 Sun, +1 constant. This base is deliberately lower than Hermetic magic might suggest.)

Shift Human Shapes: 0 points, Init –1, Corpus. Allows the knight to don or remove armor simply by willing it. (1 intricacy point to reduce cost). R: Per, D: Mom, T: Ind. (Costs 5 spell levels (Base 3, +2 Sun))

Equipment: Armor made of magical scales of faerie iron. Lance with pennant and other weapons. Attendant as squire. Trappings marked with the mirror motif. The champion's glamor produces a faerie horse for him, which shares his vis, Might, and Magic Resistance. As it is an extension of his glamor, the champion's mount flies when he does.

Vis: 5 pawns Imaginem, a rusty piece from human–sized armor.

Appearance: An immense human figure clad in shining scaled armor, that can turn into a huge, but superficially charming man. His fastidious chivalry exceeds that of the humans he impersonates, and he enjoys challenging humans to duels over minor shortfalls of conduct.

uniquely among the Queen's servants, can smash mirrors, although they appear to die when they do this. Hazy faeries cannot abide bright, clear light, and flee from it.

The Shadowy Minions

The Queen's Shadowy Minions are little more than afterthoughts or plans, given life by her glamor and the fear of humans. Shadows lack substance, and cannot touch objects or attack people. They can, however, acts as spies. Their appearance can frighten people into altering their behavior, dogs into barking, and horses into bolting. Shadowy Minions have a Might of 1, and no powers.

The Queen may be convinced to cease her meddling in several non-violent ways.

Too Boring to Manipulate

Perhaps the least satisfactory ending, and yet one which players can most easily engineer, is for the characters to steadfastly refuse to take the bait. The Queen leaves the player characters alone if it becomes clear to her that they want to spend their entire lives hiding in their laboratories. She does not want a servant who is a recluse.

Too Clever to Manipulate

Characters are considered too clever to victimize if they discover the Queen's involvement in stories, and strike back. In addition to her challenges for the player characters, the Queen ceaselessly plays similar games with other mortals, to mold her various minions. Player characters who intervene repeatedly in these games can force the Queen to come to terms with them.

Too Dangerous to Manipulate

If the characters develop the ability to destroy powerful faeries, and the Queen knows about it through her spies, she ar-

If the wizards try to raid the Queen's court, they are resisted by her Undistinguished Warriors. Undistinguished Warriors are not suitable as player characters.

Faerie Might: 20 (Imaginem) Characteristics: Int 0, Per +1, Pre +1, Com 0, Str +2, Sta +2, Dex +2, Qik +1

Size: +1

Virtues and Flaws: Cognizant within Role, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, 3 x Improved Characteristic, Improved Damage (varies), 3 x Increased Faerie Might, Large, Observant,* 2 x Personal Faerie Powers, Sovereign Ward (blinding light)

* This character has more Pretense experience than his Virtues permit. Only player character faeries need to balance their Virtues with their Pretenses, and only at character creation.

Personality Traits: Loyal +2, Proud +1. Combat:

Brawl (gauntlets): Init +1, Attack +9, Defense +9, Damage +9*

Each Undistinguished Warrior has one of: Bow: Init 0, Attack +12, Defense +10, Damage +13*

Flail: Init +2, Attack +12, Defense +9, Damage +15*

Greatsword: Init +3, Attack +14, Defense +10, Damage +16*

Long Spear: Init +4, Attack +12, Defense +9, Damage +14*

Pole Axe: Init +2, Attack +14, Defense +8, Damage +18*

Warhammer: Init +1, Attack +15, Defense +8, Damage +19*

* Includes +5 for Damaging Effect.

Soak: +10

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–6), –3 (7–12), –5 (13–18), Incapacitated (19–24), Dead (25+)

Pretenses: Area Lore 6 (the kingdom), Awareness 6 (enemies), Brawl 6 (mortals), Faerie Speech 6 (taunts), Single Weapon or Bow 6 (as weapon).

Powers:

Damaging Effect: 2 points: Init –6, Terram (supernaturally sharp), 2 intricacy points spent on cost. Tiny slivers of glass that break off and stay in wounds. Costs 15 spell levels (Base 5 +1 Part +1 Diameter. This Base is lower than usual in Hermetic magic.)

Flight: 2 points, constant, Corpus. R: Per, D: Sun, T: Ind. Costs 15 spell levels: (Base 4, +2 Sun, +1 constant. This base is deliberately lower than Hermetic magic might suggest.)

Shift Human Shapes: 0 points, Init –1, Corpus. Faerie dons or removes armor by willing it. (1 intricacy point to reduce cost). R: Per, D: Mom, T: Ind. (Costs 5 spell levels (Base 3, +2 Sun))

Equipment: Armor of magical scales of faerie iron.

Vis: 4 pawns Imaginem, a rusty piece from human–sized armor.

Appearance: These soldiers are each slightly different from each other: one is a bowman, one a spearman, one a swordsman, and so on. Some are amputees, although the absence of a leg does not limit their mobility, and the lack of a hand does not prevent them manipulating their arms. Many are missing pieces of their heads.

ranges a final confrontation through the Distinguished Ambassador. During this talk, she negotiates a perpetual peace between her agents and the player characters. There are other magi in Mythic Europe, and she's happy to target them instead if the player characters become too much trouble. As part of this agreement, she will request the aid of the magi to acquire the symbolic objects of their replacements.

It's far easier for magi to openly enter the Aegis of her new victims and take an appropriate object than for her to wait for her new victims to leave on expedition. The player characters need to leave a common mirror in the place of the stolen object, so she is linked to the beginning of this new iteration of the story. When explaining this, the Queen describes how she captured the symbolic objects of the player characters.

Too Involved in Other Realms to Manipulate

Characters who regularly have the aid of angels or demons are too unpredictable for the Queen to victimize. Also, their be-

The Undistinguished Servants likely of most interest to the player characters are those for which they have served as templates. Storyguides should choose how many of these there are, and how complete they are, as suits their use in confrontations with the Queen. One per player character seems excessive in short sagas, though it may suit longer ones with more powerful magi. Duplicates that combine the features of two or more player characters may prove amusing.

Storyguides can determine what spells are available to the duplicates in several ways. The most scrupulous way is to note every spell the players cast in the presence of the Queen's minions, and add it to a great list. This is likely impractical. They may instead just list the maximum level of spells thus far cast for every Technique and Form pair. Alternatively, they could only allow these creatures to use the signature spells of the player characters, supplementing them with spontaneous magic whose level feels justified by comparison to that of the player characters, and the needs of the story.

The duplicates not only reflect the appearance and magical abilities of the magi, they also copy their most overt Personality traits. These are caricatures at the early stages of the duplication process. Undistinguished magi molded for many years may, with clothes that cover their physical imperfections, pass for the originals, even among friends.

havior is impossible for her followers to duplicate. The Queen allows groups involved in diabolism to sink into their own mire, after ordering the pieces of frame they have collected to escape or withdraw into Deep Faerie. She continues to watch groups aided by the Divine, because piety is far from universal, particularly over generations, but she does not victimize them until the hand of the Lord is a little less ready to meddle.

Too Interesting to Manipulate

A group of magi that engages in some other, truly epic, endeavor will attract the interest of powerful faeries. If enough of these can be drawn to the spectacle of the lives of the player character magi, the Queen of Gold and Glass ceases to meddle so as not to disappoint the teaming masses of other observers.

Characters capable of raiding the Kingdom of Gold and Glass are permitted to, using the frame scattered about during earlier stories. If the characters are wildly destructive, the Queen is more careful about provoking them in future.

Too Useful To Manipulate

A group that realizes what is going on is able to offer alternative terms to the Queen. A Merinita magus who is undergoing the Mystery of Becoming would be a perfect alternative for her, but why would such a magus agree? Could he become a power behind her throne, or redefine her role? A less extreme solution is to let the Queen's minions to serve and observe the magi, as allies.

The Queen of Gold and Glass does not suggest this initially. The personalities of her minions are different if the models that they reflect are aware that duplicates are being made. This makes her minions less perfect, from her perspective. The players might, however, entice her with offers of access to many new types of humans, or by offering her symbolic objects for other magi, who they will then challenge with her assistance.

If the Queen succeeds in making her faerie magi, she uses them as pawns in future stories. This may not harm the Order, provided she is circumspect: some faeries already pretend to be magi, after all. Covenants occasionally need to deal with such impostors, especially when they harm the interests of noblemen or the Church, so that local potentates do not blame the Order for the actions of the impostors.

The problem with the faerie magi the Queen creates is that they are surprisingly accurate. They cast spells exactly like magi do. They wear precisely the right symbols for magi to wear. They sound just like magi sound. It's very difficult, even for magi, to swiftly discover that her duplicates are not real members of the Order of Hermes. Of course, casting Intellego Vim on them would reveal the deception in a moment, but casting Intellego Vim on another magus is a violation of the Code, and would not be done without good reason. The Queen's duplicates are good enough copies that they do not give a good reason.

Story Seed: Firebrand Tytalus

A young Tytalus magus begins a campaign against a local king. He forces the king, and his subjects, to use their skills and talents to the utmost, challenging them to grow through adversity. This is a breach of the Code, but the Tytalus ambushes and humiliates the Guernicus sent to investigate. The young Tytalus is actually a duplicate: the Queen wants to design a new steward, so she uses her pawn to force the mortal administering the kingdom to stretch his talents to the utmost.

Story Seed: Blood of the Glass

A woman comes to the covenant demanding a baby bond (or whatever the local equivalent is) for her child, who was fathered by one of the magi. The magi have no knowledge of this, but her child has very strong Faerie Blood of a new type. He has the ability to create a broad array of imperishable Arcane Connections, much as the Queen can. The child is obviously important as a source of guaranteed Insight for Original Research, but his skill also has use in Wizard's Marches. Do the characters make the child's talents public?