The Great Pestilence

"Civilization both in the East and the West was visited by a destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish. It swallowed up many of the good things of civilization and wiped them out in the entire inhabited world."

– Tillitus of House Bonisagus, writing from his deathbed in the year 1258

Plagues are a constant threat to mankind, and have periodically scoured Mythic Europe with devastating contagions that kill crops, beasts, and people. From the biblical Ten Plagues of Egypt to the disastrous Plague of Justinian in the 6th century, humanity has suffered through and survived several waves of infectious maladies. The worst is yet to come, however, and in this adventure your players face the Great Pestilence, Mythic Europe's deadliest plague, and possibly its last.

The Great Pestilence is caused by a sentient creature, spawned from a Hermetic lab accident and living deep in the hidden heart of the Magic Realm. Named after the plague it causes, the Great Pestilence creature infects the Magic Realm, targeting one Hermetic Form after another, until all ten Forms are systematically devoured and the Magic Realm destroyed. Intertwined with the fabric of Mythic Europe's reality, this contagion extends from the Magic Realm to the mundane realm, spreading infections severe enough to extinguish all life. Its attacks are numerous: it rots vis through the substance's connection to the Magic Realm, it infects creatures and beings aligned to the Magic Realm with a deathly illness, and it creates invisible clouds of noxious gas that carry disease to areas surrounding Magic auras and regiones. Left unchecked the Great Pestilence destroys Mythic Europe and leaves a lifeless husk at the center of the universe.

Started by Hermetic magi, the Great

Pestilence can be stopped by Hermetic magi, although the necessary actions far exceed those required to create it. Can your magi stop the greatest and worst plague of all time, or will they too fall as the world rots around them?

Trouble starts in a village close to the covenant, one that has a long history of happy interactions with the magi and their staff. This is a village or town that the companions and grogs regularly visit, and one whose notables have heard of or even met the magi. The selected village must include a village elder, a sizable population, and a low Dominion aura.

The story's beginning coincides with the local Redcap's visit, so that his account of the upcoming events can be spread to the story's principle storyguide characters. Hopefully at this point in your saga the covenant has a recurring Redcap character who visits regularly, and whose inclusion in a story won't necessarily alarm the player characters. That Redcap is not detailed in this book.

Early in the Autumn season, a breathless messenger comes from the nearby village. He has run through the night and arrives soon after dawn bearing terrible news. The village has been attacked by a large pack of wolves, fierce villains with jet black fur and flashing fangs. The wolves sprang from the nearby wood at sundown and tore down the main street. Several villagers were maimed and a few killed. The messenger asks for any aid the magi can provide. His interest piqued, the Redcap asks to accompany the player characters to the village.

The wolves' predations are obvious. The muddy street has been churned up by the rushing pack, and the wounded have been taken to a large house and await treatment. The dead lie in a corner of the same room awaiting burial, their family members wailing in mourning. Healing the wounded is fairly straightforward. A dozen or so villagers have suffered one or two Light Wounds, and a few have a Medium Wound. Any sort of medical aid is beneficial, from magical curing to the simpler offer of fresh food and clean bandages. The dead need to be buried and the villagers

The Magic Realm consists of innumerable areas called boundaries, each aligned to one of the ten Hermetic Forms. Each boundary is accessed by a vestige or a regio, or in rare instances both. Vestiges are complex illusions that link a specific location in the mundane world to a certain boundary. From every boundary in the Magic Realm, a traveler can enter the Twilight Void, a shadow realm made up of ten provinces, each aligned to one of the ten Hermetic Forms. The ten provinces converge at the Arcana Centrum, the center of the Magic Realm and the hub of all arcane power.

gladly accept assistance with this sad task.

Any character who spends time in the house may notice that one of the villagers is sick. Allow a roll of Perception + Awareness + a simple die against an Ease Factor of 9. If the roll succeeds the character notices a man whose hands and wrists are covered with a red rash. If asked, the man says he felt fine yesterday, but his hands started to itch and burn this morning. He thinks it is just a reaction from handling the dead. Anyone skilled in Medicine may take a look at the man and attempt to diagnose his illness. He is suffering from Saint Anthony's Fire, a serious disease caused by a minor demon. To correctly identify the illness, the inspector must have a Prognosis Total equal to 12, the severity of the disease. Diagnosing illness is explained in full on pages 57- 58 of Art & Academe, but the necessary totals are:

Prognosis Total: Intelligence + Medicine + Diet modifier + Medication modifier + Surgery modifier

Modifiers to Prognosis Total: Diet modifier + Living Condition (0 in this case) Medication modifier + Profession: Apothecary (maximum 3) Surgery modifier + Chirurgy (maximum 3)

There is no die roll added to the Prognosis Total. Further information about treating disease can be found in the accompanying sidebar, "Dealing with Disease."

Outside the large house, it is easy to follow the wolves' tracks, which run through a nearby field. From there the tracks lead into a copse of trees, and 200 paces further in suddenly disappear under the low hanging branches of an ancient hawthorn tree. Inspecting the woods reveals a ring of hawthorns roughly spaced around a circle 10 paces in diameter. The circle is not empty but filled with large oak and tall elm trees. The hawthorns mark the edge of an Infernal regio with an Infernal aura of 3. Inside the regio the wolves rest, preparing to emerge again at sundown on the next day. If the player characters enter the regio the wolves attack, as do their riders, the Shades of St. Anthony (described later). If the player characters cannot enter the Infernal regio, they have to wait for the pack to emerge on the following day.

If the player characters interview the village elder, either before they follow the tracks or after, he says he has no idea why the wolves attacked. His councilors, the more well-to-do peasants of the village, are equally tight-lipped. They are hiding an embarrassing secret. A year ago one of the villagers killed his father, and the body lay lost in the local woods for a week, its blood soaking the forest carpet. The murderer was apprehended and hung by the local authorities. The village elder and his men would rather not mention this ugly incident, but it is hard to keep such news quiet. Anyone with the local Area Lore Ability can make an Intelligence + Area Lore + simple die roll against an Ease Factor of 9 to have heard of the murder. The elder and his councilors are not professional liars, and a Perception + Folk Lore + simple die against an Ease Factor of 6 reveals that they are hiding the truth. If pressed, the elder sadly shakes his head and admits that the crime happened in the local woods.

The horrific patricide and the blood that seeped into the earth created an Infernal aura and regio, which was eventually inhabited by a cluster of minor demons and their black wolf steeds. The demons, a variety of Tempters called "Shades of Saint Anthony," exist to spread disease. Their Infernal beast steeds terrorize and kill those in their path. The demons' plan is to chase through the village each night for the next seven nights, the wolves slash-

The Great Pestilence is a sentient magic creature created in a botched Hermetic laboratory experiment. After its creation, the creature slipped into a Herbam boundary in the Magic Realm, and from there traveled through the Twilight Void to the very center of the Magic Realm, a place called the Arcana Centrum. From its hiding spot the creature attacks one Form at a time. These attacks target every Magic aura and regio aligned to that Form. No Magic aura and regio in the world aligned to the attacked Form escapes this blight.

The Great Pestilence first attacks the Herbam Form. In the first month of infestation the creature rots all Herbam vis. In the second month it infects all Herbam creatures and beings with a lethal disease. In the third month it creates poisonous clouds in every Magic aura and regio. These clouds carry the Herbam Rot, a calamitous effect that destroys plants in the area and the surrounding environs. In the fourth month the Herbam Form ceases to work, having been consumed by the Great Pestilence's rot, and Hermetic magi can no longer cast Herbam Spontaneous or Formulaic spells unless they use vis in the casting. In the same month the Great Pestilence mutates, changing its Form affiliation so that it can target and attack a different Form in the next (fifth) month.

The order of Forms attacked is Herbam, Corpus, Mentem, Vim, Aquam, Auram, Animal, Imaginem, Terram, and finally Ignem. It takes four months to destroy a Form. At that rate, the Great Pestilence destroys all magic in Mythic Europe in 3 years and 4 months (40 months). This gives your players 16 seasons to find a solution. The magi must survive each phase of infection, overcome the accumulating troubles, and stop the Great Pestilence before it destroys the Magic Realm, and much of creation.

The Great Pestilence hides in the Magic Realm, and while not vital to running this adventure, storyguides will find Realms of Power: Magic a useful supplement. This adventure also deals with diseases, which are dealt with in depth in the ArM5 supplement Art & Academe.

Order: Tempters

Infernal Might: 5 (Mentem)

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

Size: –1

Virtues and Flaws: Small Frame

Personality Traits: Persistent +6, Merci-

less +3

Reputation: Fatal Disease 2 (Infernal)

Hierarchy: 2 Combat:

Dodge: Init +3, Attack n/a, Defense +4, Damage n/a

Fist: Init +3, Attack +2, Defense +5, Damage –1

Soak: +0

Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5, Unconscious

Wound Penalties: –0 (1–4), –1 (5–8), –3 (9–12), Incapacitated (13–16), Dead (17+)

Abilities: Brawl 1 (fist), Riding 2 (staying mounted), Stealth 5 (hiding against a black wolf's fur)

Powers:

Coagulation, 1 point, Init –1, Corpus: This power allows the shade to take physical form.

Diseased Possession, 3 points, Init +4,

Mentem: Using a special form of the demonic Possession power, the demon can inflict its disease upon a single target.

Obsession, 1 point, Init –5, Vim: The demon can impose a temporary personality trait of Merciless +1 on a person engaged in sinful thoughts or actions.

Necrotic Touch, 1 point, Init –5, Herbam: With a touch the shade can inflict the disease necrosis on an Individualsized plant, blackening and clogging its root system and immediately killing the plant.

Weakness: Abhorrent Material: holy water.

Vis: One pawn of Mentem vis infesta in the shade's head

Appearance: A black silhouette of a short, hairy human with no discernible features.

A shade typically rides on the back of a black wolf, clinging to its hairy back and hiding in its fur. It is nearly impossible to see. Allow players Perception + Awareness + a stress die roll against an Ease Factor of 15, with success revealing the demon hidden on the wolf's back.

When the demon spots a likely human target it abandons its physical form for its spiritual form, which costs no Might points, and possesses the human. If the Diseased Possession power penetrates the target's Magic Resistance, the target immediately succumbs to the St. Anthony's Fire disease. The shade must continue to possess the victim for the course of the disease, requiring that it temporarily decrease its Might Pool by 3 points. The victim is allowed an immediate Disease Avoidance roll (see later). If the roll fails the disease progresses using the same rules as natural diseases. While possessing a victim, the demon cannot regain Might points. Once the victim dies or the demon is exorcized, it returns to its fellows waiting in the nearby woods.

ing and rending and the demons inflicting the St. Anthony's Fire disease. Demons that don't possess a target will retreat to their regio, accompanied by any riderless wolves, and inflict the disease necrosis on plants along their path. At some point, either by defending the village or by entering the Infernal regio, the player characters encounter the demons.

There are 50 demons and 50 wolves in total; reduce these numbers if your player characters would have a difficult time defeating this evil. When attacked the wolves fight savagely. The shades, having a paltry Attack skill, attempt to possess those they can to make them sick. Once their numbers are halved, the demons and wolves flee, rushing back through the village one final time. The shades leave the wolves and possess the villagers, while the wolves depart to distant areas.

During their raids the Shades of St Anthony demons infect the villagers with the disease St Anthony's Fire, which proves a greater calamity than the wolves. Those possessed instantly succumb to the disease. At some point the village elder begs the magi for help with this problem, and there are a number of ways they can assist. Because the villagers do not die instantly, any type of medicinal aid supports a villager's recovery. Better living conditions, healthier food, and fresh and plentiful water add +1 to the Disease Recovery roll. Physicians and healers can apply their mundane arts to the suffering, and if they have correctly diagnosed the disease (see earlier) they can add their Medicine Ability score to the Disease Recovery roll (see the sidebar "Dealing with Disease").

The village does not itself have any holy means of dealing with the disease. The local priest is poor and simple, barely trained in Latin, and lacks any divine power to intercede. The closest church depends on your saga, and holy aid may or may not reside there. Realms of Power: the Divine lists a variety of holy methods that can exorcise the demons, including the holy power of Adjuration (page 48), prayer for a miracle by a character with True Faith (page 60), and asking a saint for divine intervention (page 87). If you do not own that book and still want to provide a divine solution for the sick, consider allowing the player characters access to a relic with Divine Might of 3 or more. Such a relic is powerful enough to instantly banish a demon from its diseased host with a mere touch

Infernal Might: 5 (Animal)

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

Size: 0

Confidence Score: 1 (3)

Virtues and Flaws: Improved Characteristics (x2), Ferocity (when hungry), Long-Winded, Sharp Ears; Compulsion (killing), Corrupted Beast, Infamous, Tainted with Evil

Qualities: Aggressive, Hardy, Keen Sense of Smell, Pack Animal/Pack Leader, Pursuit Predator, Sharp Ears, Thick Fur, Vocal

Personality Traits: Savage +6, Brave +1 Reputations: Bloodthirsty 4 (local) Combat:

Teeth*:* Init +2, Attack +11, Defense +9, Damage +0

Soak: +4

Fatigue Levels: OK, 0/0, –1/ –1, –3, –5,

Unconscious

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

Abilities: Athletics 5 (distance running), Awareness 3 (smell), Brawl 5 (teeth), Hunt 4 (track by smell), Survival 3 (winter)

Vis: 1 pawn of Perdo vis in the beast's tongue

Appearance: A savage wolf with shaggy, matted fur. The creature is entirely black except for its baleful red eyes.

A black wolf is not a demon but a corrupted beast. Though it has Might it cannot take spiritual form nor does it have any magical powers. The Quality Pack Leader grants a wolf Leadership 5 (wolves), so that up to six wolves can fight as a trained group.

Since much of this chapter deals with contacting and suffering from various diseases, you need guidelines as to how this mechanically affects characters. Complete rules for dealing with diseases can be found in Art & Academe, pages 45–47, from which this short summary is derived.

When a character is exposed to a disease, the player checks whether their character avoids catching it by making a Disease Avoidance Roll. If the roll succeeds, the character has successfully avoided the disease. If the roll fails, the disease takes effect and the character suffers its consequences.

Disease Avoidance Roll: Stamina + Living Condition Modifier + (Corpus/5) + Wound Penalty + stress die

Ease Factor: Stable Ease Factor of the disease (see later)

Diseases have various severities, measured as Mild, Serious, Major, and Critical. Each severity has a wound equivalent: Mild severity equals a Light Wound, Serious severity equals a Medium Wound, Major equals a Heavy Wound, and Critical equals an Incapacitating Wound. Just like a wounded character, a character suffering from a disease receives a penalty to all die rolls equal to the severity of the disease. A Mild disease imparts a – 1 penalty, a Serious disease a – 3 penalty, and a Major disease a – 5 penalty. A Critical disease prohibits all activity.

Diseases also have an interval, the period of time it takes to possibly recover from the malady. At the end of the indicated interval, the player makes a Disease Recovery Roll. A disease has two Ease Factors to measure the Disease Recovery Roll against: a Stable Ease Factor and an Improvement Ease Factor. If the roll fails to beat the Stable Ease Factor, the disease worsens in severity. If the roll makes the Stable Ease Factor but fails the Improvement Ease Factor, the disease continues. If the roll succeeds against the Improvement Ease Factor, the disease lessens in severity by one step.

Disease Recovery Roll: Stamina + Medicine + (Corpus/5) + Wound Penalty + Recovery Modifiers (A&A, page 47) + stress die

A Crisis occurs when a character's disease is Critical. At that point, the player must make two Disease Recovery Rolls every day, one at dawn and one at dusk. If the total is 0 or less, the character dies. If a roll equals or exceeds the Stable Ease Factor, the Crisis improves to Major Severity. If the roll does not meet the Stable Ease Factor, the character stays in Crisis, and each subsequent roll is made at a cumulative –1 penalty.

A simpler method exists, described in ArM5, page 180, which is useful if the troupe wants to reduce the number of die rolls. The disease is simply another form of debilitation, and those exposed make a Stamina check against an Ease Factor set by the disease, in this case 12. Those who fail suffer effects equivalent to a Light Wound. Though simpler, this method loses much of the nuances (and fun) of dealing with the disease.

St. Anthony's Fire

Minor Sanguine Disease, Severity 12 Stable: 6, Improve 18, Interval: Season

An excess of blood caused by a demon of disease, St. Anthony's Fire follows slightly different rules for recovery. There is no Disease Avoidance Roll. If the demon's disease possession power penetrates the Magic Resistance of the victim, the victim immediately suffers the effects of the disease. The patient is still allowed a Disease Recovery Roll at the appropriate interval, and if the roll is successful the sickness lessens in severity by one step. If the demon is exorcised or destroyed by magic, the victim instantly recovers.

Symptoms include a red rash, intestinal pain, visions, muscle spasms, and a burning sensation in the limbs. Eventually the feet and hands wither and become useless. The disease worsens each season, eventually killing the victim.

of the holy artifact. If desired you could construct a side adventure around finding a relic and convincing its owners to let the player characters use it.

Magical aid might be the simplest and quickest solution. If the characters know that the disease is caused by a demon, they can target the sick person with a Perdo Vim spell and destroy the fiend. Discovery is the trick. A high enough Prognosis Total indicates the disease and its cause. Intellego Corpus magic may also prove successful. A simple spell, Physician's Eye, grants the magus a Perception + Medicine roll against the severity of the disease (12) to successfully diagnose the illness. Characters who discover the specific nature of the symptoms, perhaps by using the spell Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh, should be given an Intelligence + Infernal Lore roll against an Ease Factor of 9 to know that a demon is responsible. Once a magus knows a demon is behind the disease, he can target the patients with Demon's Eternal Oblivion. A level 5 spell, if it penetrates the demon's Magic Resistance of 5, destroys the demon and instantly cures the victim.

The visiting Redcap does not stay with the magi as they deal with the village's plague. He leaves, returning to his ambulatory duties, where he meets the Redcap Józef and the Tytalus maga Hellix. He tells the pair what is happening at the village and the two swiftly depart to follow up on his account.

Within days of the plague outbreak, a Tytalus maga arrives, led by a Slavic Redcap named Józef. Towering Hellix is a filia of Okeabutes, a Tytalus magus from the Hibernia Tribunal who was Marched for diabolism. Shifty-eyed Józef was convicted of stealing vis and is serving his sentence by leading Hellix across Mythic Europe for a year. The scene at the village depends on how quickly your player characters responded to the plague, and how swiftly news and magi travel in your saga. If it makes plausible sense for the pair to arrive while your player characters are healing the villagers, their arrival adds to the dramatic tension. Hellix immediately offers to help. If the sick are dealt with quickly, the maga and Redcap arrive merely to meet and talk with the player character magi, asking about the event and how they dealt with it.

Józef explains that Hellix is crossing the Tribunals looking for incidents of plant diseases. It quickly becomes evident that she is more interested in the necrosis that infects the field than the St Anthony's Fire that infects the villagers. While investigating outbreaks she collects samples of damaged plants, which she plans to diagnose later in her lab. Ultimately she seeks a cure to the various diseases that infect crops and plants. The covenant's magi may suspect the Tytalus of foul play or ill intentions, and her parens' reputation as an Infernalist doesn't help matters. Hellix promises the magi that she means them no harm, and is only interested in the diseased plants, if any still exist, and in helping the sick villagers.

Józef is full of information, and corroborates the Tytalus' good intentions. He confirms that the maga was trained in the Hibernia Tribunal by Okeabutes, who five years ago was convicted of diabolism. Hellix has long been looking for a cure to diseases that affect crops. After her parens' execution, Hellix left Hibernia and set up a new residence in the Stonehenge Tribunal. Józef, stationed in the Hibernian Tribunal but born and trained in the Transylvania Tribunal, was apprehended stealing vis, which he then used as currency with Ireland's hedge wizards. He admits to his criminal faults, and says that the punishment hasn't proven onerous; Hellix is a descent enough traveling companion and her motives are more generous than many magi he has worked with.

In particular, Hellix looks for anyone who caught and survived an infection, especially if they did so without medical or magical aid. If any of the village members achieved this feat, she would like to inspect him. She is also interested in those who died from disease, and asks to inspect those bodies as well. After a cursory investigation, Hellix asks if the survivor and the corpse can return with her to her sanctum. She also asks if she can take a bushel or two of the grain crops infected with necrosis. However the magi resolve this request, even if they refuse everything, Hellix remains interested in the covenant and the area. She instructs Józef to make regular visits to see if the demonic infestation leads to another episode of necrosis. An eligible and attractive man, Józef may find his

After her parens' March, Hellix left the Hibernian Tribunal and joined Cad Gadu, the domus magna of House Ex Miscellanea, located in the Stonehenge Tribunal. Before leaving she made her desire to walk Mythic Europe known to the magi of Hibernia. When Józef was later convicted of a low crime, his punishment was to help Hellix in her task, and he was assigned to be her guide and guard for a year.

Hellix of House Tytalus

Born in Kent in south eastern England, she was apprenticed under Okeabutes at Circulus Ruber, in the Hibernian Tribunal. Specializing in Herbam magic, especially trees, Hellix found the Tribunal well suited to her magical affinity. As much as she loves her magical abilities, she despises her lineage. She thinks House Tytalus's methods are too brutal, too extreme, and vows to never take an apprentice to carry on such a barbarous tradition. She hopes to find a cure for Mythic Europe's most notorious plant diseases to help erase the stain she feels House Tytalus has imprinted on mundane society.

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

Size: +1 Age: 66 (45)

Warping Score: 5 (11) Confidence Score: 2 (5)

Virtues and Flaws: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; Affinity with Herbam, Deft

Herbam, Inventive Genius, Improved Characteristics, Large**, Minor Magical Focus (living trees); Puissant Herbam, Self Confident*; Ambitious, Deficient Muto

* Free House Virtue

** Gained through Temporary Twilight

Personality Traits: Ambitious +6, Self-Sufficient +2, Articulate +1

Reputations: Herbam Specialist 4 (Hermetic)

Combat:

Dodge: Init +0, Attack n/a, Defense +0, Damage n/a

Soak: +0

Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5.

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

Abilities: Artes Liberales 2 (5) (grammar), Charm 4 (15) (debating), Code of Hermes 2 (debate procedures), Concentration 2 (10) (maintaining spells), English 5 (extreme politeness), Finesse 3 (Herbam), Folk Ken 3 (magi), Guile 4 (lying), Intrigue 3 (15) (debating), Latin 4 (Hermetic usage), Leadership 3 (debating), Magic Lore 2 (regiones), Magic Theory 6 (16) (inventing spells), Organization Lore: Order of Hermes 1 (Tribunals), Parma Magica 3 (5) (Herbam), Penetration 4 (Herbam), Profession: Scribe 2 (copying manuscripts),

Arts: Cr 13, In 15, Mu 3, Pe 0, Re 14; An 5, Aq 5, Au 5, Co 10, He 23+3 (8), Ig 2, Im 5, Me 7, Te 4, Vi 7

Twilight Scars: Elongated legs, bark fingernails, berries grow from her hair in spring

Spells Known:

Trap of the Enduring Vine (CrHe15/+39)

Bridge of Wood (CrHe 20/+39)

Wall of Thorns (CrHe 20/+39)

Wall of Living Wood (CrHe 25/+39)

The Bountiful Feast (CrHe 35/+39)

Intuition of the Forest (InHe 10/+39)

Shriek of the Impending Shafts (InHe 15/+41)

Converse with Plant and Tree (InHe 25/+41) Transformation of the Thorny Staff (MuHe 10/+17)

Piercing Shaft of Wood (Mu(Re)He 10/+17) Repel the Wooden Shafts (ReHe 10/+43)

Coils of the Entangling Plant (ReHe 20/+43) Lord of the Trees (ReHe 25/+43)

Calling the Council of Trees (Re(In)He

45/+41)

Freeing of the Striding Tree (an augmented version of this spell with Duration Year, making it a ritual spell; ReHe 45/+43)

Thoughts within Babble (InMe 25/+22)

Appearance: Hellix is abnormally tall, a result of a Temporary Twilight incident that elongated her legs but did not effect the rest of her body. She wears a long black robe to cover this abnormality, but because she stands almost 7 feet tall it does little to mask her freakish height.

The Redcap Józef

Józef is a Slavic Redcap born near Ujazdów Castle (the future site of the city of Warsaw) and trained in the Transylvania Tribunal. Because the Tribunal has an abundance of Redcaps, Józef's superiors assigned him to the Hibernia Tribunal. He became familiar with all the Tribunal's magi, including the Marched Okeabutes. At some point he started stealing vis, which he would then trade to Hibernian hedge wizards for goods and services. Caught and convicted, his punishment is to serve Hellix for a year. The Hibernian Quaesitor hopes that removing Józef from the Tribunal for a year will ensure that the Redcap won't want to come back. It is working.

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

Size: 0

Age: 30 (30)

Decrepitude: 0

Warping Score: 0 (0)

Confidence Score: 1 (3)

Virtues and Flaws: Redcap; Death Prophecy, Ghostly Warder; Second Sight, Well-Traveled*; Curse of Venus, Meddler; Soft-Hearted

* Free Virtue

Personality Traits: Meddler +5, Pacifist +3, Jovial +2

Reputations: Rich Baritone Voice 2 (Hermetic)

Combat:

Dagger: Init –1, Attack +8, Defense +3, Damage +5

Dodge: Init –1, Attack n/a, Defense +2,

Damage n/a

Short Sword: Init 0, Attack +9, Defense +3, Damage +7

Thrown Stone: Init –1, Attack +5, Defense +2, Damage +4

Soak: +1

Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5.

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

Abilities: Area Lore: Lithuania 2 (coastal regions), Area Lore: Hibernia Tribunal 3 (covenants), Area Lore: Poland 2 (forests), Artes Liberales 1 (music), Athletics 2 (running), Awareness 3 (ambushes), Bargain 2 (hedge wizards), Brawl 3 (dagger), Carouse 2 (binge drinking), Charm 4 (superiors), Code of Hermes 2 (Wizards' Wars), Etiquette 2 (Tribunal meetings), Folk Ken 2 (magi), Latin 4 (Hermetic usage), Leadership 2 (Redcaps), Lithuanian 1 (curses), Music 4 (10) (singing), Organization Lore: Order of Hermes 3 (hospitality rights), Polish 5 (rhymes), Second Sight 3 (5) (regio boundaries), Single Weapon 3 (short sword), Stealth 3 (hiding), Survival 2 (forests), Thrown Weapon 2 (stone)

Equipment: Traveling clothes and weapons. Józef owns a cloak that makes him invisible (PeIm base 4, +1 Touch, +1 Conc, +1 changing image; +5 item maintains concentration, +5 for 24 uses per day; total spell effect level 25) and a gold figurine of a horse that can create a live horse (CrAn 15, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +1 size; +2 for 3 uses per day; total spell effect level 37).

Encumbrance: 0 (0)

Appearance: Dark hair spills out under Józef's red cap in long ringlets. His traveling clothes are stained and worn, and luckily concealed beneath his short blue cape.

Józef's death prophesy is that he will die alone. Consequently he rarely is, and does his best to entice others to accompany him on his message deliveries. His busy-body ghost mother doesn't make this an easy task, and his Curse of Venus doesn't always afford him the best company, but he is generally successful in securing companionship.

own reasons to return, depending on the availability of marriageable women at the covenant. His Curse of Venus Flaw may also draw unwanted attention, perhaps from a social superior who demands the Redcap's regular return.

Once the villagers are healed and Hellix is either granted or denied her requests, this initial adventure concludes. Hellix and Józef leave and life returns to normal.

"The Coming Storm" can be run in one or two gaming sessions, depending how easily your player characters manage the wolves, demons, and plague. After that initial introduction to disease, let time pass, either through long term events (laboratory work and aging) or by playing another adventure. Ideally several years should pass as the stage is set for events to unfold at locations afar. As your players plot their characters' laboratory activities, or play another unrelated adventure, Hellix accidentally creates the Great Pestilence.

To keep your players marginally involved, Józef turns up occasionally, asking for loans from the covenant's library. After his year spent with Hellix, Józef asked to transfer to the Stonehenge Tribunal and the request was granted. Use Józef to link the Tytalus maga and her laboratory work to the player characters and their covenant. Hellix is interested in any tractatus about the Arts, except for Muto, Herbam, and Vim. She offers to exchange vis for the loaned material. Józef reports that she continues to investigate plant diseases.

After her year spent abroad with Józef, Hellix left Hibernia and resettled in the Stonehenge Tribunal. Rather than live with other magi in an existing covenant,

In Mythic Europe, there are two ways that plants get diseases, a natural way and an unnatural way. The natural way is from an imbalance in the three sources of nutrition, three factors that contribute to a healthy plant. Just as natural human diseases are caused by an imbalance of the four humors (see Art & Academe, p. 36), plant diseases are caused by an imbalance of the amount or type of a plant's food, water, or the prevailing weather conditions. Discovered by Aristotle, this basic plant biology was recorded by his successor Theophrastus, and is available in his work, De causis plantarium (On The Causes of Plants), a tractatus on Philosophiae (natural philosophy), Quality 8.

The exact nature of a plant's food is unknown, although it is known that the food is derived from the soil and transported to the plant through its roots. Water is also absorbed through the roots for nutrition, but the amount of water on a plant's leaves also determines its health. The prevailing weather conditions, predominately the temperature, direction, and strength of the winds hitting the plant, also determine its health. If any of these factors falls askew, or happen during an inappropriate time in the plant's growth cycle, a disease manifests.

The most common plant diseases are sun scorch, which blanches the leaves and fruit of a plant before killing it, grubs, various types of caterpillarlike insects that form within the fruit and then devour it as they emerge, kambros, a rust-like discoloration of the leaves that prevents a plant from budding fruit, mold, a fuzzy black growth that taints fruit and kills the plant, and necrosis, or "black root," a disease that blackens a plant's roots and prevents them from delivering food and water. None of these diseases affect humans directly, although the loss of a field or orchard's produce certainly can.

All of these diseases can be transmitted unnaturally as well, Theophrastus making a distinction between the natural transmission of a disease through an imbalance of a plant's nutritional sources, and the unnatural transmission of disease through magical, infernal, or divine agencies. The demons, for example, infect a plant with necrosis through an infernal power.

Common Plant Diseases

Sun Scorch

Minor Disease, Severity 6 Stable: 6, Improve 10, Interval: Week

Sun scorch can be cured by increasing a plant's water source and, if possible, providing shade. If left unattended for a month sun scorch will kill the plant. Sun scorch is the

most common plant ailment in Mythic Europe and is often the first killer in areas of drought.

Grubs

Major Disease, Severity 12 Stable: 10, Improve 10, Interval: Week Grubs destroy the field within a month.

Kambros

Minor Disease, Severity 6 Stable n/a, Improve 9, Interval: Week

Kambros prevents a plant from producing fruit, but will not necessarily kill the plant if left unattended. The disease will not worsen, but it is a persistent blight until cured.

Mold

Serious Disease, Severity 9 Stable 6, Improve 15, Interval: Day

Mold is a determined ailment and will destroy an Individual-sized plant in 7 days. Larger plants take longer to die, but are no more resistant to the disease. Multiply the length of time it takes to destroy the plant by 10 for every +1 size increment.

Necrosis

Critical Disease, Severity 15 Stable 12, Improve 18, Interval: Hour

The dreaded "black root" disease will kill a plant in 12 hours, regardless of the plant's Size.

she instead looked for a more private place for her laboratory and sanctum. She found it in Cors Goch, a large wetland on the eastern side of Anglesey, an island off the north coast of Wales. Uninhabited by mortal society, the fen is split in half between two powerful faerie groups. The northern group of faeries is led by Jarl Ketill, a notorious faerie viking raider, and the southern group is led by Prince Rhodri, a faerie copy of a famous local hero. Both faerie groups interact with the people living near them, and rarely interact with each other unless a human penetrates the fens.

Hellix commissioned a fellow magus to magically erect a stone tower in the middle of Cors Goch, built on an island of firm ground with a Magic aura of 5. This aura is surrounded by the nearby Faerie auras of 4, Jarl Ketill's to the north and Prince Rhodri's to the south. Hellix installed a Hermetic laboratory and made it her sanctum. Her actions drew the attention of both faerie groups, who sent representatives to investigate. These welcoming parties took the forms of faerie Viking raiders, on the one hand, and troublesome Welsh faerie knights on the other. When Hellix made it clear that she wasn't interested in interacting with them, they became a problem. Lone faerie vikings and the occasional Welsh faerie knight investigate the surroundings, and once Jarl Ketill once raided the manor. Hellix defended the house by summoning and stationing animated trees around the property. After Jarl Ketill's defeat Prince Rhodri staged an attack, which was also repulsed.

Visiting and leaving the house entails dodging Cors Goch's faeries and penetrating Hellix's defenses, a task that Józef has become adroit at. Hellix is a nominal member of the covenant Cad Gadu, the domus magna of House Ex Miscellanea. She is the sole Tytalus member – she is the only maga who isn't from House Ex Miscellanea for that matter – claiming her inclusion is through her House's connection to Pralix and that maga's importance in the House's history. No other member of the covenant cares.

Left alone in her sanctum, Hellix investigates plant diseases. She frequently requests samples, and Józef complies to the best of his ability. She also asks to borrow Hermetic texts, and some of these requests should fall on the player characters' ears.

The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but earth hath He given to the children of men.

• Psalm 115:16

Blighted and diseased fields are nothing new to medieval farmers, and the Order of Hermes has created preventative measures to protect a field from sun scorch, grubs, mold and other plant diseases. The spell The Bountiful Feast (ArM5, page 135), does just that, and a field protected by that spell is immune to natural diseases. If the disease is caused by unnatural causes, like the necrosis inflicted by the Shades of St. Anthony demons, The Bountiful Feast grants no protection.

It could be one of your player character magi who accidentally creates the Great Pestilence. If so, this story does not need Hellix or Józef at all. Perhaps the player character is working on a ward against plant disease, or any other Rego Herbam laboratory activity. The magus must experiment and the player must roll either a botch or a 9 on the Extraordinary Results Chart (ArM5, page 109). If he rolls a 9, resulting in "Special or story event," the accident is not directly harmful. Let the season's effort succeed, and near season's end, during an intensely intricate moment of the laboratory process, the temporary vestige opens and siphons off some of the magical energies swirling around the room. The Great Pestilence is created from this energy.

If the player rolled a botch, he must then roll on the Disaster chart. If the roll is 2 or less, the magus has avoided creating a temporary vestige, but if the roll is anything else (3 or higher) the vestige and the Great Pestilence are created. The other results of the roll also transpire. For example, a player who rolls a 5 – 6 explodes his character's lab, and creates a temporary vestige and the Great Pestilence.

General: Ward against magical plant diseases associated with one realm (Divine, Faerie, Infernal, or Magic), with a Might of less than the level of the Spell. (Range Touch, Duration Ring, Target Circle)

Level 5: Ward a plant against mundane plant diseases.

Base 1: Heal a Light Wound to a plant. Cure a Minor plant disease

Base 2: Heal a Medium Wound to a plant. Cure a Serious plant disease

Base 3: Heal a Heavy Wound to a plant. Cure a Major plant disease

Base 4: Heal an Incapacitating Wound to a plant. Cure a Critical plant disease

Base 5: Heal all Wounds to a plant.

Base 10: Heal all damage to a plant, including wounds, disease, and poison.

Just like human diseases, plant diseases come in a variety of severities. The type of severity, Mild, Serious, etc., is the same as the severity of the human disease or animal disease that effects the eater of the diseased plant. Like Creo Corpus healing spells, a healing spell cast other than as a Momentary Duration Ritual actually suspends the healing process so that upon the spell's expiration wounds are as fresh as they were when the spell was cast.

Unlike most Hermetic spells, those that strive to provide fertile crops are not exact. The Bountiful Feast "attempts to ensure that all crops that grow within its target will be healthy and fruitful." Hermetic theorists are uncertain why such magics are imprecise, and speculate that it has something to do with the plant's growing cycle and the insidious nature of plant diseases. Rituals spells that nurture crops throughout the growing season are less accurate than those designed to keep plant blight and rot from the fields. A long-lasting Rego Herbam ward works better than a long-lasting Creo Herbam ritual.

Hellix desires a plant cure that surpasses those already available. Having discovered that demons, faeries, and magical creatures can cause plant diseases, she seeks to protect fields from those supernatural maladies. She also seeks a more embracing cure, one that wards vasts acres of tillage from both natural and unnatural plant diseases. Her motivation might seem generous — what greater gift than that of a stable food supply — but it is driven by her ambition to outshine the other members of her House. While they squabble and pursue petty differences, thinks Hellix, she will show them and the world the greater benefit of magic.

Ward against Natural Imbalances of Nutrition

ReHe 55

R: Touch, D: Year, T: Boundary, Ritual This ritual spell keeps natural plant diseases from a sizable crop field. It does not aid growth, fecundity, or yield, but will keep the plant healthy despite imbalances in its food, water, and effects from atmospheric conditions. It offers no protection from magical diseases emanating from supernatural causes.

(Base 5, +1 Touch, +4 Year, +4 Boundary, +1 size)

Ward against Unnatural Imbalances of Nutrition

General

R: Touch, D: Ring, T: Circle

This ritual spell keeps supernatural magical plant diseases of a particular Realm, those originating from a supernatural source or creature with a Might score, from a small garden. It does not aid growth, or otherwise invigorate the crop. The selected base level of effect must be greater than the Might of the source of the magical plant disease, or of the disease itself if the disease has a Might score. In addition to the base effect level, the spell needs to penetrate the Magic Resistance of the magical plant disease, or more likely its source.

(Base effect)

Rather than promoting healthy growth or protective wards, another solution is to cure a field already damaged by a plant disease. Much like curing human disease, spells that return a blighted field to health are rituals and require vis. Curing one disease does not prevent another, nor does it guard against repeat infestations of the disease just cured. Yields may be affected, depending on how much damage a disease has done, but if the spell is cast before harvest the crop is hale and untainted.

Shade the Scorched Earth

CeHe 20

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Boundary, Ritual This spell heals a crop infested with sun scorch.

(Base 1, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary, +1 size)

Every being of the Magic realm has Magic Resistance, based on its Magic Might, and has resistance against the Great Pestilence's attack. However, the Great Pestilence, whose statistical information appears at the end of this chapter, has a very high Penetration on his power that inflicts the Great (Form) Pestilence. None of the Great Pestilence's powers that find and target Magic beings costs Might points, so its total Penetration is its Might (50) + its Penetration (10) = 60. Attacking from the Magic Realm bolsters this total by 10, and residing in the (Form) province adds another +10, for a Penetration total of 80.

lix's Temporary Twilight, the mold creeps toward the maga and slowly climbs her body. Edging its way through the rend in the Magic aura, called a Twilight Tear, the sentient fungus oozes through the vestige and into the Herbam province. The Great Pestilence is born.

This event likely happens offstage. In her lab at Cors Goch, Hellix experiments while creating Rego Herbam wards, spells that will prevent natural and unnatural diseases from infecting a crop field. Midway through the Winter season she makes a disastrous error that causes an explosion in her lab. Glass and pottery are hurled throughout the room, and Hellix is thrown into a Temporary Twilight that lasts for a year. The force of the blast is so severe that it tears the magical lining of the Magic aura within her lab, creating a temporary vestige that leads to the Herbam province, an area in the Magic Realm aligned to the Herbam Form. The explosion contaminates the large pile of raw vis she was using to augment her experiment. This combination of raw vis and unleashed magical energies creates a sentient creature, a wooly black clump of magical rot that is both intelligent and malicious. During Hel-

Even if the magi stay in close correspondence with Józef and Hellix, it is nearly impossible to know that the Great Pestilence is coming. But this is Mythic Europe and the impossible often happens. Once spawned and shied off into the Magic Realm, the Great Pestilence needs time to grow and fester. Several warning signs occur during this time, almost as if the Magic Realm is trying to indicate the terrors ahead. Any character with the Virtue: Premonitions or the Flaw: Visions receives an indication of the impending horrors. A vision is vague: a dreamer sees the objects in his bedroom rapidly decompose, a distant figure in black engulfed in olivecolored fungus, or the Tower of Bonisagus at Durenmar tarred in black mold and tumbling to the ground. For characters

with Premonitions, the result of the Perception + Premonitions roll determines the accuracy of the preternatural feeling. A 6 or higher indicates something terrible is coming, a 9 or higher that this terrible thing will cut off the food supply and endanger everyone, a 12 or higher that the world will be consumed by rot, and a 15 or higher that a wizard created the malady that will destroy the world. The wizard's identity remains hidden.

If the magi have kept close ties with Hellix, they may have an inkling of the events to come. Józef tells them that Hellix takes risks, judging from the dark shadows under the maga's eyes and the replacement glassware costs, and deems her to be impetuous. When the Redcap last tried to visit the magus the way was barred; the maga had doubled the number of animated trees guarding her sanctum and the Redcap couldn't get through. Depending on how much time you give the players, the characters might be able to hurry to Cors Goch and investigate Hellix's laboratory. Travel time depends on how far the covenant is from Wales and the magical or mundane means the magi have of visiting the lab. The investigation itself shouldn't take long.

If the players haven't kept in touch with Józef, they are as surprised and confused as the rest of Mythic Europe when the plague strikes.

The Great Pestilence strikes in the spring, on the first new moon after the vernal equinox (sometime in April), and targets every Magic aura and regio. All Herbam vis becomes diseased, either molding, forming grubs, or showing sun scorch. Raw vis maturing on the vine or in the field develops a blue fuzz, and stored vis displays small black dots that grow in size over the next few days. This goes unnoticed unless the magi regularly take stock of their vis stores and their vis sites. Most covenants collect their vis in one place, often a secure room or a safe corner of the magi's library, and place someone in charge of the collection. Let the overseer's player make a Perception + Awareness roll against an Ease Factor dependent upon how attentive he is to his duties, based on past seasons played in your saga. The average autocrat's Ease Factor is 9, while a lazy autocrat's Ease Factor is 12. Any magus or apprentice who takes vis from the stores has a chance to notice the blight as well; make a Perception + Awareness roll against an Ease Factor of 6.

At this point, the vis still empowers spells and boosts magic, as a simple test reveals. However, it feels riskier to the caster, a subtle but noticeable feeling. The Herbam Form is more unpredictable, and Herbam spell-casting requires a stress die in situations that normally use a simple die. Intellego Vim spells cast on the rotting vis offer no aid, and simply state the obvious, that the item contains vis and possibly how many pawns. The quantity of pawns of vis in the actual item does not diminish. For example, an ear of barley that holds four pawns of vis continues to hold all four pawns, up to the point when all of it ceases to function. At month's end, on the rise of the next new moon, the diseased vis is useless and void of any magical essence. If left unattended or unnoticed, all Herbam vis expires.

The players have a chance to save their magi's vis. Even if their wizards didn't notice the early signs of disease, others do. Two weeks after the new moon, Tribunal Redcaps start spreading the news that one of the area's covenants noticed the rot and is asking for help. When other covenants offer to send Herbam vis, they notice that theirs is also rotting. If Herbam vis is very important to your saga's magi, this word comes in time for the magi to save their stored Herbam vis. If Herbam vis is not so important, word comes too late.

The solution is to move the vis outside a Magic aura. Raw vis must be fully mature for this to work. It must be ready to harvest in early or mid-spring, harvested, and then removed from a Magic aura. Raw Herbam vis that won't be ready by the next new moon can't be saved. If the vis is taken to another Magic aura, the blight continues. It must be outside all Magic auras to retain its potency. Though stinking and discolored by the blight, Herbam vis removed from all Magic auras still works after the month ends. All Herbam vis left inside a Magic aura rots and turns useless when the next new moon rises.

Important: Once a Magic aura or regio that produces Herbam vis has been infected, it no longer produces that vis. This hold true of other auras that produce other types of vis; once that Form of vis becomes diseased, that area no longer produces vis.

The Order of Hermes buzzes with the news. As magi ponder the contagion, the next new moon brings another calamitous event. The Great Pestilence targets every magic being, spirit, creature and object belonging to the Magic realm and aligned to the Herbam Form. Herbamaligned Magic creatures outside a Magic aura or regio not affected. Most are, Herbam creatures being stationary as a rule. On the night of the new moon, and each week thereafter for the next month, Herbam magic creatures in every Magic aura and regio must succeed on a Disease Avoidance roll or suffer the malignant effects of the Great Herbam Pestilence, so named because of the creature causing it and the Form affected.

Sick creatures show obvious signs of infection. Large, black buboes form on the creature, which quickly tax its strength. Trees drop leaves, objects grow warty protuberances along their surface, and spirits become hazy. Most victims die within the week. Those that don't die in the first week gradually worsen until they too expire. Those that survive a dose of exposure must make another Disease Avoidance roll for each week that they stay in a Magic aura.

The solution is to remove the sick individual from any Magic aura, the same solution that saved Herbam vis. While vis automatically stopped worsening, a Magic being still dies if it does not survive the disease. Like diseases in humans, the creature benefits from magical and medical curatives. While it is safe from the Great Pestilence's sickness, it may suffer Acclimation while removed from a Magic aura of appropriate strength. (Acclimation is the slow loss of magical Qualities or Might to a Magic creature that does not reside within a strong enough Magic aura; see Realms of Power: Magic, page 52.)

Dying from the Great Herbam Pestilence taints a magic creature's body, so that its vis rots and cannot be siphoned off and used. Losing Magic creatures may affect the strength of an area's Magic aura. Creatures that live in an aura for more than a year form a preternatural tether to that area, and add one-fourth of their Might to the area's Magic aura, measured in magnitudes. The death of such creature reduces the aura's strength by 1 point for each year after its demise.

Being magical creatures, familiars are affected by the Great (Form) Pestilence. While there might not be many Herbamaligned familiars in your saga, this becomes a larger issue as the Great Pestilence advances through the Forms.

The Great (Form) Pestilence

Critical Phlegmatic Disease, Severity 21 Stable: 12, Improve: 18, Interval: Day Symptoms: Once acquired, the disease advances quickly. Initial signs in humans and animals are fatigue and fever, followed by coughing and sneezing. Within an hour coughing leads to bloody expectoration, and within two hours puss-filled buboes appear on the throat, armpits, and groin. For objects, minerals, and plants, the symptoms are a general encompassing of the surface with a blue-black mold. Firm textures becoming spongy and exude a foul odor. The Disease Penalty is –5.

The loss of most of Mythic Europe's Herbam vis and Herbam magic beings is tragic, but pales against the deprivations of the next stage of the Great Pestilence's progression. On the rise of the third new moon, the last in the spring season, an invisible cloud forms in every Magic aura and regio, a cloud that destroys all living plant material. This cloud, called a miasma, is odorless, invisible, silent, intangible, and has no taste. Named after the Form it is targeting, the Herbam miasma delivers a lethal rot to all living plant material. Every plant within the cloud suffers the effects of the spell-like Herbam Blight.

Herbam Blight

PeHe 30

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Bound

This spell destroys any plant that falls within the confines of the miasma. It affects every plant, from a blade of grass to a towering oak. Visually, plants become blighted and rot within a matter of minutes. As the miasma touches the area, the entire bounded zone withers and dies.

(Base 5, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

A miasma is a magical creation, an accidental result of the Great Pestilence's contamination of a Magic aura and regio, and not specifically created by the Great Pestilence creature. A miasma does not have a Might score, or Intelligence, or any other Characteristic. It has one power that operates continually with a Penetration Total of 0. The miasma has the rough circumference of the Magic aura in which it was created, and is about 60 paces tall. This correlates to a cloud of 10 to 100 times the size of a base Auram Individual target. See the insert "Miasma Sizes" to determine how large a particular miasma is and if an incoming spell needs to be adjusted due to the miasma's size.

Every Magic aura and regio produces a Herbam miasma. In the years to come, this same phenomenon will repeat with every new stage of infection. Every four new moons, every Magic aura and magic regio produces a noxious Form-aligned miasma. A miasma has a life span of 1 year.

A miasma does not stay in the aura it was created in, but moves according to the prevailing winds. On the third new moon hundreds, if not thousands of Herbam miasmas are created, which destroy the plants in the immediate area, and are then blown around Mythic Europe. An area will likely be affected by several Herbam miasmas as they circulate across Mythic Europe. Besides the direct damage done, each miasma penalizes Aging rolls by –2. When it is time to make Aging rolls in your saga, often done at the beginning of the Winter season, impose a –2 penalty for every active cycle of Formtype miasmas circulating through Mythic Europe at that time.

Generated near the end of the spring season, when most of an area's cereal crops have been planted and are just showing signs of growth, a Herbam miasma will devastate an area. A stagnant miasma continually targets an area of land with the Herbam Blight, preventing new plants from growing. However. natural winds carry the majority of miasmas across the countryside, ruining many fields. Cattle and herd animals used to grazing on fresh grass need fodder, forcing farmers to use any hay they may still have on hand. Miasmas generated in urban Magic aura lacunas continually ricochet within the city walls, blown about by small winds until a strong enough gale forces it over the city's walls. Most if not all urban dwellers grow small vegetable gardens to supplement their diet, and the roving Herbam miasma ruins these plots.

The Order of Hermes immediately sees the connection between the Herbam miasma, the loss of Herbam vis, and diseased magical beings. On the other hand, mundane society sees the poor harvests as a sign of the Almighty's displeasure. Most cities are prepared to handle a year's crop loss, with stored grains and managed prices that allow the majority of the population to survive. Bellies will not starve the first winter after the Herbam miasma, only grumble at times, but the situation will steadily deteriorate. Farmers begin a desperate race to find new pastures. New grass will grow in areas laid waste, but only on their natural cycle. A pasture wasted in the summer may grow new grass by the autumn, but is just as susceptible to a roving Herbam miasma as it was last year.

A base Target: Individual for Auram is a single weather phenomena, which includes a cloud. Clouds come in various sizes, however, and spells that affect very large clouds need to be adjusted due to the cloud's size. A miasma is about the size of a cloud, and when resting on the ground occupies approximately the same space as an acre of land. This rough rule is used for convenience. In the 13th century, an acre of land is the amount of land an ox can plow in a day, or a plot of land 22 yards wide and 220 yards long. Adding a magnitude would affect a miasma the size of 10 acres of land (220 yards by 2,200 yards), adding a second would affect 100 acres of land, and a third 1,000 acres.

The miasma is the same size as the Magic aura that spawned it. When dealing with spells that target miasmas, one target: Individual is a miasma the size of

an acre of land. Very small Magic auras, like those lacunas found in cities, can be targeted with Target: Ind. Spells targeting larger miasmas, like those derived from most covenants, need to be increased by two magnitudes to affect the miasma. An aura's strength has nothing to do with the miasma's size.

Miasmas and Regiones

Magic regiones generate miasmas just like Magic auras. Inside a regio, however, winds won't blow the miasma away, nor carry a new miasma into the regio. Regiones are trapped air, in a sense, and do not interact with mundane winds. Even if the regio is a particularly windy regio due to its own magical characteristics, a miasma remains within the bounded area. In regiones, and only in regiones, a new miasma will replace an older one. When The Great Pestilence generates its Corpus miasma later in the year (see later), the Herbam miasma already in the regio is suppressed and replaced.

Regiones aligned to the other realms also exist within their own confined environments. Winds can blow miasmas into Divine, Faerie, and Infernal auras, but not Divine, Faerie, and Infernal regiones. Such places are safe havens, allowing people a refuge from the ravages of the Great Pestilence. Living inside the regio, however, may not be possible. While sustainable regiones might produce food – crops grown in an Infernal regio, cattle stolen from a faerie regio, or wholesome bread and wine found in a Divine regio – interacting with the regio's denizens has consequences.

"We are Doomed!"

They are not. Discovering miasmas is not as difficult as might be imagined. Medieval medical theory already speculates that plagues are disseminated by a corruption of the atmosphere, and that this "bad air" congeals into pockets of poisonous foulness. Indistinguishable from other types of air, the clump of bad air is blown from area to area by the wind. Any trained physician (anyone who possesses a score in Medicine) who investigates two or more areas devastated by the Herbam Blight can speculate that it is caused by a clump of bad air. Success is indicated by succeeding on an Intelligence + Medicine roll against an Ease Factor of 9.

Second Sight allows characters to see through illusionary concealment, including invisibility. A player character can spot a miasma on a Perception + Second Sight roll against an Ease Factor of 9.

Spot ^a Miasma: Perception + Second Sight + stress die vs. 9

In the covenant, all living plants die as soon as the Herbam miasma generates, and nothing grows as long as the miasma stays. Once it is blown away by winds, new plants can be sown. A covenant's Aegis of the Hearth spell doesn't stop the initial miasma from generating, but it does prevent other miasmas from being blown into the area it protects. Being magical things, and especially due to their lack of penetration, miasmas cannot pass through even the lowest level Aegis of the Hearth. Once the initial Herbam miasma is dispersed, destroyed, or somehow dealt with, foreign Herbam miasmas cannot pierce the Aegis of the Hearth.

Miasmas are created every four months, the Form of the miasma the same as the Form the Great Pestilence is putrefying. Several types of Form miasmas soon circulate throughout Mythic Europe. While the covenant is protected by its Aegis of the Hearth, the magi's neighbors have no protection. Winds play the largest factor when determining if a miasma enters a locale. Roll on the accompany table to determine if the wind is blowing and its direction.

Simple Die Wind Direction

• 1 No wind, check for length of time between miasmas (below)
• 2 North
• 3 Northeast
• 4 East
• 5 Southeast
• 6 South
• 7 Southwest
• 8 West
• 9 Northwest
• 10 Becalmed. Roll a simple die to determine how many days before the wind blows

The length of time between miasmas depends on how many Forms the Great Pestilence has infected. Roll a stress die (no botch) and subtract the number of Forms infected to determine the number of days before the next miasma visits an area.

For example, The Great Pestilence has infected three Forms: Herbam, Corpus, and Mentem. A Corpus miasma currently sits over a local village. The storyguide rolls for the wind direction, gets a 5, and announces that a southeasterly wind blows the miasma away. He next rolls a stress die and gets an 8, minus 3 because 3 Forms are infected, and discovers that 5 days pass before the next miasma arrives.

The speed of the wind doesn't matter, nor does it matter how long an area is in contact with a miasma. Because the miasma's blight instantaneously affects its targets, even a few seconds of contact is lethal. A field of crops, for example, is destroyed whether an Herbam miasma sits on the plot for a week or is blown through it in an hour.

To determine which type of miasma arrives, randomize the available miasmas in accordance with which Forms have been infected.

On the fourth new moon since the plague began, formulaic and spontaneous Herbam spells stop working. With a gasp the Order quickly finds that Herbam rituals still work, however, and it takes only a simple investigation to discover that formulaic and spontaneous Herbam spells also work if the caster uses vis when casting, one pawn per magnitude of the spell. Herbam vis, which is likely in short supply, works, as does Technique vis corresponding to the Technique used in the spell. The used vis still supplies the regular +2 bonus to the spell casting total.

From this point on, any lab work that includes the Herbam Form can only be completed by expending vis during the process. Since laboratory work is half investigation, half application, it costs 1 pawn of vis for every two magnitudes (10 levels) of final effect, in addition to the number of pawns of vis the season's activity would normally require. This rule holds true for any type of Form vis that has been targeted by the Great Pestilence's attacks.

At some point during the fourmonth-long epidemic on the Herbam Form, the Tribunal's magi realize that something major is happening, a calamity of unprecedented proportions with no known origin and no obvious end. The movers and shakers in your saga's Tribunal call for an emergency Tribunal meeting, summoning the magi to meet either in late Spring or early in the Summer season. The exact date isn't important, but you should set it during the third or fourth month of the Herbam blight cycle. Hopefully your player characters are interested in responding on a grander scale than merely saving their covenant and the local environs. How this plays out is unique to every saga and depends on how contentious or cooperative the magi are in your Order of Hermes. Canonically, the Order is a fairly stable, functioning organization. There are several places where communication, information, and cohesion can break down, and every Tribunal has its bad apples ready to spoil the bin, but as painted in the majority of the Ars Magica Fifth Edition books the Order as a whole works.

No matter what your Tribunal is like, make your player characters central to the ensuing political action. If used as intended, this adventure ends (or threatens to end) a long saga, one in which the player characters have risen to positions of distinction and power. If this is not the case, and you are running this for less experienced player characters, you still need to make their participation meaningful to the Tribunal, despite their age, reputations, and past encounters with other Tribunal magi. One way to do this is to give the player character magi important information that the others don't have, like the connection with the Herbam specialist Hellix and her interest in molds, fungi, and other plant diseases.

If the magi have any allies in the Tribunal, those allies are at the meeting, as are the magi's enemies. The majority of those assembled are frightened and display this feeling in a variety of ways. The more honest simply show their fears, asking each other what is to come and what can be done. The majority mask their fear with anger, and brazenly hurl accusations at time-honored enemies. Minority groups are favorite targets, and magi blame local heretics, hedge-wizards, and witches. At this stage this is just braying, and true violence seems unlikely.

The marks of disease on the various items containing raw Herbam vis, many of which are fruits, vegetables, or other plant products, resemble mold, grubs, and other common plant diseases. The player characters are the only magi present who might link the damaged vis to Hellix. Even if other storyguide magi know about Hellix, they do not put this information together. As mentioned, this gives younger player character magi an important foothold in the Tribunal discussion, so you should make sure that they do connect things to Hellix. Some phony Intelligence + Organization Lore: Order of Hermes rolls might be called for. Use this advantage to explain why the Tribunal's senior members are willing to listen to the player characters. Once this has been

As written, the Great Pestilence takes 4 months to destroy a Form, and 3 years and 4 months to destroy the Magic Realm. This assumes that your saga is suitably advanced and your player character magi many years past apprenticeship. If your magi are realm-trotting adventurers who know several routes to the Magic Realm, political powerhouses in their Tribunal and even in the Order as a whole, and magically capable of dealing with miasmas with spontaneous spells, then the month-by-month contagion should provide the right level of challenge. Please note that this quick rate of infection restricts complex laboratory activities, because the magi won't have the necessary time to invent powerful spells or explore original research.

If your player characters are not as powerful, you should consider slowing down the rate of infection. Rather than four months to destroy a Form, the Great Pestilence needs four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. This gives the saga ten years before the final Form is destroyed, allowing the player characters the laboratory time to deal with the plagues and the dying world. Remember that while those outside the covenant suffer greatly, inside the covenant the magi are protected by their Aegis of the Hearth. Covenants become pockets of survivors, giving the magi time to invent spells, investigate areas, find a route to the Magic Realm, and ultimately defeat the Great Pestilence. A slower infection rate also works well in a low-powered saga, one in which the magi need a month to walk to Durenmar for the emergency Grand Tribunal and cannot instantly transport themselves there with magic.

explained, someone will suggest that the player characters investigate Hellix's lab, and see if they can find her.

If the magi have already visited Hellix's lab, they have discovered her culpability. Hellix has inadvertently fouled the Herbam Art of the Magic Realm, and the consequences are obvious. They may even have rescued Hellix and brought her to the Tribunal. At this point, most of the Tribunal's magi want reparations; they want the loss of their vis compensated for and want some type of "creature price" for slain Herbam creatures. Some hot-heads call for her death. With a blamable culprit, attention shifts from the Great Pestilence, which at this point has only made a cursory invasion of the Forms, to punishing the offender.

If the troupe is interested, they could defend Hellix against the charges laid against her. She suggests the charge be debated and the praeco agrees, provided that Hellix doesn't participate and finds an advocate to defend her. If your players are more interested in prosecuting the Tytalus, switch roles and have a storyguide character defend her. If you do not have the debate rules (Houses of Hermes: Societates, page 90), have the debating solicitors make opposed Communication + Code of Hermes stress rolls. Each solicitor has to make three points in the formal argument, and winning the roll equates to winning a point. After the Tribunal decides what to do with Hellix, it needs to address the concerns of the entire Order. If compensation has been demanded, does every Hermetic magus get to make a similar demand? The debate could go on into the night.

Storgyguide magi characters may have noticed a Twilight Tear during episodes of Temporary Twilight. As you will read later, a Twilight Tear is a way into the Magic Realm, through one of the Form Boundaries that connect that Realm to the mundane world. Use this device as necessitated by your saga. If the player characters have a way to the Magic Realm then they probably won't need to use a Twilight Tear. If they do not, then provide this information from a storyguide character ally at an opportune moment. Naturally, the player characters themselves have a chance to find a Twilight Tear on their own, and at that point decide to use it or not.

How the Tribunals respond to the Great Pestilence depends on your saga, determined by your style of play and your troupe's vision of the Order of Hermes. Six example responses are presented here, one for each of the six Tribunals detailed in Ars Magica Fifth Edition. Use or revise these as you see fit.

The Rhine Tribunal

The first and foremost Tribunal of the Order, although not necessarily the most powerful or influential, is already stalled in political debate between those who would retreat and protect the great forests (the Hawthorn and Elder Gilds) and those who would treat with men (the Apple Gild). Several factors complicate a settlement, including the ancient enmities between the Black Forest covenants, the self-centered agendas of the smaller covenants, and the rigidness of the larger. Once Herbam vis rots and Herbam magic creatures perish, the wilderness faction screams for a solution, which unites the Tribunal in a common goal. All perceive it as a direct attack and look for someone to blame. The magi of Dankmar, assuming that most other Rhine magi believe that they are responsible, abandon their covenant and go into hiding. The loudest, most persuasive voices come from Oculus Septentrionalis, a covenant in Lübeck, who declare that the threat must come from the north, from the antagonistic Order of Odin. They propose an attack north, a proposal that is backed by Fengheld, the largest covenant in the Tribunal. Ships are bought and magi head to the coast, their sights set on the distant pagan magicians in Sweden, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

The Normandy Tribunal

Probably the Tribunal where vis is most scarce, the magi of Normandy do not overreact when their limited supply becomes threatened. Some few spar and feud, keeping their disputes within legal boundaries, but most look for a solution. Unfortunately they have nowhere to look, until someone suggests that the dual Primi of Fudarus might have something to do with it. Both Buliste and Harpax refuse to accommodate any requests to investigate their covenant, and before the second new moon sets most of the Norman Flambeau and Tremere declare Wizards War against the Primi and any Tytalus they know. This could easily lead to a second Schism War.

Rich in vis and abundantly blessed with Magic auras, the Thebes Tribunal does not initially treat the threat with the gravity it deserves. None view it as an attack, since there is no clear cut magical enemy for the Tribunal to face. They wonder instead if some ancient being has arisen, some titan long thought buried who now returns. A commission is formed to browse through the Redcap library at the covenant of Alexandria looking for references to the ancient titans and correlating that to the last known location of where any titan might be bound. The logothete Proximios applauds the plan, facilitates the commissioners entry into Alexandria and loads them with volumes of past Redcap messages and notes. Sensing that the situation is more dire than the other Theban magi realize, Proximios hopes to exacerbate the issue by stalling those hoping to find a solution.

Rather than waste time finding the culprit, the Tremere of the Transylvania Tribunal rush into action. If no player character discovers the solution of relocating vis and creatures to save them, the Tremere do. They are also fairly well equipped to deal with such an enterprise, using their system of store houses and their modes of mobility and fast transit. A vexillation forms to deal with the calamity, and once the relocation is underway the vexillation looks for those behind the attack. Their first suspects are the ancient and terrible Infernal dragons that haunt the Carpathian Mountains. Thinking that the Infernal dragons have found some new power to use against the Magic dragons, squads of Tremere look for an Infernal dragon leader, one who they think is spearheading the assault.

The Hibernia Tribunal

The magi of Ireland have the swiftest and most pronounced reaction to Herbam vis rotting: they panic. Those who know the history of the island know that plagues have twice wiped out its inhabitants in the ancient past, and this first sign of far-reaching blight sends them spinning. None initially think to save their vis, or any magic Herbam creatures they may know, and instead look to their own safety. Some leave Ireland, only to find the same calamity abroad. Others lock themselves in their towers and safe houses hoping the plague passes them by. The brave join with the Coill Trí, the league of hedge wizards living in Connacht, and search the deeper recesses of the Tribunal looking for the plague's origin. Hibernia has its fair share of Herbam specialists, and at some point someone remembers the maga Hellix and her skill in the Art.

The Provençal Tribunal

With tensions hanging on the edge of a sword, as they have for the past few years, the Great Pestilence is the final straw that breaks the Tribunal's cohesion. The Blacks and Whites of Tolosa Paratge declare Wizard's War on each other, and the long standing enmity between Aedes Mercurii and Castra Solis flares up as the former launches magical raids against the latter. Even the more pastoral covenants draw up their defenses and close their doors to outsiders. If there is a hope for recovery, it rests with the Coenobium and its far-flung network of Redcaps and Jerbiton magi. Using their connections and access to various river barges, they manage to save most of their Herbam vis.

At some point, either before or after the Great Pestilence strikes, the player characters visit Hellix's tower. If this happens before her accident, she is cordial, if cold, receiving them with all due hospitality. She commands her tree guardians to allow the visitors entry. She has nothing to hide and freely discusses her investigations. If pressed, she lets visitors into her sanctum, show them her piles of vis, rotted plants, and laboratory texts. If the player characters are expecting to find any evidence of foul play they are disappointed.

If the player characters arrive after the accident has happened, they find a completely different situation.

Inside the Fen

Józef agrees to lead the player characters to Hellix's sanctum if asked. He is perplexed by the number of animated trees guarding Hellix's lab. Where the maga once found 15 sufficient protection, 30 now stand in a circle around the tower. There is no way to slip through without being subject to attacks from at least two trees. Slow moving, the trees attack any who approach, and follow those rushing past them right up to the tower door. Since the trees are animated by Hellix's magic and are not magical creatures themselves, they are not affected by the Herbam Blight.

Inside the tower are the standard rooms and appointments generally found in a Hermetic maga's domicile. Hellix's lab

Magic Might: None (Herbam)

Characteristics: Cun –3, Per –2, Pre

–3, Com –3, Str +8, Sta +5, Dex

–1, Qik –5

Size: +5

Virtues and Flaws: Clumsy

Magic Qualities and Inferiorities: No

Fatigue

Personality Traits: Tree +3

Combat:

Branch: Init +5, Attack +7, Defense

+1, Damage +10

Soak: +15

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–10), –3 (11–

20), –5 (21–30), Incapacitated

(31–40), Dead (41+)

Abilities: Brawl 3 (branch)

Vis: None

Reprinted from Realms of Power:

Magic, page 129.

is located on the top floor. The magical botch that upended Hellix's lab also overwhelmed the maga and sent her spinning into Temporary Twilight, which luckily saved her from the brunt of the explosion. Despite her low Warping Score, Hellix is enthralled for a year. If the player characters arrive within the year, she is frozen in her Temporary Twilight. The Order does not have a way to prematurely terminate a wizard's Temporary Twilight, so they may investigate her laboratory, but have to wait to question the maga.

As the magi look around the lab and explore the wreckage, a Perception + Magic Theory roll against an Ease Factor of 9 shows that the experimental botch incorporated the other four Techniques besides Rego. The diseased grain that the Lab Text says was on the workbench is gone, presumably consumed in the explosion. All of her vis is gone as well, some 20 pawns of Herbam, Perdo, Muto, and Vim vis. Investigating the lab with Intellego Vim spells may locate the Twilight Tear (see immediately following). Other combinations of Intellego magic reveal other interesting facts.

• A dark stain on the floor indicates where a powerful Herbam being was spontaneously created (Intellego Herbam).
• The stones that make up the floor can be questioned; they remember the explosion (although having no sense of time don't remember how long ago it happened) and felt something wet and wooly crawling over them (Intellego Terram).
• Every tower eventually has rats. A few of them survived the explosion, saw the Great Pestilence form, then crawl over Hellix and disappear through the shimmering scar (Intellego Animal).
• Hellix has assembled an assortment of summae and tractatus in her sanctum, the majority of them on the Arts of Herbam, Vim, and Rego, as well as a few better known books on Magic Theory. Standing out because it is unlike its neighbors is a thick summa entitled Codex Fantasia, written by Institus of House Criamon. This summa on Magic Lore is Level 4, Quality 7. A crow's feather bookmarks a page, and if opened a phrase is underlined in black ink: "For at the very core sat the Arcana Centrum, the center of all, the beginning and the end, the mouth

that holds the tail in a toothy grip." The book does not explain what the Arcana Centrum is.

The Twilight Tear

When Hellix fell into Temporary Twilight, in combination with the massive magical explosion, a temporary vestige was torn in the magical fabric of the lab's aura, a vestige that led to the Herbam province of the Magic Realm. The vestige has since closed, leaving behind a faint magical tear. Those with Second Sight or Magic Sensitivity can make a Perception + Second Sight or Magic Sensitivity + stress die roll against an Ease Factor of 12. If successful the character sees this Tear as a faint shimmering line hanging vertically in the center of the room. Hermetic spells designed to see Magic regio boundaries also indicate the vestige, as does a general purpose Intellego Vim spell that is looking for traces of powerful magic. Only a remnant of the Tear is visible; characters cannot see what is on the other side of the now-closed Tear and thus cannot enter the Herbam province here.

This Twilight Tear is much more than a simple reminder of Hellix's accident. The Great Pestilence's entry into the Magic Realm was so traumatic that it mars every future episode of Hermetic Temporary Twilight. From this point in the saga onward, every time a magus experiences an episode of Temporary Twilight a rent is created that leads to one of the ten provinces in the Magic Realm. The specific province is the one that the Great Pestilence is currently targeting. These temporary rents can be used as entry points into the Form provinces of the Magic Realm (see "Adventure Solutions" later). An observer has a chance to see a Twilight Tear whenever a magus goes into Temporary Twilight.

Viewing ^a Twilight Tear: Perception + Second Sight or Magical Sensitivity + stress die vs. 12

Hellix Seeking the Magi

If, for whatever reasons, the player characters do not go looking for Hellix, she heads for them once she recovers from her Temporary Twilight. She takes nothing from her tower, leaving it as it is, and rushes to the magi. Filled with guilt, she can think of no better ally to help her. Once she finds the magi, she confesses that she was recklessly experimenting with inventing a warding spell and had a large batch of disease-ridden grain nearby. During the accident, the grain seemed to come alive, to form a ghastly clump roughly humanoid in shape, and crawl along the floor. She reports that as she fell comatose into Temporary Twilight, the creature crept toward her and engulfed her foot. Did the thing enter the Twilight Void with her?

This section continues sequentially through the Forms destroyed by the Great Pestilence. The magi do not have to wait to act, and can seek a solution at any point in the following sequence. The Great Pestilence's progression through the Forms is detailed without interruption for clarity, and character actions are considered later.

At the following new moon, sometime in August, patches of disease sprout on all raw and stored Corpus vis located in Magic auras and regiones. Removing the vis from the Magic aura and regio stops the disease's progression and saves it from rotting. If the magi have figured this out from the Herbam infection, they no doubt rush to find a safe place to relocate their Corpus vis. This second infestation shows that the Great Pestilence is not limited to Herbam, and its spread to the Corpus Form indicates that it might continue throughout all ten Forms.

On the new moon in September, Corpus-aligned magic creatures become sick, infected with the Great Corpus Pestilence, a similar disease to that which inflicted Herbam-aligned creatures earlier. The solution is similar as well; remove the Magic creatures from a Magic aura to save them. While magi are associated with the Magic

Realm, they do not have a Might Score and are not targeted by the Great Corpus Pestilence. Some few magi have a Might Score, gained through a variety of arcane and obscure ways. In those rare cases, the magus is affected by the Great (Form) Pestilence that corresponds to the Form alignment of his Might Score.

The Great Corpus Pestilence

Critical Phlegmatic Disease, Severity 21 Stable: 12, Improve: 18, Interval: Day Symptoms: Once acquired the disease progresses quickly. Initial signs are fatigue and fever, followed by coughing and sneezing. Within an hour coughing leads to bloody expectoration, and within two hours puss-filled buboes appear on the throat, armpits, and groin. The Disease Penalty is –5.

As the Autumn season begins, on the new moon in October, Magic auras and regiones produce a Corpus miasma. Like the Herbam miasma, the Corpus miasma carries a lethal blight. Instead of targeting plants, these noxious pockets of poisoned air target people. Each person touched by the Corpus miasma is infected with a dire disease. While it is not instantly fatal, the infected has only a few days to survive.

PeCo 40

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Bound

This spell inflicts the Great Corpus Pestilence on every human target within the miasma. The Great Corpus Pestilence is the same disease that earlier targeted Magic creatures.

(Base 20, +4 Boundary)

Corpus miasmas wreak havoc at covenants. The covenfolk instantly fall sick, and the magi must act fast to save them. Any magical curative works, providing the magi have the vis necessary to make the healing permanent. Physicians and mundane healers can also help, providing they have not succumbed to the disease. People must be removed from the miasma immediately, or the miasma must be pushed off the covenant grounds. Luckily magi, and all others with Magic Resistance, are immune to the Corpus Blight.

Arising from small Magic lacunas tucked in every major city in Mythic Europe, urban Corpus miasmas spread the Great Corpus Pestilence like fire in a dry hay barn. Panic erupts, and those not immediately affected flee the city, if they can, or lock themselves in their homes. Because Corpus miasmas can enter homes, blown in on the various city air currents, flight is the better choice. The rich and prosperous

There are 12 or 13 new moons a year, depending on how the 28-day cycle of the moon aligns against the annual cycle of 2 solstices and 2 equinoxes. Being exactly accurate when determining in which season a new moon occurs is difficult, especially considering that there is no set date for the Great Pestilence to occur, and we have no way of know in which year you will use it in your saga. Instead we have simplified this complicated pattern to facilitate play.

There are 12 new moons per year for the first two years of the Great Pestilence, 13 new moons in the third year, and 12 new moons in the final year. The Spring season new moons happen sometime in April, May, and June, the Summer new moons happen in July, August, and September, the Autumn new moons happen in October, November, and December, and the Winter new moons occur in January, February, and March. The third year of the plague has an additional new moon in August, so that the third year's Summer season has 4 new moons instead of 3.

If you desire exact dates rather than our generalizations, the Internet can provide them. Dates of the new moons for the thirteen century can be found at National Aeronautics and Space Administration eclipse website (http:// eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html) and the solstices and equinoxes for the thirteen century can be found online as well (http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/ seasons.html). Make sure you take account of the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

are most able to flee, and may have summer homes to which they can run, but are just as likely to stay, convinced that their expensive home can keep the disease out. They are mistaken, and a Corpus miasma kills almost all people who remain in the city. An Intelligence + Medicine roll against an Ease Factor of 6 indicates that relocating and outrunning the miasma are the better options. Monasteries, convents, outlying villas, and remote castles are fairly safe, especially if they are not near a Magic aura. Even though a Divine aura won't block a miasma's entrance, people stampede to the closest monasteries, rushing for God's succor in the benevolent arms of the monks.

Focus on the covenant and keep the spotlight on the player characters. As soon as the Corpus miasma blossoms they have their hands full. Removing the miasma is paramount. Immediate magical aid greatly reduces the chance of people dying. Sick doctors can tend sick patients, and magic can aid recovery rolls. Such enchanted poultices do not need to be empowered by vis to be effective.

CrCo 20

R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind

This spell grants a sick person a +15 bonus to Disease Recovery rolls. It must be in effect throughout the entire recovery period, but can be reapplied every sunrise and sunset to continue its effectiveness. Son of the mythical healer Asclepius, Telesphorus was the Greek god of recuperation.

(Base 10, +1 Touch, +1 Sun)

In November, on the night of the new moon, spontaneous and formulaic Corpus spells cease working unless empowered by vis. If the magi had removed their stores of Corpus vis from Magic auras in the spring, it remains potent. Areas that once produced Corpus vis stop producing it, however, and there is no saving those resources. Magi find their stock piles of Technique vis dwindling, as they substitute Technique vis in the place of the vanishing Form vis.

On the last new moon in the Autumn season, sometime in the month of December, Mentem vis starts to rot. A month later, during January of the Winter Season, Mentem-aligned magic creatures become sick with the Great Mentem Pestilence. Winter is usually the time troupes make Aging rolls for the saga's many characters. Aging rolls are penalized by a cumulative –4, –2 from the famine caused by the Herbam miasmas and –2 due to the plague spread by the Corpus miasmas. If your characters have overcome these calamities, do not penalize their aging rolls.

During the new moon in February, Mentem miasmas form in every Magic aura and regio. These physically undetectable clouds carry the Mentem Blight, a malady that reduces humanity to savages. Those that survived the Corpus miasma's Corpus Blight, which merely inflicted the Great Corpus Pestilence disease, will find no mundane escape from the Mentem Blight.

Mentem Blight

PeMe 30

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Bound

This spell-like effect reduces the mental capabilities of every person within the miasma, effectively diminishing them to animal-like intelligence. Substitute Cunning for Intelligence to those affected. Characters cannot use any Ability that combines with Intelligence. Without magical assistance, this condition is irreversible.

(Base 10, +1 Boundary)

Magi are unaffected, as are those with any other type of Magic Resistance. Mentem miasmas signal the likely end of human civilization. Those that survived the Great Corpus Pestilence are reduced to savages, groups of men and women with beast-like intelligence who react to the world through anger and fear. Such people are extremely dangerous. Finally, during March, the last new moon in the Winter season brings the end of the Mentem Form, and like Herbam and Corpus spells, Mentem spells can only be cast if the caster uses vis in the casting.

With the supply of vis dwindling, magi might replace Magic vis with vis aligned to other realms. Tainted vis, whether it be Divine, Infernal, or Faerie, will work in Hermetic and most non-Hermetic castings. Extended use and botches are problematic. For each season that a magus regularly uses vis from another realm, he gains a temporary Personality Trait based on the source of the vis. Using Divine vis regularly grants a calming or temperate Personality Trait, Infernal vis grants an obsessive, violent, or sinful Personality Trait, and Faerie vis bestows a Personality Trait based on some narrative role. Once the temporary Personality Trait is gained, each extra use of the tainted vis adds an experience point to the Personality Trait, in effect enhancing it. There is no limit as to how high the Personality Trait can go. Abstaining from using tainted vis for six months removes the temporary Personality Trait.

Tainted vis adds extra botch dice, 1 per pawn of tainted vis, and influences the botch if one occurs. Botches from Divine vis suppress magic and may drain nearby magic sources of their power. Infernal vis botches are deadly, damaging the caster and his surroundings. Botches from Faerie vis draw the casting into a story, and while the intended effect may still transpire, the subsequent display often draws the attention of the closest faeries.

One year since its inception, on the first new moon of the Spring season, the Great Pestilence targets Vim. Sometime during April, Vim vis starts to rot. To make matters worse, extracted Vim vis is inert, flaccid, and without power. From this point onwards magi cannot extract vis from Magic auras (ArM5, page 94). Stored Vim vis can be saved, as the Order has learned, but areas that once produced raw Vim vis stop producing it.

On the new moon in May, magic beings aligned to the Vim form suffer the Great Vim Pestilence, unless they are removed from their Magic aura. Some beings cannot be removed, genii loci

for example, and will likely perish. Such deaths have the potential to permanently reduce the aura's strength. On June's new moon every Magic aura and regio spawns a Vim miasma, an invisible poisonous cloud that carries the Vim Blight, a spelllike effect that cancels magical spells and effects. This miasma floats through what is left of mundane society without the survivors batting an eye, since it only targets magical effects. Some enchanted items stop working, but that is the least of mankind's worries.

Vim Blight

PeVi 40

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Bound

This spell-like effect destroys magical effects, both existing spells and enchanted items. It cancels any spell or spell-like effect of level 30 or less. It destroys every power in any magic item whose spell-like total is 30 or less. The Vim Blight has a Penetration Total of 0, but most spells and enchanted items do not have Magic Resistance. Some carried items may be protected by the wielder's Parma Magica and are immune from the Vim Blight for as long as they are so protected.

(Base 15, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

Things continue to get worse. On August's new moon, in the second month of the Spring season, Aquam vis loses potency and stored Aquam vis succumbs to disease. A month later Aquam beings are struck with the Great Aquam Pestilence, a version of the same major disease. In October, the first month in the Autumn season, the generated Aquam miasma targets bodies of water, polluting and poisoning them with Aquam Blight.

PeAq 35

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Bound

This spell-like effect destroys any water that the miasma touches. Water in lakes and seas is replenished from the same larger body of water. Rivers will have portions of them destroyed, but once the miasma moves on new water coming from the river's source refills the river.

(Base 10, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

Aquam miasmas make finding potable water harder, but not impossible. Springs and small rivers are permanently destroyed, but larger rivers refill once the miasma passes. The remnants of mundane society, small groups of savages with animal-like intelligence, shift again as the groups chase after fresh water. In November, the last month of the Autumn season, the Aquam Form dies and Aquam spells can only be cast if empowered by vis.

The initial Aquam miasma might destroy the covenant's source of water. If so, a second source of drinkable water floats in the sky above. A rain cloud ready to spill its contents can be wrestled to the ground with Rego Auram spells and its life-giving water wrung from its pillowy body. Rain clouds lie 2,000 to 3,000 paces above, well within Range: Sight, and can tower 15,000 to 20,000 feet in height. Bringing one down is noticeable for miles around, but considering the consequences of the previous miasmas, it is unlikely the covenant has any living neighbors.

ReAu 25

R: Sight, D: Conc, T: Ind

This spell lets the caster control the movements of a cloud. Designed to affect rain clouds, which are especially large and necessitate two additional magnitudes due to size, the caster can direct the cloud in any direction she wishes, including down to the ground. The Nephelae are Greek cloud nymphs.

(Base 3, +3 Sight, +1 Conc, +2 size adjustment)

Once lowered to the ground, the rain cloud seethes with moisture as water droplets dot the cloud's dark gray bottom. With a sizable collection of barrels nearby, a magus can magical force the water from the cloud into his assembled reservoirs. A single rain cloud contains enough potable water to sustain 100 people for a fortnight.

ReAq 35 R: Touch, D: Conc, T: Group This spell transfers the collected water in

The Great Pestilence targets the Magic Realm, and its ten Forms. If left unimpeded, it rots most of the Magic Realm, but does not entirely consume it. Supernatural Abilities aligned with the Magic realm still work, but are more difficult to use. For every destroyed Form, increase the Ease Factor difficulty of every magical Supernatural Ability by 1. Supernatural Abilities that derive their power from other realms are not affected by this penalty.

Other magical practitioners access their power from the Magic realm, but do not use the terminology of their Hermetic rivals. Amazonian magic, for example, uses consonants instead of Forms, whereas the Virgilian magic of the Augustan Brotherhood use schools. If your saga includes these esoteric traditions, use your best judgment as to how the rotting Magic Realm affects these practitioners' magic. Relate each consonant, school, what have you, to a corresponding Form, the one that makes the most sense to you. When that Form is destroyed that magical practice loses its power unless the casting is empowered by appropriate vis. Some traditions cannot use vis in their castings, and when the Form rots their magic powers vanish.

Magical practitioners whose spell abilities are aligned with other realms do not suffer any magical misfortune due to the Great Pestilence's blights. Their Divine, Infernal, and Faerie spells are just as effective and powerful as before. Naturally, they are as susceptible as anyone else to the various miasmas that roam the lands.

a cloud to a distant barrel, jar, or similar holding vessel. The stream of water can be controlled, so that several vessels can be filled. It takes approximately 5 minutes to empty a rain cloud of its watery contents. Because the rain drops are individual, the Target must be Group, increased 10,000 fold (3 magnitudes)

(Base 4, +1 Touch, +1 Conc, +2 Group, +3 size adjustment)

By this time, magi should at least have procedures in place as they wait for the next new moon, and try to develop methods to anticipate which Form the Great Pestilence targets next. A smart covenant might remove all stored vis from its Magic aura, leaving one pawn of each of the remaining Forms not yet blighted to serve as a marker to determine which Form is next affected. Panic strikes when, in the rising new moon of December, a pawn of Auram vis develops a small black spot, which slowly grows throughout the night. By this time the magi may have calculated how to save Auram vis and Auram beings, but many shudder when considering the Auram miasma. Will the very air turn poisonous and unbreathable?

As the Winter season begins in the third year since the Great Pestilence began, troupes should make Aging rolls. Since each type of miasma lasts a year, there are only three types still active: Mentem, Vim, and Aquam miasmas. Impose a –6 penalty to Aging rolls. On the new moon in January, Auram-aligned creatures are struck with the Great Auram Pestilence disease. On the new moon in February, every Magic aura and regio generates an Auram miasma of foul air the same size as the aura. The effected air is foul, not fatal, and weakens a breather rather than kills him. This makes life difficult, but not impossible. The Auram miasma only fouls the air that it occupies, and once it has left an area that location's air is returned to normal.

Auram Blight

PeAu 20

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Boundary

A large-scale version of Room of Stale Air (ArM5, page 128), anyone standing in an Aquam miasma has difficulty breathing and suffers a –3 penalty on all rolls involving physical activity. For each round a character exerts himself, the player must succeed at a simple Stamina roll vs. an Ease Factor of 6 or the character loses a Fatigue Level.

(Base 3, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

In April, on the fist new moon of the Spring season, Auram spells stop working unless empowered by vis during their casting. By this time, without the Herbam miasmas crisscrossing the land, plants have begun to blossom and grow. Without Corpus miasmas spreading Corpus Blight, humanity might find a foothold for survival. Many are still as dumb as beasts, however, a condition that lingers well after Mentem miasmas disappear. An interesting side note is that any children born of parents afflicted with the Mentem Blight are not under the spell's effects. Parents so afflicted can raise children, who will certainly be feral, but far from stupid.

Animals have certainly suffered up to this point, and many domestic and wild beasts have starved from lack of food and perished from the lack of healthy water. In April, under the first new moon of the Spring season, Animal vis rots. A month later magic beings aligned to the Animal Form suffer the Great Animal Pestilence. In May, Animal miasmas develop and inflict Animal Blight on every animal they touch.

Animal Blight

PeAn 45

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Bound

This spell-like effect inflicts an Incapacitating Wound on an animal. The beast isn't killed automatically, but it is unlikely to survive without medical help.

(Base 20, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

Since the Great Pestilence began, animals have been a source of nourishment for the surviving human population, especially dairy animals. Survivors have learned to live off the steady supply of milk, cheese, and butter from their herds of sheep, goats, and cows. One touch of an Animal miasma changes that, as the entire herd collapses to the ground, bleating or mooing in pain.

In July, the first new moon of the Summer season, Animal spells stop working unless empowered by the addition of vis.

The August of the third year of the Great Pestilence has two new moons, the first early in the month and the second at the end. The first new moon brings the rot of Imaginem vis, and the second heralds the arrival of the Great Imaginem Pestilence to every Magic creature and being aligned to the Imaginem Form. In September, carrying the Imaginem Blight, an Imaginem miasma destroys every object's ability to produce visual images. The ability is only suppressed for a moment, but the miasma repeats the suppression constantly for as long as things are within it, so things within a miasma are invisible until the miasma moves on, at which point they reappear. Images entering from outside the miasma are not destroyed, although they still cannot pass through opaque objects, and light is not affected. Thus, someone inside an Imaginem miasma appears to be suspended in a void, and to have lost her body. If she has line of sight to an area outside the miasma, she can see that, but she can see no obstacles that might be inside the miasma. Someone inside a room with no line of sight to a point outside the miasma would seem to be floating in an infinite void.

Imaginem Blight

PeIm 25

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Boundary

This spell-like effect destroys an object's ability to affect sight, and the object immediately stops producing an image.

(Base 4, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

Escaping an Imaginem miasma is difficult once engulfed. Without sight, the primary sense of direction, a man must stumble around searching for an exit using his other senses. Ironically, magi are not affected due to their Magic Resistance,

and still produce an image. They serve as beacons for those lost within the miasma. Imaginem miasmas are more nuisance than anything else, although those trapped within a large miasma could hurt themselves as they wander blindly. Finally, in October, Imaginem spells cease working unless empowered by vis.

Hardships continue when, under the November new moon, Terram vis rots. That December, Magic creatures aligned to the Terram Form suffer the Great Terram Pestilence. In the fourth and final year of the Great Pestilence, under January's new moon, Terram miasmas carry the Terram Blight throughout the land, a devilish malady that destroys the upper soil of an area, ruining future plantings, uprooting trees, and potentially toppling buildings. Covering the same area as its aura of origin, a Terram miasma destroys the top 9 feet of dirt, exposing larger rocks and other material exposed. Anything formerly resting on the spot falls into the large, excavated pit left behind.

Terram Blight

PeTe 20

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Boundary

This spell-like effect destroys the topsoil and upper dirt of an area, permanently removing the dirt and leaving a pit 9 feet deep. Wooden buildings and small trees collapse on a simple roll against an Ease Factor of 3. Wooden fortifications, small stone buildings, and medium-sized trees fall on a simple roll against an Ease Factor of 6. For stone fortifications, castles and cathedrals, and large trees, the Ease Factor is 9.

(Base 3, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

Terram Blight only affects dirt, not stone. If a wind doesn't blow a Terram miasma away from an area immediately, it keeps destroying the dirt it covers and quickly sinks into the ground at the rate of 3 paces per combat round (6 seconds). In a minute it destroys 30 paces of dirt. At some point the miasma hits bedrock and stops descending. How deep the bedrock lies depends on the type of area. Mountainous areas have bedrock closer to the surface, while grassy valleys and fields

have bedrock laying much deeper, and in some swampy areas the bedrock could lie 100 or more paces below the surface. If a wind doesn't move a Terram miasma within seconds after it is spawned, the Terram miasma digs a deep pit in the ground. In this case, structures and trees both collapse into the pit. After two minutes of destroying dirt, the miasma sinks below ground and only comes to rest once it hits bedrock. Even hurricane-strength winds will not move a Terram miasma submerged below ground level.

Aging rolls made this Winter are penalized by a cumulative –10 for 5 active types of miasmas: Vim (active for half the previous year), Aquam, Auram, Animal, and Imaginem. Since the new moon happens after the winter solstice, the Terram miasma is not included in the Aging roll modifier. On February's new moon Terram spells cease functioning.

Ignem is the final Form to suffer, and the end is a cold one. In March Ignem vis rots. In April, days after the start of the Spring season, the Great Ignem Pestilence infects Magic beings aligned to Ignem. In May, Ignem miasmas generate from Magic auras and regiones, carrying the Ignem Blight within their cloudy midst.

Ignem Blight

PeIg 30

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Bound

This spell-like effect covers everything it touches in frost, chilling living thing and killing small plants. Animals and humans take +5 damage.

(Base 5, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

Unprotected men and women take +5 damage per round that they are inside an Ignem miasma. Animals are also similarly harmed. Plants are chilled, and some small plants die from the frost. Larger plants like trees can survive. A month later, under June's new moon, the Ignem Form stops working, unless cast spells use vis.

Having consumed all ten Forms, the Great Pestilence starves to death, dying by the new moon in July, the first month of the Summer season. Even with the creature gone Mundane Europe is still a dangerous place. Imaginem and Ignem miasmas drift across the land, and Terram miasmas lie submerged in large, deep pits. The Living Condition penalty is modified by –6 for the next set of Aging rolls in the coming Winter.

Left unchecked, the Great Pestilence ravages Mythic Europe. It does not end life completely, but comes close. Characters may survive the entire panoply of devastation and continue living in a medieval-post-apocalypse, a miniature Ice Age with savage bands of feral humans roaming the landscape. This setting may be appealing to some players, which would emphasize a saga set on weathering the plague rather than stopping it. Players with

Unstopped, the Great Pestilence destroys the Magic Realm in 13 seasons. Each of its Form-infestation stages has lingering effects that must be tracked, to accurately record the slowly accumulating stages of the end of the world. You cannot keep track of every aura, regio, and area in Mythic Europe, so only need to track auras in the immediate area of the covenant, primarily those in which the magi have an interest.

For each nearby Magic aura, note the amount of vis produced and the number of resident magic beings. Once the aligned Form's vis has been destroyed, Magic auras that once produced that type of vis won't any more. If a resident creature of Magic Might 20 or greater dies, the aura diminishes by 1 for every 4 magnitudes of the being's Might. Each Magic aura and regio produces a miasma during the third stage of a Form's infection. The immediate area is affected, as is the surrounding countryside when prevailing winds push the miasmas around. Do your best to note how these miasmas affect the covenant's neighbors.

more noble magi, or those seeking to return to the status quo, will press to stop the plagues.

After the Herbam Form is lost, House Bonisagus calls an emergency Grand Tribunal. Redcaps streak through the Tribunals, telling all magi they find that everyone should meet at Durenmar in the Rhine Tribunal on the autumnal equinox, where the problem of the Great Pestilence, as it starts being called, will be discussed. From the summons to the date of the meeting, the magi have almost three months to plan and orchestrate their travel, giving most ample time to get to Durenmar in the Black Forest.

As the magi head to the meeting, traveling after the Herbam Form has ceased working and midway through the Corpus Form contagion, they find Mythic Europe severely changed. The land is ruined and barren. Peasants wander the highways begging for food, and cities keep their gates closed, barely able to feed those within. When the Corpus miasmas arrive, which will happen around the same time the player characters are at Durenmar, the populace sees it as a continued consequence of God's justifiable wrath. Those that don't die outright flee, hoping to find safe havens away from civilization. It is a time of extremes; the roads are either choked full of survivors looking for a new home or empty, scattered only with the dead and the crows feeding upon them.

The player characters find Durenmar greatly affected by a Herbam miasma. The lush grasses and bushes that line the hidden valley are gone, and the towering pines stand barren and blighted. The vine that grows along the face of the Tower of Bonisagus is gone, rotted away, and all of magus Ricardus Caepuus's exotic plants have died. In frustration, the magus destroyed his glass sanctum, which now lies in ruins at the southern end of Durenmar's clearing (see Guardians of the Forest: The Rhine Tribunal, chapter 6 for details of Durenmar and its magi.)

Assemble any storyguide magi your players have met, along with the most notable magi from the Order of Hermes, including Murion, Prima of House Bonisagus, Phillipus Niger, the Defender of Durenmar, and Darius of Flambeau (ArM5, page 34). This is a good opportunity to use characters from any Tribunal book you own. Several Primi from the other Houses should be in attendance; use those who lead the Houses of the player characters' magi. Keep in mind how your player character's Tribunal responded, for that will also affect the Grand Tribunal. If gangs of magi sailed north to hunt down the Order of Odin, for example, they won't have returned in time for the Grand Tribunal.

The emergency session mirrors last season's emergency Tribunal session, with various magi not knowing what to do. If the Order behaved badly at the local Tribunal their fears are magnified at the Grand Tribunal. On the other hand, if the Tribunal's sense of common cause prevailed, then the Order might solidify into a smoothly-running cooperative organization. So much depends on your saga's history that generalizations are almost futile. Nonetheless, here are a few suggestions on how a conflicted and a cooperative Order might respond to the Great Pestilence.

If the magi of the Order of Hermes in your saga are generally in conflict with each other:

• The Tremere magi of the Transylvania Tribunal announce that they have prepared a distant mountain top with supplies and water and plan to wait out the contagions. All who swear a new oath of vassalage to House Tremere may join them.

• The seafaring magi of the Rhine and Thebes Tribunals take to the seas, living aboard ships protected by Aegis of the Hearth spells and finding their livelihood from the ocean. Some announce their intent while others slip away into the night, hoping to sail off before being noticed.

• The conservative Flambeau of the Normandy and Provençal Tribunals blame the younger members of the House, especially those living at the domus magna of Castra Solis. With the end this close there is no point

• in formalities. Several Wizard's Wars spontaneously erupt, with devastating collateral damage.

• The bellicose magi of the Hibernian Tribunal refuse to cooperate and seek safety in their covenants. Those that do emerge launch putative strikes against Connacht, looking for any Coill Trí member they can find. Rather than seek a solution, they seek to fill their final days with glorious violence.

If the Order of Hermes in your saga is more cooperative, the picture looks different:

• The magi of Hibernia broker a deal with the island's faeries and relocate the many magi and their covenfolk to faerie regiones. Safe within these pockets of slowed time, the magi explore laboratory solutions to the plague.
• The magi of Thebes and Transylvania bury their ancient hostility and build an underground complex in the Balkan Mountains, the mountain chain that separates the two Tribunals. All are invited to join the venture.
• Having no evidence of an Order of Odin, the seafaring magi of the Rhine build a huge ship and sail west, past the British Isles and Iceland. They pilot a course based on the stories found in the Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red, both written in the early 13th century, hoping to find an area uncontaminated by the Great Pestilence.
• The Normandy magi partner with bishops, offering their magical skills to help protect the Tribunal's holiest sites. Many magi are allowed onto Mont Saint-Michel, where their combined magics keep the island town and monastery safe.
• The Coenobium unites the magi of the Provençal Tribunal, using its access to many areas without Magic auras to preserve vis, and its experience of working scattered across several sites to coordinate research on the problem.

The Grand Tribunal should ultimately find some common course of action, even if some of the magi – including your player characters – don't agree with it and refuse to participate. As domus magna of

House Bonisagus, most of the assembled Durenmar magi want to head to the labs to find a solution, as explored in the next section. This is a more reactive approach, and many laboratory solutions focus on the symptoms of the Great Pestilence rather than combating the creature itself. These solutions heal sick auras, heal sick animals, and prevent future Form contagions. Other laboratory solutions focus on finding and destroying miasmas. Offer these if the players seem stuck, but don't replace your players' plans with any listed here. Chances are that your saga is so developed that your players will find ways to defeat the Great Pestilence that we haven't thought of.

Others suggest a more active approach, and those options are detailed in a later section. These self-proclaimed defenders of the Order want to find the responsible party. If they know about Hellix, they want her, and ask the player characters to travel to her sanctum and bring the maga to Durenmar. If they know about the Great Pestilence creature, they plot attacks into the Magic Realm. Perhaps some ancient archmagus knows about the Arcana Centrum and how the player characters can use it to travel to the Great Pestilence. If the magi do not know about the Great Pestilence, the Order has other enemies to blame. Both the Hedge Magic Revised Edition and Rival Magic supplements detail several groups of magicians who could be blamed, if those groups exist in your saga. If you own one of those supplements and wish to tell war stories of an open conflict between two groups, this is your chance. This tactic could also be used if you want to remove other, more powerful storyguide magi from the story, leaving center stage for your player characters to discover the true culprit.

Use the Grand Tribunal to guide your players' actions, not to steal the limelight from them. Even if you must use a storyguide character to suggest a solution, under no circumstances let those storyguide characters carry it out. They can guide the way, spark ideas, serve as a sounding board, and even provide assistance, but they cannot save Mythic Europe. That is the player characters' job. If your players are clueless about what is going on, use this second major meeting of magi to get the player characters to look for Hellix.

It may be premature to reveal the Twilight Tears to the player characters at the emergency meeting. At this point, they have only experienced one cycle of the death of a Form, and the real fun begins after they experience two or three cycles. Once the Twilight Tears are revealed, magi are able to penetrate the Magic Realm and find the Great Pestilence. Until that time, they are forced to deal with the Pestilence's disease effects. If after three of four cycles of diseased Forms the players still haven't found a route to the Magic Realm (if that is their preferred solution), have an elder magus tell the player characters about Twilight Tears. Perhaps it is even Hellix who discovers them, her attempt at redemption for accidentally spawning the Great Pestilence.

At some point, either on the way to Durenmar, while there, or on the way home, the player characters encounter a Corpus miasma. It depends on the exact year of your saga if the autumnal equinox happens before or after the first new moon in October. You could calculate that on your own, using the references listed earlier, or you could determine which happens first based on how you want the story to unfold. If the new moon happens before the equinox, the player characters are on their way to the Grand Tribunal emergency meeting and have to deal with the miasma first. If the Corpus miasma happens after the Grand Tribunal, they have to deal with it when they return. How the covenant fared when the Corpus miasma formed would make an interesting story, especially with the magi away, as the companions and grogs will have to see to their own salvation. If the stars are right, the new moon happens while the magi are at Durenmar. The characters see the devastation it brings to the Rhine covenant, and may either help or hustle home to assist their own covenfolk.

Your player characters may opt to find a laboratory solution to stop the Great Pestilence. Not an uncommon thought, and many magi gathered at the Grand Tribunal press for such actions. A variety of spells can be researched and invented that aid against the Great Pestilence's various effects. Because time is short, resources should be pooled so that the magi best suited to the laboratory have the materials necessary for their research. You do not have to present all of the following ideas at the Grand Tribunal. Feel free to save a few and introduce them later, especially if your players are struggling to find solutions to the Great Pestilence. If your players would rather fund such efforts, or follow other tacks entirely, you could parcel these spells out to the player characters from the researchers' labs. Supply them with those spells that best suit the saga as it unfolds.

It is readily evident that an Aegis of the Hearth stops a miasma, but other, larger communities need different forms of protection. Some magi speculate that they can create a high wall around villages and cities to protect them from incoming miasmas. This can be done, but the wall needs to be very high. A miasma is approximately 60 paces high, and Mythic Europe's tallest walls, those that surround Constantinople, are 20 paces high. Taller structures exist — the Hibernia tribunal has many stone watch towers 30 paces high and St Paul's Cathedral in London rises to 150 paces but none of these enclose a large area. If a wall is built, a door or other portal must be constructed to allow miasmas generated within to be ejected.

Miasmas are invisible to the naked eye, but magi can invent spells that "see" the miasmas, just as Intellego Vim magic can indicate regio boundaries. The Intellego Vim base level is 3. A necessary condition of viewing a miasma, and affecting it with magic in general, is to include a Form-specific requisite. The requisite does not add a magnitude to the spell level because it simply allows the spell to have its effect, rather than adding an effect to the spell.

Viewing the Herbam Miasma

InVi (He) 20

R: Per, D: Conc, T: Vision

This spell allows the caster to see any Herbam miasmas in the area.

(Base 3, +1 Conc, +4 Vision)

Once a miasma has been seen, it can be avoided or redirected. This can be done simply by creating magical winds, which will push the miasma just as mundane winds do. Specialized spells, however, allow much more accurate control, and do

As written, the Great Pestilence is very likely to destroy civilization, as the player characters would have to move very quickly to stop it before the Corpus and Mentem blights. This serves to emphasize just how apocalyptic the disaster is, but you might prefer to have civilization saved. In that case, it easy enough to change the order of the blights. If the Vim infection occurs earlier, it will push the magi into acting, but have little effect on mundane society. Similarly, the Imaginem and Auram infections have relatively few long-term consequences. The infections have been written to occur in descending order of Hellix's Arts, but that is not an important point. It is important that the first infection be Herbam, to give the characters a clue to Hellix's involvement.

not require Finesse rolls to make sure the miasma goes where the maga wants.

Moving the Herbam Miasma

ReAu (He) 25

R: Voice, D: Conc, T: Ind

This spell allows the caster to move an Herbam miasma according to her wishes. The caster must first sense the miasma before she can move it.

(Base 4, +2 Voice, +1 Conc, +2 size)

Like other physical objects, miasmas can be destroyed by Hermetic magi. Such a spell is a Perdo Auram spell, because at its core the miasma is a clump of poisonous gas, and needs a Vim requisite, because of its magical nature, and a Form requisite matching the type of miasma. Neither of these two requisites add magnitudes to the spell. Size is an issue, and the spell will need to be adjusted for larger miasmas. A miasma is a "severe weather phenomenon" for the purposes of calculating the base Perdo Auram level needed to destroy it.

Destroy the Herbam Miasma

PeAu (He, Vi) 35 R: Voice, D: Mom, T: Ind

This spell destroys an Herbam miasma. (Base 15, +2 Voice, +2 size)

A second laboratory solution is to investigate destroyed vis and dead magic creatures for insights into how the Great Pestilence is affecting every magic aura and regio. This is further detailed later (see Inventing the Great Barrier). If your players opt for this solution, their magi can ask for and receive assistance from other magi at the emergency Grand Tribunal.

The Great Pestilence's attacks seem arbitrary, its selected sequence of blighted Forms appears to be random and completely capricious. It is not, entirely, and there is a pattern to the sequence. The Great Pestilence begins with the Form in which Helix was strongest, because it was the one she spent the most time using. Its targeting scheme then follows Hellix's preferences in the Forms, determined by those spent the most time studying and using. Her Herbam Form stood out as strongest, followed by Corpus. Next strongest was a tie between Mentem and Vim, and the Great Pestilence merely selected on at random. Animal, Aquam, Auram, and Imaginem were all studied the same and the Great Pestilence randomized these four as the next to attack, starting with one and moving through them one by one. Terram was slightly weaker, and Ignem was her weakest Form of the ten and thus the last to be attacked.

A player character can determine a rough order by examining Hellix's laboratory notes and discovering which here her stronger Form Arts. This categorization is based on Arts scores, and while one character cannot look at another's character sheet to determine Art scores, the investigator can determine the maga's stronger Arts after spending a week with her notes and laboratory texts. The observer must succeed with an Intelligence + Magic Theory roll against an Ease Factor of 12. If Hellix is available for such an investigation and actively assists, adjust the Ease Factor of the Intelligence + Magic Theory roll to 6. Success tells the investigator that her strongest Form is Herbam, followed by Corpus, followed by either Mentem or Vim, followed by four equally studied Arts (Animal, Aquam, Auram, and Igaminem), followed by Terram, and finally Ignem. The player character will not get an exact order, but a rough idea of which Form will follow which.

Generally speaking, Hermetic magic can heal everything that Hermetic magic can harm, and even though the Great Pestilence isn't Hermetic, it was created by a Hermetic accident. Its inflicted woes are Perdo magics (destroy vis and inflict a major disease), which infect the aura and consequently create a miasma. Healing the land bounded within the aura is possible with Creo magic. Healing the aura is a Creo Vim spell, and needs to include a requisite for the infected Form being healed. The base effect is 20, "heal the debilitating after-effects of a disease," derived from the Creo Corpus guidelines.

Suture Gaia's Wound

CrVm (He) 45

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Boundary, Ritual

This spell repairs the damage done by the Great Pestilence to the aura and the Herbam Form in a specific area. It does not prevent future impairments from the sentient fungus.

(Base 20, +1 Touch, +4 Boundary)

This spell heals blighted vis as it is rotting during the season in which it is under attack, but does not revive vis already destroyed. This spell would not prevent the Great Pestilence from targeting Herbam beings living in auras in the Summer Season.

Beings infected with the Great (Form) Pestilence can be cured using Creo magic. Just as Creo Corpus spells cure a diseased human, Creo Herbam spells cure diseased plants, and Creo Animal spells cure sick animals. In addition, spells can be invented that cure a diseased magic being by healing the Form that the diseased being is associated to. For example, an infected dragon associated with the Ignem Form can be healed with Creo Ignem magic as well as Creo Animal magic.

If a magus is inventing a spell that heals the creature through its Form association, the base level of the spell is 25. Like any magical cure, the spell must be a ritual to provide permanent healing.

The Balm of St Francis

CeAn 35

R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind, Ritual

This spell heals any animal disease, instantly easing the beast's suffering. St Francis was a legendary healer of animals. This spell works on animals Size +2 or smaller.

(Base 25, +1 Touch, +1 size adjustment)

At the adventure's beginning, the magi don't know how the Great Pestilence is targeting every Magic aura and regio. They may speculate that there is some sort of sympathetic connection that links each aura to the Magic Realm, and they are correct. Hermetic magic, however, cannot affect that link when the saga starts, and magi must invent a means to do so. Inventing spells that affect the Magic Realm requires a Minor Breakthrough in Hermetic Magic Theory, and can be accomplished through an integration process similar to incorporating older magic into Hermetic magic (Ancient Magic, page 7-9). This can also be done with original research, as described in Houses of Hermes: True Lineages pages 26-30, but is more easily accomplished through integration.

The first step is to gain Insight Points by studying diseased vis and Magic creatures slain by the Great (Form) Pestilence. Each rotted pawn of vis provides 1 insight point, as does each magnitude of Might of a dead Magic creature. A season spent gaining insight produces Lab Texts, which any magus can study. A magus may study one slain creature a season or a number of rotted pawns of vis equal to twice his Magic Theory Ability.

Armed with a number of Insight Points, a magus invents some sort of Intellego Vim spell, of any level of his choosing. If the spell is successfully created, he gains a number of Breakthrough Points equal to the magnitude of the spell. He may also create an enchanted item with an Intellego Vim effect if he would rather not invent a spell. To integrate spells that affect the Magic Realm the researcher needs 30 Breakthrough points, which can be gained individually or accumulated by a group of researchers.

Once integrated, a magus can invent spells that affect the Magic Realm, including an Intellego Vim spell that sees the mystical connection running between every Magic aura and regio and the Magic Realm. They can use this link as an Arcane Connection (Range: Arcane Connection), allowing them to view the link, send spells along it to the far end, and prevent incoming spells from using it. Viewing the distant site before the aura is infected shows a bucolic Form province correlated to the aura's Form alignment, the vis it produces, or Vim if no other Form is evident. Viewing the Magic Realm after the aura has been blighted shows a rotting Form province, covered in fuzzy-blue mold, lousy with grubs, or blanched and dehydrated.

Seeking the Thread of Power

InVi 20

R: Touch, D: Conc, T: Ind

This spell indicates the arcane connection between two objects, allowing the magus to sense the mystical link that connects the smaller to the larger.

(Base 10, +1 Touch, +1 Conc)

Once this Arcane Connection has been discovered, it can be destroyed, to prevent future contagions. Doing so prevents the Great Pestilence from targeting that aura or regio with any effects, permanently blocking the Great Pestilence and saving that particular plot of land. Snipping the arcane connection to the Magic Realm is as easy as destroying any Arcane Connection.

Cutting this magical connection does not destroy an area's Magic aura, although

Base 5: Cure a Minor animal disease

Base 10: Cure a Serious animal disease

Base 15: Cure a Major animal disease

Base 20: Cure a Critical animal disease

Base 25: Stop the progress of any disease. Cure any disease countering its effects.

Just like human and plant diseases, animal diseases come in a variety of severities. The type of severity, Minor, Serious, etc., is the same as the severity of the plant disease that infects the plant and affects its eater. Like Creo Corpus healing spells, a healing spell cast other than as a Momentary Duration Ritual actually suspends the healing process so that upon the spell's expiration, wounds are as fresh as they were when the spell was cast.

it often reduces its strength. If the aura arose from a natural tether, likely caused by a beautiful or magnificent natural feature of the area, the Magic aura is undamaged. If the aura arose from a magical source, a preternatural tether, then disconnecting it from the Magic Realm does cancel the aura. Many areas have both natural and preternatural tethers. If you know the strength of both tethers, subtract the strength of the preternatural tether from the Magic aura when the connection to the Magic Realm is cut. If you don't know the exact allocation of natural and preternatural tethers, simply reduce the strength of the aura to half its original strength when the connection is severed.

Snipping the Thread of Power

PeVi 35 R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind This spell destroys the Arcane Connection between two items. (Base 30, +1 Touch)

To save Forms from blight, a magus might invent a ward to prevent the Great Pestilence from taking hold of a Magic aura. Learned agriculturalists find this logical, following Pliny the Elder's instructions on Roman soil management and preparing fields with sulfur to prevent mosquitoes. Folk lore is full of preventative measures, and the Order itself uses magical wards daily, the Parma Magica being nothing more than a very effective ward against enemy magic. Why can't a Great Barrier (Latin: Magna Claustra) prevent the Great Pestilence (pestilentia magna)?

Once the magi have integrated affecting the Magic Realm into their repertoire of Hermetic magic, they can create such a ward. Like any ward, the Magna Claustra is a base general spell that needs to be potent enough to prevent a creature from entering and have enough penetration to affect that creature. The Great Pestilence has a Might of 50 and the Form province adds +10 to its Magic Resistance for a total of 60. The successful Magna Claustra looks like this:

Magna Claustra

ReVi 95

R: Touch, D: Year, T: Boundary, Ritual The Magna Claustra (Latin: Great Barrier) protects an area from the Great Pestilence, providing the Penetration Total of the spell exceeds 60.

(Base 50, +1 Touch, +4 Year, +4 Boundary)

Few magi will sit idly by as the Great Pestilence runs roughshod across Mythic Europe. While they may hope that the initial Herbam infection is the extent of the issue, they cannot ignore the more serious problem once Corpus becomes infected. Survival becomes paramount, and before the magi can construct a cure for the Great Pestilence, they need to protect their own environs and ensure their daily sustenance. Several suggestions have already been provided, and include:

• Removal of vis and magic beings from Magic auras and regiones
• Leaving Magic auras and regiones to avoid miasmas
• Gathering and storing food, water, and vis
• Protecting a new area with physical structures, Aegis of the Hearth, or other magical wards to prevent miasmas
• Retreating to a Divine, Faerie, or Infernal regio that supports long-term habitation

These stopgap measures address the symptoms of the malady, not the cause. Once the magi have secured their home, they can shift their focus to the Great Pestilence. There is a slight chance to avert the rot entirely, which would shift the saga from an "end of the world" story to a "save the maga from herself" story. It is more

likely, however, that play focuses on the player characters' attempts to anticipate and survive each wave of the Great Pestilence's infections, protecting themselves and their allies, and then stopping the various miasmas from ravaging the surrounding countryside.

At some point, either through suggestions announced at the Grand Tribunal or on their own initiative, the player characters may wish to destroy the Great Pestilence creature face-to-face. This type of swashbuckling, high fantasy adventure sees the magi traveling to the Magic Realm and pits them against the sentient creature in rounds of blazing combat.

Once curatives for auras and Magic creatures have been invented, they need to be applied to those suffering outside the laboratory. Characters undertaking this task travel from site to site, heal the sick, and then moving on. The spells would need to invented first (see earlier), and then a magus needs a road map, a gazetteer of all known Magic auras in Mythic Europe. Both House Bonisagus, through its Trianoma lineage, and House Mercere keep gazetteers of known Magic auras and regiones. The Bonisagus gazetteer, the Tabula Geographica Magica, is safely kept at Durenmar under the watchful eye of Tandaline, the current Tenens Occultorum (see Houses of Hermes: True Lineages and Guardians of the Forest: The Rhine Tribunal for further explanation). Though this resource is normally shared only with great reluctance, in this situation it is readily offered to any magus willing to travel the dangerous and ravaged countryside to heal the earth. House Mercere is more interested in covenant addresses than Magic sites, but some auras do get mentioned in Redcaps' reports. In most Tribunals this information is kept at local Mercer Houses, but in a few, the Tribunal of Thebes for example, the information is collected, correlated, and stored in the main Mercere administrative center.

Characters undertaking this duty see Mythic Europe at its worst. Depending on how long the curatives take to invent, the world has slid far down its unprecedented decline. Civilized society is likely absent, and the only encounters are invisible miasmas drifting on the wind. This strategy works best in the characters' local environs, where they can hurry to known, nearby auras and perpetually heal them as they get infected. Perhaps some of the covenant's magi perform this duty while others seek different avenues to stop the Great Pestilence.

It is difficult to anticipate Hellix's accidental creation of the Great Pestilence, although there are clues in her personality that suggest she might try something rash. If they are fast, lucky, or both, the player characters may stave off the calamity entirely. During the initial meeting, an Intelligence + Folk Ken roll against an Ease Factor of 9 indicates that Hellix is prone to taking extreme risks in achieving her goals. Hellix is not the Order's only ambitious maga, so this information is hardly damning. However, her requests for books and resources come with increasing frequency, suggesting that she is feverish in her attempt to end all plant diseases. Józef assents if asked, saying that the maga is almost maniacal in her desire to succeed. Though she hates her House and tries to step away from its ideals, Józef concedes that she is "a typical example of the irresponsibility and shortsighted fervor of House Tytalus."

Portents and ominous visions abound when the Great Pestilence is created (see earlier), giving the magi the chance to magically feel that something dire has happened. If they are somehow connected to Hellix, possible by lending her learning resources, and quick, they may arrive in Wales before the Great Pestilence slips through the temporary Twilight Tear to the Herbam province. If encountered at this stage, the Great Pestilence is in its infancy, with only the power of locomotion and a Magic Resistance of 50. It can be easily captured, contained, and ultimately destroyed.

In the more likely scenario, the player characters piece together the various clues from Hellix's lab and discover that a sentient creature lies somewhere in the Magic Realm and is targeting every Magic aura and regio in Mythic Europe. If they have talked to Hellix, they know about the sentient Magic creature. If they have integrated magic that can affect the Magic Realm into Hermetic magic, they know how the creature is targeting auras and regiones. The final clue is underlined in the bookmarked summa on Hellix's laboratory desk: the Arcana Centrum.

The majority of the magi of the Order have never heard the phrase. Most point out that it is not even Latin. Those who have traveled the Magic Realm may have encountered mention of it in their travels. If a character has traveled in the Magic Realm, in particular if he has entered one of the ten Form provinces, he may roll Intelligence + Magic Lore + simple die against an Ease Factor of 18. If successful, the character has heard of but not ventured into the Arcana Centrum. Magic creatures may also know about the Arcana Centrum, on a successful Intelligence + Magic Lore + simple die against an Ease Factor of 15. If the creature lives in the Magic Realm, add that creature's Might in Magnitudes to the die roll. A character could head into the Magic Realm first and ask for directions later.

If the characters wonder about the book's author, Institus of House Criamon, let the player make Reputation rolls. If any succeed with a stress die + 4 (Institus' Hermetic Reputation: Befuddling) against an Ease Factor of 9, then they have heard of the cryptic Criamon. Hailing from the Tribunal of the Greater Alps, Institus was known for his rambling writings that seemed to confuse rather than clarify most subjects. His favorite subject was Magic Lore, and rumors have it that he spent much of his life in the Magic Realm. He was a member of the Cave of Twisting Shadows, the domus magna of the House, but has long since passed into Final Twilight. His library exists, as do his notes, bound together and stored in a room off the great library. Reading the pertinent parts of these notes explains that the Arcana Centrum is a place in the Magic Realm where the ten Form provinces converge at a single point. His notes do not explain the name.

This mystical hub is extremely remote and exceedingly powerful. Seen from above it resembles a large, multicolored pie cut into ten slices. As part of the Magic Realm, the Arcana Centrum adds +10 to

spell casting and magic Supernatural Ability totals. A spell with the same Form cast within the province of that Form receives another +10 bonus. From the exact center rises a tall pillar, a single spike of mixed material up which all Ten Forms run. At the top of this spike as a large plateau and a ball of brilliant white light sitting at its center. Normally within the field of brilliance there is no distinction between floor, walls, or ceiling, and all seems an infinitely expansive white light. The Great Pestilence has marred this with its vast, ugly body of rot and decay (see later).

Finding the Arcane Doorway

If the player characters have any of Institus' books – he mentions the Arcana Centrum in more than one – they learn that every boundary in the Magic Realm connects to one of the ten Form provinces, which in turn connects to the Arcana Centrum. Vestiges, avenues of Magic Realm ingress, lead to boundaries, so while they don't connect directly to the center they stand as points of entrance. In his magnum opus, the summa Catalog of Curiosities (Magic Lore 6, Quality 7), Institus lists several known vestiges, which link to boundaries in the Magic Realm. You are encouraged to create vestiges that are meaningful to your troupe, perhaps an incidental structure that served in an earlier, unrelated adventure, or some meaningful element you use to tailor your stories. Example vestiges could be:

• The perfect cloud that always lies 12 degrees NE of the full moon leads to an Auram boundary
• The mysterious reflection of a whale that rises at dawn off the island of Crete leads to an Animal boundary
• The foreboding shadow that sat under the character's childhood bed leads to an Imaginem boundary
• The life-sized illusion of a rock hanging suspended in mid-air in a subterranean chamber leads to a Terram boundary

The magi must travel to the mentioned vestige, see the perfect illusionary image, and walk through it to enter the boundary. In the boundary, they must picture a spot in the correlating Form province and walk there. Those who know of the Arcana Centrum can instead walk directly there by picturing it in their mind. Regardless of whether they head to a province or the mystical core, their journey takes them through the Twilight Void. Institus' prose gives the reader enough familiarity with it so that they can bypass a province and walk directly there from a boundary.

Judge the difficulty with which your player characters gain Institus' books by how they are doing overall, and how your Order of Hermes has fared. Reward cooperation. If the player characters assist other magi, if aid is freely offered and received, if mundane communities have been saved, then the books are easily located and perhaps offered to the covenant's magi. The Oppidium of the Scholomance has a complete set of the Criamon's work and offers it to the characters if they come to Transylvania to get it. If the Order has fractured, the books are hidden somewhere, stuffed in the dusty bookshelves of a covenant locked behind its Aegis and unwilling to entertain visitors. Evidence suggests that Crintera has several volumes, but that means penetrating their hidden regio on the island of Rügen and battling the Bjornaer defenders. If the Order has fallen, locate the books in a lost covenant whose lingering horrors still pose a threat. While the mad ghosts of the Cave of Twisting Shadows have been destroyed by the Great Mentem Pestilence, there may be traps and other magical protections safeguarding the books from thieving hands.

Coming at the end of your saga, however, the player characters may already have a way into the Magic Realm. Perhaps the oak tree that once led to the Herbam boundary after Eustace and Vafer's visit reopens that mystical passage ("The Champion's Portion," Tales of Mythic Europe). If they encountered the Brass Horseman outside the Marble Palace, they may still be able to find the solid brass statue and slip down the Forgotten Road into an Ignem boundary ("The City of Brass," Tales of Power). Those who have explored the great pyramids of Mythic Egypt might return and walk through a stele, an underground doorway that stands as a Mentem vestige and leads to the Field of Reeds in the Magic Realm (Lands of the Nile). Don't penalize players whose characters have had long and glorious careers by making Institus' books the only hoop through which they can leap.

If the magi have integrated Magic Realm magic into Hermetic Magic Theory, they may use an Arcane Connection linked to the Arcana Centrum and travel directly there. The only time such an arcane connection is available is when the Great Pestilence is targeting a particular Form, which happens at midnight on the night of the new moon. At that exact moment, and for the next two minutes (20 combat rounds) the magi can target the Great Pestilence with spells. The connection to the distant Boundary and the Great Pestilence lasts only for Duration: Diameter. Using Rego Corpus magic the magi can instantly transport themselves to the Great Pestilence's location. They can also target the Great Pestilence during this interval and try to destroy it, but a smarter alternative is to target the creature with low level spells to determine its Magic Might, for without knowing that it will be difficult to construct a powerful enough ward to block it (see earlier, Inventing the Great Barrier).

Finally, Hellix's fall into Temporary Twilight allowed the Great Pestilence to enter the Magic Realm, and this Twilight Tear can be exploited by others. Anyone can enter the Magic Realm if they do so at the same time as a magus enters Temporary Twilight. As the magus succumbs, regardless if he comprehends the experience or not, a shimmering rift is visible in the area directly next to him. Like a regio boundary, anyone who walks through this rift is transported to the other side, which in this case is one of the Form provinces, the one associated with the Form that created the Temporary Twilight. Unlike regio boundaries, which can be difficult to see without magic, the shimmering rift next to a Temporary Twilight is easily visible. The Twilight Tear lasts a handful of seconds, perhaps two or three combat rounds.

Once a vestige is found, or one of the rare regiones that connects directly to a boundary, the magi can enter the Magic Realm. Like entering a regio, the magi must be able to see through the veil that separates vestige from reality or regio from boundary. The viewer must possess an Ability that lets them see such veils, either Magic Might, Second Sight, or Magic Sensitivity. Like auras and regiones, vestiges and boundaries

have levels, and the more powerful the level the easier it is to travel through.

Boundary and Vestige Travel: Stress die + Perception + appropriate Ability + Form bonus vs. ((10 – level of boundary or vestige) x 3) – Familiarity modifier

A travel gets one familiarity modifier from the following table, that which gives the greatest bonus.

Familiarity	Modifier
Enigmatic Wisdom	score
Magic Lore	score
Knows of destination	1
Has seen destination	3
Has visited destination	6
Arcane Connection
to destination	15

The time it takes to make the trip depends on how well the traveler succeeded in viewing the destination through the vestige or boundary. Subtract the Ease Factor from the player's Boundary and Vestige Travel roll total to determine their Speed Level, and then compare it to the following chart:

Speed Level 0	Length of Journey seven plus a stress die (no botch) number of years
3	seven years
6	Year
9	one season
12	Moon
15	day (24 hours)
18	Sun
21	two hours
24	Diameter (2 minutes)
27	one minute
30+	Momentary

Since the Magic Realm is timeless, a traveler does not feel the length of the journey, which more accurately measures how much time in the mundane world passes while the traveler journeys. Depending on when the traveler enters the Magic Realm, and how long his journey takes, the world may look quite different when he returns. From any point in a boundary, a traveler can attempt to slip into the Twilight Void. Those few who regularly slip into the Twilight Void do so to speed up their journey through a boundary, but those who know of the Arcana Centrum can also walk into the Twilight Void to go directly to the center of the Magic Realm. Use the same Ease Factor as before, ((10 – level of boundary or vestige) x 3) – Familiarity bonus, to determine how long the journey through the Twilight Void takes.

Twilight Void Travel: stress die + Stamina + Concentration + Form bonus

On a successful roll, the traveler enters his destination, either the Form province or the Arcana Centrum.

Because the Magic Realm is timeless, travelers do not gain experience points while adventuring inside the Realm. Instead, raw vis coalesces and collects on their persons, typically one pawn per awarded experience point for the adventure. This only happens if the section of the Magic Realm traveled through is healthy. If the characters are traveling through a boundary aligned to a Form already destroyed by the Great Pestilence, they do not gain vis.

A Poisoned Realm

If a Form province has been infected, the disease is evident. The area appears damaged and dulled and its landscape is overrun with rot, sun scorch, and grubs. If it is yet to be infected, it is beautiful, a pristine example of the Form. For example, the unpolluted Terram province sits inside an active volcano, with granite islands floating on a magma lake. The Animal province is the back of some monstrous creature, too huge to determine its exact species, its hair follicles as thick as palm trees and its pink skin scaly and rough from scratching. The Auram Boundary is a dark sky hampered by storm clouds, pierced by flashes of lightening followed by an ear-splitting boom of thunder.

At some point in their journey through the Magic Realm, the characters encounter the effects of the Great Pestilence's contagion. A pair of diseased elementals of the Form boundary or province through which they are traveling spots them and attacks. The example elementals are air elementals, but could be of any type, since each Form provinces sprouts creatures of pure magical matter. Contaminated by the Great Pestilence, the elementals suffer a Heavy Wound each (–5 to die rolls). Enraged from their discomforts, the pair receive the bonuses and penalties of the Berserker Virtue (+2 to Attack and Soak, –2 to Defense, no retreat). If the party is exceptionally strong, increase the number of elementals.

If the Form province is not yet diseased, the air elementals still attack, knowing that something is wrong with the Magic Realm and thinking the intruders might be the cause. Though angry they can be driven off or convinced not to attack. If the player characters can speak with a calmed elemental, all it knows is that something is wrong and most of the Magic Realm residents are disturbed and striking out at any foreign intruders.

After walking through a Form province the player characters eventually come to the pillar that rises to the Arcana Centrum. They climb it to reach the plateau and the center of brilliance. If they are coming through a Twilight Tear or following an Arcane Connection, they arrive atop the pillar at the center of the Arcana Centrum. They are not alone.

The Beast Within Its Lair

The white brilliance inside the Arcana Centrum is dulled and muted. A great black carpet of rot lays within, giving the otherwise featureless space a hilly, horizontal surface that extends to infinity in all directions. It seems to the characters as if they are walking on mounds of rotten garbage, the landscape comprised of rotted plants, decayed rocks, putrefied corpses, and small pockets of polluted muck. This is the Great Pestilence. Most explorers won't

General: Destroy an amount of raw vis equal to the level of the spell.

Leaving the Arcana Centrum is as easy as entering it. The traveler pictures a distant location in a Form province or boundary and walks to that location. The player makes another Twilight Void Travel roll against the same Ease Factor used to enter the Twilight Void from the location that the character entered from. Use the roll's total to calculate the character's Speed Level to see how long the journey back takes.

realize that the rot and refuse they poke at are a lethal part of the creature. The sentient creature immediately realizes that its residence is invaded, but waits to react until it can catch the invaders off guard. Once it thinks the characters have relaxed their guard, it ruthlessly attacks.

Using its most direct attack, the Great Pestilence assumes a physical manifestation and tears the target to pieces. Using its Monstrous Metamorphosis power, the creature quickly transmogrifies from a sheet of black moss into a human-shaped torso with arms and head. Red eyes glare from its black face and its fingers end in wicked claws. This malicious upper torso hovers in the air, connected to the rest of its body through a thin fibrous line. Severing this line separates the monstrous manifestation from the larger glob of rot, causing the upper torso to lose shape and disperse, but likely causing no real harm to the Great Pestilence itself, for it can manifest a second monstrous torso with an additional use of its Monstrous Metamorphosis power.

The beast itself is too vast to kill with direct spells. The only way to kill it is to destroy its sentient core, its "brain" so to speak, which is housed within its monstrous shape. When not in that shape, its intelligence is spread throughout its body. But if the Great Pestilence is wounded while in its monstrous shape it simply ends its Monstrous Metamorphosis power and disperses its consciousness back to its immense body. Any wounds it suffered are gone and new shapes created by its Monstrous Metamorphosis power manifest without the prior wounds. To kill the creature, the player characters have to destroy it in a single round, otherwise it disperses and then re-manifests.

Like its condition in Mythic Europe, the Great Pestilence is persistent. It does not retreat or run away from its attackers, and continues to fight them until they or it perish. If the attack is especially ruthless, the Great Pestilence uses its Master of (Form) and Crafter of (Form) powers to damage the attackers. The Form of the powers is the Hermetic Form the creature is currently infecting. It uses this strategy until it has spent half of its Might points, and will then re-assume monstrous shape and hope to rend the player characters to bits.

The Great Pestilence doesn't last forever. It is either destroyed by the player characters or starves to death after consuming all ten Form Provinces of the Magic Realm. Even if your magi defeat the creature, the world may still be ravaged and ruined, depending on how long it took them to kill the monster. If they instead decided to isolate and withstand the plague, they emerge to find a very different world than the one they left. The earth is scarred and pockmarked, and whole forests lie in fields of ash. Human and animal populations have been almost annihilated, and only a fraction of their original number survive. Human communities are remote and isolated, and are either feral tribes of savages or small pockets of humanity hidden away in Mythic Europe's hinterlands. Having lost communication with each other, such clutches of survivors are reluctant to emerge from their secure hibernation. The world is a forlorn and pitiful place.

Yet the world will heal. As soon as the Great Pestilence dies, the ten Hermetic

Magic Might: 15 (Auram) Season: Spring

Characteristics: Cun +1, Per +2, Pre 0, Com 0, Str +3, Sta –4, Dex –2, Qik +4

Size: 0

Virtues and Flaws: Magic Thing; Ways of the Storm; Poor Memory, Short Attention Span, Simple Minded.

Magical Qualities and Inferiorities: Greater Power (Suffocate), Greater Power (Jupiter's Touch), Greater Power (Charge of the Angry Winds), Major Virtue (Shapeshifter); Improved Abilities, Improved Powers (+3 Init to Jupiter's Touch Power), Minor Virtue (Keen Vision)

Personality Traits: Storm +3* Combat:

Jupiter's Touch Power*: Init +5, Attack +5, Defense n/a, Damage +30 * Includes Way of the Storms

Soak:

Wound Penalties: –1 & 1 Might point (1–5), –3 & 3 Might points (6–10), –5 & 5 Might points (11–15), Incapacitated & 5 Might points (16– 20), Dead & all Might points (21+)

Abilities: Area Lore 3 (high points), Athletics 3 (storm force winds), Awareness 3 (metal objects), Brawl 3 (Jupiter's Touch Power), Penetration 2 (Jupiter's Touch Power), Shapeshifter 4 (birds)

Powers:

Suffocate, 0 points, Init +2, Auram: The elemental surrounds its opponent and enters its lungs, necessitating a roll to avoid deprivation (ArM5, pages 180–181). Escaping the elemental requires the victim to get away from the elemental; its airy body can be simply walked through, but the elemental usually pursues its victim. Compare Quickness + Athletics stress rolls of the victim and the elemental (using Might/5 for the elemental's Athletics); the highest wins. Trying to escape requires a Fatigue roll for the strenuous actions (ArM5, page 178)

Jupiter's Touch, 5 point, Init +2, Auram: The touch of the elemental causes a flash of coruscating lightning, causing +30 damage.

Charge of the Angry Winds, 1 point, Init +6, Auram: As the spell of the same name; add the elemental's Strength to all the Ease Factors for acting within the wind. CrAu 15 (base 3, +2 Voice, +1 Conc, +1 unnatural): Greater Power (35 levels, –1 Might cost, +4 Init, +15 experience points in Penetration)

Vis: 3 pawns of Auram, in body Appearance: A roughly human-shaped collection of wind, densely collected so that they are visible to the naked eye

Reprinted from Realms of Power: Magic, page 138.

The Great Pestilence's Form depends on the Form it is currently infecting.

Magic Might: 50 (Special)

Characteristics: Int +3, Per +2x, Pre -4, Com -3, Str +17, Sta +5, Dex +2, Qik -5

Size: +6

Confidence Score: 1 (3)

Virtues and Flaws: Magic Thing, Magical Monster, Affinity with Brawl, Affinity with Penetration, Arable Fields Regio Network, Great Stamina (x2), Great Strength (x2), Improved Characteristics (x2), Premonitions, Blatant Magical Air, Bound to Magic, Poor Presence

Qualities and Inferiorities: Focus Power (x2), Gigantic (x5), Greater Power (x5), Ritual Power (x2); Gift of Speech, Improved Attack (x3), Improved Initiative (x3), Improved Soak (x3), No Fatigue (Free); Temporary Might

Personality Traits: Tenacious +3, Determined +2

Combat:

Large Claws: Init +4 Attack +29, Defense +14, Damage +21

Soak: +11

Wound Penalties: -1 (1-11), -3 (12-22), -5 (23-33), Incapacitated (34-44), Dead (45+)

Abilities: Awareness 10 (Arcane Connections), Brawl 15 (claws), Latin 3 (Hermetic usage), Magic Lore 9 (Boundaries), Penetration 10 (Plague Touch power), Premonitions 6 (danger to self)

Natural Weapons: Large Claws: Init 0, Atk +5, Def +3, Dam +4.

Powers

Scent of the Sympathetic, 0 points, Init -7, Vim: With this power the Great Pestilence can detect arcane connections.

(InVi 10, +1 Touch, +1 Dia, 2 mastery points used to reduce Might cost to 0)

Open the Intangible Tunnel, 0 points, Init -12, Vim: As the Hermetic spell (ArM5, page 162), allowing spells of level 40 or less to pass through it.

(ReVi 40, +4 Arc, +1 Dia, 7 master points used to reduce Might cost to 0)

Crafter of (Form), Variable points, Init (Qik

magnitude), Special: The Great Pestilence can duplicate any Creo or Rego non-ritual effect of level 25 or less in the Form that it currently infects. The cost of the power is the magnitude of the effect.

(Cr(Form) or Re(Form))

Master of (Form), Variable points, Init (Qik – magnitude), Special: The Great Pestilence can duplicate any Muto or Perdo non-ritual effect of level 25 or less in the Form that it currently infects. The cost of the power is the magnitude of the effect.

(Mu(Form) or Pe(Form))

Plague Touch, 0 points, Init –9, Corpus: This power creates the Great (Form) Pestilence plague in an individual. This power changes as the Great Pestilence changes, transforming so that the specific type of plague targets the Form the Great Pestilence is infecting, allowing Herbam plagues, Animal plagues, etc.

(PeForm 20, +1 Touch, +1 Moon, 4 mastery points used to reduce Might cost to 0)

Waste the Essence of the Realm, 0 points, Init -7, Vim: This power destroys 10 pawns of raw vis at a time.

(PeVi 10, +1 Touch, 2 mastery points used to reduce Might cost to 0)

Amorphous Ambulations, 2 points, Init -7, Special: This power allows the Great Pestilence to move, slowly sliding its entire bulk from one location to another. The base effect is an average of the Rego effect used to slowly move an Individual target of the Form that that the Great Pestilence currently infects.

(ReForm 3, +1 Conc, +4 Size increase)

Monstrous Metamorphosis, 0 points, Init +2, Special: This power creates a Size +6 human torso, arms, and head, which the Great Pestilence uses in personal combat. The Great Pestilence can speak when it assumes this form. The power only lasts 2 minutes, which is 20 combat rounds. The base effect is an average Muto effect used to change the shape of the Form in question.

(MuForm 3, +1 Dia, +2 Size increase, 1 mastery point used to reduce Might cost to 0, 8 mastery points used to improve Initiative)

Form Transfiguration, 10 points, -21, Special: This power changes the Great Pestilence from one Form to another. The process takes only a few seconds, but it takes a season for the Great Pestilence to recover the 10 points of Might lost during the transformation.

(Special, no Hermetic equivalent, requires two applications of the Greater Magical Quality: Ritual Power)

Vis: 10 pawns of vis of the Form that the Great Pestilence has taken when it is destroyed.

Appearance: A great black swath of putrescence in a shape appropriate to the Form it is infecting, such as dreary fungus and moss (Herbam, Imaginem), piles of dead bodies (Corpus, Animal), black sand (Terram), oily water (Aquam), black cloud (Auram)

Design Notes: The powers Crafter of (Form) and Master of (Forms) were bought with two applications of the Greater Magical Quality: Focus Power (Realms of Power: Magic, page 57). The other 6 powers were designed using 5 applications of Greater Power (Realms of Power: Magic, page 58), which provided 300 spell levels for formulaic spells. The 6 powers total 170 spell levels, leaving 130 spell levels to convert into 26 mastery points.

The Great Pestilence does not have individual powers representing its effects on Mythic Europe as a whole. Those are, rather, part of its nature as a magical disease, and cannot be used in any other way. They are still magical effects of the Pestilence, however, and thus can be blocked by Magic Resistance or warded off, as discussed earlier.

Forms start functioning again normally. Spontaneous and Formulaic spells do not need vis to work. Magi have the full range of their magical capabilities as they work to rebuild the world. Winds blow miasmas around after the Great Pestilence expires, but those disappear after a year. Slowly, within the decade, Magic auras and regiones that were not wiped out during the plague years start producing vis again. Not all return. A Magic aura that was reduced to 0 is extinguished and gone. Surviving Magic animals and beings slowly reproduce, following the original pattern of gestation that created Magic animals and beings in the first place.

Humanity begins its slow climb back to civilization. The incoming generation does not have its parents' addled wits, and any who survive can guide this effort as they see fit. Charismatic religious leaders gather their flocks and re-establish their churches. Bellicose chieftains lead armed bands of warriors and carve out new kingdoms, each striving to take what they can and hold onto it. In some ways things might not be so different, but it is likely that art, academics, crafts, and markets have fallen into ruin and will take a long time to recover. Surviving magi may participate in these efforts as they see fit. Some might ignore the Code of Hermes completely and fully interact with mundane society in any way they please. Others might continue to remain aloof, offering indirect assistance or none at all. In many ways, it is a new world, and this newness warrants new ways of interacting with it.

Such interactions, just like interactions with the mundane world before the Great Pestilence, are likely moderated by the Order of Hermes, and will depend on how the Order fared during the calamitous plague years. If the magi were proactive and worked together, the Order emerges more powerful than before, forged through adversity into a stronger union of magi. If the magi faltered during the plagues, unable to unite and split by factions and self-interest, the Order sits in shambles, isolated pockets of wizards unwilling to assist each other. Most likely the situation is somewhere in between these extremes: the Order is present, but like mundane society needs time to heal and rebuild.

If your saga continues, let your player characters lead the way to mankind's recovery. Just as you made them paramount in the Tribunal meeting and the emergency Grand Tribunal, continue to give them center stage as events unfold. With the Great Pestilence behind them, they forge new paths into an uncharted future. How they shape the world is for them to decide.