Introduction

Herzlich Willkommen! You have come to the Rhine Tribunal, the oldest and greatest of them all. Here, at the center of the Order of Hermes, at covenants steeped in ancient wisdom and majesty, the power of Hermetic magic reigns supreme. Or at least, so its magi would have you believe... In reality this vision is naught but a wistful and distant memory of elderly magi hidden away in dusty Durenmar towers. The Rhine Tribunal of 1220 AD is a rather different place to that which the Founders and Charlemagne knew. Magic has now retreated, hidden away from the many cities of a burgeoning empire, where bishops vie with dukes and merchants for temporal power. Yet among these mundanes, more than a few magi also secretly cast their net, grasping for their share of the spoils. Others choose instead to spurn the mundanes and hide among the countless forests, where the old powers remain undimmed — such magi proclaim themselves the guardians of these wildernesses. But are they really the masters of these domains, or merely the servants of the ancient spirits that they house? Magi with divergent interests prosecute petty political squabbles; apathy reigns and the Tribunal stagnates. Perhaps you are the one who will restore the Rhine to its former glory?

Germany is a kingdom of more than five million souls in north-central Europe. Its king, elected from among powerful rival families by a council of bishops, dukes, and counts, rules over a vast patchwork of realms with a variety of customs, languages, and titles (margravates, duchies, and even a subject kingdom). The kingdom is loosely organized, with no capital city (although the king is crowned at Aachen and maintains a treasury at Nuremberg) and no fixed court.

Germany is also part of an empire, although the German Empire is more commonly called the Holy Roman Empire, the greatest Christian realm on earth. Unless he makes a major political misstep, the German king is subsequently crowned by the Pope at Rome, whereupon he assumes the title of Holy Roman Emperor, which includes the titles of King of Italy and King of Burgundy. The newly-crowned emperor, Frederick II, is also the king of Sicily — he will not even return to Germany for more than a decade, occupied as he is by Italian politics, rivalry with the Pope, and crusading.

Germany, five hundred miles across in either direction, is a diverse landscape of towns and farms, forests, mountains, and lakes, as well as islands and swamps. It is home to many dozens of prosperous cities, the largest and grandest of which is Cologne, although none match up to the size of the great European metropolises such as Constantinople, Rome, or Paris, or the wealth of the northern Italian cities. More than half the land is covered by expansive forests, many of which are untamed wildernesses. The industrious lower classes occupy themselves with farming, hunting, fishing, woodcutting, the brewing of ales and wines, the weaving of cloth, and the mining of salt and silver. The cities thrive with merchants, Jews, and craftsmen of all types.

The Rhine Tribunal consists not just of the valley of the River Rhine, but extends, broadly speaking, over all the lands of the Holy Roman Empire north of the Alps. To the north it is bordered by the Jutland peninsula (Denmark), which is nominally territory of the Novgorod Tribunal, although the Order of Hermes has scant presence there. The eastern border, that with the Novgorod Tribunal proper, has been contentious, subject to fluctuation and dispute — the boundary is very roughly approximated by the River Oder, with Poland belonging firmly to Novgorod. To the south, the Rhine Tribunal extends as far as the River Danube (an old Roman border), beyond which lies the Tribunal of the Greater Alps. The notional western border consists of the mouth of the river Schelde, the Ardennes, and the Argonne — beyond lies Flanders and France, territory of the Normandy Tribunal.

The Rhine Tribunal is home to approximately 130 magi, almost a ninth of the 1200 members of the Order of Hermes, making it the largest as well as the oldest of all the thirteen Tribunals. Magi here descend from a mixture of Roman and Germanic traditions, with an addition of Slavic and Scandinavian influences. Here at the historical center of the Order of Hermes, home to the Grand Tribunal, are to be found within the forests some of the most ancient covenants, including the domus magnae of Houses Bjornaer, Bonisagus, and Merinita. Other, newer, covenants are to be found within mundane lands or even cities. The landscape of the Rhine Tribunal is also littered with the ruins of failed covenants, those that have fallen prey to enemies Hermetic or otherwise.

A Note on German Names

German-speaking readers should note that we have used the English versions of many German place names (for example "Black Forest" instead of "Schwarzwald" and "Brunswick" instead of "Braunschweig") and people (for example "Charlemagne" instead of "Karl der Grosse" and "Henry the Lion" instead of "Heinrich der Löwe"). We have adopted some German creature names, but have used English-style capitalization and plurals (for example "bockmen" instead of "Bockmänner"). Further information on German languages and names may be found in Appendix A.

Whilst the majority of the history (apart from the Hermetic history) in this book is what really happened, the real history has been changed in certain places in order to place greater emphasis on myth. For example, the events of the Nibelungenlied did not really occur in anything like the way the epic poem tells them. Yet in Mythic Germany, the subject of this book, a place where magi and faeries exist and where many of the ancient legends are true, it is a true retelling. If magic exists, then it is likely that stories of magic are true stories. For this reason, this book should not be considered as a reliable history reference.

This book describes a number of mythic sites, most of which are real places, with contemporary legends. For example, the Brocken is a real mountain where pagan gods were formerly worshiped, and the Walpurgis Night procession of "witches" continues to this day. A number of the mythic sites are invented; broadly speaking, these are the ones that are Hermetic in nature (such as covenants). A small number of other sites (for example the Drenthe megaliths and the Rhinefalls) are real places for which we have invented stories.

This book is primarily designed to be of use to storyguides and players whose saga is based in the Rhine Tribunal. Nevertheless, it may also be useful to those whose saga is located elsewhere; perhaps your covenant is situated in nearby lands, you have magi who plan to attend House gatherings at Crintera, Irencillia, or Durenmar, or even the Grand Tribunal, or you wish to explore the forests near your covenant in more detail. Some of the covenants, mythic sites, and stories contained herein may also be adapted for your part of Mythic Europe.

There are three important things that should be borne in mind as you read this book:

Firstly, if you are player in a saga set in the Rhine Tribunal, you should first consult with your storyguide — while much of this book is safe for you to read, there are numerous plots and statistics scattered throughout that may be best kept secret. Chapters 11 and 12 consist mostly of saga plans.

Secondly, not all the covenants, and by no means all the magi of the Rhine Tribunal, are described in this book. Anywhere from one to six additional covenants are therefore left to the storyguide(s) to devise, one of which may be the covenant of the player characters. The number of extra covenants you create may depend in part on the number of Hermetic societies and Mystery Cults you wish to include, with a larger Tribunal allowing more of these to plausibly exist.

Lastly, nothing in this book is compulsory for your saga, and there is no single "correct" Rhine Tribunal. Rather, this should be regarded as a set of common tools or ingredients for your Rhine Tribunal, all of which are optional. This book is designed to increase, not restrict, ideas and possibilities. Want to change the number of magi in the Tribunal? Go ahead ... it still works, whether you have 80 magi or 180. Want to site the player covenant on the island of Rügen? No problem, simply move Crintera to the Pomeranian Forest instead. The modular nature of this book should allow you to simply pick and choose those elements that are to your liking. (Of course, you may decide to use everything without any problems, either.) Having said that, there are many historical and geographical facts (such as the fact that the city of Cologne exists and is located on the River Rhine, for example) that you will probably not want to change.