Introduction

Welcome to the Byzantine Empire or what's left of it. This is the Ars Magica Fifth Edition sourcebook dealing with the Theban Tribunal: the lands of Greece and Asia Minor in 1220 AD. If you or your storyguide has or intends to establish a saga set in the Tribunal of Thebes, or neighboring lands, you will find in these pages a rich variety of landscapes and legends, magi and covenants, and plot ideas to enrich your setting and stories.

Byzantine Landscape

The former Byzantine Empire is a land united by language, but divided by landscape. Its component realms and provinces of fertile fields, hillside pastures, olive groves, and vineyards are divided from each other by gulfs and mountain chains, making passage by sea the most practical means of transport. Indeed, this region is centered around the Aegean. Dotted with thousands of islands, the sea plays a greater role here than in any other Tribunal. Several covenants are located on islands — one is even ship-borne and another is underwater — and most of the others lie only a short distance from the coast.

To the west of the Aegean Sea lies the mainland of Greece; to the east is Asia Minor; to the north are Macedonia and Thrace, and beyond them Bulgarian lands; to the south is the island realm of Candia (Crete) and the Mediterranean Sea. At the crossroads between West and East, at the passage between the Aegean and Black Seas, lies Constantinople, the Queen of Cities. Even half-ruined as she is now, she outshines any of the lesser cities of Western Europe in both size and splendor.

Magic and the supernatural is more

commonplace in the Theban Tribunal than in many Western Tribunals. Forgotten gods and nature spirits abound in this land, and words have power. Even peasants can produce simple spells to make life easier for themselves. More important to magi, vis is plentiful. In contrast to Western Europe, where vis is the currency of the Order, in the Theban Tribunal a better analogy is to consider it as food; essential for the life of a magus, but not the common coin of the economy. This bounty has allowed the Tribunal to flourish in the absence of a continual struggle for a limited resource, and permitted the development of a society of magi that is largely altruistic and egalitarian.

Before 1204, the entire region covered by this book had been ruled as a single empire for the previous 900 years. As the successor to the empire that had been ruled from Rome, they called themselves Rhomaioi, or Romans, despite being composed of many cultures, and their ruler was called the basileus Rhomaion, the Roman emperor. Referring to this empire as "Byzantium" or the "Byzantine Empire" is a modern convention and is anachronistic in the 13th century, yet it is a useful label for the region, and will be used throughout this book.

The landscape of the empire changed dramatically and suddenly in 1204, with the sack of Constantinople by an army of bloodthirsty crusaders from the West. The invaders, described by the blanket term of "Frankish" by the natives, replaced the upper classes of the Roman Empire and instituted their own government, which became called the Latin Empire. The great and the good who survived this invasion fled to former provinces and founded governmentsin-exile — the most significant of which are the Empire of Nicaea, Epiros, and the distant Empire of Trebizond. Meanwhile, the northern provinces won independence from the Latin Empire to form the Empire of Bulgaria. Now Western and Eastern cultures clash amid a rapidly changing political situation where native Greeks and foreign Franks vie for supremacy.

Principally inhabited by Greeks (or "Hellenes"), the lands of the Theban Tribunal are united under a common language called Romaic Greek. Most magi use this language instead of Latin, and even work their spells in its ancient precursor, Classical Greek. As a cosmopolitan region and the gateway to the East, Greece hosts many people from exotic nations; Egyptians, Seljuks, and Persians, to name just a few. However, the indigenous Greeks are the dominant race, and are typified by dark hair, dark eyes, and an olive complexion.

The legends of these lands inevitably draw heavily — but by no means exclusively — on the rich mythology of ancient Greece, as well as romances contemporary to the 13th century, and Christian mythology. Many of

the supernatural denizens of the Theban Tribunal have evolved from classical origins; nereides and drakoi bear some resemblance to the nymphs and giants of the ancient world, for example. Others, such as the stoicheia and vrykolakes, have their roots in local folklore and peasant superstitions.

The mythology of ancient Greece is associated with all four of the supernatural Realms. From the Magic Realm are the primeval Titans who are reckoned to be personifications of forces of nature, as well as lesser natural gods and beings who pay scant regard to mortal worship, such as Helios, Asklepios, or the sibyls. Belonging to the Faerie Realm are the famed Olympian gods, as well as many members of the classical bestiary such as centaurs, fauns, and satyrs. Stories of these gods are often fables or morality plays, exploited for a rhetorical purpose or as a moral lesson. These beings then arise from the human stories. The tales of the Heroic Age, in contrast, are interpreted scripturally; that is, they are alternative versions of stories from the bible. Their heroes, such as Herakles or Theseus, are associated with the Divine Realm, as are sites associated with their virtue. Their adversaries often belong to the Infernal Realm, as do the sites associated with their struggles.

As always, nothing written here is "set in stone" as far as your saga is concerned. You should feel free to use as written those bits that you like, and adapt or discard other parts. It's up to you to decide how closely you want to follow the real history of the region, or the Tribunal as it is depicted here. There are numerous covenants and magi described in these pages, but by no means enough to fill entirely a Tribunal consisting of about a hundred magi. Space is left for you to add covenants of your own devising, and to add to the membership of the described covenants.

If you are a player in a Theban saga, it may be best to consult your storyguide before reading further. Most of Chapters 2 to 8 should be safe for you to read, consisting of information that characters could reasonably be expected to know about their home territory and Tribunal. Although in places there are some story seeds and game statistics that the storyguide may prefer you not to read. Heavier spoilers may be found in Chapters 9 to 12, each of which deals with creatures, schemes, factions, and story plots associated with one of the four supernatural Realms.

The perception of the ancient civilizations of Greece in the rest of medieval Europe varied substantially with time and place, and with social standing. The intelligentsia were aware of Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, while lords and peasants were regaled with epic romances of Aeneas, Hector, and Odysseus, which cast their heroes in roles more suited to Western feudalism than Ancient Greece. Certainly, the scholars of the Byzantine Empire had access to both the mythology and the histories of the classical period in superior number and quality to Western scholars, but even in the West, most educated people had heard of the Greek gods, of the Trojan War, and of the national characters of its most famous cities: Athens, Thebes, and Sparta.

In later times, the disorderly democracy of Athens will be contrasted unfavorably with the good stern control exerted by Sparta over its subjects, but in the 13th century matters were somewhat different. St. Augustine relates the myth of Athens' founding in his City of God, casting the conflict between Athene and Poseidon as an allegory for the triumph of reason over passion. Athens was portrayed as a place where law and reason prevailed, largely due to the reputation of its most famous king, Theseus. In an allegorical sense, Theseus stood for the perfect man, divine and inherently good. These characteristics were transferred by association to the city he ruled, despite the fact that the days of the Athenian polity had little to do with the rule of King Theseus.

In contrast, ancient Thebes was known for the nasty, animalistic intensity of its crimes. This is directly attributed to the origin of the people of Thebes, who were born from the dragon-teeth sown by Kadmus. Its history of incest, betrayal, patricide, and fratricide led to its branding as a den of iniquity and its name becoming poetic shorthand for moral corruption.

Sparta is little known in the 13th century except by those who have access to the histories. It is admired for its strict hierarchy, almost as a model of feudalism, and lauded for its military prowess.

The Greek myths were not necessarily shunned because of their pagan origins. Writings of the Church Fathers, including St. Augustine's On Church Doctrine, instructed Christians to read these myths in a number of ways: as moral allegory the mythic figures represent virtues, vices, desires, and inclinations; as exempla they demonstrate a virtue or failing; as physical allegory they can represent the forces and elements of the cosmos such as planets; and as typology they can stand for versions of Biblical characters — Deucalion was a type of Noah, Herakles a type of Samson, and both Orpheus and Theseus were types of Christ.