This was my favourite section to write and the one I wished I’d been able to expand upon.
Unfortunately, its perhaps the least accessible or applicable to the majority of Ars Magica Troupes as the region is literally beyond the borders of Mythic Europe. The playtester feedback for this section was really helpful however. At least one group actually attempted to set their non-Hermetic Saga in this region with some success, which was particularly encouraging to me as a first time writer.
At one stage when word count was a concern I offered to have the whole chapter cut but fortunately we managed to salvage enough room to include it as a rump, but it feels somewhat half-formed to me now. I really didn’t have time to flesh out various concepts I’d originally planned to include and was forced to reduce them to Story Seeds, tantalising paragraphs of potential or mere passing references…
It’s a pity because I think the length of the Silk Road would make a great setting for a non-standard Ars Magica Saga, either based on a traveling covenant (in the style of “Star Trek: The Next Generation“), centred on the wonderfully exotic crossroad of Kashgar (more in the vein of “Deep Space Nine” perhaps) or perhaps some combination of both ideas (think Ars Magica meets “Stargate” and its various spinoffs).
This map from the Cartographer’s Guild is a great place to start.
I’ll ultimately expand on the list of concepts here with short articles, but I suspect this section will not be updated as frequently as the more “centrally” based articles.
- Salih al-Kamil, “the Master of Storms”
- Autonomous Covenants / Urania
- Sagas set in Kashgar
- Itineris Serica
- The Griffons of Turkistan
- Janaindar
- Khotan, City of Jade
My Life as a Grog 