More Andalusian Magic

A Sahir’s Tower? (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Given the remarkable response and popularity of the Andalusian Magic articles I posted recently, I’ve decided to add a few more to the menu and also link them in to the The Mythic Levant project pages.

First, Niall Christie’s article “Islamic Magic and 5th Edition” (published with permission) updating the Islamic Parameters from ArM4 Blood & Sand to 5th edition.

The second article is an update to the concept of “the Faerie Problem” experienced by non-European Hermetic magi more familiar with jinn than traditional Celtic, Germanic or Slavic style faeries.

Both article may also be useful for Sagas set in the Mythic Middle East drawing upon the material in The Cradle and the Crescent.

Rediscovered Sahir and Levantine Material

I’ve been rearranging some of the site structure and editing some of the older pages to keep more in line with the overall theme and style I’ve developed over the last year. This includes checking on blank pages and links to ideas that I intended to create pages for.

I realised some of The Cradle and the Crescent pages were a bit bare, so I’ve filled them in with text and the appropriate links while I dig up some of the older cut-file material. Since one of the original intentions of this site was to supplement that particular work I want to make sure there’s easily accessible Mythic Middle East material.

Excitingly, I’ve also been granted permission by Niall Christie to host his additional ArM4 and ArM5 material for Blood & Sand: the Levant Tribunal, in  particular his unofficial web supplement known as “Vestiges in Sand”. I’ll add this slowly to the Blood & Sand – Redux pages over the next few weeks but for now I’ve added his Variant Fifth Edition Sahir article as a counterpoint to the official tCatC version presented by Erik Dahl.

Niall’s ArM5 version of his original sahir is a simple, more traditional summoner build style of sorcerer that concentrates on Goetic style powers of Summoning and Commanding while incorporating the rules from The Mysteries: Revised Edition. Although I like the way Erik presented the Order of Suleiman and the Solomonic Arts, I prefer a more basic sahir style (reflected in the Solomonic Sihr only style of the Ashab al-Halqa or “Followers of the Circle”).

Rereading Niall’s article has made me think about some of the concepts for sahir Astrological Mysteries (essentially Planetary Invocation style magic) and Jinni Mysteries (powers granted by pacts with jinni tribes) that I wanted to develop but ran out of time, word count and experience to develop further. Hopefully I’ll find some of the old drafts an have a chance to polish them up soon.

 

Redcap Concepts by Tribunal #1 – Stonehenge

The ArM4 supplement Heirs to Merlin, by David Chart, briefly details five male Stonehenge Redcaps (Jocelin, Percival, Great William, Little William and Edgar) based out of the so-called Mercer House near Coventry, a location that is geographically central (pages 114-115).

Although no longer canonical for fifth edition, the supplement contains no game statistics and the material within can be readily adapted to ArM5 (or potentially adapted to a different game system and used as background setting material).

The Mercer House and Redcaps mentioned in Heirs to Merlin differ somewhat from the later ArM5 versions (for details see Houses of Hermes: True Lineages, pages 82-88). These differences may be readily developed however and may create interesting stories.