Mythic Europe

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Mythic Europe is the setting for the role-playing game Ars Magica, closely based on the Medieval Europe of history and folklore. Note that this is a "Mythic" world, so the folklore, fairy tale and myth is every bit as real (in the game-world) as is the "history." It's sometimes defined as "Europe the way medieval people believed it to be."

Of course, this rather raises the question of which people were doing the believing... e.g. there were ill-educated peasants who thought the world was flat, while better-educated folk understood (at least the theory) that the world was spherical. Similarly, many thought that the Jews had cloven hooves for feet and wore long robes to hide the fact. In general, the "strangeness" we see in historical accounts increases the further we go (either in distance or in simple familiarity) from the person doing the believing.

In broad strokes, Mythic Europe is defined by the following "mythic" elements: the existence of magic and of faeries; the regular, palpable influence of Infernal agents desiring the damnation of humanity, and of Divine forces which seek the salvation of man. These forces act, within the game, much like they were believed to act by people of the era. Of all these, it's magic that's the core focus of the game, with the chiefest player characters being magi. However, these magi belong to an entirely-fictional group called "the Order of Hermes," which had no historical parallel. The magic system, "Hermetic Magic" is likewise entirely fictional, and not intended to represent even the beliefs of the time.

Mythic Europe isn't "Mythic" because the people believed that way (as it is with White Wolf Game Studio's later World of Darkness where reality is informed by the beliefs of humanity); rather, the people believe in magic and other mythical elements because they aren't stupid, because they can look around and see the reality for themselves.

[edit] References

• Robert Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1175-1225, Oxford, 2000, ISBN 0-19-925101-0, Chapter 12.4 (pg.686) "Beings neither Angelic, Human nor Animal" for an academic survey. See also Chapter 11.6, "Death and the Dead".