Ars Magica

Ars Magica was the first game put together by Lion Rampant, the company who would eventually become White Wolf, Inc. In fact, Ars was the reason Lion Rampant was formed.

Players take on the role of magi &mdash; members of one of the Houses of Hermes &mdash; and their Custos, travelling throughout Mythic Europe in 1220.

The game introduced a revolutionary magic system. Unlike previous systems, magic was not simply a list of spells. It was a fluid, dynamic system that allowed players to come up with their own effects and implement them.

Much of the World of Darkness owes its existence to Ars Magica. House Tremere was the first to appear as the vampiric Tremere clan in Vampire: The Masquerade. The Order of Hermes itself was an integral part of Mage: The Ascension, and Mage's flexible magic system owed much to ArM'.

After White Wolf
Shortly after the World of Darkness was released, White Wolf stopped producing Ars Magica, transferring its license to Wizards of the Coast, who subsequently transferred it to Atlas Games. The development of the game line has since departed from established World of Darkness history.


 * The WW Wiki only covers ArM up until the final product published by White Wolf, and thus assumes that Ars Magica events occur in the history of the World of Darkness, rather than in a seperate timeline.