ARS

"In the span of nearly 50 years of priesthood, what is still the most important and most sacred moment for me is the celebration of the Eucharist. My awareness of celebrating in persona Christi at the altar prevails. Never in the course of these years have I failed to celebrate the Most Holy Sacrifice. If this has occurred, it has been due entirely to reasons independent of my will. Holy Mass is the absolute center of my life and of every day of my life. It is at the heart of the theology of the priesthood, a theology I learned not so much from text books as from living examples of holy priests. First and foremost, from the holy Cure of Ars, Jean Marie Vianney. Still today I remember his biography written by Fr. Trochu, which literally overwhelmed me."  (English text of the address given at the International Symposium on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Conciliar Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis on Friday, October 27, 1995. Text acquired from L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly English Edition.) Text can also be viewed at the Vatican web site.

The definitive life, based on the official "Process of Beatification and Canonization," and thus totally factual and documented. Of humble education and assigned to a forgotten farmers' village, he attracted the whole world to Ars and was proclaimed "Patron Saint of Parish Priests" in 1929. Ate one meal a day, slept only a few hours a night, heard confessions up to 17 hours a day, converted thousands. His body remains incorrupt. A grace-filled story of total love of God!

I first read this many years ago and it was a favorite book of mine. The Cure d'ars was such a saintly man-and this book was wonderfully inspiring to read. A treasure.

The Cure of Ars is one of the most exciting books about the saints done by the "story teller of the saints" Mary Fabyan Windeatt. This book tells how St. John Vianney had trouble becoming a priest, his lifelong work at the town of Ars, his fights with the devil, about the pilgrims flocking to the town, his attempts to become a hermit, and his holy death. I strongly recommend this book to any person who is studying for the priesthood or is thinking of it. I like this book for numerous reasons. The main reason I like this book is how the author writes it. She makes you feel that you are in the story with the saint. This is what she wrote at the beginning of the book... "My name is John, and I have been dead since August 4, 1859. How happy I am! For my soul is in Heaven. Yes, for eternity I am privileged to see God... For endless eternity I enjoy a happiness that is beyond the power of mere words to describe."

This book is great for readers of ages 10-100. There are 211 pages with each chapter's reading not more than 10-12 pages each. The story relates the life of the Saint John Vianney from childhood to deathbed. It conveys how human Vianney was as well as the virtues that made him a saint, most especially how humble he was and his perserverance against the attacks of the devil. If you want to inspire a young boy to the priesthood, if you are a Catholic homeschooling family, if you teach Catholic religious education, or someone just interested in learning what a parish priest life is like, then this is the book for you!

This is an essential book for any Ars Magica GM who wants to flesh out their Ars Saga. This tome provides you with inside knowledge on the Companion class of characters.

This title is also a great reference for political structures and social norms of medieval europe. If you are a serious roleplayer into medieval-type settings, you don't want to pass this one by.

This sourcebook for Ars Magica will be useful for any saga that involves the machinations of the nobility. It will prove even more useful to the development of knighted companions. The changes made to the combat system will add to the realism of a saga without hampering playability. The authors spent a great deal of time and energy on historical research, and it pays off. In my opinion, this is the best Ars Magica supplement yet published.

I ran chapter 1 about 6 months ago. It was subtly challenging. Last week I ran chapter 2, and the birds lets loose 6 months ago really came home to roost.

I literally had the players screaming at me!

A great Ars Magica adventure so far.

This is an amazing scenario.

In chapter 1, I put little seeds of doubt into the players heads about what they were doing, and maybe they were being 'stitched up'.

We played Chapter 2 last Saturday night and, when the birds returned to roost, they nearly lynched me.

It's easily the nastiest, most sophisticated scenario I have ever run. I hope all the rest of the chapters are going to be as good as this.

While a price of $.../page might make most people soil their undies, let me tell you that this is the best info available regarding Verizon. Well, at least it's the most expensive.

You might hesitate to pay $3300 for a writeup on a phone company -- don't! You will get hours and hours of reading pleasure from this unique download. There is nothing else like it!

Higden's Ars componendi sermones, "The Art of Composing Sermons", gives concise and usable rules for composing an effective sermon: how to organize, explain, cite evidence, and win the audience's favor, among other topics. The translation by Sally Wilson gives anyone interested in the Middle Ages access to this important text. Margaret Jennings, who did the Latin edition of the Ars, has written an introduction which discusses the entire genre of preaching manuals, and her notes explain difficulties in Higden's text. The book also includes a bibliography and index, plus a description of the Latin manuscripts of Higden's original text.
Highly recommended for students of literature and rhetoric and of the Middle Ages.

The "Ars Magna" by Girolamo Cardano is one of the most important books of the 16th century, a milestone for algebra and mathematics. With its new way of treating scientific problems, it's also a typical representant of the Italian Renaissance. This is a long overdue re-issue, translated from Latin into English and adapted to modern mathematical syntax. Mathematicians and historians both will enjoy it!

Sure, I borrowed a friend's copy at first. I was all, "What are you reading?" and he's all "Shut up, you can borrow it when I'm done. Then he locked himself in the house and lived off takeout and Easy Mac for six weeks. When he came out, he looked different. Changed, somehow - disturbed, uneasy. He was pale. He'd lost weight in all the wrong places. He walked with a stagger, carrying the Cingular Wireless Company Profile in one hand and a pistol in the other.

I'm all, "You look like Hell. Are you done with that?" He gave me the Profile and shot himself in the face.

I had to give the bloodied report to the cops as evidence. Unfortunately, I read the first six pages in the cruiser on the way downtown. I couldn't wait any longer. I didn't have time to give my statement, didn't want to answer anyone's questions. They had my report and I needed another copy. That night, when Mother was asleep, I snuck into her house, drugged her, and took $3300 from under her mattress. Then I came here and ordered my very own coffee. It's only a few weeks later. I thought no book could be good enough to be worth that much money, but this one is. My life is complete, and soon it willbe over.

Seriously guys, BEST thirty-three hundred bucks I ever spent.

Ars Magica is a truly great system. It is inherently set in Western Europe around 1220 AD. But what of Eastern Europe? There were people there as well, obviously, and your character migth wish to travel there. Pity the poor storyguide who had to run to the books trying to understand Kievan Russia. That is until now.

This book, like Lion of the North, dispells many myths concerning the Kievan states at this time. This is not a unified land. It has been converted, yes, but in many ways superficially. Peoples attitudes are, well, different. This book gives you background on social structures, civic organization, politics, the Old Ways, faeries, and even arms & armour. On top of this, for better or for worse, it lets you glimpse the coming of the Golden Horde, as the mongols will soon overrun this territory (wisely the game suggests setting your time-period rather earlier than the usual 1220 AD, for otherwise you would have a short campaign).

The Order of Hermes is a stranger in this place, thus making it easier for players to plead blessed ignorance. The locals understand this and will pity you for your ignorance. They will send you to the local druzhina for assitance, to a volkhv if you seem wise, or call down the boyars if you get out of line.

At least the storyguide will know what all this means now.

If you want an interesting campaign using Ars Magica, buy this book and perpare for a world of wonder. Dozvedanya!

A quirk of many Ars Magica players is that they have a particular edition they value above all others: mine was third edition: to my mind, it was the apex of the games origionality. At its best, Ars Magica was an intensly colourfull game that gave modern players a filter through wich they could percive a fantastic medival world. It was a mix of judith tarr and prof. umberto eco, and propably the best thing mark rein . hagen ever made.
Unfortunately, the current owners of the game do not get all that. They seem to think that its supposed to be a "realistic" simulation of the middle ages: not that the middle ages are not intresting enough on their own, but that just wasnt the point of Ars Magica. Its name means "the Art of Magic", and it was supposed to focus on what was OUTSIDE the medival world: its cosmology was one never thought of in medival times. The main characters are outcast wizards, not, say, knights.
Also, i have a terrible suspicion that the current owners overuse of historical material is due to a lack of ideas of their own. Even the colours used in the game - books have become more grey.
One last thing: the rules have always been a bit heavy - going (even a simplified version of rolemaster can manage to be quite complex), but the basic dice system is easy and logical enough, so with a bit of practice a storyteller should be able to manage with a few general rolls. The fourth edition people should have kept most of them unchanged, i understand.

Before Jonathan Tweet moved to Wizards of the Coast, and before Mark Rein-Hagen created the WW's World of Darkness -- they created Ars Magica. This is a wonderfully detailed, and realistic medieval roleplaying game. The magic system is the best there is! The fleshed-out combat system, and the fact that you play 3 characters from different social strata are also wonderful features. The first RPG to have troupe-style play, and it's quite a treat for gamers seeking substance. Minor complaint: I wish there were a few clear and concrete examples of the rules being used during play; in some places the text is dense and a bit hard to digest. But don't let this fool you, the rules are really quite simple -- the presentation just needs to be streamlined.

My background is in Medieval History and the Arthurian legends. While I have enjoyed RPGs in general over the years, I have never really felt fulfilled by them. Ars Magica changed that.

This is a grand game, not only in terms of system, but also in scope. You are not slogging around odd underground defense installations finding monsters sitting in room with a king's ransom in gems; instead, you are part of a community and your interests are first in foremost in the esoteric study of arcane lore and magic. Assuming you are a mage. The Companion and Custos (Grogs) have a slightly different take on life, but they are lower down the Great Chain of Being.

This game assumes that in the Middle Ages the world was what people believed it was. Demons are real. God is above all else. Faeries are around every corner. Within this context, you, the player, are an anomaly -- a mage with great power, socially shunned (at best), but in the end subject to the world around you and the constraints placed on your magic.

The system is elegant, requiring only 10-sided dice. The magic system is magesterial -- huge, flexible, yet limiting the lesser magi until they have a chance to learn. Most of all, the game puts you within a real world and makes you feel enmeshed in it.

If you are looking for a truly fine RPG, this is it, hands down.