Happy Public Domain Day!
Every New Year's Day now brings a full year's worth of creative works into the public domain. Duke University celebrates the day with a review of some of the new additions to the public domain, from the first appearances of icons Nancy Drew and Betty Boop to books like The Maltese Falcon and The Little Engine That Could.
While celebrating Public Domain Day, I want to call attention to Ars Magica. It's now been more than a year since we declared the text of Ars Magica 5th Edition, plus a lot of supplements going all the way back to 3rd Edition, under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. It's not public domain, but this Creative Commons license embraces the sharing of ideas and encourages the creation of new material without worry about violating any copyright restrictions on what came before. The "share alike" part of the license blocks "Disneyfication" -- taking something public, turning it proprietary, and charging tolls for access like a medieval robber baron on the River Rhine. Free of charge, you can dive into the world of Mythic Europe, and even sell your own creations based on the game! No special permission is required. Fans at the amazing Project: Redcap have been working on an Ars Magica System Reference Document, a hyperlinked document containing all the Ars Magica Open License material, freely available to anyone in the world with an internet connection.
Because it's an open license, there is no "official" repository for Ars Magica Open License creations. Sometimes folks will announce new projects on a dedicated thread in our forums. DriveThruRPG has a specific category for Ars Magica, where you can now find loads of independent Ars Magica offerings. You can also find some on itch.io. Ars Magica mastermind David Chart, the guiding editorial force of Ars Magica from Fifth Edition through Definitive Edition, has a Patreon where he shares original new work. Long-time contributor Timothy Ferguson also hosts a Patreon, and has published the electronic Mythic Europe Magazine.
Some other notable works-in-progress in the Ars Magica Open License field include:
- A Spanish translation of Definitive Edition, with new artwork and layout, from Blagdaross Ediciones
- Serenissima Obscura includes Ars Magica rules for a fantastic vision of Renaissance Venice
- The House of the Crescent Sun by Kevin Hassal (whose Ars Magica contributions date back to the White Wolf era, and include a neat little sourcebook about The Isle of Arran available now)
Ars Magica has very international audience, so it's no surprise to see both translations and original works appearing in languages besides English. An adventure published by The Medusa's Lair, titled The Missing Baroness, is available in English, French and Spanish. Los Pilares del Concilio is a Spanish-language original saga. Benoît Léoutre offers, in French, Le grimoire de Pontus Convillus and Fauchons et Faucons (a resource of "objects, weapons and animals much appreciated by barons, princes and lords," statted out for Ars Magica).
This is only a slice of what is already available. I bought about a dozen new Ars Magica open license books just this morning and am enjoying reading them. I hope there will be much more to come! It will delight us to see more foreign language translations; I'm also eager for translations to English of original works. Personally, I'm watching for original material from and about the eastern side of Europe. Past Ars Magica translations have appeared in Polish, Hungarian and Russian, and it would be a thrill to read sagas and stories written by people living in those places today.
I recommend you take a look at the third-party materials out there and...shouldn't you make a New Year's resolution to share something of your own with the Ars Magica community?
Happy New Year!
-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games