View source for Des temps turbulents

The year is 1297. You’ve overheard the grown-ups talking about massive changes to the social structure. Realpolitik is no longer what it used to be in Good Old France. That doesn’t really tell you anything. After all, you are only 8 years old. But young minds can ponder too. Maybe there is a connection to those deadly brass soldiers who travel about in the fiefdom? They are probably looking for anything that smells of magic and the supernatural. Presumably they were the ones who got rid of Old-Genette-in-the-Forest. She was the one all the adults went to whenever anything serious was bothering them, and then denying her very existence afterwards. (Adults are weird).

Old-Genette-in-the-Forest isn’t the only who’s been disappeared by the brass men. An eternity ago—at least two summers!—those brass bullies came to the neighboring village, Jacquesville, and since then the place has been completely devoid of sages. There used to live people with real magic there. The kind of people who could fly. And turn into frogs. Or turn other people into frogs. Whichever way is most sagely. But now, however, no one has seen any of the sages for a long time. All of that aside. The brass men aren't your biggest problem at the moment anyway. You recently bargained (read: nagged) your parents for permission to take Grumpy-Vincenç by yourselves to Miller Yon, but when you return from a well-deserved break by the stream, you notice that the stupid donkey has run off and now it's getting dark! This story will be played using the Ars Magica roleplaying system, which is as backwards and Byzantine as the Middle Ages it is set in. For the character, it is easy to die, and for the player, applying the rules of the game is an insurmountable ordeal that brings about despair and hopelessness. Highly recommended!