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Lords of Men is a long-awaited 5th edition Ars Magica sourcebook detailing Mythic Europe’s feudal system and related topics such as politics and warfare. Written collaboratively by Timothy Ferguson, Andrew Gronosky, Chris Jensen-Romer and Mark Lawford “Lords of Men” has been described as the 5th edition equivalent of “Ordo Nobilis”, but as this reviewer isn’t familiar with that classic supplement, no future reference will be made in regards to that older book.
As with most of Atlas’ other 5th edition Ars Magica supplements, Lords of Men is a sturdy 144 page hardcover with a full-colour cover and a black-and-white three column interior. The artwork is unobtrusive, stylistically appropriate, and generally of good quality.
Chapter I – Rule by the Sword: Elegant title aside, this chapter is the book’s introduction and does an admirable job explaining the situation faced by the nobility in 1220. Put succinctly, they’re losing power to monarchs, the church and the rising merchant classes and aren’t thrilled about the situation.
Chapter II – Politics: This chapter deals with the acquisition, retention, execise and proliferation of power by Mythic Europe’s noble families. Naturally, the rights and obligations of noble status vary significantly from place to place, but the authors have done an admirable job of both presenting a good all-purpose ruling class and pointing out some of the important regional differences.
“Politics” also features some minor crunch content mostly pertaining to the quantification of social benefits such as the extent to which one has ingratiated himself with a particular nobleman or the effects of a noble reputation, but we also get reprints of the rules for using criminal elements to terrorize opponents (City and Guild) and the rules for recruiting and managing agents (Houses of Hermes: Societates).
Chapter II covers a lot of ground and consequently the text can be very dense in places, but the generous sprinkling of story seeds throughout the chapter helps prevent the writing from becoming too desiccated. Some readers may be tempted to skip ahead to what seem like more entertaining chapters, but I would humbly council against this as many important concepts are introduced in these pages.
Chapter III – A Comparison of Titles: As one might guess from the title, this chapter addresses the various noble titles as they pertain to various places in Mythic Europe. The French/English system is presented first and includes useful details such as what sort of resources a noble of a particular rank has at his disposal and suggestions for how such a character might be represented in game terms. By contrast, the sections on German and Iberian nobility are compared to their nearest French equivalents while the Italian and Byzantine sections simply expound upon why those areas don’t have conventional nobility circa 1220 AD.
Chapter IV – Interference: This chapter deals with the relationship between the Order of Hermes and members of Mythic Europe’s nobility. The main topics addressed are the extent of the code’s prohibition against meddling in the affairs of the mundane and how much the typical nobleman know about the OoH. I found the authors’ characterization of magi/noble interactions to be well-reasoned and appreciated the generous helping of story seeds that were included.
Chapter V – Leisure: This chapter deals with the leisurely pastimes enjoyed by the people of Mythic Europe with a special emphasis on those pursuits that are particularly associated with the nobility. Consequently, the majority of the space in this chapter is devoted to Hunting, Falconry, and Tournaments, but some information about board games, feasts and even courtly romance is also provided.
While the emphasis is on promoting stories, as evidenced by the assortment of story seeds provided, the chapter does feature some new and reprinted rules. In particular, the suggested method of adjudicating a hunt could easily be repurposed for use with other long-term contests of endurance. Perhaps my favourite aspect of “Leisure”, however, is the inclusion of new sets of animal stats - from specialized breeds of dogs, falcons and horses to beloved family pets like squirrels.
Chapter VI – Manorial Fiefs: This chapter relates to the expansion, improvement and management of a lord’s manor and on a broader scale, the relationship between a nobleman and those living within his demesne. I thought this chapter might have been better situated earlier in the book since many of the terms used throughout the book aren’t defined until this chapter. Nevertheless, the authors do a great job explaining the legal rights afforded to the nobility and illustrating how the exercising of said rights can be a potent source of story fodder.
Chapter VII – The Peasantry: This chapter looks at the peasantry of who call Mythic Europe their home. There is a particular emphasis on the peasant standard of living and how it can be improved (cheat on your taxes for fun and profit!) as well as the various means for achieving manumission. Also included is a month-by-month accounting of the sort of work that needs to be done over the course of a year on a typical manor - not especially useful, but it is interesting and ties into some of the story seeds.
Chapter VIII – Massed Combat: While warfare and sieges are an undeniably important part of Mythic Europe, Ars Magica is technically and thematically ill-suited for the sort of tactical combat characteristic of GURPS or D&D4E. Therefore, war is handled in a more abstract manner – Basically, the SG runs a series of vignettes in which the players try to achieve a high enough Event Total to meet the Battle Ease Factor and be victorious in when event is played out. For example, a group of knights defending a castle’s drawbridge from an inferior number of peasant levies would confers an Event Bonus of +0 while those same levies trying to capture the bridge from a greater number of knights would get an Event Bonus of +8 or more.
Sieges are handled in a similar manner; a besieged castle (or city) is defined by three characteristics: Garrison, Defenses and Supplies with the lowest score dictating the frequency of Events and correspondingly how long the siege is likely to be withstood. If the besieging army can’t be bothered to wait the defenders out, they have the Defenses to contend with, which they must usually reduce using siege engines or undermining operations prior to attack.
While the rules presented in this chapter are somewhat unusual, I’ve found that they work very well in play. In particular, the vignettes system helps highlight the sort of over-the-top heroics that should characterize the battlefields of Mythic Europe. Of course, Ars Magica is first and foremost about magi not soldiers so there is some information about the use of magic on the battlefield and why magi aren’t quite as invulnerable as they might like to think.
Chapter IX – Optional Combat Rules: This chapter is devoted to presenting optional rules that help beef-up Ars Magica’s combat system. The new rules range from a simple discussion of how long different actions take to a revised system for adjudicating non-lethal combat and everything in between. While most of the new rules worked well for their intended purpose, many of them are contradictory so the troupe will have to discuss which rules they’d like to integrate and which to ignore.
Arms & Armor: Also available for free download [url=http://www.atlas-games.com/pdf_storage/LoMWebSupplement.pdf]here[/url], this section provides an expanded weapons list and some new rules relating to the use of weapons and armour. Nothing that will substantially affect most combats, but it was nice to have all these weapons compiled in one place.
Good: Despite my RPG of choice, I’m not much of a history buff and consequently can’t comment on the accuracy of the research, but I can tell you that I was very pleased with the writing. This book covers its subject-matter thoroughly, but rarely comes off as boring or pedantic. I particularly liked that the authors often took the time to explain why things were done in a particular way, which greatly aided me in understanding the complex social dynamics at the heart of the feudal system.
Bad: Unfortunately, this book was plagued by a number of layout problems ranging from off-margin chart entries to a box being superimposed over part of the Assarting section. This isn’t reflected in my “Style” rating below however because, for the most part, I was very impressed with this book. The book also contains a high percentage of reprinted material, though that's only a problem if you already own all the other 5E Ars Magica books.
Conclusion: Lords of Men, like City & Guild and Art & Acadame, offers the reader a glimpse into the Mythic Europe that exists beyond the musty libraries and dilapidated towers of the Order of Hermes and in doing so, affords a number of exciting new story opportunities. Much of this book’s actual utility is dependent upon how strongly members of the nobility are represented in your saga, but part of the book’s value is also in expanding the role of nobles.
Despite its quirks, Lords of Men has quickly become of the most frequently used books in my Ars Magic library (only the Core Book and A&A see more in-game use) and I feel many SGs will find it similarly useful. Additionally, because the first 100 pages or so of this book are focussed on information and stories rather than game-mechanics, it might even be worth a look for players of other games.
