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Title: Pax Dei (Ars Magica) by Sam Chupp, Leigh Ann Hildebrand, John Cobb, Josh Timbrook ISBN: 1-56504-043-0 Publisher: Atlas Games Pub. Date: 01 January, 1993 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $18.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Beautiful, with noticable flaws
Comment: Ars Magica has this problem -- it wants to have things both ways. On the one hand, there is the Medieval Paradigm -- "we will present the Middle Ages the way people of the time saw their own world." On the other hand, the game is plagued with post-Reformation, 20th century, urban, and sometimes even Politically Correct viewpoints -- the Church is inherently evil and a form of mind control, heretics are misunderstood Free Speech advocates, etc.

This book goes a long way towards trying to make the Church (or at least the "good members" of it) seem a bit more palatable to the gaming world, which I must praise. The presentations on angels, on sainthood, and even on the tempers of the Divine aura are quite intriguing. There is still a strong effort to make the Albegensians into 12th century hippies, though, which is find ridiculous; the Albegensians were at least as self-righteous as the Christian authorities of the era and as strongly determined that "there is my way or damnation, no middle ground."

While this is a very well written supplement, few people will want to slog through it, which is sad. It is filled with deep background on the nature of Heaven and the Church. It helps correct some of the anti-Church views of earlier supplements. Still, many people will find it "preachy". Hey, storyguides! If you are to accept a Middle Ages as people at the time accepted it, one where demons and devils DO exist, then Christianity must exist to balance the Forces of Evil out. This would mean that the Church is not evil, even though some particular members of it might be.

Just remember -- the Mongols are coming, backed by dragons... They must be the Legions of Hell...

(this was the popular view at the time)