Ars Magica is for people who like to roleplay all of the nitty-gritty details of a life devoted to magickal study. This game is not for your standard hack-and-slash D&D (tm) players. Most of our group was really new to the system, and we tended to drive our GM crazy with our lack of planning. We didn't stop to think about ordering the peons to build the fortress or cook dinner. I suspect at times we all thought, "if we had wanted to think about cooking dinner, we'd be cooking dinner, not gaming and eating cold pizza."

But all-in-all, it was a fun game, and I enjoyed myself immensely and was sorry to the see the game go defunct. My character's name was Ysabel, and she traveled a lot, so she didn't spend a lot of time in the lab. The Covenant we called home was Circulum Aurum, or the Golden Circle Covenant. (Lovingly called "Dragon Moon" by those who lived there.)

Ars Magica Links (including Circulum Aurum)

• Covenant: Aurum Circulum (via Kris Erwin's homepage)
• Ysabel's Journals: an Ars Magica campaign journal that I've been told is entertaining even if you don't know the system.
• Project Redcap: the site for Ars Magica information.
• Jade's Ars Magica Page