Ars Magica’s First Major 3rd-Party Open License Release: Finis Terrae

The Ars Magica sourcebook Finis Terrae: El Tribunal de Iberia will be released under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 Open License following a successful crowdfunding campaign.

This marks the first significant third-party release for Ars Magica under its new open license, which launched on October 15th. The release is the result of a collaboration between Atlas Games, the publisher of Ars Magica, and Holocubierta Ediciones, a Spanish publishing house.

Finis Terrae is a 340-page full-color book detailing the Mythic Spain and Portugal setting for Ars Magica. The open licensing of this sourcebook was made possible by the successful crowdfunding campaign for the Ars Magica Definitive Edition on Backerkit.com, which unlocked a Stretch Goal allowing the Spanish text of the sourcebook to be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. This will enable creators to develop and share content based on the Iberian Tribunal setting.

Atlas Games plans to work with Holocubierta to secure the rights to the artwork from the Spanish edition of Finis Terrae. This artwork will be featured in a future official English translation of the sourcebook, which will also be released under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.

Holocubierta Ediciones is transitioning out of the publishing industry, and the authors of Finis Terrae, Mario Donaire and Óscar Estefanía, will form a new publishing company called Blagdaross, which will focus on Ars Magica Open License releases.

The English translation of Finis Terrae is expected to follow, providing additional content under the open license for Ars Magica enthusiasts.