Re: Bunnies and Burrows
Here are the four seasons which Ars Magica covenants go through, as described in the fifth edition rulebook. These could be easily adapted as a shorthand for rabbit warrens. They don't reflect real-world seasons or the time of year we choose to begin our game, and rabbits themselves wouldn't use this terminology. This is meta-game and serves only as inspiration when fleshing out the PCs' warren and characterizing other warrens nearby.
Covenant Seasons
The Order of Hermes traditionally classifies covenants into four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. These informal labels refer to the different stages of a covenant’s life, and most magi agree on them most of the time. They are also an important part of the covenant concept, because a lot of features depend on the season.
Spring
Spring covenants are just getting started. They are recently established, have few resources, and are generally populated by few and weak magi. Many Spring covenants fail to reach a later season. You should create a Spring covenant if you want a pioneer feel, with relatively young magi creating their own home from nothing. They may not be on a literal frontier, although they should be quite some distance from any other covenants to avoid immediate conflicts over resources.
Summer
Summer covenants are firmly established, and still growing. The length of a covenant’s Summer determines its ultimate power, and has a strong influence on the length of time for which it endures. A Summer covenant is still growing, but the player characters do not have to worry about establishing it. In addition, they are probably not the oldest members of the covenant, so they do have local older magi to turn to for advice and assistance, if necessary. On the other hand, Summer covenants are not normally so organized that the older magi can give orders to the younger magi. Thus, the player characters are generally free to follow their own plots.
Autumn
An Autumn covenant is living off past glories, but has yet to go seriously into decline. The most powerful covenants in the Order are in Autumn, as the Autumn that follows a long and vigorous Summer can last for centuries. Autumn covenants can be at various stages of their Autumn. A covenant just out of Summer would be vigorous, but turning more and more to conserving what it has rather than expanding. A covenant in the heart of Autumn would be focused on conservation, and doing a good job of it. As Winter approaches, conservation becomes less effective, but the members of the covenant are reluctant to strike out into new ways of doing things. At any stage, there might be some large threat at the heart of the covenant that could tip it instantly into Winter if uncontained, or some promise that could put the covenant back in Summer if it was understood. Both are possible, and both could even be the same thing.
Winter
Winter covenants are in decline, and on their way to oblivion. They are normally filled with old and peculiar magi, with little interest in recruiting new blood. However, sometimes new recruits are brought in, and the covenant moves round to Spring once more. Pulling a Winter covenant through to Spring is a good saga concept for players who want the freedom of the Spring saga, but also want to be living somewhere with history, lost books, and whole towers where no one has set foot in years. The difference from a Spring saga set in a Winter covenant is mainly that the player characters have to deal with the old inhabitants; magi who are far older and more powerful than they are, but who are interested only in their own bizarre research.
