Alt setting - Covenants or no covenants...

The Covenant of Ebonis has claimed Paris as its territory, so they might have a problem with it. It's not against the Code, but there's a master illusionist battlemage in Paris who has said that if you do it, he might think Wizards War is a good idea.

Which is to say, in the vanilla setting, yes you are explicitly allowed to kill magi in Paris, under the Code. The thing that stops you doing it isn't the Code, it's the Dominion, and the threat of retailiatory violence based on the aesthetic whim of one man.

Could you source this from any of the books, please? I mean, in your own game, sure...but you've made that disclaimer yourself and seem to be suggesting this si the vanilla setting, and it isn't, so far as I can tell.

False, IMO.

Mages do not run society because kings are appointed by God, and he's basically fireproof. Well, God in most places. The Virgin Mary appoints the king in Hungary, but God's Mum is still basically fireproof.

God's mom or God's wife? Both? none? either? :laughing:

It is still criminal to roast people alive. only that it is not hermetically criminal. That falls under civil law, and local magistrates can prosecute you. The fact that the code of hermes does not say "thou shall not kill" does not mean that other legal systems that also govern your life do not say so. I had this one used against a character of mine once. magus had to move away from covenant to prevent endangering his sodales when he was convicted and did not want to handle himself to the local count (we did not have a mundane-proof dwelling and we were playing a city saga). It did set a point in our troupe.

Xavi

Oh, yes, but my point is the Code doesn't stop you roasting people alive.

And perhaps, if you read my post with thought, you would notice that I never claimed that either.
What I am saying is that the Code forbids you from roasting people alive if it can cause problems to the Order.

And mage openly roasting people out in the open is sure way to gain ire of nobility, church and other local authorities. Not to mention causing alarm on peasants who DO NOT necessarily know a damn thing about mages. (Of course, sagas vary)

Being redhat you used as example is false. Every peasant does not know what red hat means, in fact books have mentioned that being one is dangerous as they have no magic to protect themselves and must travel roads which were not necessarily safe.

Kings are appointed by church, but their armies are not. And king without an army is not king for long. If mages could just trump the society around them if Dominion did not pester them, they could find a way. Problem is, mages are too few to effectively fight entire kingdoms. I will look into this more closely, but I have recollection from City & Guild, or perhaps Lords of Men, that while the Order is known to some more knowledgeable mundanes, it is openly nor widely known.

Edit:
Well, found it faster than I thought. City & Guild in pages 5&6 state for example that clergy and nobility are generally aware of the Order, but lower social ladder is aware on local covenants. Further there is notice that the Order is obscure group, not secret, but I never claimed them to be secret. Only that they do not want to draw attention to themselves. Which torching people on the market would definitely do.

Book at the end of page 5 mentions that "Many a magus has been sanctioned for thus "bringing ruin on his sodales".
Also it is noted that some activities are even illegal, for example flooding market with magical goods or destroying towns.
As with everything dealing with the Code, it depends heavily on political weight of magus and tribunal.

The code prohibits you from walking down the street or even breathing air if that endangers your sodales. it is not a crime to roast anyone, only if it endagers your sodales. The only prohibition that does not have an "IF" attached in the code (IIRC) is the one dealing with demons.

The redcaps are known to be messengers from a badass organizations by relevant people. Not everybody, but the stories are common enough for people to know that redcaps should be treated with caution of they pass their area/organization Lore. When the guys botch their area lore or civil law lore is when you have a redcap story :slight_smile: I would assume that counts and above are well aware of this fact (or their helpers are) and that quite a few knights are aware of the fact as well. mundanes in common redcap routes will be aware of the fact as well. Or that is how it is played IMS. Recaps are the order, much more than covenants IMO, and they are protected accordingly. They are what turn a bunch of isolated wizard communities into an European-wide order

Cheers,
Xavi

Righto, then we'll let that example pass. How about, say a magus levelling a mountain that they find inconvenient, or making a castle appear overnight. Allowed, in your view?

OK. I think that we are differing on this. I don't think it's "can conciveably" or "can, as in might", I think its "is likely to" or "actually has" in most places.

See, roasting people alive is a bad example, because you and I have widely different views on how people acting when their neighbours roasted people alive in real history. In many areas of Real Europe, both the nobility and the Church regularly killed people, and this didn't cause any real problems for either of them, in most places and times, from real history. Alarming the peasants only matters if it is likely to, or going to ruin, and that's not likely, because the medieval mindset allows people of higher status to abuse people of lower status. It's not nice or fair or just, but its pretty much unpleasant to be a peasant to Mythic Europe, and roasting someone in the square is not much different to whacking their head off. Nobles with the right of capital justice killed innocent people on a pretty regular basis, and they didn't get lynched. So, I'm not sure that this is a "sure" way at all, because I think the response is likely to be a bit more nuanced than immediate belligerance.

Magi have a duty to avenge redcaps, and peasants broadly know what the cap means.

Sorry to be unclear: I didn't say they did, only that they were "meant to".

Also, they aren't dangerous roads because of peasants, they are dangerous because Mythic Europe is full of mystical stuff that likes ot eat people. Redcaps do have magic, because magic items exist and many of them carry magic items.

Respectfully, no: kings are appointed not by the Church, but by God, (excepting Hungary which is held as a fief from the Virgin Mary).

The piece you are quoting is a half-page precis of the interference chapter in Lords of Men, as I recall. That magi seem to be able to break feudalism, and yet do not, is dealt with in a 2 page piece there, which basically says "Yes, you're right. Magi probably could break feudalism with trivial uses of their power. Discuss it with your troupe. Here are some ideas."

Further, to say "Magi can't do X, because then they'd run Europe" is a flawed form of argument, IMO. Its a version of "if a set of conditions (X) was in the real world, then the system would break down, thus in Mythic Europe not X, because the system has not broken down." This isn't a sound argument, because Mythic Europe isn't internally consistent. It has obvious fracture points where, in a real world, the whole thing would fall over if not held together by (pick whichever you like) God / The Fae / Destinty / The Archmagus Cabal / Criamon / Pure Luck / Lack of the final push from the PCs. So, you can't actually argue from a position of real world modelling, because (arguably) the Reniassance in the real world was prompted by a 2% annual increase in crop yields in Northern Italy, and magi can do that with a single magic item and a guy to carry it around. All arguments from the basis that magi can't do X, or they'd run the place, fail to acknowledge that the setting is only superficially plausible, in this sense.

I think your interpretation, they thay avoid attention, does not follow from what you are quoting. It means they are careful in their dealings, and that the Order isn't secret, it just isn't widely understood. In that sense its no more avoiding attention than the Roman Curia, or the Order of Hospitalliers. Neither of these avoid attention either, they are just obscure to the average person because there's no flow of information about them. There's no enforced policy of obscurity: there is deliberately nothing like the "masquerade" in White Wolf games where people try to hide their powers. I think that we chose to debate an extreme example, torching people, so I'd like you to think about non-violent examples and see what you think. Can you level a nearby, uninhabited mountain to improve your view? Can you make it permanently daylight in your covenant's town? Can you ride around on manticores? Can you burn target dummies in the main square? IMO, yes, to all of these things - none of these are remotely problematic.

I'm trying to separate out the issue of killing (which as Xavi points out devolves into a discussion on the local legal codes, from your issue of magi not showing their power.

See, to me it looks like your argument that magi generally avoid notice, and your quote, which says that magi are hard to generalise about, but basically that most nobles, clergy, skilled craftsmen, shipping factors, and the people who work for all of the above, or friends and descendants of these people, have some sort of knowledge of the Order, are in opposition to each other.

Amusingly, "anointed" would make perfect sense here, since we're talking about MR. :laughing:

Do kings get annointed in a lesser oil, and on the breast instead of the head yet? Can't have them mistaken for bishops, and whatnot?

Err...

Err..kings are annointed or appointed or what? Kings are annointed by Bishops who are unquestionably human beings acting in a political context. This whole idea of divine nomination is mythologicalluy true but absolutely historically false in any sort of non-believer context.

I've got to say, it's getting silly the way authors are treating any sort of period fantasy as gospel truth. Forget future historians; the issues were disputed even at the time.

I use both IMS. Having the divine doing funky stuff on Mythic Europe is FUN, so we prefer to use it even if the politics of the period are great.

kings are chosen by men. However, once the local official representative of God on Earth (the local bishop) anoints the king in an official ceremony, heaven says "ok, I will take your decision as correct for the time being until proven wrong. Free will and all that". As such, the anointing does confer mystical divine powers on the king.... until he starts doing sinful stuff he does not repent. Then the divine favour is withdrawn until enough atonements are made (giving land for new churches counts for that). And then problems start and you only get the benefits of the relics you may carry.

Cheers,
Xavi

Same thing as with roasting people. If you can do it discreetly enough not to bring attention to the Order and it's abilities, free game. If you do it in front of people watching who are not attached to the Order, bad thing. It is one step from "Holy crap that guy just levelled a mountain by waving hands and shouting!" to "Waitaminute... If he could do THAT, what makes my little house safe from his attention? I want safety! Someone get away the bad man making mountains go away!"

That, actually, is the great part of Ars Magica. Same thing can in same place cause different result due to hermetic politics!
With right argumentation and suitable support, you can make one magus hang and another excused even if they did exactly the same thing in exactly same situation.

Which is why, for me, removing much of the "limitations" on players is boring. If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But if you cannot use the hammer in public, you have to use your brains.

Nobles and church, authorities thus, were roasting people. How many average burghers roasted their neighbours just like that?
Yes, response is nuanced if roasting magus/covenant has good relations with local nobility and/or church so that they are recognized to be "people of higher status". But are they? And at which point their nice relationship becomes easier to argue in Tribunal as "interfering with mundanes" with causing trouble to sodales?

But this does not equal to peasants knowing that magi are magi.

Peasants gone highwaymen are one of the dangers. As for magic, yes they have items but I meant magic of their own. Magic items in the end are much more limited compared to magi.

Yes, however people of Mystic Europe are humans by and large. We can tell how humans tend to react. We can argue that magi do not want to push Mythic Europe over the edge so the Code is there to precisely give the Order tools to avoid that.
It is part of self regulating system of the Order, which conveniently also gives us nice excuses to bring forth hermetic politics into the game. If we like that of course.

So in your view someone suddenly destroying mountain which, for sake of argument, had been visible through window of local noble who has some basic knowledge of the Order and now has to face issue that he has to deal with alarmed peasants scared stiff of this event. Not to mention nagging idea that magi might some day decide to do same with his humble keep and take his lands.

Problem is, you cannot really distance law, or more precisely authority which enforces it, and power balance. It has been noted in Covenants how magi having big, imposing castle will cause alarm and draw attention from nobility around them.

Balance of power. Magi are such powerful figures that going about showing it off has ability to disrupt the balance that existed before simply by being known to be so bloody powerful.

Not really. They know of organization. How many know they can level mountains, throw around fire at will and whatnot?
It is question of being obscure order which is known to be powerful enough not to be trifled with, and openly leveling mountains and causing major distress to people who do not want their houses to receive same treatment. Specially since magi do not swear fealty to mundane powers, they are rogue element of society.

You could compare magi to nuclear bomb. When initially introduced, it was really convenient method to cause really much destruction. Then obscurity around it was removed when people learned more about it, and today nuke has become symbol of total annihilation and causes fear which can reach irrational levels.

More magi reveal about themselves, logically more alarm they would cause to their surroundings and more eager people would be to see magi as a threat which needs to be dealt with.

Sure, you can play your game any way you wish, but that is my take on this.

In the current setting I would say that the powers of magi are understod to be great. maybe they are thought to require ritualistic collective casting for some of their greater rituals, but in general, they are a power best not messed with. As long as they auto-police themselves, they can level as many mountains as they want (if that does not upset the big balances of power blocks, that is). Peasants were abused and had their houses burned and daughters raped with a fair regularity by marching armies, so a magus is just ANOTHER thing that can kill them.

More or less how I see it. They are unknown quantity known to be potentially very destructive. And as I see it, self regulating is partially keeping lid on how much magi can do.

By the way, levelling mountains is quite a snub on local powers IMO. Local count, duke or king cannot wipe out mountains, so it can be seen as challenge of their position of power, at least if it is done in a very public way. "Gather all folk to watch Badassius ex Tytalus of the Order of Hermes turn mount Mighty into pieces of rubble next months third saturday"-advertisement, if followed by actual deed, would be disturbing even for nobility of Mythic Europe. Specially considering that magi are mostly already shifty and unreliable folk, considering most not having Gentle Gift.

You know, I think you an I are never going to agree, because I really and truly do think you are wrong about the vanilla setting in this. You keep saying "Well, in your game do what you like, but..." and I see that as a claim that your views are normative for the vanilla setting. I'm really sure they aren't, but, as you say, what you do in your home game's fine. Perhaps its that email is such a limited communicative form. So, I'm going to bow out now, on the final note of again suggesting to you that the interference chapter on LoM seems to differ from your view, as I'm understanding it.

I'm reminded of my old Teml ar Fryn saga... the magi were fairly powerful for their age, only middling powerful by today's standards... but they were, in general, lab rats. They did their research, invented spells, and generally kept to themselves and didn't bother people are long as noboby bothered them. A neighboring lord decided to make trouble for the covenant one season. I forget why, but he gathered his men at arms and marched on the covenant in force. Two magi and a squad of grogs went out to meet him. The Tytalus dropped a hill on about half his army and the Merineta trapped the rest in entangling vines. The lord, who had magic resistance (back in the days when such things could be bought at a price), kept coming and got cut down by the grogs. No one bothered the covenant again.

Generally speaking, in my sagas, magi have been able to do incredibly powerful things. They don't, not because of any clause in the Code forbidding them to but because they simply don't feel the need for juvenile demonstrations of power.

No it is not.

It is only a problem if the inaccessible mountain pass now becomes a highway for the armies of your neighbour. My position and yours are quite different from how I read your posts, really. Yours is much more radical than the official setting. The fact that the noble cannot do something like destroy a mountain does not endanger his position of power. But your saga, your troupe's rules. :slight_smile: I would be cautious about claiming it to be the official setting, though, because it is not.

Cheers
Xavi

I'm sorry if I'm rehashing old ground to say this, but I have to point out again there are numerous really powerful beings not affiliated to the Order in the setting we play in, dragons, giants, warlocks, faerie lords etc. even powerful hedge magicians have got the power to blast annoying peasants in marketplaces. This is known to the population of Mythic Europe, they know there are monsters out there, they know there are wizards and witches out there, they do not automatically give the blame to the Order for magic performed.

So for me the question of discretion is not just about no witnesses and you can do what you want, but no witnesses who can associate the wizard with the Order. A cloaked and hooded figure in black killing his enemies with fire is not much to go on, and if there are no wizards known in the area who might get backlash from the attrocities you are alright, don't publicize who you are and don't get caught.

[Edit]
Also to the point, the level of power displayed raising a mystic tower or disappearing a mountaintop is not much more than people might believe wizards are capable of, it's not scary if they already expect such power of you.

Perhaps you should read my posts more carefully... I have constantly pointed out that act is going to be liable to be illegal when it can be associated/tracked to the Order.
If the Order does not keep a lid on itself, then increasing number of cases WILL drop on their doorstep.
Also, I have repeatedly pointed that this ties into Hermetic politics. Your political enemies can quite well make argument that your actions are endangering the Order. Magus doing big deeds in public either has to be sure that he/she has no enemies in the Tribunal or enough political power to be able to deflect their attacks.

I would recommed you to read the chapter as well, as I did the other day. And read with thought the beginning of City&Guild.

If that does not quite clearly state, that getting into trouble with public acts of indiscreet magic, I do not know what would. And as I have repeatedly noted, the material also points out that this ties into Hermetic politics. Hermetic law is quite unclear in most parts in material, but the undertone to be wary of being overt with magic is clearly present as I read it.

As for the people saying that I am declaring my interpretation as "official", please point out where. But also, be prepared to tell where in the official material YOUR interpretation is declared to be true one. After all, if you are in position to declare someones interpretation to be false, you must know which is right eh?

Tiwaz, I really think we have strayed away from the original point of the thread, but since you have such a determined position, I'd like one last attempt to convince you.

I know this was the thrakhath, but this is the nub of this issue. The extreme to which you seem to be pushing this axiom, where any act which is traceable might lead to legal action, is the opposite of what the Interference chapter says. It effectively gives you a free pass on a whole heap of stuff.

I did read it before I responded to you, because sometimes I misrecall what I wrote, and you are so firmly of your position that I thought perhaps I was misrecalling, but I'm not. I've read that chapter more than anyone else, I assume, because dozens of rereads are a necessary part of the drafting process. I generally try not to mention that I wrote things when people are disagreeing about the interpretations of those things, because beyond me saying "That's not the idea I had when I wrote it" my being the author does not matter that much, but your position seems to be that your view is normative for the game, and it really isn't, and it simply isn't supported in my text, which you are quoting to me.

The problem is that you are taking a very absolutist line: you are effectively enforcing a masquerade, and the material doesn't do that. If anything it spells out that magi are not required to hide their natures, and there are many widely accepted defences for public magic.

I may be misconstruing you, but every time you put one of us down with a form of words which is basically "Sagas may vary but X" you seem to be making a claim that yours is the standard and ours the variant. Given that other people have read it the same way, I'd suggest that's the message you are portraying, even if it is unintentional.

In terms of the intended effect of the Interference rules, I do feel that you are interpreting them in a very proscriptive way, which does not seem to jibe with the rest of the rules, or the intended tone of the vanilla setting. The Interference chapter is explicitly about how magi interfere with mundanes - it's function is to drive a series of holes through the tight interpretations of the Code.

The Code's not meant, on a game design level, to be like the Masquerade in Vampire. This is not a game about being a magus who can't do anything in public or (Paradox / older magi /God / whoever) will stamp him down. The Code's just meant to hold the setting together plausibly. That doesn't require all witnessed magic to be likely to anger someone, It just requires enough grit there that the actions of player characters have sufficent consequence to lead to further stories if the troupe finds them interesting.

You've asked me to quote where it says this, but sadly I can only quote Covenants, Lords of Men, and City and Guild, and I know you don't interpret them the way I do, but I really didn't mean what you think I mean, if I'm understanding your argument.

And that's fine. I'd just like, again, to point out that your view, as I understand it, of what the Code forbids, is a lot tighter than is normal in the vanilla setting.

See you in November for Against the Dark, where, as the back cover says, magi rule thier lands openly.

Anyway....

This is a good point, and part of the tension in my own mind about this saga concept.

One thought I've experimented with a little involved doing way with the covenant-as-building but keeping the covenant-as-agreement. Essentially having a coven or local mystery cult as the focal point of the group. Rather than a group of magi living in a single castle/manor/tower/community the "covenant" represents a group of magi living in a particular city or rural district. Each magus's sanctum is it's own building or farm holding rather than a suite of rooms, and the covenant resources are distributed among the magi. Alas, my first experiment with this didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. The magi tended not to interact much. I blame Tolken to a degree. :slight_smile: No matter how many times I explained that the other coven members where no more than a few miles away, the players remained convinced that the next village must be a days walk or more distant.

This was another place where my "coven" model feel down. The companions and grogs, being so decentralized, had little reason to interact... and we enjoy companions and grogs a lot. In fact, my current saga is entirely Companion focused with no PC magi and a manor instead of a covenant.