You can always ask one ic!
Anyone has something to contribute to the in-character thread? Seems like the obvious thing would be for each of the magi to seek out members of their House or tradition and discuss the situation with them, much like Cornelius did. I'm sure Pralix is just waiting for us to make the move. 8)
Would now also be a good time to conduct some trade of the spell texts we brought with us?
We'll probably need to establish ourselves as political allies before any covenant is willing to trade with us, so I think we need to start by getting a feel of what each of them want at the Tribunal.
Once they know where we stand, then I am sure it will be much easier to trade with our political allies. Of course, that wouldn't prevent us from trying to trade with individual magi, but they are less likely to have items of interest -- personal texts as opposed to the much wider selection available to an established covenant.
Any particular suggestions on how we could go about that?
Depends on the nature of your magus.
For Cornelius and Clovis, who are members of more hierarchical Houses, contacting the seniors is the obvious choice.
For Bastion and Avery, speaking to fellow researchers would seem logical, as would seeking out any politically-oriented Bonisagi (Trianomae).
Elizabeth is in a more difficult position, as it is unlikely that a member of her tradition is present. Still, she might try to speak to other members of her House to see how they live in the Tribunal. They may be the most likely to offer individual trades, particularly if they do not live at one of the larger covenants.
Once that is done and we compare notes, if we decide to align with the Coenobium's opponents (at least on the issue of chapter houses), then we could discuss trades. It doesn't mean that we have to agree on all topics with each ally, but if we have a clear policy on the major hot-button issues, then we can use our small block of votes effectively. That will create goodwill and make trades easier.
Hmm, I suppose Bastion could seek out a researcher who is pursuing similar goals to himself and try and arrange a mutually beneficial exchange of some sort.
Hm. I think the official numbers in the order are ~1,200 magi total throughout Europe, or something like that - so there's probably at best around 120-140 magi in the Tribunal. 12 houses each means that there are actually only going to be around 10 other Bonisagus (although of course other houses can do research, of course.) You might be able to find another Necromancer or healer/Longetivity specialist in the region that's not in the House, of course - Rego and Creo Corpus magic would be pretty common foci, I would imagine.
We can have St. Avery go work the Bonisagus side of things, while Bastion goes off for a more general survey.
Yeah, I was basically thinking of the perspective of another Creo/Rego/Corpus specialist that could know some similarly sueful spells, secure some summae/Tractatus and all that.
What information do you want from a "general survey"?
Well, it's probably the following:
- What's the current concensus with 'you people' (whatever group anyone is talking about) regarding the big 3 issues? (Chapter Houses, Mundane Interference, and the Cathars)? And what's the reasoning behind it?
- What are y'all looking for in this tribunal?
- What are you offering in exchange?
- Spells/lab texts for trade? (needs to be in the list, but we can probably keep that out of the IC RP, unless for some reason it goes weird.)
- Vis trade? (as above - needs to be asked, but can probably keep it off the table unless it pops for story concerns.)
- I think we're also looking for the equivalent of general Tribunal Lore (although, OOC, we can probably just get that from the Tribunal Book).
And if anyone asks for our opinions on anything, we can quite honestly say "we don't know - we just heard about all the issues today. Currently, we're all doing investigations before deciding on a course of action."
I think there are three things you can do:
a) Agree on a shared political view (or not)
b) Try to get other covenants to vote or an early approval of your status (if you are approved late in this Tribunal, you are just spectators)
c) Wait for tribunal proper to start
a) and b) are quite linked, IMHO.
Before we can try to gather enough support for en early approval, we need to know where the other covenants stand regarding the hot-button topics. Then we can present our political view to the appropriate parties to try to get recognized early.
Getting information by less official channels seem important before we announce our political views clearly. Otherwise, we cannot get wooed by whichever side would like our support. If we come out right away and say "we stand for this" without knowing the players and their positions first, then it seems like we are cornering ourselves right from the start and lose any ground for negociating.
Does this appear too indecisive? Perhaps. But I haven't read Faith and Flame fully, on the rationale that my magus doesn't have a high enough score in Order of Hermes lore to know all of the details of the Provencal Tribunal politics. That's why he'd rather we gather more information before making our stance known.
Yeah - figuring out where other Covenants stand on the issues (and the specific reasoning behind those actions) would probably be a useful thing to know before Tribunal officially starts.
Honestly, I don't think any of us are competent enough at politics to play the favors game particularly well - ie, politicking to get people to pay us to do what we are planning on doing anyway - but the background information is probably pretty useful to have in order to get us grounded in what's going to be happening over the next few weeks.
I wasn't aware of that, it seemed like nothing was happening. 8)
Is it OK that I just read the basic F&F political summary to get the gist of it, then? Although Bastion has stated that he's going to go talk to the Bonisagus, St. Avery can probably get general background info by popping his head in at every covenant and chatting them up.
I'm back.
There are no masters of intrigue among you. By asking around, you can learn what F&F says on pages 22-25. It is mostly the same in our version of mythic Europe, but I have changed a few minor things to make sure an element of surprise remains. It allows you an educated guess, but no more.
Playing out dozens of interviews with magi seems complicated, so I'm going to simplify this.
Here is a summary:
There are three major players: Aedes Mercurii, Castra Solis and the Coenobium.
Aedes Mercurii and Castra Solis are two big Flambeau-dominated covenants. Aedes is pagan (anti-Rome), isolationist, and allied to the Tremere.
Castra Solis is the domus magnus of house Flambeau and chivalric (pro-Rome, pro mundane). The Praeco comes from Castra Solis. They have a history of quarrelling with house Tytalus (Fudarus).
Both are united in their mistrust of the Coenobium which is the only covenant in Provence that has used a large number of chapter houses to become the biggest covenant (although it's unclear how many because some of the members are houses Guernicus and Mercere and may or may not vote). They have a large number of Jerbiton, but no clearly defined religious profile.
The small ones (most of which are distrustful of Coenobium expansion, but might be convinced to vote for it in exchange to Coenobium support on other matters):
Bellaquin is a Jerbiton dominated covenant, but at a remote location in Cathar territory (Pyrénées).
Ara Maxima Nova is a Merinitae covenant. They are up to something, but their positions are unclear.
Ostal des Exiles: Fiercely anti-Roman and pro mundane interaction, they are defenders of Catharism and would like to stop the atrocities committed by the Roman church.
Stella Duris: In Cathar territory, but no strong leanings. They seem to be self-serving, opportunist anarchists.
Tolosa Partage: This covenant is split in half by infighting beween Cathars and Roman Christians.
Miniata Sophia: Apolitical Criamon magi rumored to be experimenting with smoking Herbes de Provence. They are relaxed guys and their parties are legendary.
Groovy. Nice background, which....actually, I think it does help a bit - at least in terms of whom to talk to first to try and get them to bring up the vote at the beginning of Tribunal.
Looks like our slightly-anti chapterhouse conclusion puts us at odds with the Coenobium; we can probably approach the other two in terms of our minor opposition to that org structure. We can likely sell ourselves to the remaining two by playing up our moderate stance about Catharism (tell one we don't want to get involved in it, tell the other we're OK with having grogs that happen to be Cathar.); of the smaller covanents can be reasoned with similarly, although those that are strongly pro- Cathar we may need to simply avoid.
EDIT - So, is there anything more to do before moving on to Opening Ceremonies and the like? For example, should we make the equivalent of Politics rolls to check to see if we can successfully explain our position in such a way that allows us to get our vote on the docet at the beginning of Tribunal? (Or are we RPing that out?) Either is fine, with me.
I believe that politics is best not handled with dice rolls.
Fair 'nuff - who wants to go talk to Aedes Mercurii and Castra Solis, then? Neither of them seem to have much in the way of bonisagus, so other than "hey, I'm a researcher!" (which actually I think Aedes Mercurii may have some issues with, if St. Avery starts looking at the roman roads around here), there's not too much he can do.