Mariella will speak with her sodale's on this issue
[color=red]"We have a number of problems on the religous side which we are going to have to deal with.
First you recruited a lazy and corrupt priest as you did not want a priest who may stir up to many christian sentiments and intefer with the magical aura.
Second we have given shelter to a Heretical Zealot. This gives us three issues firstly he may lead our covenfolk into heresy emperelling their souls, Secondly should the church or the Knights of the Sword hear about this heretic preaching freely here we will have problems, while I am happy to kill minor noble who intefere I will not take up arms agaisnt the church and the Order would be unhappy with us for stirring up such problems. Thirdly he may well cause an increase in the faith of our villagers creating the effect you wished to avoid.
There are several solution I see
first hide our heads in the sand
Second Stamp out the heresy , kill or drive out the heretic and stamp out heretical worship Without bringing in the church
Third Bring in the church authorities to deal with this, while I think this is the correct solution from the religous point of view it will cause trouble.
I think the second solution is the only viable one and should be done now. If none of you wish the fallout from this upon you I will do it. Hopefully I will onlyhave to kill the heretic but it is possible that some of his congregation would also be killed
[color=red]I respectfully differ, Mariella, with, perhaps, one important point of your soliloquy. I am not convinced that heresy is what we have. We may have someone who is convinced that heresy is what exists within our diocese presently. If there are accusations to be made, then - keeping in mind the added trouble that is to be associated with an inquiry - perhaps the 'zealot' should be encourage to make his complaint to the bishop? Where would he be seated, in Kolberg?
No, no, that's a bad first step. Perhaps we can arbitrate and be specific about canonical law and gather the facts ourself. The silversmith, perhaps, presumes too much. Anyone familiar enough with church law?
Justus ponders his words for a moment. [color=red]I think that there is a danger in that we have a lack of unity in our coven folks faiths. Not as much as I care about the matter but there might those that care and thus meddle in our covenant. Perhaps we should get rid of our silversmith before the knights or anything similar look into it, such an thing is bound to strike back at us one way or the other. After all when this where discovered we did not throw the silversmith in the dungeon and reported his beliefs to the church authorities. I am no expert on theology but I know one here that knows more about theology than the rest of us. Perhaps it is his call to decide upon this thing. I wish to avoid strife here but how can that be done? Justus sighs.[color=red] Perhaps we should aid father Gerald with a few spells to bring back the flock. Discrete spells that makes him more trustworthy or inspirational. I am just pondering possibilities. What I think that we can’t do is just to let it slide.
[color=red]"Heinrich the silversmith is for certain a heretic of this there is no doubt. He also appears to be pious and devoted this makes him more of a problem as a heretic , had he been a diabolist things would have been much easier.
Our priest while a poor specimen is a priest and his lack of zeal does not make a heretic acceptable just more dangerous.
We have in this priest what we wanted when we asked for him, I would rather have had a more upstanding priest than the one we have but I doubt Yannick or Ardeth would be happy with such.
And with respect to Justus I would rather not use magic to meddle with people's faith it is not the way to lead them to the right path and would imperil our own souls.
I beleive we do need to drive out the Silversmith which will have unfortunate effects on our relations with at least some of the covenant folk
[color=red]Now how do you suggest that we drive out this heretic? Simply asking him to leave with force of arms or giving him some silver and then use the force of arms if necessary. A man of such faith should be a man of the cloth not a craftsman. Though I will miss the fine silverware he made for my lab.
[color=red]If I may have a word in this..., Yannick interupts form somewhere behind your backs.
[color=red]The silversmith is a very skillful and valuable craftsman.
Notheless, we need to remind him that he has no authority whatsoever that allows him to preach. WE choose the faith of our servants. And there are reasons that father Gerald is in charge here.
If you don't mind, I'll have a word with both of 'em, and rid us of those problems, I know both of em well enough.
The smith will stop preaching, and Father Gerald will stop complaining.
Believe me, the dogs and me will be convincing enough...
[color=red] We just argued before the council that we do nothing of the kind. If we are willing to allow pagans, I see no reason not to allow other views. My only objection was that he did not seek our blessing. He did so, and it was granted. Problem solved.
I will not allow this silversmith to be killed or threated. If we vote and agree that he and those who follow him should leave, then we may peacefully ask him to leave. I do not believe that this is required, but I am willing to be swayed on this. I am under no circumstances willing to allow him to be harmed.
[color=red]I have no intent to kill him. Nor do I want to drive him away. He is a skilled craftsman, and possibly will be of great value to us.
But nothing keeps Gerald from calling in other authorities. I prefer a threatened silversmith to a dead one. Which means we have to get him back in line, quickly.
As long as he goes back to church and doesn't raise the matter with the houskeepers again, the good father certainly won't mind if the smith meets a few friends after sunday services.
I am quite certain I can arrange this.
I guess both of them prefer not to attract unwandted attention from Kolberg.
A few subtle threats are likely to be unavoidable. But bloodshed need not happen, we already had enough of that here.
[color=red]Our esteemed Silver Smith seems to me to be a true believer. I doubt that threats will do much . I hope that if we implement them your half measures prove effective. If we wish to avoid attention the only safe way is to get rid of the heretic anything else will leave a lingering problem to fester away . The paganism is bad enougth but the area is awash with nominally christian pagans and we can probably avoid attention but this heretic will bring trouble.
You have my opinion , ignore it at your peril .
Justus looks at Yannick. [color=red]I think that your solution is the best. I prefer if we did not have any involvement from outside sources. In a perfect world we should not have to worry about this sort of things. We magi can live like we wish, worship the entities we wish and every man and woman counts for their merits and merits alone. Why can’t those rules or rather lack of rules apply to others? At times it would be better to live in a Regio. Justus sighs. [color=red]I hope we are doing the right thing.
[color=red] I just had an idea!
We are allowing our servants any faith they like, right?
And some of us are worried about to many people leaving the path they consider to be the right one.
What keeps us from taking taxes from everyone that is not going to church every sunday?
That would give us some degree of control over the number of different faiths here. And, through their taxes, the other faiths will contribute to the community, as mother church does.
By the amount of taxes paid, we know how many "black sheep" we got here.
If any secret cults show up, no problem, we can punish them for tax evasion.
We'll need to fix an appropriate tax level, and we need a code of conduct, regarding the interaction of the different faiths.
We could disallow personal attacks, keeping disputes on the level of a proper disputatio.
And it would help with our financial problems as well. We are likely to attract a couple of people if we allow em to publicly practice their faith.
A third of the tax to the community, to us and father Gerald... mother church I mean?
[color=red]Taxing our own people for religion is distasteful. I think your suggestions are half measures and foolish. Until this preacher leaves we will have a festering problem and it will prove harder to cauterise the wound later. However as always I will abide by the council vote . However you ignore my advice at your own peril.
[color=red]Not our own, just those following heretic preachers. Or Jews for that matter. Or shapeshifting pagans like me that are monsters to christians, jews and muslims alike. shrugs his shoulders
[color=red]Anyhow, this idea about taxes is a long-term-project. We can talk about that later on.
New approaches to our problem at hand?
Or shall we vote?
[color=red]As I said before Yannick you should deal with this matter. Explain to the man that we have no problem with his faith but there are other who have and we wish to avoid them interfering with our covenant. Is there a necessity to vote or shall we follow that path? Justus looks to his soldaes. [color=red]We cannot begin to tax or punish our people for their faith but we must secure our covenant.
[color=red]My feeling is Yannick's proposal is a good first step. But I think silver runs in the silversmith's veins and we would be best prepared for anything that is to follow.
Yannick, I'm sure most ordinarily proud men - let alone priestly-types - would not deign to explain their lifestyle, but if Gerald could find it in him to diplomatically explain his living situation, then perhaps we'd be lucky enough to not have this firework blow up in our face. It would certainly take the steam out of our "heretic's" protest. trailing off and mumbling [color=red]but it's always more complicated than that...
As an aside, Justus, I wonder if any descendants of the survivors of House Diedne would agree that the Order has grown to include the freedom to worship.
Justus looks at Henrich. [color=red]Perhaps the Order is not perfect, perhaps it where necessary. We will never know, but anyway we can all agree upon that pagan faiths are allowed as well as Christians, Jews and other faiths. I am no scholar on the subject but can imagine that the schism war where fought over more reasons than faith. Faith alone is seldom a reason for war.
[color=red] I just had an idea!
we got here.