Domus Magi Covenant Charter Discussion

Good point and I think that is desirable. The five magi happen to be both initially but that could change and probably will eventually. I like the fact that the covenants will always have to consider the wider land in their choices.
What scenario will that be an issue?

Specifically this- if we are creating a "land of magic" then mundane authorities (even ones who happen to be magi) cannot call for magical assistance from a covenant, whereas a covenant who rules a land can use magic to aid it, and can even appeal to aid from other magi. By keeping the covenant on top with the island as their (magical) possession we prevent having to wory about being constrained by the limitation on interference with mundanes.

I think I see where silveroak is coming from now. If I understand him correctly, he's saying that as a covenant, we could act as we wish without being accused of interfering with mundanes because it would be a hermetic entity in charge of the mundane nation. In contrast, if we created a separate entity to rule that mundane nation, the covenant would be limited in the aid it could give to the separate entity because doing so would be interfering with mundanes. (Do I have that right, silveroak?)

I'll speak ex cathedra for a moment so people can get an idea of how I view the Grand Tribunal as generally interpreting these possible scenarios.

As I see it, the practical difference, from a Code standpoint, between ruling a land via a covenant and ruling a land from a separate entity is minimal. By that I mean that I don't think that a covenant could hide behind the legal vehicle of controlling mundanes through a hermetic entity to avoid an accusation of interference. Ruling a nation through a covenant could be considered interference on its own, and an unsympathetic GT is likely to rule that way.

Consider an example. England gathers its navy and assaults the island; the covenant helps to defend the shores versus the attack using powerful magic. If my interpretation of silveroak's argument is correct, he would say we're totally in the clear if the covenant was in charge because this attack would be "on the covenant" and "trying to take away our magical property," and we'd simply be exercising our right to use magic in self-defense. In contrast, if we assist the separate entity, we're getting involved in mundane politics and are potentially guilty of violating the Code. (Is that what you're saying silveroak?)

The issue I can see with that interpretation is that I'm not so certain that the GT would allow that using magic to defend the entire island was simply exercising self-defense of a covenant or the right to protect "magic" property. I think that the GT would look upon defending the island as a whole in much the same way whether the covenant was in charge of the island or whether a separate entity was. I also think that they're at least as likely as not to determine that the land itself is not magical property. In either case an argument for self-defense can be made. And in either case an argument for interference can be made. I don't see whether the island is controlled by a covenant as being a decisive factor (i.e., being a covenant in charge isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card). If the GT wants to get you, they'll decide that simply having the covenant take control of the island was interference in mundane politics. And if they want to let you go, they'll say that you were acting in self-defense. The real trick in either case is working with the GT to get the result that you want.

I think one crack in silveroak's argument is the assumption that the island would be considered the covenant's magical possession and therefore sacrosanct. I just don't see the GT tossing their hands up in the air and saying, "you got us. Nothing we can do." That's an interpretation that the GT might not agree with. I think it's equally as likely that the GT would say that the land itself was not magical and that by taking on the rulership of a substantial mundane population, the covenant was thereby interfering with mundanes from the start. In the end, I think in either case, the end result of a GT decision will depend on how well you politic the decision makers (i.e., Story!). Legalistic arguments are only going to go so far. At this level, it's far more about politics than about pure legal arguments.

That's my take on things, in any case. I wanted to give you a heads up about that so that no one was surprised later on when the issue actually came up.

Okay, I have some questions because I feel like there is a disconnect here.

Have the mundanes noticed the island yet? Aren't we over the horizon? Can mundanes even get through Atlantis's blockade? We're talking about an invasion from England, but is that even a possibility right now?

I tend to agree with Silveroak. We should claim the island is all ours. We made it! Right now, there aren't any mundanes on the island. Let's keep it that way.

That was just an example of something that might happen in the future. RIght now no one except the Order knows that you exist. But once people learn about the island (and it's inevitable that they will at some point), then attack is a possibility. Not a real one at this point, but something a wise maga will consider as not impossible.

To clarify, there is no question but that we are claiming the island for ourselves. The five founding members will be the leaders of this island. Period. End of sentence.

The only question is whether they will rule through a covenant or whether they will rule through something like a Council of Magisters that will be a different political entity. There's no question of not claiming the island. How it will be done is what we're currently debating.

I'm not sure that everyone shares that view. If you stick with just members of the Order (and their mundane servants), you'll have a very barren island, In effect you'll just have a really, really big covenant. That's not the vision that Magnus had, so he'll disagree with that. He's keen to get real colonists to the island to build up the population. Yes, we keep the founding magi in charge. No question there. But bring in more people so we can farm the land, mine the mountains, grow sheep on the hills, etc.

If nothing else, that's the best way to actually start making an income. Because at some point the charity from the other covenants is going to stop, and we'll need to be bringing in some money.

Also, it would be nice to have some real towns for the grogs to visit. They'll start to get restless if they're stuck in the wilderness forever.

It would also be nice to have some local industry. At present you can grow food for yourselves and make some things, but anything fancy has to come from the mainland.

Well said Trogdor.

My thoughts on the matter is that each of the canton's should have a member of the leadership council. How each canton decides who that member is, is up to them. Given that the founders can structure the canton's government in any way they see fit, they could simply say, I'm the representative.

I'm opposed to the covenant route, as I can see that causing problems with any new covenants that get founded. They'd probably feel like they don't get much of a say in things. In general I think the less power that the council has, the better. Find the 'core' things that we want, then leave the rest up to the cantons on an individual basis.

I do not have against the dark, but my impression is that it was made very specifically a point in that book that a covenant can rule over a domain without interfering with mundane authorities. I fail to see how this would not be an extension of that, especially since we made the land ourselves.
It seems to me, from what I have read, that creating a separate entity to rule the island is creating a problem with the clause on interfering with mundanes in order to avoid a non-problem with it.

Then let me add some clarity about the Tremere and how they rule. They rule the land by decree of the Hungarian King who does not in fact, require an Oath of Fealty from them. So yes, there are members of House Tremere among the nobility of Hungary. The reason they aren't accused of interfering with the mundanes is because they so totally control the Tribunal that it would take a GT to try and convict them. And only an idiot would make an enemy out of the entire house, and probably lose at GT to boot. Remember, in Hermetic politics, being right is only half the battle, you've got to convince or outright bribe enough folks to side with you.

My issue is that I don't see ruling as a covenant as being "a non-problem with it,"

I see that option as opening up just as big a can of worms about interfering with mundanes as ruling from a separate entity. I do not think that ruling from a covenant insulates the covenant from charges of interfering with mundanes. I believe that if the magi rule through a covenant, they face the same danger of being accused of interfering with mundanes as if they ruled through a separate entity. (No greater a threat, but no less.) I think that at that level, what matters most is how well you can politic the GT. I fully believe that the GT could interpret the magi ruling the island through a covenant as involving interfering with mundanes.

BTW, I'm not saying they will. All I'm saying is that this is part of the saga - dealing with the GT so that they don't come down hard on you.

In order to help myself consider the issue, I made myself up a list of pros and cons. I figured I'd share it with everyone else. I welcome any additions to this list. I'm certain it's not complete.

[size=150]RULE BY THE CENTRAL COVENANT[/size]

Pro

  • ?

Con

  • We run the risk of being accused of interfering with mundanes.
  • The covanant is subject to the authority of the Grand Tribunal, and a local tribunal if we fail to be named our own tribunal.
  • It will be more difficult to add new members to the central covenant.
  • No non-magi could ever serve on the ruling council.

[size=150]RULE BY SERARATE ENTITY[/size]

Pro

  • It is possible for non-magi to serve on the ruling council, if we wanted them to.
  • The separate entity is not subject to the authority of the Grand Tribunal, nor to our local tribunal if we fail to be named our own tribunal.
  • We can freely add new members to the central covenant

Con

  • We run the risk of being accused of interfering with mundanes.

Again, I want to point at that in order to get brought up on charges of interfering with mundanes, we'd need to go to Tribunal. As we don't recognize other Tribunals, it would take a GT to force us into one, then charges could be brought.

And here's the point I want to stress. This is Hermetic politics, your innocence or guilt is far less important than who you know, who owes you favors, who you bribe etc. You can get away with a lot if you've got the votes. Case in point, the Tremere in Transylvania.

Anyhow, back to Trogdor's points, I think the council is the way to go. I can't see Magi leaping at the chance to join, if anything they do can just be easily tossed aside by members of another covenant who may or may not even live in their section of the island.

I'm still in favour of the separate entity which is made up of the Magi to rule the island.

Honestly, we should probably be doing this in character. The out of character abstract thing we're doing now is just confusing me.

OOC: If it helps you to understand things better, I can make some comments in character. I think things originally went out of character so that we could settle some important issues more easily than if we had to do it all in character. But I guess different people process things in different ways.

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"My proposal," Magnus says to the gathered magi, "is to create a Council of Magisters that will rule the island. This council will consist of the five Magisters, or rulers, of each of the five peripheral cantons, Atlantia, Danusylvania, Erehwon, Elysium, and Ragnarok. The Magisters separately will rule the five peripheral cantons, and together will rule the central canton, Domus Magi, where the central covenant of the same name will be. The Council of Magisters will also be in charge of any matters that relate to New Atlantis as a whole, including, but not limited to, foreign diplomacy and defense."

"The five Magisters will be myself, representing Atlantia, Meliai, representing Danusylvania, Constantine, representing Erehwon, Autolycus, representing Elysium, and Artemis, representing Ragnarok. Each canton can change its Magister as it chooses in the future, but to start, we shall each be monarchs of our cantons."

"We shall not be absolute monarchs, however. We shall have a charter, what I call the Maxima Carta, that sets forth rules we must all follow. The first among these will be the right to practice any religion on New Atlantis, but there will be others, as we determine. It will also require that a moderate amount of taxes be paid to Domus Magi by each canton, and will require that matters of foreign diplomacy and island defense be matters for the Council of Magisters and not the individual cantons. I also propose that the Maxima Carta set forth that when we have the population to warrant it, the island's court system be centralized and controlled by the Council of Magisters so that there will be uniform justice throughout the island. Besides, the island is small enough that we don't need to have five different court systems."

"Quite apart from the Council of Magisters, we will have the covenant of Domus Magi, of which we five will be the founding members. This covenant will ultimately control five other covenants, one in each canton, with one member of Domus Magi being a member in each of the local covenants. At present, I shall be the magus in charge of the covenant in Atlantia, Meliai shall be the maga in charge of the covenant in Danusylvania, Constantine shall be the magus in charge of the covenant in Erehwon, Autolycus shall be the magus in charge of the covenant in Elysium, and Artemis shall be the maga in charge of the covenant in Ragnarok."

"These new covenants will be founded on magical Auras within the cantons. They will start as chapter houses of Domus Magi, but will convert to covenants in their own right prior to the next Grand Tribunal, that we have sufficient covenants to petition for tribunal status. Each canton will only be allowed one covenant, but may have multiple chapter houses if they wish. This will allow for outposts on all of the magical Auras without filling the island up with too many covenants. Six for an area this small is already more crowded than in any other tribunal in the Order."

"The covenant of Domus Magi will work very closely with the Council of Magisters - at the start they'll be the same people, so how could they not? But they will remain separate from each other. For one thing, this will insulate the Council of Magisters from the rulings of the Grand Tribunal. For another, it will allow both groups to grow as they need to in the future without being tied to each other."

"So that's my proposal. What do people think?"

First of all, non magi can be placed on the council of a covenant. Check out covenants p. 38 sidebar "Prevailing loyalty with non-magus members"
Second it has been established that holding land and not swearing fealty is not an issue in the code, while offering continual support to a non-magical noble is. Part of me wants to just accept you speaking ex cathedra and move on, but on the other hand I have seen you change your mind after something has been established and I would much rather go by the book. Where Tremere need to keep the order at bay is in the fact that while there is no oath of fealty they are still underneath the authority of the King, in a more than incidental fashion. We have no higher mundane authority to interfere with unless we create one.
Now it may be necessary to create a separate mundane authority later when we start dealing with other mundanes and might bring an issue to the order at large, but I think it would be best to save that option as a point of compromise later on. Ultimately once the covenant gives away authority, it cannot get it back.

Addendum: this post was ninja'd, one of the reasons that I am commenting OOC is that while I as a player see this as a real issue, Meliai could give two figs about procedural issues such as whether the covenant is the government or they are separate entities. But the issue has been raised and discussed, this will be all the more I say about it...

I decided to go through AtD to see what I might be missing about the Transylvanian system. AtD has this to say about magi as nobles:

and

According to this, a maga may be a noble without violating the Code, so long as she does not swear an oath of fealty. Interesting. Isn't that what we're proposing with the Council of Magisters? Making the five founding magi nobles without an oath of fealty to anyone?

I couldn't find anywhere in AtD that says that covenants rule land. (It says that "the Order rules," but that could refer to individual members of the Order ruling.) Rather, AtD says that magi may be nobles without violating the Code. Presumably some of these magi-nobles own land with serfs on them, and rule over those serfs. Isn't that what we're proposing to do? We own the land (by virtue of having made it), and rule over the people who reside on that land we own. Don't we have an argument that by creating a Council of Magisters we're just doing what the Tremere do, ruling the land as nobles? "The Order rules what it owns," as it were?

Artemis thinks its fine. Truthfully the intricacies of ruling are beyond her. She does have a couple points to make though. "First we should make it clear you can't hide infernalism behind the claim of religion. Infernalism isn't a religion. Any demon worship gets purged. And won't the tribunal just be able to order the magi on the Council of Magisters?

"Excellent point," Magnus replies. "I suppose there's nothing stopping the Grand Tribunal from making rules that pertain to individual magi. I hadn't considered that."

"And if this proposal goes through, we'll make sure that devil worship and any other sort of infernalism is forbidden by the Maxima Carta."

"What are we going to specify as a test for devil worship? While I agree that it certainly does exist, the charges of that have been known to get out of hand in the past, and many pagans have been put to death for worshiping the infernal when they in fact did not."

"Meliai makes a good point," Magnus adds. "And I'm sure there are a number of Cathars out there who would like you to get things right too. As I recall, theyve been accused of worshipping Satan as well."