Mostly, I admit. I just wanted to show how such things can happen in a fully functional covenant without any open fighting or indeed open threats.
He didn't break the code. Not once. Neither, for that matter, did she. Destroying an item of his own is not against the code, regardless of where in the universe it is unless by doing so he injures the order or another magus.
The code has never protected nonhostile relationships. It merely regulares hostile ones and prohibits magi from threatening the order as a whole. The peripheral code does rule on such things, but that's so tribunal and saga dependent that we can't really meaninfully discuss it here. The code exists to stop magi destroying each other without care, thought and fear of reprisals. Thus far, Tenebrous has not deprived anyone of magical power save defensively, which he's allowed to do (you're allowed to BoAF someone defensively), he has not brought the wrath of the mundanes, the dominion, the infernal or the fae down on his Sodales and he hasn't even really hampered the functioning of his own covenant.
No conviction can be passed, save perhaps that of wasting the time of the tribunal.
And, frankly, Tenebrous should just declare WW and kill the maga. That way it'll never come up at Tribunal and noone will bring him to trial since, amongst other things, everyone else at his covenant will then be too scared to do so.
The Code of Hermes - since when has justice mattered?
He can be convicted and, as I said, would be in our saga. He did violate the Code. He destroyed a part of an ongoing magical process in another mage's lab. This is a clear violation of the Code.
There is a somewhat amusing side to his actions though. If he had waited a little while, it would have been legal. Once the Arcane Connection had been fixed it would have been legal to destroy it. It has no use other than attacking him so she could not have argued that he impaired her ability to do magic. Since it was an Arcane connection to him, no one would have thought it worth even bringing to Tribunal. It is the act of destroying an active magical process that is at the crux of this matter. No one is going to say, "It's OK to destroy my labwork since you think you have a good excuse." It's the destroyed lab time that would get him. In essence, the only thing that would doom him in our saga is his impatience.
I disagree that the Peripheral Code can be ignored in this. If you look at the examples of rulings given in the books, you will find that most of them are based upon the Peripheral Code. The Peripheral Code determines how the Code is to be enforced in each Tribunal (and at the level of the Grand Tribunal for that matter). The Peripheral Code is the law of the Order. To say that this case should be judged solely on the basis of the basic Code itself is to ignore hundreds of years of legal rulings. Again, your Saga may vary, but mine doesn't work that way.
As for declaring Wizard's War and killing the maga, why didn't he already? He collected an Arcane Connection that has no real value other than in violating the Code or fighting her. He is obviously prepared. The fact that he didn't indicates that there is some benefit to leaving her alive. Maybe having the Arcane Connection gives him some leverage over a more powerful mage (such as the powerful Flambeau who looks on the maga as his daughter). Maybe he likes having power over another member of his own covenant so that he can insure his place in its power structure. There could be many reasons to leave her alive. Clearly he's had one up to now...
Personally, I'm with Guernicus on this one. Wizard's War was a bad idea. However, it is now an integral part of the Order and anyone that is a member of the Order has to live with its consequences...
It's an interesting interpretation, and I agree to a certain extent. I think it's a point which is cut sufficiently fine as to swing with the view of the presiding quaestitor since in itself, defining magical activities is difficult. The loopholes relating to dispelling and interrupting casting for instance, become open. Again, in most circumstances they're trivial, but interupting an Aegis casting, for instance, could be fatal and very expensive in Vis.
We also have the interesting question of how much lab-time was lost, and if the vis was - the rules don't actually say when that gets consumed in the fixing process. For all we know, she could have had it for two days and, as a result, lost no actual lab time or 2 months and lost a season and a pawn of vis. And, of course, the fact that once she's invested Vis into it then it does debatably become a part of her magical power, but before then it remains merely a chair-leg.
In this case, you'd convict and I'd throw out and I reckon both have nearly equal weight in the eyes of the law - I just fear the consequences of throwing it out less.
Ah, sorry. I simply meant that I know of no published Peripheral Code examples which cover this, and the unpublished ones are saga specific and, frankly, we don't know them.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to kill her and merely wanted to play with her mind. He's a Criamon, after all. Perhaps he just wants to be prepared because he's a suspicious bastard and the opporunity was too good to miss. He is a necromancer - perhaps he's content to wait until she dies naturally, but not content to lose her to the Divine or the Infernal. And, as Gribble said, he did offer to sell it back to her. ::shrugs:: I'm rather biased in this case because in our saga, collecting arcane connections is done rather a lot, though fixing them only happens for enemies. Mind you, we as a covenant have rather a lot of those.
Actually i can almost agree here. I think this IS very close to breaking the code about depriving a magus of his/her magic. On which side of the law it is close to i'm not sure. One for my troupe as a whole to RP there, but i certainly think its the only thing he could be taken to tribunal on.
As for his reasons. Simple opportunity initially, he saw an incapacitated maga and saw an opportunity to place himself into a greater position of power over her and did so. No further thinking was involved and he can prove to tribunal that that is so by submitting to a Quaesitors magical interrogation.
As for the magical process he interrupted, it was only 2 days after the maga stole his chair leg, so she wouldn't have wasted the season, i'd rule as ASG in our chronicle that she would have spent the vis though.
Frankly Tenebrous is probably regretting the theft now what with all the fuss its bought. It might be time to send a message to the maga to settle down and respect her betters. Maybe give her terrible boils for a few seasons.
I admit that the actual damage done by destroying the Arcane Connection before it was fixed was probably minimal.
My main concern is the precedent. Rulings in future cases, possibly much more serious cases, will be based on the ruling in this one. Once the door is opened for this sort of thing, it is nearly impossible to keep other mages from walking through...
It is the fear of this that would lead to conviction.
Mind you, in some Tribunals, this is exactly the sort of behavior that they want to promote. (Just look at the rulings on mundane raiding in the Normandy Tribunal.) In such a Tribunal, the ruling would clearly be in favor of the more powerful mage. Such is the nature of the (highly varied) regional Peripheral Codes. Uniform laws? What's that?
Oh, and as for the "As for declaring Wizard's War and killing the maga, why didn't he already?" comment. I meant it to be rhetorical. I can think of at least a half dozen reasons why he wouldn't (and even listed a few). Sorry I didn't make that clear.
This is actually a fabulous opportunity for developing the Saga. If the Peripheral Code hasn't really been fleshed out yet, the number of good story hooks that can come out of this is staggering. Once both sides start looking into the local Code, the number of possible abuses of the system is limited only by the willingness of the Story Guide to run with it!
Terrible boils for a few seasons would definitely be a violation of the Code. I doubt that anyone would claim that it would not reduce her ability to do magic. But all is not lost...
Just declare Wizard's War first!
Wizard's War does not require that you kill your enemy. It just allows you to do so. If he isn't afraid that he will be seriously inconvenienced (or killed), then this is definitely the way to go. He would be able to inflict any long lasting "inconvenience" on her that he wants without any legal repercussions. He would get his point across without losing anything and probably won't trigger a response from the elder Flambeau threatening retaliation.
Using repeated Wizard's Wars as a method of bullying people has been ruled as illegal in some Tribunals, but this wouldn't apply here. He just can't make a habit of it.
Would a plague of boils be breaking the code? As far as i am aware casting spells on another magus isn't illegal, its just stupid. As long as he doesn't harm her or keep her from her magic (say by putting her in a coma) it shouldn't break the code.
Of course its liable to draw all kinds of negative attention and retribution but in this instance, Tenebrous doesn't really fear that.
Interestingly, the elder flambeau i mentioned earlier DID challenge Tenebrous for the blood and lost. The spell Tenebrous choose to cast left him floating a few feet off the ground in full view of the entire covenant for the rest of the day, a humiliation that he bypassed by accepting his fate with dignity and a wry smile.
It depends on the Tribunal. If you are in a Tribunal that interprets interfering with a mage's magic very broadly, then you are in trouble. If you're in a Tribunal that interprets the Code more narrowly, then you're fine...
After winning this challenge, Tenebrous should have challenged the young maga over the blood. Having won (assuming that he would), any further action taken in relation to the blood would be illegal and prosecutable...
There might be an issue between God and Tenebrous' soul, though. Something related to that "thou shall not kill" and some more senseless crap like that that players tend to disregard as sissy stuff.
This kind of loophole in the code is one of those things that always make me look at the code of hermes thinking "amateur stuff made by wannabe kitchen clerks after watching a chapter of your random lawyer series". In other words, that the real content of the code of hermes is so full of loophpoles that it would have already been rewriten several times over if the order was to survive. Luckily, none of my troupe members is a lawyer.
Every charter I lay hands on tends to get full of loopholes while shutting others down. The last charter I wrote was 14 pages long, and I assure you this was not needed if I would only shut loopholes...
