Frankly, politics is probably the most important factor in committing Hermetic crimes.
If you live in a Tribunal where a thing is common, you can expect others like you to take a stand in your support, and that's assuming the Tribunal members themselves aren't doing it! There are several Tribunals where interfering with mundanes is largely ignored (citation: True Lineages.)
It's not common law, but precedent is important.
If you're best 'friends' with everyone in the Tribunal, you can probably get off scott-free from many charges. A few liberal bribes here and there may be necessary.
If, however, there's a lot of precedent against your action, the court is stacked against you, or you are the target of a well-connected figure... well, evidence can be found against you even if you've done nothing.
Unless you change the default background, this is going to be a central element of a number of stories, and define the issues that the character gets involved in. Some magi will object, his liege will make demands that the magus thinks will cause problems, there'll be situations where the magus really wants to use magic to fix them, but worries about the consequences...
Sounds like a great concept for a character to me, as long as it's not intended to be nothing more than background colour. The canonical setting doesn't support this situation as background colour.
In England, no. In places which have allodal land, or places where nobles don't swear fealty to anyone (like Hungary), you can own land and be a noble.
You can't have an oath of fealty for land and be a magus, because the Oorder does not allow magi to bend the knee to nobles. Period. It is demeaning and its not allowed, in the same way that monks do not swear fealty to mortal lords. It makes mockery of being a magus to be a magus on those terms.
Simplest of all is the method used for monks with sons from before they took their wovs: it passes through them instantly to their children. You give the land to your kid and then administer it on his behalf. You can be an administrator without swearing fealty. Of course, if you get pulled into mortal politics because of your tie to your child, then you're his court wizard and you get marched regardless.
Don't be in England. The problem is that in England, and some other places Castille, all land is owned by the king. If you were in some other places, like, say, an allod in Germany, or in Hungary, where nobles don't owe fealty for land, then you are golden.
The thing you can't have is a liege, unless its a hermetic liege. You want to swear fealty to someone? The magi of Oleron are quite happy to take an oath of fealty from you.
As far as I know the fealty was basically "land for military service". As long as you provide the (mundane) military power, you cannot be said much by your lord, right? You are unlikely to be highly popular, since you will not be licking his bottom regularly, but the service is kosher if it is not magical. And once a covenant of magi is set in, it is quite difficult to out them out by brute force so the oath of fealty might become void if the lord does not agree to the original terms....
Xavi awaits eagerly LoM and puts up a few ReIg wards, just in case
No, it's nowhere near as transactional as this. For one thing you owe your lord your best advice - you aren't permitted to keep secrets from your lord if they may affect his interests. You are also required to aid him in a myriad of other ways: one being paying taxes which he uses to pay soldiers who kill other people. You can't pay a guy taxes, host him in your home, give him advice, and so on, and claim not to be his court wizard when he uses your money to pay for mercenaries, and your advice to use them well.
You are his advisor, and yes, you are at his court from time to time. But you are no way his court WIZARD since you are not casting spells or using your supernatural powers in his favour in any wayl. You are just another noble.
Now, we have the noble asking you to do exactly that and use your supernatural powers for him, and there we have the story of the order saying "no way", the big noble saying "yes, because I order you to" and the PCs in the middle looking totally lost.
And ain't that great?
I think it can work, but you need to be very subtle if you use magic and have the willingness and capacity to say "no" to your overlord. More easily said than done, but here is where you have the story potential
Well, we differ on how easy it is. Part of the problem is that the "No court wizards" rule is kind of like the Gift social penalty rule: it exists to create a storytelling space. Its explanations have to be limiting, because otherwise the conventional setting doesn't work anymore. The degree to which you push the realism of it is up to you, of course.
Xavi, people don't know that you aren't casting spells for him, and you can't control who knows you are gifted. Mythic Europe is full of hedge wizards, faeries and demons who are perfectly willing to out you. Being a wizard noble is like being gay, except that the other people murder you if you get caught by the straights.
If you want to play it, sure...I'm not saying its unplayable. I'm saying that for the squeeze you are talkign about to work, the Order needs to have strong resistance to court wizardry.
Sure. I think we are talking at cross-purposes and apologise for that: I'm not saying its impossible, just that it's illegal. Crime's a good source of drama, though.
How much would be expected from the wife of a noble generally? We have a nobleman running the covenant region, the covenant itself being relatively independent from the town we're working on establishing. If a gentle-gifted maga were to marry that nobleman, how much would be expected from someone to whom that nobleman might swear allegiance.
Of course, we have other problems. For example, though it's our place, since we've put the nobleman in power and have created the town where we're putting him, I suppose we're already using magic to support a nobleman. However, he is our servant as opposed to we being his. And his place is within the land we control. He's just our public face and runs day-to-day stuff.
I think it might be 2 differences. Presence of hedgies around ME and what is decided is "court wizardry"
IMS hedgies and demons are around, and they are used by the nobles. That does not mean that they are under any rock you kick: nobles gho OUT and searchf for them as much as the opposite. Hedgies tend to be in the employ of major noblemen, yes, but your local baron is unlikely to have one by his side each time you walk into his (rather unimposing, for magi standards) keep. Still, magicians and other supernatural wonder makers exist, and one can be found for a fairly low price if you search for one. Going around to ask for help the snobs of the OoH is only done when other more readily available measures (the church and the folk witch of the county) have failed. If you can sneak a 70 year magical sword from the magicians when they swear fealty to you so that you grant them land is one thing, but you cannot go around asking them to cure your winter cold on a regular basis or you are likely to find that you lose revenue, prestige and vassals when the land where the covenant sits becomes allodial against your will. This is a possibility IMS (if you had me define it, it would have happened several times already around Mythic Europe), but that is extremely saga dependent, I would guess.
What court wizard implies. How you read this clause is quite important. It says "court wizard", not "courtier". IMS that means that you can act like a mundane noble as long as you do not use magic when giving advise, fight the enemies of the or or raise money in a blatant magical way. Doing what a normal vassal would do is not a breach of the code here, but this is how we read the code, not how everybody does
One of the things I am awaiting LoM eagerly is to see what is the official stance on such issues.
I say that "court wizard" means someone hired to cast spells and use their magic on demand or when needed, if the magi can cast a spell or perform something requested by the lord they are obliged to do so.
Thats not the same as having an oath of fealty as a noble.
That makes about 1/3 or so of the nobles through history rather "illegal"...
By that statement, just about every nobleman ever, is potentially a court wizard.
You do seem to equate noble with court wizard, and that gets very strange in my eyes.
Depending on when and where, even the pope "bend the knee to nobles", does the order then claim to be above and beyond everyone else including the pope?
And really, if magi are not even allowed to be courteous as needed, there will very soon be warfare directed against OoH due to lese majeste, because its very unlikely that any interaction at all can be avoided all the time.
Imo the important part of that is "in a blatant magical way".
If a mysterious courtier is giving advice, who is to say whether they are using magic or not? So long as you don't get caught, it's all good.
On the down side, professional courtiers don't have to spend experience on Arts, and so are often better at Intrigue than most any mage. If petty jealousies result in a "false" rumour being spread around that magic is being used, then it's just a damn shame they happened to be right! But the mage is in almost as much trouble either way.
I think that, if a knight comes up to the magi's tower and says "the princess has been cursed and the king wants you to come to court and lift the curse", then going to court and lifting the curse with magic would not normally be construed as acting as a court wizard. Although, having said that, it certainly is something that could be the basis of a flimsy Tribunal case against the magus. So if the Tribunal is merely looking for a pretext to March the magus, this would probably do.
From the point of view of the nobles, if the magus refuses to go to court to save the princess, that probably means that the magus (or one of his allies) is the source of the curse. Some namby, pamby, excuse about a gentleman's agreement amongst wizards to "not interfere", is unlikely to impress the king.
Any magus worth their salt would go, find out the CAUSE of the curse, inform the king as to the source, and at the same time, inform the quaisitors. After all, why get marched? you merely went to make sure that it wasn't one of your sodales.
No, but the orginal poster is explicitly asking about his character as a magus who is a Landed Noble. You seem to have ignored the context of the conversation.
Source?
The "you" in this sentence is clearly the original poster's characters, and he's a magus.
No, I don't. I'm just talking to Xavi no his own terms.
In the context of the conversation, "bend the knee" is clearly a euphamism for acts of homage, not basic courtesy. Your tendency in this post to take things which are clear in their context and, ignoring that context, define them in the widest and most obviously unworkable sense is basically extrapolato ad absurdum, and trollish. This post is far below your usual standard.
As to the pope, in 1220, claims to be above all mortal kings and to have the right to select emperors. He does not bend the knee in the sense used here.
Many magi claim to be outside, rather than above, the kingdoms of other men. This isn't such a strange claim: with the exception of England, kings of other realms do not, at this point, generally claim to be absolute sovereigns of geographically contiguous states. Most kingdoms have heaps of people in them who are not subjects. Most kindgoms have little pieces of surrounded territory which are allodal and thus are not part of the kingdom. It's in no way odd for magi to claim, not be subjects of any particular king.
It depends where you are. In England the wife of a nobleman is basically his fault, much like if his child set a house on fire or said something rude. In other areas, she has greater freedom fo action.
Well, technically she's sworn to obey him as part of her marriage vows. Also, her husband is a nobleman, so she can be done for aiding him, let alone his liege. As to what can be expected of her, it varies. In England, to her husband, she's the same as a horse or peasant, legally. She can be directed to work without limit. If her husband dies, the king has the right to claim her person, and to choose her next husband. Things are far less severe in other places.
So, when someone invades him, what are you going to do?
This is false. Treason in period involves physical attacks on the king (not the lord, specifically the king). In England this sort of thing only becomes treason during the reign of Henry VIII, who merges les majestie and treason into a single offence.
I agree with this bit.
snip.
See, this bit I question: why should the Order allow this? The Cluniacs don't allow this. The Templars don't allow this. I don't see why the Order shouldn't expect its Oath to supercede all previous oaths.
Now, I know there are some acts of homage which allow for other lords. They are quite popular in England during the century before game period when most families have some lands in England and some in France. There are many others which do not permit other lords, and are complete supplications. There are negotiated examples to the contrary, sure, but I can't think of a single negotiated example of the Oath of Hermes, other than the Bonisagus Clause. Why should the Order cut you a break that makes the Oath read:
"I, Direwolf, swear my everlasting loyalty to the Order and its members, insofar as this does not prejudice my Oath to the king.
I will not deprice or attempt to deprive and member of the Order of his magical power (unless the king says so).
I will not slay or attempt to slay any member of he Order,(unless the king orders me to)...
Woe to they who try to tempt me to break this Oath, and woe to me if I break it (except when doing so as per my previous oath to the king)"
I don't see why the Order should want your character so desperately that they'll create that loophole. Your milage clearly varies..but when youy say "The Order will just have to accept X." I'm not clear on -why- the Order will have to accept X.
Your defining of "court wizard" being used as a hard line "written" in stone to prevent such a character most certainly is in context.
Eh, to my knowledge you HAVE read quite a lot of history? So tell me, how commonly among nobility do you find those with either a little secret from their liege, more or less harmless(and sometimes not at all harmless), and then thereĀ“s the part about owing your best advice, how many nobles have kept their mouths shut for one reason or another? Alltogether im quite sure my 1/3 guess is an understatement if its inaccurate. From my knowledge i wouldnt be surprised if the amount of nobles keeping secrets from their liege, probably goes above half.
Im not well versed in ALL parts(when/where) of history, but its rare to see a time and place where total honesty ruled.
Yes? So what? As worded, the description fits just about any and all courtiers and noblemen. You become a court wizard because you do what any courtier does? Thats just plain weird.
As Cuch and Richard among others have already said thereĀ“s plenty of ways to get into trouble and code breaching without casting a single spell, simply by needing to be involved with court, but calling someone a court wizard just because a magi has business WITH the court, no that just doesnt fly well.
A court wizard is someone "employed"(compelled, hired, bribed or otherwise convinced) for lending magical assistance on demand according to ability.
It was far from certain how exact you meant your words, i could only guess. But i chose to guess to the extreme to clearly show the point i made. And your definition of context, as showed in the first part of this post, isnt automatically spot on.
Oh agreed.
Not at all, but they still have to interact with their surroundings, and i very much doubt the soundness of acting "apart" then.
I didnt say it WAS treason, i said they might be CONSIDERED traitors.
"Join or die"? Would the order want an oathbreaker to swear THEIR oath? Whats to say it wont be the next oath to be broken, the next time its convenient?
And of course, the main reason, it makes for a damn good story. Your superstrict interpretation against doesnt.
Its not like it will be easy for a known magi to not cause trouble for the order regardless how careful they are if they need to maintain at least the minimal amount of court presence a noble has to(even if most of it isnt personal).
No, but thats because reality beats fiction every time. Noone came up with a good enough story that they wanted to write into the game fluff about it yet.
If it was reality, i can just about guarantee that it WOULD have happened. It would be an exception to the rule, just as other exceptions to the rule happened whenever a lord or alike found the rules to be inconvenient.
Timothy, you make a good argument here, I think. Certainly, I agree that The Order would consider that its Oath supercedes all other oaths. That's clearly what the intention is behind the prohibition on Oaths of Fealty.
However, the king, and other nobles, also recognize the validity of Cluniac and Templar oaths (after a fashion anyway). These oaths are ultimately backed by the Church, and this works because, although it pretends not to be, the Church in 1220 is (from a certain perspective) just a bigger, uglier, feudal power than the king.
I'm not sure why the king and other nobles would be interested in recognizing the validity of an Oath to The Hermetic Order. (Which is, of course, where stories are made).
